Category: News

Given the unique time frame in which NBC’s hit family drama “This Is Us” takes place, actor Mandy Moore has been able to explore the various stages of life as a mother.

Moore is now in her fifth season of playing Rebecca Pearson, the mother of the “Big Three,” Kevin, Kate, and Randall Pearson on the show. With the use of clever makeup, viewers have witnessed most of Rebecca’s life from being a teenager to her final moments on her death bed.

We’ve also seen her journey as a mother from being pregnant with twins to raising three teenagers. The show also touches upon the final stages of the character’s life when her children are forced to care for her as she battles dementia.

Now that Moore is pregnant for the first time at 36, she believes her experience playing Rebecca has taught her more than a few things about being a mother.

Mandy Moore Talks About ‘This Is Us’ And How She’s Getting Ready For Her Baby Boy | TODAY

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“It’s funny, I mean having played a sort of matriarch of a family for the last five years and getting to sort of see children at various different chapters and stages, I feel like I’m as pseudo-prepared as I can be,” she told Hoda Kotb on Today.

“I’ve had babies and toddlers and I have adult children, so I’ve kind of gotten a pretty good taste and lay of the land.”

Even though she’s learned a lot by playing Rebecca, she’s totally open to parenting advice. Although, she’s going to get plenty of it whether she wants it or not. “Everyone wants to give you unsolicited advice,” she said. “I’m all for it. I will welcome anything because I know nothing.”

Moore is excited to raise a child with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, so they can share their passion for music with the next generation.

“My husband is a musician, and so the idea of being able to have music be this throughline in his life is really exciting — to be able to bring him on the road with us is an exciting prospect,” she said.

Goldsmith is a singer-songwriter who’s the guitarist, and chief songwriter of American folk-rock band Dawes.

“This Is Us” is still filming its fifth season and Moore says she’s not exactly sure how they’re going to hide her pregnancy from the cameras but is glad it’s not her responsibility.

“Very conspicuous costumes, I guess, to hide stuff,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll see Rebecca carrying a lot of laundry baskets and oversized purses, god knows what, for the next couple of months.”

“I’ve also heard that they can sort of go in and digitally change things, if need be, but I’m guessing it’ll be a lot more shots of sort of less full body, probably just like what we’re seeing today,” she said. “Chest up.”

If Moore follows the lead of her character, she should so well as a mother. Rebecca once explained the job of a parent mother to her daughter, Kate, and it’s something any parent will understand.

“It’s my job to keep standing there with my arms wide open, waiting for you to maybe someday fall inside if you needed it,” she told Kate. “And if you do, I’ll love you. And if you don’t, I’ll love you, too — because that’s what it means to be a parent. You’ll see one day.”

Remember Rocky? This is exactly like that. Kind of.

Over the past few years, a brawl has been underway in the fast-food space over which plant-based food brand would dominate the market and become America’s plant-based meat of choice. In terms of accessibility, Beyond Meat shows a lot of promise — solidifying itself as a menu staple at chains like A&W, Bareburger, BurgerFi, Carl’s Jr, and Del Taco. But Impossible Foods has the Impossible Whopper, and that’s a pretty massive uppercut. Meanwhile, McDonald’s slipped a jab this week by announcing that the company will be making its own plant-based burger rather than relying on Beyond or Impossible (which sent Beyond Meat’s stocks tumbling).

With Impossible getting better reviews and McDonald’s developing its product without help from the two front-runners, it’s not crazy to call Beyond Meat the scrappy underdog with a one-in-a-million shot at the plant-based title belt. See? Just like Rocky.

Look I’ve been told before, “Not everything is Rocky.” But this really is just like Rocky. Impossible Foods holds the big title, they’ve got the King. Who might be reasonably be called the “King of Sting,” aka one of Apollo Creed’s many nicknames. And guess where Beyond Meat is headquartered? Phila — okay, that’s not true, the company is located in California. But guess where the company’s founder is from? Okay, also not Philadephia. Dammit. And from what we can tell he’s not Italian either. But this can still be a Rocky story because while things are looking down for Beyond Meat and their eye is all busted up and they’re seeing triple and the old man on the side of the ring is yelling about how he’s gonna stop the fight, they’ve just landed a Balboa-esque punch that has delivered them a fighting chance —

The Beyond Meat Italian Sausage pizza from Pizza Hut.

Plant-based burgers, tacos, meatballs… all of that is fine and good, but pizza? We’ll take a slice of pizza over a burger any day of the week. And while every pizza place has a whole range of vegetarian-friendly options these days, nothing quite completes a pie like a hearty serving of meat. So if you’re the type that likes to pile on the meat-based toppings but you’ve given up meat for health, environmental, or moral reasons, come sit ringside while I review Beyond Italian Sausage.

Hey, Italian Sausage… Italian Stallion???? See it? We told you this was a Rocky story!

The Taste Test:

In my opinion, Pizza Hut’s regular Italian Sausage is not only the chain’s best topping, but it’s also the best sausage topping out of all of the big national pizza chains. I’m pretty fond and familiar with the topping as Meat Lovers is my favorite Pizza Hut pie — so I was interested in how this pizza would match the experience.

Visually, the Beyond Meat Italian Sausage Pizza is a dead ringer for the real thing. It looks right. The smell isn’t quite there, though. Instead, this just smells like a cheese pizza. That won’t matter once you add other toppings on the pie, but it’s a little striking when you know the savory smell of Pizza Hut sausage as well as (I’m a little ashamed to admit) I do.

Beyond Meat and Pizza Hut’s culinary experts teamed up for this project to capture the flavor of Pizza Hut’s sausage topping and I’m happy to report that they’ve done a great job. One of the hallmarks of Pizza Hut’s sausage is the fennel seed seasoning and that’s very evident in the Beyond Italian Sausage. Plus you get a hefty dose of garlic, a tinge of onion, and some paprika for color and smokiness to approximate the flavor of real sausage. In terms of mouthfeel, this is indistinguishable from the real thing, which — together with the visual similarity and flavor — provides the same sensory experience I’ve come to love about biting into a slice of sausage pizza.

Except…

The thing that eating an all plant-based meat pizza for the first time taught me is that what I love about meat on pizza isn’t just the meat itself. It’s the greasy flavor that sausage, pepperoni, and bacon produce when they’re thrown into a super hot oven. The way they mix and mingle with the cheese, crust, and tomato sauce and morph into the type of umami bomb that can only be washed down with an equally sinful swig of ice-cold soda.

At the end of the day, the Beyond Meat Italian Sausage Pizza is just a little too dry to truly match what I love about sausage pizza. The sausage never gets greasy and it comes out a bit burnt on the edges. But if the idea of an orgy of meat grease seeping into salty mozzarella sounds disgusting to you (or off-limits for one of the reasons mentioned above), the Beyond Italian Sausage pizza might be just what you’re looking for.

The Bottom Line:

Not a knockout punch, but maybe a TKO.

A great stand-in for vegetarians who have a hard time enjoying pizza without meat. While we probably wouldn’t eat it as a solo topping, mixed in with some veggies the Beyond Meat Italian Sausage supplies a lot of savory flavor with echoes of the spicy oven-roasted sausage that inspired it.

By now you know it’s not possible to look cool on Zoom. We’ve accepted it, moved on. But then, here’s Becky Hammon, leaning back in her chair with an arm flung casually over its top and behind her. She is at once sedate and with a laser focus that is still inquisitively pinning off-court and nearly a continental landmass away. A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. She is waiting for you to unmute yourself.

Hammon is the subject of two new pieces of creative work resting at opposite ends of the scale spectrum. One, a three-story mural by French-American artist Sebastien Boileau in San Antonio’s Lincoln Hills neighborhood, portrays a young Hammon looking up at her future self, the words “Never Stop” a bold banner over her head. The other, a minute-long short centered around the same motto, by 60 Second Docs. While both aim to showcase Hammon’s relentless drive and habitual resiliency, two qualities that you accept to be facts if you are peripherally aware of pro basketball, the six-time WNBA All-Star, one of the WNBA’s top-15 players of all time, Olympian, and assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs is still navigating a career marked largely by firsts.

She was the first female All-Star coach, first female Summer League coach, and has been fixed as a barrier-breaking mainstay in the oft-cyclical and increasingly tiresome conversation around NBA head coaching jobs since she was hired by the Spurs in 2014. Tiresome because as a conversation it has worn itself thin, so perennially stuck on the question of “when” that it has fallen behind its own intention of furthering the discourse or, to borrow a favorite term of Hammon’s, moving the needle. Every season that looms with this recurrent debate around Hammon’s capacity for head coaching now rhythmic to the league’s pre-season calendar as the Draft or free agency, and then starts without Hammon in a head coaching job, feels as rote as a fire drill, its purpose the preparedness instead of the event.

It is one thing to stay ready knowing you are moving tangibly and steadily toward a goal, but when does it shift from progress to a method of self-preservation, a requirement of longevity not needed by your predominantly male peers? There is an inherent exhaustion in always being marked by firsts instead of the achievements gained from over two decades in pro basketball arenas, to be marked by the expectation of what you’re still, a little mythically, ordained to become instead of who you have made yourself into or the body of work you stand on.

“Obviously when you’re first there’s no blueprint for it, right? Over the course of my career I think I’ve encountered so many obstacles and let downs and no’s, that it’s kind of built resiliency in me. I think I was made to be tough,” Hammon says with a soft laugh, “and strong in my approach. Really, I think I’m an optimist, at the core of me. I’m always hopeful that there’s a better way.”

Hope, foresight, and courage are the other qualities that don’t often get named as commonalities to women’s professional paths in the NBA, or any professional men’s league. When there haven’t been people before you whose footsteps you can look for, you need to become adept at making your own way. Then, you must backtrack and start over when that way gets into the weeds. Hammon has, and she paints a lucid analogy of that process.

“I liken it to going through a rainforest and there’s no path, so you’re just kinda swingin’ your machete,” she says, swinging an invisible machete. “Trying to figure out which direction to go in next to move this, to move the pieces forward. Not only that, but to create a path for the next generation that will come behind me.”

As a woman navigating a non-linear path, a fan, or just as a person in this world, to think of Hammon guiding you through a morass of the unknown “taking nicks and bruises and scrapes trying to forge that path forward” with a machete is a comfort, and she acknowledges men in the league are navigating new territory, too, but generally, she thinks “people are over the optics of it.”

“They’re used to seeing me on the sidelines now,” she says. “If I miss a game it’s kind of like, ‘Where was Becky?’ We want to get to that normalcy, where it’s normal to see a woman out there … I think society conceptually can start to see this happen, they can see it in their minds, but until as society we’re moved in our hearts and we really believe it down in our gut, in our soul, the needle won’t move. We’re inching along. We need to be taking steps, instead of inching.”

The oscillation between lauding each move made by a person in Hammon’s position, keeping her firmly tethered to “firsts,” and normalizing successes so the work can speak for itself is essentially a tightrope walk. Tip too far in either direction and you quit making any progress at all. It’s why Hammon and other women in coaching positions in the NBA, like Hammon’s friend Jenny Boucek, have occasionally veered away from titles like “trailblazer.”

“The term trailblazer,” she shakes her head, “I’ll repeat what I’ve said in a thousand interviews, I try not to think about it. I understand the significance and the importance of it, but more important is my body of work.”

There’s an underlying sense of frustration Hammon acknowledges with where importance has skewed in favor of progressive terminology over occasionally very simple, actionable changes.

“I recently had a management person from the Spurs [ask], ‘What can we do to make it better?’” she recalled. “And I was like, take something as simple as a sign on a door in one of the arenas that we play in. It says, ‘Female Coach.’ I told our group that quite frankly it’s insulting. What if you put, ‘Black Coach,’ or ‘Straight Coach,’ or ‘Gay Coach,’ or ‘Short Coach,’ or ‘Tall Coach’?” She holds her hands like bookends to every absurd label, eventually dashing each to the side, before stating, “instead of ‘Coach.’ So, learn the names, or keep it simple and put coach. Because at the end of the day what I want you to see me as, yes I am a woman, but I want you to see me as a coach. And my body of work in the basketball arena.”

To be wary of titles, or to outright reject them on occasion, also makes sense when someone with the experience Hammon has, a basketball background many of her contemporaries would pale against, is continually asked to prove herself only to have that proof accompanied by a caveat.

“I want it to get to the point where we don’t have an asterisk next to our work as women. The bottom line is, I played sixteen years in the WNBA and there is an asterisk next to my name because it was not in the NBA,” Hammon says. “And so, the goal here is that a person’s journey is valued just as much as any other person’s journey. And to open up these conversations when we’re talking about equality, we’re far behind from what we practice and what we preach. What we practice is not there, what we preach is there, we got a lot of mouth service about equality. But to see true, meaningful change we as women are still pushing that envelope. That being said, I’m willing to push the envelope.”

What makes Hammon such a sharp and incisive basketball mind, at ease in an exacting a system as the Spurs, is her resolve as much as a kind of vacillating persistence. In not shying away from what is difficult but in fact veering harder toward it, when coaching, as much as when talking about coaching and the frustration in having the same conversations to facilitate progress, she is still never going to be the first person to quit.

“I don’t know if I’m the one to walk through and be the first female head coach of a major professional sports league or not, I don’t know. Maybe I’m a person that knocks and pushes [enough] for somebody else to walk through. But I’m in the fight, and I’m willing to fight for that opportunity and that push through.

“I think the hiring of women all across professional sports whether it be in football, baseball, women’s voices need to be heard. Bottom line is, half of the population’s minds have not been tapped,” she says firmly. “Their experiences have not been tapped. And I think there’s a real, not only need to tap this resource, but the symbolism of it for the next generation has a ripple effect and impact that I don’t think can be calculated.”

Pressing toward action and its potential conflict is not necessarily aggressive, only habitual when you are accustomed to gaining ground in this way again and again. You become your own best resource as much as replenisher of an internal energy reservoir. In a sport that is so much about readiness and timing, whether that means job opportunities or all of the correct, cosmic things aligning for a team to win a championship, staying power is its own skillset. For Hammon, it’s routine.

“Well that’s the goal of everyday, to be ready,” she says with a slight shrug. “When the time comes, when the opportunity comes, I will be ready to walk through that door to take on those challenges and with the understanding that I’m signing up for a lot more than winning basketball games. I’m signing up for a lot of criticism whether I do it all right or all wrong, it’s the nature of the job. And being that there is a lot of hidden misogyny, subtle misogyny that exists, not just in men’s minds but in women’s minds as well.”

Working alongside Gregg Popovich, whom she calls “arguably the greatest basketball mind of our generation,” Hammon says every day is prep observing and learning while bringing ideas to the floor and contributing as a “meaningful part of the program.” Whether you consider the Spurs a dynasty in decline or simply going through a period of necessary retooling, Hammon is familiar with all the veins running through it. The pockets that could give out, what might yet yield gold, her survey of the team’s shifting landscape is storied.

Whether she stays and earns the head coaching job she has worked for or moves on will be her decision. Hammon has as much staying power as she does determination to do things her own way. In 2008, when she wasn’t invited to U.S. Olympic tryouts, Hammon became a naturalized Russian citizen and went on to earn a bronze medal in Beijing. Amidst the fallout, Hammon was reprimanded for taking a road less traveled because it went through Russia. There was plenty of criticism in form of jingoistic rhetoric, but then, when many athletes determined to make the Olympics would follow the same circuitous path, the road ceased to raise ire, became a highway. To presume Hammon has stopped making roads because she may now be waiting would be to forget the analogy she used about the machete.

Still, in the insular world of head coaching jobs in the NBA, bad fits marked by short stints or volatile team breakdowns happen. And while the men who go through these caustic circumstances typically come out unscathed, maybe even with a higher profile for it, Hammon, the marker of her being first again a mantle on her shoulders, risks not be given the same shrugging grace of circumstance.

To that end, and after so much time spent in preparation, when is it best to say no to an opportunity, even a held out for one?

“Katie, that has always been really easy for me cause I’ve had so many doors slammed in my face I’m pretty sure I know when I’m being told no.” She is deadpan but breaks into a laugh, “but my approach to being told no is just to look for a window. It’s not just about the pieces fitting, bottom line is you have to be the right person for the job. There’s also a side that you can’t take things personal. If you’re not a right fit, you’re not a right fit. The reasons why you may or may not be a right fit, that’s a different story.”

In basketball, as in life, we’ve gotten very good at assigning aspirational qualifiers when plain language would do. In basketball, players are never fearful, they get rattled, jittery, or off their game. In life, what we attribute to being relentless in drive or personality can be a precursor to deep psychological burnout. Hammon’s determination is genuine, she wouldn’t be twenty years and counting deep in a career as tested and subsequently durable otherwise. But there were times where, in order to keep going, she had to stop and regroup.

“Success is easy,” she says. “You’ll have successes. When I’ve learned the most, when I’ve had to redirect, are during the failures. Those are when you learn the most about yourself and how you respond. And I think when you’ve been hit, or you get knocked down, you’ve taken a step back or you’ve had a door shut in your face, there’s a skillset to being able to redirect, recalibrate, regroup. And that’s part of the reason we’re having this conversation, is that skillset right there, to be able to regroup and come up with innovative ideas and other routes. The door’s shut? Let’s go look for another door, let’s go look for a window. Because ultimately, like I said, I’m an optimist, I’m a dreamer, and I’ve fallen on my face before. I’ve failed, I’ve not made teams, I’ve been cut, but I’ve also had great successes.”

The thing about Becky Hammon is that she’s already there, and has been there for so long now that it’s the league in its performative language and the narratives we’re guilty of enforcing in our projections onto her, that need to quit or catch up. To stay ready is one thing but to be asked to maintain a steady state of almost is exhausting, impossible for most, but Hammon has persevered. When she talks about finding a better way we’re reminded that in her career she has, many times, and it’s been through.

Confessionally, at the end of our call, I tell her that I hope she kicks down every door from here on out. She leans back in her chair again and smiles, “I plan on wearing some steel toed boots, so we’re good.”

Disney+ is in early development on a reboot of a classic Disney afternoon cartoon, Darkwing Duck. Considering the character has appeared in episodes of the popular reboot of Disney’s DuckTales, the news of a Darkwing revival might not come as a total surprise, but the creative talent will probably sound unexpected. Longtime writing partners Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will reportedly be executive producing the new reboot with their Point Grey Pictures production company, which is also behind the hit Amazon series The Boys (talk about working on completely opposite ends of the superhero spectrum). Via Variety:

The original “Darkwing Duck” was created by Tad Stones and ran from 1991-1992 for three seasons and 91 episodes. It originally aired on The Disney Channel and ABC while also airing in syndication. The series followed the titular duck superhero, who lived an ordinary suburban life under the secret identity of Drake Mallard. He is assisted in his crime fighting by his sidekick and pilot Launchpad McQuack. He is also sometimes assisted by his adopted daughter, Gosalyn.

The Darkwing Duck reboot shows signs of a pattern for Rogen. Over the summer, it was announced that he’d be involved in a reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, another popular children’s cartoon from the ’90s. However, that project will be an animated movie instead of a series, and according to Rogen, it will lean heavily into his strongest skillset: making teenage movies. The Ninja Turtles movie will be made with Nickelodeon, so all that’s missing from Rogen’s portfolio is a project for Cartoon Network, and he’ll be the stoner king of children’s entertainment.

(Via Variety)

Lil Pump enraged many of his supporters several weeks ago when he endorsed Donald Trump for reelection just days ahead of election day. Much like 50 Cent’s short-lived Trump endorsement, Pump declared his support for the president was due to a disdain for Joe Biden’s proposed tax plan, which could potentially increase taxes only for those making over $400,000 a year. While Pump’s viral Trump-supporting antics turned many heads, it has now come to light that the rapper reportedly didn’t even vote come Election Day.

Pump was personally invited on stage by Trump himself at a MAGA rally in Michigan just hours before polls opened on November 3. But despite his avid support, the Florida rapper did not participate in swaying his home state to red because according to a new report from The Smoking Gun the rapper wasn’t even registered to vote on Election Day — and still isn’t.

Pump is only 20 years old, meaning this year would have been the first time he was eligible to participate in a presidential election. But because Florida has specific voter laws, the deadline for Pump register to vote in the state was 29 days before the election, or October 5. That means the rapper had already missed his chance to cast a ballot when he originally endorsed Trump and later showed up at the Michigan rally.

The rapper’s ineligibility to vote didn’t stop him from voicing his political opinion, however. In the days following the election, Pump continued to sport a MAGA hat in Instagram photos, and even changed his bio name to Lil Pimp, which is what Trump mistakenly referred to him as during the Michigan rally.

Back in the before times, when you could go to a public place filled with strangers and mill about all aimlessly and whatnot, Donald Trump hung out with Vince Vaughn at a college football game. Months later, Vaughn would like to clear the air about that incident, which you probably forgot about because, well, a lot has happened since January 13 of this year.

The incident dates back to the college football championship game between LSU and Clemson, which was the last college football game before a pandemic made that whole thing extremely weird. This was, you may recall, a triumph or sorts for the president, who in Atlanta got a decent ovation from college football fans after the good people of Washington booed him heavily at a World Series game along with chants of “lock him up.” And Trump’s good fortunes continued when he was seen on camera cheerfully interacting with noted Average Joe Vaughn.

As The Guardian noted at the time, Vaughn was caught chatting with Trump and shaking his hand, which drew ire on social media from many who wondered if the noted libertarian was effectively endorsing Trump by being so chummy. But Vaughn, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times for his new movie, Freaky, said he’s not particularly a fan of Trump and that the incident was overblown on social media:

Vaughn insists the episode was overblown. “In my career I’ve met a lot of politicians who I’ve always been cordial to; I’ve met Nancy Pelosi and was cordial to her as well,” he says, noting that at that same football game he also greeted Democratic strategist James Carville, who had a cameo in “Old School.” “It was the only time I’ve ever met him. We said hello. He was very personable.” He laughs. “I didn’t get into policies.”

“I think people are more charged than ever about these things,” he continues. “But I don’t think most people take that stuff as seriously as the small percentage that’s making noise about it. I was raised with the idea that you could have different likes and beliefs and you should respect and defend that in other people, not shout it down. The people you disagree with the most, you should stand up for their right to do that.”

Vaughn has clearly dismissed the “noise” people made about the incident, as well as those who criticized his politics in the aftermath of the meeting. But he made it clear his only endorsement is for another failed presidential candidate, and that he is unaffiliated in all of this:

“The only candidate I ever supported is [former Libertarian presidential nominee] Ron Paul… I don’t have a party that I support and endorse. In fact, for me sometimes it’s difficult to find a candidate that you feel is philosophically consistent and not just going along with whoever is funding their particular party. That’s as much as I’ll get into it at this point.”

It’s worth noting, of course, that Vaughn’s defense here is not a rebuke of Trump as much of an admission that he will shake any politician’s hand while not in the middle of a pandemic. He spent zero time in the piece actually criticizing Trump for anything that’s happened in the last four years nor expressing regret for how the incident played out publicly. But as he said, he’s just having a hard time finding reason to support or not support a politician in the modern political landscape, which seems, yes, unusual, but he doesn’t wish to discuss it.

(Via LA Times)

Back in October, reports started coming in that Zack Snyder was filming reshoots for his long-awaited director’s cut of Justice League a.k.a The Snyder Cut. The whole thing seemed like a big endeavor. Not only was Ben Affleck coming back as Batman after swearing off the character in the press, but Jared Leto was making an equally surprising return as the Joker despite Warner Bros. leaving him behind by rolling out a solo movie starring Joaquin Phoenix. Later reports revealed that Joe Mangianello would be returning as Deathstroke, so again, it’d be fair to have the impression that Snyder was adding a significant amount of new footage to Justice League.

Not so much. In a new interview with Beyond the Trailer, Snyder revealed just how much footage from the reshoots would appear in the final project, and it’s a surprisingly low amount. We’re talking a number that will make you say, “That’s it?” Via Heroic Hollywood:

“I will say that in the end it’s going to probably be about four minutes or five minutes of additional photography for the entire movie. In the four hours that is Justice League, maybe four minutes.”

Four minutes. Maybe five! As Snyder notes, his director’s cut will be broken up into four one-hour installments, so again, learning that he’s only using four minutes of new footage (though he’s still probably got a lot left over from years ago) does raise questions about exactly what was shot. It also takes the cake for the most unexpected thing Snyder has said this week, which is pretty impressive given his recent admission that he still hopes to make a live-adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns despite already trying to do exactly that with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. He already had a chance there, though who knows if he’ll see another one in the future.

(Via Beyond the Trailer)

The Crown: Season 4 (Netflix series, Sunday) — The jewel of Netflix finally sh*ts all over the fairy tale while the cracks begin to appear for the Windsor family and on Downing Street. In other words, welcome to the era of Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin) and Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), neither of whom fit in with the long-standing, carefully-crafted veneer that they experience in their dealings with the royal family. Things get dark while remaining glitzy, and the show does not shy away from what made the Iron Lady such a deeply unpopular figure.

Murder On Middle Beach (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — First-time director Madison Hamburg (who we spoke with) reveals his nearly decade-long journey to investigate who murdered his mother, Barbara, in a still-unsolved case out of Connecticut. The four-part series takes many twists and turns, including an exploration of the “Gifting Tables” Ponzi scheme, as well as interviews with friends, family members, and the law enforcement figures who let the case go cold. It’s a heck of a watch that will keep you guessing.

I Am Greta (Hulu documentary film) — The story of teenage climate activist and expert Trump roaster Greta Thunberg gets an intimate documentary to chart her rise to global prominence, including her wind-powered voyage to NYC’s UN Climate Action Summit.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 11 (Disney+ series) — This week, the Baby Yoda star vehicle reveals why Pedro Pascal barely appears helmet-less, although the whole egg-genocide thing is still rattling fans to the core. For kicks, we ranked Cobb Vanth actor Timothy Olyphant in his lawman roles, including his turn as the galaxy’s coolest marshal.

Alex Rider (Amazon IMDb TV series) — The whole first season about this young espionage operative lands on Amazon and stars Alex Pettyfer, who ends up in the family spy business because why not? I wonder how he would stack up against Hanna, so let’s cross fingers for a crossover.

The Right Stuff: Episode 7 (NatGeo series on Disney+) – Weather delays, at-home problems, and hovering reporters bring Shepard and Glenn together while Trudy’s not thrilled with Gordo cracking a joke about female astronauts.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

How To With John Wilson (Friday, HBO 11:00 p.m.) — This week, the comedy docuseries explores the very important issue of how to cover and protect your furniture as a cat owner. Wilson also spoke with us about capturing the intimacy and absurdity of life in New York.

Supermarket Sweep (Sunday, ABC 8:00 p.m.) — Leslie Jones and every bit of her enthusiasm will host contestants in this revival of the grocery-shopping game show.

The Reagans (Sunday, Showtime 8:00 p.m.) — This four-part series launches by examining the rise of Ronald Reagan, liberal movie star, as he turned to conservative politics, first becoming the California governor before, eventually, taking the White House.

Good Lord Bird (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Ethan Hawke stars as violent abolitionist John Brown in this series that takes place in the Kansas territory in 1856. Tune in this week for the searing finale to Brown’s failed crusade that helped spark the Civil War. This week, Brown’s captured and awaiting execution, and Onion risks it all to say goodbye.

The Undoing (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Hugh Grant’s fascinating turn as a possibly shady dude (and it’s about time) returns with Jonathan Fraser’s case shaping as a narrative while Franklin opens his wallet.

Fear The Walking Dead (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — Fans agree that this season is crushing all expectations, and they’ll no doubt enjoy June and Virginia on a collision course following an explosion.

Fargo (Sunday, FX 10:00 p.m.) — The Chris Rock-led season continues with Rabbi and Satchel hitting the road, Jack. Doctor Senator, “Deafy” Wickware, and Swanee Capps are all gone now, and Brian Grubb is crossing fingers for Gaetano to stay whole.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond (Sunday, AMC 10:00 p.m.) — The newest spinoff in this universe has the teens digging for something that will aid them on their quest, hopefully while avoiding that dang tire fire.

Moonbase 8 (Sunday, Showtime 11:00 p.m. EST and streaming) — Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, and John C. Reilly are here to make space funny as astronauts working toward a lunar mission. This week, homesickness on Rock’s behalf collides with Cap’s obsession with a prowler and Skip’s brainstorming on the subject of suiting up.

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix film) — The holiday spirit will surely try to get you with help from this cast, including Keegan-Michael Key to Forest Whitaker, Ricky Martin, and Phylicia Rashad, in a sort-of Willy Wonka-type adventure with villains who aim to prevent a toymaker from saving Christmas.

Sometimes a video comes along that yanks us right us out of the frustrating fray or mundane monotony of the moment and reminds us of the miraculous gift that life truly is. This is one of those.

Marta Cinta González Saldaña was an accomplished ballerina when she was young. Now, in her waning years, she suffers from Alzheimer’s. A viral video of González Saldaña shows how she reacts to hearing the music from Swan Lake—a ballet she had performed decades ago. Alternating scenes show her dancing from her wheelchair and a ballerina performing the dance on stage. (Some versions of the video have stated or implied that the young ballerina is González Saldaña herself. It’s not.)

The contrast of the stage performance and her memories clearly bursting forth in her face and body movements is incredibly moving. It’s amazing how music, dance, art—the universal language of humanity—can remain, even when other memories fade or get locked away.

Just watch, sound up:

Seriously though. Break out the tissues.

The video came about as part of a study being done by the Spanish organization “Music to Awaken,” which studies how music impacts patients with dementia. Pepe Olmedo, a psychologist and director of the organization, told Brut that she was selected for the study because of her background as a dancer. “We searched for the songs she’d danced on when she was young,” he said, “even songs where she was the prima ballerina. Luckily, we had writings of hers from the past where she recounted several songs. In the end, the day when we met her, she appeared sad, nervous at times, and we didn’t know how effective this would be. But as she listened to ‘Swan Lake’—that was the first song she listened to—she completely transformed, and it seems like part of her mind traveled to another moment of her life.”

Olmedo pointed out that science has proven that some areas of the brain related to musical memory are less damaged by diseases such as Alzheimer’s than other parts of the brain. “Our brain is wired to be receptive to music,” he says, and “music is totally linked to emotions.” It’s the emotion that Olmedo says is important for people with dementia to feel to help connect them with the moments in their lives.

Ballerina with Alzheimer’s Gets Back Memory of Her Swan Lake Dance Routine

www.youtube.com

Absolutely amazing. What a beautiful reminder of the magic of music and a hopeful study for people with loved ones who feel like they are slipping away. No matter how crazy our political chaos gets or how tedious our daily tasks feel, these examples of raw human beauty can help bring us back to what truly matters.

With President Trump still refusing to concede the election to Joe Biden, despite his own administration’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency saying,”The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” and “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the U.S. finds itself in an embarrassingly awkward position. It was predictable, of course—Trump is incapable of admitting defeat, even when it’s obvious—but the scenario we’re in raises questions about how far he’d be willing to go to cling to power.

One of those questions is “What if Trump tries to use the military to help him stay in power?” That question seems to have been answered by General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a speech he gave at the opening of the US Army’s museum. As the top ranking member of the military, Milley made it clear that the armed forces do not serve an individual, whether it be a king or a dictator. And though this may have been a run-of-the-mill reminder of where the military places its loyalty, his remarks feel almost as if they’re directed at President Trump himself.

“We are unique among armies,” Gen. Milley said. “We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual.”

“We do not take an oath to a country, a tribe, or a religion,” he continued. “We take an oath to the Constitution. And every soldier that is represented in this museum—every sailor, every airman, marine, coast guardsman—each of us will protect and defend that document regardless of personal price.”

General Milley had recently expressed concern about the politicization of the military in the wake of President Trump complaining about leadership at the Pentagon and amid questions about the possibility of the president invoking the Insurrection Act in possible post-election unrest.

Milley had also distanced himself from Trump after the president’s photo stunt at St. John’s church during the country’s widespread racial justice protests. Milley had accompanied the president on his walk to the church, which was preceded by the National Guard being deployed to forcibly clear a path for the president, resulting in peaceful protesters and members of the press being hurt—a move that Milley later called “a mistake.”

“My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” the general said in his National Defense University commencement ceremony remarks. “As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.”

Yes, being complicit in the U.S. government attacking its own citizens so that the president can get a photo of himself holding a bible in front of a church and create a North Korea-style propaganda video of the whole thing was definitely a mistake.

So yeah. It is good to hear the top military official in the country make it clear that our troops will not be used to satisfy the narcissistic whims of a wannabe autocrat who doesn’t know how to lose with grace and dignity. Especially as that wannabe autocrat is taking sledgehammer to leadership at the Pentagon as we speak, and to what end, no one knows. Somebody has to be willing to be the grown-up who tells the child that they can’t always get what they want. If the nation’s top Army general couldn’t or wouldn’t do that, the U.S. would be in a world of trouble.