ciao bella!

here goes nothing (quite literally...)

Choosing to launch this newsletter the week of the White Lotus finale was a real now or never moment. When will I ever have more to speak to?? I also have a few thoughts to share on the new Meghan Markle Netflix series featuring Prince Harry in a supporting role, as well as recognizing my own personal end to the World Cup.

White Lotus finale: mama mia 👌

The White Lotus: Sicily. I don’t know a better show. The finale was so perfect. Now obviously this will contain spoilers, but why are you reading this if you have not watched it already? This newsletter is so unworthy of your free time if there is so little of it that you have yet to watch.

Look, I am heartbroken that Tanya/Jennifer Coolidge died. But, for a show that in many ways defines itself by pressing right up against the line of plausibility, having her just continue to travel the globe staying at one White Lotus resort after another and having somebody be murdered every time she’s there would probably kick the bucket over the line. But I think the death was perfect. What an ultimately very stupid way to die for somebody who was ultimately a very stupid woman. Our era’s Mr. Magoo really did need to die by literally just walking off a ledge. But Oh My Goddess — that scene where she is crying and going full sloppy white girl Scarface on the boat?!?? A side of Jennifer Coolidge we never knew we never knew, and certainly did - and still do not - deserve. Genius. Me, watching Jennifer Coolidge emptying a clip and committing like seven rapid successive murders.

But let’s get to the meat of the finale:

Like, full out cartoon animal with eyes popping out of their sockets, shouting awooooooga while their tongue rolls out onto the floor like a measuring tape. Will Sharpe dehydrated me all season and this finale just went for the death blow. Will we ever know what precise variety of freaky shit went down on that little island with Daphne? No. In my mental nirvana I’m choosing to believe they just toured the pretty little haunted house, because Ethan was so pure the whole season and I want to cling to him as my True King forever. But lolol let’s be real, they definitely boned.

The internet seems generally congratulatory to Lucia for securing the bag. I don’t necessarily applaud the thievery but good for her, I guess. Though I do wonder what she does with all that cash, because she wears very truly ugly clothes for a €50k scammer, and there is no way Albie was her first hit… she was a seasoned pro. (I don’t want to talk about how much time I just spent trying to type €….) And do I feel bad for Albie? No, but not because he is a USDA Prime bozo for not knowing he was very clearly being played, but rather because, with a caboose like this, he is going to be juuussst fine:

In close out, some season-wide favorites, thank yous, and special commendations:

• Just how aggressively Gen Z Portia’s outfits were, each and every scene.

• Jennifer Coolidge speaking English to people she knew could only speak Italian. Her trying to talk to the captain near killed me. “Did you knit your little cap?” and “you’re gay too??”

• The fact that the grandpa apparently packed like a suitcase full of sassy old man hats (we saw them! they were there!), but ended up walking around most of the time with that big ol’ bandage on his bald ass head instead.

• The wannabe lounge singer was suppose to be kinda bad, right? That was the point, right? Like, we weren't suppose to be moved by any of those performance? I only ask because they were (repeatedly!) presented with maybe just a tad too much sincerity…..

Life in Khaki

The other big TV splashdown this past week was the first few episodes of the Meghan and Harry docuseries on Netflix. This is going to be a fairly ignorant series of hot takes, as I did not watch much of it, but I generally always enjoy uninformed yet indigent opinions about things that in the end really do not matter.

I really did try to give the series a fair shake, but I just could not get through the lighting and filtering, and nauseating number of beige and neutral tones. Who thought this show needed the Selling Sunset season 3 treatment? It looks like a mid-tier influencer’s “sneak peak” photo dump of a mini-session with a family potrait photographer. Are we really suppose to believe Harry and Meghan live in Gingham Town, USA? Is there no red, yellow, or green in Montecito anymore? Surely Oprah down the street does not live in this same taupe-drenched hellscape.

It’s mostly so weird to me, because we’re talking about very gorgeous humans. Why are they stuck in portrait mode? You could have flown in pretty much any makeup artist in the world for the slight touchups the Botox isn’t carrying, and looked stunning in 4k technicolor.

To me, it’s yet another indictment towards my general hesitations around Meghan, and my overall sense that she is likely a phony-baloney. She tries so aggressively to be hashtag authentic that it is head-against-the-wall aggravating at how not authentic it comes off. So to then have your “real, raw, unfiltered” docuseries be very much so literally filtered? Be serious.

It’s all very Taylor Swift, very Alison Roman; a “not like the other girls” kind of efforted effortless persona. And that’s not to say I don’t (slightly begrudgingly) consume plenty of T. Swift and A. Roman content. Tayla was in my Spotify wrapped this year (although this was shocking to me…) and pretty much everything I make is out of either Dining In or Nothing Fancy. But those two are putting out the objectively high quality product that pushes me to set the annoying bravado. At the end of the day, really what does Meghan give us? What does she actually do? I mean, maybe this Netflix series, I guess; but that’s going to have to be your journey, not mine.

It’s important to note, many think this means I’m a racist royalist that watches Piers Morgan every night. Meghan has seemingly carved out this space in the elite company of very few where any criticism of her is lumped together with the worst, most vile voices that also don’t like her. Was she unfairly targeted from the get-go by a sick tabloid media machine? Of course. Is much of that particular criticism rooted in what really is nothing more than abject racism? Yeah, dummy. But, does that make her immune from any legitimate criticism about being kind of insufferable for reasons that have nothing to do with race and deal solely with her pretty annoying public schtick? Apparently.

I will close with the cutest picture I took this week, of who is probably - objectively speaking - the cutest 5 year old alive that has memorized both the Dodgers line-up and at least one Orville Peck chorus:

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