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      ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6, Episode 4 Recap: The Wicked Flee

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      Gus sweats life in red-alert mode while Jimmy goes on a joyride.Season 6, Episode 4: ‘Hit and Run’Gus Fring is getting nervous.We get a de facto tour of his psyche in this week’s episode, by way of the elaborate surveillance system designed to spot Lalo Salamanca, the man Gus tried to kill, before Lalo can kill him. It’s a no-expense-spared operation. Seven cameras are pointed at Gus’s house; someone keeps an eye on nearby cars when he drives; a hired gun is working the fryolator at the Los Pollos Hermanos where Gus has an office; and two guys are trailing Kim, in case Lalo goes looking for her first.Also, he’s wearing a bullet proof vest and has a firearm strapped to his ankle. This guy is expecting the worst.“Two weeks and we haven’t had a tickle,” says Mike, toward the episode’s end.Nonsense, says Gus, in so many words. He’s in a game where your instincts get to fail you only once, and he will not be swayed from his conviction that Lalo is alive. As viewers, we know that he’s right, but we’re in the dark about everything else Lalo-related. He hasn’t been seen for the last two episodes, and spotting Tony Dalton’s name in the opening credits doesn’t count. The effect is to put the audience in the same mind space as Gus. We, too, know that Lao is on his way. Exactly when is a total mystery.If he arrives. When last seen, the suavest member of the Salamanca clan — not a competitive category, true — was on the hunt for proof that Gus was behind the failed, very bloody home invasion of Casa Lalo. He isn’t going to show that proof to Gus, of course. He’s going to show it to the cartel. Which may mean Gus will face a whole organization with many reasonably capable assailants in its employ.Thing is, we know that Gus is going to live, and that frames a conundrum for “Better Call Saul” writers this season. Given that Gus is a lead character in “Breaking Bad” and Lalo is not — OK, he’s mentioned once by Saul in that series, which does leave some narrative wiggle room — Gus’s survival, at least through the end of this series, is assured. Which is to say that the degree of difficulty faced by Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould and every other writer on this show is very high. They are betting that when a tale is told well enough, it is suspenseful even if the ultimate outcome appears to be known.The Return of ‘Better Call Saul’The “Breaking Bad” prequel returned April 18 for its final season.A Refresher: After the show’s two-year, Covid-induced hiatus, here’s where things left off.Serious Success: Bob Odenkirk was a comedian’s comedian — until “Better Call Saul” revealed him as a peerless portrayer of broken souls.Writing the Perfect Con: We asked the show’s writers to break down a pivotal scene in the ​​transformation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman.Cast Interviews: Rhea Seehorn and Tony Dalton told us how they created the complex Kim Wexler and the murderous Lalo Salamanca.The success of this season thus resides not so much in what is going to happen, but how. And already there is plenty of intrigue. Your Faithful Recapper is riveted by Mr. and Mrs. Ryman, as they are identified in the credits, Gus’s bicycle-happy, hand-signal proficient next-door neighbors, played by real-life couple Kirk and Joni Bovill. There is a hidden tunnel between their homes, and the Ryman’s kitchen and living rooms are occupied by Gus’s underlings, some armed, others manning a video-screen installation. The Rymans appear to live in their basement, where they do jigsaw puzzles when not getting out for a ride.Who are these people? Until now, the number of noncombatants aware of Gus’s double life is, let’s see … uh, zero? At least at this point in the story. So, we have to assume the Rymans are on the payroll. But one of Gus’s video watchers refers to Mrs. Ryman as “ma’am” when he asks for some iced tea, suggesting he doesn’t know her well. And the Rymans seem intimately familiar with the local homeowners association, implying that they are longtime and authentic members of the community.What’s certain is that when Gus moved into 1213 Jefferson St., he purchased the house beside him, presumably a just-in-case measure that is now coming in handy.While Gus frets, Jimmy and Kim continue Operation Cockamamie, which in this episode involves briefly absconding with Howard’s Jaguar while he’s seeing his shrink. (The man has marital problems, we learn.) The plan involves a pantomime with the ever-amenable Wendy S. (Julia Minesci), whom “Breaking Bad” fans will remember as the meth head and prostitute who helped Jesse with a nutty scheme of his own. (She was supposed to deliver poisoned burgers to some especially wicked street-level dealers Jesse wanted dead in Season 3.)This time, Wendy pretends to get bounced out of Howard’s car, making it appear to a slack-jawed Clifford Main, who is the sole audience for this spectacle, that Howard is consorting with, and mistreating, a hooker.Like previous parts of this campaign to frame Howard, this one works without flaw, thus clearly foreshadowing that the entire plan will ultimately fail. There’s a jarring tonal shift in these scenes, as though “Better Call Saul” decided it can’t all be tense violins and deadly tangos and must switch occasionally to tubas and the cancan. This is certainly lighter fare than the anxieties of a man who fears imminent demise. But when Jimmy gets a spray tan, whitened teeth and a wig to pull off his Howard impersonation, the show seems a little goofy.In the courthouse, Jimmy is a pariah because of his success in springing Lalo. As reviled as he has become by security guards, clerks and prosecutors is exactly how sought after has become by criminals. So, welcome back Spooge! (David Ury) Looking far healthier and more lucid than he will be as a meth addict and stickup man in episodes of “Breaking Bad,” Spooge is blissfully unaware that in the not-too-distant future his drug-addled partner is going to crush his head with an A.T.M. For now, he has legal problems with an unidentified buddy, and Jimmy has become so popular that he is soon thrown out of his office at the nail salon.This leads to the episode’s last scene, in which Jimmy shows his new work space to Kim. It has a toilet in the middle of the room and not much else. As viewers know, this modest, odorous corner of an unpopular strip mall is about to get a spectacularly garish, patriotically themed renovation.Odds and EndsFor Your Faithful Recapper, the scene between Mike and Kim was the highlight of this episode, which was directed very deftly by Rhea Seehorn, her first time directing an episode. Mike is surely flattering Kim with his “made of sterner stuff” line. More likely, he is speaking to her instead of Jimmy because Kim noticed that she is being tailed and had the nerve to confront her tailers. It’s entirely possible — actually, it seems pretty likely — that Jimmy is being followed, too, and simply hasn’t noticed. Perhaps Mike decided to have a quiet word with Kim so that he could continue to keep two men hovering close by.Vintage Gus Fring perfectionism: He wants the bodyguard assigned to the kitchen at Los Pollos Hermanos fired because he is “not up to Pollos standards.”The opening song, “Best Things in Life” by the Dreamliners, is the perfect background music for that bike ride.And some questions for the hive mind, to be answered in the comments section:What’s with the tomato-red house? It seems unlikely that we linger on that peculiar building for no reason.Jimmy seems positively eager to admit to new clients that he helped Lalo, who in court went by the name Jorge de Guzman, something Jimmy refused to acknowledge to prosecutors. In this episode, when Deputy District Attorney Bill Oakley (Peter Diseth) accuses Jimmy of moral turpitude — “You scammed the judge. And for what? To get a murdering cartel psychopath back out on the street” — Saul says simply, “Prove it.” Well, isn’t proof unnecessary once you confess to half the criminals in Albuquerque?Oh, and one more: Who. Moves. Cones? More

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      David Birney, Who Starred in TV’s ‘Bridget Loves Bernie,’ Dies at 83

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      The sitcom, about an interfaith marriage, drew criticism from Jewish groups and was canceled after one season. He fared better onstage than in television.David Birney, a classically trained theater actor who found success on the stage, including on Broadway, but who was best known for his role in “Bridget Loves Bernie” — a short-lived sitcom about an interfaith marriage in which he starred opposite his future wife, Meredith Baxter — died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 83.The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, said Michele Roberge, who said she was his life partner.Mr. Birney had been in a handful of television series and movies when he was cast in 1972 as Bernie Steinberg, a Jewish taxicab driver and struggling writer. Ms. Baxter played Bridget Fitzgerald, a schoolteacher from a wealthy Roman Catholic family.“This is not a message show,” Mr. Birney, who was Irish American, said during an interview with The Kansas City Star before the series’s debut. “It’s not even an idea show.”CBS gave it a plum time slot between “All in the Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” on Saturday night; it consistently finished among the top 10 programs in prime time and was the highest rated new series of the 1972-73 season.But it attracted criticism from a broad spectrum of Jewish groups, which objected chiefly to its treatment of intermarriage between Jews and Christians as a positive outcome and complained that it used Jewish stereotypes. CBS publicly played down the criticism but, without an explanation, canceled “Bridget Loves Bernie” after 24 episodes.“One segment of the protesters is truly concerned about the dilution of their faith,” Mr. Birney told The Daily News several months after the cancellation. “But intermarriage is on the rise, nevertheless. The threat doesn’t come from a harmless show such as ours, but from within.”Mr. Birney and Ms. Baxter married in 1974.In 1976, Mr. Birney received acclaim for playing John Quincy Adams in the public television production of “The Adams Chronicles.” Later that year, he was hired to play Frank Serpico, the corruption-fighting New York City detective, in an NBC series adapted from the Sidney Lumet movie “Serpico” (1973), which had earned Al Pacino an Oscar nomination for best actor.Mr. Birney was cast in the role on the strength of his work playing an officer in two episodes of “Police Story,” another NBC series. But “Serpico” was canceled after less than a full season. Mr. Birney and Meredith Baxter in an episode of “Bridget Loves Bernie,” a short-lived CBS sitcom about an interfaith marriage. Jewish groups were critical of it. CBS via Getty ImagesDavid Edwin Birney was born on April 23, 1939, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Cleveland. His father, Edwin, was an F.B.I. agent, and his mother, Jeanne (McGee) Birney, was a homemaker and later a real estate agent.After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in 1961, Mr. Birney turned down a scholarship from Stanford Law School and instead chose to study theater arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received a master’s degree a year later. In the Army, he was part of a program called the Showmobile, which entertained at military bases in the United States.Mr. Birney’s theater career began in earnest in 1965, when he won the Barter Theater Award, enabling him to spend a season acting in shows at the prestigious Barter Theater in Abingdon, Va. He moved on to the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut, and in 1967 he played Antipholus of Syracuse in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of “A Comedy of Errors.”Mr. Birney made his Broadway debut two years later in Molière’s “The Miser.” And in 1971 he starred in a Broadway production of J.M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. Mr. Birney played Christy Mahon, who enters an Irish pub in the early 1900s telling a story about killing his father.“Mr. Birney had a cock sparrow arrogance,” Clive Barnes wrote in his review in The New York Times, “that mixture of both confidence and certainty that seemed perfectly right.”At the opening of “Playboy,” the Clancy Boys, a popular Irish singing group that Mr. Birney had befriended at a Manhattan bar, sat in the front row.“They had their Irish sweaters on,” Ms. Roberge said in a phone interview, “and their arms crossed as if to say, Come on, show us what you’ve got.”Over the rest of his theatrical career, Mr. Birney played a wide variety of roles, including Antonio Salieri, as a replacement, in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” on Broadway; Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing” at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J.; Hamlet at the PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria, Calif.; and James Tyrone Jr. in Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” at the Miniature Theater of Chester, Mass.He also adapted some of Mark Twain’s short stories into a play, “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” which he often performed and directed. In 1989, he starred in one of the productions, with Ms. Baxter, for American Playhouse on PBS.The couple divorced that year. In 2011, she wrote in her book, “Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame and Floundering,” that Mr. Birney had been abusive during their marriage. He denied her accusation, calling it an “appalling abuse of the truth.”One of Mr. Birney’s biggest successes on television was a starring role as a doctor in the first season of the medical dramedy “St. Elsewhere.” But as the second season approached, he left the series because of his commitment on Broadway to “Amadeus.”He continued to work in television through 2007, when he was a guest on the police procedural “Without a Trace.”In addition to Ms. Roberge, Mr. Birney is survived by his children with Ms. Baxter, his daughters Kate and Mollie Birney and a son, Peter Baxter; a stepdaughter, Eva Bush, and a stepson, Ted Bush, Ms. Baxter’s children from a previous marriage; two grandchildren; and his brothers, Glenn and Gregory. Another marriage, to Mary Concannon, also ended in divorce. More

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      in Movies

      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More in May

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      Looking for something new to watch? Here’s a roundup of the most promising titles coming to most major U.S. streaming services (except Netflix) this month.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of May’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Bosch: Legacy’ Season 1Starts streaming: May 6It’s not often that a new TV series begins with a “previously on” recap; but so it goes for “Bosch: Legacy,” a sequel to Amazon’s long-running crime drama “Bosch,” which adapted several of Michael Connelly’s popular novels about the Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver). A flagship title for Amazon’s newly rebranded, ad-supported Amazon Freevee service (previously known as IMDb TV), “Bosch: Legacy” follows the title character after he quits the force and becomes a private investigator. While Bosch is working a case involving a dying billionaire (William Devane) who is looking for a living heir, his daughter, Maddie (Madison Lintz), follows in her dad’s footsteps and becomes a cop — although she struggles with the grind of being a lowly rookie on patrol.Also arriving:May 6“The Unsolved Murder of Beverly Lynn Smith”“The Wilds” Season 2May 13“The Kids in the Hall”May 18“Lovestruck High”May 19“Bang Bang Baby” Season 1May 20“Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks”“Night Sky” Season 1“Troppo”May 27“Emergency”“Kick Like Tayla”Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston in a scene from “The Essex Serpent.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Big Conn’Starts streaming: May 6The writer-director team of James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte follow up their offbeat true crime docu-series “McMillions” with another strange-but-true story: “The Big Conn,” a four-part documentary about a Kentucky lawyer who masterminded a half-billion dollar Social Security swindle. The attorney is Eric C. Conn, a media-savvy hustler who became something of a local celebrity thanks to his kooky commercials and his ability to get his clients paid quickly. All the while, he was burning through wives, running multiple barely legal vice dens and entangling the witting and the unwitting in a scheme to defraud the government. Hernandez and Lazarte capture the odd turns this tale took, with the help of the investigators and journalists involved with this case — many of whom question how and why Conn eluded justice for so long.‘The Essex Serpent’Starts streaming: May 13Based on the 2016 Sarah Perry novel, the mini-series “The Essex Serpent” stars Claire Danes as a late 19th century English widow whose scientific curiosity leads her to the countryside to investigate rumors of a lake-dwelling monster she thinks might actually be a dinosaur. Her fervor puts her at odds with two men: a progressive young doctor (Frank Dillane) and a congenial local minister (Tom Hiddleston), both of whom are skeptical of the creature’s existence but for different reasons. The screenwriter Anna Symon and the director Clio Barnard explore the eerie possibilities of their premise in a community prone to superstition and to mistrust of outsiders. The show is about the relationships between smart, well-meaning people who disagree about the very nature of the world.Also arriving:May 6“Tehran” Season 2May 20“Now and Then”May 23“Prehistoric Planet”“Obi-Wan Kenobi” (starring Ewan McGregor) tells a story set between Episode III and Episode IV of the “Star Wars” movies.Lucasfilm Ltd.New to Disney+‘The Quest’Starts streaming: May 11Although it ran for only one season on ABC in the fall of 2014, the sword-and-sorcery themed reality competition series “The Quest” is fondly remembered for its inventive concept, clever execution and lovably sincere contestants. The new Disney+ revival makes a few changes. The competitors are now can-do teenagers instead of earnestly geeky adults; and the show’s overall visual style looks more like a movie, obscuring the line between fantasy and the real-life game these kids are playing. But the basic contest remains the same. The participants are playacting as “paladins,” roaming through a fictional medieval world filled with magic and conflict, where they try to succeed at various challenges. Combine “Game of Thrones,” “Survivor” and an escape room, and that’s “The Quest.”‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’Starts streaming: May 27The latest addition to the “Star Wars” TV universe fills some of the gaps between the movie trilogies, telling a story set between Episode III and Episode IV. Ewan McGregor reprises his big-screen role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, a disillusioned Jedi Master living in hiding on the planet Tatooine, where he stews over the corruption of his student Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and keeps a distant eye on Anakin’s young son, Luke. “Obi-Wan Kenobi” was originally developed as a stand-alone film, which later evolved into this six-episode mini-series. The show should answer some longstanding fan questions about what the eccentric old hermit Kenobi was up to for all those years in exile while waiting for Luke to grow up.Also arriving:May 13“Sneakerella”May 20“Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers”May 27“We Feed People”Theo James and Rose Leslie in a scene from “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”Macall B. Polay/HBONew to HBO Max‘Hacks’ Season 2Starts streaming: May 12In Season 1 of “Hacks,” we met Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), a hip comedy writer who landed a job writing jokes for the fading Las Vegas stand-up comic Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and then settled into a love-hate relationship with her wealthy but demanding new boss and mentor. In Season 2, Deborah will head out on tour to get back in touch with her roots as Ava caters to her whims, pushes her to try harder and tries to avoid making her too angry. In addition to the terrific performances by the leads, “Hacks” is often a frank interrogation of the cruelties of show business, as experienced by two talented women at different points in their careers.‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’Starts streaming: May 15Audrey Niffenegger’s best-selling 2003 novel “The Time Traveler’s Wife” has been adapted to the screen before, for a hit 2009 movie. But the new TV version — created by the “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock” producer Steven Moffat — has the room to sprawl out a bit and cover more of the premise’s metaphysical nuances. Theo James plays Henry, who has a genetic condition that yanks him unpredictably back and forth through time, often landing him near Clare (Rose Leslie), the woman he marries. The couple nearly always meet while they’re at wildly different places on their respective timelines, such that sometimes she knows more than he does about what’s happening, or vice versa. Moffat and his creative team lean into the humor, tension and irony of this situation while hewing to Niffenegger’s central idea that these two are inextricably linked because they are hopelessly in love.Also arriving:May 3“Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known”May 5“Las Bravas F.C.” Season 1“Queen Stars Brazil” Season 1“The Staircase”May 10“Catwoman: Hunted”May 12“Who’s by Your Side” Season 1May 26“Navalny”“That Damn Michael Che” Season 2“Tig ‘n’ Seek” Season 4Jessica Biel as the real-life murderer Candy Montgomery, in a scene from the Hulu series “Candy.”HuluNew to Hulu‘Candy’Starts streaming: May 9In June of 1980, a woman named Betty Gore was found murdered in her suburban Dallas home, with 41 ax wounds on her body. The prime suspect? One of her best friends, Candy Montgomery, who had an affair with Betty’s husband. The mini-series “Candy” begins on the day of the murder and compares the life of the charismatic, churchgoing Candy (Jessica Biel) with the depressed, exhausted Betty (Melanie Lynskey). The “Candy” creators Nick Antosca (best-known for his horror anthology “Channel Zero”) and Robin Veith (a multiple Emmy nominee for her work on “Mad Men”) cover the ensuing criminal investigation and trial while also flashing back to the years leading up the event, considering how these intertwined lives went so awry.Also arriving:May 6“Hatching”May 10“Breeders” Season 3May 15“Conversations With Friends”May 20“The Valet”May 26“A Taste of Hunger”May 27“Shoresy” Season 1May 31“GameStop: Rise of the Players”“Pistol”Ethan Peck as a young Spock in a scene from the new “Star Trek” series “Strange New Worlds.”Marni Grossman/Paramount+New to Paramount+‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 1Starts streaming: May 5In Season 2 of “Star Trek: Discovery,” that show’s starship crew had an adventure alongside some Federation comrades, including Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and Science Officer Spock (Ethan Peck) of the U.S.S. Enterprise. “Star Trek” fans raved about Mount’s commanding and charming performance, playing a key character from the franchise’s mythology; so now he and Peck’s Spock are returning in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” which follows the journeys of the Enterprise in the years before Captain James T. Kirk (the hero of the original 1960s TV series) took command. “Strange New Worlds” retains the serialized elements that have become common to modern “Star Trek” series; but it also hearkens to the older shows by featuring more episodic stories.Also arriving:May 11“The Challenge: All Stars” Season 3May 15“Joe Pickett” Season 1May 20“RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars” Season 7From left, Busy Philipps, Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Paula Pell in a scene from the new season of “Girls5Eva.”PeacockNew to Peacock‘Girls5eva’ Season 2Starts streaming: May 5The first season of the delightful “Girls5eva” offered a witty and insightful peek inside the modern music business from the perspective of four middle-aged singers — formerly a chart-topping girl group — who attempt a comeback at a time when MTV matters less than TikTok. As Season 2 begins, the ladies seem to be on an upswing, ready to record a new album after a breakout moment at a national showcase. But family obligations and the limitations of their aging bodies threaten to stall their momentum. Once again, the creator Meredith Scardino and her writing staff keep the jokes and the savvy pop culture references flying while always honoring the dignity and the dreams of these four friends. The women of Girls5Eva are often ridiculous, but never hopeless.Also arriving:May 13“Firestarter”May 19“Angelyne”“Dragons Rescue Riders: Heroes of the Sky” Season 3May 24“Sins of the Amish” More

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      In ‘I Love That for You,’ Vanessa Bayer Sells Out

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      The “Saturday Night Live” veteran’s new sitcom draws on her experience of childhood cancer and her obsession with home shopping TV.Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.According to Vanessa Bayer, being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia as a 15-year-old wasn’t all bad.It got her out of gym class. The attendance lady at her high school never marked her as tardy. She told a boy she didn’t like that she couldn’t be his date for the homecoming dance because she had chemo that weekend. (She didn’t). Her father talked his way out of a speeding ticket by using her illness as an excuse, a tactic he referred to as “dropping the L-bomb.”Bayer survived the L-bomb. The experience didn’t change her, she said, but it did intensify characteristics that were already inherent — determination, resilience, a borderline delusional sense of optimism. Who receives a diagnosis of cancer and accentuates the positive? Bayer does.“I was always a person who loved attention,” Bayer said chirpily. “This allowed me to get so much attention.”Bayer is getting attention now. On Sunday, Showtime will premiere the first episode of “I Love That for You” (the Showtime app will have it on Friday), a sitcom that draws on Bayer’s pediatric cancer and her longtime obsession with home shopping shows. She stars as Joanna Gold, a sheltered young woman and leukemia survivor who auditions to become the newest host on the Special Value Network. Nearly fired after her disastrous first hour on camera, she saves her job by telling her colleagues that her cancer has returned. (It hasn’t.)Bayer’s character pretends to have cancer in order to keep her job at a home shopping network.Tony Rivetti Jr./ShowtimePlaying Joanna isn’t cathartic for Bayer — she doesn’t seem to need catharsis — but it does offer her a chance to work through her past, this time with even more jokes. “It’s really nice to be able to have some distance from that time and to be able to laugh at it even more,” she said.Bayer grew up in a Reform Jewish family in the suburbs of Cleveland. A star student and a cross-country runner, she decided that she wouldn’t let her illness mess with her G.P.A., even when teachers told her she could coast.“It lit this fire under me,” she said. “It was important to me that everybody saw me as someone who wasn’t weak.”Diagnosed in the spring of her freshman year, she spent time in the hospital, then in outpatient treatment, completing chemotherapy just before her senior year. She graduated on time. As prom queen.She first performed comedy as a member of Bloomers, an all-female troupe at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, she moved to Chicago and studied and performed at various improv theaters, which eventually led to a spot on “Saturday Night Live” in 2010. There she created characters such as Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy and Dawn Lazarus, an anxious meteorologist. But long before she got paid for it, Bayer had relied on jokes as a coping mechanism.“I had to use humor to make everyone, including myself, feel OK,” she said, speaking of her time in treatment. Here comes that optimism again: “I also think it made me funnier.”She was speaking, from a bench on the fringes of Central Park, on a recent Friday afternoon. The temperature had climbed to nearly 70 degrees, but Bayer, who had just flown in on a red-eye from Los Angeles, was bundled against the spring in a belted coat, a knit beanie and Rag & Bone fleece sneakers. She had a green juice in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. A medical-grade mask had left a red mark high on each cheek.Even sleep-deprived and apparently very cold, Bayer radiated positivity. She smiled approvingly at the gamboling dogs, the sweating men, the woman who had arrived for a constitutional in high heels and full makeup. “Nothing like New York birds!” she said, when a flock of pigeons flew over, Hitchcock close. In high school she was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Most Likely to Bake a Mean Casserole would have tracked, too — even sitting in the middle of Manhattan, she emanated Midwestern normalcy and niceness.Over seven years on “Saturday Night Live,” Bayer (with Michael Che) was a dependable utility player with many memorable appearances on Weekend Update.Dana Edelson/NBC“She almost doesn’t seem like an actress,” said Molly Shannon, an “S.N.L.” veteran who now co-stars opposite Bayer as SVN’s superstar host. “She’s very steady and calm and grounded.”The comedian Aidy Bryant, who worked with Bayer in Chicago before they both found their way to “S.N.L.,” noted that Bayer has a way of turning that mildness into a strike force. When it comes to comedy, Bryant said, “She is a quiet, smiling assassin.”“Vanessa has a real reserved, polite, wonderfully Midwestern energy,” she added. “Then she hits with a punchline or a funny reaction or her truly incredible smile, which she can weaponize as a force of pain.”On “S.N.L.,” Bayer became a dependable utility player, often infusing characters (football widow, early career Jennifer Aniston) with a manic intensity — eyes overbright, speech a tick too fast. Taran Killam, another “S.N.L.” co-star, noted how calm the offscreen Bayer seemed, a composure he attributed to her history.“It must have given her incredible perspective,” he said. “‘S.N.L.’ is a very passionate job, a dream job. It feels like it matters more than anything in the world. She would always be the first one to say: ‘Who cares? No big deal. So they didn’t like the sketch? Move on.’”“S.N.L.” has a famously punishing schedule. But Jeremy Beiler, a former “S.N.L.” writer who joined around the same time Bayer did, noted how she met the stresses of the job with buoyancy.“She only looks in one direction,” he said. “It’s only forward.”In 2017, after seven seasons on “S.N.L.,” Bayer moved on. Another comedian might have worried about what would come next. Unsurprisingly, Bayer stayed positive. “My attitude is just that stuff kind of works out,” she said. And it did work out, more or less, with guest spots, voice work, supporting roles in a few movies.“I had to use humor to make everyone, including myself, feel OK,” Bayer said, speaking of her time in cancer treatment as a teen. “I also think it made me funnier.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York TimesAs she was leaving “S.N.L.,” her management team asked her about dream projects, and her mind somehow flashed on home shopping TV. She had watched the channels often as a child: The peek into adult life fascinated her, and she loved the elegance of the hosts and the ways in which they would spin seemingly extemporaneous stories in their attempts to entice buyers.She described the hosts’ particular rhythms and vocabulary as “the first foreign language I ever learned,” and the network most likely provided her first taste of improv, too. (In college, when it came time to write her first sketch, she wrote one set in the world of home shopping, in which the host was selling cardboard with a hole in it. It killed.)A few months later, over brunch, Beiler mentioned that he had, by coincidence, begun a series pilot set in the world of home shopping. They began to collaborate, even arranging a field trip to QVC’s headquarters in West Chester, Pa., where they met with two hosts, Jane Treacy and Mary Beth Roe, whom Bayer had idolized as a child, and also managed to score some free soft pretzels. (Everyone I spoke to mentioned Bayer’s enthusiasm for snacks, and most of them mentioned her gift for scamming her way into free ones.) In the gift shop, they bought matching QVC mugs.Back at work, with Jessi Klein as showrunner, they began to build out a back story for Bayer’s character, Joanna, that would give her stakes and drive. They decided to borrow from Bayer’s own story, particularly her diagnosis and treatment and the way that those years of chemo and radiation stunted her emotional growth for a while.“I didn’t understand dating at all,” she said. “It was just playing catch up. Even out of college and into my 20s, I always was trying to fake being an adult.” In an hour’s conversation, this was the closest she ever came to acknowledging that pediatric cancer hadn’t been entirely a walk in the park.Bayer didn’t mind lending Joanna her medical chart — she has never been shy about her diagnosis. As a teen she used it to win her family a trip to Hawaii courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. (She had thought about asking to meet Jared Leto, but she eventually decided she would prefer to meet him as a peer. Years later, she did.) Colleagues at “S.N.L.” have heard her introduce leukemia into the conversation just to get free ice cream, which jibes with advice she offered during our interview: If you are sick, use it to get whatever you can.Bryant said, “She always takes the things that are hard and makes them something that she can use to empower herself or use to her advantage.”Gradually, Joanna took shape, a woman more guarded than Bayer and more stunted, with her same love of snacks and her same gift for antic improvisation but none of her obvious success. A woman who lies about having cancer shouldn’t be a woman you root for, but Bayer has a way of communicating a kind of desperate brightness that makes terrible things seem less terrible, just because she does them with such enthusiasm.What the camera recognizes is what Shannon, who also survived a major childhood trauma (her mother, youngest sister and a cousin were killed in a car accident), identified as a shared joy and determination to wring the utmost out of life.“We don’t take it for granted,” Shannon said. “We feel so lucky that we’re alive. For real.”There are many stories about illness. (Admittedly, there are fewer of them set in the world of home shopping.) But this is one — with its snacks and its sunniness and its heroine’s determination to exploit her fake diagnosis for all she can — that seemingly only Bayer can tell.“I always wanted to do something about when I was sick,” she said contentedly, as the gentle chaos of Central Park swirled around her. “Specifically, the fun I had.”Audio produced by More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in May

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      Here are the most promising new and returning titles for U.S. subscribers this month, including a new season of “Stranger Things.”Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of May’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)‘Clark’Starts streaming: May 5The maverick Swedish filmmaker and music video director Jonas Akerlund (“Spun,” “Lords of Chaos”) brings his visual panache and his affection for incorrigible rogues to the six-part biographical drama “Clark.” The series is based loosely on the life of Clark Olofsson, the man credited with inspiring the term “Stockholm syndrome” after he bonded with his hostages during a bank robbery. Akerlund uses zippy editing, varied color schemes and dynamic camera moves to emphasize the rush Olofsson got from theft, assault and drug trafficking. Bill Skarsgard (“It”) plays the title character, capturing both his puckish charm and his terrifying willingness to hurt and deceive people.‘Along for the Ride’Starts streaming: May 6Based on a Sarah Dessen young adult novel, “Along for the Ride” follows a socially awkward high school graduate named Auden (Emma Pasarow) who spends the summer before college living with her father and stepmom at the beach. There, she meets a mysterious and brooding boy, Eli (Belmont Cameli), who like her suffers from insomnia and shares her interests in reading and wandering along the shore. The writer-director Sofia Alvarez works this teen romance plot into a larger story about Auden’s efforts to escape the shadow of her domineering mother (Andie MacDowell) and learn how to take more chances.‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 1Starts streaming: May 13Next to the detective Harry Bosch, the scrappy defense attorney Mickey Haller is the crime novelist Michael Connelly’s greatest creation: a champion of the innocent who empathizes with his clients in part because he, himself, is often just a few bad breaks away from calamity. Matthew McConaughey played Haller in a well-received 2011 film, “The Lincoln Lawyer,” based on Connelly’s first book about the character. Season 1 of this new TV series is based on the novel “The Brass Verdict,” and it hews a bit closer to the source material — beginning with the casting of the Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo to play a man who is described as half-Mexican in the original stories. In this first set of episodes, the lawyer inherits a colleague’s practice. While working mostly out of his flashy car, Haller has to prepare a new celebrity client’s murder defense in under a week.‘Senior Year’Starts streaming: May 13Rebel Wilson stars in this high school comedy, which like her 2019 film “Isn’t It Romantic?,” repurposes the conventions of a popular movie genre. In “Senior Year,” Wilson plays Stephanie Conway, who has been in a coma since 2002, when she was the captain of her school’s cheerleading squad. In her mind, no time has passed, so Stephanie decides to re-enroll and get her degree — although she soon finds that because so much has changed about adolescent cliques and pop culture over the past 20 years, she is now more misfit than teen queen. Directed by the TV sitcom veteran Alex Hardcastle, “Senior Year” is a fish-out-of-water story about a woman coming to terms with her past and her future.‘Stranger Things’ Season 4, Volume 1Starts streaming: May 27When last we left the “Stranger Things” crew, the adventurous Hawkins, Ind., teenagers and their perpetually worried parents and guardians had survived a huge escalation of the inter-dimensional war against their tiny town. Season 3 of this nostalgia-steeped science-fiction adventure ended with several characters leaving town after the Soviet Union exacerbated a crisis involving the alternate reality known as “the Upside Down.” The pandemic-delayed Season 4 — arriving three years after Season 3 but advancing the plot only six months — will move into the second half of the 1980s. This season’s episodes will be lengthier and larger in scale (they’ll also drop in two parts, the second landing on July 1) as the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, start bringing the scattered pieces of their story together in preparation for a big Season 5 finish.Also arriving:May 4“The Circle” Season 4“El Marginal” Season 5“Meltdown: Three Mile Island”“Summertime” Season 3May 5“The Pentaverate”“Wild Babies” Season 1May 6“Marmaduke”“The Sound of Magic” Season 1“The Takedown”“Welcome to Eden” Season 1May 10“Outlander” Season 5May 11“42 Days of Darkness” Season 1“Operation Mincemeat”“Our Father”May 12“Savage Beauty” Season 1May 13“Bling Empire” Season 2May 14“Borrego”May 16“Vampire in the Garden” Season 1May 17“The Future Diary” Season 2May 18“Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror”May 19“A Perfect Pairing”“The Photographer: Murder in Pinamar”May 20“Love, Death + Robots” Season 3May 23“Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045” Season 2May 25“Somebody Feed Phil” Season 5 More

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      Watch These 12 Titles Before They Leave Netflix in May

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      A ton of movies and TV shows are disappearing for U.S. Netflix subscribers next month. These are the ones worth catching before they’re gone.The erotic thriller, that bygone artifact of ’80s and ’90s sexual expression (and repression) is all the rage again — well, at least nostalgia for it is — and two prime examples of the form are leaving Netflix in the United States at the end of the month, so get them while you can. Also departing the service in May: two family favorites, a musical extravaganza, two beloved series and much, much more. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘Eye in the Sky’ (May 12)When this tightly wound political thriller hit theaters in 2015, it felt like a high-minded showcase for a handful of terrific actors (Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul) but not much more. Now it feels like a quintessential cinematic artifact of the Obama era, a thoughtful and knotty examination of the moral dilemma of drone warfare — and of 21st century military conflict in general. Mirren and Paul spar spiritedly as a no-nonsense colonel and the drone pilot who must execute her orders; Rickman, in one of his final performances, brings shading and nuance to his work as a military middle man.Stream it here.‘Chloe’ (May 31)Amanda Seyfried is earning (deserved) praise for her astonishing work in “The Dropout,” but those in the know have been watching her shine for years, even in less-acclaimed films like this 2009 erotic thriller. She stars as the title character, a call girl hired by a suspicious wife (Julianne Moore) to entrap her husband (Liam Neeson), which gets complicated when the wife and would-be mistress begin an affair of their own. If the cast sounds high-caliber for such a story, that’s because the film is directed by the acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”), who gives the story’s mind games and psychological ramifications as much attention as the breathy sexual encounters.Stream it here.‘Closer’ (May 31)In 1971, the director Mike Nichols scored one of his greatest critical and commercial successes with “Carnal Knowledge,” a savagely funny and brutally candid account of the war between the sexes, as seen through the broken relationships of two men and two women. In 2004, near the end of his career, Nichols revisited the subject matter with a similar cast makeup, adapting the play “Closer” by Patrick Marber into a tough four-hander of sexual desire and emotional betrayal. Jude Law, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts craft some of their best screen acting to date, playing a full range of ruthlessness, cruelty, sensitivity and brokenness. It’s a challenging movie, but a great one.Stream it here.‘The Devil’s Advocate’ (May 31)This mash-up of Grisham-esque legal thriller and “Rosemary’s Baby”-style occult horror from Taylor Hackford was met mostly with snickers upon its 1997 release, as critics complained it was too ornate, too over-the-top, too much. But in these timid times, it feels like a welcome balm, a reminder of a time when mainstream studio movies were willing to just go for it, good taste be damned (pardon the pun). Keanu Reeves, sporting a less-than-convincing Southern accent, plays a hotshot young lawyer recruited (rather aggressively) by a top New York law firm led by Al Pacino as “John Milton,” and yes, the rest of the reveals are about as subtle. Pacino chews on the scenery with the ravenous appetite of a starving man, but the performance of note here is that of Charlize Theron, then still an up-and-comer, with an unexpectedly subtle turn as the young lawyer’s increasingly disturbed wife.Stream it here.‘The Disaster Artist’ (May 31)Bad movies have attracted ironic (and unironic) cult followings for decades, but few have attracted the fascination given to “The Room,” the bizarre psychosexual drama from the enigmatic writer-director-star Tommy Wiseau that plays less like a low-budget film than like a dispatch from another planet, filled with creatures who talk and act almost like actual humans. Greg Sestero, the film’s co-star, turned that strange experience into a memoir, which was then adapted into this hilarious chronicle of cinematic incompetence. James Franco directs and stars as Wiseau, his work focusing on — and blurring the line between — badness and brilliance; Dave Franco is charismatic and sympathetic as Sestero, while an all-star supporting cast (including Alison Brie, Zac Efron, Ari Graynor, Seth Rogen and Jacki Weaver) brightens up the edges.Stream it here.‘Downton Abbey’: Seasons 1-6 (May 31)Sometimes Netflix is there for you in your time of need, and sometimes they yank away entertainment at exactly the moment it’s most necessary. Such is the case with the lapse of the full run of “Downton Abbey” barely two weeks after the release of “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” the latest feature film follow-up, to theaters. That means it’s time to begin that catch-up binge and to reacquaint yourself with the Crawley family and their various servants, interlopers and guests. The show’s origins lay in the creator Julian Fellowes’s Oscar-winning screenplay for Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,” which found drama in the contrast between British aristocracy and those that serve them. He followed those contrasts and connections through six seasons with sharp wit and penetrating commentary.Stream it here.‘Free Willy’ (May 31)Everything was bigger in the ’90s, so while family entertainment of yore gave us countless stories of boys and their dogs, this 1993 hit from Simon Wincer told the story of a boy and his orca. Jason James Richter stars as an orphan boy headed down the wrong life path, whose probation period cleaning up graffiti at an amusement park leads him to strike up an unconventional friendship with the title character, a captive whale, whom he soon decides he should release into the wild. Lori Petty and Michael Madsen are likable as the stern (but swayable) grown-ups.Stream it here.‘Hairspray’ (May 31)The cult filmmaker John Waters made an unexpected (and unexpectedly successful) play for mainstream respectability with his 1988 film “Hairspray,” a PG-rated nostalgia comedy that was so family-friendly it was adapted into a Broadway musical comedy. And then it made its way back to the movies for the 2007 adaptation of the Broadway show, directed with theatrical flair by the choreographer-turned-director Adam Shankman. The musical numbers are inventively staged, the conventions of the form are slyly sabotaged, and the performances are top-notch — particularly John Travolta as the mother of the lead character, Tracy Turnblad (the terrific Nikki Blonsky), and Christopher Walken in fine, tender form as her father.Stream it here.‘Happy Endings’: Seasons 1-3 (May 31)It’s easy to get overly nostalgic for the good old days of network television, but you have to give them this: Networks were willing to give great but underseen sitcoms like “Seinfeld” and “Cheers” the time to build and find their audiences, resulting in record-high ratings. This uproariously funny and quietly inventive series (2011-13), by contrast, struggled mightily, barely surviving from season to season before getting the unceremonious boot after three seasons. This ensemble comedy, in which six friends (and sometimes lovers, and sometimes enemies) struggle to weather the storms of adulthood, is like a cross between “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” and the early, good years of “How I Met Your Mother.” And if it ended too soon, at least we got what we got.Stream it here.‘Happy Feet’ (May 31)George Miller has one of the more fascinating dual filmographies in all of cinema. On one hand, he created and directed the four “Mad Max” films, fiercely visceral and unapologetically violent action epics for a decidedly adult audience. On the other, he has given us some of the most enjoyable family movies of the ’90s and beyond, including the “Babe” films and this enchanting animated musical comedy, which was nominated for best animated feature Oscar and spawned a 2011 sequel. Elijah Wood voices the leading role of Mumble, an emperor penguin unable to attract a mate with his song, who decides instead to take up tap dancing. Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brittany Murphy and Robin Williams are among the impressive voice cast.Stream it here.‘Wild Things’ (May 31)The impressive 1990s run of erotic thrillers was nearly at its end when the director John McNaughton (“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”) directed this 1998 entry into the subgenre, which gleefully revels in the sordidness of its story while also slyly winking at its conventions — he has his sleazy cake and eats it too. Denise Richards became a star via her hubba-hubba turn as a rich bad girl who accuses a teacher (Matt Dillon) of assault, a charge echoed by a tough young woman from the wrong side of the tracks (Neve Campbell, turning her “Scream” image inside out). But that’s just the setup; the clever script is filled with reverses, reveals and double-crosses, resulting in a trashy delight that is equal parts Hitchcock and Cinemax After Dark.Stream it here.‘Zoolander’ (May 31)Ben Stiller co-writes, directs and stars in this giddily goofy 2001 comedy as Derek Zoolander, a delightfully dim male model who is pulled into a hilariously convoluted story of spies, political assassination and fashion industry exploitation. Owen Wilson is his rival, a fellow male model who becomes his unlikely partner; Will Ferrell is the dastardly villain of the tale, and he does not underplay the role. Stiller’s influences aren’t subtle (he’s shouting out everything from Bond to the Pink Panther), but his unique directorial style and inside knowledge of celebrity culture makes “Zoolander” a surprisingly pointed social commentary that’s also very stupid and very funny.Stream it here.Also leaving: “The Blind Side,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Stardust,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Top Gun” (all May 31). More

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      ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Recap: A Chateau of Convenience

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      In the penultimate episode of this season, anything the crew needs from the plot to move forward, it gets.Season 2, Episode 9: ‘Hide and Seek’The most interesting revelation in this week’s “Picard” comes in a throwaway line from Seven, in which she tells Raffi that she tried to join Starfleet after Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant. That Captain Janeway — or possibly Admiral, depending on the timing of her promotion that we saw in “Star Trek: Nemesis” — went to bat for her. Starfleet said no, because of her Borg background.This is the first concrete hint about Seven’s immediate post-Voyager ambitions. It was a remarkable decision by Starfleet, given that Seven accomplished more on Voyager than many Starfleet officers ever did. She saved lives — Starfleet lives, but it wasn’t good enough to be seen as anything more than a former Borg drone. It shows that bigotry is still alive and well within the Federation. It also established why Seven became a Fenris Ranger. (Compare this to Picard and the crew’s handling of Hugh, the former Borg drone, whom we are reintroduced to in last season of “Picard.”)It also ran counter to previous Starfleet policy: Remember that Picard himself was once a Borg drone. The Enterprise crew rescued him and Picard got his command back, like, the next day. (And why was Icheb — who was also part of the Voyager crew — allowed to join Starfleet then?)Aside from that, this episode was — to put it charitably — disjointed.If there’s been a consistent trend in how the “Trek” universe has handled the Borg, it’s that their pursuit of perfection is consistently undermined by their rank incompetence — something Jurati brings up in the episode’s bizarre climax. The episode starts with an army of Borg drones, led by the Borg Queen, trying to take over La Sirena. Should be easy: After all, the Borg Queen alone can take over an entire computer system.But it’s not easy, because it appears that the Queen assimilated stormtroopers who can’t shoot straight rather than professional mercenaries. And The Watcher procures very futuristic weapons to aid the crew in their fight.With every deus ex machina, an angel grows its wings — and there are many wings coming out of “Picard.” How did The Watcher get those weapons? From where? Why have they never come up before? Also, wasn’t her whole thing to stay out of events? Suddenly, the Watcher can beam Rios away after being shot? And then later, Rios is able to beam back because he has a screwdriver? And then when Soong tries to use Rios’s gun, it has a DNA lock on it? And it explodes if it’s being held too long?Probably best not to ponder any of the above too deeply and just keep moving.So when the Borg Queen is finally close to taking over the ship’s computer — something that shouldn’t have been difficult for her to do — Jurati tries to moralize her.“Why haven’t you killed me?” Jurati asks the Queen, asking a question that every audience member has asked by now. In the meantime, Jurati puts something called a “fractal lock” on the computer. How? When? Without the Queen noticing? Ah, nevermind. And wait, Jurati didn’t remember the key? And she left it with a holographic Elnor?Like the Queen, we’re all confused by what is going on. (I did enjoy several of the Queen’s drones trying to shoot a gun at a hologram, because IT’S A HOLOGRAM.) Later, when Raffi reunites with Hologram Elnor, he says that he shared Real Elnor’s last thoughts.“I share the recollection of Elnor’s final breath — enough to know that his last thoughts of you were not of blame but of love,” the hologram says. Why would Hologram Elnor know that? He was presumably created before Real Elnor died.Seven’s comes up with the brilliant plan of beaming the drones off board and into a wall in Chateau Picard. Given The Watcher’s beaming capability, how was this not the first thing they thought of? I feel like I’m asking a lot of questions.The peak of the episode comes when the Queen stabs Seven, and then her life is saved because Jurati trash-talks the Queen by saying the Borg consistently stink at achieving their aims across several timelines. Good point. In one of the most baffling plot points in “Trek” history — and I’m pretty sure I’ve written this about previous “Picard” plot lines — Jurati says the better way for them to do things is by asking species’ permissions to be assimilated.“What if we take this ship and build a better Borg? A real collective based not on assimilation but on salvation?” Jurati says to the Queen.Is salvation different than assimilation? And there is no reason for the Queen to accept this proposal. She has all the leverage! The Borg’s brand is that resistance is futile. and they can’t be negotiated with. Now they change everything they are because of one conversation with Jurati?Odds and EndsRios decides to show Teresa and Ricardo a glimpse of the future — when he didn’t have to — and then leaves them behind in the 21st century. Surely it will have some future effect on the timeline for the two of them to have this much knowledge about futuristic technology.The action sequences were a lot of fun in this episode. They were made less effective by the distracting plotting.The revelation about Picard’s mother was notable, but felt cheapened because it was used mostly as a device to help Picard and The Watcher escape a homicidal Soong. More

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      Olive Gray, an Actor Since the Age of 10, Stars in ‘Halo’

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      The nonbinary actor grew up around a lot of famous people, including the Spice Girls, who would hang out in the living room.Name: Olive GrayAge: 27Hometown: Cambridge, EnglandNow lives: In a three-story loft in the Southgate neighborhood of London with their parents, three siblings and two cockapoos.Claim to fame: Mx. Gray is a musician and actor who stars in “Halo,” a Paramount+ adaptation of the hugely popular video game franchise. “We filmed in front of the biggest blue screen in Europe, so the whole time I was completely awe struck and mesmerized by working in this big expanse of space,” Mx. Gray said. “I remember thinking, ‘This must be how an ant feels every day.’” Mx. Gray is also known for roles in various British productions, including the BAFTA-winning TV thriller “Save Me” and the bawdy comedy “Sex Education.”Big break: Mx. Gray’s father, David Grant, was one half of the 1980s funk-pop duo Linx, and Mx. Gray’s mother, Carrie Grant, represented Britain at the 1983 Eurovision contest as part of the pop group Sweet Dreams. “I grew up around a lot of people that I was also a fan of, which is kind of weird looking back on it,” they said. “I would run around the house and scream Spice Girls songs at the top of my lungs, and then sit with actual members of the Spice Girls in my living room.”At the age of 10, Mx. Gray landed a recurring role on “The Story of Tracy Beaker,” a TV show about a girl in foster care. “As a kid, ‘fame’ was never really that big of a deal,” Mx. Gray said. “I know that sounds like not a terribly normal thing to say.”Paramount+Latest project: Mx. Gray will release a five-track EP this year, which they described as “jazz and indie rock” with a little bit of pop. “You have to be very technical as a session singer when it comes to things like breathing and tone,” Mx. Gray said. “So even when I’m recording my own music, I still tend to hyper-analyze the quality of the sound like it’s a different person’s voice.”Next thing: “Halo,” in which Mx. Gray plays Commander Miranda Keyes, has been renewed for a second season. “There is nothing quite like the scale of a big American sci-fi, is there? Everything just happens so quickly.”Bad reviews: Mx. Gray grew up “obsessed” with obscure French cinema, often downloaded from the internet. “I only watched French independent films, even though a lot of them were really bad,” they said. “There was one about this party where every guest was from a different time period. It was very strange — probably one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.” More