Rich Text

“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...

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! Subs...

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! Subs...

You asked, and you shall receive! And by “you asked,” we mean we really wanted to keep talking about “The Circle” and a few of you said that you might enjoy that as well! So here we are. “The Circle” finale was frankly everything we hoped it would be. On today’s pod, we dive into the gender and racial dynamics of the show, the genius of “The Circle” casting, and why we are so damn happy with how i...

*Apologies for the occasional interruptions in this episode. We were contending with door knocking, phone calls and very loud package deliveries.* Imagine, if you will, a very safe and special place for women. It’s candy-hued and tastefully lit; it’s a space of female community and mutual empowerment. Most of all, it’s secret, exclusive, guarded. If a cis man ever tries to enter, he will be met wi...

Twenty-eight years after Fran Fine first flounced out of that bridal boutique in Flushing, Queens and into her role as the Sheffields’ nanny, Fran Drescher’s iconic sitcom is streaming on HBO Max. So, naturally, we watched it. (In Emma’s case, rewatched it; Claire was a “Nanny” virgin.) And -- spoiler alert! -- we were pleasantly surprised by how delightful it still is. The show is a symphony of h...

For this week’s audio chat, we ended up with two, uh, pretty different things to discuss: the resurfacing of old, misogynistic blogs by Reality Steve as well as new allegations about him from Demi Burnett … and season two of Netflix’s social media challenge show “The Circle.” An odd mash-up? Perhaps. As you may be gathering, this week’s bonus chat was originally supposed to be about just “The Circ...

On Wednesday morning, Colton Underwood sat down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts to make a big announcement: He is gay . “I’ve ran from myself for a long time. I’ve hated myself for a long time. I’m gay and I came to terms with that earlier this year," he told Roberts. The interview packed a lot into less than 15 minutes. Underwood discussed the ways in which growing up in the Catholic Ch...

One of the (deeply unimportant) indignities of a year lived largely in social isolation is the lack of gossip. In the absence of office gossip, dating gossip and friendship gossip, we’ve had to rely on… Bachelor Nation gossip. So that’s what we dive into on this week’s Rich Text pod chat. (There may be a small audio glitch at one point during our conversation thanks to Emma’s shaky Zoom connection...

This week, celebrity gossip Instagram account DeuxMoi posted some blurry photos of two peoples’ backs. But these weren’t just *any* backs, they (allegedly, as DeuxMoi does not verify the claims it posts) belonged to Bachelor Matt James and his ex-girlfriend, Rachael Kirkconnell . The last we, the viewers, had seen, Matt and Rachael were being forced to relive their relationship — and in Matt’s cas...

If you are a member of Bachelor Nation, you might have seen Suzana Somers’ — better known as @bachelordata ’s — charts floating around Instagram. After a season of avidly following her work, and watching her deftly crunch the data on everything from screen time to Instagram growth to overnight date order, we really wanted to talk to her. So we did! For this newsletter! (Disclaimer: The audio was r...

Hey everyone! We’re here with a little bonus episode for our paid subscribers (we love you!).  Bachelor Nation never sleeps, and even though Matt James’s season is over, the fallout continues. Plus, filming is starting for Katie Thurston’s season of “The Bachelorette,” and there will be two new hosts: Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe.  Before getting into Bachelor news, we also talk briefly abou...

Special thanks to Sara Patterson for producing and editing this Rich Text audio chat. If you need an amazing audio producer, hire her! This week on Rich Text we dive into the finale of Matt James season of “The Bachelor.” As you can imagine, we had *a lot* of thoughts on the bleak conclusion of a season that was meant to signal historic change for the franchise. After you listen, check out our ess...

We’re trying something new today! A bonus audio chat. On this “episode,” we discuss some of the very tepid Women Tell All drama that we didn’t get to talk about on our podcast. We also open our chat with a conversation about Chris Harrison’s Thursday morning appearance on “Good Morning America,” in which he told Michael Strahan that he did not “speak from the heart” in his interview with Rachel Li...