And Here's What You (We) Missed On...
Not about Glee, but about nearly everything else
Did you miss us YWSWers? The state of the union had us thinking about the state of our television screens. When everything is terrible but the TV is soooo good... In our first ever newsletter, we talked about a certain slutty, blood-sucking TV show’s connection with the inevitability of an economic downturn and oh boy, are we sad it’s stayed so relevant. But if we’re going down in a Dust Bowl1, give us those technicolor ruby slippers! We’ve already got new Lady Gaga recession-pop. We’ve got Blake Lively Season Six Serena van der Woods-ing all over town. We’ve got Alan Cumming back clowning on our screens, perhaps just minutes from ripping off that Traitors stunningly tailored kilt to reveal a striped uniform with a pink triangle...
Too dark?? Ok, sorry, sorry, ok. But the point is that we’ve missed you, and we hope you’ve missed us. Is this newsletter’s return a recession indicator? Probably. But our writing innies demanded to be brought back to life and we could not rob them of the sheer joy of existence! They’ve got their hands full with macroTV refining everything that has occurred just in the last few months. We have so much to catch up on. Buffy is coming back?? Alex Karpovsky is employed again! Appointment television is back! White Lotus, Severance, Yellow Jackets, our weeks are booked and busy. And we’d be remiss not to mention the most devastating news over the past couple weeks. On Feb. 26, Michelle Trachtenberg, our beloved Georgina, Dawn, Ice Princess, died of natural causes at the age of 39.
There’s so much to discuss, so we both hopped in a google doc to parse the most pressing of TV tidbits.
Long Live Our Ice Princess
Rachel: When I heard the news about Michelle Trachtenberg, I was picking up a lunch order at a taco shop and I screamed, actually shrieked, at the news alert. I haven’t been so shocked and affected by a death in a while. There are few actors who have followed me through childhood, adolescence and adulthood the way Trachtenberg has. I loved her in Ice Princess on the Disney Channel playing the doe-eyed foil to the sassy Hayden Panettiere (who we now must protect at all cost). Watching her stumble on the ice ever so slightly in that red dress skating to Ray of Light by Madonna and then getting her groove back, floating gracefully in the air, I remember wanting to be her, being in awe of her. She had this captivating presence on screen, both uncannily gorgeous but also accessible, so convincingly young. And then I watched her turn all of that girl-next-door charisma into absolute malice on Gossip Girl. I’ve written before about how Trachtenberg’s Georgina was the perfect agent of chaos on GG and no one could have played that character the way she did. Despite not being a member of the core cast, Trachtenberg left perhaps the most lasting impact. I remember we talked about her so much in high school, my friend’s boyfriend used to taunt us: Georginaaaaaa, Georgina! What has she done now??
I found Trachtenberg again as an adult, finally watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Thinking back on it now, it was remarkable the way Trachtenberg, when she was just 13/14, could hold her own next to the force that was Sarah Michelle Gellar. She entered the show in its later seasons, and while Dawn was the epitome of an annoying younger sister, Trachtenberg gave her so much heart, she became the gravitational center of the series. A commenter on one of Evan Ross Katz’s posts distilled it in such a lovely way: “I cannot think of another show that had a pivotal character enter unexpectedly and change the course of the series so drastically. Her entrance catapulted the cast into adulthood as they all became her mentors, carers and protectors.”
I rewatched that scene from Ice Princess this morning. There’s a bit where Hayden, watching from the rafters, turns to her mother, played by Kim Cattrall2 and says with astonishment and joy “She’s got the crowd!” And you did have us, Michelle. You’ll be missed.
Mallika: My AOL screen name back in the day was DetSpy due to me wanting to be a detective or a spy — and that was of course thanks to Ms. Harriet M. Welsch. Hair always in a braid, clutching that lil notebook, writing down gossip about every person she came in contact with… she was so me. As much as I loved the book, Harriet the Spy will always be Michelle in that yellow raincoat, holding her own next to Rosie O'Donnell at 10 years old. As the star of Ice Princess and then one of the best characters on Gossip Girl, Michelle became a pillar of my childhood media consumption. I’ve written before about how actors in the shows we watched growing up are like childhood friends that we love but eventually let go. We don’t necessarily want to know what they’re up to now, because that ignorance lets us surmise they’re well. I think that’s part of the reason Michelle’s death hit so hard: I hadn’t heard or seen anything from her in years, and the assumption could be that she was happy and healthy. This is getting into parasocial territory and considering how many people I told to leave Ariana and Spongebob alone because we don’t know the whole story… I’ll just say, it feels like I grew up with Michelle, and I would have loved the option to watch her move into middle age, like I’ll have with so many of my other childhood idols.
Buffy Reboot?
Mallika: I’m obviously going to let Rachel take the reins here because this is her domain (you’d be shocked and impressed by the amount of times Rachel is able to tie a real life experience to this show — here’s my favorite example). But I’ll just make a direct plea to Hulu: We need this. The way that things are going, Sunnydale — the site of a literal Hellmouth — seems like it would make a pretty nice getaway right about now. And honestly, Hulu, you need this too… The Handmaid’s Tale is coming to an end, Only Murders in the Building has already had every person on the planet cameo, I shudder to think how long we’ll have to wait for Tell Me Lies season three, Cruel Summer went off the rails… it’s possible I haven’t felt anything on this streamer since Normal People. (No one yell at me, I haven’t watched Shōgun or Paradise yet.) How about we just let our president, Sarah Michelle Gellar, take charge and call it a day.
Rachel: Yes Mallika I agree, Hulu needs this! Especially after Brian Jordan Alvarez’s skeletons have made English Teacher’s renewal for a season two far less exciting. I am cautiously optimistic about this Buffy reboot. I’ve been burned so many times before, with the sprawling and sometimes downright unsettling Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and that unnecessarily-brutal final scene of the Veronica Mars reboot. But I would trust Sarah Michelle Gellar with my life and she made a very convincing Instagram post assuring us the series was in good hands with director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, Eternals) and writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D).
I like the fuck-you to Joss Whedon, bringing the show back without him and with a team of all women. I have long said that Marti Noxon deserves as much if not more credit for the show’s success. But on that front, where is our girl Marti? I would feel much safer in the hands of the woman who brought me the masterpiece that is Sharp Objects, who wrote Derek Shepherd sobbing saying “She knows how to swim. She’s a good swimmer”, who put Harry Crane in a bonnet in Mad Men and who of course wrote some of my favorite episodes of Buffy, “School Hard,” “Passion,” “The Prom.” I know both Zhao and the Zuckermans are Marvel vets, which does align with the Whedon quippy dialogue and well choreographed fight scenes. But in my view, the gritty darkness and heart of Buffy was all Noxon. There will be a lot of talk about how this new reboot should go and I’m sure we’ll write about it more, but for now, I am this close to launching a change.org petition. She hasn’t written anything since 2018. Imdb lists her as having just ONE upcoming project and it’s the fucking screenplay for “Tinker Bell.” Pull Noxon out of retirement! Get her in that writers room! I don’t care what I have to do, I will call Patricia Clarkson (who, by the way, would be an incredible addition to the Severance cast), so help me God. We need you, Marti!
Adam Brody and Leighton Meester Renaissance
Mallika: Rachel and I have been allergic to creative thought over the last year, but the one thing that has brought us so close to reviving this newsletter again and again is the potential to brag. Let me take you back to Jan. 1, 2024, before Cynthia and Ariana held space for Defying Gravity, before Gypsy-Rose Blanchard’s man wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole, before Brat summer… a lifetime ago. On this day, we published our 15 predictions for the year, including this: Leighton Meester and Adam Brody will get their flowers. Moving right past our prediction that they would be cast in the currently-airing season of White Lotus, here’s what we said at the time: "We got a glimpse of [Brody’s] comeback in Fleishman Is in Trouble and we’ll probably be hearing a lot more about American Fiction, which he has a small part in. Meester needs our help. Why is the clear star of Gossip Girl getting her sitcoms canceled left and right while Blake Lively gets to sit next to Taylor Swift at Chiefs’ games? Hmmmm? No shade to Blake, but we must right this wrong. Producers, hear our pleas!” … Ok there is a lot to unpack there, mostly the “no shade to Blake” part, but were we wrong?? We have in fact heard SO MUCH more about Brody thanks to Nobody Wants This, which Meester has joined season two of. She’ll also be in season two of The Buccaneers and is the star of the new Good Cop/Bad Cop on none other than the CW. The couple’s home was a victim of the LA wildfires, which certainly was not part of our prediction, but from here on out we’re only expecting to see good things for this pair. Mike White, it’s not too late for season four…
Rachel: Mallika and I’s campaign to get these two on White Lotus matches Club Chalamet’s campaign to get Timmy an Oscar (and she was so close!). C’mon Mike White. Just picture it: Leighton is a wellness guru/Goop-esque girl boss. Adam is her hot spin instructor second-husband slightly resentful of her success. They’re both into weird sex stuff but their kinks don’t entirely align. One of them is committing tax fraud. We haven’t seen Leighton pull out her quintessential Blair Waldorf bitchiness in forever and this is the perfect venue.
Blake Lively is Season 6 Serena van der Woods-ing
Mallika: There was no moment in Gossip Girl that was as stereotypically Serena van der Woodsen as the season six premiere when her friends find her — after she hasn’t been heard from for months — holed up in a house in the woods, calling herself Sabrina, with the most mediocre man I’ve ever seen, and she has the audacity to get mad at them. The girl was MISSING and when her army of exes led by Blair traveled to the Poconos or something to find her despite her once again leaving the Upper East Side in shambles, she was like… guys you’re embarrassing me!!!! Well I should say there was no moment as Serena van der Woodsen as that until now. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or just have a healthy relationship to celebrities) you have likely heard the details of the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over their movie that came out last summer if you can believe it. If you need to catch up on the drama of It Ends With Us — a not so apt title for a move that has spawned a never-ending media frenzy — here you go. I certainly don’t think Justin Baldoni is a saint; it’s obviously not safe to trust a man who has made his entire personality about being a feminist — and a wife guy, at that. But Blake has come off as so impossibly-out-of-touch at every step of the movie’s press tour, she’s drawn public ire in a way only a true van der Woodsen could. I never thought I’d say this, but my thoughts and prayers are with Anna Kendrick as we head into the season of Another Simple Favor.
Rachel: All I have to add is if you want someone to parse all this legal stuff for you accurately, follow attorney Reb Masel, who has been breaking it down.
Appointment Television is BACK, baby
Rachel: I’m not trying to be dramatic, but there was a piece of me, truly, that died when Succession ended. Not a particularly sad kind of death, more like a piece of my TV watching soul had reached some kind of Nirvana. That vapid family of media moguls brought to life by Jesse Armstrong’s sharp writing and a cast of elite (and, prior to this, relatively unknown) actors gave me, each week, a rich text to mull over. I laughed a lot, I cried, I developed sophisticated theories about what would happen next. I delved deep into the references to art, poetry and Shakespeare embedded in both the script and the visual language of the show. And again and again, I was surprised. I remember being confident, bolstered by a barrage of online fan theories, that Kendall Roy was going to die in the season three finale, drowning arms stretched out Jesus-style in a pool of his own self absorption. When Armstrong did something entirely different, I was elated. It made complete sense and yet I didn’t see it coming. When the show ended, I felt like I would never be swaddled in such capable arms again. And I was at peace with that.
But flash forward to season two of Severance, and another white man has somehow scooped me up and given my life meaning again. Dan Erickson and Jesse Armstrong, the manic pixie dream boys you are... Severance, starring Adam Scott and directed by Ben Stiller, is at its core a show about work and its relationship to the human soul. So it makes sense that as the show has been airing week to week, I’ve found myself referencing it constantly, incapable of shutting up about what it all means, where it’s going, what hidden clues are embedded in the aesthetically gorgeous wide shots and the stilted language of Lumon employees.
And I’m not the only one. In fact, I’m convinced Severance, with all its loose ends and uncertainties, has started to rot our brains more than enrich them. Watch this “fan theory” video on Instagram and tell me we aren’t losing the plot. Even this New Yorker essay last week felt meandering and disjointed. It’s as if all of us Severance-heads have succumbed so deeply to the lore of the show that it’s capsized our ability to actually distill anything real from it. Although I will definitely still be attempting to do this at a later date, right now I’m just basking in the shared experience, the group chats, the excitement for the next episode to drop every Thursday night. Appointment television is back, baby! And if Severance isn’t your thing, surely you can enjoy White Lotus, or Yellowjackets, or up until this week Traitors. There’s nothing like the communal fervor elicited by a show dropping new morsels of narrative week to week. And I hope it continues even after Severance ends and we have to wait another three years for Ben Stiller to get his act together.
Mallika: And all I have to say is that some of us — the people who are too loyal to the Law and Order franchise for our own good — have still had a healthy helping of appointment TV over the last few months. The hold those detectives have over me could be called Stockholm syndrome.
And here’s just a quick rundown of some other things that we’ve texted each other about while this newsletter has been absent:
It’s too bad one of the best examples of how powerful TV can be in the last year was from… Ryan Murphy. Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story is maybe going to … free the Menendez brothers?? It looks like they’re getting a new hearing at least. Kim Kardashian was involved too (of course) — and her and Ryan are teaming up for a new legal drama. Imagine having to explain all of this to someone in the 90s.
Actually thank god we weren’t around to write about the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight on Netflix.
Euphoria has started filming season three and according to The Daily Mail, Zendaya is looking tired. Yeah, well, join the club. Pre-pandemic us would have been so excited about this news but we’ve lived through so much since we met the East Highland crew, including all the jokes about drinking Jacob Elordi’s bathwater.
HBO picked up the show Rachel Sennott will create, write and star in. Could this fill the void we’ve been feeling since we said goodbye to Girls? We’ll tell you what won’t… this cursed CW trailer for the appropriately-cancelled adult-oriented, live-action Powerpuff Girls reboot. Buttercup being a lesbian and Bubbles being a party girl does track but that script…. and the Dove Cameron of it all… and no queer-icon Mojo Jojo? Curses!
Tell us why we learned soooo much about the Dust Bowl in high school and then have never spoken of it since. Give us a prestige drama in that Oklahoma drought!
Who reportedly derailed producers’ first attempt at making a Sex and the City movie for this role, one of my favorite facts of Hollywood.