Rich Text

As 2021 winds to a miserable conclusion — a couple highlights: a new Covid variant, Supreme Court hearings over a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse — we found our thoughts turning inexorably back to a simpler time (in the sense that we were, personally, ten years old). After a long day of catching up on the latest soul-crushing news and trying to find toddler-...

Pour us a shotski of Vida and fry us an egg: we’re back in Salt Lake City, babies! When we last convened here in the frozen realm of the newest “Real Housewives” franchise, Claire was just getting the lay of the land as we discussed the first two episodes of the second season. We toured rented 7-bedroom ski chalets; we heard about who (Jen) had liked mean tweets about whose (Meredith’s) child; we...

Season 1 of “Love Life,” starring Anna Kendrick as the unlucky-in-love Darby, left both of us underwhelmed. Though it was very watchable, and undeniably spoke to our passion for love stories, it was also weirdly lugubrious for a happily-ever-after tale. The chapter structure felt a bit choppy. The British (why??) narrator overexplained Darby’s emotional journey, and lent an odd whiff of pomposity...

By the end of the Netflix series “Maid,” Alex Russell (Margaret Qualley) is an expert at having the rug pulled out from under her. (And an expert at cleaning it neatly as she’s thrown to the floor.) A single mom who left an abusive relationship with the father of her toddler, Maddy (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet), Alex dreams of going to college in Missoula, Montana and becoming a writer. Instead she’s cle...

This is the “Squid Game” recap you’ve been waiting for: the perspective of two women so squeamish they probably missed, at a conservative estimate, 15% of this ultraviolent show because they were covering the screen with their hands and whispering “no no no no no no no noooooo whyyyy.” But whatever! The violent parts aren’t important, right? The important thing is that we know what this show is ab...

We’ve been obsessed with — fixated on, really — “You” since it premiered on Lifetime in 2018. Three years and three seasons later, the thriller has taken Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), the sensitive, intellectual stalker/murderer at the center of the show, from a single bookseller in New York City to a married dad in the (fictional) tony NorCal suburb of Madre Linda. It’s been a journey littered wit...

Last week, we held a live panel discussion at SaksWorks with the always eloquent Sharleen Joynt of “Dear Shandy” about navigating the parasocial waters we swim in — specifically as podcasters and as reality TV commentators (and, in Sharleen’s case, as a one-time participant on “The Bachelor”), but also as people who live in a society that is increasingly structured by parasocial, rather than socia...

On Rich Text Book Club this week, we’re talking about “Carefree Black Girls,” a new book from culture critic Zeba Blay, who also happens to be (full disclosure) our friend and old HuffPost colleague! In 2013, Zeba tweeted a post with the hashtag #carefreeblackgirl. She was an early popularizer of the term, which reached toward a conception of Black girlhood that could be joyful, relaxed, at ease i...

The question of the bad art friend keeps reemerging, under new auspices and nomenclature — most recently, last week, thanks to a transfixing investigation by Robert Kolker in the New York Times Magazine , which plumbed the sordid depths of a long-running legal conflict between writers Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson. The site of the battle is an acclaimed work of short fiction by Larson; the grievan...

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 . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! In Christine Pride and Jo Piazza’s new novel, We Are Not Like Them (out tomorrow at your finest book purveyors), lifelong friends Riley and Jen f...

What’s up #CircleFam? The big finale of “The Circle” season 3 — which we would describe as “50% filler, but perfectly pleasant to watch” — dropped on Wednesday, so now we’re dropping our subscriber-only recap of the last five episodes. Writer Mychal Denzel Smith joined us to unpack the events of the final third of the season, and to weigh in on the elements of a good catfish, emoji selection, and...

It’s Monday morning! My coffee is hot, but not as hot as my takes on “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.” (I invite you to picture me twirling in a silver cocktail dress as I deliver this line, winking glamorously.) I firmly believe that my life is only big enough for one extended cinematic universe, and The Bachelor franchise is happily devouring all of that space. We haven’t even done a cast bio...

Hello lovely subscribers! Welcome to another Monday recap podcast to tide us all over before BIP airs on Tuesday. Today, we’re diving into the week 2 drop of “The Circle.” And this is the week that things really start to get interesting. Alliances are forming! Twists are coming out of nowhere! Catfishes are being hunted! Sexy selfies are being sent from bed! Weirdly culturally appropriative costum...

After Emma and I watched “LuLaRich,” the new Amazon Prime series about the mostly imploded multilevel marketing company LuLaRoe and its oddball founders, DeAnne and Mark Stidham, all we wanted to do was talk about it. Ali Barthwell , the Emmy-nominated “Last Week Tonight” writer and Vulture recapper, felt the same way. So we did a podcast for our beloved angel subscribers about it! We talked about...

“Bachelor in Paradise” has moved to Tuesdays for the rest of the season, so let’s make Monday special: Let’s talk about “The Circle.” Season 3 of the reality show, in which contestants compete to become the most popular player in a closed social media platform called The Circle, began dropping episodes this week. In this week’s recap, we discuss the first batch of four episodes — meeting the new c...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter by Claire Fallon and Emma Gray. Rich Text is a space for the indulgent and the incisive, for witty and wistful explorations of the cultural, the personal, and the political in both written and audio formats. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! When...

You asked for it, so we are here to deliver: A recap of the delightful insanity that was the three bonus episodes of “Love Is Blind” that Netflix dropped like a beautiful gift within a burgeoning Covid storm. Join us on this journey as we catch up with The Hamiltons, The Barnetts, Jessica, LC, Diamond, Carlton… and the specter of Mark. We hope you enjoy this subscribers-only pod! Happy weekending!...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter by Claire Fallon and Emma Gray. Rich Text is a space for the indulgent and the incisive, for witty and wistful explorations of the cultural, the personal, and the political in both written and audio formats. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! Welc...

In this episode of Rich Text, we watch the final four episodes of Netflix’s “Sex/Life” (now with 17% more Betty Friedan!). Billie’s journey to figure out whether she’s too horny for marriage continues, and she’s ever more torn between her edgy ex-lover Brad and her clean-cut husband Cooper; meanwhile, Columbia professor and party girl Sasha agreeably devotes all her free time to Scotch-taping toge...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter by Claire Fallon and Emma Gray. Rich Text is a space for the indulgent and the incisive, for witty and wistful explorations of the cultural, the personal, and the political in both written and audio formats. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! We’l...

Happy Friday! Last week we dug into the divide that seems to spring up between women with and without kids , especially in our own millennial milieu. We loved opening up to each other and all of you about the resentments and pressures and societal structures that conspire to sort moms from non-moms, and how we try to foster friendship and community across those lines in our own lives. We got so ma...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter by Claire Fallon and Emma Gray. Rich Text is a space for the indulgent and the incisive, for witty and wistful explorations of the cultural, the personal, and the political in both written and audio formats. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! Last...

Welcome to another bonus pod here on Rich Text. As always, we are so very grateful to you, our paying subscribers, for keeping this project afloat! Today we are discussing “Hacks,” an HBO Max series starring Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a veteran comic in the stylings of Joan Rivers who has come to be seen as a bit of a hack, and Ava, played by Hannah Einbeinder, a 25-year-old upstart comedic writ...

After watching the finale of “Cruel Summer,” Freeform’s twisty-turny summer teen soap, we had THOUGHTS. So naturally, we decided to podcast about them. And then, due to some technical difficulties, the entire file was lost, so we decided to podcast about them again . Here is the fruit of our labors. (Warning: This episode is VERY spoiler-y, and contains discussions of sexual abuse, grooming and su...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter by Claire Fallon and Emma Gray. Rich Text is a space for the indulgent and the incisive, for witty and wistful explorations of the cultural, the personal, and the political in both written and audio formats. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! Welc...