I’m about to fully turn into a dreidel and spiral away
My roommate was in shock & disbelief when I told her that I didn’t know what Ethan Hawke looked like, and after we watched him prance around in disturbing devil masks in “The Black Phone” over the weekend, I still can’t put a face to the name. And honestly, I don’t think I need to!
Rough Cut
Movie review, TV binges, etc.
They say by the time you turn 25 you’ll have already met the love of your life — you just don’t know it yet.
At least that’s the thin premise of Amazon’s new dating show, The One That Got Away. (And if it’s true, that means I should spend the next two and half weeks ahead of my birthday meeting as many hoes as possible because right now my portfolio is bleak).
At a glance: The 10-episode series follows six sexy singles sequestered away in a California oasis where they enjoy romantic horseback riding and lantern-lit paddle boating dates with old flames from their past.
The contestants: They range from a Twitch streamer to a CAT Scan tech, and they’re either so incredibly boring that you forget they exist, or so problematic that you wish them nothing but the worst.
There’s this one girl who looks like vintage Farrah Abraham, and she’s so awful that the producers can seemingly only match her up with people she passed in the halls during high school so that they have no recollection of her actual personality.
The setup: Each episode, the host — a woman named Betty Who (her?) who simultaneously looks 65 and 32 and is neither fully American or fully British — brings the contestants to “The Portal,” which is an elaborate soundstage with a presumably very expensive dry ice machine. There, they come face to face with people they probably forgot existed, like their high school prom dates, dudes from work conferences, confirmation classmates, etc.
They have awkward small talk like “wow! what’s your name again?” and then spend the next couple of days figuring out if Ken from Algebra might actually be their soulmate.
The lead contestants live in the main character house (it has a pool) and as new portal bombshells enter the villa, they’re sent to purgatory in the guest house where they sit around for days waiting for the acquaintance they flew across the country for to ask them on a date. It’s so boring that they resort to asking their fellow housemates questions like, “would you rather never be able to shower again, or have to crawl everywhere you go?” Thought provoking.
Which leads us to my qualms:
Suitors have no agency: The portal people remind me of like, Animal Crossing villagers — they can’t really do anything except work out and wait for their designated lead to interact with them. They form friendships in the guest house, but it seems like they aren’t allowed to date other guests or make a play for other leads once their person cuts them loose. This gives the leads all the power and diminishes potential mess.
There’s not enough drama: It’s unclear what the production rules were, but the leads broke up with their suitors fast — like one date fast. This means minimal overlap between suitors which kept everything too clean — string them along and let them fight over you! Pull an Arie Luyendyk and tell multiple people you love them! Propose to someone and then change your mind! The tension and drama is essentially zapped from the series because production wouldn’t let things fester.
Closing thoughts: This is fine to have on in the background on a Sunday morning while you eat your hangover bagel, but you shouldn’t feel FOMO if you decide to skip.
★★☆☆☆
Viral Bible
Internet wormholes, celeb deep dives, etc.
Remember in the 2000s when we would cyberbully each other on Formspring and be like “you have a flat chest” or “Lexi H should have made the varsity lax team over you but your mom is blowing the coach” and things like that?
NGL (an abbreve for “not gonna lie”) is a new copycat app that’s cropping up like an invasive thistle in the weeds of sosh meeds. Similar to its aforementioned predecessors, NGL allows your followers to anonymously leave you comments and questions, which you can then publicly post and reply to via Instagram stories.
Standard fare, but the weird thing is, people in their twenties are using it, and not even ironically. Now that we’ve aged into boring sales associates, dental hygienists, and fiancees, blind Q&As just don’t hold the same charm.
I can only see two reasons why anyone would ask you a question on NGL once you’re past the age of 17:
They want to find out if you’re dating around so they can ethically slide into your DMs.
They’re an incel who wants to tell you that you’re fat and you should die.
And there’s only one reason why I think anyone would subject themselves to these anonymous questions: they’re a narcissist.
As a mild narcissist myself, I’m not even trying to be a hater, but the “I’m bored, ask me questions” line is the flimsiest cover-up for self-absorption ever. It’s just poor execution.
You’re bored? We’re in a silver age of television. TikTok was invented and perfectly curates a personalized algorithm for an endless scroll. You can legally purchase and consume alcohol and marijuana.
There is absolutely no circumstance in which your “cure for boredom” should be throwing it to callers like a K-Mart Howard Stern. Have some goddamn self respect.
Money Talks
Credit card debt intensifies. . .
Some impulse purchases from the past month include:
Makeup By Mario Plumping Lip Serum — I got it in Mauve, it’s been a mauve girl summer for me. It blew up on TikTok but has super mixed reviews, so stay tuned.
Glow Recipe Watermelon Niacinamide Dew Drops — I used Sephora points to get a mini of this.
Four Agreements Book — This is a practical life philosophy guide that’s supposed to help you unlock personal freedom by not taking the bitchy things that people say to you personally (or something to that effect). Is it embarrassing that I learned about this from a Barry episode? Yes.
Kardash Korner
You don’t think I feel bad, I feel sad!
It’s the off-season, which means it’s time for a Kardashian Kheck-In.
The biggest news of the week is Kim & North at Paris Fashion Week. Nothing makes you feel worse about yourself and your H&M t-shirt faster than a 9-year-old in Balenciaga.
But North wasn’t the only Kardashakid making money moves. Rob’s 5-year-old daughter Dream teamed up with Kris on an Amazon Ad that probably paid her college tuition three times over.
The on-again-off-again saga of Kendall and Devin Booker continues — they spent the 4th together in the Hamptons. I don’t know much about DB, but I do know that his Sweetgreen bowl is a disgrace to salads.
Kylie made some fancy sandwiches for Travis Scott, which in turn made some national headlines. From the kitchen to the boardroom, this She-E-O has it all.
Prekend Wrapped
What the fuck is a prekend?
Eating: I’m going to Thep on the UES for the first time tonight and guess what — they have sweet potato noodles! A Whole30 girl’s dream.
Reading: Kim’s on the August cover of Allure and her feature interview dropped today. She thinks her hands are gross! I’m sure they’re fine.
Watching: I never thought that I would be shelling out my hard earned cash for a Discovery+ login, but Kesha is releasing a new ghost-hunting show tomorrow (titled Conjuring Kesha) and if this isn’t considered must-see TV I don’t know what is.
