First of all, thanks to all you new subscribers. I am one week into this, having a ball, and truly touched so many friends are here.
The Red White and Royal Blue trailer dropped on Thursday, just in time to cure my depression.


It’s hilarious, it’s a little stilted, and it’s way too much of Uma Thurman’s southern accent, but it’s here. Was that a glimpse of Stephen Fry?! I am obsessed!
I am so pleased that in my lifetime, the adolescent fantasy of what if the son of the first female president and the Prince of England banged fell in love? is now considered a legitimate premise for a real movie anyone can see. This is the kind of enemies-to-lovers romance that baby freaks like me were reading and writing 20 years ago, never imagining that the world would someday evolve enough for someone to put up money (!) to hire hot actors (!!) to kiss (!!!) for fun (!!!!). We did it, Joe.
In the spirit of honesty, I did not totally love this book the first time I read it. And then I read it approximately five more times. I will probably listen to the audiobook again on my next flight. I owe Casey McQuiston a personal apology for ever doubting the addictive sway of the romance genre.
Red, White, and Royal Blue eventually charmed the pants off of me with its fantasy of what would happen if everyone in the free world cared about your love life. This movie is going to be nothing if not a good time, and we all really deserve a good time. Believe me, when it drops on August 11, it’s going to be HUGE. You are going to be hearing about this movie, whether or not you want to, for months (and not just from me). It has everything: politics, karaoke, James Bond, a giant set piece with a cake… Who doesn’t want to live in an alternate universe where the First Son tops makes sweet, gentle love to the Prince of Wales? I want to go to there.
I will not shut up about Good Omens’ wildly unnecessary second season.
As my wholly-uninterested friend Oona reminded me, Good Omens is only fun for people who already care about Neil Gaiman, Doctor Who, or interfaith marriages (of which I am a product). I didn’t think season one was great or even remotely intelligible, but I would watch Michael Sheen and David Tennant in anything (and I have).
In high school, my friend Alessandra loaned me a copy of the children’s book upon which the Amazon show is based, correctly predicting that it would become a lifelong obsession (apocalypse fiction for kids with a refreshingly Jewish sense of humor? Yes please). For the uninitiated, the first season was about an angel and a demon uniting to save the world. The season two trailer is pure fanservice, and I am entirely here for it.
And if Good Omens is just not your jam, then I wholeheartedly recommend Staged, starring Sheen and Tennant as themselves, which mines the same chemistry between the actors but manages to have a coherent plot. The three-series mockumentary show (available on BritBox) started during the darkest days of the pandemic and was produced by Tennant’s hot wife Georgia (who calls her children #vaginabrags). Staged is the superior art, but Good Omens is the raison d'etre for Staged, and respect must be paid.
Word on the Google is that all episodes of Good Omens will drop on July 28, so catch the fans (me) kvelling on main all this month, especially with ComicCon hitting San Diego the week beforehand. If you like goofy sci-fi logic and relentless double entendres, come sit by me.
The series finale of The Other Two did the thing.


If you haven’t yet watched The Other Two, the good news is that it’s now completed a brilliant, hilarious, and biting thirty-episode run. You can watch it on the rebranded Max, née HBO. It will make you laugh and it will make you think less of Hollywood, which is probably very healthy for us all. Molly Shannon will shatter your heart, and Ken Marino remains the GOAT at playing pathetic men I would 100% sleep with.
Its series finale aired right at the close of Pride month, which seemed appropriate given its popularity among the gays and the people who love them. Speaking of which, I am president of the Brandon Scott Jones fan club.
What would have been a triumphant ending felt a little sullied by allegations of bad behavior on the part of the showrunners that broke the same week as the last episode dropped. (This news was difficult to metabolize by those of us who think self-awareness should count as self-improvement.)
At any rate, I loved The Other Two so much, I’ve resorted to groveling to get friends to watch it.
Other things I’m obsessed with this week:





The chocolate walnut monkey bread at Bottega Louie, if you’re in L.A., has gotten me through some truly tough days this summer.
On July 13, my favorite pansexual vampires return for Season 5 of the FX series What We Do in the Shadows. Will Nandor get laid? Will Harvey Guillén finally get an Emmy? Will showrunner Stefani Robinson get hers? No, but that’s only because the academy does not respect a sitcom with actual jokes.
Because I love my friend Molly, I am (belatedly) delving into the memoirs of Anthony Bourdain with Medium Raw. I may be too vegetarian for this man.
Gender Playground, a new podcast about kids and gender, is out now from Witch Please Productions, aka where my sister Hannah works. I found the pilot challenging in the best way, and I can’t wait for the next installment.
I’ll be home in Chicago next week, and I’ll be seeing theeee Judy Greer at Theeee Steppenwolf Theatre (where I myself was an intern in my misbegotten youth) in a play called Another Marriage. No idea what that could be about, but I am very excited!
If this is still not your thing, or if you want to see what convinced me to create my own Substack, I recommend more of my friends: Atty Blatt’s Pen Pals! and Niki Firanek’s perhaps-on-hiatus VERY INTO, both direct inspirations.
See you next week!