What we'll be listening to, watching, and reading to sate our pop culture needs.
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After the week’s devastating events, we’re looking forward to a little pop culture indulgence and this weekend does not disappoint. We’ve got premieres (True Detective), finales (Orphan Black), a return of old favorites (Jill Scott’s greatest hits album), and more.
It’s hard to top the creepy genius of True Detective’s first season with its surprisingly spot-on pairing of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, but now, finally, we get a female lead up in here. Premiering on Sunday on HBO, season 2 stars Rachel McAdams as Ventura County Detective Ani Bezzerides along with Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, and Tim Riggins, er, Taylor Kitsch, in the next installment of the haunting series, this time a neo-noir conspiracy story involving politicians, a mangled corpse, and California’s high-speed rail project. We liked the dude world of season 1, so we can only imagine how much we’ll like it with a badass woman in its orbit.
Jill Scott’s new greatest hits album, Golden Moments, is so dang good, it’s made us nearly forget that she was a Cosby apologizer. It’s clear that the R&B songstress was on fire from 2000–2007, the time frame captured here, and the track list delivers hit after hit from “Gettin’ in the Way,” from her debut Who Is Jill Scott?, to the soulful ballad “My Love,” from The Real Thing. Oh Miss Scott, you are good.
The fact that Pixar’s summer blockbuster depicts the inner workings of a tween girl’s mind is nothing short of extraordinary. The fact that, in true Pixar style, it’s an incredibly heartfelt, moving, and funny story that follows its protagonist, Riley, through the wild bramble of emotions that come when her family moves cross-country from Minnesota to San Francisco is icing on the cinematic cake. That it stars Amy Poehler, one of our all-time favorite people, as Riley’s “joy,” well, that’s our version of having that delicious cake and getting to eat it too.
This debut collection from Mia Alvar reels you in with a nostalgic, intriguing cover, and keeps you glued to its pages with gorgeous prose—nine short stories that follow Filipino characters living under martial law in 1970s Philippines and abroad. Alvar explores the theme of exile with complicated protagonists—a special ed teacher in Bahrain, a young nurse in Manila—and haunting situations. An auspicious beginning for an author whose novel, supposedly based on characters from In the Country, we anxiously await.
Even with our concerns about how the introduction of male clones might change our beloved Orphan Black, the BBC sleeper, about clone operatives starring Tatiana Maslany as a myriad of characters, is still one of our favorite, most feminist shows on television. How will Saturday’s season finale leave us? What will we find out about the Topside operative? What will Rachel’s return mean? And WHAT ABOUT COSIMA??