This is not "the land," this is Glendale.
Rob Lowe's "Unstable," RuPaul's Build-a-Bear, and Barbie(s).
I’m proud to report that this post is coming to you live from Cal-I-for-ni-A.
I was hoping to time everything out to still have a Monday post next week, but I fear I was over ambitious, so I’m already failing at my new schedule.
However, I am pleased to share that I did make it to Erewhon for the Hailey Bieber smoothie and had a fantastic encounter while I was there:
I pick up the drink from the little counter and bring it over to a communal table so I can set it down and put in the straw or whatever, and this woman next to me goes, “excuse me, how long did it take for you to get that?” and I’m like, “oh, not even five minutes,” thinking that she is on the fence about ordering because she’s in a rush to get to her Reiki appointment or something.
But then she tells me that she’s been waiting for her drink for fifteen minutes, to which I hypothesize that maybe someone else took it by accident. That’s when she tells me with the confidence of a high school quarterback at homecoming that the smoothie girl is DOING IT ON PURPOSE.
If I had had my head in the game, I would have asked more follow-up questions — bad journalism. But I knew in my heart that if this smoothie slinger was truly trying to alienate this patron, there could be no possible scenario in which it wasn’t well-deserved.
The Low-Brow Lowdown
Barbie Ferreira talks The Feud. Sitting down for the infamous Armchair Expert podcast, Barbie spoke diplomatically about her alleged feud with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and her early departure from the series. She says that there’s no bad blood (professional) and that her character Kat’s narrative had nowhere else to go since Sam wasn’t able to relate to her, and she wasn’t hot on the idea of playing another thankless fat friend.
This kind of reminds me of the short-lived, gone-to-soon reality show The Glee Project where Ryan Murphy forced a bunch of theater kids to duke it out for a seven-episode arc on the next season of Glee. He would always be like, “you’re a fantastic performer, but I don’t know what I would write for you because you’re not an interesting person.” And I’d always be like, dude, your job is to create interesting characters and then these so-called fantastic performers will act them out. Like, I doubt that Bryan Cranston is that fascinating of guy, so should Vince Gilligan just not have written Breaking Bad? LMK.
And the Barbie MOVIE hit the gas. Alongside a new teaser trailer, Barbie dropped a slew of highly memable character posters, resulting in a lot of this:
Blac Chyna removes her Filler Face. She’s going to start going by her legal name, Angela White, and has sworn off plastic surgery for good, after removing her facial fillers and boob/butt implants. I will happily take them off her hands!
Olivia Wilde says Jason Sudeikis doesn’t pay child support. She shared formally in court that she’s been bearing the brunt of her kids’ expenses since the divorce, including $4,000 a month in laundry. Olivia apparently makes around $100,000 a month, but alleges that it’s widely known that Jason makes significantly more. Apple money is the new Marvel money!
RuPaul launched a Build-a-Bear. And you guessed it: Republicans are mad! I’m not taking their side at all, but I am taking the side of, oh my god, why does this bear look like that. The wonky hairline is not doing her any favors and the runway look would have her lip syncing for her life on NIGHT ONE.
On Monday, I interviewed the premiere cartoonist of our generation, Zoe Gillette, to learn about the cheugy guilty pleasures that plague a certified Manic Pixie Dream Girl. If you missed it, read it here!
Unstable, Starring Rob Lowe & Son
This week, we saw a re-examination of Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s decision to donate their entire $275M estate to charity following their collective demise to theatrically ensure their children learn to work hard and carve their own paths to success.
Conversely, Rob Lowe decided to create and star in a Netflix comedy with his F-List son John to jumpstart his boy’s flailing acting career.
The logline: Ellis Dragon (Rob Lowe), an eccentric tech founder, has trouble readjusting to work after the death of his wife. To help ground him, his CFO and fixer, Anna (Fleabag’s
), convinces his flutist son Jackson (John Lowe) to return home.What else: Rob Lowe is essentially playing his character from Parks and Rec if he was a lot richer and a little meaner. While Ellis is an ideal boss (loves kooky distractions, puts happy hour on his Amex Black card, praises you when your idea is better than his), he’s a suboptimal father, always pushing his son to be more like himself instead of embracing the quirks that make him unique.
And honestly, that’s kind of his right. If I was a lovably charming billionaire tech CEO saving the planet with my brilliant inventions, I would probably feel entitled to impart some wisdom on anyone who crossed my path, let alone my very own offspring.
This core father-son conflict is ensconced in a typical offbeat workplace comedy — Ellis is constantly evading attacks from his douchebag board, including some thinly-veiled Winklevoss twins, and his staff gets entangled in various hijinks surrounding luxury pistachios and office fan fiction.
What works:
True goblins know that I recently watched Fleabag for the first time last month. The actress who played Claire is almost reprising her role in a sillier fashion in Unstable, like an extension of the Fleabag universe where Claire leaves Switzerland and reinvents herself in SF. She and Rob Lowe really carry the show while the greener actors flounder.
In an early episode, it’s revealed that Ellis lightly kidnapped the psychiatrist that the board hired to evaluate him, played by Fred Armisen. The show works best when it leans into absurdism, especially since the majority of the characters/performances are underwhelming.
What doesn’t:
It seems like they’re frequently repeating the same joke multiple times, like the audience is a bunch of kindergarteners watching Dora and didn’t pick up on the fact that we’ve reached The Bumpy Bridge the first time around. If they had a little more trust in the audience, they could have emulated more of a The Good Place tonality while maintaining the same network-y sanitization.
On day ONE, Jackson the son enters a love triangle with the two lab ladies at his dad’s office, who both immediately fall for him. If this had been Rob Lowe in his West Wing days then yes, they’d absolutely be dropping their lab coats and sneaking a snog in the darkroom. And while I’m sure John Lowe is a nice guy, I think he would need to show a little more personality at the very least before earning himself a roster.
Should you bother? Potentially! I actually found myself getting a little attached to the show as it went on, and it’s only eight half-hour episodes. Definitely don’t put it in your primetime slot, but it’s good for an elliptical sesh or your next weekend with the parents.
★★★☆☆
Prekend Wrapped
Watching: Air!
Eating: These insane pancakes.
Reading: “New York Restaurants Go Full Camp.” (Grub Street)