This Week

• All the bad TV I can’t wait to watch.

• Will never get over the Beyoncé and Miley moment.

• Mariah Carey just did something historic.

• Obsessed with this…popcorn bucket?

• Speechless over this photoshoot.

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And Just Like That… It Was Bad TV Season 

This is a safe space, right? We’re among friends? 

If that’s the case, I have a confession: I don’t, like, “get” Severance.

I watch it, and recognize I’m watching something ostensibly “great.” It’s complex and cinematic…and so, so confusing. Would I suggest that it should be up for major television awards? Sure. Did I treat pressing play on the new episode each week as some sort of chore? Yes, that too.

It can feel awkward to be a person who people go to for recommendations about what to watch because, often, I think I have terrible taste. “Serious” critics would demand that you watch Severance. I’m like, maybe get to that one at some point, but hurry up and watch the latest Real Housewives of Beverly Hills first so we can gossip about it. 

Don’t get me wrong. I take my job seriously, and am adamant that a person can be obsessed with both the highbrow and lowbrow, with no shame to be felt about the latter. I hope that my endless screaming about them got you to watch masterful, smaller series like Somebody Somewhere, Dying for Sex, Bad Sisters, or Interview With the Vampire. I also hope that you’ve caught on that the most joy that can be found watching television each day happens on The Kelly Clarkson Show and Watch What Happens Live. 

We contain multitudes! 

We are about to enter the Golden Age of one end of the spectrum of quality. There is going to be so much bad TV this summer, and I can’t wait to devour every second of it. 

Bliss happens every Thursday night at 9 pm ET, when the latest bats--t episode of And Just Like Thatdrops on HBO Max. I fill up my biggest mug with hot tea, lube up my vocal chords, and spend 45 minutes screaming at my television over all the ludicrous ways my beloved characters from Sex and the City have been bastardized. 

This week found Carrie Bradshaw riding an ATV in rural Virginia. Excuse me?! Blasphemy! Yet, I loved every second of it. 

I am baffled by the ways these writers have imagined how these characters would behave at this point in their lives, yet also moved by the prospect that I may too be lobotomized sometime over the next 20 years and become a completely unrecognizable person. Who will that Kevin be? I couldn’t help but wonder!

Sunday nights are about to get so good. TV’s silliest show, The Gilded Age, finally returns. This series tricks you into thinking it’s fancy and important. It’s from the creator of Downton Abbey. Everyone is in fancy gowns. The cast is stacked with award-winning actors. And yet the biggest drama of a given season is which opera the characters are going to see or, most memorably, Christine Baranski deigning to walk across the street. 

The new season infuses more Downton-esque melodrama into the camp of its otherwise dramatic nothingness, and some of it works. But the show is much more gratifying when it’s focusing on a servant who wants to build an alarm clock—easily TV’s most random plot line—or Baranski’s character being aghast that Cynthia Nixon’s character wants to make their household a sober one. 

Two frontrunners for the TV line of the year both come from Baranski related to that plot line: “He drank wine and served it to guests. So did Jesus!” And, “Let the sober circus begin!”

I sometimes question whether I’ve lost my mind when it comes to what TV shows I’ll watch. I haven’t finished the new season of The Last of Us, but I devoured every episode of the trashy soap Sirens. I don’t anticipate the upcoming crime drama Smoke, starring Taron Egerton, to be “for me,” but I depressingly predict caving and watching critically ravaged summer thrillers We Were Liars or The Waterfront once I start to feel left out when they inevitably become popular.

And let’s not forget the best part of the summer: reality TV.  

I hesitate even mentioning this series in a post about so-called “bad” television, because it is a masterpiece. The Real Housewives of Miami is airing, and each episode is brilliant. I don’t say that in jest, or as hyperbole. I am a connoisseur of reality television. This is the genre at its peak form. 

Let’s be honest, though. We do want that absolute garbage reality TV, too. I’m grateful that this summer will deliver that in a full variety pack. 

Bachelor in Paradise returns for those who unabashedly crave messiness. The exciting twist this season: several Golden Bachelorand Golden Bachelorette contestants join the cast. Old people can be horny too! 

Netflix is continuing to roll out its Trainwreck documentary series, an anthology looking back at recent rock-bottom moments when it comes to media-sensation news stories. Still to come this summer: entries on the notorious Carnival “poop cruise” and one the Balloon Boy phenomenon.  

And, as always, Shark Week returns. Well, technically it would be Shark Months. The shark content has spread like chum across a dozen networks and streaming services. I will consume every bit of programming, from a serious documentary about conservation to a pandering “Michael Phelps races a shark” special to whatever the next Sharknado nonsense may be. 

According to reports, we’re about to enter a “diabolical” stretch of hot weather. As 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan says, “Live every week like it’s shark week.” For me, that means cherishing this time spent watching “bad TV.”

The II Most Wanted 

Do you ever come across a moment where you’re so glad that it happened but you hate and wish ill on every single person who got to be there instead of you? 

Sorry to the people of Paris, but that happened this week when Miley Cyrus joined Beyoncé at the France capital’s stop of the Cowboy Carter world tour. (A French woman was incredibly rude to me once at the Charles de Gaulle airport, sparking a grudge that makes me feel OK about this write-up.)

It was the first time the pair sang their Cowboy Carter duet “II Most Wanted” live together. The song won a Grammy earlier this year, and rightfully so: A highlight of Beyoncé’s album, it chronicles the intensity of a lifelong bond between two people, grounded with its twang, telegraphing the comfort and romance in that connection.

When clips of the performance first started popping up on my timeline, after I watched each one seven times each, I texted everyone I know about the supreme jealousy I felt to not have witnessed it in person. I sat in the rain, Beyoncé, to see your tour. You couldn’t have brought out Miley then? 

Envy aside, it’s been heartwarming to see how the performance transcended the expected excitement from fans, to recognizing it as a special moment between two superstars who came up in the industry on very different paths to find themselves together singing a banger of a song at that sold-out arena. 

I remember when they had Miley Cyrus singing with Beyoncé at the Stand Up 2 Cancer concert in 2008 and everyone mocked how random it was to pair Hannah Montana with the icon. What an evolution from that to the II Most Wanted stars now.  

A Hero Comes Along 

If you are a Mariah Carey fan who has either gone to one of her concerts over the last decade or simply followed the discourse surrounding those performances on social media, then you will understand how powerful this sentence and the video accompanying it is. 

If you are not, trust me: It’s major.

Friends and lambily: During a performance at London’s Summertime Ball, Mariah Carey walked down the stage completely unassisted. Icon.

That’s Not His… Is It? 

Every time a movie chain unveils one of those themed novelty popcorn buckets aimed at making the small loan you have to take out in order to afford going to the movies these days even more financially crushing, the design goes viral for an unfortunate reason. (Never forget the Dune bucket.)

Well, let’s just say the design for the new Fantastic Four bucket continues the trend…

Today’s Top Entertainment News 

• Why ‘Borat’ Director Stopped Speaking to Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry David
• Madonna Busted for Rude Behavior During Hit Broadway Show
• Pixar’s New Alien Adventure ‘Elio’ Is the Studio’s Rare Miss

Everyone Look at My Husband 

To everyone who has texted me asking if I have seen the new Jonathan Bailey photo shoot (essentially everyone I know): Yes, I have, and no, I have not yet started breathing again. 

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More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed 

• The Brokeback Mountain scene we can’t stop thinking about 20 years later. Read more.  
• The scandalous story behind the real-life Downton Abbey family. (Hitler?!) Read more.
• Is it finally time for Bravo to fire its biggest villain, Jax Taylor? Read more.

• 28 Years Later: This is still the best zombie movie franchise ever. (Now in theaters) 

• The Gilded Age: The Holy Trinity—Christine Baranski, Carrie Coon, and Cynthia Nixon—are back. (Sunday on HBO)

• Trainwreck: Poop Cruise: Don’t lie and tell me you’re not immediately watching based on the title alone. (Tues. on Netflix)

• Elio: There’s no buzz surrounding this Pixar movie for a reason… (Now in theaters)

• The Bear: To be clear: I have no idea if the new season is good or bad. I’m just tired of the discourse. (Wed. on Hulu)

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