What I'm Watching: Lessons in Chemistry, Mister Organ, Roots, and More

LeVar Burton, Roots, Wolper Productions/ABC

Here’s a quick rundown on everything I watched, read, and wrote about this week:

The shows:

• I try not to be cynical about “kids today,” but sometimes I do get worried about the fact that at a certain point when we’re constantly overstimulated by a thousand forms of social media and bits of information being thrown our way, it can be tough to actually learn about works of art that matter. I thought about this a lot recently when I watched Roots, an essential work of historical truth (and fiction) that captured the hearts and minds of America when it aired in 1977. I learned about the multigenerational slave narrative when I was a kid watching countdown shows about the best TV of all time. I finally watched it this week after getting the DVDs from a distant library branch. Parts of it have aged quite poorly, of course, but it’s a powerful work on every level, featuring shrewd, incisive writing about race and a couple of the best TV performances I’ve ever seen. I wonder: where do kids learn about Roots these days? I hope future generations continue to seek it out.
• There’s a new HBO docuseries dropping this week called Navajo Police: Class 57, and while I’m ambivalent about it, I haven’t stopped thinking about it for weeks now. The 3-episode series follows recruits training to join the Navajo police force, where they’ll have to patrol a huge expanse of land and face traumatizing situations that often echo their own upbringing. My main problem with this series is that it allows certain assumptions about policing to go unchallenged and un-fact checked, a weird choice given the past decades’ worth of reporting on this topic. If you can get past that, though (and I don’t know if we should), this is a beautifully edited, deeply heartbreaking doc that’s extremely tough to shake.
• The new Apple TV+ show Lessons in Chemistry is a bit of an odd duck. To be clear, almost everything about this Brie Larson-led series about a woman whose attempt to make a name for herself as a chemist in the sexism-fueled 1960s is very good. Larson is excellent, the show’s central romance is intoxicating, and the script is snappy and fun. The series takes a couple of strange (and in one case, borderline laughable) narrative and structural turns, though, and they don’t always work as well as the relationships at its core. Still, overall, I dig this one!

The movies:

• After hearing about David Farrier’s latest project for a couple years now – largely in the form of the filmmaker and journalist’s increasingly stressed-out Substack posts – I was nervous that Mister Organ would fail to live up to my expectations. If anything, though, this surprising documentary about an unbelievably insufferable man exceeded all my hopes. Cleverly edited, appropriately unnerving, and funny as hell, it’s safe to say this is one of my favorite docs of the year.
• If you’re a classic TV fan or are looking for a straightforward yet surprisingly poignant biographical doc, Being Mary Tyler Moore is a good one.
• I drew a movie title from my mug this week for the first time in ages, and ended up watching the 1998 rom-com Crossing Delancey, which I believe the always-great Marya Gates recommended! Calling this movie about a New York bookstore clerk with an Orthodox Jewish family a rom-com feels disingenuous, though, as it’s almost entirely uninterested in well-trodden genre beats. The whole film has a surprisingly low-key feeling about it that made it a great laying in bed on my day off watch.
• I can’t in good conscience recommend the Netflix film The Deepest Breath, even though I kind of want to. The problem here is two-pronged: the documentary about the dangerous extreme sport freediving features real footage of people almost drowning that made me extremely squeamish, and it does some of the most deceptive emotional manipulation I’ve ever seen. At the same time, though, it’s a singularly captivating movie – quite literally a nail-biter – and I can’t stop telling people about it.

The reads:

• I went into Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America expecting what the book’s subtitle promised – “Notes in Praise of Black Performance.” The book is about the cultural history of Black music, dance, and art, from the dance marathons of the 1930s to Beyonce’s Super Bowl halftime show, but it’s also much more expansive than any single descriptor or summary. Abdurraqib’s blend of intimate storytelling and cultural commentary is creative, enrapturing, and laced through with empathy for pretty much everyone he’s ever met – and a lot of people he hasn’t. The kind of read that makes you want to instantly go pick up everything else by the same author.
• Speaking of essays, this one from Ziwe gave me literal goosebumps and got me excited for her upcoming book, which I believe hits shelves this week.
• My horror comic marathon continued this week with Basketful of Heads, a graphic novel by Joe Hill that I’ve eyeballed at comic shops for years but never actually read until now. I definitely misjudged this book by its pulpy cover and title; it is pulp, yes, but it’s thrilling pulp with a plot that won’t stop and a heroine worth cheering for.
• I wanted just a little bit more from Emily Carroll’s When I Arrived At The Castle, a short, mysterious illustrated Gothic with hints of Carmilla and The Bloody Chamber. Carroll’s 2014 book Through the Woods is one of the most visually arresting comics I’ve ever read, and this one looked great too, but I wish it was more substantial.
• Last but not least, I thought this Variety round table discussion from the Buffy cast members who chose to reclaim the show for themselves was really interesting. You can read my review of Slayers here if you missed it in last week’s newsletter.

Odds and ends:

• Here’s my review of The Fall of the House of Usher, plus a long-ass list I wrote about every Edgar Allan Poe reference I could spot in the show (I counted 18 different titles). As I said a few weeks ago, I think this show rocks hard and I hope everyone who likes horror is giving it a chance. Even if you’ve been cool towards Mike Flanagan stuff in the past, I promise this one’s something different.
• I had a blast researching the widely hated M*A*S*H spinoff AfterMASH this week – and watching some episodes so you don’t have to!
• On the podcast front, I totally fell for Starting a Riot, a podcast about the history of the Riot Grrl movement told by the Grrls who were left on the sidelines. Fair warning: I think my inexplicable emo and pop-punk phase is turning into a punk, Riot Grrl, and grunge phase, so my recommendations might get a bit punchy for a while.
• Weird note to end on here, but if you’ve heard about Ozempic, the diabetes medicine being heralded all over the news as a miracle weight loss drug, I definitely recommend listening to the latest Maintenance Phase episode – which is non-judgmental and super informative! – before trying it.

Alright, my dears, fess up: what are you watching, reading, and listening to lately? Bonus points for Riot Grrl song recommendations, but I’ll take what I can get.