Oh man, I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time. The Boiled Leather Audio Hour podcast’s “Best of A Song of Ice and Fire” series resumes as Stefan Sasse and I take a look at Septon Meribald’s monologue from A Feast for Crows, my favorite passage in the whole series. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!

So yeah, I worry that the show’s eyes are too big for its stomach. You can really feel the creakiness around some of these storylines, and because of their sheer number and variety, the creaky storylines are going to vary from viewer to viewer. Some people don’t give a shit about the survival horror or the supernatural stuff, while for others that’s the main draw. Some don’t care about the adult stuff compared to the teenage stuff, while for others the draw of the legendary ‘90s stars as grownups will outweigh the young unknowns. Some will like the comedic bits, some will think they’re in the way. Everyone will find certain characters more compelling than others. Everyone will prefer certain casting decisions (Lauren Ambrose as Van is dynamite) to others (Simone Kessell has none of her younger counterpart Courtney Eaton’s damaged, blank-eyed magnetism as Lottie). Some people adore the big obvious ‘90s needledrops (4 Non Blondes! Danzig!), while others think the whole I Love the ‘90s thing is, ahem, overblown. 

Me, I found myself spending a lot of time thinking I wish the hyperactive score by Theodore Shapiro, Craig Wedren, and Anna Waronker would just shut the fuck up for a few minutes, allowing the tension, the dread, the quiet isolation of the woods to build. And that’s a decent stand-in for my problem with the whole thing. Pare back. Let stuff breathe. Let stuff be.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Yellowjackets Season Two for Decider.

In all honesty, I prefer being a little bit confused. Elliot is what Beverly and Genevieve’s relationship has been about from the start — Genevieve says so herself. She’s what Beverly’s whole life has been about from the start — as the younger sister she has never known a second of life outside the womb without the other. Even when they’re apart Ellie is the constant buzzing of an unanswered phone, everywhere, at all times, inescapable, even in the audience you just want to turn the goddamned thing off it’s so fucking anxiety-inducing, but you can’t any more than she can. She seeps through cracks, around corners, over boundaries, until she’s all that’s left. If that clouds how we read the actions of the women closest to her, Beverly and Genevieve and Rebecca, well, that’s Elliot for you.

Even on a narrative level, the Mantle twins cannot be separated. After watching this exceptional show, I’m going to have a hard time separating them from me.

I reviewed the finale of Dead Ringers for Decider. Holy shit, what a show.

With only one episode to go, there’s no sign Dead Ringers is content to keep its head down and its guard up during the final rounds. Nope, it looks like this is a show that’s swinging haymakers until the final bell rings.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Dead Ringers for Decider.

All told, despite being the least spectacular of the show’s episodes to date, it’s the most momentous. So much has been dragged out into the light, with the promise of more life-upending revelations to come. The episode begins with an exterior shot of the twins’ nightmarish birthing and research center, but I suspect the Center cannot hold.

I reviewed episode four of Dead Ringers for Decider.

It all goes to what Agnes, the woman who lives in the alley outside the Mantles’ apartment and who storms the place after Ellie rains down debris on her from several stories up, says to Elliot in her fucking unbelievable rant on the rooftop. There’s really no way I can overstate what writer Rachel De-Lahay and actor Susan Blommaert accomplish here; it’s like watching some swift, muscular predator with claws the size of your middle finger tear a slow-moving gazelle to shreds. 

I reviewed episode three of Dead Ringers for Decider.

How good is Dead Ringers the TV show? I’ll tell you how good it is: While watching this second episode of the show, the first comparisons that sprang to my mind were Mad Men and The Terror. The two shows with the most precise, lacerating dialogue and character work in the past 15 years? Two shows obsessed with class, status, and the creation and severing of intimacy? Two shows with absurdly stacked casts of actors given their best material ever? Two shows that had me dying to see what happened next with every episode? That’s probably a good sign for Dead Ringers, right? 

I reviewed the incredible second episode of Dead Ringers, featuring one of the very best television scenes ever aired, for Decider.

Smartly, savagely adapted by Alice Birch from the David Cronenberg film of the same name (co-written by Cronenberg and Norman Snider) — itself adapted from the novel Twins, by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, which was adapted in turn from the true story of twin gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus — Dead Ringers is part of a wave of reimagined erotic ‘80s classics, including Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction and Netflix’s Damage update Obsession. This one, though, comes with a massive mainline injection of what I like to call “the high weirdness” — the spectacle and perversity that’s the stuff of great art.

I reviewed the first episode of Prime Video’s extraordinary remake of Dead Ringers for Decider.

As a final side note, and speaking as a very lapsed Catholic, I’m also grateful for how this enables the show to sidestep a nagging question: Why become a nun, of all things? Without getting into the weeds about it, the Catholic Church’s actions and beliefs are real things that have had real pernicious effects in the real world. Yes, it’s fun to watch a beautiful woman in a nun’s habit ride motorcycles and kick ass, but it’s less fun when you consider what the church she belongs to believes in and/or has covered up. Lindelof already played fast and loose with a problematic institution, policing in the United States, to the detriment of Watchmen; I’m happy to see him and his colleagues write their way out of doing something similar this time around by making Simone’s commitment romantic rather than ideological in nature.

I reviewed the third and fourth episodes of Mrs. Davis for Vulture.

I wish Mrs. Davis had the courage to just be the thing, not be a thing about being the thing.

I’m covering Mrs. Davis, the new series co-created by Damon Lindelof, for Vulture, starting with my review of the first two episodes.

Della is doubly marginalized, in that she’s both a woman and queer. Even as she’s fighting not to be dismissed by men, she’s still keeping a major part of her life a secret.

Yes. It’s strange: When I take on a character, there are certain things I decide about how I want to play them, and then there’s a whole other element where the character arrives with you in ways you didn’t expect. That dichotomy, that conflict — Della of needing to be seen and also needing to hide — is a fascinating element of her that I really only became aware of maybe four or five episodes into season one.

I kept thinking, “Why am I being quiet in this scene? Why am I pushing to be seen, and in the next moment, I’m trying to hide?” Then you become aware of those two things. With only three percent of lawyers in L.A. at that time being women, while being discovered as a gay woman would have meant arrest, loss of her profession, disgrace … Della’s pushing and pushing to be seen, then constantly on the back foot, hiding and being careful not to draw too much attention to herself.

It’s not something that feels very natural to me. She and I are very different. I’m quite a free spirit, very much myself, and don’t mind being sort of out there, yet she’s constantly walking this tightrope. That whole dichotomy gave Della her own life, really. It creates a conflict within her which I love exploring.

I interviewed Perry Mason‘s Juliet Rylance for Vulture!!! Ahem, I mean, I interviewed Perry Mason‘s Juliet Rylance for Vulture.

Perry’s not especially charismatic, as was Raymond Burr’s interpretation of the character back in the day. God knows he’s not very pleasant to be around, either. But he is unimpeachably dedicated to justice, which he’s determined to serve by any means necessary. No wonder this show is such a delight to watch! We all need a little Perry right this now.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

The other organizers of NYTLetter.com and I have released a final statement on our exchange with Times leadership regarding its coverage of trans people. It can be read here. Thank you for your support.

I can’t remember the last time I shouted at the screen as much as I did during this episode of “Perry Mason.” I’m not kidding: I was hooting and hollering for what seemed like half the duration of this week’s installment. It didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped in the end, of course. But in the meantime? What a rush!

I reviewed the sixth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

There’s a scene in this episode of Yellowjackets (Season 2, Episode 4) where teenage Taissa and Van are wandering around a narrow patch of woods, the same patch they’ve spent the whole day exploring. They’re searching for another tree with that now-familiar symbol carved into it, because Taissa has discovered a double-digit number of them while sleepwalking. Van has mapped their locations out and discovered that, when the dots are connected, they’re arranged in the shape of that same symbol. So there’s gotta be one last tree in this specific area in order to complete the pattern, there’s just gotta be! But try as they might, they can’t finish the picture. 

Okay, fine — they discover Travis’s long-lost kid brother Javi, mute but otherwise miraculously unharmed after months in the freezing wilderness, giving Van the proof she needs that Taissa, like Lottie, is psychically attuned to…whatever it is that’s going on out there. But shhhh, I’m trying to make a point here, which is this: Like the map that drove Taissa and Van’s seemingly pointless search for the missing symbol, I feel like Yellowjackets is an incomplete picture. I keep seeing what it’s supposed to be, recognizing exactly where it needs to go to fully flesh things out and become what it’s meant to become, but dammit, it never quite connects that last dot.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Yellowjackets season two for Decider.

I’m a broken record on this point, I realize, but good gravy, the lighting in this show. This time we can credit the director, Marialy Rivas, and the director of photography, Eliot Rockett, for the way Perry’s cigarette smoke obscures his face as light streams through his blinds; for the near-blinding morning light that similarly illuminates Milligan’s office when Pete pays his fateful visit; for the cold blue-gray glow of the small hours when Paul staggers in from the beatdown Perkins forces him to deliver, a smart, stark divergence from the lighting scheme of pretty much every other scene.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

On Yellowjackets, the present-day material functions like training wheels. Interested in a survival-horror story about cannibalistic ‘90s teenage girls lost in a haunted no-man’s-land, but afraid things might get too spooky and you’ll fall and scrape your psychological knees? Don’t worry! The comedic shenanigans of present-day Shauna, Misty, and Natalie will keep you nice and steady if things get too intense. 

I reviewed the third episode of Yellowjackets season two for Decider.

Life, like a murder case, has its ups and downs. First, the down: Perry, Paul and Della have learned that the brothers Mateo and Rafael Gallardo have been lying and did indeed murder Brooks McCutcheon. Now, the up: Perry, Paul and Della all hooked up. Call it a glass-half-full situation.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

The best episode of Yellowjackets since the very earliest episodes? The best episode of Yellowjackets since the pilot itself? An argument can be made, for sure. “Edible Complex” is fast-paced, frequently disturbing, and most importantly, deadly serious for about 85 percent of the time. It’s the Yellowjackets I want, for the most part.

I reviewed the second episode of Yellowjackets season two for Decider.

I spoke to host Tre’vell Anderson with my co-author Harron Walker about our open letter to the New York Times regarding its coverage of trans issues for the What a Day podcast. Listen in!