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    Myha’la, Star of HBO’s ‘Industry,’ Arrives

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    The one-name star of the HBO show “Industry” is composed under pressure.On a humider-than-humid afternoon in July, Myha’la stepped into a teahouse in her Brooklyn neighborhood and joined the line leading to the front counter.She was wearing a khaki skirt and a matching cropped jacket that revealed the panther tattoos on either side of her abdomen. Her nails were red — she had politely rejected her stylist’s suggestion to paint them brown — and her pixie cut was slick with gel.The menu seemed endless, with lists of flavors and foams that slowed down several customers placing their orders. Myha’la, a star of HBO’s Gen Z financial drama “Industry,” knew exactly what she wanted: An oolong latte with almond milk, boba and grass jelly.The woman she plays on the show, Harper Stern, is similarly decisive. As her fellow bright, young overachievers crumble beneath the fluorescent lights of a British investment bank, Harper sees each wobble by a colleague as an opportunity to place an even riskier bet on herself.“She’s got the sort of killer, quiet confidence that’s actually very dangerous,” Myha’la, 28, said, having installed herself at a counter facing State Street.When she landed the role on “Industry,” which returns for its third season on Sunday, it was her biggest acting job since she graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2018. She didn’t have to look too hard to find common ground with the character, an ambitious young Black woman in an elite, cutthroat environment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Should Slim Shady Be Canceled? Eminem’s Young Fans Say No.

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      The rapper unleashes more provocative lyrics on his 12th album, and new generations are defending him — rather than rushing to criticize him — online.Twenty-two years separated “Without Me,” Eminem’s cocky, impish and defiantly tasteless 2002 smash, from “Houdini,” the lead single from the rapper’s latest studio album, “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).” But the new track, with its sneering tone and catalog of quips that make punchlines out of both Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 shooting and contemporary identity politics, transmits a resounding message: In the world of Eminem, nothing much has changed.Since the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, reckonings around sexual harassment, toxic workplaces, body positivity and gender identity have changed cultural expectations for language and behavior. Young people, surprised at what the generations that preceded them endured and accepted, have largely led the charge, helping “cancel” offending figures in campaigns that ignite on social media.Yet Eminem — an artist who has made a career of thumbing his nose at social mores, rapping lyrics that can be seen as glorifying violence against women, mocking the infirm and normalizing homophobic slurs — has persisted. All nine of his albums released this century so far, including three since 2017, have debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Houdini,” which came out in June, opened at No. 2 on the Hot 100 singles chart, his best solo showing since 2010.Eminem accepting a Grammy in 2003. His 12th album arrived on Friday.Vincent Laforet/The New York Times“The Death of Slim Shady,” Eminem’s 12th album, arrived on Friday, and what’s striking is how wide his support base remains — and specifically how much loyalty he has engendered among younger listeners who might be expected to find his wordplay offensive, if not abhorrent.For several years, a handful of online voices, amplified by the media, have helped stoke the notion that members of Gen Z would like to see Eminem retroactively canceled. (Eminem plays with the idea himself on the new album’s “Antichrist.”) Upon the release of “Houdini,” one TikTok user called out a lyric about a Siamese “transgender cat” that “identifies as Black” that seemed designed for maximum antagonism. In a widely viewed video, the poster scoffed at listeners who still engage with Eminem, 51, a figure he referred to as a “grandpa.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      In New TikTok Trend, Parents Dance Like It’s the ’80s and Bring Down the House

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      Videos of parents demonstrating their moves have been a surprise hit on a site where youth rules — perhaps because the trend isn’t played for laughs.TikTok can add a new skill to its résumé: disco time machine.The social platform, normally populated with an endless scroll of Gen Z-ers dancing — mostly in short choreographed routines that have been practiced and perfected — has recently been infused with the energy of a surprising demographic: their Gen X parents.In the viral videos, parents are asked by their adult children to dance as they would have back in the day to the 1984 sonic ear worm “Smalltown Boy,” by the British synth-pop band Bronski Beat. Most posts are tagged #momdancechallenge, #daddancechallenge or #80sdancechallenge, and they have racked up tens of millions of views.The reactions have been perhaps unexpected, because instead of going for laughs, the videos are cool, like really cool, serving as a portal to another era: when dance was more often improvisational and spontaneous, when people felt the beat and found the rhythm organically, moving without the constraints of a horizontal aspect ratio.When Valerie Martinez, 23, asked her mother, Yeanne Velazquez, 58, to participate, it was before the challenge had gone viral, and they had not prepared at all. “I didn’t even play the song for her before,” Martinez said in a phone interview this week alongside her mother. But Martinez was sure Velazquez would deliver, because her mother is always dancing, she said.It was nostalgic for Velazquez, who said that when the song was popular, she was about 19 and would go dancing in the one or two clubs in Puerto Rico, where she lived. Now she and her daughter live in Florida.

      @thatpersianqt she ate with this one I fear #fyp #foryou #80s #80sdancechallenge #momsoftiktok #80smusic ♬ Smalltown Boy – Bronski Beat

      @_miamimonkey Do we all have the same mom? 😂 I thought y’all were joking until I had her do it blindly 😂 @Savvy Sandy #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #80sdancemoves #80smusic ♬ Smalltown Boy – Bronski Beat We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      As ‘Sex and the City’ Ages, Some Find the Cosmo Glass Half-Empty

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      As the show became more widely available on Netflix, younger viewers have watched it with a critical eye. But its longtime millennial and Gen X fans can’t quit.Most weeks, hundreds of people board a “Sex and the City” themed bus in Manhattan that takes them to the show’s most recognizable sites: Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment, her favorite brunch spot, a sex shop in the West Village. The tour usually ends with — what else? — a Cosmopolitan.“It never gets old,” said Georgette Blau, the owner of On Location Tours. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour entry into an aspirational world many of the riders had been watching for decades, she said.Twenty years since the series finale of “Sex and the City” aired, a new generation of television watchers has grown into adulthood. After all of the episodes were released on Netflix this month, media watchers wondered how the show — and Carrie’s behavior — might hold up for Gen Z.Would they be able to handle the occasional raunchiness of the show, the sometimes toxic relationships? Were the references outdated? “Can Gen Z Even Handle Sex and the City?” Vanity Fair asked. (For its part, Gen Z seems to vacillate between being uninterested and lightly appalled about what they consider to be a period piece.)The show had a very different effect on its longtime fans, many of them a generation or two older. When it aired, “Sex and the City” changed the conversation around how women dated, developed friendships and moved about the world in their 30s and 40s.Even if some of the show’s character arcs aged poorly, many of its original fans still relate to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, no matter how unrealistic it may have been to live on the Upper East Side with a walk-in closet full of Manolo Blahniks on the salary of a weekly newspaper columnist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Nickelodeon and Disney Stars Find a Second Act on Podcasts

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      The cast of the Nickelodeon series “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide” are among the stars of 2000s teen sitcoms who are using podcasts to connect with their Gen Z and millennial fan bases.For three years starting when he was just 12 years old, Devon Werkheiser dispensed advice for bearing the indignities of middle school as the title character in the Nickelodeon series “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide.” Two decades later, he said, people still recognize him as Ned Bigby.“There was a time when I wanted to transcend ‘Ned’s,’” Werkheiser said, “but maybe it’s the answer in getting me where I want to go.”Now 33, he’s made peace with his past and is still giving tips to his peers, only he is using a more modern medium. In “Ned’s Declassified Podcast Survival Guide,” he and his former “Ned’s” castmates Lindsey Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee dish about the show, which aired from 2004 to 2007, and open up about past personal and career struggles.The three are among a cohort of former stars, many from Nickelodeon and Disney Channel shows from the 2000s, who have started podcasts as a way of connecting with a nostalgic Gen Z and millennial fan base. In doing so, they are embracing roles that they played as children and teenagers — characters that some had spent years trying to move beyond, with mixed success.“Part of the truth is, if any of our careers were maybe further along, maybe we wouldn’t be doing podcasts,” Werkheiser said in an interview. “There are comments that speak to that as if we don’t know.”Since the “Ned’s” podcast debuted in February 2023, several exchanges have caused a stir among its 717,000 TikTok followers. Shaw, who played Moze on the show, spoke about her past struggles with substance abuse. Werkheiser gave an emotional account of his time on the set of the troubled Alec Baldwin western “Rust.” And he and Shaw punctured the innocent image of their old show with an awkward exchange about their fumbling offscreen sexual encounters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      Looking to Watch Movies and Make Friends? Join the Club.

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      Around New York City, there’s a robust circle of film enthusiasts showing offbeat movies in bars and shops, where lingering afterward is welcomed.At Heart of Gold, a cozy bar in Queens, a mad scientist recently brought to life a corpse that went on a blood-drenched rampage. But the people nursing their beers there didn’t call the authorities. They cheered.That’s because the undead were marauding on a screen, set up at the front of the bar, that was illuminated by “Re-Animator,” Stuart Gordon’s 1985 horror-science fiction splatterfest. The occasion was a Monday night gathering of the Astoria Horror Club, which meets regularly to watch scary movies over hot dogs, mulled wine and other anything-but-popcorn concessions.Before the film, Tom Herrmann and Madeleine Koestner, the club’s co-founders, introduced “Re-Animator” with a trigger warning about a sexual assault scene and a reminder to generously tip the staff. About 35 people watched the movie seated, but others stood, complementing the onscreen mayhem with shrieking, gasping and, as a decapitated head got tossed around, an explosion of applause.The Astoria Horror Club is just one of many film clubs that, while not new in concept, are quietly thriving in and around New York City. At many of these events, movies are shown not in traditional theaters but in bars, shops and other makeshift spaces, for small groups of people, many of whom arrive early for good seats and stay afterward to gush and vent.The screenings are open to the public, but mostly it’s Gen Zers and millennials who are joining strangers to watch movies that, in many cases, are for niche tastes and were made before streaming was a thing.These kinds of films are programmed regularly at the city’s revival houses, like Film Forum and Metrograph. But what these film clubs offer is ample space and time, where debate and friendships can blossom without leaving your seat. For cheap, too: At chain theaters, tickets can be more than $20 apiece, not including food and drinks. Many of these film clubs are free to attend, although patrons are asked to pony up for beer or bites.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Zoomers’ Review: Just Don’t Kill the Vibes

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      Gen Z’s reputation for conflict avoidance, and the way digital media abets it, is a recurring theme in the latest by the “Dimes Square” playwright Matthew Gasda.“Zoomers,” the new play written and directed by Matthew Gasda, explores the specific milieu of artsy 20-something transplants, largely the same population that frequents the Greenpoint loft of the Brooklyn Center for Theater Research, where the show is currently running.It’s immediately clear that the 30-something Gasda, whose 2022 play “Dimes Square” captured the crowd of artists, writers and scenesters in New York City’s downtown, has spent significant time observing his younger subjects. With the exception of a few awkward phrases, his naturalistic play captures the way Gen Z talks.“Zoomers” opens with three roommates ambling around their Brooklyn apartment in Bushwick, a land where shaggy hair is a personality trait and hard kombucha might as well be on tap. Michael (Jonah O’Hara-David), Jacob (Henry Lynch), and Jada (Reneé-Nicole Powell) are recovering from a night of respective drinking, smoking weed and existential dread. The cure for their ills? Intense rounds of Super Smash Bros.The video game is their other vice. For the emotionally stunted Jacob in particular, it’s a pleasurable escape whenever conversations get too heated. Any time characters dare to reveal their anguish — Michael’s commute is interrupted when a man jumps in front of the L train; Jada dreams of metastasizing tumors in her eyes — their traumas are swept aside by a call to play Smash or a damning accusation of killing the “vibes.” It is not until the penultimate scene of the play, when a new roommate named Ella (Sophia Englesberg) presses her much older architect boyfriend (George Olesky) about his emotional detachment, that we see any of the characters scale the hump of adversity and land somewhere close to catharsis.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      in Movies

      ‘Mean Girls’ Costume Designer Talks Cast Wardrobe and Addresses Critics

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      Some people have roasted the outfits in the new film, but there were reasons the Plastics got a Gen Z spin. (Among them: social media, fast fashion and the pandemic.)When fans first glimpsed outfits in the new adaptation of “Mean Girls,” they were not shy with feedback on the film’s pink miniskirts and mesh bustiers.On social media, some said the costumes looked cheap, as if they had come from fast-fashion retailers. Others said they did not lean heavily enough on the Y2K style of the original “Mean Girls,” released in 2004. And one online commentator said the costumes seemed like an A.I. image generator’s clumsy response to the prompt: “What do trendy teenagers wear today?”The wardrobes for the film, which was released on Jan. 12, were not created by artificial intelligence but by Tom Broecker, the costume designer for “Saturday Night Live,” where he has worked for nearly 30 years. Mr. Broecker, 61, had no involvement in the original “Mean Girls.” He joined the crew of the adaptation after working with Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels — who were involved in both films — on costumes for “S.N.L.” and for “30 Rock.”Mr. Broecker said the criticism of his work had made him “super, super, super anxious” for the new film’s release. His goal was to reference — but not redo — the wardrobes from the original movie, which were created by the costume designer Mary Jane Fort, by imagining how its high-school-age characters might dress as members of Gen Z.He cited the “sexy Santa” costumes for a holiday talent show scene in both films as an example. In the adaptation, those outfits were influenced by Ariana Grande’s music video for the song “thank u, next,” he said, so he made them a little more sparkly than the plasticky red skirts in the original.More than 600 looks were created for the adaptation by Mr. Broecker and his six-person design team. In the edited interview below, he explains how they came up with the wardrobe — which, he said, should not be judged by trailers and teasers alone.“You’re only getting the bread crumbs,” he said, “when you really want to have the whole 10-course meal.”What did you think of the costuming in the original film?When I saw it then, I thought, This is fun, this is high school in 2004. Watching it now, I go, Oh my God, those poor girls were so sexualized. But that’s 2024 eyes looking at 2004. I know they didn’t feel that way at all, but you look at it now and realize that the world has changed.Where did you look to find inspiration for how Gen Z is dressing?We were very influenced by Instagram and TikTok, and by celebrities like Billie Eilish, Jenna Ortega and Sydney Sweeney. I have a niece who graduated from high school in Indiana last year. I looked through her closet and her Instagram. And I live near N.Y.U., so packs of students walk by my apartment all the time in light-wash, straight-leg jeans, white Nike sneakers and crop tops.What did those references reveal about how people dress now?The early aughts are very influential in the visual landscape of clothing right now. Sometimes I would show Tina certain things and she’d say, Oh my God, I think I wore that before.Other things have changed. Gender fluidity is a big thing for kids. And everyone wants to be comfortable, especially after the pandemic. So I dressed the high schoolers in the movie in athleisure, like North Face, Patagonia and Champion hoodies.Fast fashion has changed how young people shop. How much of that did you include?Probably more than we should have. Two brands we used were Cider and Princess Polly. I stayed away from Shein, but I did find a piece or two secondhand.I kept saying that we have to get into the mind of a high-school student, and that’s how they shop. The directors got rid of a mall scene that was in the original because kids don’t go to the mall anymore.After visuals from the new film were released showing Regina, center, in Isabel Marant trousers and a Bardot mesh corset top, some fans moaned that the film’s costumes looked like A.I.’s idea of how trendy teens dress.JoJo Whilden/Paramount PicturesHow did you differentiate costumes for the Plastics — the three popular girls — from those for the students they reign over?Everyone in the high school has big bags and sneakers, except for the Plastics, who have little purses and heels. They are different than the people who are weighed down by their books and grounded to the floor with their shoes.Did you spend more of your budget on clothes for the Plastics?Basically the Plastics got all the money. For Regina George (Reneé Rapp), we did Isabel Marant, streetwear like Off-White and a lot of vintage stuff. Tom-Ford-era 1990s Gucci was the inspiration for her homecoming dress.Regina’s black homecoming dress with a front leg slit was inspired by clothes Tom Ford designed for Gucci in the 1990s, a decade that has influenced Gen Z style.Jojo Whilden/Paramount PicturesWhy do you think people have reacted so strongly to the costumes in the adaptation?I didn’t realize the nostalgia for the original. It’s hard to have something stand on its own when something exists that people love. But this is not that, and 2024 is not 2004. We have changed how we feel about a lot of things. As the tagline says, this isn’t your mom’s “Mean Girls.” More

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      in Television

      ‘L.A. Law’ Meets Millennials and Gen Z-ers

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      Thanks to a splashy relaunch on Hulu, new generations have their first encounter with the soapy, sax-heavy legal drama that made its debut in 1986.“L.A. Law,” an Emmy-winning NBC drama that generated almost constant buzz during its run three decades ago, returned to the cultural spotlight this month when Hulu rereleased its 172 episodes in remastered high-definition format.Until the streaming relaunch, the show was hard to find, existing in DVDs at junk shops and in the depths of Amazon Prime Video. And so, unlike “The Golden Girls,” “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and a few other series from the 1980s and 1990s, it had remained all but unknown to anyone born in the last 40 years or so.In recent days the Styles journalists Melissa Guerrero, Sadiba Hasan, Callie Holtermann and Louis Lucero — all members of the Millennial or Gen Z generations who had never seen “L.A. Law,” much less heard of it — watched the first three episodes on Hulu. They shared their observations with the editors Minju Pak and Jim Windolf, who were fans of the show in its heyday.Produced by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, and starring Harry Hamlin (Michael Kuzak), Corbin Bernsen (Arnie Becker), Jill Eikenberry (Ann Kelsey), Jimmy Smits (Victor Sifuentes) and Susan Dey (Grace Van Owen), “L.A. Law” made its debut in September 1986. It was the subject of workplace conversation and countless think pieces, and it won 15 Emmys before the final gavel in 1994.So how does it hold up for viewers in the 2020s? Is it just a time capsule of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years, or something more? The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.Louis Lucero It’s “Law & Order,” minus the order. Doozies abound. “You didn’t need a lift — you hardly had anything to drink!” I was thrilled to encounter that charming line at the end of the third episode.Jim Windolf Buzzed driving was apparently not drunken driving in the 1980s.Minju Pak Did anyone else notice the saxophone and all the silk?Callie Holtermann Sorry, I was too busy learning about smoking indoors.Melissa Guerrero And car phones. Someone please bring them back, if only for the aesthetic.JW The sax in the opening credits really sets a mood. Along with the vanity plates.LL That saxophone should be licensed by the A.T.F.!Sadiba Hasan The theme song alone made me want to turn off the TV.MP I do love the depiction of L.A. traffic, which is now decidedly worse. Can I ask the younger people here, was there anything about the show that you liked? Did the office politics horrify you?LL To the second question, a hard yes, obviously. But in spite of myself, there was a lot that I found delightful. It’s always intoxicating to see an analog office, for starters — the visual equivalent of ASMR for the Slack-addled millennial brain.JW It’s hard to imagine what people did in their offices when there’s no computer on the desk.LL People running around with manila envelopes and little slips of paper that say who called? Literally unimaginable. Too cute for words! Did people realize how adorable they were being?JW They did not.MP I did find that network television moved really quickly.MG I appreciated how, from the initial scene onward, the show made the characters’ fatal flaws very apparent.JW The first few episodes pack in a lot of issues we’re still dealing with. There’s a “doozy” factor in how they’re treated, but they’re there. A trans woman; a woman denied a promotion after she sleeps with a partner; bosses botching workplace diversity; and heartless insurance companies. How did all that strike you?SH I was worried that an ’80s law show would have aged terribly, but many of the issues that came up are still very much relevant, like victim blaming in sexual assault cases and racism in the workplace. And while there are lawyers at the firm who are greedy and seemingly heartless, there are also lawyers with a conscience.MG Truthfully, I held my breath when some of these themes came up. It played into the assumption that old TV shows wouldn’t address this well.CH At one point Kuzak says something like, “I don’t always believe my client, but I have to believe in the system.” Every generation rails against “the system” in a way it believes is unique, but I doubt that line is going to draw in Gen Z viewers.Mr. Hamlin, shown here in a scene from “L.A. Law,” is known to some modern-day viewers as the husband of the reality television star Lisa Rinna.Frank Carroll/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesLL At least once an act break in the first three episodes, I was reminded that today’s progressivism may prove to be tomorrow’s cringe. Obviously, the reveal of Georgia’s trans identity was played for shock, but it’s not difficult to imagine the writers patting themselves on the back for affording the character a nominal bit of dignity of explaining herself on several occasions.JW Before “L.A. Law,” that kind of thing was played for laughs. I’m thinking of Klinger on “M*A*S*H,” or Flip Wilson as Geraldine on “The Flip Wilson Show.” Can we take a look at the style? Did any of the fashion jump out at you?SH So much blonde hair. Blonde hair everywhere.LL And in such different arrangements!MP Did people age worse back then? Or maybe they just dressed old.JW The men’s suits were incredibly roomy.MP I kept hoping for a good tailor to show up.MG Susan Dey’s character reminded me of C.C. Babcock from “The Nanny.” The blonde bob! The pantsuit! The power! Iconic.CH I Googled some of the actors to see if any of them were the Jacob Elordi of their day. And Harry Hamlin was People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1987!LL Harry Hamlin was a reveallllll. To me, he has always been Lisa Rinna’s unseen, Godot-like husband. The fact that he was as ’80s-hot as promised? Bless up.MG I’m sorry to Jimmy Smits, but he will always be Senator Organa to me — Princess Leia’s adoptive father.JW What does an old show need to make an impression now? Why have “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “The Golden Girls” and a few others from decades ago hung on in the streaming age?SH A big part of that is, it just needs to be a sitcom. A show that makes you laugh stands the test of time.CH I want to put forth the “Suits” theory. Netflix just had a huge hit with resurging interest in the 2010s legal drama. So I think Hulu tried to say, Hey, we have an even older legal drama. But “Suits” has the advantage of Meghan Markle taking the LSAT over and over.LL Speaking of Jimmy Smits, I just wrapped my second rewatch of “The West Wing”MP Smits is one of those actors who’s the same in every character he plays, but it works. A cop, a lawyer, the president. He always has the same haircut, which I’ve never been able to describe. Is it a mullet? Is it feathered?Jimmy Smits played the brash Victor Sifuentes on “L.A. Law.”Charles Bush/NBCU Photo Bank, via NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesLL What it certainly is, on this show, at least, is a few inches above a stud earring.MP Yes! Truly subversive.MG I would describe that haircut as, “My Tito’s haircut when they stop caring about their hair and decide they want a motorcycle for their 50th birthday.”LL For the number of micro-, macro- and in-between aggressions poor Victor put up with, he should’ve been able to have his septum pierced, if he wanted.MP Can I ask the younger folks here, what are some of the older shows you’re watching?SH I always turn to “Girlfriends” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Sitcoms! My comfort shows!MG I’m diving into “The Nanny.” I grew up watching that show with my mom, but we didn’t have the luxury of streaming, and the story line was completely out of order.JW So what’s the verdict on “L.A. Law”?CH I liked it more than I thought I would. There are parts that made me go, “Yikes!”, but it helped me understand where soapy dramas, “Succession” included, come from. I doubt I’ll watch more but I don’t feel like “L.A. Law” and its schmaltzy saxophone should be swept into the dustbin of time.LL It’s an artifact. A trapped-in-amber, predictably problematic, genuinely funny artifact, one that I’m leaning toward giving a few more episodes. Even if only to see more memos being jotted down for people “leaving word”! More