The Week In Recommendations 3.5.25
A perfect episode of television and what to call your reps about this week!
This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest subscriber podcast was about Emma’s wedding. An episode about “The Traitors” finale is coming soon! Rich Text is a reader-supported project.
Civic challenge of the week:
Boycott Target until they reinstate DEI policies.
Spread the word in your community about threats to Social Security, USPS, and the Department of Education — and call your senators and representatives to demand their staunch opposition.
Claire has been reading… 📖
As a mom and a person who loathes getting sick, I’ve been in a state of crazed anxiety about the grim outlook for vaccines in this country. My first kid spent five days in the hospital with RSV when he was three months old. When I was pregnant with my second, new RSV vaccines were becoming available for pregnant people and babies, and I bugged our doctors about availability at every appointment, but we just missed them.
I would do anything to save my kids from the suffering I saw my first child go through with RSV – the struggle to breathe, the persistent cough, the long battle to place an IV in his chunky arm as he screamed, the days hooked up to oxygen and CPAP machines. He was a healthy, exclusively breastfed, roly poly baby with Michelin Man legs and round cheeks. He still got very, very sick, and it happened very very fast. I’m terrified of kids facing measles, RSV, the flu, and so many other contagious diseases without vaccines.
So this Washington Post article, in which anti-vax parents explain why they’re digging in amid the measles outbreak in Texas, was absolutely maddening. “We’re not going to harm our children or [risk] the potential to harm our children […] so that we can save yours,” said one mother, who felt even more sure that her strong and healthy children wouldn’t benefit from vaccines after they were fortunate enough to have mild cases of measles in this outbreak.
This article in the Guardian offered some faint comfort, or at least a glimmer of hope that not everyone is beyond reaching. The reporter spoke to parents who changed their minds about being anti-vax, and the reasons they gave were surprising to me. One got into anti-vax influencing because of an MLM colleague; when she lost her faith in the MLM field, she also lost faith in the other propaganda she’d been fed in those spaces. Another was shocked that fellow anti-vaxxers were eschewing non-vaccine health safeguards, like masks, amid the Covid pandemic. Another met actual scientists when she attended college, and she realized that health experts weren’t the shadowy cabal her parents had led her to believe. Even a sick kid doesn’t, sadly, always change an anti-vaxxer’s mind – but that also isn’t the only path.
Emma has been reading… 📖
“Summer House” star West Wilson’s interview with
, in which he reflects on “bro culture,” and the way that young men — especially young white men — have moved right as a voting bloc. I thought that he displayed some real thoughtfulness about the phenomenon, and it feels important in this moment to have mainstream, straight, cis, white, male stars speaking out publicly from the left.“People need examples of people that they think they relate to,” Wilson says in this interview. “And if that's Missouri people or sports people, whatever, maybe my word lands harder for straight white dudes in their 20s because they see me as the same as them, where perhaps these fucking white kids don't actually listen to people who don't look like them or sound like them.”
(Also, West’s mom is an OB-GYN so he is *very* clear on abortion rights, which we truly love to see.)
Claire has been watching… 📺
Given that we’re knee-deep in important viewing right now – from “The Bachelor” to “White Lotus” – I haven’t done much extracurricular viewing this week. Greg tried to convince me to watch “Anora” on Friday night, but the baby had been home sick that day and I was exhausted. When I saw the run time was well over two hours, I had to draw a boundary. Instead, we watched a two-part documentary on Australian fake cancer grifter Belle Gibson, abysmally titled “The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist.” (Did we need all of those eight words? Honey, let’s edit!) It was far more shocking to Greg than to me, because I had already inhaled the fictionalized series “Apple Cider Vinegar,” which hewed even more closely to reality than I realized.
I also clicked play on the first episode of Kate Hudson’s Netflix sitcom “Running Point,” a glossy girlboss take on the comedic formula that worked for “Arrested Development” and “Succession”: three fuckup brothers and one fuckup sister struggle for control of a once-thriving family business. My expectations were low, and the clunky opening scenes, not to mention the off-brand Eminem (Chet Hanks?!) we’re supposed to believe is a wild child NBA star, made them lower. I’m especially side-eyeing the apparent creative choice to make the Lindsay/Shiv character a heroine — the only competent one in the clan, who is unfairly doubted because of her gender — when she’s an unqualified nepo baby who falls backward into a prestigious and powerful job. But once things got moving in the pilot, I laughed more than I expected! I’m going to give it a chance.
Emma has been watching… 📺
I’m still thinking about episode 7 of “Severance” season 2, “Chikhai Bardo,” one of the most gorgeous episodes of television I’ve seen in a long time. The episode focuses on Gemma (Dichen Lachman), Outie Mark’s (Adam Scott) once presumed-dead wife, who has been trapped within Lumon’s basement floors. There are some big reveals in the episode, but what struck me more was its lyrical beauty — the flashback scenes were shot on film, which provides nostalgia and texture — and the absolutely stellar performance by Lachman. Lachman had the difficult job of properly introducing us to Gemma, who we have mostly seen in flickers of memory or as her muted innie Ms. Casey, and make us care deeply about her. The depth of Mark and Gemma’s relationship is explored, with all of its imperfections and tensions, and there is a gutting miscarriage scene that had me in full, heaving sobs.
I’m excited to sit with this season of “Severance” for longer, because I feel like the scope of the show has expanded so much. Its not just a show about the alienation of labor and the exploitative nature of work, but also a show about the human experience: the ways in which we are tempted to bury or cut ourselves off from our pain, the ways that big tech/corporations can prey upon a society, and the dangers of ceding agency over your life to avoid discomfort.
I also binged the three-part Hulu docu-series, “Devil In The Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.” The series is (obviously) about former family vlogger Ruby Franke, who was convicted of child abuse along with a very culty therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt. For obvious reasons, it was a very tough watch. Even having read about this case pretty extensively, and listened to podcasts about it, I still had a visceral reaction seeing more of footage of Ruby interacting with her children, as well as interviews with her oldest kids, Shari and Chad, who are able to articulate and reflect on the (physical, emotional, verbal, spiritual) abuse and brainwashing that occurred over the years. Ruby’s ex-husband Kevin is also in the documentary, and he is perhaps the most infuriating figure — a father who utterly failed to protect his children at every turn, and only seems able to halfway reflect on where he went wrong.
Claire has been listening to… 🎧
My usual bullshit! Bachelor in Retrospect is back to cover the second season of “The Bachelor” (Aaron Buerge, a season I’ve never watched). Know Your Enemy, 5-4, and On the Media have been filling my need for clear-eyed political and politics-adjacent discourse. And I think I’ve finally broken up with Slate’s Political Gabfest, since David Plotz still seems constitutionally incapable of admitting that his starry-eyed fascination with Elon Musk was idiotic, and the whole panel continues to treat the second Trump presidency as mildly alarming at most.
Emma has been listening to… 🎧
Obviously had to listen to the “Severance” companion podcast about episode 7, which featured the show’s cinematographer, Jessica Lee Gagné, who also directed the episode, as well as actress Dichen Lachman who I did not realize had an Australian accent!
Claire has been buying… 🛍️
My belt has been cinched tight this month, because I had one big purchase to make: a new computer. The strain of recording (and sometimes editing) long stretches of video and audio had begun to catch up with my four-year-old refurbished MacBook Pro, which was the first thing I got myself after we were laid off from HuffPost and needed our own equipment. Greg happened to need a new computer himself, but his processing needs are much lower, so we decided to get a new refurbished MacBook for me, then wiped mine to pass to him.
I did stop at the Hill House Home store in the city while running some errands. And though I was tempted by a dress made for Lizzy Bennet cosplay, I managed to cling to self-control. (Editor’s note: Incredible dress, incredible self-control. -Emma) Hey, maybe someday there will be a sale (and a reason for me to buy another dress fit for a country ball). It’s so soft and floaty, and the color makes me feel like spring.
Emma has been buying… 🛍️
My lone Abercrombie white button-up shirt, which has served me well for years, has officially discolored beyond repair, so I was on the lookout for a new one ahead of spring. So I was very excited about this one from Loup, a petites-friendly brand that I hadn’t heard of before! It’s properly oversized and perfectly cropped, so you can wear it with jeans tucked in or out. I especially love the way that the bottom of the shirt goes in at the sides, which makes it more structurally interesting than your average plain white collared shirt.
Our mini-moon to Paris was an unmitigated failure, because we both got the flu. This meant we had to pay for an English-speaking doctor to make a house call to our hotel to prescribe Tamiflu, which is a super fun and romantic way to spend your money!!! However, I did treat myself to a pair of these Maje embellished jeans before succumbing to illness. I’ve been looking for jeans with a little extra flare for about a year now, so I felt good about the purchase.
Claire has been making… 🧶
An old favorite: the once-viral TikTok pasta made by roasting cherry tomatoes and a block of feta, mashing them together into a sauce, and tossing it with cooked pasta. Like many viral recipes, it’s a little gross and yet delicious; the sauce looks grainy and half-digested, and the acidity of the tomatoes and feta together results in a certain sourness. On the other hand: cheese and tomatoes. It’s imperfect, but it’s easy and we love it.
I also found myself with a full bunch of overripe bananas yesterday morning, and impulsively made my favorite version of banana bread: Smitten Kitchen’s ultimate banana bread baked in a square cake pan.
Emma has been making… 🧶
Trips to the pharmacy — in both Paris and New York — to procure Tamiflu. (Which I am happy to report is indeed extremely effective if you take it early.) Sometimes winter just gets you. And apparently this a very bad flu year both at home and abroad. Just trying my best not to feel too depressed about it.
However, I did find this one-pan Harissa Chicken recipe on Instagram from British food creator @charlottecohencooks, and I am planning to make it this week because I have a whole jar of harissa paste just sitting in my fridge.
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Oh Emma!! I’m so sorry about the flu.
Ugh yes I don't get Chet Hanks's character... The series gets a bit better as you go but it's more of what you might expect and more of an ambient watch for me.