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      What to Watch This Weekend: ‘The Jinx’ Is Back

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      HBO’s “The Jinx — Part Two” offers six more episodes detailing the stranger-than-fiction saga of Robert Durst.Robert Durst, as seen in prison footage in “The Jinx — Part Two.”HBOWhen “The Jinx” premiered in 2015, it was one of the pillars of the new true-crime wave — high-end but sufficiently lurid, with soap-opera twists but also documentary legitimacy. In the absence of criminal justice, maybe entertainment justice could suffice.Now the director Andrew Jarecki is back with “The Jinx — Part Two,” six more episodes detailing the stranger-than-fiction saga of the real estate scion and convicted murderer Robert Durst. (Only the first four episodes were made available for review. Hmm!) This “Jinx” isn’t just about Durst, though; it’s a “Jinx” about “The Jinx,” folding the story back in on itself yet again, additional layers of narratives and truths and maybe-truths, all getting rolled out together as delicious, buttery true-crime dough.The first episode, which airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on HBO, includes footage of dozens of people connected to the case all gathering to watch the original finale together. That was indeed a shocking episode of television, with Durst’s hot-mic bathroom confession as its astounding yet fitting conclusion. (The filmmakers later faced criticism for significantly editing Durst’s remarks, but maintained that the edits were representative of what he said.) The reaction scene plays out not with churning pathos but instead like TikToks of people watching Ned Stark meet his surprising fate or videos of fans in a sports bar groaning in unison. Even subjects of “The Jinx” experience it as a show, as fandom of one’s own life.Over and over, this “Jinx” includes people discussing original “Jinx.” Some describe it directly to Jarecki in interviews, or they mention it in recorded phone calls Durst made from prison, or they say on the witness stand that they watched the show, that they learned details of the case from TV. Actual courthouse footage blends together with hazy re-creation images, and we hear real audio but over fake visuals. And as the show turns its attention to Durst’s long-delayed trial, “The Jinx” takes on a behind-the-scenes quality as much as a true-crime one.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 ‘Franklin,’ Michael Douglas Uses His Charm to Bankroll America

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      A new Apple TV+ series dramatizes the years Benjamin Franklin spent in France, leveraging diplomacy and guile to secure his nascent country’s future.Sailing across the Atlantic to France in October 1776, Benjamin Franklin had 38 days to contemplate his near-impossible mission: persuading the absolute French monarchy of Louis XVI to bankroll a nascent American republic.His democracy in the making had just declared independence from another monarchy, the British, and had done so with “no gunpowder, no engineers, ships, munitions, money and no army fit to fight a war,” said Stacy Schiff, the author of the 2005 book “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America.”Communication with the revolutionary colonies was erratic and his authority in France tenuous, but Franklin had one significant card up his sleeve: The French hatred of the British, fortified by recurrent war. Franklin, oozing charm at 70, deploying creative ambiguity, leavening wisdom with humor, aware of French fascination with this strange new creature called an “American,” had the guile — as well as the ironclad patriotic conviction — to exploit this diplomatic opportunity.This is the backdrop to a new eight-part Apple TV+ series, “Franklin,” that began airing this month. Based on Schiff’s book and filmed in France, it stars Michael Douglas, in his first period picture, as the most worldly of America’s founders.The series has premiered as another war-torn young democracy, Ukraine, scrambles for arms and funds to defend its freedom, and as the American democracy whose fragility Franklin always feared confronts the January 2021 storming of the Capitol by a mob intent on overturning an election. This timing gives the drama a powerful added resonance.Douglas’s Franklin captures the birth of an enduring American impatience with honorifics and formality. Apple TV+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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      When Jane Fonda Met Lily Tomlin

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      Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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      How to Begin a Creative Life

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      Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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      How Meg Stalter Went From Social Media to a Leading TV Role

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      Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More

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      Late Night Skewers Trump’s Review of Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscar Hosting

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      “Ranta Claus got up bright and early to post 165 venomous words about yours truly,” Kimmel said on Donald Trump’s day off from his criminal trial on Wednesday.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Old NewsDonald Trump had the day off from his criminal trial on Wednesday. He spent part of it criticizing Jimmy Kimmel’s hosting of the Oscars several weeks ago, though he apparently conflated him with Al Pacino, who announced a major award there.Trump wrote, in part: “Stupid Jimmy Kimmel, who still hasn’t recovered from his horrendous performance and big ratings drop as Host of The Academy Awards, especially when he showed he suffered from TDS, commonly known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, to the entire World by reading on air my TRUTH about how bad a job he was doing that night, right before he stumbled through announcing the biggest award of all, ‘Picture of the Year.’”“This was five weeks ago,” Kimmel said of the Oscars. “My parents don’t even care anymore!”“Today, he had a day off, and how did he spend that? Brunch with Melania? No. Maybe a catch with Barron in the yard? No, no. Ranta Claus got up bright and early to post 165 venomous words about yours truly!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right — in the middle of a presidential campaign and countless federal indictments, he’s obsessed with the Academy Awards from five weeks ago. I look forward to his new campaign slogan: ‘Trump 2024: They Gave It to ‘Green Book’?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I did not present the award for Best Picture. I am not Al Pacino. Maybe you dreamed this during one of your courtroom siestas?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He’s Al Pacino, I’m me. You’d think he would know that because I’m pretty sure ‘Say hello to my little friend’ is what he said to Stormy Daniels that got him in all this trouble.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Also, you keep my friend Jimmy Kimmel’s name out of your weird little wet mouth, OK? Jimmy Kimmel is my podcast brother from Strike Force 5, and I have vowed — I have vowed to defend him until my death — or until the next ad for Mint Mobile.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Fascinating and Mysterious Edition)“Yesterday was a surprisingly productive court session because they picked seven jurors. I was not one of them. And while their identities will be kept secret, we’ve learned a little about who it is, like Juror No. 4, who said of the ex-president, ‘I find him fascinating and mysterious. [imitating juror] Like when he says he wants to shoot protesters and jail his opponents, what does he mean? I can fix him.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTWe 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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      ‘Shogun’: Anna Sawai on Her Character’s Final Transformation

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      In an interview, the actor discusses the most recent episode of the FX drama and how her Lady Mariko “wants to fulfill her purpose.”This interview includes spoilers for the ninth episode of “Shogun.”Her character on “Shogun” has just died, but Anna Sawai doesn’t seem to mind much. If anything, she’s glad we’ve hit the sweeping period drama’s high point. “The last two episodes are very special,” she said, smiling, during a video chat earlier this week. “The men have been physically fighting. The women are fighting their own battles.” Sawai’s character, Lady Mariko, has just fought her last.As a vassal of the powerful Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), Lady Mariko serves as the translator for Toranaga’s unlikely ally, the shipwrecked English navigator John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). But her reputation has been in tatters ever since her father violated Japanese feudal law and slew the tyrant he was sworn to serve.When she is held captive by the scheming Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira), Lady Mariko threatens ritual suicide — demanded by tradition, yet an anathema for a devout Catholic such as herself — until her release is granted. When assassins intervene, she makes one last defiant protest, calling herself by her father’s name and blocking a door rigged with explosives. It’s the moment to which the series, and Mariko’s entire life, has built.This explains Sawai’s fondness for such a dark moment. “We get to see Mariko transform,” said the actor, who also currently stars in the generational family drama “Pachinko” and the Godzilla spinoff series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” “She really makes a difference.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.In her dying declaration, Lady Mariko refers to herself using her father’s surname, Akechi, for the first time in the series. Why was now the moment?In the book, it was “Toda Mariko” — Toda is [her husband] Buntaro’s last name — but we really wanted to feel the presence of her father in why she was doing this. She’d learned that her father wanted her to continue the journey he could not live to do. Until then, she doesn’t really realize what that is.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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      Reality Stars Share Their Hopes of Joining ‘The Traitors’ Cast

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      Reality stars and other people with some degree of fame are making no secret of their hopes to join the next cast of the hit show “The Traitors.”The American version of the reality game show “The Traitors,” after the release of its first season on Peacock last year, won an Emmy Award for its casting.The debut season of the whodunit-style competition, in which contestants are eliminated by banishment or by being “murdered,” featured a cast of reality stars and less famous people like nurses and sales executives. For its second season, which ended in March, the cast was reconfigured to include mostly people from reality shows like “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “The Bachelor,” “Dancing With the Stars,” “The Real Housewives,” “Below Deck,” “Shahs of Sunset,” “Bling Empire,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “The Challenge.”In the days after Season 2 premiered in January, “The Traitors” became the most viewed unscripted series in the country on streaming platforms, according to Nielsen statistics. A third season was greenlit in February.As interest in “The Traitors” has intensified, former reality stars — along with other people with some degree of celebrity — have been clamoring for a chance to appear on the show set at a Scottish castle, hosted by Alan Cumming and offering a prize of up to $250,000. (The American version, like its British, Canadian, Greek and Australian counterparts, is a spinoff of a show originally produced in the Netherlands.)“I would assume that a lot of people who have managers and agents are sending out the emails to ‘Traitors’ casting and production trying to get their foot in the door,” said Jemmye Carroll, 35, who, after appearing on “The Real World: New Orleans” in 2010, went on to join the casts of several seasons of “The Challenge.”“I’m using my one resource, which is Trishelle,” she continued, referring to Trishelle Cannatella, a winner of “The Traitors” Season 2 and another cast member of “The Real World” and “The Challenge” franchises. Both women live in New Orleans and when they have run into each other around town, Ms. Carroll said, she has encouraged Ms. Cannatella to put in a good word for her with the production staff of “The Traitors.”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