What We're Watching

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Now that we've totally filled our TBR lists/stacks, how about a catch up on what's filling our time when we're NOT reading.

In our house, we are glued to The Pitt every week. I have loved Noah Wyle since he was baby John Carter on ER, but even so I never imagined he would do something this good. The acting (from the entire cast) and writing and directing are fabulous, and the show is a look at America today that tells you more than any news story. And the camera work! Watch, if you will, how the scenes are set up, how the camera pans from one group to the next as the scenes change. It's really brilliant. Alas, after today there are only two episodes to go. Will Dr. Robby get to take his sabbatical?  

We are also watching a series called The Capture on Prime, starring Holliday Grainger, whom you may know as Robin Ellacott in the series adapted from Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike novels. I'd read that The Capture was the best police series since Line of Duty and halfway through season 1 we are gripped!! It is currently in the third season and if I had the time I'd be bingeing it.

From Wikipedia, which gives a better summary than I can: "The series is centred on DI Rachel Carey (Holliday Grainger), a fast-track Metropolitan Police detective drawn into a vast conspiracy involving real-time deepfake technology, mass surveillance and manipulated video evidence." Yikes!

It will definitely make you want to avoid CCTV cameras!! 

And since you can't be serious all the time, I am enjoying the spring season (how many ever this is...) of The Voice, my guilty pleasure. Coaches this season are Adam Levine, John Legend, and--yay!!--Kelly Clarkson, my favorite Dallas girl. (Actually, she's from Burleson, which is a suburb of Fort Worth, but close enough.)

Also, we are watching the new season of The Rookie. Yes, I know it's preposterous, but it's also funny and sharp. We've watched every season for eight years and are very attached to the characters.

Fellow Reds, what's on your screens these days?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, we saw The Capture, and loved it! We are in PARADISE, so clever and smart and scary. Total escapist, in a way. Or terrifying.  YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS with Jon Hamm (who is not my fave, but he is so good in this!) Also THE MEMORY OF A KILLER, about an  ice-cold mob hit man (leading a double life as a middle-class husband/ copier salesman) who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. (what could go wrong?) Such a good premise! 

RHYS BOWEN: At the moment TV has to be super distracting and not in any way stressful. So Britbox. Escape to the Country. Glass blowers. Etc. luckily there have been two major tennis tournaments I’ve watched non stop 

LUCY BURDETTE: The only thing I’ve been watching is the new season of The Lincoln Lawyer. It’s comfort viewing in its own way, and not as silly as it was getting in the last season. (Lorna, in those silly new lawyer outfits drove me crazy.) I will have to ask John about The Capture and start it with him if he hasn’t seen it. 

We are also watching basketball–both of our UCONN teams made it into the Final Four, the men capturing the slot in a last minute 3 pointer that had all the tension a writer could want! The following weekend will be the Masters so that will keep us busy too:).

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Everyone I know is raving about THE PITT, so I guess I’m going to have to give it a try. I DO love Noah Wyle.

As usual, I’m going to put in a plug for Kdramas. I just watched two fantastic shows back to back. TEMPEST, streaming on Hulu (or Disney+) is both an international political thriller and an amazingly heart-pounding romance. Part of the story is set in DC’s State Department, with John Cho (love him!) as an undersecretary trying to stop a nuclear attack on the Korean penninsula. It’s only nine episodes (many Kdramas are 16) so it’s a terrific way to dip your toe in.

For something more immersive but equally riveting: CRASH LANDING ON YOU available on Netflix. This show has everything: mystery, intrigue, humor - loads of humor, heartbreak, delightful found families and, most importantly the best couple chemistry you’ll ever see from Hyun Bin, playing a stern-outside, marshmallow-inside North Korean officer and Son Yi-jin as an heir to a fabulously wealthy corporate family who, as the title says, crash lands on him after a crazy paragliding accident. The chemistry was real - the stars got married after the show was released and now have a three-year old! 

Jenn, if you haven’t seen this already, I think you’d love it.

JENN McKINLAY: I loved CRASH LANDING, Julia!!! So good! Very interesting to see the differences in North and South Korea. My recent fave K-Dramas are VINCENZO, Italian mafioso who is also Korean - very edge of the seat action with a solid bad guy, and ROMANCE IS A BONUS BOOK, set in a publishing house where their love of books and writing was just so nice and refreshing. Love me the K-Dramas!

Hub and I are watching ROOSTER, starring Steve Carrell as an author in residence on a college campus, very fun. And we just finished The LOWDOWN, starring Ethan Hawke, small town newspaper writer/bookstore owner in Tulsa who gets embroiled in political crimes. Also, excellent.

HALLIE EPHRON: I've been looking forward to seeing PROJECT HAIL MARY on the big screen and my daughter Molly and I went last weekend. The theatre was packed and the movie was a lot of fun. Highly recommended. In the meanwhile I'm slowly streaming the rest of RIOT WOMEN. It's heavy/heady stuff and requires many deep breaths between innings.

DEBS: Such fun suggestions! I love John Cho so will definitely check out TEMPEST, and ROOSTER and THE LOWDOWN sound fun.

How about you, dear readers? Tell us what you're watching!

We'd Like to Recommend...

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Every once in a while we like to post what our pal Ingrid Thoft called “I’d like to recommend.” Everyone’s probably (hopefully) busy enjoying Memorial Day, but maybe you’ll have time to pile on with a new favorite. Here are a few of ours.

 LUCY BURDETTE: I have two…

The first is the new Netflix show based on Michael Connelly’s THE LINCOLN LAWYER. I know that book was in our top five one of the years that I judged the Edgar awards best novel category. Last week I saw on Facebook that two Red friends, Kristopher and Dru, were watching the Lincoln Lawyer, so John and I tried it and are now attempting not to race through too fast. I especially love Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller.

My second suggestion–which I feel a little bad telling you about–is a new obsession with these Tarallini crackers with hot pepper flavor. They are addictive and though they’d be low cal and low sodium if you only ate a few, I find that hard to do. They’d be perfect for guests alongside little cubes of cheese or salami–if there were any left by the time the guests arrive.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, yes, we are watching The Lincoln Lawyer, too! We powered through Ozark, which I adore, and I even loved the ending. And Better Call Saul, which we watch with utter bafflement, saying: Isn’t this great? I don’t understand it at all. We also watched A Very British Scandal, but I was fascinated and distracted by Claire Foy’s impeccable lipstick. And Gaslit (or is it Gaslight?) the Watergate show. But–I am hesitant to continue because if it’s not true, I don’t want it in my head.  Does anyone know? Oh, and the OTHER British scandal one, with the MP and the lawyer. Implausible, but truly fun to watch. (I had read the book by Sarah Vaughn, and remembered it being just that.)

In the excesses of the pandemic, I have discovered breadcrumbs. I know, it's so silly, but I always wondered why people ruined perfectly good chicken and shrimp by coating them in carbs. Now I understand. 

And Lucy, what are “guests”?

 JENN McKINLAY: My first recommendation is SLOW HORSES an Apple TV show based on Mick Heron’s Slough House mysteries. In short, it’s about a bunch of MI-5 rejects doing mindless work until they get caught up in something big. Gary Oldman is AMAZING as Jackson Lamb and the series is short - six episodes but all cliffhangers and so so so good. The novels are fabulous as well. 

My only other discovery is that if you twist thick cut bacon up tight and bake it for 40 min at 350 degrees, it comes out crisp and chewy and doesn’t smoke (bacon smokes at 370 degrees, apparently) and you can fit all the slices on the pan. Thank you, Instagram!

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am entirely the copycat here! We've just started THE LINCOLN LAWYER and I think it's terrific. I also, because I am really shallow, think that Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is absolutely delicious.

And I'm seconding Jenn on SLOW HORSES. Such a great cast and Gary Oldman is as always fabulous. 

Here's a little fun thing I've discovered recently, Madison James Flyaway Sticks from Terrain. These are ridiculously expensive for 40 sticks, but I figure they will probably last us years. They're insect repelling sticks that you put in the ground or a pot and light like incense, and they smell absolutely divine. 

I have got to try the twisty bacon!

 HALLIE EPHRON: I haven’t watched Lincoln Lawyer but I have loved the books, and of course I’m a huge fan of Michael Connelly. I’m just starting on the new season of Russian Doll and the jury’s still out. Also the Poirot mysteries with David Suchet are back on Public Television. 

Flyaway Sticks… do they work? Awaiting your verdict.

And something I just discovered: my local upscale market carries roasted artichoke hearts… from actual fresh artichokes! They must roast them in the store. So delicious.

 

RHYS BOWEN: This past month I haven’t had much time to watch TV, as you saw from last week’s post! And we don’t get Apple TV so I’ll have to stick to Mick Herron’s books, which are very good. I have enjoyed Hugh Laurie’s production of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, which is by far my favorite Agatha Christie book. And our local PBS has been rerunning all the old Poirots. Some of those short stories would actually have made great novels. Really clever.

After two years of boring, self-cooked food, I’ve been eating out and savoring new experiences, including a cocktail called Bubbles and Berries, that was not only champagne and some kind of fruit alcohol but also had those frozen nitrogen balls in it so that it bubbled away for about ten minutes (making it impossible to drink). And last weekend, at my daughter’s graduation in psycho-therapy from Pepperdine, I had an Aperol Spritz with my brunch and was reminded why I always drink it in Italy. Not sweet but tangy and so refreshing.

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm not doing much TV watching, either (although I've discovered I can see shortened versions of my beloved HGTV shows on YouTube, so I've been indulging in that.) Instead I'll recommend a board game for everyone headed to family get-togethers this summer: Cranium Family Edition. There's a popular version for kids, which you may have seen, but 16 plus one is challenging and hilarious. It's played with partners, so it's perfect for a crowd. At our celebration of Youngest's graduation, my three kids, two significant others and I spent an evening having SO much fun with this game.

My other recommendation is a facial cleanser/treatment. I bought Urban Skin Rx Even Tone Cleansing Bar (which it's not, it's in a pot) after reading an article suggesting it was great for uneven skin tones. Sadly, it didn't get rid of the sun spots on my face. BUT! It is amazing for smoothing and softening skin. It worked so well on my face I started using it on my forearms, which I swear I could use to file down my nails. Now that skin has great texture as well. 10/10, as the kids say today.

How about you, readers? Anything you'd like to recommend?