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      ‘Succession’ Recap, Season 3, Episode 1: Action Stations, Let’s Go

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      In the Season 3 premiere, the Roys and their surrogates hustled to secure allies in the coming fight between father and son.Season 3, Episode 1: ‘Secession’The “Succession” Season 3 premiere opens with a shot of two helicopters speeding across the sky, with a stunning mountain landscape in the distance. It’s an immediate reminder of what this show is about: ridiculously rich people, rushing from one ritzy location to another, doing endless damage control while living the highest lives imaginable.For the rest of this episode, the Roy family and their inner circle of associates spend time in private jets, lavish apartments, luxury hotels, limousines and high-end offices, as they hustle to secure allies in the coming fight between the media conglomerate Waystar Royco’s CEO Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his rogue son Kendall (Jeremy Strong). Both factions know they have to project strength to win over the press, the public and the politicians. It matters what they wear, where they’re seen, and who they’re seen with. That’s why when the veteran Waystar fixer Hugo Baker (Fisher Stevens) meets the Roys at a private airport and tells them he’s secured “a nice room” to wait in, he immediately lowers their expectations and admits it’s not as nice as it probably should be.Given that the cleverly titled “Secession” is the first new “Succession” episode in nearly two years, it has a lot of work to do, getting viewers back up to speed on where we are in the story — all while reminding us why it’s such a treat to spend an hour each week with some of the most selfish, meanspirited characters in TV history. The show’s creator and head writer Jesse Armstrong, working alongside the most frequent “Succession” director Mark Mylod, doesn’t waste much time. This episode barrels forward, generating much of its tension and humor from the people who are on the periphery of Logan and Kendall’s feud and are scrambling to keep up.Kendall, for the most part, seems to have the upper hand at the moment. In the Season 2 finale, he dropped a bomb on Logan, revealing to the press that he had evidence — secured by his cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) — that the Waystar higher-ups had covered up sex-crimes committed by a longtime employee of their Brightstar cruise line. Relishing his moment in the spotlight, Ken has dozens of plans he wants to roll out immediately, to rebrand himself as the courageous whistle-blower putting an end to corporate sexism.With an increasingly befuddled Greg by his side, Kendall makes a flurry of phone calls and takes meeting after meeting, speaking a mile a minute while firing off long sentences filled with nigh-incomprehensible biz-speak. (One of Ken’s funniest character traits is how fluent he is in meaningless jargon like, “I need a clean jar,” and, “Just feed me metadata on anything that’s going to move the market on me, reputationally.”) He wants to write an “alternative corporate manifesto” in an op-ed for The New York Times. He wants to bring in “some BoJack guys” to make his Twitter feed a must-follow. And he wants to hire Lisa Arthur (Sanaa Lathan), a noted feminist attorney who makes old billionaires quake.Jeremy Strong, center, in the season premiere. Kendall still needs a clean jar.David M. Russell/HBOBut there are already signs that Kendall is overconfident and in over his head — besides his overreliance on Greg, who is supposed to be tracking his cousin’s media presence but so far can only figure out that Ken is out-trending “tater tots” on Twitter. Kendall’s most questionable decision this week sees him holing up at the home of his ex-wife Rava (Natalie Gold), insisting he needs the emotional grounding of seeing her and their kids, but also inviting his occasional girlfriend and drug buddy Naomi Pierce (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) to drop by.As for Logan, he drags his son-in-law Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) and Waystar veterans Frank Vernon (Peter Friedman) and Karl Muller (David Rasche) to a Sarajevo airport hotel, where he plots his own next moves while ducking any potential extradition. He refuses to be bled dry by this Brightstar scandal, which he sees as an opportunity for “chancers” who’ve suffered no real harm to siphon off his billions. Logan sounds the alarm with the pundits in Waystar’s pocket, warning them they’ll end up looking stupid if they turn on him now. And he surprises everyone — and gives this episode its title — by saying that he’s ready to take a step back and name someone else CEO.The problem? He has no good candidates. Karl volunteers and gets ridiculed. Frank sounds a meek “ahem” and Logan quickly says (correctly, given that Frank is in constant contact with Ken) that he’s untrustworthy, and that he’s as unimpressive as “mashed potatoes.” That leaves Logan’s sneakily ambitious daughter Siobhan (Sarah Snook), his anarchic jokester son Roman (Kieran Culkin), and his faithful counsel Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron). Whoever gets the job will be the face of Waystar during what looks to be a bloody skirmish over Brightstar; and they’ll only be a figurehead while Logan retains the real power. (“It’s nameplates,” he shrugs, as he asks his team to make his decision for him.)Shiv is probably the best choice, but she loses out after failing at the one assignment her father gives her: to sign her old friend Lisa Arthur as Waystar’s attorney before Kendall can. In one of the most genuinely emotional scenes in this episode, Shiv lays out her dilemma with Lisa, telling her honestly that she has no idea what anyone involved with Brightstar actually did, and that she needs an ally before she gets crushed between two men’s egos. Alas, Shiv has arrived at Lisa’s office a few hours late. Ken is moving too fast.Roman, meanwhile, is an early front-runner because he doesn’t mind hurting people or making them mad. (Asked what they should do about Kendall, Roman says, “This is not a nice thing to say about your son but maybe you chop him into a million pieces and toss him in the Hudson?”) But when he finds out Logan is considering him for CEO, he makes a disastrous — and hilarious — phone call, where he first asserts himself and then retreats, mentioning Gerri and saying he would understand if Logan thinks, “Maybe a couple of years under the wing of an older hen could see me crack out of the ol’ egg.” As soon as the call ends, Logan snaps, “Roman’s out.”So Gerri it is: competent, loyal, unremarkable Gerri. She has her own memorable phone call this week, ringing up the White House to remind the President’s people that an election is coming up and that they’ll need the support of Waystar’s right-wing cable news network ATN. Just as Kendall is a master of MBA bluster, so Gerri is good at sounding pleasant and conversational — “Do we want to get the old guys on the blower so they can just chat for five?” she cheerily asks her D.C. contact — while subtly delivering threats and digs.Gerri understands — as Logan does — that much of what’s happening here is a game. In fact, Logan gets offended by Kendall’s turn toward saintliness, because he thinks what his son did was “a play,” not a moment of righteous clarity. It’s telling that both these men tell their people to head to their “action stations” as the episode begins. But the ultimate victor may be the commander who thrives on all-out battle. Right now, Ken seems manic. And Logan? He hasn’t looked this alive in years.Alan Ruck and Justine Lupe in “Succession.”Graeme Hunter/HBODue DiligenceLast season’s subplot involving Connor and Willa’s flop play gets only a passing mention this week, as Connor suggests they try to recoup some of their money by embracing their terrible reviews, marketing the show to hipsters as a “hate-watch.” Poor Willa meekly agrees to letting her labor of love get reframed as camp trash. Such is the cost of doing business with the Roys.The implication at the end of this episode is that Shiv — stung by Lisa’s and Logan’s rejections — may be about to defect to the Kendall camp. If so, part of the blame belongs to Roman, who childishly mocks her for her losing streak, calling her to sing a song he made up: “Your friend doesn’t like you / boohoo boohoo / and Dad wants to fire you / woo-hoo.” (Shiv doesn’t know about this, but Roman also belittled her in his call with Logan, saying, “I love her like a brother,” then making one of his “nothing I say should ever be taken seriously” vocal squeaks.)In the list of the most difficult eras the Waystar executives have ever gotten through, Karl and Frank rattle off several major international crises and then end with “the black cloud after Sally Ann.” Remember Sally Ann, mentioned last season? With the horses? And the harp? If there’s ever a “Succession” prequel, it should take place exclusively in the era when Logan loved and lost this mysterious Sally Ann. More

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      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Takes on the N.F.L.’s Jon Gruden Scandal

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      An episode hosted by Rami Malek also featured appearances from his “No Time to Die” co-star Daniel Craig.You know an N.F.L. scandal has wide-reaching implications when it makes it as far as a “Saturday Night Live” opening sketch.This week, in an episode hosted by Rami Malek and featuring the musical guest Young Thug, “S.N.L.” led off with a segment about Jon Gruden, the former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, who stepped down on Monday. A New York Times report had detailed emails from Gruden that contained misogynist and homophobic remarks, following the disclosure of another email from him in which he used a racist stereotype to describe a Black union leader.The “S.N.L.” sketch made use of several members of the show’s cast — even Colin Jost, who’s rarely seen away from the Weekend Update desk, and who played the N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell.Speaking as Goodell, Jost said, “When you see me on TV, it’s never good. This time, one of our coaches is accused of racism, misogyny and homophobia. But hey, at least no one’s talking about concussions.”Jost added, “I assure you all 32 teams in our league understand that diversity is our strength. And I know our Black coaches would agree. Both of them.”He then introduced Gruden, who he said “got on his knees and begged, and you know how much I hate seeing someone kneel.”James Austin Johnson, a new cast member who is rapidly adding to his roster of impersonations, played Gruden with some prominent cheek prosthetics. “I hope you won’t judge me on one email I sent 10 years ago,” he said. “Or the 20 emails I sent last Tuesday.”Alex Moffat, wearing a closely cropped wig, played the Raiders owner Mark Davis. “We need to do better,” he said. “We need to, as I always tell my barber, aim higher.”The lineup also featured Pete Davidson as the team’s new coach. “It is an honor to take over this storied franchise and a real shame that I have to immediately resign,” he said. “They just found my emails, too, and they are so much worse than the old coach’s.”He was followed by Andrew Dismukes, playing an equipment manager, who just learned he’d been made coach and must now also resign because of his old tweets. “I never should have dressed up as Jackie Chan for Halloween,” he explained. “But 2019 was a different era.”Chris Redd as appeared as the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick. “So much stuff coming out about the NFL is maybe racist, kinda,” he said with a dramatic pause. “Huh. I wonder if anyone tried to warn people about this before.”Finally, Moffat said he’d found the perfect coach for the team — “someone even Twitter can get behind” — fan favorite LeVar Burton (played by Kenan Thompson).‘Squid Game’ Segment of the WeekIt was only a matter of time before “S.N.L.” took on “Squid Game,” the dystopian South Korean serial that’s become a widely watched hit on Netflix. The show came at it from a somewhat oblique angle in this country music video where Davidson and Malek start out singing about the unusual lengths they will go to in order to earn money. As the lyrics run:Yes I’m broke and it’s a damn shameGuess I gotta play the Squid GameYes I gotta play the Squid GameMy only option is the Squid GameHave a number not a real name‘Cause I’m playing in the Squid Game.You know what comes next, of course: masks, jumpsuits, and a giant talking doll leading a murderous round of Red Light, Green Light.Celebrity Overload of the WeekA satirical game show called “Celeb School” allowed several “S.N.L.” cast members to indulge in offbeat impressions of famous figures, including John Oliver (Mikey Day), Jennifer Coolidge (Chloe Fineman), Adam Driver (James Austin Johnson), Kristen Wiig (Melissa Villaseñor), George Takei (Bowen Yang) and Lil Wayne (Chris Redd). But its real achievement may be providing a platform for Pete Davidson to play Rami Malek and for Rami Malek to play Pete Davidson. (One of them nails the assignment, but in fairness he has an Academy Award.)If that’s too conceptual for you, there’s also this segment in which Malek and Thompson play themselves, competing for the role of Prince in a biopic directed by Jordan Peele (Redd). Stick around to the end and your reward is a cameo appearance from Daniel Craig, dressed as a Renaissance-era prince and air-guitaring the opening riff from “Kiss.” (Craig also appeared in a later sketch, playing an audience member at an unusual improvised musical performance.)Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, Jost and his co-anchor Michael Che riffed on President Biden and the latest challenges facing his legislative agenda.Jost began:The Biden administration’s climate plan is likely to be dropped from the budget bill after Senator Joe Manchin refused to support it. But you know what? I’m not going to let some bad climate news ruin this beautiful, 80-degree October day. Manchin, who’s from West Virginia, said he would only agree to Biden’s bill if it cuts clean energy and officially makes coal one of the five food groups.Che followed that up:A new report shows that President Biden is, on average, 22 minutes late for public events. Worse, he only does it to appeal to Black voters.Bowen Yang Sketches of the WeekIf you’ve felt like you haven’t seen enough Bowen Yang since he became a full member of the “S.N.L.” cast this season, this weekend’s episode made up for that in a big way.Yang got the spotlight first in a sketch about a middle school bug pageant, where he played a 7th grader cast as a feisty, fashionable daddy longlegs. (Asked how he traps his prey, Yang replied, “I slam my credit card down and say daddy’s got it.”)Yang later turned up at the Weekend Update desk, playing a gay Oompa Loompa who finds all the coverage of Timothée Chalamet’s “Wonka” movie to be “scrum-diddly-umptious,” but has not yet come out to his parents.“They live in Loompaland,” Yang explained to Jost. “It’s not as progressive as here. They, like, just got ‘Will & Grace.’” More

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      Succession Season 3: What You Need to Know From Season 2

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      Two years have passed since Season 2 ended, and the alliances and schemes were as layered as an insult from Roman Roy. Here’s a quick catch-up guide.Because of the pandemic, the HBO drama “Succession” has been on hiatus for two years. People who had never seen “Succession” when it racked up seven Emmys last year had plenty of time to catch up ahead of Season 3, which premieres on Sunday. But fans who haven’t seen an episode since the Season 2 finale aired — back in October 2019! — could maybe use a refresher.In that finale, the emotionally unstable corporate stooge Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) detonated a bomb under his family’s media empire, delivering damning evidence of a criminal cover-up at a news conference where he was supposed take the blame. It was an unforgettable cliffhanger, capping an eventful Season 2.Here’s a quick overview of what this show’s major characters and companies were up to before Kendall knocked everything askew.From left, Sarah Snook, Strong and Brian Cox in the Season 2 finale. Who will be the sacrificial lamb?Graeme Hunter/HBOWaystar RoycoThe show’s primary setting — and its main plot driver — is the media conglomerate Waystar Royco, a powerful corporation known primarily for its Fox-style conservative cable news channel, ATN. (The similarities to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation are, to put it mildly, intentional.) The company is also active in online media, publishing, entertainment, theme parks and cruise ships. Through the first two seasons, Waystar has been under attack from politicians and business rivals, and has been the target of multiple attempts at both negotiated mergers and hostile takeovers.In Season 2, news leaked that top Waystar executives had buried internal reports about a longtime associate in the company cruise line: Lester McClintock, nicknamed “Uncle Moe” (as in “moe-lester”). McClintock, now dead, had a history of sexual harassment and assault — and possibly murder. The scandal has led to embarrassing media investigations and congressional hearings. It’s what ultimately prompted Kendall to betray his father, Logan.Brian Cox as Logan Roy, in one of his quieter moments.Graeme Hunter/HBOLogan RoyIn the series’s first episode, Waystar’s irascible, monolithic, octogenarian founder, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), was felled by a stroke. The timing wasn’t great: He had just been about to announce a plan of succession, which would have seen him stick around as his company’s chief executive while his third wife, Marcia (Hiam Abbass), would have the power to name his eventual successor. The medical crisis set off a scramble, dividing the Roy children and Waystar’s inner circle of advisers.Logan recovered … sort of. (He has had multiple public moments of unprovoked fury and foggy memories since the stroke.) By the start of Season 2, he had called in enough favors and played enough on his family’s sympathies to bring most of his loved ones and his associates back together — although Kendall’s power-play in the Season 2 finale proved how tenuous that truce actually was.A complicated and volatile man, Logan had a childhood in Scotland marred by want and abuse. His relationship with his children and his underlings has been pretty raw at times, with Logan defaulting almost by habit to psychological manipulation and fits of rage. His capriciousness has tested his marriage to Marcia, who toward the end of last season grew frustrated by her husband’s rumored affair with Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter), a rival media magnate he tried — and failed — to sway into running Waystar.Strong with Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg, in a scene from the coming season.David M. Russell/HBOKendall and GregOne of the few members of the Roy family who seem genuinely excited by corporate jargon and robber baron blindsides, the longtime Logan loyalist Kendall rebelled in Season 1 after realizing that his father had no intention of naming him as next in line. He then orchestrated a plan to steal the company from his father before a relapse into substance abuse — culminating in a tragic car accident at his sister’s wedding — led a newly contrite Kendall back into the fold.In Season 2, Kendall settled into a role as Logan’s shameless hatchet-man, willing to humiliate himself and to eviscerate the undeserving to promote Waystar’s interests. But his dad’s demand that Kendall take the fall for the cruise ship scandal went a step too far, prompting him to pull the big switcheroo in the season finale’s climactic news conference.Kendall’s unlikely accomplice in that ambush is his cousin Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun), the grandson of Logan’s disapproving brother Ewan (James Cromwell). The gawky, bumbling Greg is a frequent target of the Roy family’s jokes and bullying — a fate that he accepts as a trade-off for access to their money, power and drugs. In Season 1, he smartly held onto some damning documents about Brightstar’s troubles, anticipating the moment when he could use them as leverage.That moment arrives after the family openly considers adding some “Greg sprinkles” to whomever they serve up on a platter to take the fall for the cruise fiasco. And after Kendall finds himself in need of a plan.Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook as Tom and Shiv, whose marriage is … very complicated.Zach Dilgard/HBOSiobhan and TomIt’s hard to say who in the Roy family has been most hurt by Kendall and Greg’s betrayal, but the situation is pretty dire for Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), the husband to Logan’s daughter, Siobhan (usually called Shiv, played by Sarah Snook). A former executive in Waystar’s parks and cruises division — and Greg’s immediate superior — Tom not only knew about Uncle Moe’s crimes but also helped in the cover-up.At the end of Season 1, Tom learned — on the day of his wedding, no less — that his then-fiancée, Shiv, wanted to have an open relationship. He suffered through that arrangement for most of Season 2 before finally admitting his unhappiness in the finale. A major part of Tom’s frustration has to do with his taking a thankless position at ATN in hopes of setting himself up for more responsibility down the line … only to find that Logan had secretly named Shiv as the big Waystar successor.As for Shiv, she quickly learned last season that her dad’s promise to let her take over was a ploy to keep his left-leaning feminist daughter under his control rather than allow her to cozy up to political enemies. As soon as Logan saw the potential advantage in setting up Rhea as the next in line, he let Shiv dangle. Ever since, his daughter has been staying publicly faithful while working behind the scenes to sabotage her rivals and get back onto Logan’s radar as a future Waystar boss.Roman and Gerri (Kieran Culkin and J. Smith-Cameron): also complicated.Peter Kramer/HBORoman and GerriThe Roy family’s unexpected Season 2 all-star was Logan’s youngest son, Roman (Kieran Culkin), a notorious cynic and an unapologetic slacker, who suddenly set out to prove to his father that he could make smart deals on Waystar’s behalf. While Kendall has wanted to lead the company into a new era and to protect his dad’s legacy, and while Shiv has wanted to distance Waystar from its toxic reputation, the incorrigible troll Roman relishes the idea of running a powerful organization that annoys a lot of people.Roman surprises even Logan by securing enough foreign money to take Waystar private — before advising his father to reject the deal and to try working with someone closer to the family’s political interests. For his industriousness, Roman is named Waystar’s sole chief operating officer (a position he previously shared with Kendall) in the Season 2 finale.Throughout this shift toward ambition and guile, Roman has been quietly assisted by Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron), a longtime Waystar lawyer who has worried often that her boss might throw her to the wolves to save himself. As she has whispered ideas in Roman’s ear, the two have developed a freaky quasi-sexual relationship, in which Gerri turns him on by playing the demanding mommy figure.Justine Lupe and Alan Ruck as the aspiring playwright Willa and the Roy brother from another mother, Connor.Zach Dilgard/HBOConnor (and company)Kendall, Shiv and Roman are Logan’s children from his second wife; but the siblings also have an older half brother, Connor (Alan Ruck). Connor has never been that active in the family business, opting instead to spend money and promote himself as a libertarian firebrand.In Season 2, these hobbies create headaches for Logan. Connor announces a run for president of the United States, arguing for free market reforms that wouldn’t serve Waystar’s interests. At the same time, he pours much of his fortune into the Broadway dreams of his ex-sex-worker girlfriend, Willa (Justine Lupe), who has written a flop play. Logan handles both of these problems at once, agreeing to cover his son’s showbiz losses in return for his dropping the presidential campaign.Connor is a minor “Succession” character compared to some; but while this show’s cast is huge, the creator Jesse Armstrong has had a long-term narrative use for nearly everyone. A case in point is Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed), who was introduced in Season 1 as an old friend of Kendall’s with enough money to help get Waystar out a financial jam; he has since become a pesky enemy, determined to hold onto his stake in the company and to outlast the Roys on the board.Anyone could end up being a power-player in “Succession” Season 3. This is a show where loyalties shift overnight, and no grudge is forgotten. More

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      Gadsby and Netflix Employees Pressure Executive Over Dave Chappelle Special

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      Tensions at Netflix continued to flare on Friday, 10 days after the release of a special by the comedian Dave Chappelle that critics inside and outside the company have described as promoting bigotry against transgender people.Early on Friday, a Netflix star criticized the company and Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive, in a stinging social media post. Later in the day, Netflix said it had fired an employee for sharing documents related to Mr. Chappelle with a reporter, and Mr. Sarandos fielded pointed questions from employees during a companywide virtual meeting.In a rare public rebuke, the Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby upbraided Mr. Sarandos by name for his defense of Mr. Chappelle. Ms. Gadsby, whose 2017 Netflix special, “Nanette,” earned an Emmy and a Peabody Award, is the most prominent entertainer to criticize Mr. Sarandos and Netflix, which she referred to in an Instagram post as an “amoral algorithm cult.”Mr. Sarandos and Netflix’s other co-chief, Reed Hastings, have been unwavering in their support of Mr. Chappelle, who signed a lucrative multiyear deal with the company in 2016 and has won Emmys and Grammys for his Netflix work. In a note this week, Mr. Sarandos countered the arguments of Netflix staff members who had suggested that Mr. Chappelle’s special, “The Closer,” could lead to violence against transgender people, writing that he had the “strong belief that content on-screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.”Mr. Sarandos, who joined Netflix two decades ago and became its co-chief executive last year, also said that the company would go to great lengths to “ensure marginalized communities aren’t defined by a single story.” He cited inclusive Netflix programs like “Sex Education” and “Orange Is the New Black” as well as Ms. Gadsby’s specials, which also include “Douglas,” released in 2020.In her social media post on Friday, Ms. Gadsby, who is a lesbian, objected to the executive’s references to her in his defense of the company and Mr. Chappelle’s special.Hannah Gadsby, whose Netflix specials were critical and popular successes, called the company “amoral” in a social media post on Friday.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Hey Ted Sarandos!” Ms. Gadsby wrote. “Just a quick note to let you know that I would prefer if you didn’t drag my name into your mess. Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle’s fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial world view.”She continued: “You didn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with the real world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge, Ted.”Netflix declined to comment on Ms. Gadsby’s remarks.At a virtual company meeting that started at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, Mr. Sarandos replied to a series of tough questions from employees, who asked about Mr. Chappelle’s special and how the company had responded to criticisms of it, according to three people with knowledge of the gathering. The event became emotional when several employees were persistent in their questioning of Mr. Sarandos and his support for someone who they feel engages in hate speech, the people said.After the meeting, Netflix said in a statement that an employee had been fired for sharing internal documents pertaining to Mr. Chappelle with the press.“We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” the statement said. “We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company.”The documents included private financial information regarding Mr. Chappelle’s Netflix specials that were published this week by Bloomberg, according to a person with knowledge of the termination. The documents included the costs for the specials — $24.1 million for “The Closer” and $23.6 million for Mr. Chappelle’s previous special, “Sticks & Stones” — as well as an internal metric that determines the value of the specials relative to their budgets.Such data is available to Netflix staff but rarely made public. The appearance of the statistics in a published article is a further sign of how deep the schism is between some Netflix employees and company leadership.Several organizations, including GLAAD, which monitors the news media and entertainment companies for bias against the L.G.B.T.Q. community, have criticized Mr. Chappelle’s special as transphobic. A group of Netflix workers has planned a walkout for next week in protest.Nicole Sperling More

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      Dave Chappelle Isn’t Canceled. He Just Likes to Talk About It.

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      In Netflix’s “The Closer,” he returns to views about transgender people that drew anger in his last special. With his popularity partly built on courting outrage, it’s no surprise he’s doubling down.The first time Dave Chappelle wanted to quit a TV show, he didn’t do it. After shooting the pilot of his soon-to-be-forgotten 1996 ABC sitcom, “Buddies,” an amiable comedy about an interracial friendship, the network fired his co-star Jim Breuer, which led Chappelle to tell his manager he wanted to quit.He was talked out of it, and the show got poor reviews and was canceled after five episodes. When I interviewed one of the co-creators, Matt Williams, several years ago for an e-book about Chappelle, he told me he wished he had built more conflict between the leads. “Then you could capitalize on the charisma of Chappelle,” he said. “But he was different then. He was impish. He was playful, innocent. No danger.”As controversy boils over Chappelle’s latest special, “The Closer,” I have been thinking about what lessons he might have learned from this early failure. At Comedy Central, he famously did quit and returned with a new mystique. In his current incarnation, he leans hard into conflict, and part of his enduring popularity is his ability to manufacture a sense of danger.In his last special, “Sticks and Stones,” Chappelle took aim at the audience and cancel culture, made many jokes about transgender people and defended Kevin Hart, who had lost the job of hosting the Oscars because of protests over old homophobic tweets. Chappelle earned backlash, negative reviews and the sympathies of the right-wing media, which has become invested in issues of comedy and free speech in the Trump era.OK, so what did Dave Chappelle do for his next act? Take aim at cancel culture, mock trans people and bring up the same trans friend he mentioned in the last special. By the time he defends Hart again (even if losing the Oscars was the worst injustice known to man, does it deserve two specials’ worth of protest?), you might be feeling a sense of déjà vu.A few days before “The Closer” premiered, Chappelle predicted he would be canceled; a few days later, he appeared at the Hollywood Bowl at the premiere of his new documentary and talked again about being canceled. The fact that no one thinks Dave Chappelle will be canceled, whatever that means to you, is beside the point.This rollout was a performance of danger. Of course, what is dangerous is an open question. “The Closer” courts outrage with dopey attacks on #MeToo, and jokes linking Asian people to Covid, but mostly with the subject he has been fixated on for years: transgender people.When Jaclyn Moore, a showrunner for the Netflix series “Dear White People,” announced she would no longer work with the company while it produces “dangerously transphobic content,” the statement was a reference to the numbers of hate crimes against transgender people and the statistics about mental health and suicide.There is a tendency these days to quickly conflate language and violence in discussions about controversial art, especially comedy. A punchline, even an offensive one, is not the same as a punch. And yet, it’s hard to imagine that anyone who has attended middle school (or seen a Martin Scorsese film) would not understand that jokes can contribute to a culture of bullying and abuse.In defending Chappelle, Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix, waded into the issue of the consequences of cruel jokes by arguing that he doesn’t believe there is a relationship between art and harm. It’s a rickety platform to stand on when your company consistently puts out work that hopes to raise awareness, increase representation or move the culture. If art can do good for the world, then isn’t it possible the reverse could be true?The fallout from “The Closer” is in some ways the most interesting thing about the special. A group of trans employees has planned a walkout on Wednesday to protest. And anger within Netflix led to a rare and fascinating leak of internal viewing numbers, revealing just how little we understand success in the era of minimal transparency by entertainment companies. According to Bloomberg, based on Netflix’s measurement of efficiency, which balances a show’s reach with its price tag, Bo Burnham’s “Inside” (which earned the comic $3.9 million) performed significantly better than “The Closer” (which cost $24.1 million).Chappelle remains a gifted yarn-spinner who shifts from gravitas to irreverence as deftly as anyone. But judged purely by originality and construction of jokes, he’s a star in decline. There are some startlingly hack jokes, like a well-worn one about Mike Pence’s sexuality, and others about pedophilia and Covid that badly need the shock of offensiveness to make an impact.Why has he been so fixated on transgender people for so many years now? It may be that he believes deeply that gender is a fact. Maybe he passionately wants to let us know he’s “Team TERF,” as he says in “The Closer” — an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Neither of those points come with punch lines. It could also be that he sees pushing these hot buttons as the easiest way to make a big fuss.One of the major developments in comedy over the past decade has been the rise of comics animated by opposition to left-wing dogma and cancel culture. I have seen struggling comics boost their careers by pivoting right — or, more precisely, anti-left. There’s no question that there is a market for it. While he has lost some fans, Chappelle is a hero to this group now. In middle age, Chappelle acts less like a comic and more like a pundit. He’s far more comfortable than most of his peers in going long stretches without jokes. His recent monologues about George Floyd and the way streaming services have not compensated him for showing his sketch show were both righteous and largely without humor.In 2006, after he left “Chappelle’s Show,” which made better arguments that jokes should be able to punch in any direction than anything he says in these specials, he proclaimed in an interview, “I feel like I’m going to be some kind of parable.” Then he said he was going to be either a legend or a tragic story.Give Chappelle credit for this: In a climate in which people seem to get more excited about culture wars than culture, he has figured out a way to be both.Still, I suspect the long-term impact of the last few specials will not flatter his reputation. Comedy moves fast. And right now, there are more funny transgender stand-ups getting hours ready at comedy shows in the city than ever before. The legacy of “The Closer” might be less in the jokes it makes than in the ones it inspires. More

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      Penn Badgley Flexes New Dance Moves

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      The former “Gossip Girl” star returns in the third season of the Netflix thriller “You.”“It feels good,” the actor Penn Badgley said on a recent Friday morning, in an echoing studio at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn. “I’m clumsy as hell. But it feels good.”Mr. Badgley, 34, who played lonely boy Dan on the original “Gossip Girl” and now stars on the Netflix thriller “You,” hadn’t visited a gym in two years. He hadn’t taken a dance class in far longer.But at a fashion shoot a month before, he had found himself moving in tandem with the photographer and missing dance acutely. So he reached out to Mr. Zachery, his gyrotonics instructor and the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group, a contemporary dance company in Brooklyn. Mr. Zachery was willing to put him through his paces.In the yawning dance studio, mirrors lined one wall. Ice-white tube lights glared overhead. Mr. Badgley had dressed for class in a villain-black T-shirt and shorts. A luxurious dad beard and a corona of mink-brown hair framed his face.They began with a warm-up: stretches, lunges, isolations of the neck, shoulders, chest and hips. Roy Ayers’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” set the groove; Mr. Badgley, his brooding face etched into a frown, inhaled and exhaled in time, rolling his spine down and up.Mr. Zachery integrated the stretches into a simple routine, and Mr. Badgley lumbering and somewhat stiff, like a bear who hadn’t fully shaken off hibernation, danced his way through the initial eight count, then repeated the steps again.“All right, not bad,” Mr. Zachery said encouragingly. “You want to go a little faster?”Mr. Badgley paused to tie his hair back with a blue-and-white bandanna. He asked to take it slow again. “As much as I love to move and I love to dance, it’s not a language that I speak regularly at all,” he said. “So even just getting into this feels great. But it also feels very clumsy.”Mr. Zachery reassured him, gently countering Mr. Badgley’s perfectionism. “Be imperfect with this,” he said.As Mr. Zachery prepared the next combination, the track switched to Donny Hathaway’s “The Ghetto,” and Mr. Badgley’s face stern face split into a smile. “This is one of my kid’s favorite songs,” Mr. Badgley said. “He loves classic soul.”Last summer, Mr. Badgley and his wife, Domino Kirke, welcomed a son, James. (They also share custody of Ms. Kirke’s son from an earlier relationship.) On “You,” Mr. Badgley plays Joe, the sociopath next door. Joe has also had a son with his wife, Love (Victoria Pedretti), who has a body count of her very own.“I wouldn’t recommend fame to anybody,” Mr. Badgely said of his early success from “Gossip Girl.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York TimesIn the third season, which premieres on Oct. 15, Joe muses about his new life in a Bay Area suburb. “Me, a boy and his mom, who is usually great, but occasionally murders people with her bare hands,” Joe says. “What could go wrong?” A lot, it turns out.Mr. Badgley has some experience playing characters with dark motives. The final episodes of “Gossip Girl” revealed that Dan, the Deuxmoi of his day, had surveilled his friends and lovers, uploading their secrets to the pre-Instagram internet.Making the show was, as Mr. Badgley described it, “an existential endurance test.” As a 20-something, he struggled with the glitzy ethos of the series. Fans’ failure to differentiate between him and Dan nagged at him, too. “I wouldn’t recommend fame to anybody,” he said. “It just doesn’t make anything better or help it make more sense. It doesn’t help you as a person.”When “Gossip Girl” ended in 2012, he spent half of a decade shooting indie movies and touring with his band, MOTHXR. He wasn’t sure he wanted to return to mainstream TV and he had further doubts about Joe, a character who imprisons, tortures and kills women (and the occasional interfering man), all in the name of true love. Boy gets girl? Absolutely.Still, he thought that “You” had something to say about the tropes of romantic love and the queasy nexus of desire, power and abuse. Many viewers responded a lot more swoonily and for a while Mr. Badgley took time to razz fans asking to be kidnapped. (“No thx,” he replied.) Now he tries to focus on the work itself, which he likens to a dance, “a torturous and ugly dance.”Back in the studio, Mr. Badgley was trying to dance more beautifully. He can become overwhelmed by his own thoughts, he said, so Mr. Zachery introduced a guided meditation, occupying Mr. Badgley’s mind so that his body could move more freely.As Robert Glasper’s cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” played, he had Mr. Badgley imagine himself at the beach, his body buoyed by the waves. They also played a game of avant-garde Twister, in which had Mr. Badgley had to keep either both hands and one foot on the floor, or both feet and one hand.“Yo, man,” Mr. Zachery said approvingly. “You’re actually more in your body than you think.”Finally, at a suggestion from Mr. Badgley, he switched the music to “Promises,” a mellow album form Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra. The two men began to move across the floor together, limbs slowly cartwheeling as they improvised. Politely, Mr. Badgley asked to turn the music up.“Now we’re dancing,” he said, back arched, head tipped back, arms like wings. “It feels so good.” More

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      Late Night Isn’t Threatened by Trump’s Latest Stunt

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      This week, Donald Trump said Republicans should not be voting in the 2022 or 2024 elections. “Wow, he’s been out of office so long, he’s forgotten how threats work,” Seth Meyers said.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.Is That a Threat?In a written statement this week, Donald J. Trump said Republicans would not be voting in the 2022 or 2024 elections.“Wow, he’s been out of office so long, he’s forgotten how threats work,” Seth Meyers said in his opening monologue Thursday.“That’s right, Trump is urging Republicans not to vote in the midterm elections unless the ‘fraud of the 2020 elections’ is uncovered, but for some reason, the thought of only Democrats voting still isn’t reassuring to me.” — SETH MEYERS“I do like that Trump is constantly making life difficult for Republicans who just want to use him to win power. Sorry, you guys bought a ticket on this train wreck, and now you can’t get off.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Election Fraud Edition)“In a new statement, former President Trump is suggesting that unless the issue of election fraud is addressed, Republicans should not vote in 2024. Democrats heard and were like, ‘Let’s get this guy back on Twitter.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Did Nancy Pelosi write this for him?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It seems like he’s telling Republicans not to vote. And of course, this brings up the age-old question, how do you solve a problem you made up?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Thursday’s “The Daily Show,” Trevor Noah looked into why no one wants a job anymore.Also, Check This OutBrian Cox in the new season of “Succession” premiering Sunday on HBO.Graeme Hunter/HBO“Succession” returns this Sunday for Season 3, in which the Roys resemble wealth more than they do real people. More

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      Bill Cosby Is Sued; Woman Says He Sexually Assaulted Her in 1990

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      The suit was filed under a change in New Jersey law that extended the deadline to sue in cases involving allegations of sexual assault.A woman sued Bill Cosby in New Jersey on Thursday, accusing the entertainer of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Atlantic City in 1990, when she was 26.The woman, Lili Bernard, now 57, an actor and visual artist, has long been public about her accusations against Mr. Cosby. She was able to file the suit because New Jersey overhauled its laws on the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases in 2019.Under the old laws, Ms. Bernard would have been time-barred from filing suit because lawsuits had to be filed within two years of the alleged assault. The reforms extended the time limit to seven years and created a special two-year window, ending next month, to bring cases regardless of how long ago the alleged assault might have occurred.Ms. Bernard, a former guest star on “The Cosby Show,” said in court papers that Mr. Cosby had acted as her mentor before an incident in which she said he drugged and raped her at the hotel, the Trump Taj Mahal. She began to feel dizzy after drinking something he gave her, she said in the court papers.“I have waited a long time to be able to pursue my case in court and I look forward to being heard and to hold Cosby accountable for what he did to me,” she said in a statement. “Although it occurred long ago, I still live with the fear, pain and shame every day of my life.”The suit comes more than three months after Mr. Cosby, 84, was freed from prison in Pennsylvania where he was serving a three-to-10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting another woman, Andrea Constand. The 2018 conviction was overturned by the state’s Supreme Court on due process grounds.In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, denied Ms. Bernard’s allegations and attacked the so-called “look back” reforms.“These look back provisions are unconstitutional and they are a sheer violation of an individual’s Constitutional Rights and denies that individual of their Due Process,” he said in a statement. “This is just another attempt to abuse the legal process, by opening up the flood gates for people, who never presented an ounce of evidence, proof, truth and/or facts, in order to substantiate their alleged allegations.”The suit against Bill Cosby was based on a change in New Jersey law that expanded the statute of limitations governing lawsuits in cases involving allegations of sexual assault.Dominick Reuter/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Wyatt said that in 2015 Ms. Bernard had made a criminal complaint to the New Jersey authorities who decided against moving forward with the case. Lawyers for Ms. Bernard said she was told her complaint fell outside the criminal statute of limitations.New Jersey eliminated the criminal statute of limitations for most cases of sexual assault in 1996.More than 50 women have accused Mr. Cosby of a range of sexual assault and misconduct, including rape. Ms. Constand’s case was the only one that proceeded criminally and other women have said their efforts to sue Mr. Cosby on sexual assault grounds have been blocked by statutes of limitation.Ms. Bernard had lobbied for changes in California’s laws on sexual assault, joining legislative efforts by other women who had similarly accused Mr. Cosby. More