Red, White, and Binge

Life, liberty, and everything worth watching, reading, and obsessing over this weekend.

Me, when people say “I don’t watch TV”

Happy (almost) Fourth of July. And happy heat dome.

🚨 BIG NEWS

Gracie, the escaped giraffe, has been found and returned home “fat and happy.” Which is exactly how I’d like to return after this weekend.

The Care Bears are now owned by private equity. I hope they don’t get fired and end up on OnlyFans.

Noah Kahan had to ask fans not to poop their pants during his shows

There was a Minion singing contest at the Minion and Monsters premiere and this girl has really found her calling.

2 Extremely Attractive People Got Arrested and Engaged after Climbing the Empire State Building. A judge just granted them supervised release which I assume they’ll use to line up sponsors for the wedding. I hope we get an REI x Balenciaga collab for them.

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📺 TV WORTH WATCHING

We are in the fallow period of television programming but there’s:

Elle (Amazon)

This is the Legally Blonde prequel EP’d by Reese Witherspoon. It’s clear Amazon is tripling down on YA content and this is exactly that: pink, fluffy, melts like cotton candy in the Seattle rain–which is where Elle Woods has been transplanted to after her father botched a nose job on a celebrity

Worst Neighbor Ever (Netflix)

Neighbors on HBO was about petty, funny, disputes and passive aggression. This is neighbors who kill.

Abandoned (Disney+)

In 1984, three children were abandoned at a French train station. Decades later they set out to discover who they are, who their parents were, and why they were left behind. Their search leads them to a network of amateur investigators and a mystery that may involve international criminals. It probably could have lost an episode or two, but I was invested in the cranky brother.

Silo S3 (Apple)

This season we finally get the answer to the question the show’s been asking from the beginning: What happened to destroy the world and why was the silo built in the first place? But first she has to do one thing: remember.

The Other Bennet Sister (BritBox)

I’m bringing this back up because I know nobody watched it the first time I mentioned it because it’s on Britbox. But maybe this is the weekend to dig into ye’ old brit box and find all the magic inside. Like this show, Blue Lights, and In the Line of Duty. They’re all SO GOOD.

STILL WATCHING

Cape Fear

Villain teen and Javier Bardem are getting scarier every episode. He’s cruel and out for suffering, and she’s just rabid.

Star City

The look of this show is making me fear that my carefully curated capsule wardrobe is actually depressing.

House of the Dragons

I feel bad for all the dragons. And Helena. They just want to have chickens and eat sheep and not get involved in dumb human drama over a big uncomfortable metal chair.

Real Housewives of Atlanta

These women could not be funnier, and now they’re in Scotland with the one Black Scot they found on Tik Tok.

Below Deck

This flavor of drunk man is the worst because they just won’t. stop. talking.

Love Island USA

Trinity is a star. She and Bryce will win this season. The producers’ only job now is making the foregone conclusion feel less foregone. “Still you rise, I guess” was the funniest line of tv all week.

Love Island UK

Movie Night and Casa Amor take an old concept (Temptation Island bonfires where couples watched their partners hook up in the other villa) and rebrands it as just one dramatic twist within a larger show full of twists–like a Russian nesting doll of dating show tropes—and that’s why we love Love Island.

In the City

So…was that dress pink or white?

FINALES

Dutton Ranch

I think my takeaway from this show is to upgrade from athleisure to silk slips and robes for lounging at home. And that I would be terrible at running a ranch.

IF YOU CAN ONLY WATCH ONE

Commit to the bit: the six part Ken Burns documentary The American Revolution on PBS.

If you’re not watching fireworks IRL, catch the Macy’s Fireworks on NBC at 8pm ET. Thank you Macy’s for continuing to sponsor holiday parades, fireworks, and Santa, the thankless traditions private equity would’ve cut years ago.

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🎬 MOVIES WORTH SEEING

Streaming

Blue Heron (VOD)

This movie destroyed me. A woman looks back on the summer her family fell apart on Vancouver Island in the late 90s, when her older brother’s behavior spirals and her parents are forced into an impossible decision. Told through the haze of childhood memory where nothing is completely reliable but every feeling is.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (Hulu)

Moments after surviving the first movie, Grace is not getting away that easy. Now four more Satan worshipping families want a piece of her.

How to Make a Killing (Netflix)

Glen Powell is infinitely watchable as he kills his way through a list of relatives to get to his trust fund.

Enola Holmes 3 (Netflix)

I have never seen one of these movies before. Luckily this one opens with a helpful recap of everything you need to know. Enola is Sherlock Holmes’ little sister and a detective in her own right, and in this installment her brother, played by Superman’s Henry Cavill, goes missing the morning of her wedding

But if you want an unhinged holiday weekend, Netflix added Gone Girl and all four Hunger Games. Catch up before the next Hunger Games prequel comes out this fall.

And I really like this list of 22 Movies that Explain America

In Theaters

If you’re undecided about seeing the Jackass movie maybe this article about how watching Jackass helped a woman through a tough time will help.

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📚 BOOKS WORTH READING

It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell

If your algorithm has suddenly become nothing but women saying, “I stayed up until 3 a.m. because of this book,” this is why. The latest Book Tok obsession, a woman finds a stray dog, tracks down its owner, and ends up back in a house she barely escaped 25 years ago. Lisa Jewell remains one of the best in the business at making ordinary suburban life feel deeply, deeply unsafe. (Before you ask: nothing bad happens to the dog.)

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🎧 PODCASTS WORTH HEARING

Money Trauma
Start with the episode featuring Iris Brilliant, a wealth redistribution coach who used to be rich herself and rethought everything after her brother died young. Yes, it’s a financial podcast but It deals with the actual psychology of why we hoard, spend, and panic about money, and treats rich people and broke people with the same curiosity instead of picking a villain.

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📱RABBIT HOLES

My dog when I get a snack

THE meme of the week was the pointing WNBA player Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark got hit with a technical foul following an altercation with Phoenix Mercury’s DeWanna Bonner. Fever teammate, Sophie Cunningham, walked over to ask the ref why Bonner hadn’t also gotten a technical, and started pointing at her mid-argument. Bonner snapped, “Don’t you point at me!”, which of course meant Cunningham didn’t stop, silently pointing at her for a full 22 seconds while trailing her around the court. And it’s a small, small world: Cunningham co-hosts a podcast, Show Me Something, with West Wilson, aka Summer House villain. They went to high school together. The world is folding in on itself.

TIK TALK

My favorite new show is TikToks from the high schoolers going to Vogue Summer School. The first session had about 400 students and 100 of them were kicked out. One girl was kicked out for “dealing vapes” said she spent 7k on clothes to attend (on top of the 7k tuition) and is talking about how all the students are getting drunk, high, and getting tattoos. And they’re all doing Bama Rush style OOTDs that are decidedly not Vogue which is what makes them great. The new session starts on Monday and I cannot wait.

Du Bist Gut Genug which translates to “you are good enough,” has become a Gen Alpha meme and global TikTok hit, topping German charts and racking up more than 17 million Spotify streams in under a month. The internet paired the falsetto chorus with edits of Cleveland Brown Jr. from The Cleveland Show and it was off to the races.

You Never Take Me to Bangladesh A 49-second track by Ian McConnell, whose absurd opening lyric escalates into demands for sausages, oil, novels, and revenge drinks, has broken TikTok’s brain this week.

Water vs. drink The sound of plain water versus your chosen drink

ARTICLES

Lets Go Kill the Internet Everything Is Fake summer continues, this time with a profile of a man building armies of AI influencers to flood the feed.

Everybody Hates Data Centers In related news, over half of Grok’s traffic is people generating porn. So at least those data centers, and all that energy they’re sucking up, is going to good use.

Finalists of Astronomy photographer of the year It’s sad because now when you see pictures like this you assume they’re Ai.

TO DO

Art But Make It Sports My new favorite rabbit hole

Play Fantasy Wedding Planner For Taylor Swift’s Wedding

An American Mosaic: Interactive map. All the clichés are true. America is a melting pot. It’s a tapestry. It’s a collage, a quilt of innumerable colors, as you can see in this amazing map.

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🛒 THINGS WORTH BUYING

Sotheby’s Is Auctioning The Knicks Game 4 Winning Tip-In Ball

All The Hot Girls Want Vintage Broncos. Bethanny got her daughter a pink one (technically its certified used, not vintage)

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🍔 FOOD WORTH EATING

Following the success of the Starbucks teddy bear cup (which is back on the 13th btw) Dunkin’ released an eagle cup. Happy Birthday America.

Costco now has Tim Tams, Australia’s favorite cookie. Sorry, biscuit.

In an escalation from chip bag charcuterie it’s Italian Sandwich Chip Bag Salad

I’m obsessed with this woman who makes deli container Mocktails. I can’t stop making these. They’re all delicious.

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🛒 THINGS WORTH BUYING

Sotheby’s Is Auctioning The Knicks Game 4 Winning Tip-In Ball

All The Hot Girls Want Vintage Broncos. Bethanny got her daughter a pink one (technically its certified used, not vintage)

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✅ EXTREMELY HELPFUL TIP OF THE WEEK

How to actually take good fireworks photos on your iPhone:

Turn off your flash.

Lower the brightness by tapping the screen to focus on a burst, a yellow box with a sun icon will show up, then slide the sun down. This keeps the colors from washing out.

Lock your focus by tapping and holding the screen until “AE/AF Lock” appears at the top, so your camera stops trying to refocus on the dark sky or smoke.

Use burst mode: hold the shutter button and slide it left to fire off multiple shots a second, since guessing the exact timing of a firework is a losing game.

And don’t zoom, digital zoom just tanks your photo quality.

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🔚 AND FINALLY

When my coffee is the wrong color

You’re feeble

What lip gloss do you have on?

Quick hungry

This is so beautiful…

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👋 BEFORE YOU GO

Can I ask you one question? What’s one thing you’ve become completely obsessed with this year?

A TV show. A book. A recipe. A pair of shoes. A weird internet rabbit hole. A condiment. Anything.

Tell me in the comments or hit reply. I read every email, and my favorite recommendations will end up in next week’s newsletter.

One of the unexpected joys of writing this has been realizing there are thousands of people out there who love collecting recommendations as much as I do. We might as well put all those brains to work.

Thank you for reading, subscribing, and supporting me. Happy Independence Day! May you always have the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…watching tv, movies, reading books, and falling down rabbit holes.