Happy Saturday From the Road Home

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Great to see you on this Saturday! I’m finishing this week’s newsletter in the early morning darkness before packing up and heading home from spring break. Skiing in Whistler was great: took a lesson as a refresher on the first day, then steadily built back up until I was skiing the kinds of runs I had been prior to my ACL tear on the fifth day. It was very gratifying (and Chris was very patient). Nic does his own thing at this point, which is exciting to see but it also makes me a little sad. I miss when he was younger and we’d all ski together as a family. Spent last night with dear friends of ours we’ve known for over 20 years who recently moved to Vancouver, and now it’s time to return to reality.

But I did make a little field trip while we were here to find the parking lot where they shot LOCKED. This is the recent thriller where Bill Skarsgård tries to steal a fancy SUV and realizes pretty quickly that he chose the wrong one. Anthony Hopkins provides the menacing voice of the car owner who torments him remotely. This was a fun, tight little action movie with some inspired camerawork, and while I was watching it I thought: I bet I know where that is. I’m a dork, I like finding locations. This one’s in Vancouver’s Gastown neighborhood.

For far more scenic locales, there is of course THE WHITE LOTUS season 3 finale. I wouldn’t miss discussing this wildly dramatic episode with Alonso, even though I was on vacation. We went long in our recap, befitting a finale that ran the length of a feature film at 90 minutes. Even though we’ve been analyzing every inch of this season, we still found several of the twists and turns and violent deaths shocking. What did you think of this season? It wasn’t my favorite of the three — I still like the first one best — but this Thailand season was enormously entertaining. I’ll miss the memes. We’ll always have lorazepam.

It was a quiet week over at our Breakfast All Day YouTube channel, but we did record a review of SECRET MALL APARTMENT before I left town. This is a fascinating documentary about a group of artists who found a hidden space in the middle of the Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island, and lived there undetected for about four years in the early 2000s. It was a statement against the development that displaced them and a work of art in itself. But it was also a rebellious adventure, and it moves with the energy of a heist. The movie is in theaters now and expanding to more cities every weekend. Find out here when “Secret Mall Apartment” is playing near you.

I also caught up with ADOLESCENCE on Netflix while we were on vacation. So many people told me I would love it as the mother of a teenage boy and as someone who’s a sucker for a long, single take, and they were right. I was blown away by this ambitious, four-part series about a 13-year-old boy accused of killing a classmate. The complex logistics required to pull it off were mind-blowing, and the performances were raw and wrenching. Episode 3, pictured above, is an absolute knockout of an acting exercise: Pages and pages of dialogue, the pacing of a play, the emotional highs and lows. How is it possible that young star Owen Cooper had never acted before this? He’s incredible. But then I was also impressed by the camerawork of the second episode, which navigates the crowded halls and stairways of a school before taking off in a long drone shot, high above the neighborhood, and landing again gently and precisely right in front of co-creator and star Stephen Graham. Nic watched it with me and we had a good talk afterward about social media (and social pressure). If you have teenagers, I recommend doing the same. And I’m hoping Alonso and I can catch up with a discussion of “Adolescence” soon.

Something I can guarantee we’ll talk about this week is THE HANDMAID’S TALE, which is back with its sixth and final season. When last we saw June — way back in November 2022 — she and Serena were hurtling toward an uncertain, uneasy alliance, babies in tow. Can they finally set aside the toxicity of their relationship and their deep distrust of each other to take down Gilead for good? The first three episodes are out there on Hulu, so we’ll catch up with those before taking them week by week afterward. In the meantime, you can revisit our recaps of the fourth and fifth seasons here.

And if that’s not enough for you to come hang out with us at our Patreon, “The Last of Us” season 2 begins Sunday night on Max. We’ve really been looking forward to this and we know many of you have been, too. We hadn’t played the video game (and still haven’t), but love this series for its elaborate production values, heart-pounding pacing and deep emotions. Plus we can never get enough Pedro Pascal. We’ll recap starting Tuesday and every Tuesday all season long. Until then, you can catch up with our season 1 recaps here.

Gonna wrap it up and head to the airport now. Thanks so much to all of you for sharing a few moments with me while I’ve been on the road. Hope you’ve found an opportunity to get away and relax during this insane time yourself. If you’ve enjoyed my newsletter, I’d be honored if you’d share it with a friend or family member. Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next Saturday.