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When Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s new lifestyle show, “With Love, Meghan,” premiered on Netflix last week, the reactions were swift… and negative.

“‘With Love, Meghan’ Is a Montecito Ego Trip Not Worth Taking,” declared Variety. “Meghan Markle Pioneers New Frontiers in Unrelatability,” said Vulture. The Guardian called the show “toe-curlingly unlovable TV.” Audience reactions were largely even less charitable (and considerably more racist) than the critical ones.

These are big feelings elicited by a show that can best be described as placid ASMR; the kind of television programming perfect for half-watching at the nail salon or while you’re doing laundry. “With Love, Meghan” is full of color-coordinated platters, celebrity cameos, Montecito kitchen-core, wooden monologues, a few delicious-sounding simple recipes, and SO MANY FLOWER SPRINKLES. The content is a little boring, wholly inoffensive, and falls soundly in the grand tradition of domestic arts lifestyle content targeted towards women. So why the collective freakout instead of a collective yawn?

We had to dig through the discourse and sort out what it is about Meghan Markle Sussex that makes everyone lose their minds. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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Claire is out sick, so the wonderful Kelsey McKinney joined me to recap the “Traitors” finale! Go order her book! Also: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS!

During this season of “The Traitors,” a 10+ year dedication to Bachelor Nation finally payed off. The people have discovered Gabby Windey — but us real ones (a.k.a. “Bachelor(ette)” fans — knew all along.

On Thursday night, the third season of “The Traitors” US edition had its season finale and reunion, and the former did not disappoint. (The latter was sweet and fun, but not so juicy.) We ended up with a final 6 that consisted of two gamer Traitors from different franchises, 1 former Bachelorette, 1 gay royal, 1 Zac Efron’s brother, and 1 Housewife. And our gal Gabby really shined. Her one-liners! Her catsuit! Her cool, calm and collected face-off with Danielle at the roundtable! 10/10, no notes.

In this episode we get into Carolyn and Danielle’s downfalls, Britney’s late Traitor recruitment, our ragtag team of Final Faithfuls, and one last Tom Sandoval gem. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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Emma is officially a married woman! (Or, as she likes to think of herself, an appendage.) She and Adam tied the knot this weekend at Shun Lee West, a Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side, in a Jewish ceremony that artfully mingled tradition with their own unique personalities and values. Emma looked like an old Hollywood film star. Their vows brought me to tears. And, fittingly for a woman whose ability to make and keep friends is the stuff of legend, her wedding felt like the best cocktail party you’ve ever attended: overflowing with good food and drinks, pulsing with laughter and dancing, and brimming with interesting people to befriend or catch up with.

In this episode, Emma answers as many of your questions about the wedding as we could squeeze in. We talk about the aesthetic vision, the vendors, the budget, the hair and makeup, the dresses, the food, the ceremony, the reception vibes, and more.

If our voices are a little croaky and exhausted, please bear with us: This is not the kind of party you recover from in just one night. Hope you enjoy this glimpse inside the details! xo

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There are few reality TV moments that truly break through amidst all the pop culture noise. But I think we can agree that Tom Sandoval holding one ear closed so he can sing backwards nursery rhymes — with vibrato — into a phone booth is one of them.

@peacockWell I got chills. #TheTraitorsUS is streaming now on Peacock. #Traitors #TomSandoval #SingingTiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

This was a great stretch of “The Traitors” for Sandoval, who has mostly been bouncing around the castle annoying people, throwing out extremely incorrect theories, and steamrolling over women to get shields for himself. But in episodes 7 and 8, he shined. And that’s because he (a) like a broken clock twice a day, finally got something right, and (b) embraced his true calling as the Resident Buffoon.

In this episode, we get into Sandoval’s triumphs as well as Boston Rob’s downfall and some sad murders in this episode. Plus — our girl Gabby Windey continues to T-H-R-I-V-E!!! Hope you enjoy! Xo

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Halfway through the third season of “The Traitors” US, one thing has become clear: This game is in a shambles. The Traitors are demoralized and divided, unable to pursue any real strategy because they hate each other more than anyone else in the house. It’s unclear that many of the Faithfuls even really care that much about banishing Traitors anymore — and why should they, given that new ones would simply be recruited? Instead, people are either desperately deflecting votes from themselves or targeting players they simply don’t like very much. (Tom Sandoval, your days are numbered.) There’s chaos in the castle, but it’s hardly a testament to the prowess of the Traitors; it’s simply evidence of how little evidence and motivation the game provides for rooting them out.

Meanwhile, the gender war has continued — though, after a challenge in which the men hoard almost all eight shields for themselves, and a painful banishment that makes the women realize they’re being targeted, the gender divide has started to subside in the face of the general pandemonium.

So… why are we loving every minute? Are Alan Cumming’s glam Braveheart-core outfits enough? Or Gabby’s eyerolls and comic monologues? What about watching every last person in the castle’s patience with Tom Sandoval being shredded in real time? Okay, it’s all of it — plus, we just love mess. In this episode, we caught up on the key events of the last three installments of “The Traitors,” plus some general thoughts on the format, where the game is headed, and why Sandoval is still in the game despite being despised by everyone who meets him. Hope you enjoy! xo

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Last night, we were on the YouTube front lines — alongside 250k other people — to see what former “Bachelor” winner Rachael Kirkconnell had to say about her very fresh breakup. Because if there’s a woman who’s in need of a comfy couch, a matching sweat set, and some tea spilling, Alex Cooper is gonna rise to the occasion and offer all three on “Call Her Daddy.”

For those out of the loop on Bachelor Nation / influencer news, on January 16 former Bachelor Matt James posted a bizarre, prayer-filled post on Instagram announcing his split from Rachael, his girlfriend of four years. The pair met when Matt was the lead of “The Bachelor” in 2021, and weathered a racism scandal that led to the ousting of the show’s longtime host, Chris Harrison.

The caption of Matt’s breakup post — which was posted at 6 a.m. EST — read as follows:

“Father God, give Rachael and I strength to mend our broken hearts. Give us a peace about this decision to end our relationship that transcends worldly understanding. Shower our friends and family with kindness and love to comfort us. And remind us that our Joy comes from you, Lord 💔”

This, unsurprisingly, caused a feeding frenzy on social media. Was Matt’s account hacked? He had just been posting videos with Rachael in them! Why was Rachael being silent? What the fuck was going on? Little by little, information started trickling out. We learned from Rachael’s sister that the couple had only been broken up for three hours when Matt posted on Instagram, and we learned from DeuxMoi that they had just been vacationing together in Tokyo. But other than that, all we had was pure speculation. Enter Alex Cooper.

On Monday night, the “Call Her Daddy” sit-down premiered on YouTube. And it was both less salacious and more sad than perhaps people were expecting. We did not learn about any big revelations of infidelity, just about the more mundane signals that a relationship dynamic may not be a healthy one. (And about the fact that Rachael saw Matt’s breakup post JUST AS SHE BOARDED A 12-HOUR FLIGHT.) However, the hour and 40-minute interview was raw, honest and deeply relatable.

The two of us had big plans to cover “Traitors” this week, but instead we decided to bump that until next week so we could discuss this “Call Her Daddy” episode. We get into the details Rachael outlined of the breakup, how “The Bachelor” sets couples up to fail, what we’d like to hear from Matt, and why we think so many of us viscerally connected to Rachael’s post-breakup grief. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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With Donald Trump officially back in office, and a flood of abhorrent executive orders and public displays of fascism already grabbing our attention, we couldn’t focus on anything else this week. We decided to check back in — with each other and with Sami Sage (co-founder of Betches, host of The Morning Announcements and American Fever Dream, and author of Democracy in Retrograde) — to discuss how we’re filtering through the firehose of bad news, how to avoid expending energy on endless outrage consumption and anxiety wheel-spinning, and what is worth putting our energy toward.

In part, this has meant reevaluating how we approached Trump’s last administration, trying to learn from what was effective and what was self-indulgent. As individuals, we don’t want to use up all our mental space or political will on Instagram posting or fruitless doomscrolling; instead, we’re thinking about building in-person communities and targeting our involvement locally or towards narrow, winnable national debates.

But we’re also thinking about what role we play as writers and podcasters who, unlike in the last Trump administration, aren’t affiliated with a news organization. In this episode, we discuss our roots in feminist critique of “The Bachelor” franchise, how that has evolved along with our political context over the past decade, and the value of pop cultural commentary with a left-wing, feminist point of view.

We also touch on the inauguration itself, particularly Elon Musk’s unapologetic Nazi salute and the infuriating discourse that followed.

In this episode, we discuss all of this, along with the hope that we’re holding on to. We hope you’re finding ways to hope, and to help, as well. xo

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Ah to be young… and quirky… and have every boy and girl in your vicinity find themselves falling, a little or a lot, in love with you. This is the world of Kitty Song Covey, the heroine of Netflix’s “XOKitty,” a spinoff series of the TATBILB trilogy.

It’s often hard to stick the landing during the second season of a hit show, and “XOKitty” season 2 definitely wobbles. There are an unwieldy number of new central characters (Eunice! Mr. Moon! Stella! Praveena!), as well as the inexplicable disappearance of a few formerly central ones (was Yunji Kim simply unavailable to reprise her role as Principal Jina Lim?). As a result, some storyline are short-changed, like Queen Bee Yuri’s, while others seem to take over, like new girl Stella’s turn into arch-villainy.

However, “XOKitty” keeps its core charms: its K-drama-inspired flourishes, its casual queerness, its resistance to pigeonholing Kitty into having a clear “endgame” love interest, and its delicious sweetness. We discuss it all in this episode. Hope you enjoy! As Kitty would say… Xo

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Once again, Alan Cumming and his collection of capes and tartans have assembled a band of merry C-list celebrities in a Highland castle, where they are participating in a lavishly produced parlor game of murder and betrayal: “The Traitors.” We became hooked in season 2, and season 3 brought in some of our dream cast members — Chrishell Stause, Gabby Windey, Dorinda Medley — alongside legendary contestants from strategy shows like “Survivor” and “Big Brother,” a motley crew of one-off stars from shows like “Summer House” and “The Biggest Loser,” and people who are one degree of separation from actual fame. But it also brought in a heavy dose of sexism, a palpable undercurrent of boys-rule-girls-drool, that we didn’t expect after watching season 2.

The show premiered this week with a three-episode drop, which gets us properly into the drama. We see the selection of our Traitors, the first two murders, and the first two banishments, and we get to know our new cast as well. “Bachelorette” Gabby, in between dropping A-plus quips in her talking head interviews, forms a hot-girl alliance with Nikki Garcia and Chrishell. The Housewives stick together, perhaps tot their detriment. Sam Asghari refuses to tell anyone whether Britney Spears, his ex-wife, watches Bravo, and everyone immediately loses interest in him. Wells Adams, softened from years of slinging margaritas on “Paradise,” immediately becomes a paranoid wreck. Not-famous brother Dylan Efron emerges as an unlikely detective. Tom Sandoval, shocking nobody, is uniquely terrible at reading people, while also coming off as a self-serving worm. And the gamers swagger around, flaunting their strategic bonafides and sizing each other up.

But the show is also, currently, sizing up as a battle of the sexes — a dynamic that falls into place mere minutes into the first challenge. The cast has to row a Viking ship across the loch, leaving behind two contestants at each of up to five pontoons containing money for the prize fund and fuel to complete the challenge. After the journey, they must return to shore and light a circle on fire; anyone within the circle gets a shield and is safe from murder. The men immediately, instinctively, seem to decide that the women must sacrifice themselves, since they are all inherently weaker than any of the men on board, and less able to complete the rowing challenge. The female contestants are instructed and pressure to leave the boat in favor of the stronger men. Once they leave, however, they’re also treated with suspicion — because only a Traitor would be willing to give up a shield. It’s a double bind that attaches almost entirely to the women, while the men ruthlessly protect their own survival (with few and notable exceptions).

Was this intentional game design? A symptom of society’s accelerating embrace of reactionary gender politics? Probably both! But this challenge wasn’t the only element of the game thus far that has structurally disadvantaged female contestants. We dug in to our thoughts on how gender has played into the season so far, as well as the Traitors’ strategy thus far, what each cast member is bringing to the table, and more. Hope you enjoy! xo

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Given the success of “Selling Sunset” and “Selling The O.C.,” it was only a matter of time before the franchise spun off all the way to New York City. Enter “Selling The City.”

The newest real estate mogul reality show centers on an all-women team of Douglas Elliman agents in New York City, lead by super-agent Eleanora Srugo. Regular readers of the New York Post might know her as a big Eric Adams booster, and viewers of “The Bachelor” may remember her as the realtor that Dale Moss allegedly hooked up with while he was with Clare Crawley. (She and Dale have both strongly denied that this happened.)

Eleanora and her associates — Jade Chan, Taylor Middleton, Jordyn Taylor Braff, Abigail Godfrey, and Gisselle Meneses-Núñez — are the consummate girl bosses. They’re selling. They’re dealing. They’re power lunching. They’re all about their business, and most of their closest social ties, at least as portrayed on the show, are related to that business. (The men on the show, Justin Tuinstra and Corcoran agent Steve Gold who was previously on “Million Dollar Listing,” largely take a backseat. Gold, because he takes on the role of naturally charismatic elder statesman, and Justin because he’s deeply uninteresting unless he’s getting into a fight or talking about how maybe he’ll have kids and a wife in Nashville someday on his 40th birthday. 🙄🙄🙄)

“Selling The City” is clearly still gaining its sea legs. It’s hard to tell exactly where the show’s emotional core lies, and the plot is not as propulsive as “Selling Sunset’s” was in those first few seasons. However, the show is at its most gripping when we are seeing the most stunning real estate that New York has to offer — so much more variety than in Los Angeles! — and when the women on the show are having surprisingly real and candid conversations about being in their 30s and 40s and figuring out how to make big life decisions about family planning, partnership and career. Taylor is navigating fertility treatments in the midst of a rocky marriage and addiction recovery. Eleanora is single but has frozen her eggs and is very open about her desire for partnership. Jordyn is going through a breakup and wonders if she should be pursuing fertility preservation as she enters her mid-30s.

These moments of relatable humanity give us hope that “Selling The City” can really hit its stride if it gets a second season. (Fingers crossed!) In this episode, we discuss what works about the show’s premiere episodes and what doesn’t, and we discuss how it stacks up with the other shows in the “Selling” franchise. Hope you enjoy! Xo

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