As Netflix has turned its hand to mass-producing romantic comedies, there have been some truly delightful successes — movies that capture the sweetness, humor, brightness and sizzle of a ‘90s or ‘00s classic (“Always Be My Maybe,” “Set It Up,” and “Wedding Season” are among our favorites). But many of the platform’s romcoms are aiming more for the Hallmark Channel audience than the cinematic release one, and of those, the movies tend to fall into two categories: oddly melancholy, and intensely zany. It’s “A California Christmas” (mopey, muted colors, plot points revolve around someone dying of cancer) or “Love Hard” (pratfall-heavy, bright colors, plot points revolve around a kiwi allergy making someone’s face look puffy).

This week, entirely by accident, we ended up watching one of each. We chose to pair “Love in the Villa” with “That’s Amor” because they both featured sad American women healing from rejection by exploring a new culture and finding love with hot European men. As it turned out, “Love in the Villa” is the epitome of a zany romcom, with over-the-top comic escapades that should have ended with mutual restraining orders rather than true love, and “That’s Amor” is such a sadrom it’s almost mumblecore.

But the movies share a great deal of DNA: lonely, unlikable heroines who don’t know much about life outside their particular corners of the U.S., handsome heroes who spar with them and then fall in love with them, lessons in appreciating foreign cuisines, and, of course, everyone’s exes showing up to ruin things right when it seemed like true love was about to blossom.

On this episode, we recap every unsettling beat of “Love in the Villa,” followed by “That’s Amor.” We unpack the movies’ romcom tropes, analyze their romantic leads, and discuss the most jawdroppingly awful moments in each (no spoilers, but they involve potential police brutality and bad graphic design, respectively). Uncork a nice Barolo, slice your Spanish tortilla, and enjoy! xo

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We’ve been reading…

Romcoms! I read and loved Elissa Sussman’s “Funny You Should Ask” after seeing Emma recommended it, and then tried Mia Sosa’s “The Wedding Crasher” and “The Worst Best Man,” which are the ultimate candy fluff reading (with some steamy scenes as the cherry on top). I also took a little break from my “Persuasion” reread to plow through “The Rabbit Hutch,” and now I’m savoring the last few chapters of Anne Elliot’s dramatic journey to find love — which, by the way, pair perfectly with the slight nip of fall we’ve had in the air lately. -Claire

I finally discovered the brilliance of Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket books? (I know, I know… I’m VERY late to the party.) I read “The Perfect Couple,” and then went right into “The Hotel Nantucket,” and wow do I love the breezy fun of these perfect summer novels. -Emma

We’ve been watching…

“Frozen”! Y’all, it happened! I’ve spent my adulthood saying I would watch each hot new kids movie with my own children, and my toddler is now old enough to sit and watch an entire movie. We resorted to this a couple times over the course of an end-of-summer daycare break that extended from the Wednesday before to the Tuesday after Labor Day (a week during which, funnily enough, we still had to work). I never caught a whole sitting, but finally I have managed to piece together what happens in “Frozen.” And not to be, like, so controversial but also so brave, but there are only two good songs in it? I was led to expect more. “Let It Go” does slap though — even more so with your two-year-old trying to sing along. -Claire

My boyfriend and I have gotten really into “Delhi Crime,” a Netflix India series in a mix of Hindi and English, which follows the Delhi police department’s attempts to solve inspired-by-real-life cases. Each season follows a different major case, and the show wisely does not idealize the police detectives at its center, and even dives headfirst into the ways policing can easily become a corrupting force. -Emma

We’ve been listening to…

The 1986 season of Slate’s history podcast One Year, which recently kicked off. Each episode takes on one event from that year, but it’s a smart mix of the most well-remembered events and the ones that have totally dropped out of the collective consciousness. This season has featured episodes about two things I had never really heard of: then-Pistons star Isiah Thomas’s quixotic “No Crime Day” campaign in Detroit, and a misbegotten TV special in which Geraldo Rivera promised to show audiences the hidden vault of Al Capone live on air. It also tells the story of the Challenger explosion through the eyes of the finalists who competed with Christa McAuliffe to be the first teacher in space, a perspective that made a more familiar story completely new (and still utterly horrifying). -Claire

Podglomerate’s new investigative podcast about literary scandals, Missing Pages! Hosted by literary critic Bethanne Patrick, Missing Pages re-explores stories about the publishing industry that you probably remember seeing headlines about, but may not recall all of the details. With the benefit of time, Patrick revisits scandals such as Caroline Calloway’s rise and fall, Kaavya Viswanathan’s alleged plagiarism, and the larger implications of Dan Mallory’s lies. It’s fascinating stuff, and very well-reported. Highly recommend. (Claire note: WHAT HOW HAVE I NOT HEARD OF THIS?? NEED!) -Emma

We’ve been buying…

Jeans. The glorious season of floaty dresses is coming to an end, and that means I’m re-entering the hell of finding a pair of jeans that I actually want to wear all day, every day. (Tights just aren’t a satisfying daily wfh option, given that I live with a cat who sheds white hair and refuses to let me trim her claws.) I tried a couple pairs of washed black jeans from Madewell, which has been driving me crazy with inconsistent sizing and fit for the past couple of years but will occasionally serve me up the perfect pant, and hit the jackpot with the curvy perfect vintage jean in lunar wash. (Sadly, the amazing promo discount I got seems to be over.) I’ve tried this same cut in a different wash that didn’t fit in the waist properly, but these? Perfect. Just hoping I can find an equally good everyday jean in a classic blue before spring comes again! -Claire

Skincare products! A handful of my very sweet friends gifted me a fancy facial for my birthday, which I went to this week. I hadn’t had anyone properly evaluate my skin in awhile, and I ended up buying a few of the products my esthetician recommended, including the Biologique Recherche Lotion P50 1970, which so many people swear by. It’s an exfoliating toner which also hydrates, and so far I am loving it. It’s a little pricey, but you only need to use a few drops at a time so I think it will end up lasting me a long time. I also had been looking for a cleanser which my sensitive, breakout-prone skin didn’t react poorly to, so I grabbed a bottle of the iS Clinical Cleansing Complex as well. -Emma

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