This Week

• Inside Out 2 doesn’t disappoint.

• You need to be watching Fantasmas.

• The week’s best singing.

• My king won another tournament.

• The best casting idea ever.

The Star of the Moment 

Sadness really is that bitch. 

Imagine if your whole deal—your job, even—was to cry the second anything became too overwhelming. I mean, that is my deal—and what I currently do at my job—but it is not expected. It certainly is not valued. But I have come around to the fact that it should be. 

Sadness is the secret breakout star of the moment. I used to banish her whenever she lurked; now, I welcome her. Have you been alive these last few years? With apologies to Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Donald Trump, that lady with the bizarre flag fetish who is married to that guy who is taking away our rights, and the Pope who can’t stop saying “faggot”: There is one figure who is the most consequential presence in our collective lives. Sadness is fierce. She’s dangerous. She makes people uncomfortable. She is the breakout star of the moment. 

I am, of course, talking about the pivotal character in Inside Out 2. Sadness is not, technically, the star of Inside Out 2—though, speaking from experience, when is Sadness ever the previously announced attendee of any major occasion? She kind of just shows up unannounced, but when she does…she’s the star. Even if she doesn’t want to be.

The fascinating thing about Inside Out 2 is that it unleashes, as is the tradition of a sequel, a new, great adventure. There are new characters, voiced by a star-studded cast. And yet, the crux of it is still the same revelation: We would all be screwed if it wasn’t for Sadness. 

The actual movie Inside Out 2 is brilliant in that it delivers on exactly what you want from a Pixar sequel: The plot is obvious, the twists you see coming, and the voices are hysterical. I would imagine that they didn’t bargain for an elder millennial to dissect the profundity of a side character, but at this moment, who carries more weight than Sadness?

The gambit of Inside Out 2 is that the movie introduces new emotions—Anxiety, Embarrassment, Ennui—but it reveals to us how, whatever complications encroach on our lives, the binary still exists: Are you sad, or are you feeling joy?

Even if unintentionally, Pixar has made Sadness the hero. In this sequel, she is the one who has to clear the physical and emotional hurdle that eventually leads to the solving of the movie’s big problem: If anxiety takes over, how can the person we’re controlling still exist? The answer is Sadness. 

I think we’ve all tried to move past a truth that is, honestly, inescapable: We’re all really sad. 

The reasons why? I don’t intend to have my mentions poisoned by that, but suffice it to say: People are sad. In reaction to politics, power, pop culture: the answer is the same. Getting a little teary.

In Inside Out 2, the film, the central character, Riley, hits puberty. There is a flood of emotions that (literally) encroach on and disrupt her life: Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment. Riley, I get it. But what crystalizes to me is those nuances: There are two things that energize us all. Joy, and Sadness.

What struck me in my screening of the film is the assumption: When Sadness is involved, things will become a disaster. What actually happens is that, even while sitting by the sidelines, Sadness is the reason that anything is a success. Sadness is the reason for happiness,

My therapist and I are currently untangling these things: why Sadness is the most relatable emotion; how to wrestle that into progress; the revelation that being sad is actually the greatest super power we have. Imagine that! In this climate: drowning in the muck of *the world* right now, but discovering a way to scrape your way out of that into some sort of triumph. It’s so stupid, and yet, that’s what a great Pixar movie can do.

I can tell that we’re all excited to see our Queen (being unapologetically sad and crying in public), so here are my favorite reactions to Sadness feeling her Angelina Jolie self at the red carpet of Inside Out 2. This bitch can’t even eat popcorn. I love her. I am her. I’m so sad. Rejoice me.

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The Show You Should All Be Watching 

Julio Torres is a genius. He’s the weirdest genius we have right now in pop culture, and I’m so grateful that he’s being given a platform. Amidst the chaos of everything in the world, we need weird voices! Strangely, they’re what help us feel normal. 

Torres is a former Saturday Night Livewriter who created the HBO comedy Los Espookys and wrote, directed, and starred in the movie Problemista. His new series Fantasmas launched last week, and is, for me, HBO’s most important show and the one I consider appointment viewing. (Sorry to House of the Dragon, which is apparently a big deal.)

Fantasmas is a continuation of Torres’ unique comedic perspective: turning the mundane into a fairy tale, exploding simple concepts into dreamscapes, and through fantasia underlining the basic humanity beneath injustice. His work is bizarre and surreal, and also is some of culture’s  clearest dissections of queerness, immigration, and class. 

Fantasmas starts with the argument that there should be a crayon the color of “clear.” The first episode also makes points about the gig economy, the housing crisis, and the significance of the letter “Q.” 

So much of television these days is algorithmic—created based on what research says you should like, with the knowledge that you’ll enjoy it. For a show like Fantasmas to exist as the manifestation of the phrase “what the fuck?” is a miracle. Please watch it.

Come On, Get Happy 

Ben Platt reopened the renovated Palace Theater with a residency, the highlight of which has been a duet with a different guest star each night. Kelli O’Hara sang a Joni Mitchell song with him, Rachel Zegler performed a song from Waitress, and Alex Newell launched “Suddenly Seymour” into a vocal stratosphere that hasn’t been heard before. 

The performances have all been jaw-dropping, but I can’t get over this week’s duet with Cynthia Erivo. Platt and the future star of the Wicked movie recreated Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland’s performance of “Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again.”

This, people, is singing.

The Perfect Celebrity 

It is my understanding that all famous people are terrible. So it is refreshing that we have Carlos Alcaraz in this world. To be so young, and also perhaps the greatest athlete in the world right now is one thing. But to also be so humble, and find joy amidst the intensity of the system that surrounds him?

Anyway, here is Alcaraz following up his French Open victory by taking a photo with the ball boys and girls who worked with him during the tournament. It is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.

A Perfect Idea 

If they don’t make a Notting Hill sequel where Nicholas Galitzine is the son of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant’s characters, then what is even the point of having the internet?

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed 

You’ll be scandalized by what’s happening on The Boys. Read more

Glen Powell wants to sell out. Thank god. Read more

The big Bridgerton sex scene is here, and it’s hot. Read more

• Inside Out 2: Don’t have any anxiety over whether this sequel is worth watching. (Now in theaters)
• The Boys: This continues to be the most fun and most shocking TV series. (Now on Prime Video)
• Fresh Kills: The best mafia movie in years. (Now in theaters)

• Love Is Blind: Brazil: Please stop this show from its global reign of terror. (Wed. on Netflix)

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