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      Book Review: ‘Tinderbox,’ by James Andrew Miller

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      There’s enough animosity, jealousy, score-settling and killing gossip in “Tinderbox,” James Andrew Miller’s mountainous new oral history of HBO, to fill an Elizabethan drama. Yet the book’s tone is largely fond.The people who created HBO made something they’re proud of. They’re glad to have been there, to have had a piece of it, in the early, freewheeling decades. Most know they’ll never have it so good again.HBO went live on Nov. 8, 1972, broadcasting to a few hundred houses in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The first thing you saw on the screen (cue screaming from future Time Warner shareholders) was Jerry Levin, sitting on a sofa. He welcomed viewers, then kicked it over to a hockey game from Madison Square Garden, which was followed by Paul Newman in “Sometimes a Great Notion.”Levin was an ambitious young lawyer who had been brought in by a cable company, Sterling Communications, to run HBO’s start-up programming. “Tinderbox” explains how Sterling eventually ran wires to all those buildings in Manhattan and elsewhere, sometimes via sublegal methods.Levin, of course, would become the architect of the most ill-judged merger in media history. At the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000, he tried to combine Time Warner, of which HBO was a subsidiary, with Steve Case’s already sinking AOL. In the ruinous wake, Levin resembled the proverbial hedgehog, the one who climbs off the hairbrush while sheepishly muttering, “We all make mistakes.”If you’re going to read “Tinderbox,” prepare for a landslide of corporate history. Students of power will find much to interest them. HBO had many stepparents over the years. Following these deals is complicated, like following the lyrics to “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”In reverse order, Miller describes how HBO — the fly, more or less, in this scenario — has been sequentially consumed from 1972 through today: “Warner Bros. Discovery rescued it from AT&T, which had gobbled it up from Time Warner, which had saved it from Time Warner AOL, which had somehow abducted it from Time Warner, which had shrewdly outplayed Time Inc. for it, after Time had outflanked Sterling Communications long ago.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Miller, who has previously compiled oral histories of “Saturday Night Live,” ESPN and Creative Artists Agency, digs into the machinations and bruised egos behind these deals.These guys (they were mostly guys) all seemed to want to flex-cuff one another and throw enemies into the back of a van. Miller gets good quotes: “The only way I was going to sit across a table from Jerry was if I could jump across it and grab him by the throat”; “He’s a dog, he’ll follow whoever feeds him.”HBO’s famous bumper — the static, the celestial choir — didn’t debut until 1993. But the channel had an aura long before that. It began to make its mark on popular culture in the late 1970s and early ’80s, around the time I was in my teens.My family didn’t have HBO, but a friend’s did. It was where you clicked to see George Carlin say the seven words you couldn’t say on television, to watch movies with naked people in them and to laugh your ribs loose seeing comedians (Robert Klein, Bette Midler, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams) do material they’d never get away with on Carson.HBO was so sexy people went to hotels to watch it. The channel had no advertisers, and thus no one to complain about brash or steamy content.Before HBO, television in the hands of the big three networks was a wasteland — “a vast exercise in condescension,” as Robert Hughes put it, “by quite smart people to millions of others whom they assume to be much dumber than they actually are.”James Andrew Miller, whose latest oral history is “Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers.”Robert BomgardnerAn important early hire was Sheila Nevins, stolen from CBS to run HBO’s now-storied documentary unit. A Barbra Streisand concert was an early hit. Boxing was vital to the early growth of HBO, as were midweek broadcasts of Wimbledon. The channel launched a million comedy clubs. If you were a comic without an HBO special, you weren’t on the map.HBO branched out into original movies, some of which I was happy to see recalled: “Gia,” with Angelina Jolie; “Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story,” with Ben Kingsley and “Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned,” based on the Walter Mosley novel, with Laurence Fishburne, among others.“Tinderbox” slows down and lingers purposefully on the turn of the century, when the so-called golden age of television began to come into view. With shows like “Sex and the City,” “Six Feet Under,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and especially “The Sopranos,” HBO changed notions of what television could be, and pickpocketed the cultural conversation from film.“The Sopranos” was not an immediate hit, but it was beloved internally. “We were putting a husky guy with a hairy back wearing a wife-beater in the lead role,” says Jeff Bewkes, a former Time Warner C.E.O. “Nobody else would do that.”HBO had good luck with its early executives. These were the kind of guys who knew what a debenture was yet had a feel for programming and knew enough to hire good people and leave them alone. HBO gave people room to run.Often the only direction given to directors and producers was: Don’t make anything you’d see anywhere else. Winning awards was more important than ratings. Before HBO, elite actors wouldn’t go near a television show.Staffers at HBO sometimes found it hard to define what HBO was, but they knew what it wasn’t. A planned Howie Mandel special was killed.HBO’s luck held for a while after “The Sopranos” signed off. Lena Dunham’s “Girls” and “Game of Thrones” were in the wings. But the souk that is the modern television world was growing crowded.HBO was no longer the brash insurgent. It passed on shows — “Mad Men,” “House of Cards,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Breaking Bad,” “The Crown” — that went on to become crucial hits for Netflix and other cable and streaming services.Oral history is a strange form. It gives you a staccato series of micro-impressions, as if you were looking through a fly’s compound eyes. George Plimpton, who helped edit the best-selling oral biography “Edie,” was a fan. He liked it that “the reader, rather than editor, is jury.”Elizabeth Hardwick loathed the form. She thought oral histories were full of irresponsible drive-by shootings. The result, she wrote, was that “you are what people have to say about you.”Increasingly I’m a fan of the genre. I have a special fondness for Lizzy Goodman’s “Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011,” and I await the oral histories of Chez Panisse, Balthazar, Death and Company (the bar), n+1, Anna Wintour’s tenure at Vogue, Monster Energy drinks, the making of “Dusty in Memphis” and this newspaper’s Styles section.Miller is a good interviewer, but a corny writer. His interstitial material is mugged by phrases like “oodles of ambition” and words like “ginormous.” These really bugged me at the start. But this book is so vast that, by the weary end, these pats of cold margarine slapping me in the face were the only things keeping me awake.There are a lot of winning moments in “Tinderbox.” But wading through its nearly thousand pages I often felt spacey and exhausted, as if it were 4 a.m. on the third night of one of those endurance contests and I had to keep my hand on the pickup truck.HBO has retained much of its magic. “Succession”: what a treat. The sound of that bumper — the static, the choir — remains Pavlovian in its promise. But our over-entertained eyeballs have more options, and the channel’s competitors, Miller makes clear, have the long knives sharpened. More

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      Kevin Spacey Ordered to Pay $31 Million to ‘House of Cards’ Studio

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      An arbitrator ruled last year that Kevin Spacey and his production companies owe MRC, the studio behind the Netflix series “House of Cards,” nearly $31 million for breach of contract following numerous sexual harassment allegations against the actor.The secret arbitrator’s ruling, which was issued 13 months ago, was made public on Monday when lawyers for MRC petitioned a California court to confirm the award.Mr. Spacey was once the centerpiece of the hit Netflix series, which ran for six seasons between 2013 and 2018. Mr. Spacey played the main character, the conniving politician Frank Underwood, and served as an executive producer of the series.While the sixth and final season was being filmed in 2017, the actor Anthony Rapp accused Mr. Spacey of making a sexual advance toward him in 1986, when Mr. Rapp was 14. MRC and Netflix suspended production on the series while they investigated.Mr. Rapp’s public accusation came just weeks after The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles about the producer Harvey Weinstein and as the #MeToo movement was gaining steam.By December 2017, after further allegations were made against Mr. Spacey, including by crew members of “House of Cards,” MRC and Netflix fired the actor from the show.In the arbitration, MRC argued that Mr. Spacey’s behavior caused the studio to lose millions of dollars because it had already spent time and money in developing, writing and shooting the final season. It also said it brought in less revenue because the season had to be shortened to eight episodes from the 13 because Mr. Spacey’s character was written out.The arbitrator apparently agreed, issuing a reward of nearly $31 million, including compensatory damages and lawyers’ fees.A lawyer for Mr. Spacey declined to comment.In a statement, MRC said, “The safety of our employees, sets and work environments is of paramount importance to MRC and why we set out to push for accountability.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and the Soul Train Awards

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      The season finale of “Dancing With the Stars” airs on ABC. And Tisha Campbell and Tichina Arnold return to host the 2021 Soul Train Awards on BET.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Nov. 22-28. Details and times are subject to change.MondayDANCING WITH THE STARS 8 p.m. on ABC. The contestants on the 30th season of “Dancing With the Stars” have danced their way through nine emotional weeks. Expect a captivating conclusion with its final four pairings of celebrities and professional dancers: The “Dance Moms” alum and TikTok star JoJo Siwa with the dancer Jenna Johnson; the N.B.A. player Iman Shumpert with Daniella Karagach; the Peloton star Cody Rigsby with Cheryl Burke; and the TV host Amanda Kloots of CBS’s “The Talk” with Alan Bersten. The youngest competitor of the season, Siwa, 18, has already made “Dancing With the Stars” history: she is the first contestant on the show to be in a same-sex pairing. “I want to be a role model for people who love love,” Siwa said in an interview with The New York Times in September.THE RED SHOES (1948) 8 p.m. on TCM. “There has never been a picture in which the ballet and its special, magic world have been so beautifully and dreamily presented,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his Times review of the film in 1948. “Here is the color and the excitement, the strange intoxication of the dancer’s life.” Based on an 1845 Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name, “The Red Shoes” follows the journey of Vicky (Moira Shearer), a young ballet dancer toeing the line between two passions: true love and becoming a prima ballerina. The film, which won several Oscars, including honors for its art direction and music, glows in Technicolor, an appropriate fit for this whimsical tale of temptation, passion, obsession and sacrifice.TuesdayAn archival image as seen in “Home From School: The Children of Carlisle.”National Archives and Records AdministrationINDEPENDENT LENS: HOME FROM SCHOOL: THE CHILDREN OF CARLISLE 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The filmmakers Geoffrey O’Gara and Sophie Barksdale bring to light the stories of Arapaho children who, in the 1800s, were taken from their homes and brought to a federal boarding school in Carlisle, Pa. There, they were stripped of their culture. The filmmakers follow a group of Northern Arapaho tribal members who traveled to the school grounds in 2017 to seek answers for their people, who have spent generations fighting to bring the remains of their lost children home. In July, the children who died at Carlisle Indian Boarding School were laid to rest in their ancestral home land. While many tribes, including the Ute and Navajo, are still uncovering their own truths about similar violent histories, this documentary follows this Arapaho journey in 2017, sharing true accounts of loss, love and healing.LEADBELLY (1976) 9:45 p.m. on TCM. In this biopic, Gordon Parks, the director of “Shaft” (1971), explores a true story of Black history and exploitation, one that occurred many years before the fictional private eye John Shaft ran through the streets of Harlem. “Leadbelly” follows the life of the titular folk singer (played by Roger E. Mosley), who was known for his mastery of the 12-string guitar — and for singing a song for a Texas governor that led to his pardon from prison, or so the story goes. “He was always refining his music, which provided the order in a life that was in every other respect chaotic,” Vincent Canby wrote in his 1976 Times review of the film. (Parks’s own life was recently examined in the director John Maggio’s “A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks,” a film that, in its own way, also captures a Black artist’s journey through America.)WednesdaySPACE JAM (1996) 5 p.m. on VH1. Michael Jordan stars alongside Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes entourage in this comedic amalgamation of mid-’90s live action and animation. Classic cartoon shenanigans ensue as Jordan is (literally) sucked into the world of Looney Tunes through a sand trap and called upon by the Tune Squad to help save the day (by playing a basketball game, naturally). The battle royale pins the Nerdlucks, an alien team led by the Tunes’s arch nemesis, Swackhammer (voiced by Danny DeVito), against Jordan and the Tune Squad. The good guys are assisted by Bill Murray, who looks slightly out of place but very ready to rumble in a Tune Squad jersey. Can the Tune Squad defend their home? Is that all, folks? (The gang reappeared in “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” starring LeBron James, this year.)ThursdayBACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) 7:30 p.m. on Syfy. This blast from the past — to the future — takes us for a ride with the high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in his DeLorean turned time machine, built by the witty and unconventional scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). After a shocking encounter in an abandoned mall parking lot, McFly puts the pedal to the time-flying metal. He lands in a 1955 brimming with wiseguys and high school ne’er-do-wells.FridayGal Gadot in “Wonder Woman.”Clay Enos/DC Comics and Warner Bros.WONDER WOMAN (2017) 7 p.m. on TNT. Patty Jenkins’s interpretation of “Wonder Woman” gives the beloved DC Comics warrior an origin story with weight. The soon-to-be superhero, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), is raised by an all-female warrior clan that is hidden away from humans on a mystical island. Diana, though, has felt a deep connection to the outside world since her youth. The veil between her world and the world of the humans is torn open when a World War I-era plane crashes into the water near the island and Diana saves its pilot, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), from drowning. Afterward, Diana finds herself facing “the war to end all wars” head on.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘Insecure’ Recap, Season 5, Episode 5: Out of Control

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      As Molly deals with a family emergency, Issa finds a new relationship moving faster than she planned.Season 5, Episode 5: ‘Surviving, Okay?!’We all have a friend who is obsessed with control. They are the ones who ask who is invited to a party before agreeing to attend. They make all the reservations. In “Insecure,” that friend is Molly.Molly needs to know who, what, where and why before she even picks out an outfit. She has gotten better about this as the show has progressed, but this week the control freak returns. This episode, which was directed by Kerry Washington, starts out near the end of a tryst, when suddenly Molly’s phone gets a flurry of incoming messages. Her mother, Carol, has been hospitalized.Yes, Molly showed up to the hospital in her freakum dress, but in her defense, she left in a rush. After the doctor first confuses Carol with another, much older Black woman, the family finally finds her. It was only slightly comical — there are plenty of real-life reports that suggest that doctors give less consideration to Black patients.Molly’s mother has had a stroke and is unresponsive. It has caught Molly, Ms. In Control, off guard. Throughout the episode, the Carter family waits to see how much the stroke has affected Carol. Molly doesn’t leave the hospital, and soon Issa stops by to offer support and help.Issa had just woken up in Nathan’s bed, to a cup of coffee, when she got the news about Carol. She asks Nathan to take her to the hospital, where she offers to bring Molly a more appropriate outfit. In the meantime, she gives Molly the clothes off her back so that she can be more comfortable while tending to her family — that kind of sisterhood and care is beautiful to see onscreen. (Issa is also a vision in that dress.)After Molly and Issa exchange clothes, they look at themselves together in the mirror. It is briefly as if each has become the other — Issa in the party dress and Molly in the killer sweatshirt and jeans. It’s nice to see the relationship reach this level of quiet, shared love, where a nod and a hug communicates more than words can.At the hospital, Molly, her brothers, Curtis and Jerome, and her father, David, are all shocked to see their matriarch in such bad shape. David is incapable of even speaking to the nurse but Molly picks up the ball, asking the nurse to keep her updated.Before this emergency hospitalization, Molly’s parents had omitted key details about her mother’s health, including the fact that Carol had had a stroke before. Molly is shocked and her sense of control takes another hit — she didn’t even know what all was going on with her own parents.Meanwhile, Issa has her own, less profound problems: She loses Molly’s dog, Flavor Flav, during a walk. She had been distracted by Nathan, who had just met her mother over FaceTime, when the dog got loose. They set out to find him with a bizarre lack of urgency: They were basically just kicking it and hoping Flav would come back to them, which I found strange. But eventually he did.After Issa essentially hangs up on her mother, who was doing the most, she explains to Nathan that it is OK if he thinks it’s too soon for them to be meeting one another’s parents. But Nathan says no, with that darling smile. Their bond is deepening and soon Issa is learning more about Nathan’s family, though as is often the case with his past, it’s pretty dark. (His father sounds at least somewhat abusive.)Almost as soon as they stop looking for Flav and take a break on a bench, he finds them on his own. (In Los Angeles?!) Nathan sees an opportunity for a metaphor.“Smarter than you gave him credit for,” he says to Issa, who doubted the dog would make it back. But really he is talking about himself.“I honestly could not have done today without you. You’re so patient with me, that’s why I love you,” Issa says to Nathan, almost accidentally. It’s another unplanned step forward in their relationship and again Nathan responds favorably, this time with a warm kiss.After returning Flavor Flav, Issa heads back to the hospital, where Molly had just been informed that her mother will likely be at least partially paralyzed by the stroke. Though the doctor offers to inform the family, Molly volunteers to do it herself. It seemed like an effort to recover some semblance of the control she is used to having.Talking to Issa, Molly beats herself up, as if allowing herself to have a good time was somehow linked to her mother’s affliction.“I was hooking up with some random guy when my mom was busy having a stroke,” she says.“All of this stuff is out of our control anyway,” Issa replies.The truth of Issa’s own words is almost immediately demonstrated to her, when she unexpectedly glimpses Lawrence with his new family. Heading out for coffee, Issa sees him with Condola and Elijah — they are at the hospital, presumably for a pediatric appointment. Issa looks at the baby’s face and then at Lawrence’s. It’s the image of a life she once was ready to have, but one that is distant from who she is today.Lawrence looks up and they lock eyes. (Condola does not notice.) Then Issa slips down the hall and Lawrence heads into his appointment. They both saw what could have been and had to walk past it, Lawrence with disappointment on his face.Issa stops when she gets out of view, frozen by what she has seen until the episode cuts to black. I hope that she is strong enough to look at what could have been and walk toward what is. More

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      ‘Succession’ Recap, Season 3, Episode 6: Pretenders to the Throne

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      Kendall had hoped to be the kingmaker, but we all know whom that role belongs to.Season 3, Episode 6: ‘What It Takes’“Succession” is sometimes described as a political satire, but politics is more the show’s milieu than its subject. The Roys run a right-wing media empire, so they spend a lot of time around politicians; and the family members themselves, at least on a performative level, have fiercely held ideals. (Or fluidly held in the case of Kendall and Shiv, who have lately sort of switched sides.) Rarely has this series engaged in as much sustained commentary on the sorry state of modern politics as occurs in this week’s episode.The title, “What It Takes,” is likely a reference to Richard Ben-Cramer’s nonfiction account of the 1988 U.S. presidential race, in which he examined in-depth the biographies and the campaigns of two Republicans and four Democrats, considering what drove these men to run. The book explores the gulf that often opens up between the candidates’ impressive credentials and how they sell themselves to voters and the media.In the “Succession” version, the guys vying for the Republican nomination at a Virginia gathering of conservative thought leaders aren’t exactly the best and the brightest. Up for consideration at an emergency meeting of the Future Freedom Summit are: Vice President Dave Boyer (Reed Birney), the “steady old plow-horse,” who’s like a second-rate copy of his retiring boss; Rick Salgado (Yul Vazquez), a moderate Reaganite elitist trying to convince the base that he’s now a big tent, blue collar populist; and Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), a slick-talking nativist who says of a diversifying America that he supports integrating “new elements” but, “C’mon man, slowly.”Bringing up the rear is Connor Roy, about whom his own brother Roman says: “Sure, I dunno, yeah. Wait, but like, really?”This meet-up in Virginia has been called “the ATN primary,” hastily arranged after the cable news network tossed out the Raisin. Next on the ATN agenda: telling their largely Republican viewers which puppet they should be devoted to now. (Cue Greg: “But is that, like, constitutional?”)Logan shrugs off the hype and drama, saying, “I need to keep my spoon in the soup.” But he clearly has more on his mind than just deciding, as an ordinary American citizen, who would make a great president. He wants someone who will throw some administrative roadblocks in front of the tech companies who are stealing ATN’s audience. More important, he wants someone who’ll squelch the Justice Department’s investigation into Brightstar.So the Roys gather in their suite, debating their options and seeing which candidate will be the most pliable. Maybe it’s Boyer, who hustles when Logan calls him up and asks him — not entirely jokingly — to “run me over a Coke” and also to “fire the deputy attorney general.” Maybe it’s Salgado, who can go deep into the weeds on policy. Maybe it’s the up-and-coming firebrand Mencken, who calls ATN “dead” and compares it to an afternoon pudding cup in a nursing home. Or maybe it’s Connor, who … OK, who are we kidding? It’s not Connor. (Although Greg does politely say, “I think I could see myself spoiling my ballot in his favor.”)Logan will make the final call, as Roman (a Mencken man) and Shiv (a Salgado supporter) play the devil and angel on his shoulder, whispering suggestions. Connor is in the room, unwaveringly backing himself. And Tom and Greg are there ostensibly as “family,” though both know that no one will pay attention to what a couple of potential jailbirds say. (Greg stays mostly quiet, “minimizing the Greg window.” But he does stick around because while he’s a registered voter, “I just feel like you maybe get a bigger vote in here.”)Tom and Greg — especially Tom — are responsible for some much-needed comic relief in what is otherwise a fairly dark and occasionally disturbing episode. Tom at first default to poking fun at Greg, saying the young man will like this summit because, “It’s a nice safe space where you don’t have to pretend to like ‘Hamilton.’” But the truth is that Tom genuinely appreciates being able to talk with someone who understands his prison anxieties — unlike Shiv, who is sick of hearing him obsess about it.Tom and Greg grab a meal at a local diner because Tom has been trying to get used to the bland, starchy food he has been told he will be served behind bars. Greg spills his fears that, “Because of my physical length, I could be a target for all kinds of misadventure.” He also mentions the rumor he has heard that sometimes prisoners humiliate their cellmates by using their pillowcases as toilet paper. (“I know,” Tom interjects. “I’ve read the prison blogs.”)Later, Tom returns to what appears to be the same diner with Kendall, who has stealthily rolled into Virginia in hopes of sowing dissension in the Roy ranks. Kendall thinks he can flip Tom, who is in dire need of an ally. He warns his brother-in-law that while Logan may seem all-powerful and that Shiv may seem loyal, Tom can’t really count on either of them to save him from incarceration. Tom appears too resigned to his fate to fight. (“I have of late decided not to tarry too much with hope.”) But he does listen to Kendall … and maybe he actually hears him.What Tom doesn’t know, though, is that Kendall right now is flailing. He bombed at the shareholders’ meeting. He is not welcome at the Future Freedom Summit, given that he accuses the attendees of “burning books and measuring skulls down in Nuremberg, Virginia.” And he has just fired Lisa Arthur, “the best lawyer in town” (a designation he puts in quotation marks himself), because she seems more interested in cooperating with the feds than with aggressively countering Waystar. “Turns out she’s a toxic person,” he says to his assistants in explaining his decision to cut Lisa loose.Kendall had hoped to be the kingmaker whom future presidential candidates would have to court. Instead, it’s Roman who gets to corner Mencken in the bathroom of the Roys’ suite, in an absolutely riveting and more than a little terrifying scene. In a few intense minutes, Roman takes the measure of this man, to see just how committed he is to the whole neo-fascist agenda. Is he really willing to borrow ideas from Franco or Travis Bickle or “a very naughty boy named H?”Roman would like Mencken to be just obnoxious enough to fire up the base, but with a little bit of a wink so as not to scare off the center. His ideal is “Deep State Conspiracy Hour” but, “y’know, funny.” He also reminds Mencken that while ATN may seem like yesterdays news, they did just topple a President — and then immediately rattled the Justice Department with a rumor that the deputy A.G. is pursuing a personal grudge.Shiv is appalled that Roman and Logan would even consider Mencken, especially when Salgado is more palatable and less potentially dangerous to the whole American experiment. Roman of course belittles her choice. (“I think you’re so brave for picking the brown man.”) And when she tells her dad that Mencken is widely hated and begs him to “look at the climate,” Logan wryly replies: “The climate said I should step aside. I guess I’m a climate denier.”The episode ends with an echo of the “Succession” opening credits as the Roys gather for a group photo with their new Chosen One. Shiv tries to refuse, but Logan presses her until she relents and says, “I’ll be in the photo but not right next to him.” He sighs, “You win, Pinky.” But this is not even remotely true. Not wanting to be exiled like Kendall, Shiv has edged closer toward supporting a political philosophy she genuinely thinks is dangerous.What it takes, indeed.Due DiligenceIs it possible that Roman orchestrates the whole Mencken-anointing maneuver because his mother hurt his feelings? At the convention, a guest congratulates him on some news that catches him by surprise: His mom just got engaged to some British rando. (“A crooked-tooth turnip-man,” Roman speculates.) Shut out by one parent, perhaps he felt all the more compelled to impress the other. In the meantime, he takes comfort in learning that at least neither Shiv nor Kendall knew that “new dad just dropped.”Roman and Shiv spend some time on the plane down to Virginia engaging in their favorite pastime: Is Dad sleeping with the help? The latest possibility is Logan’s assistant Kerry (Zoë Winters), who is unusually comfortable with sharing her opinions about which candidate ATN should back. She also laughs with Logan about memes he shows her on his phone. (Trying to join in, Roman says: “Oh yeah, yeah. Well-played, the internet.”)Apparently a convict’s toilet is a stair-machine, a bench, a fridge, a lover, a brother and a priest. It’s also a toilet. (“So that’s a big part of prison?” Greg asks.)In addition to choking down bad food, Tom endures a shipment of funky-tasting wine in screw-top bottles. (“You kind of have to meet it halfway,” he says, hopefully. “There’s lots to unpack.”)Ever wondered what kind of movies Waystar’s entertainment division produces? Apparently it’s schlock like “Dr. Honk,” a comedy Roman once greenlighted about a man who can talk to cars. These are the people who are picking the next president. More

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      in Television

      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Weighs In on the Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

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      This weekend’s broadcast, hosted by Simu Liu, also included some helpful Thanksgiving tips and, uh, Dog Head Man.About a half-hour into this weekend’s broadcast, “Saturday Night Live” would devote an entire sketch to a character with a dog’s head and neck attached to a human body. But first, the show addressed the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse.In its opening segment, “S.N.L.” returned to the familiar format of a “Justice with Judge Jeanine” parody, with Cecily Strong playing the program’s vociferous host, Jeanine Pirro.Reflecting on the highly charged Rittenhouse proceedings, Strong said, “That lovable scamp was put through a nightmare of a trial just for doing the bravest thing any American can do: protecting an empty used car lot in someone else’s town.”She then introduced Mikey Day as Judge Bruce Schroeder, who oversaw the trial, saying that he had been “as impartial as a dance mom clapping harder than anyone.”Day said that the rules he followed during the trial were “all standard procedure.”“That’s why I ordered that the prosecution not use the word ‘victims,’” he said. “They were rioters. And they weren’t shot. They were ‘gadoinked.’ But that did not give my client an unfair advantage in any way.”Strong asked him, “Do you mean the defendant?”“Oh yeah, sure, I keep doing that,” Day replied.Strong brought out two liberal commentators, played by Chloe Fineman and Chris Redd, who saw the verdict from very different perspectives.“I was shocked,” Fineman said. (“You were?” Redd responded. “‘Cause I wasn’t.”)“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” she said. (“I have,” he answered. “Many, many times.”)“This is not who we are,” Fineman declared. (“I feel like it kind of is,” Redd answered.)The sketch also featured Alex Moffat as Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, in a brief sendup of the eight-hour speech he gave from Thursday night into Friday morning. Strong said of him, “And that brave man stopped the Build Back Better bill from being passed. Until the next day, when it passed in two minutes.”As in its previous iteration, the segment concluded with an appearance from James Austin Johnson as former President Donald J. Trump. He delivered a couple of free-association riffs on Chris Christie, Bill Maher, Dua Lipa and “Gossip Girl,” and boasted that he had “built it back even better.”“I did wall,” Johnson said. “Big, beautiful wall. But it’s not just wall, because when you put wall down through a grass field, frankly, that’s road. And if you take wall and lay it across the river, frankly, Jeanine, you are doing bridge.”Game Show Parody of the WeekWhat constitutes a Republican or Democratic viewpoint anymore? Efforts to answer that question may prove elusive but they at least provide “S.N.L.” with the foundations of this satirical game show titled “Republican or Not.”Hosted by Kenan Thompson, the show asks contestants played by Liu and Ego Nwodim to answer that question about panelists including Kyle Mooney, who says he hates cops and thinks Facebook is evil; Sarah Sherman, who says her favorite comic is Dave Chappelle; and Strong, who is playing Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. (“You are the Rachel Dolezal of the Republican Party,” Thompson told her. “We will see you on MSNBC in about a week.”)Fake Commercial of the WeekIf you’re short on supplies for an upcoming Thanksgiving feast in your household, Target has you covered: not just turkeys, sides and sauces but (in this “S.N.L.” commercial parody) the highly specific items you’ll need to placate the more challenging members of your family.That includes a football for your uncle who takes the outdoor pigskin game too seriously; motion sensors so your dirtbag cousin can smoke in the driveway; and toys for kids left unsupervised. However briefly, this sketch also provides Liu with one of his better roles for the night: an annoying boyfriend who will only eat Tofurkey because, as he explains, “I won’t eat anything with feathers anymore.” (Needless to say, he’s also extremely enthusiastic about crypto.)Music Video of the WeekPete Davidson has been famous for a while now but, as you may have noticed recently, he’s gotten really famous. This apparently affords him the clout to create oddities like this segment, a parody of the video for Marc Cohn’s 1991 hit single “Walking in Memphis,” reframed so that it’s about Davidson’s home borough of Staten Island.Instead of the Sun Records studio and a statue of Elvis Presley, Davidson’s take features appearances from Method Man and the real-life Cohn, as well as bagel stores, pizzerias and a strip club that possibly used to be a McDonald’s.Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the Rittenhouse trial as well as other political developments from the past weekJost began:Yesterday was a weird one for President Biden. He went under anesthesia for a colonoscopy and when he woke up, the House had passed a $2 trillion social safety-net bill. The Rittenhouse verdict was announced. And a woman had technically been president for the first time ever. And while Biden was processing all that, he was rushed off to pardon a turkey named Peanut Butter. I mean, come on, the guy just turned 79. Half the country already thinks he’s senile. You can’t drop all that on him the second he comes out of the gas. I honestly can’t believe how well it went. Remember David after the dentist? I’m surprised we didn’t get Biden after the colonoscopy.Che continued:On Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty in the murder of two men during a Black Lives Matter protest. So hopefully he got all that shooting out of his system before he becomes a cop. Protests are being held all around the country in response to the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse. Which is brave because Kyle Rittenhouse just got off for shooting protesters. I don’t know, maybe don’t tempt him?The Sketch About a Man’s Body With the Head and Neck of a DogHere it is, Dog Head Man. Have a happy Thanksgiving. More

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      The company that produced ‘Parasite’ has bought Endeavor’s scripted content arm.

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      The South Korean media conglomerate whose entertainment arm produced the winner of the 2019 Oscar for best picture, “Parasite,” has acquired a majority stake in the scripted arm of Endeavor Content, a subsidiary of the entertainment company Endeavor Group.Upon closure of the $775 million deal, which was announced late Thursday night, the South Korean conglomerate, CJ ENM, will own 80 percent of the business and the Endeavor Group 20 percent. The companies said they expected the deal to close in the first quarter of 2022.The Wall Street Journal reported the news earlier.“At the end of the day, CJ ENM strives to become a major global studio that encompasses content that appeals to a global audience — like this deal with Endeavor Content, we will continue to expand our presence in the global market,” Kang Ho-Sung, the conglomerate’s chief executive, said in a statement.Endeavor is being forced to reduce its ownership stake in its scripted content business as a result of a settlement this year with the Writers Guild of America, whose writers went on strike to protest what they saw as a conflict of interest at agencies that owned both talent representation businesses and production companies.Endeavor is not required to sell its unscripted assets and will maintain 100 percent ownership of that business.Endeavor Content was formed in 2017 by Graham Taylor and Chris Rice. Today, it calls itself a global film and television studio, and it has produced such projects as “Nine Perfect Strangers,” a Hulu mini-series starring Nicole Kidman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, “The Lost Daughter.” It owns a minority stake in Bruna Papandrea’s production company, Made Up Stories, in addition to PictureStart and Media Res.Mr. Taylor and Mr. Rice will remain co-chief executives of the new company.CJ has been expanding its foothold in Hollywood in recent years. Miky Lee, the vice chair of CJ Entertainment, the Hollywood arm of CJ ENM, rose to the national stage when she accepted the best picture Oscar for “Parasite,” but she was an industry player before then, nudging CJ toward Hollywood in the 1990s with a stake in DreamWorks. Most recently, she invested $100 million in David Ellison’s Skydance Media and was elected vice chair of the board of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.“Having known Miky Lee for more than 25 years, I’m confident that CJ ENM will be excellent stewards of the studio, accelerating and amplifying its projects on a global stage,” Ari Emanuel, the chief executive of Endeavor, said in a statement. More

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      Late Night Takes on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada BBQ, or Summit

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      “I think it’s nice that we’re friendly with our neighbors again,” Kimmel said of Biden’s meeting with leaders of Canada and Mexico.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.The Gang’s All HerePresident Biden met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico at the White House on Thursday to talk trade and other issues — in the return of meetings after a five-year hiatus during the Trump administration.“This is a traditional thing. It hasn’t been held since 2016 because — guess why?” Jimmy Kimmel said on Thursday night.“That’s right, when Trump was president, the regular meeting between the three leaders never happened. Now that it’s back, it’d be wild if the Mexican president was like, ‘Oh, and here’s a check for that wall.’” — JIMMY FALLON“I wish I could have seen Trump’s face when he found out Biden met with the president of Mexico at the White House. You know he was like: ‘Impossible! How’d he get through my wall? This doesn’t make any sense!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I think it’s nice that we’re friendly with our neighbors again. It’s like America’s abusive ex-boyfriend moved out, and we’re finally getting invited back to the barbecues in the neighborhood.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Of course, the leaders spent time talking about immigration. Biden complained about the number of Mexicans coming to America; Trudeau complained about the number of Americans coming to Canada.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, basically, Mexico and Canada heard all of America blasting Adele and wanted to check in on us.” — JIMMY FALLON“They called it the ‘Three Amigos Summit,’ which is still better than what Biden wanted to call it, which was ‘Meeting La Vida Loca.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Lose-Lose Situation Edition)“Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers isn’t the only N.F.L. quarterback who’s been holding out. Joe Flacco, of the New York Jets, revealed that he, too, is unvaccinated. Flacco told the media he doesn’t want to get into his reasoning because it would be a distraction to the team, and the most important thing is to focus on going out there and losing football games right now.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Of course, the main difference between this and the Aaron Rodgers story is Aaron Rodgers led everyone to believe he was vaccinated, and, also, no one cares about Joe Flacco.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“New York Jets quarterback Joe Flacco announced at a press conference yesterday that he is not vaccinated against the coronavirus and said that he ‘has his reasons.’ I mean, he’s a backup quarterback on the Jets — I assume his reason is that he’s ready to die.”— SETH MEYERS“That’s right, New York Jets quarterback Joe Flacco announced he’s not vaccinated against the coronavirus. But don’t worry about his teammates — it’s rare for the Jets to catch anything.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingJeff Goldblum sat down with Desus and Mero, and the actor ended up asking most of the questions.Also, Check This OutAlanis Morissette is the subject of the documentary “Jagged.”HBO/Music Box“Jagged” documents Alanis Morissette’s rise to fame with her hit 1995 album, “Jagged Little Pill.” More