WIG WURQ

It's been a beat since I've blogged but I've obviously just been HOLDING SPACE FOR "FINDING GRAVITY" and now the world is *FINALLY* on my level. The world is also sort of a post apocalyptic shambles but THERE'S ALSO A PAUL TAZEWELL COLLECTION AT TARGET because the only economy is the Wicked economy so why not go down this three hour yellow brick road of nonsense together (before we have to wait a whole other lifetime for the goddamned second act, y'all). There are just so many wigs to discuss in this one. Note: spoilers if you somehow have avoided this 20 year old musical but also care enough to read a wig review of the first act cinema adaptation? I'm not here to judge your life choices; just wigs.

We begin in the vast technicolor poppy fields of Muchkinland where the diminutive inhabitants live in a small circle of huts, presumably in constant opium-hazed slumbers so that they might forget that 90% of them are wearing the same crinkled off-brand Annie Warbucks wig. Actual question: did someone decide for budgetary purposes to save money on this multi-million dollar film ONLY by purchasing every community theater production of Annie's wigs for the munchkins?!?! THIS IS THE ONLY VIABLE EXPLANATION.

Anyway, the munchkins are all celebrating - not because they have been released from the shackles of their sad, ginger-headed, drug-fueled lives - but because the THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD!! CUE THE WICKED WITCH WICKER MAN BURNING PARTY!!! You might be feeling like Mariah Carey about the Wicked Witch right now because "I don't know her!" and all we've seen so far in this movie are 10000000 orphan Annie wigs but don't worry: you have at least 8 more hours of this movie to get so closely ensconced in wicked witchery that you might have your own Target line by the end of it.

But no time for questions now: ONLY BUBBLES! Hey, this one has Ariana Grande in it! Dressed in what can only be described as the Coming to America wedding dress if it were on a very white Barbie, Ariana's Glinda greets the munchkins, who react as if they have been, well, on a ton of opium. Her wig is another matter entirely: a dusty affair thankfully rolled up under a Ms. Universe crown. In comparison to the munchkins' sad wigs, it is adequately "fine" but there's so much more time to explore Glinda's wig horrors. One bold munchkin asks Glinda if she was friends with the evil, dead, witch and the rest his history (and also the other 9 hours of this movie).

We flashback to Shiz University, a place that exists not in time, space, reality, but rather....on the Greek-adjacent leftover sets of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again? The rules of Shiz are as non-existent as Mamma Mia math: students of LITERALLY ANY AGE can attend, everyone has to wear blue and grey (EXCEPT THOSE WITH SINGING ROLES), and (most of?) the munchkins have to wear orange-swirly sweater vests (to match their orange wigs?!?!) oh, and also NO GREEN PEOPLE ALLOWED, EVER.

Glinda glides in on a gondola of pink luggage, wearing her own pink Shiz uniform (ONLY GLINDAS OR GUUUULINDAS ALLOWED), and a wig that was clearly hexed by the same wigmaster that has been cursing Nicole Kidman for centuries. As with AMC's favorite specter, this wig is a color that does not exist in the living world. It is the ghost of platinum, coated in dust. The texture is brittle and dry, the part at the scalp looks like a magazine flipped open to an ad for Chico's (every day at Shiz IS A CHICO'S KIND OF DAY). The Ms. Haversham of wigs, this is what Halloween cobweb decorations would look like as a wig. THIS WIG IS VERY VERY BAD. Which is a shame because Ariana, like Glinda herself, is very very good.

And then there's Elphaba. This movie gives Cynthia Erivo the reveal she deserves - you may not have known her before but now you and you and you - you're gonna love her. Her wig does not reach the level of divadom that its star requires, but in comparison with Ariana's haunted leftover Rachel McAdams as Regina George wig, it is almost a thing of beauty. The mini braids serve the character well, as does the larger braid; this is definitely the best Elphaba's look gets despite Guuuulinda's later attempts at a makeover.

In this version of Wicked, Elphaba is only at Shiz to assist her younger sister, NessaRose, whose name is the most insufferable part of her character. This wig, like the character is squeaky clean and without fault. This is honestly the most realistic looking wig in the film. Meanwhile: who is this dude playing their dad and why is he (rudely!) not played by Norbert Leo Butz?!?! Anyway, Elphaba uses her ragemagic to combat Shiz's abelism which somehow gets her registered as a student herself?? Y'all the rules of Shiz are as confounding as a Pinot Grigio soaked caftan in Mamma Mia.

Anyway, Elphaba ends up having to share a room with Guuuuulinda and there are many (many!) scenes about them hating each other, only leading to me hating Guuuuuulinda's wig more. Even an ensemble of not so great wigs couldn't breathe life into it. This wig is truly night of the living dead. Side note: I don't know when we're getting another season of Wednesday but this whole section of the movie is another season of Wednesday.

ANYWAY! Jonathan Bailey! GIRL. No longer held back by the constrains of heteronormative Bridgerton storylines, girlfriend is just living her best life and dancing DICK FIRST through this movie. Also: basically all choreography in this movie is dick first?!?! The whole of Oz leads with their pelvis. I'M NOT MAD ABOUT IT. I'm also just not mad about Olivier Award Winning Jonathan Bailey and how much damn fun he is having in this movie. HIS WIG IS EVEN FUN!! He clearly made a deal with the wigmaster to dusty up Ariana's cobwig and give all the extra volumnizer and bounce to his own. GET IT GURL. Male wigs, as we know, suffer from rear taper but there is none of that here because, as I said, Jonathan is not concerned with the rear but DICKFIRSTDICKFIRSTDICKFIRST.

Bowen Yang's face says it all: ARIANA'S THIRSTY WIG IS ONLY BRINGING JOHNNY DOWN! THANKUNEXT. (Also Bowen's wig is fine, who cares, his glasses do all the talking). Also I assume that both Bowen and Cynthia's glasses will be arriving at a Moscot near you imminently.

NessaRose's wig somehow gets curlier (whenever a character's hair gets curlier and/or blonder we know she is about to crack but we'll have to wait for the second movie for that). Also: SPONGEBOB'S wig is ok!!!

AND THEN! Ariana's haunted wig attempts to makeover Cynthia's and the results are as horrifying as you would assume. THIS WIG WAS NOT MEANT TO BE UNBRAIDED. Also: Ariana's constant hair flips only showcase how awful her wig is. NO!

Anyway, Ariana eats allll the scenery in Popular (girl understood the assignment, she is good!) and then gives Cynthia one fossilized flower - makeover complete! HUH. Please get Cynthia to the Wonder Woman island of fishtail braidology stat - this wig was not meant to be unbraided!

I just realized that I neglected to discuss Michelle Yeoh's wig. I may be in the minority here but I kind of think she is miscast - she can't sing!!! AND I LOVE MICHELLE YEOH!! They didn't even give her any cool fight choreography to balance out her lack of musical ability - missed (Shizzed?) opportunity!! Anyway, her wig is probably the most whimsical of anyone's in the film and I LIKE THAT!! Also Jeff Goldblum's is essentially the same wig, but tapered not stirred. I'm also not sure Jeff Goldblum was made aware that he was even filming a movie. I assume this is how he just leads his life?

In the end (of part 1), I definitely cried at the 4 hour rendition of DEFYING GRAVITY but I also weeped endlessly over this haunted ass wig!!! I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT ARIANA DID TO A WIGMASTER TO BE GIVEN THIS!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!

We meet again, Stranger Things! It’s been 3 years/entire lifetimes since we traveled to Hawkins, Indiana and I honestly don’t care to research where we left off so a lot of my facts on this might be off and who cares? Other than some truly overprocessed wigs, demogorgon feelings, and a mall implosion, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter what I can and cannot remember nor will it affect my episodic judgment of these wigs. Also apparently this is only part 1 of season 4 because sure? Let’s discuss!

CHAPTER ONE - THE HELLFIRE CLUB

We begin in 1979 (sure!) as we go through the mundane and nerdy morning routine of none other than MATTHEW MODINE (and his off-brand Ted Danson wig!), the scientist baddy from season 1 (I THINK?) who had a really effed up paternal relationship with El and apparently lots of other kids who were (DUN DUN DUN) MURDERED BY EL!!!! This can’t possibly be true and if it is I guess whatever? Anyway, roll credits!

It’s 1986 and everything is just SO 1986 BABY. El, Will, and Will’s brother (I DON’T CARE ABOUT HIS NAME!) have relocated to California where Winona Ryder’s season 4 wig is supporting 3 teenagers by (poorly!) selling Encyclopedia Brittanicas over the phone. WHAT A TIME! Will’s bowlcut has never been worse and El’s wig is, well, a variation on a theme of Winona’s? ALSO THEY ARE WILDLY UNPOPULAR AT SCHOOL.

Enter “popular girl” Angela (OF COURSE HER NAME IS ANGELA) in what can only be described as a Regina George knockoff wig by which I mean: IT’S DRIED OUT AND AS HORRIBLE AS HER. This is one of these characters who is just mean and awful for no reason and everyone just lets her be mean and awful and UGH ANGELA.

El really should rethink her bang choices and diorama choices because Angela is absolutely going to destroy both.

Oh also El doesn’t have her powers anymore? I can’t remember why and it ultimately doesn’t matter but after being severely bullied without any administrative intervention, she tries to zap (or whatever?) Angela and it just turns into her looking more like a freak. GREAT WORK EVERYONE!

Oh also Winona (in basically the same exact wig and flannel as El) gets a mysterious package from RUSSIA. She immediately hangs up on a potential Encyclopedia sale (HOW ARE YOU SUPPORTING YOURSELF AND THESE CHILDREN?!) and calls Murray. I HATE MURRAY even if he is sometimes helpful because he is a giant perv and barf. Anyway, apparently Hop might still be alive (DUH!)

Back in Hawkins, Max is having a hard time dealing with life also due to her brother dying (RIP BILLY AND YOUR HORRIBLE WIG) and now she has to see a guidance counselor in THIS FUCKING WIG. The fringed energy her vest is serving is really everything. But this wig is a curly mess!

Meanwhile, the best hair of the episode is served by wigless Steve and Uma Thurman/Ethan Hawke’s daughter who are still pals who now work at the video store. She is still in high school and I really have no clue how old anyone is anymore. Didn’t Steve graduate like 3 years ago?!?!

Also Nancy is still in high school?!?!?! I really thought that her and Will’s brother had graduated already but apparently NOPE but they both still have awful wigs and now live thousands of miles away and her hair is a Jennifer Grey mess and both of them are insufferable and boring and want to go to college together. SNORE.

We also meet a new character named Eddie who is a 3rd time high school senior, has a sweet Dio patch on his denim vest, and is the head of the Hellfire Club which is a semi-cooler way of playing D&D. This character is a lot of contradictions and 80s cinematic tropes crammed together but he’s mainly a harmless dork in a frizzed out wig. 

However there is some big D&D game that OF COURSE is the same night as the big basketball game and Lucas has to choose between sports or dorks (THIS IS ALL VERY CAN’T BUY ME LOVE) and somehow he scores the winning point of the game and his sisters saves the D&D game. Sure?

Also this off-brand Scarlett Johansson cheerleader is having some FEELINGS that lead to haunted visions of grandfather clocks and burned family members and it makes her seek some drugs from Eddie at his trailer park abode. She of course immediately is killed by some sort of cryptkeeper demon (?) and omg he is totally going to be framed for her murder in a Satanic Panic West Memphis Three-style storyline, huh?

None of these storylines really matter because the only thing I cared about in this entire episode is the reemergence of KAREN WHEELER MY ONE AND TRUE QUEEN. Her hair journey from Farrah Fawcett to frosted cougar to this season’s blonde frizzed out aerobics enthusiast IS EVERYTHING. THE MATCHING TERRY BRAIDED HEADBAND WITH THE ZIP UP TRACKSUIT I CAN’T. EVEN HER EYE MAKEUP MATCHES!!! This wig is honestly not great and Karen is deserving of much more but the 5 seconds of screentime I got from her were the very best 5 seconds of this episode the end periodt.

CHAPTER TWO - VECNA’S CURSE

Welcome to Cali, bebe! Mike shows up in the most ridiculous “I’M GOING TO CALIFORNIA” outfit only to be greeted by Will’s brother’s horrible wig and his new friend who I absolutely love and I don’t know his name either. Also Will is there with a painting and his horrible bowlcut and also El who is lying about how popular she is! Also Mike has basically turned into Timothee Chamalet somehow and plz Chamalet away. 

Next stop: ROLLER RINK! Where absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong even though we immediately are met with both fashion and wig crimes. WHAT IS EL WEARING?! Flannel and jumper that doesn’t match? WHAT! Did we have a mall makeover montage last season for NOTHING?!?! Anyway, things take a decidedly turn for the CARRIE when evil Angela and her minions show up and take over the entire roller rink where apparently zero adults are and terrorize El in a very extra display of spotlights, music, and MILKSHAKES which is just so over the top that it’s not even really surprising when it ends with a rollerskate to the face for Angela. Violence is ever the answer, of course, but Angela is an absolute garbage person and I wish her nothing but demogorgons and split ends (SHE ALREADY HAS THE LATTER!)

Meanwhile, Will’s brother misses the entire rollerskate assault whilst off with his new buddy.....golfing into a canyon?!?!?! WHAT AND WHY. This whole scene has real Encino Man energy but it was mainly about missing Nancy, who I hate, and how they probably can’t go to college together and BORING.

Oh also Murray, whose job and financial sources are as murky as his entire character’s narrative arc immediately show up in California to figure out about the mysterious Russian package received by Winona Ryder. Her wig is honestly not that bad compared to El’s but truly and from the bottom of my heart: I HATE MURRAY.

They somehow call Russia (?!?!) and we get an explanation of how Hop managed to survive nuclear catastrophe only to be whisked away on a Russian language immersion trip/torture gulag. However, he might be saved by this one guard who just needs $40K and a rendezvous in Alaska. Ok?

Back in Hawkins, Eddie is definitely suspect #1 in that cheerleader’s murder and no one cares about the big basketball game anymore (SAD!) and even though it is spring break, stupid Nancy is still running the school newspaper and is hot on the trail of news story and enlists this rando nerd to go to the trailerpark and investigate! Also the entire basketball team are staying in an abandoned burger joint/flophouse and are now riled into complete Satanic Panic (CALLED IT) against Eddie and this is gonna end well.

Meanwhile, everyone has decided to call this new demogorgon/cryptkeeper “Vecna” based on D&D sources only and he is haunting the shit out of a bunch of kids now but most specifically: that rando newspaper dork. Stupid Nancy is getting some very convenient story from Eddie’s uncle about an Amityville Horror-style killing from a few decades ago when he wanders off to the grandfather clock-laden woods where he is also murdered like the cheerleader. 

Meanwhile, Steve, Uma Thurman’s daughter, Max and Dustin all use video store technology to discover where Eddie is hiding out and it literally comes down to them identifying “Reefer Rick” as renting Cheech and Chong movies. ARE YOU SERIOUS, SHOW?!?!?! Anyway, whatever - they find Eddie hiding out in a boat and also THERE IS NO KAREN IN THIS EPISODE BOO.

CHAPTER THREE - THE MONSTER AND THE SUPERHERO

Way to go, Nancy! You got that rando nerd killed! The police, who were honestly very complicit in this murder for letting teenagers wander an active crime scene, are not happy and also include that dude from Search Party now? Stupid Nancy and her frizzed out mall wig meet up with Steve/Uma Thurman’s daughter/Max/Dustin and they call compare notes. Nancy decides to follow the Amityville lead and Steve is all like: WAIT DON’T GO ALONE which makes everyone think he still loves Nancy (PLEASE NO ONE LOVE NANCY, ESPECIALLY NOT STEVE). Anyway, Uma Thurman’s daughter decides to go with her. 

They go to the local library, which somehow has very extended business hours and doesn’t mind teenagers rummaging through their microfiche archives. IT ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO MICROFICHE. Uma Thurman’s daughter (rightly!) points out that Stupid Nancy’s Amityville theory is pretty lame until they consult the Hawkins version of the National Enquirer and apparently this Amityville Horror murder involves an olde Victorian mansion and demon possession and wait is this show this kind of horror movie now?

 Meanwhile, Max has a theory about the murdered babysitter and rando dork both having the Venn Diagram of seeking help from that curled out guidance counselor. They go to her house where she correctly tells Max she can’t break HIPA violations but she DOES have an unattended key bowl and Max steals her school office keys where she, Steve and Dustin rummage through some files and Max definitely becomes Vecna’s next would-be victim.

Somewhere during all this dusty archival madness, Luke manages to get some info via walkie talkie while also trying to sabotage the jock’s evil Satanic Panic plan by leading them astray to Hop’s cabin and NOT Reefer Rick’s Cheech and Chong video/boat emporium. 

Back in California, Murray has made some delicious risotto! Everyone loves it!! Oh also he and Winona Ryder have to go to Alaska now on a mysterious Encyclopedia Brittanica business trip that no one questions because they are still dealing with rollerrink PTSD. Also excellent parenting, Winona: you really didn’t notice that not EVERYONE enjoyed the risotto and actually had a super traumatic experience at the rollerrink? OH WELL BYE KIDS!!! Also: Hop is has learned enough Russian during his language immersion program to get his ankle broken. YUCK!

Moments after Winona boards the longest planeride to Alaska ever, El is arrested for smashing Angela’s face! It is all very preposterous, even if she definitely should not have smashed Angela’s face and should have just slowly gaslit her like all frenemies should, duh. Things are not looking great for El since she literally has no parental supervision (AGAIN WAY TO GO WINONA) and her wig is so bad that she has to pony it. NOPE. She is being transferred to juvenile hall in an isolated bus that makes it seems like she’s Michael Myers only to be saved by none other than PAUL REISER!!! You may recall him (I DIDN’T) as a scientist dude who I really thought died but actually is living a fate worse than death: LIVING IN NEVADA. Anyway, he very conveniently saves her from juvie, explains that he’s been working on a top secret plan to restore her powers (WHAT IN X-MEN HELL) and also wants her to save the entire world. NO BIGS!!!

CHAPTER FOUR - DEAR BILLY

There’s a lot happening and none of is it great! Especially not great (AS ALWAYS): the jocks!! However, Lucas has sent them on a wild goose chase at Hopp’s old cabin and they are really grumbly about it. Meanwhile, Max is definitely going to be killed by Vecna any minute and is spending her final moments...WRITING LETTERS? Wah waaahhhhh

Stupid Nancy decides to use her school newspaper connections to fake some college paperwork that will get her and Robin into....AN INSANE ASYLUM?!?! I legit feel like I am in an insane asylum even writing this because the rollercoaster that is this plot is just really too much for my mental health. Anyway: it involves Robin having to give Nancy a makeover such that they both look like they’re in the worst production of Steel Magnolias ever staged and it somehow....ENABLES TEENAGE GIRLS TO BE GRANTED ACCESS TO A VERY DANGEROUS DUDE ACCUSED OF KILLING HIS FAMILY?!?! This is supposed to exist in a pre-Hannibal Lecter world but Jodie Foster needed actual FBI accolades to clear security - WHO IS RUNNING THIS INSANE ASYLUM AND CAN THEY BE ADMITTED TO IT BEFORE I AM FOR WATCHING THIS SHOW?!?!?!

This plotpoint is (vaguely) redeemed with the genius casting of Freddy Kreuger hisself - Robert Englund - as Victor Creel, the dude who was Amityville Horror-ed into murdering his family. In 50s flashbacks, he’s played by that dork from Ozark who buys his family a very fancy mansion with the the caveat that it is an actual nightmare come to life but like: REAL ESTATE, BEBE! It’s all about location, location, location and this one happens to be right on top of...Vecna’s nest? We get into actual Nightmare on Elm St / Poltergeist territory before the girls are conveniently escorted away when the asylum administrator is like: WAIT MAYBE THESE GIRLS ARE LYING and dude: check the receipts BEFORE you lead them to Robert Englund next time! 

Meanwhile, Max is reading an endless letter in a graveyard to Billy who then materializes in dreams/nightmares and HIS WIG HAS NEVER LOOKED WORSE GOODRIDDANCE, BILLY! Max wanders through a nightmare hellscape and is for sure given way more chance to not be killed simply by being NOT a throwaway character in this tv show.

Oh also Robin realizes that maybe she can be saved by playing music which is maybe the one thing that asylum did right and then Dustin/Lucas/Steve spend eternities trying to find Max’s favorite song on cassette (LITERALLY PLAY ANYTHING SHE’S ABOUT TO DIE FROM BILLY’S WIG!) but finally do save her the only way someone should be saved: A KATE BUSH SONG.

Things don’t go quite as well in Alaska/Russia where Yuri the asshole plane pilot double crosses Hopp/Enzo/Joyce/Murray and honestly: whatever? At least Hopp got some peanut butter! In other food-related plots, all these dudes in California are saved by the pizza bro in a very over the top shootout that was very much not necessary! SORRY YOU GUYS DIDN’T HAVE ANY KATE BUSH CASSETTES! 

CHAPTER FIVE: THE NINA PROJECT

Welp. A pizza van full of ineffectual teen boys definitely just watched an FBI agent die but not before he gave them...a bloody pen? I think Will’s brother’s wig speaks for all of us when I say: OVER IT.

Back in Hawkins, Eddie is out of food and honestly should not be counting on Dustin and the rest of the Hawkins teens for his actual sustenance. His wig is thirsty!!!! And they’re all asleep in the Wheeler basement! THESE KIDS! WAKE UP!

Stupid Nancy wakes up to some Anne Archer realness to realize that their one job of keeping Max alive has been thwarted by sleep. Don’t worry - she’s awake upstairs having flapjacks and using crayons to draw the nightmare hellscape of Vecna. Nancy does some inexplicable origami and folds the pics into...Victor Creel’s haunted mansion. Sure!

BUT WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS? THE REAL STAR OF THE SHOW, KAREN WHEELER, IS BACK!!!!! She has no time for questions like: why are there half a dozen children sleeping in my basement? Do their parents know where they are? Why is this kid drawing scary shit in front of my 6yo? DOESN’T MATTER - JUST GET HER WIG SOME MORE DEP AND EXCUSE HER GLAMOUR IN THAT FABULOUS JUMPSUIT! KAREN 4EVER!!!!!

Back in the deserts of Nevada (???) El wakes up to her wig looking worse than ever and girlfriend didn’t even get any Eggos before Paul Reiser whisked her away to ....an underground bunker? Where a bunch of scientists are working pro bono? WHO FUNDED THIS!!!!

No time for practical questions: MATTHEW MODINE IS BACK! I definitely thought he died in Season 1 and won’t bother googling what actually happened to him because: I DON’T CARE!! His offbrand Ted Danson silver fox hair vibe is back and ready to escort El into the recesses of her traumatic childhood, complete with shaved head! And a lot of confusing Groundhog Day like repeated flashbacks to when she was just #11 in a room full of numbered children.

We also meet these dude in a James Spader whole lewk and yeah - this guy is gonna SUCK. I also fully predict he is #1 because everyone keeps talking about what happened to #1 and like: yeah it’s obviously him. 

Anyhoo! Back in Cali, these idiot boys buried that FBI agent in the desert as this one pizza dude who is single handedly trying to reboot Encino Man writes a detail filled gravestone on a pizzabox which for sure will catch up with these boys and land them in troubbbbble. 

Speaking of bad decisions! All the Hawkins teens decide to follow Stupid Nancy’s origami to the Creel haunted mansion and just hang out for a few hours with no risk of death even though Max DEFINITELY ALMOST DIED YOU GUYS AND HOW MUCH CAN WE REALLY RELY ON KATE BUSH CASSETTES?! Steve, the voice of reason, and style is the only one who objects but also he’s starting to like Nancy again (UGH) so a lot of bad life decisions here.

But the bad ideas keep coming and they don’t stop coming! The jocks chase Eddie into a boat even though Eddie HAD AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO ESCAPE INTO THE WOODS and the one black jock ends up Vecna-cided (new word let’s do it!) Also Winona’s season 4 wig and Murray decide to fight the duplicitous Yuri MID FLIGHT TO RUSSIA which obviously ends in a plane crash into snow and wow I guess this show is Yellowjackets now? 

CHAPTER SIX - THE DIVE

So here’s something: one of the main dudes from Search Party is now playing a relatively minor character in this show? Feels like an odd career choice but: you do you, hipster dude! He basically is playing a comic (??) foil to the new stoic black sheriff who replaced Hopp and his main objective is rolling his eyes at teenagers and like: SAME? The main jock from the Satanic Panic posse survived Vecnacide only to be further convinced that Eddie is....a vessel for the devil? EYE ROLLS ALL AROUND.

As for Eddie, he managed to swim away from Vecna, VERY CONVENIENTLY steal a new walkie talkie from a severely mismanaged construction site, and hightail it to - I shit you not - SKULL ROCK? YOU GUYS. It is season 4 of this show and NO ONE HAS MENTIONED SKULL ROCK BEFORE?! HOW AND WHY. IT IS A LARGE ROCK THAT LOOKS LIKE A SKULL THAT ALL TEENS SEEM TO KNOW ABOUT AND THIS IS THE FIRST WE’RE HEARING ABOUT IT! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THIS!!!!

Anyhoo, the whole Hawkins teen crew FINALLY decides to bring Eddie some food to the cabin only to VERY CONVENIENTLY stumble upon the newest crime scene and get a full recap of events from the new sheriff including the very important information: EDDIE IS THE #1 SUSPECT. They all convene on SKULL ROCK (you guys I can’t) where Robin and Stupid Nancy discuss how they are galpals now which seems like a conversation neither of these characters would have in a million years but the logic of this show went out the window seasons ago. Also Nancy’s wig looks awful as usual.

Back in Nevada (???) El’s shaved wig is definitely an upgrade from her offbrand Winona wig but still has the issues that come with any short wig: back taper, bebe. Not great!

Also not great is this dude - STILL! - and his continued pursuit in being the next James Spader. That front wave is just so yuppie obnoxious!!! Also this whole storyline is very stupid!

Meanwhile: the Cali boy crew arrives in Utah to make Dustin’s girlfriend hack something for them or something (I don’t care!) Dustin’s girlfriend lives in a Lord of the Flies-style Montessori nightmare where children run the house and the only one in charge is: THIS ALLY SHEEDY LOOKALIKE. This wig is actually not that offensive but what IS offensive is how this show is just trying to reassemble the entire cast of St. Elmo’s Fire (Rob Lowe was already represented in the form of BILLY!)

Oh also - Winona’s season 4 wig managed to survive that Yellowjackets-style crash as did Murray and Yuri, who is now tied to a tree and this entire subplot makes zero sense at all! EVEN LESS SENSE: Hopp’s Russian language immersion course has led to a feast for him and his prison buddies so that they can fight....the Demogorgon! And Hopp is absolutely able to understand all of the Russian it takes to explain how to fight a monster so great work on the immersion course! It’s working!

Anyway, back in Hawkins, the sheriff and that dude from Search Party are having a press conference or something with all of the parents of Hawkins and who shows up but the Satanic Panic posse and the sheriff just...allows them to completely take over the meeting and rile everyone up like they’re leading Jesus Camp or something? It is so preposterous and ridiculous and very on brand for this show.

BUT WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS - KAREN WHEELER GETS THE MOST SCREEN TIME SHE’S EVER HAD IN THIS EPISODE!!! She attends this press conference / Satanic Panic meeting and GIRLFRIEND HAS SOAKED HER ENTIRE WIG IN DEP. I am so ready for this to somehow turn into a commercial for SOUL GLO but instead it just turns into a race for time to...find all those Hawkins teens that no one has checked on for days?

Apparently Karen was told by the village of teens living in her basement that they were going to the movies (???) AND THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN HOME HOURS AGO!! SURE KAREN! The parents are all VERY CONCERNED SUDDENLY AND FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME THIS SEASON FOR THE WELFARE OF THEIR CHILDREN. KAREN IS USING ALL HER ACTING AND ALL HER HAIR GEL! SHE ALSO REFUSES TO BELIEVE THAT HER KIDS MIGHT BE MURDERERS AND THE FACT THAT THAT IS EVEN A LINE IN THIS IS JUST SO AMAZINGLY RIDICULOUS! NEVER CHANGE KAREN I LOVE YOU!!!!

The village of teens that Karen allowed to go to the movies (truly: ?????) are actually all at the lake making terrible decisions in....traveling to an underwater gateway to Vecna? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, KIDS?! However: this does lead to SHIRTLESS STEVE! I REPEAT: SHIRTLESS STEVE. Worth it!

CHAPTER SEVEN - THE MASSACRE AT HAWKINS LAB

Wow shirtless Steve really almost got torn apart by...hell bats? But Nancy/Robin/Eddie come to the rescue and ugh Steve and Nancy are totally gonna get back together, huh? STEVE YOU ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN HER OR HER WIG.

Especially because Nancy reveals - she is a secret gun enthusiast?!?! RED FLAG, STEVE. After some really ridiculous conversation between Steve and Eddie about true love (EYEROLL), these guys decide they’re in still in Hawkins - just a creepy version of it - so let’s all go to Nancy’s gun filled bedroom. BUT WAIT. Apparently this version of Hawkins is....3 years ago? CUE BABY STEVE:

AHHH REMEMBER WHEN STEVE LOOKED LIKE THIS AND WAS A TOTAL YUPPIE SCUMBAG?!?!?! What a long strange trip it’s been.

Anyway, Nancy 3 years ago doesn’t have any guns to fight hell bats so they decide to get help from the Hawkins teens (back in the rightside up) via Will’s old means of communication: LIGHTS!!! They don’t have Winona’s christmas lights, so they use A LITE BRITE. Wow this show is just so 80s it hurts.

The teens of Hawkins barely are able to access the Lite Brite in the first place because they’re in trouuuuuuuuble with the sherrif, dude from Search Party, and all their parents and YES THAT INCLUDES KAREN WHEELER! The teens give some random lame excuse that allows them to roam freely through the house with all access to Lite Brites while all the grownups are like just like SHRUG whatever I guess a murderer is on the loose but we don’t need to keep a close watch on these kids at all.

KAREN’S FACE AND WIG SAY IT ALL! SHE IS TIRED! HER WIG IS TIRED! JUST LET THE KIDS USE THE LITE BRITE WHAT COULD GO WRONG OH WAIT NOW THEY’RE BIKING AWAY FROM THE HOUSE COME BACK KIDS OH WHATEVER. THE END PERIODT I LOVE YOU KAREN.

Anyhoo! As the teens of Hawkins (both in the upside down and rightside up) race for their lives on bikes to reverse the time/space continuum or whatever. Winona’s season 4 wig has infiltrated the Russian gulag with Murray pretending to be Yuri. AND THE RUSSIANS BUY IT! How bad must Murray’s Russian accept be and yet this Russian language immersion course / torture prison / monster breeding ground is just like COOL COME IN I LIKE YOUR COAT.

Through a series of molotov cocktails, just getting lucky that the demogorgon doesn’t eat you immediately, and Winona’s season 4 wig just randomly pushing buttons she and Hop are reunited and it’s honestly pretty sweet!! Good for you, you crazy kids!

Speaking of crazy kids, El is still calling Matthew Modine “Papa” (YUCK) and the back taper of her wig has never been worse. This whole storyline is as preposterous as, well, all storylines on this show ? Anyway, we FINALLY get some forward movement on what the hell happened when El murdered all those kids....OR DID SHE?

The James Spader orderly tells her he will help her escape BUT WAIT she wants to help him BUT WAIT OH NO HE’S DEFINITELY BAD (DUH!) and yes - as predicted - he’s #1! He kills all the other kids! It was never El! BUT WAIT THE TWISTS KEEP COMING.

The teens of Hawkins actually use their bikes and Lite Brites to discover a portal back to reality in Eddie’s trailer and Eddie and Robin escape to freedom (if you call real Hawkins freedom?) only for Robin to be thrust further into Vecna’s nightmarescape. BARB REAPPEARS! REMEMBER BARB?! JUSTICE FOR BARB! Vecna is still VERY VERY angry at Nancy for allowing Barb to die (SAME, VECNA!) BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Remember in the flashback sequences about Victor Creel in which he says his son was in a coma for a week before dying instead of immediately being killed like everyone else? Well that was a total red flag bc as Stupid Nancy’s wig and we soon find out: THE SON WAS VECNA ALL THE TIME!!! WELCOME TO THE OMEN. ALSO VECNA IS THAT ORDERLY / #1. THE MURDERER IS CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

We see El trying to destroy Vecna/#1 back in the lab only to realize that she actually just created the Upside Down AND Vecna. D’oops! Oh well! Cliffhanger! BYEEEEEEEEEEE

CHAPTER EIGHT - PAPA

...and we’re back, bebe! Still trapped in the nightmare flashbacks of Vecna’s hellfire, Nancy sees how Vecna came to be Number One with the help of this Matthew Modine wig and some tasteful ghost contact lenses. TRUE HORRORS ALL.

Speaking of horrors: STUPID NANCY’S WIG!! I know we’ve all seen a lot of ghostmares this season, but nothing compares to this wig. All my hopes and dreams of it being killed off (ALONG WITH NANCY!) are quickly dashed because she gets saved from Vecna’s clutches and WHY!!! JUST LET HER GO BE DEAD WITH BARB HARRUMPH AND BOO!

Back in Russia, Winona’s season 4 wig and Hopp are reunited and it’s all kind of nice except that this show CANNOT RESIST any opportunity to talk about how Hopp lost a ton of weight during his Russian Immersion Language stay at the gulag. WE GET IT HE’S SKINNY NOW AND WE ALL KNOW IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS IN THE HELLBOY REBOOT! Winona’s season 4 wig and I speak for all of us with the above face when I say: STOP TALKING ABOUT HOPP’S BODY. In other news: what is the lipstick situation in Russia and why are Winona’s season 4 lips looking like this. WHY.

NO TIME FOR IMPORTANT LIPSTICK QUESTIONS: BACK TO THE HAWKINS TRAILER PARK! There, this ragtag group of kids with gumption and apparently unlimited time and funds meet to make a cute little plan to save the world under the watchful eye of this macrame lampshade that really knows better. It’s just so adorable and spunky and riddled with split ends both literal and figurative, you guys. They make the very logical decisions to not seek any medical or law enforcement help, steal a nice trailer park couples home/car, and then travel back to the upside down AND Victor Creel’s haunted mansion in order to tempt Vecna and....I dunno shoot him or something? SOLID PLAN! Oh but first we have to drive this trailer to.....a gun store where conveniently all of the teens of Hawkins are going to buy guns with absolutely zero background checks. YAY AMERICA!

Seriously you guys: EVERY TEENAGER IN HAWKINS IS AT THIS GUN STORE. Satanic Panic is a helluva drug? Also lack of background checks aside, where are these kids getting gun money??!!! But why sweat those kind of details when LOOK AT THIS OFFBRAND MOLLY RINGWALD! You may or may not recall that Uma Thurman’s daughter had a crush on this redhead waaaay back in episode 1 of this season where they both were in (HIGH SCHOOL!) marching band. Well anyway, she’s there at the gun store making out with what appears to be a dayplayer jock from Karate Kid?! THIS SHOW IS REALLY THE KITCHEN SINK OF 80S.

But why cry for Uma Thurman’s daughter’s unrequited ginger love when you can cry about Will’s unrequited bowlcut love for Mike?? WILL YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN MIKE! Somewhere in the deserts of Nevada (??) the crew from California is booking it across the desert in a pizza van of bad wigs and plans and FEELINGS and I dunno how anyone is paying for this roadtrip!!

BUT WAIT! Just when you thought Matthew Modine was maybe redeemed, that silver fox outfoxed us all by shackling Paul Reiser to a radiator and putting a robo collar on El! It’s Matthew Modine’s stupid world and we just live in it BUT NOT FOR LONG because those dumbass pizza kids arrive at the right moment for El to decide to.....take down a helicopter with her mind?! The money that goes into this stupidity is spectacular and the only thing missing from this episode is obviously: KAREN WHEELER.

Still: MATTHEW MODINE IS DEAD! Ding dong this witch is dead (even though I still very thought he was dead at the end of season 1 so who is to say!) GHOSTMARES ALL AROUND!

CHAPTER NINE - THE PIGGYBACK

You guys! We made it to the last episode! But the last episode is 2.5 hours long EXCUSE ME WHAT?! I think Winona’s season 4 wig speaks for us all when it says: OVER IT. Honestly, this wig has never looked better (STILL NOT A COMPLIMENT) as she and Hopp....almost have sex after he just got out of a Russian gulag and def has a lot of broken bones and hasn’t showered in years?! No amount of antibiotics make this ok but luckily their super sexy times are cut short by a phone call from the FBI. Which results in a plan to....go back to the Russian gulag to help the kids defeat the demogorgon remotely?!?!

Speaking of working remotely, Stranger Things really took a note from 2020 and was like: what if we all just don’t go into work?? Now that El is with California crew of bad wigs, they need to get her to a salt bath immediately to do her own version of a zoom meeting with Vecna. Solution? SURFER DUDE PIZZA OF COURSE. You know that everyone is gonna have a Surfer Dude Pizza shirt immediately and barf. We are treated to a whole scene of bad SoCal Encino Man impressions before we get El into a pizza salt immersion chamber of doom. If you, like me, have completely lost the plot and your mind: COOL BRO.

So now Max is in Victor Creel’s haunted mansion and El is...invading her thoughts via her pizza zoom meeting with Vecna and.....it is resulting in this black box avant garde theater piece above?! The Village Voice would totally approve. Before you can say “Industry, What’s Become of Me?”, Vecna shows in the form of a bug zapper! THERE IS NEVER A MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR AN 80S ELECTRONIC TIE IN.

MEANWHILE! Dustin is suited up in his best 80s warzone outfit which honestly just makes him look like an Ewok and then we are treated to...a Metallica concert on a haunted trailer? Eddie’s plan for saving the earth is to do a guitar solo to Master of Puppets but just playing the record isn’t enough - he also has to provide his own sweet licks (as apparently really provided by some Metallica kid’s son, which my husband was quick to point out was not an OG member of Metallica and is therefore GARBAGE). Speaking of garbage, this entire plot point and how awkward it is to watch Dustin bop his head along to a guitar solo? Regardless, please look for the above image to be airbrushed onto a van headed for Burning Man immediately.

Speaking of burning men, Vecna has El trapped long enough for him to monologue about his origin story which is a truly mindblowing journey through the uncanny valley of cryptkeepers and I really zoned out but I guess he wants to become a spider or something and he’s been the bad guy every season of this show? Oh also the jock on his Satanic Panic quest showed up just in time to possibly ruin this entire plan but....wait Eddie just sacrificed himself and RIP to him and his awful wig!

BUT THEN! The absolutely most horrifying thing of all happens: BILLY’S WIG COMES BACK! WHY WHY WHY. Everything is a flashback within a flashback right now and NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS SWEATY WIG BACK NO THANK YOU PLEASE! 

AND THEN! Hopp decapitates a demogorgon in a Russian gulag and Nancy/Steve/Uma Thurman’s daughter burn Vecna alive in Victor Creel’s haunted attic?! Then Nancy shoots Vecna and her hair has never looked more like Anne Archer’s at the end of Fatal Attraction and this is truly the best we can ever expect from Nancy! 

And then Vecna is destroyed with the only death toll being Eddie and that dumb jock....whoops just kidding HAWKINS IS NOW A COMPLETE WARZONE AND EVERYONE IS LIVING IN A BOMB SHELTER. Great work everyone! Stupid Nancy’s bent ass wig is forced into a barrette and reunited with Will’s brother’s also horrible wig and all the wigs are so happy to see each other and no one has looked worse. All the teenagers go to clean up Hopp’s bombed out cabin where he magically shows up with Winona Ryder’s season 4 wig and everyone just hugs it out and makes more fat jokes at Hopp’s expense. IT IS NEVER ENDING! MUCH LIKE THIS EPISODE!

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, KAREN WHEELER IS BACK! IF KAREN WHEELER AND HER SOUL GLO-ED WIG CAN SURVIVE THE APOCALYPSE ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! NEVER CHANGE, KAREN I LOVE YOU!!! ALSO YOUR KIDS AND HUSBAND ARE AWFUL! 

But nothing is quite as awful as the offbrand Molly Ringwald and Uma Thurman’s daughter reuniting to have lesbian flirtation whilst making PBJs for Hawkins refugees while also both wearing vests. The black chick to the left is all of us saying: YOU GUYS AREN’T HELPING PLEASE STOP.

But this show just keeps on keepin on! Everyone is reunited but oh shit all these wildflowers are grey now....whoops Vecna is back to being a smoke spider and everyone’s gonna die SEASON OVER GOODBYE! I AM EXHAUSTED AND NEED A WIG NAP! GOODBYE TO THIS STUPID SHOW FOR NOW!

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

Oscar season is OVER! Now it’s back to trashy TV! The absolute trashiest show I watch (and that’s staying a lot!) is back: BRIDGERTON!!!! This season is all about eldest brother Anthony, some new love interests, definitely NOT THE DUKE, and also and most importantly: FRAN BRIDGERTON! Much like my review of last season, I will be mainly focusing on the most mysterious member of the Bridgerton family, Francesca, who left for about 98% of last season to learn the pianoforte AND I WISHED I WAS WITH HER. Now she’s back (OR IS SHE?) oh and there are also some wigs. Let’s discuss.

EPISODE 1 - Capital R Rake

OMG LOOK IT’S FRAN!!!!! Right up in front! FRAN! YES! The Bridgertons have (mainly) all gathered for something very exciting on the other side of a door. This show is all about eavesdropping and familial togetherhood so this feels fair. Missing, of course, is Colin who is abroad somewhere and THE DUKE who was banished from this season for being too hot but Disney Daphne is there in a wig that can only be described as “Stockholm Syndrome Era Belle.” Also absent is Demi Moore Bridgerton (Eloise!) because that is what they’re all looking at...

DEMI MOORE IS A DEB YOU GUYS! Dressed as a Toulouse-Lautrec painting minus the absinthe, Demi Moore looks about as pleased as anyone would look if their entire family gathered together to see a giant feather on top of her head. Demi is outtttt this season which means the family is gonna try to marry her off but who are we kidding? This is ANTHONY Bridgerton’s season and Demi isn’t getting hitched anytime soon. BUT WHO WILL ANTHONY MARRY?!?!

THIS HORSE GIRL!!! Her name is Kate Sharma, she LOVES HORSES, hates men, has a backstory of questionable lineage, and a wig of ever changing lengths. ANTHONY IS TOTALLY MARRYING THIS BITCH. I’m here for it and honestly this braided wig isn’t bad.

However, Kate’s wig changes lengths constantly whether in a braid, some tendrils, or an updo. Anyway, she just wants to get her wide-eyed (and very Disneyfied) sister married off (hello love triangle!). Edwina Sharma is basically an Indian DD but without the upsetting bangs? She is very sweet and will 100% have her heart broken somehow. They’re staying with my favorite badass, Lady Danbury, and brought their corgi along with them without asking which is a power move made by absolute kweens. 

Lady Danbury, who always has some long grift going, sees that Kate is definitely onto some con and yes - she is! I guess Kate’s long lost aristocratic grandparents (who will definitely show up later and be totally horrible) have said they’d un-disown them if Edwina marries a gentleman (HM WHAT WILL HAPPEN). Kate obvs doesn’t tell her sister this and Lady Danbury correctly thinks that’s a bad idea. Side note: WHERE DO THESE BITCHES KEEP ALL THESE TIARAS?!

Anyway, Anthony claims he’ll marry whoever the queen’s “diamond” is and of course it’s Edwina and then Kate conveniently overhears him telling his disgusting dude friends who I hope I never see again about how he’s just gonna marry whatever rando whatever who cares and Kate is all HOW DARE YOU!! It is so hysterically obvious that this is all based on The Taming of The Shrew even down to the names and you guys, I can’t. These two assholes are for sure falling in love and adopting like 1000 horses duh. 

FRAN WATCH: THE MOST FRAN EVER YOU GUYS!!! Not only is Fran around for Demi’s big feather reveal but she also accompanies the family to the season debut with the queen or whatever it’s called which Demi gets to skip due to Lady Whistledown existing again. Fran then ACTUALLY PLAYS THE PIANOFORTE so that Demi can learn to dance and I love that this show is trying to make it seem like it was worth it for Fran to miss DD’s wedding to learn a musical instrument but like sure?

EPISODE 2 - Off to the Races

I fully didn’t talk about Pen last episode! I love Pen. She is my Derry Girl and she needs to get more respect from everyone around her when not using her, well, PEN to be Lady Whistedown. But more importantly, Derry Girl needs a better wig!! The budget clearly is improved for season 2 but somehow this wig is just worse!!! HOW IS ANYONE EXPECTED TO THINK THIS IS HAIR?!?!?! Everything about it screams off-brand Merida from Brave and truly she deserves better. Oh also, her entire family (the Cinderella Clan) has a new ruler who absolutely sucks - he’s pompous, selfish, and annoying aka he fits in perfectly. Also her sister now gets to get married. Mazel?

Also! Colin is back to the delight of basically no one except Derry Girl and the younger Bridgertons and yes THAT INCLUDES FRAN. Now that all the Bridgertons have reassembled, it’s time to immediately go to the races as if this wasn’t something they had planned on doing forever. Edwina is paired with some rando dude who seems nice enough and sure maybe marry him and not Anthony. Kate is paired with some dude who has heard of India so they talk about how awful English tea is or something. Both Sharma girls’ wigs are definitely the best of the season. Anthony shows up and is a complete asshole who demands lemonade and it’s discovered that Kate’s date was just a ruse for him to get closer to Edwina. RUDE! Kate is mad but also wins at all the horse races because she knows so much about horses. Also this entire scene is basically straight out of that one scene in My Fair Lady and/or Pretty Woman depending.

Also when all the Bridgerton boys get together they......fence? Seems legit. The creative one (Benedict) still claims to NOT be gay but like sure honey. Also Colin is so insufferable talking about his trip abroad like that one friend you had who studied in Paris and refuses to stop wearing berets. He also is still paying games with Derry Girls’ heart by saying his trip made him realize he was in love with....HIMSELF? Yeah that adds up. Derry Girl, you can do better! 

Meanwhile, Derry Girl is almost found out by her best friend Demi who really is being a detectress about the Lady Whistledown type setting and truly: I wish this show was all about fonts? Anyway...Derry Girl goes to some poor people market to get a new type key and throw Demi off her trail and of course is spotted by everyone’s favorite dress maker, Madame Delacroix!!! To be fair, Derry Girl (using an Irish accent! YES!) is wearing the most RIDICULOUSLY CONSPICUOUS BLUE CAPE TO THIS MARKET! She’s legit dressed like OG Cinderella’s fairy godmother and is like: wait how did I get spotted amongst the unwashed in this very fancy baby blue satin cape?!?! CHOICES PEOPLE.

Speaking of important life choices through fashion, Demi wore THIS HAT to the races! CAN YOU EVEN?!?!?! WHAT CENTURY IS IT?? I also really don’t understand what they’re doing with this wig which is just sitting there and would never be allowed but Demi doesn’t know what she’s doing either because she goes to the printing press to try to uncover Lady Whistledown and is super rude to a printing dude there who is also a lowgrade suffragist and wow these two are definitely gonna bone. 

FRAN WATCH: NEVER ENOUGH FRAN!! Despite being semi excited to see Colin, Fran was not featured enough in this episode. I DEMAND MORE PIANOFORTE! EARN IT GIRL!

EPISODE 3 - A Bee In Your Bonnet

We begin with a decade old flashblack! Anthony is a teenager and has...REDDISH HIGHLIGHTS?!?! I don’t know what games this hair is trying to play with my heart but this flashback is playing with all our hearts because it shows how Viscount Bridgerton died and do you remember crying at My Girl? WELL. Get yourself an epipen and stay away from the bees, y’all! 

Back in present times, DD and HER BABY are back but definitely NOT THE DUKE NEVER THE DUKE. FRAN IS THERE!! She tells Eloise to hold DD’s baby! Eloise does not want to! FRAN LOVES THE BABY! YAY FOR FRAN! Boo for DD’s weird bangs still.

The whole Bridgerton family is off to their country estate and if you’re wondering why they don’t live here ALL THE TIME the answer is definitely: BEE GHOSTS. Anthony is HAUNTED through this episode by his dad’s bee death and sadder still his mom’s depression and near death during childbirth which was somehow left up to him as teenage viscount. Olde Times were ROUGH you guys. Also rough? DEMI’S WIG!! I don’t know why this is a wig (the actress’s hair is similar) or why it’s allowed to be down or why anything but whatever - let’s all play some really intense version of croquet?

This episode spends A LOT of time explaining the rules of Pall Mall which is like croquet but EXTREME and the Bridgertons are totally that family who would play extreme frisbee or whatever if they were around now. Sporty families, man. UGH. DD is there SANS THE DUKE and her wig is as unacceptable as his absence. The Sharma girls remain with the best wigs of the season. Also of course, Kate’s pall mall ball goes into the forest and she and Antony basically take a mud bath which is the second most erotic secret forest mud bath this side of The Power of the Dog. It’s all sexy until they uncover Anthony’s dad’s grave. BEE GHOSTS GET YOU EVERY TIME. 

I really lost track of how many times these assholes almost kissed in this episode but the most insane one was when Kate gets stung by a bee and Anthony has a panic attack about it (MAKES SENSE!) and then she puts his hand on her heaving breast and you guys...THIS SHOW. They still haven’t kissed. And Anthony still hasn’t explained how he got rid of his teenage red highlights.

Meanwhile, the creative one wants to go to art school (SURE HENNY!) and in a series of scenes in which this show attempts to be...”funny” (???) he takes mushroom (?) tea supplied by Colin’s stupid overseas travels and trips his balls off and everyone is just like SHRUG that’s our creative brother for you! AND THIS CHARACTER IS HIGH ON TEA AND YOU’RE TELLING ME HE’S NOT GAY?!?!? He got into art school though so let’s see where this goes.

ANYWAY! Derry Girl and Madame Delacroix, now aware of all the Lady Whistledown secrets, form a super cool business lady club where they help each other and I’ve never been so excited about business lady specials since Romy & Michele you guys. 

FRAN WATCH: STILL NOT ENOUGH FRAN! Sure, she’s excited to be an auntie to a very cute baby and shame Demi for not liking children but WHY COULDN’T SHE PLAY PALL MALL?!?!?! JUSTICE FOR FRAN!

EPISODE 4 - Victory

I really haven’t spoken enough about how awful the Cinderella Clan’s wigs are ALWAYS but honestly all of their red wigs hurt my eyes so I’d rather see and discuss them as little as possible. But their current situation is: POVERTY! And by that I mean: they have but ONE servant. Peasants!! In order to improve their situation, mama Featherington has decided to marry her non-Derry Girl daughter off to THEIR COUSIN WHO LIVES WITH THEM. Complicating matters is of course: CRESSIDA! Cressida who ALWAYS has a stink face. Cressida who always has a wig that looks like a Maury episode of weave wars. Cressida who will ALWAYS be the other woman. Cressida who has the audacity to be named CRESSIDA. MAY SHE NEVER CHANGE.

MEANWHILE, the Bridgertons are now hosting like all of London at their fancy countryside mansion which is definitely still haunted by BEE GHOSTS. All the dudes get to go on a cool hunting expedition and of course, horse girl Kate wants in on the action. The patriarchy says NO but then kind of shrug I guess AS LONG AS YOU BRING YOUR LADYMAID WHO CANNOT WALK THROUGH A FOREST. Obviously, this leads to ample opportunities for Kate and Anthony to almost kiss but more importantly leads to Kate wearing the SHIT OUT OF THIS HAT.

Whilst in the country, Colin decides to pay a visit on his long lost secret ex-fiance that he is still pining after: Marina who is now a fancy aristocrat with a nice husband and TWINS. Mazel! When her husband comes home, he and Colin literally start talking about OLIVE TREES just like two insufferable Euro bros would and this gives Colin the opportunity to tell Marina he’s still not over her. Marina, who you may recall came to this show pregnant, then had to live with the awful Cinderella Clan who almost married her off to the worst dudes in London, then her lover died, then she almost had to marry Colin and then was last minute married to her lover’s brother has honestly DONE PRETTY WELL FOR HERSELF CONSIDERING has ZERO time for Colin’s fee-fees. GOOD FOR YOU, MARINA!! LITERALLY GET OVER YOURSELF COLIN AND GO BACK TO GREECE NO ONE HAS TIME FOR YOU HERE!!!!

Well I guess except Derry Girl who is still pining over this loser and still has the worst wig on this show. Truly: get this chick a better wig!!! ALSO WHY DOES NO ONE WANT TO DANCE WITH HER?!?! Demi is forced to dance with some rando who she burns immediately but I guess no one is dancing with her because of her terrible family’s plan to marry her sister off with her cousin. Which actually turns into an engagement of nonsense in an ORANGERIE!!! I want all bad marriage proposals to happen near citrus fruit because at least no one will get scurvy. Joke is definitely on the Cinderella Clan because the cousin is actually poor and needed Cressida’s weave war money but oh well: WHAT HAPPENS IN THE ORANGERIE DOESN’T STAY IN THE ORANGERIE. D’oops!

Back on the dance floor, these assholes STILL. HAVE. NOT. KISSED. I really don’t know what games they are playing with us but Kate’s wig is definitely getting the tendril treatment and despite being one of the better wigs on this series, still is all over the place with how long it wants us to think her real hair is. After the ball, Anthony confides to Kate about all the BEE GHOSTS and her hair is in this messy braid that is definitely 50% longer than the wig above would lead us to believe. More unbelievable: THEY STILL HAVEN’T KISSED AND SHE’S LIKE JUST MARRY MY SISTER. Disaster!

The episode ends with an actual proposal! Kate’s face says it all: THIS IS SO STUPID!! Also her wig is looking not that great here but I think this wig realizes just how dumb this proposal is.

FRAN WATCH: ZERO FRANS!!!!! Even with the entire Bridgerton clan (INCLUDING DD) on the front steps as this stupid engagement happens. WHERE IS FRAN?!?!! FRAN KNOWS HOW STUPID THIS ALL IS! TAKE ME WITH YOU, FRAN!

EPISODE 5 - An Unthinkable Fate

I realize that I haven’t talked about the queen’s insane wigs at all. This is because we know them to be wigs within the narrative of the show and I am only concerned with wigs trying to pass themselves off as real hair. Still, these wigs are elaborate and fabulous (THERE IS EVEN A BLUE ONE YOU GUYS) and befitting a real queen (drag or otherwise). Clearly the entire wig budget went to her and honestly: spare some $$ for Derry Girl please!

I mean spare some money for any of the Cinderella Clan? No really: they need money and not just for wigs! Due to the orangerie proposal, they are now moving forward with just marrying this sister off to her cousin so they can keep their house but have NO MONEY FOR UGLY DRESSES. It should be noted that the cousin is also a ruby con artist (SURE!) and their plot this week involves deciding to pass off fake rubies to make some coin and nothing has ever been more on brand for these idiots. ALSO! We meet the cake-hungry jeweler who is terrible at overhearing all of Kate and Anthony’s discussion of engagements because FREE CAKE (and truly: priorities). 

Meanwhile, in other money making schemes: the boxer from last season has now retired into...owning a gentleman’s club? That caters specifically to artsy bros aka Colin and Benedict Bridgerton? I mean: get that money, honey but this feels absolutely not sustainable in just decanter fees alone.

As for the creative Bridgerton, he has begun art school and it is SO NOT HOMOSEXUAL ENOUGH. Despite wearing the most insane ascots, he is titillated by, well, tits and begins a really boring romance with the FEMALE nude model for the school who is also a budding art student herself. I realize that he had sex with women last season (Madame Delacroix!) but I am super disappointed in how not gay this storyline is. BOO!

In other boring cisgender romance storylines, Demi might have found herself a boyfriend!! As foretold in the episode where she is guided by typekey fonts, she goes to a suffrage meeting with that printer guy!!! He is very cute and this is 100% the same as the Downton Abbey season where Sybil falls in love with Tom and I really hope this doesn’t end with anyone getting preeclampsia. It does so far end with Demi lying to Derry Girl about her whereabouts but to be fair, Derry Girl has been lying to Demi this entire time about not being Lady Whistledown. SECRETS DON’T MAKE FRIENDS!

AAaaanyway, over at some boat races or whatever, Kate and Anthony get into some quarrel that ends with ANTHONY IN A WET TSHIRT JUST LIKE COLIN FIRTH IN BOTH PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ALSO BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY. EMERGENCY YOU GUYS THIS IS THE ONLY IMPORTANT TRIBUTE THIS SHOW HAS EVER MADE. Excellent work!!

Oh wait there’s actually more of this episode!! Kate’s long grift this entire season has been to get a secret dowry from her horrible grandparents who disinherited her father long ago BUT they said she could only get some coin if Edwina married a gentleman. She obvs didn’t tell her sister any of this despite all of Lady Danbury’s warnings and then they come to dinner and it’s as awful as you might imagine. The grandad is played by the dude who also plays an asshole in Ted Lasso and *chef’s kiss* casting, you guys. Of course, they tell everyone about the whole dowry requirement and Anthony defends Edwina and despite this being a PERFECT OUT of this whole stupid engagement (AND ALSO BECAUSE THEY FINALLY ADMIT THEY ARE HOT FOR EACH OTHER WITHOUT ACTUALLY KISSING), Kate (in her messy long braid wig!) tells Anthony (and some horses) that he must marry Edwina so that she won’t be heartbroken. QUICK GET EDWINA ANOTHER DUDE STAT! DISASTER! 

FRAN WATCH: NO FRANS!!! WHERE IS FRAN?!?!?!

EPISODE 6 - The Choice

Welp...here we are guys! Wedding of the season! The Queen has some new wigs, some new peacocks, and A TON OF COCAINE. What could go wrong?!?!? The Bridgertons and Sharmas are just going along as if this farce of a wedding is actually going to happen and oy vey. The only voice of reason comes in the form of DD (SANS DUKE EVEN AT A FAMILY WEDDING ARE YOU KIDDING ME). DD and her stupid bangs tell Anthony to follow his heart just moments before the wedding. WHAT IS HE GONNG DO? Meanwhile, Kate (in a braid honestly too close to the scalp) offers Edwina (in a pretty nice wig!) some bracelets owned by her mother and Edwina is all: no you keep them! Her fate is now sealed forever because we all know that JEWELRY WILL CURSE YOU FOREVER.

The jewelry curse is in effect basically IMMEDIATELY when Kate drops one of the bracelets, Anthony fetches it for her, and Edwina is FINALLY all: WAIT MY SISTER AND MY FIANCE ARE IN LOVE? ON THE ALTER YOU GUYS! She storms out, the wedding guests are shook, literal fireworks go off, and society and this tv show both simultaneously implode. 

The Queen, who has bought herself MATCHING WIGS WITH HER LADIES IN WAITING is PISSED. Mama Bridgerton, Mama Sharma, And Lady Danbury have no clue what to do and everyone just sort of lets Edwina decide if she should get married which is definitely the ONLY TIME A WOMAN HAS DECIDED HER MARITAL FATE ON THIS SHOW. In what should probably have taken 5 minutes, the rest of this episode descends into madness while Edwina takes HOURS to make this choice. Meanwhile, Anthony stares into the middle distance, likely haunted by BEE GHOSTS and Kate cries IN A PUNCH BOWL CLOSET I’M NOT KIDDING!!! Legit question: did I miss a writers’ strike because it really felt like NO ONE WROTE THIS EPISODE.

The wedding guests at some point decide to leave the church and wander indeterminably around the palace gardens, avoiding peacocks and allowing society to crumble around them. Was there an actual wedding planner besides the queen? Will some bitch with a clipboard ever tell them the wedding is still on or nah? Everyone is just losing their minds: Mama Featherington and the new Lord Featherington are FLIRTING despite him being betrothed to her daughter, being mean to that wrestler dude, and trying to pass fake jewels to rich assholes! Cressida has a new and insane weave! Colin is drinking champagne and being nice to Derry Girl (TOO LATE DUDE!) Anthony’s shitty friends are back! And most insultingly, Demi betrays her own Bechdel Test by ONLY talking about that printing press dude who I will now be referring to as NEWSIE based on my love of the movie Newsies and not his actual profession. Demi wisely leaves with her bangs AND TENDRILS (huh?!) to see if Newsie is in LIKE with her and yes he is because he gave her some dusty old books and these two are as good as married now.

JK JK no one is getting married! Or are they?!?! Time still doesn’t exist and neither do wedding rules: THEY START SERVING WEDDING CAKE DESPITE NO WEDDING! WTF!! I tried to use this as a hint that our favorite cake-hungry jeweler would show up and save the day by suggesting that if Kate and Edwina have the same ring size, they probably have the same dress size so just: SWITCH DRESSES AND LET’S HAVE A WEDDING! (This did not happen). I’d like to point out that in 50% of screwball comedies (see: The Philadelphia Story), messed up weddings are usually fixed by interchangeable brides and grooms because wasting a wedding is stupid. BUT SO IS THIS SHOW! And it is far from a screwball comedy - it is just an endless tragedy and even Mama Bridgerton and Lady Danbury, racked with guilt and updos, don’t know what to do but just laugh LAUGH AND LAUGH (YES REALLY WHAT IS HAPPENING!)

Edwina finally decides not to marry Anthony (DUH) and NO ONE POINTS OUT THAT KATE SHOULD JUST MARRY HIM INSTEAD! THEY ARE SERIOUSLY WASTING A WEDDING! THESE TWO ASSHOLES WILL GET HITCHED ANYWAY! THE WASTE AND THE DECADENCE I CAN’T!! Everyone just sort of shrugs and leaves including Mama Bridgerton and DD and her insufferable bangs!

Inside the church, these two assholes FINALLY KISS while society as we know it crumbles outside. WHATEVER!!!

FRAN WATCH: NO FRIGGIN FRANS!! AT HER BROTHER’S WEDDING! I finally actually googled what is going on with this and apparently the chick who plays Fran actually had another tv gig and is only in the first 3 episodes. This will not stop me from 1) bemoaning her absence and 2) bemoaning the fact that this show had the audacity to not even excuse her absence with some lame pianoforte sabbatical! There legit must have been a writers’ strike I missed, right??!?!

EPISODE 7 - Harmony

Well the world is continuing to spin even though everyone just ruined 1) Edwina’s heart and 2) a perfectly good wedding. There is some really dodgy footage of Kate and Anthony definitely masturbating to the idea of once kissing and yuck!!!

And then! The Bridgertons are all sitting around (SANS FRAN) and decide the only reasonable thing to do is: PROMENADE!!! And the promenade proves that the Sharmas and the Bridgertons are complete social outcasts. Now the Sharmas, Lady Danbury, and the Bridgertons are all just hanging out like: WHAT DO WE DO NOW TO MAINTAIN SOCIETY?? Kate’s wig is like...meh whatever but her dog suddenly is into Anthony! And Edwina is all: WHOA YOU GUYS ARE IN LOVE PLEASE DON’T MAKE OUT LITERALLY IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!

Meanwhile, the gay one who is NOT GAY is I guess just super bougie? AND ALSO HAS A DRUG PROBLEM MAYBE?!?!! Anthony DOES NOT APPROVE and hard same but like the Bridgertons can only handle one scandal at a time? Oh except now Colin might invest in the Cinderella Clan’s fake ruby mines (OF COURSE UGH COLIN) and the Queen essentially told Demi that she’s going to murder her if she doesn’t admit she’s Lady Whistledown oh and also everyone hates the Bridgertons because of the failed wedding. DISASTER!

My two very favorite businessladies meet next to the coziest fireplace this side of Yellowjackets and talk about what they’re gonna do about the whole Queen threatening Demi thing. Madame Delacroix in ringlets too magical to be true suggests that Derry Girl print something bad about Demi that she would never say about herself (excellent idea, awful consequences!) Derry Girls’ wig has smoothed out in a way that is really trying to be The Little Mermaid and bitch knows what she has to do: DESTROY DEMI!!! 

Meanwhile, the Sharmas, Bridgertons and Lady Danbury (who I’m just gonna call Eartha Kitt now - I mean come on) decide the way to fix their societal issues is to: THROW A BALL!!! THE THEME IS LITERALLY HARMONY AND NO I’M NOT KIDDING!! No one shows up because the one thing people like more than wasting a perfectly good wedding is wasting a perfectly good ball. And then Anthony solves everything by just DANCING!!! It has come to my attention that Jonathan Bailey is actually gay (HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS) and clearly took a lesson from the Rupert Everett school: there may not be love, there might not be sex....BUT BY GOD THERE WILL BE DANCING!!!! It is all a total hodown until Lady Whistledown publishes that Demi is a trashy minx who is carrying on UNCHAPERONED! MY PEARLS!!! 

SPEAKING OF UNCHAPERONED!! Kate and Anthony meet undera Wisteria laden, candlelit, throw pillowed sex gazebo....and....THEY. HAVE. SEX. 

IN AN OPEN AIR SEX GAZEBO!

YOU GUYS!! THE FEATHERINGTON BITCH GOT ENGAGED JUST FOR BEING IN AN ORANGERIE SOMEWHAT NEAR HER COUSIN.

THIS SHOW IS BANANAS!!!!!!

AND THEN! Anthony wakes up in the same sex gazebo (HE SLEPT THERE! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!) to obviously find NO KATE because, well, she has common sense?!

Take it back - she has common sense UNTIL she decides to punish (?) herself for premarital gazebo sex by riding her horse in the rain and then Anthony chases after her and then HER HORSE THROWS HER! IN THE RAIN! I know this show is trying to be Pride and Prejudice but now it’s trying to be Sense and Sensibility too? 

FRAN WATCH: NO FRIGGIN FRANS!!! This show had the common decency to tell us that DD’s son “had a cough” thus why she and the Duke had to miss the Harmony Ball but WHERE IS FRAN’S EXCUSE?! Hyacinth was forced to play the pianoforte instead! THE HELL, FRAN?!?!?!

EPISODE 8 - The Viscount Who Loved Me

HERE WE ARE! THE LAST EPISODE! We did it! And so did Kate and Anthony and now Kate is in a coma out of sex gazebo horse girl guilt. And truly: EXCUSE HER GLAMOUR. As in: there is absolutely no excuse for the gorgeous glamour of this woman whilst in an actual coma. HOW DARE SHE. Her glorious locks have never looked better. A week goes by, Anthony doesn’t visit her out of moral obligations (?) and finally Edwina just kind of talks her out of the coma and she comes to with absolutely no visible wounds or neurological damage and literally the first thing she asks is: DID ANTHONY VISIT ME. The answer is no so FUCK HIM!!!! He does then visit her with tulips (TULIPS!!!) and asks her to marry her but she says no because she thinks it’s out of obligation and OMG YOU GUYS WE’RE ON THE FINAL EPISODE GET IT TOGETHER.

Ok they get it together kind of immediately because the Cinderella Clan are having a ball to celebrate their fake ruby pyramid scheme and Edwina and Kate make up and dance together because screw society!!! I love how much dancing just sort of fixes everything in this show the last two episodes. The hair on these two is...fine? Anyway, Kate and Anthony then dance and everyone is like SCANDAL but then the Queen says she likes the pairing so everyone falls in line. She also suggests Edwina marry her nephew the prince (remember him?) and I approve of this pairing of two sorta boring but nice people. 

OH AND CRESSIDA is in her most extreme weave war to date. LOOK AT THIS WIG!!!! HOW IS THIS LEGAL?!?! Also not legal: that whole ruby pyramid scheme which Colin points out to everyone thanks to the intel he got from that boxer dude and the whole Cinderella Clan go into crisis mode.

The stupid new Lord Featherington tells Mama Featherington, in a wig that can only be described as Hello, Dolly! meets Marie Antoinette that they should run away to the Americas together and in the first (and I’m sure last) time I will ever respect her, Mama Featherington is like: NOPE BYE I CHOOSE MY DAUGHTERS AND NOT YOU BUT GIVE ME SOME MONEY BYEEEEE. Well played. And goodbye forever, Lord Featherington. We hardly knew ye, and yet that was still too long.

In far more heartbreaking Cinderella Clan news, Derry Girl and Demi have a fight!!!! Derry Girl had warned Demi about seeing Newsie because of the SCANDAL of it all (and also to hide her identity as Lady Whistledown) but then decides to basically clue her in to how much she knows about gossip! Demi is catching on and all I can think about is Derry Girl’s new wig which is somehow in a braided CHINGON as if she’s eating Breakfast at Tiffanys and WHAT THE HELL WHY ARE YOU PLAYING GAMES WITH MY HEART WITH THIS WIG?!

Many more games are played with our heart with these two and it’s kind of the only breakup I’ve ever cared about in this show. Demi discovers all of Derry Girl’s secret floorboard gossip columns and they hiss at each other and it’s all really sad. So is Demi’s wig!! Unacceptable!

Meanwhile we have 10 minutes left in the show and the pace of loose ends is running at breakneck speed because we wasted so much time on that stupid slow moving wedding episode and now THERE. IS. TOO. MUCH. HAPPENING. Everyone goes outside because Mama Featherington promised them a surprise. Derry Girl is all excited to maybe have Colin FINALLY profess his love to her but of course, Anthony’s smarmy friends reemerge and she overhears him telling them that he could never love her. I HATE YOU, COLIN! YOU CAN DO BETTER, DERRY GIRL! 

Meanwhile, Benedict is wearing the most insane ascot/neckerchief and still claiming to not be gay (SURE!) and is pissed at Anthony for paying his way into art school and is gonna quit which is the biggest waste of money since that wasted ball and that wasted wedding both in this season. DECADENCE! The decadence keeps coming in the form of FIREWORKS mere seconds after Kate and Anthony FINALLY ADMIT THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER AND BECOME BETROTHED. PHEW!

Also Colin vaguely redeems himself by bringing all the smarmy bros to the boxer dude’s gentlemen’s club which is a great solid since he did save everyone from financial ruby ruin but now he has to serve drinks to total assholes. I guess it’s a living! 

In the end, these two assholes have sex and we see some lady parts and they’re married and LATE to a family game of PALL MALL (THIS STUPID GAME!) and Kate has a really intense french braid which isn’t as intense as the PDA they display in front of BOTH OF THEIR FAMILIES! OK? HAPPILY EVER AFTER JUST WATCH OUT FOR THE BEE GHOSTS.

FRAN WATCH: NO FRANS. ZERO FRANS. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO FRANS!!!!! The Duke is also not there, though his kid is walking and DD is around to play pall mall. BUT WHO WILL PLAY THE PIANOFORTE FOR ANYONE!! I DEMAND MORE FRANS NEXT SEASON! HARRUMPH!

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

And here we are. With only a few days to go before the Oscars, I actually forced myself to watch this. My mental health might be worse for it, but I consider this a personal and professional achievement. And the only achievement which should be associated with this movie though it would be more accurate to call this a hallucinatory fever dream which will test your will to live. I watched it so you will never have to. But what about the wigs? LET’S DISCUSS.

As we all know, Nicole Kidman is wigmaster’s enemy #1 and also someone who has brought me on terrifying wig journeys of coats, nonsense, and big little lies (twice!) I didn’t think I could mentally endure another such journey but I’m a garbarge person who couldn’t bear to see my Fire TV advertise this trash without watching it any more. We all have our limits!!!

Here’s the thing: THIS MOVIE IS A LIE! A LIE UPON A LIE UPON A LIE!! It claims to be a biopic but that is probably an insult to both biographies and moving pictures because it takes events from the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz which occurred in real life over the course of several years - Lucy’s second pregnancy, being accused of being a communist, Desi being accused of being unfaithful, etc etc. This all happened at various different times but Aaron Sorkin shoehorns them into happening in one week for narrative purposes (?) but also presents this information in a mockumentary style which serves to promote all of this as actual facts. People play older versions of I Love Lucy staff and address the camera to perpetuate this narrative timeline of lies! LIES UPON LIES UPON LIES! This movie is the Human Centipede of biopics!

ANYWAY! Nicole Kidman plays Lucy even though she is 10-100 years older than the real Lucille Ball at the time of the event(s). As promised, her wigs are perhaps the worst she has worn in years?? LOOK AT THE PART IN THIS THING!!!! NO SCALP TO BE SEEN UNDER ANYTHING. TEXTURE LIKE IT’S STRAIGHT FROM HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE. THE WORST.

Apologies to Javier Bardem for being a part of this AT ALL.

The movie does manage to flash back from the “week” in which it takes place to show how Lucy and Desi met in the first place and established themselves in Hollywood. This movie really is La La Land in that it is absolute fantasy nonsense and also somehow worst than the 2016 movie of the same name. In the 40s (?) Lucy had this brunette fright wig and JESUS GOD NO. (Javier Bardem’s sleek pompadour is fine). 

Back in the made up ‘50s, Nicole Kidman - who is using a regular Nicole Kidman pseudo-Australian voice to be Lucy off camera, and a shrill off-Brooklynease voice on camera (CHOICES!!) - is micromanaging the whole rehearsal process because THIS SHOW HAS TO WORK or else it’s maybe going to get canceled and she is going to get blacklisted? I dunno. The stakes are vague and since we know the result are also nonexistent! Also the writing is confusing, the movie is endless, the wigs are TERRIBLE. Along for this journey into the heart of darkness are JK Simmons and Nina Ariana as Fred and Ethel and look NOTHING LIKE THEM but it’s not like Javier or Nicole look remotely like Desi and Lucy so SURE!

ALSO! Alia Shawkat plays the one female writer on the staff (AND HER OLDER VERSION IS PLAYED BY LINDA LAVIN AND YES!!!!) Anyway, this wig is 50s housewife FINE and I would have rather watched a movie SOLELY about this character. 

Instead we are treated to endless backstory about how I Love Lucy came to be which basically is told to us that Lucy lost her movie contract at RKO and had to make radio comedies instead and I made the grave error of trying to factcheck this timeline via IMDb and it is obviously ALL BLATANT LIES - BITCH MADE LIKE 30000 movies during the decade this movie would have us believe she had no film prospects! But why did I even bother researching? I knew this movie was a lie so that’s on me. 

Whether on display on a radio soundstage, put into an updo, or hidden under a hat that looks like a delicious cinnamon roll, these wigs made me wish that this movie had been on the radio SO I DIDN’T HAVE TO LOOK AT THEM.

In the end, Lucy and Desi manage to remain a successful TV force (WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT THIS SHOW WAS SUCCESSFUL?) And though Nicole Kidman tried to gaslight me into liking her via wearing this really awesome vest and slacks set, there is no way in hell this movie had any viability of wurqing for me on any level and it actually managed to be somehow worse than I anticipated.

AND I HAVEN’T EVEN ADDRESSED WHATEVER MAKEUP/PROSTHETICS/HOODOO WITCHERY THEY USED TO MAKE HER FACE LOOK LIKE THIS! THIS!!!!! MAY THIS IMAGE HAUNT YOU FOREVER BECAUSE IT CERTAINLY WILL HAUNT ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIVING DAYS! HAPPY OSCAR WEEK!

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

Another Oscar bait movie, another remake of the damned!!! West Side Story did not need to be remade but actually wurqed - this movie also did not need to be remade and fully lived up to its title. IT’S A NIGHTMARE! It is also very VERY long and I watched all of it so you don’t ever have to. But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss.

Let me begin by saying: I DO NOT LIKE BRADLEY COOPER UNLESS HE IS PLAYING A 70S ASSHOLE. Definitely my enjoyment of this movie was affected by the fact that I truly did not care about him, his character, whoever he might have killed in the first moments of his movie and then set a house ablaze, and certainly not his penis. THIS IS A YEAR FOR DICKS and you almost kind of see his in this early scene in a bath if that is something you remotely care about (I DO NOT). I do, however, support Toni Collette in most things, and especially this wig! It has a nice 30s wave and texture and I wish had not been subjected to Bradley Cooper or any of his body parts.

Anyway, this movie is all carnie horrors from the getgo - tortured souls, tortured babies, tortured people, tortured chickens! It’s a lot and Guillermo del Toro clearly wants to shock and awe but the only thing I was shocked by is that NO ONE TOLD ME DAVID STRATHAIRN WAS IN THIS MOVIE YES!!!! His old lady is Toni Collette and their carnie deal is basically as fake clairvoyants: lying to people about familial dead ghosts. IT’S A LIVING! Bradley learns all he can from them and then MURDERS DAVID STRATHAIRN TO TAKE HIS COOL JOB AND IF I DIDN’T ALREADY HATE YOU BRADLEY COOPER UGHHHHHHHH.

He also charms Rooney Mara who has kind of a dumpy wig at first but does a really cool carnie trick where she electrocutes herself and man - people were really into paying to see other people get hurt in the 30s. What a time!

Rooney and Bradley leave the carnie life behind to cultivate a high class fake clairvoyant act. And after 2 years it works! They are making BANK lying to people about ghosts and wow maybe I picked the wrong profession. Rooney’s wig gets an upgrade! Bradley’s hair is still as slimey as he is but since he’s playing a career conman I guess it makes sense but also: WHO CARES. How he manages to actually psych people into believing him is never really explained and is also basically the plot of the USA show Psych except this movie is not funny at all and also endless.

2 hours (or maybe 2 days?) into this movie, Cate Blanchett shows up as a vamp/psychologist who thinks Bradley is a liar and duh she’s right but then they team up to defraud a bunch of rich assholes? Anyway, this wig isn’t bad and I definitely wanted to live in every interior she inhabited. Still, her motivations are so murky and everything is so boring at this point that like truly, no thanks.

MARY FUCKING STEENBERGEN shows up as a bereaved mother and again - this wig is very servable but deserved to be in a better movie? This is around when Bradley’s character gets really greedy about lying to rich people about ghosts and it ends in a murder/suicide because sure?

AND THEN! Rooney Mara and her slightly longer but still very boring wig try to escape the clutches of Bradley’s nonsense (and blatant cheating on her with Cate Blanchett in a weird Carol reunion no one wanted) but somehow agrees to one more con in which she has to appear as the dead lover of rich asshole Richard Jenkins.

This is where shit really just turns into a Guillermo del Toro nightmare nonsense fest and all logic - wig and otherwise- go out the window. In this scene in which Rooney appears as this fake ghost, she has to both cover herself in fake blood AND wear a wig for reasons unknown. WHY!!! She wears a wig in a turn of the century updo and then quickly removes it to run away from Richard Jenkins but like - WHY DID YOU NEED A WIG? Your hair was the same color and length of this ghost lady - just use bobby pins???? The wigs up until this point were fine but this plot point turned the tides. I love a wig on wig reveal but THIS ONE IS UNNECESSARY AND STUPID! Then again, this whole movie is unnecessary and stupid. 

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

It’s Oscar week, bebe! I am really trying to see ALL the nominated movies (that involve wigs) before Sunday. I should have probably seen West Side Story in the theater but didn’t because of looming omnicron (and because I’m a garbage person) but it’s finally on HBO Max and Disney Plus. There is absolutely no reason why this movie should have been remade but I will say: this remake is good! But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss. 

I guess if you’re going to remake a movie that won 10 Oscars and really did not need remaking at all - at least do it with a huge budget and make everything really pretty? THIS MOVIE FEELS PRETTY (see what I did there?) The art direction, cinematography, costumes and, yes, wigs clearly got some cash thrown at them. AS IT ALWAYS SHOULD BE!!! The main wigs on display are on Anita and her gals and they are all 50s perfection.  The seamwork, texture, and quality of these wigs are impeccable and I love that the wigs on all the background dancers are just as high quality. TAKE NOTE: GIVE WIGS SOME MONEY, HUNNY!

Ariana DeBose will probably win an Oscar as Anita and I hope her wig does too! Look at this coif!

Maria and Tony were honestly kind of boring and their hair was meh but like whatever - it’s all about Anita anyway!!!!

The dudes just grew their hair out and greased it back - as it should be! Grow those manes for your craft!!

The one exception was the normally bald-headed Corey Stoll. This man wig actually wurqs!!! And has a back taper! That never happens!!! I am shook!

And then there’s Rita. SHE IS 90s YEARS OLD! Let us all be blessed with her longevity and style and wig budget. I think this wig might honestly be one she has for everyday use but YOU DO YOU RITA! YOU HAVE AN EGOT AND HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT!!!

Throw a scarf on this wig and call it a day. All nice old lady wigs should be this good! I’m really rooting for the wig department on this movie to win on Sunday because these wigs wurq down to their roots! (As does this movie!)

VERDICT: WURQS

Ok so I just finished this whole series and I sort of feel like a bad feminist for watching it at all since Pamela Anderson did not cosign this. HOWEVER this show could not be more pro-Pam!! But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss on an episode by episode basis.

EPISODE 1

We begin with one of the worst people in the 90s or any other time: JAY LENO. Or I should say, some random actor playing Jay Leno. He asks Pam Anderson, played breathlessly by Lily James, how it feels to have a sex tape. Already I wanna vom. This is going to be a show.

The episode flashes back to the origin of said tape and the carpenter who stole it: SETH ROGAN. IN JORTS!! This show is so so very mid-90s. But Seth’s character, Rand, is firmly stuck in the 80s as shown by his very late 80s mullet. This wig ain’t bad! It avoids the issue with most bad guy wigs - the back taper - by being a total party in the back.

Enter party pooper: Tommy Lee. This show is very anti-Tommy and I love it for that! Tommy Lee very much sucks in life and on this show. As played by Winter Soldier Sebastian Stan, I have to say: he looks exactly like Tommy. This is NOT a wig - he underwent a dyejob and keratin treatment for this lewk - and the result is pretty perfect. Way to commit to hair for your craft!

We don’t get much of Pam in this episode but the few scenes she is in I have to say - this wig is pretty great!! Lily James underwent a pretty intense makeover to look like Pam and she honestly very looks like her! 

LOOK AT THIS WIG! The part, seams, texture, roots - everything is working here. It looks just as platinum bombshell as Pam did circa 1995. 

Most of this episode is devoted to Rand NOT being paid by Tommy Lee because, well, Tommy is an asshole??? Rand decides to get his back payments by stealing a super unguarded safe in Tommy and Pam’s garage, where Tommy, a professional drummer, plays drums. This was honestly the biggest question I had in this episode: WHY DOES TOMMY LEE PLAY DRUMS IN THE GARAGE LIKE A SUBURBAN TEENAGER? WOULDN’T HE HAVE HIS OWN HOME STUDIO??? Anyway, Rand hatches a plan that legit involves buying a fake fur rug from Pier 1 (PEAK 90s!) and using it to pretend to be a giant fluffy dog for the security guards. IT IS SO STUPID BUT STUPIDER STILL: IT WORKS!!!

Rand gets all the loot from the safe including, yes, the sex tape (which he was not banking on) as well as lots of guns (UGH) and money. The plot of this show is basically: don’t screw over a carpenter because he will enact revenge. AND DID WE LEARN NOTHING FROM OVERBOARD?!?! THIS IS THE SAME PLOT! 

EPISODE 2

Rand takes the tape to friend and porn impresario “Uncle Milty” as played by Nick Offerman IN THIS DAMN WIG. Yes, this is a complete mess but I suppose it is on brand for a mid-90s porn kingpin. I really appreciate the difference in texture from the greased back top to the frizzed out ends. 

Most of this episode centers on the further flashback origin story of Pam and Tommy’s romance which begins at an LA club. PAM’S 90s UPDO IS EVERYTHING! LOOK AT THESE BANGS!! Look at these tendrils! YES!

CAN I GO TO THE CLUB WITH 90s PAM ANDERSON?!?! This episode includes Pam’s posse of gal pals who are never explained or seen again in this series. Their identities will remain a mystery for the ages! Anyway, apparently Pam and Tommy met when Pam bought the whole club shots which included Tommy and he responded by walking up to her and LICKING HER FACE. TRUE LOVE!!!

He then basically stalks her to Mexico where he distracts her from her friends and career and this relationship is really starting out great.

This show never shies away from what an absolute dick Tommy is but will likely be remembered best for the scene in which HE ACTUALLY HAS A CONVERSATION WITH HIS OWN ANIMATRONIC DICK. Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently Tommy is ruled by his own penis (makes sense!) and it is telling him to avoid Pam but he isn’t listening. He wants Pam! Also this show is actually maybe bonkers. 

4 days after meeting, Pam and Tommy get married on a Mexican beach. Yes, this really happened! Yes, Tommy’s hair was actually much shorter in real life but Pam’s beached out blonde is every Baywatch reality. 

But on the plane back from Mexico, these two lovebirds realize that they actually barely know each other and might not be compatible. Pam doesn’t like horror movies like Tommy! OOPS! I love Pam’s undercover wig here. She’s hiding it but she still used her curing iron! 

EPISODE 3

MORE FLASHBACKS!! As Rand and Miltie try to find a way to sell this sex tape, we get some background on how Rand even had connections to the porn industry. Turns out his ex wife - as played by that bitch from OITNB - in the most shoutrageously frizzed out late 80s wigs ever - is a porn star and so was he? Kinda? Anyway, she has now left him for a woman and basically treats him like her super and his new mission is to find her a replacement part for her toilet.

It is whilst researching toilet parts that he discovers this new weird thing called THE INTERNET and a sex crime scheme is born! Of course, as with any startup, they’d need some cash on hand. Enter: Andrew FRIGGIN Dice Clay as some sort of mobster or whatever who will fully bankroll this mess and what could go wrong?

Meanwhile, Pam and Tommy are adjusting to married life and Pam is fighting for Baywatch monologues. There’s talking in Baywatch? Anyway, this updo is fighting to be a serious actor! The parting of the bangs is really everything. Also apparently Baywatch producers are scumbags! This show is fairly educational. 

EPISODE 4 

Welp here we are. Rand and Miltie actually did it - they figured out how to harness the internets to sell VHS copies of Pam and Tommy’s stolen sex tape. SEX CRIMES!!! It’s all very awful as is the fact that Pam discovers the existence of the tape on the Baywatch set whilst crew members casually view it. She brings it to Tommy who is living under the misbelief that Motley Crue is still a viable band. 

Pam is sick to her stomach, also because she is pregnant (mazel!) Having dealt with scumbags exploiting her for her entire life, this is nothing new but Tommy is just PISSED. Pam’s sad deflated wig really says it all. 

One of my favorite parts of this show is how little people knew how to use the internet in the mid 90s. Especially celebrities! Pam and Tommy go undercover to find their sextape online at the....the public library! WILD! You know that they had to use Pam’s library card - there is no way in hell Tommy Lee has a library card. ANYWAY, Pam’s under hoodie wig is still amazing.

Tommy of course DOES NOT GET IT as in all things and quickly forms a list of people who might have been mad at him enough to steal and broadcast a sex tape and it basically includes ALL OF HOLLYWOOD. I have to hand it to Pam’s wig for staying calm under the pressure of it all and managing very good updos! 

However, the pressure finally gets too much and ends in a miscarriage which is apparently true but the timeline was rearranged. It’s all heartbreaking. I love that they show a deglammed Pam for this - and her disheveled hair works on its own sad level. Of course, the paparazzi still harass them at the worst possible time and Pam loses it with the help of THE CLUB (the 90s anti-car theft device!) on a pap’s windshield and I SUPPORT YOU, PAM!

EPISODE 5

It’s hard to know exactly how true any of this is or what facts have been enhanced but I firmly believe that Pamela Anderson meditates as much as this show would have us believe. Girlfriend has a lot going on! Namaste away!

I am in love with Pam’s lady publicist, Gail,  who has the unfortunate duty of dealing with all this sex tape nonsense when she just signed on to promote Pam’s new movie, Barb Wire. Gail is way better at the internet than Pam or Tommy and shows Pam the full extent of internet searches for the sex tape. Pam and her glorious updo are horrified.

Even more horrifying? Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione somehow gets ahold of the tape. HE IS PLAYED BY REX MANNING HISSELF, MAXWELL CAUFIELD!! THIS IS PEAK MID90S! SAY NO MORE, MON AMOUR! This wig is sleazeball perfection! I don’t know who this lady is supposed to be but I want her dress! 

Bob wants to publish stills from the sex tape in Penthouse (rival of Playboy where Pam has modeled many times). Tommy immediately lawyers up about it and all the men in the room say THEY MUST SUE! Pam (correctly!) says that if they do, it will only draw more attention to the tape. Everyone ignores Pam and sues.

And the tape gets so much attention that Jay Leno starts mentioning it in his monologue. THE VERY WORST TIMELINE. However, Pam’s beach waves have never looked better! 

EPISODE 6

THIS EPISODE. UGH. The Penthouse lawsuit results in a deposition JUST for Pam which is perhaps the most awful slut-shaming episode of an TV show I’ve ever seen. SCUMBAGS ALL AROUND! However, Pam’s professional updo with CRISS CROSS PART is everything.

We get a flashback to the late 80s where apparently Pam was discovered via a Canadian sports jumbotron?! I have to say that the late 80s wigs (OITNB chick included) are not as fabulous as the mid-90s ones and this dude wig is probably the worst of the series. Also Pam definitely had a type: JERKS!

I think the main issue with these late 80s is the large gap between the bangs and the hair flip - this is DEP gone bad! However, this episode does portray Playboy as a very respectful place to work (!) you can even bring your mom to the Playboy mansion!! However, back at Pam’s deposition, I have never felt so very nauseated for anyone. JUSTICE FOR PAM. Also of course Penthouse won. UGH. 

EPISODE 7

It’s time for Pam’s big movie, BARB WIRE, to come out! I have never seen this movie and did not realize Pam played a character named Barb. BARB Wire. Wow. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Pam’s hair has never looked this full and fabulous in real life but given how awful the last episode was - good for her! 

Meanwhile, everything is VERY BAD FOR RAND. As in Miltie has absconded with all their money to Amsterdam, Andrew Dice Clay is now making Rand repay their debt with his own violent debt enforcement, and a bunch of randos are trying to sell bootleg sextapes outside Tower Records. Rand’s solution is to bring his higher quality VHS tapes to try to sell inside and it does not go well. It goes even worse when he tells his ex about the tape and compares it to porn and she delivers the point of this whole show: Porn is consensual. This sex tape was stolen and is a sex crime against Pam and Tommy. Rand doesn’t get it. MEN!

Jay Leno doesn’t get it either, obviously. We come back full circle to the most awful and awkward interview in the world, where Jay tries to lightheartedly ask Pam about the tape and she gives him a dose of sad reality. These wigs are all fabulous but let us all remember: JAY LENO IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST.

Well no: actually Tommy Lee is the worst. Always. It’s Pam’s big Barb Wire premiere and she is heaven in pleather while Tommy is a walking punchline as always. THIS OUTFIT. It is sort of sweet that he is so supportive of Pam’s acting career but it is absolutely heartbreaking when Pam sees that she, in fact, is the punchline. 

EPISODE 8

Oh Pammy! We made it to the last episode! Pam’s acting career is a trainwreck due to the sextape and Barb Wire being a bomb. APPARENTLY SHE AUDITIONED FOR BOTH LA CONFIDENTIAL AND AUSTIN POWERS?! And although she is finally pregnant (MAZEL!) her attitude is as defeated as her hair. I do love that they show Pam’s un hot curled hair when she is feeling down. UGH PAM.

Also down? MOTLEY CRUE! Still attempting to be a viable band, they make an appearance at Tower Records and I have to say - compared to Sebastian Stan’s real hair, these wigs are pretty lousy. However, it is these bandmembers who explain to Tommy that this sextape actually had no negative effect on him at all - it just showed the world what they always thought of him: he’s a dick with a big dick. 

A lifeline is delivered to Pam and Tommy via an internet porn king played by that kid from White Lotus who offers to buy the rights to the tape from them and shut down all bootlegs of it; thus putting an end to this sex crime nightmare. Pam and her sensible updo just want to sign and end this thing. Tommy of course is against it because his main enemy is: rational thought. The couple runs away from the paps to....Las Vegas?! Where Tommy abandons his very pregnant wife to....go to the hotel bar and brag about his big dick. THIS ASSHOLE. 

In the end, the reunite and sign over the tape rights. Rand sells the master beta to the White Lotus kid and gives it to the OITNB chick and also never faces any criminal charges for any of this. Pam has a water birth and becomes a mom! And gets her Tommy tattoo replaced with a Mommy one. The show ends with an epilogue explaining how the couple broke up: with Pam having to call the cops on Tommy’s physically abusive ass. WHAT AN ASS. #TEAMPAMFOREVER. The tone of this show was really all over the place but I will say that it rightly showed who the real victims and villains were in all this. And: the wigs were pretty good. 

VERDICT: WURQS

You guys! I am really trying to see all the Oscar movies. I even went TO AN ACTUAL MOVIE THEATER AND SAW THIS! The heating was broken and I had to wear a coat and hat the entire time (the cinema is back, baby!) but it was still mainly nice to get out of the house? This movie is not entirely what I expected but it was fine if you like longwinded journeys through 70s SoCal nostalgia, a title that is never fully explained, the ENTIRE BAND HAIM, random cameos, motorcycles, waterbeds, and the gas crisis. But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss. 

Most of this movie has no wigs - just grown out real hair. WHICH I REALLY APPRECIATE! If actors can lose or gain weight for a part, they can lose or gain hair!! Anyway, the movie mainly centers around Alana Haim as a 25yo who works for a school picture photographer and Cooper Hoffman (Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son) as a 15yo high school child actor/entrepreneur. From the getgo, this age difference made me very grossed out for their potential romance!! However, most of the movie is just hilarious vignettes about 70s Los Angeles and you can mainly forget how much older she is. MAINLY! Also: I didn’t know the entire band HAIM plays her family! Mazel! 

My very favorite part of Booksmart and The Righteous Gemstones pops up as a smarmy child actor and I LOVE THAT HE COMMITTED TO GROWING LONG HAIR FOR THE PART! Yes! Note: I couldn’t find a pic of him IN this movie for some reason but this is how his hair looked in it. He and baby Hoffman do a variety show together that involves recreating a fake version of Yours Mine and Ours and leads to my very favorite wig of the movie.

CHRISTINE EBERSOLE FOREVER!!!! She plays Lucille Doolittle which is a very thinly veiled Lucille Ball. I don’t have the drugs necessary to watch Being The Ricardos yet but I can say with all authority that this Lucy wig > Nicole Kidman’s Lucy wig any day of the week. It perfectly captures peak early 70s variety show teased out NONSENSE. This wig only lasts about 5 (glorious!) minutes but WHERE IS CHRISTINE EBERSOLE’S OSCAR?!?!?!

Meanwhile, Mrs. PT Anderson - Maya Rudolph - herself shows up as a casting agent with THIS mini afro and like everything Maya Rudolph does, it is perfect AS IS HER FACE WHEN baby Hoffman sucks at a kid audition! THIS GIF FOREVER.

AND THEN BRADLEY COOPER SHOWS UP. I am NOT a fan of Bradley Cooper but I think he is perfect when he is cast as an uppity asshole (see also: Wedding Crashers, The Hangover). Here, he plays real-life hairdresser and former boyfriend of Barbra Streisand (and inspiration for the movie Shampoo!), Jon Peters who legit looked exactly like this. I LOVE THIS WIG AND THIS CHARACTER.

This feathered wig of pure 70s assholery is so perfectly coiffed and feathered that I’m surprised John Travolta hasn’t demanded a bakers dozen for his own personal use. 

Truly this section of the movie is insane and insanely delightful! There are many, MANY more random cameos but they don’t involve wigs so I’ll have to leave you with this image of pure 70s male destructive machismo. This is a pretty fun movie if you can look past the weird romance age difference and can stomach watching Sean Penn riding a motorcycle.

VERDICT: WURQS

So I finally got around to watching this trash for free since it’s on Hulu now and I still feel like I spent too much on it because it wasted a good 2 hours of my life!!! If you like super pretentious snoozefests, pearls, FASHION, lesbians, haunted mansions, mean staff, ghosts, scarecrows, pheasants, paparazzi, and actual barfing this movie might just be for you. Otherwise: congratulations - I watched this so you’ll never have to! But how are the wigs? Let’s discuss.

We begin with the image of a dead pheasant in the road which will later come to represent Princess Diana and already the pretentious imagery of this movie is eyeroll inducing. It’s Christmas Eve 1991 and Di is driving to some castle WITH THE TOP DOWN AND NO WINTER COAT! If this doesn’t already tip you off that Diana might have some mental health issues....BUCKLE UP. 

I don’t like Kristen Stewart but honestly she is the least offensive part of this movie? Her accent is fine. Her wig is ghastly. From the get-go, my mother WAS VERY UPSET about this wig because it’s not as full or thick as Di’s actual hair and that is a legit complaint. Anyway, Di is lost both emotionally and literally and ends up in some truck stop to ask directions to the castle but no one helps her because she’s famous. POOR DI!

She realizes that she’s actually kinda near where she grew up and despite having no clue where she is, can spot a coat on a scarecrow from an entire field away and identify it as her father’s old sport jacket. SHE THEN PROCEEDS TO GO GET THE COAT OFF THE SCARECROW AND TAKE IT TO THE CASTLE. This movie seems to want to portray Di as legitimately deranged and this bent ass wig isn’t helping.

Anyway, hours or possibly days (?) later, she finally drives herself and her scarecrow coat to the castle where she is greeted by rude butler (???) Timothy Spall who has completely deflated, I assume because this movie is actually life draining. In any case, he makes her weigh herself before going to her drafty room which apparently is an actual royal Christmas practice of the damned. Also apparently Timothy Spall’s character isn’t a real person and basically none of this movie is based on actual facts beyond this royal scales shit. 

NO ONE TOLD ME SALLY FUCKING HAWKINS IS IN THIS MOVIE! I love Sally Hawkins. I love that she seems to be the only person involved in this movie who realizes it is trash. I love that she is basically playing Edith Head (????) and is Di’s only friend/kind staff member who is tasked with all of Di’s FASHION and also tailoring her outfits to accommodate Di’s shrinking body due to bulimia. THERE IS SO MUCH BARFING IN THIS MOVIE YOU GUYS AND NOT JUST BY ME WATCHING IT. 

Things at dinner are not great! NO ONE LIKES DIANA! Also apparently Charles gave Camilla THE SAME DAMN PEARLS (I googled this and that is absolutely not a fact!) Still, the pearls are another stupid metaphor for suffocation and self harm AS IS THE JOHNNY GREENWOOD SCORE which my mom almost wrote an angry letter about because it is so distracting and stifling. 

Also distracting and stifling? The movie itself. ALL OF IT. But also this goddamned wig which is just never feathered or full enough and neither is Di because the pearls break into the soup and she eats them and yes this is a dream and yes she barfs out the pearls and OMG WHAT THE HELL IS THIS MOVIE I HATE IT.

Sometime later, Di confronts Charles about the pearls and their marriage or whatever and it’s all incredibly tedious and boring and no one looks like who they’re supposed to look like.

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE PRINCE CHARLES WHAT. THIS WIG! YOU GUYS!!!! NO! You may recall this dude from another movie my mom is mad at me for making her watch - The Lost Daughter - and his name is Jack Farthing which is basically the most British name ever. He is incredibly boring, also.

Blahblahblah, shit gets even weirder when this wig magically gets shorter and also a completely different haircut and Di confronts the Queen about I dunno...SOMETHING....and I think it was around this point where my mom just decided that she hates Princess Di now because this movie makes her look like a completely insane and selfish asshole (IT IS SEEMINGLY NOT BASED ON ANY FACTS THOUGH?!?!)

AT SOME POINT DI WEARS THIS OUTFIT! I’m sure this is somehow based in something she actually once wore but really: it is so upsetting that it might have given my hives. The mood of this movie is OPRESSION and it delivers that through awful wigs, awful music, awful pearls, awful casting, and AWFUL FASHION. 

THIS WIG IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!! It is constantly shifting in length, texture, and fullness. Also it appears that Timothy Spall is trying to kill (?) or at least gaslight Di by putting a biography of Anne Boleyn in her bedroom which leads to...

THE ACTUAL GHOST OF ANNE BOLEYN. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MOVIE. I don’t have a still of it, but at one point, Kristen Stewart is also dressed as Anne Boleyn. Whoever greenlit this idea should reconsider their life choices because it certainly made me reconsider mine in watching this movie at all.

Anyway, after leaving the castle in a full ballgown, Di USES WIRECUTTERS TO BREAK INTO HER OLD HOUSE WHICH IS NOW A HAUNTED MANSION AND ALMOST THROWS HERSELF DOWN THE STAIRS! In case you are wondering if reality has broken off into some other timeline, I did you the favor of googling this and no - Di’s house was never a haunted mansion; the Queen donated it to a charity. LIES!

AND! THEN! In the middle of the night, Di wakes William and Harry (WHO ARE CHILDREN!) up to make them have a candlelit seance where they get to open their Christmas presents which absolutely felt like child abuse and also a scene out of THE OTHERS and I was truly sad for these kids. LET THEM SLEEP!

AND. THEN. SALLY HAWKINS RESURFACES AS A LESBIAN IN LOVE WITH DI. This has no basis in reality and also there is no need for it in this movie AT ALL other than to have this wistful scene in the dunes where this wig has never looked more awful and I cannot believe I’m still watching this movie. 

Whatever motivation Sally Hawkins’ love might have given Di, she decides to interrupt a pheasant hunt whilst identifying herself AS A PHEASANT so that she can leave with her sons (again: this feels very troubling for those kids!) and then puts her outrageous yellow patriot outfit ON THE SCARECROW FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE. THE METAPHORS IN THIS MOVIE ARE SO DUMBFOUNDING THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY LOST MY MIND.

But the hits keep coming! In the form of Mike and The Mechanics song “All I Need is a Miracle”, specifically. Di puts the cassette in her convertible (WITH THE TOP DOWN AGAIN IN THE WINTER - I FEAR FOR THESE CHILDREN) while they all bop along to a song that I completely forgot existed and will never get out of my brain now. AND THEN THEY DRIVE TO A LONDON KFC AND DI GIVES HER NAME TO THE CHECKOUT AS “SPENCUHHHHHHHH” AND THIS MOVIE ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO BE ABANDONED ON A SCARECROW. NO. RUN DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE.

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

Another year, another Oscar-bait memoir of the damned. If you wished Hillbilly Elegy could just swap the south for the north, drugs for alcohol, and Glenn Close for Christopher Lloyd then I guess this movie is for you? EXCEPT Glenn almost won an Oscar for her portrayal of Mamaw (still 0 for 8!) and Sir Lloyd has NEVER BEEN NOMINATED FOR AN OSCAR YES NOT EVEN FOR WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT! Regardless, both films are absolute TRASH and I watched them so you never ever have to. But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss. 

This is a true and incredibly boring story of a kid who spent most of his formative years in his uncle’s pub. That’s basically the entire movie. He and his single mom live with his grandpa, Christopher Lloyd, who mainly looks like a homeless person but this one time dressed like the dude from Phantasm for some school dad event or something. This wig is the least offensive in the movie and I can’t really say anything negative about Christopher Lloyd and though he should definitely win an Oscar for something, at least he will never have to dance to DA BUTT on live tv.

The young kid in this is wigless and fine and has the most LUCIOUS eyelashes you have ever seen in your life. And then he morphs into....

TYE SHERIDAN?!?! THESE TWO GUYS LOOK NOTHING ALIKE!! My mom seriously wants to write an angry letter to George Clooney complaining that this casting makes no sense. “WHERE DID HIS EYELASHES GO?!?!” was a phrase she uttered MORE THAN ONCE. AND SHE’S NOT WRONG.

WRONGER STILL? Tye is clearly the victim of any wigmaster’s most devious plot: THE RESHOOT WIG. His hair goes from wavy wigless to blown-out 80s straight as haphazardly as this move, well, tries to do anything!

WHAT IS THIS WIG?! What is this movie??? The entire second two thirds of it is about him entering into a Emilio Estevez in St. Elmo’s Fire obsession with an ivy league classmate that spans decades in this movie and also decades of my own brain capacity watching this movie. 

Also! Most of this movie is supposedly set in Long Island but because Ben Affleck is involved IT’S SET IN BOSTON. Ben Affleck was really set up for an Oscar campaign that didn’t materialize (don’t worry - he still has 2 Oscars for not acting!) Throughout the decades he goes from this retro blowout wig which is honestly fine to his real hair. 

THIS COULD LITERALLY BE A STILL FROM ANY BEN AFFLECK MOVIE OR HIS REAL LIFE.

In a parallel timeline/universe, Lily Rabe plays the mom who sports her same long (real) hair for most of the movie and ages not one bit and then in the final 10 minutes....

....is in the cast of Working Girl?!?!?! NO!!!

Truly and from the bottom of my heart: this entire film is a complete waste of time and isn’t as unintentionally funny as Hillbilly Elegy. Please do NOT WATCH IT. AND PLEASE NEVER INCUR THE WRATH OF A RESHOOT WIG (OR MY MOM’S CASTING ISSUES!)

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

I think I speak for all of us when I say: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MOVIE?! Adam McKay has stopped making silly Will Ferrell movies and started making “Oscary” dramadies for a while now and all of them are overdirected messes. This is definitely the messiest! If you like apocalyptic space jams, troubling love interests, vaguely indicting climate change and qanon conspiracies, Jonah Hill quips, random cameos, upsetting nudity and absolutely abominable wigs, this movie is for you. Let’s discuss! 

Ok first off: this movie is about Leo and JLaw discovering a meteor that is headed for the earth and everyone only has 6 months to live but no one takes them seriously because they are...kind of fugly? I like Leo in comedies! He is very funny! He doesn’t wear a wig in this but he’s supposed to be a space professor and everyone thinks he’s handsome even though he fully deglammed hisself in this and sweats a lot. FINE!

JLAW’S WIG IS AN ABSOLUTE CRIME AGAINST NATURE. 

When this wig first appeared, my mother exclaimed “IS THIS ON PURPOSE?” and there is no way that on any level the answer can be “YES.” WHO SAID THIS WIG WAS OK?!?!?! I HAVEN’T SEEN A RED WIG WITH BANGS THIS BAD SINCE THE QUEENS GAMBIT!! 

This wig has many (MANY!) issues. The texture is garbage. THERE IS NO HAIR PART ON TOP!!! DON’T LOOK UP ON TOP OF THIS WIG!! NO SCALP! This is like a super cheap Halloween wig. AND! THE! BANGS! The bangs are so long they create side mullets?! Apparently the wigmaster worked really hard on this trash but that is fully not evident on screen. I guess this character is generally supposed to be some alternazoid punk who no one takes seriously because of her appearance and therefore no one trusts her about her meteor theories. At one point, Jonah Hill calls her The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I suppose that was the goal but in redhead form? REGARDLESS THIS WIG IS A GHOSTMARE.

 Anyway! JLaw and Leo find help in their quest to spread knowledge about this earth shattering meteor with Rob Morgan who is CURSED WITH THIS WIG. I have no idea why they decided this character needed a wig at all, let alone this very obvious and downright dusty one but NOPE.

ALSO: Cate Blanchett is in this and I realize she is supposed to be a gross morning show bot and I honestly don’t know what is more upsetting: her fake teeth or her wig (TRICK QUESTION: IT’S HER LOVE INTEREST IN THE FORM OF LEO! HE’S MOVIE MARRIED TO MELANIE LYNSKY! RUDE!) Apparently she wore her own fake teeth and recycled wig from Bombshell because of Covid restrictions and I have to say: I appreciate recycling on any level so will give this a passing grade solely based on that (and the fact that this wig and character are Bombshell adjacent anyway!) 

Speaking of Republican nightmares, Meryl Streep ALSO used her own wig person and specifically wanted the kind of droopy ringlety hair that most alt-right women sport these days. Dame Meryl Streep can do no wrong and this is for sure the best wig in the entire movie but DUH.

Also this character is essentially a female Trump (with her son, Jonah Hill being a male Ivanka) and that kinda sorta worked (as did like 20% of this movie?) but regardless: this very specific wig WURQED.

My other favorite part of this movie was Mark Rylance who is always fabulous and plays a sort of Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos style dude with a very strange and grating voice. This wig is ridiculous but so is the character and CYNTHIA NIXON WISHES HER WIG WAS THIS GOOD! 

Like most man wigs, the main issue was the back of the neck taper which is NOT GOOD but this character still made me (and Meryl) smile. 

Things devolve quickly and all the topical humor becomes a kind of kitchen sink mess with a few vague laughs here and there, mainly from Rylance.

Also everything kind of becomes an indictment of Trump/qanon/anti-vaxxers? Which like: ok fine but IT’S A LOT.

AND THEN TIMOTHEEEEE CHAMALET SHOWS UP IN THIS MULLETT! THE AUDACITY! WHO INVITED THIS CHARACTER OR WIG?! No one needs another bent ass wig or pseudo punker character in this movie. CHAMALET AWAY.

I wish the entire third half of this movie could Chamalet away? I won’t spoil it for you if you care, but THE END OF THIS MOVIE IS HORRIFYING AND DAME MERYL STREEP SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO GO THERE!! HARRUMPH AND FOR SHAME!

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

YOU GUYS.

I have officially stumbled through all of this rollercoaster of a TV show. I have a lot of feelings about it! This show really has everything: competitive teen girls, THE 90S!!!, post plane-crash survivalist nightmares, rabbits, midlife crises, AFFAIRS, lesbians, murders, SOCCER, paganism AND satanism (maybe?), fake book clubs, NJ politics, cults, GLITTER, car crashes, blackmail, journaling, creepy kids, creepy adults, creepy teens, creepy cabins, creepy dreams, creepy visions, creepy planes, actual creeps and also CANNIBALISM (MAYBE!) SPOILERS AHEAD!

THIS SHOW NEVER SHOWS ACTUAL CANNIBALISM - IT IS ONLY EDITED THAT WAY! I was promised waaaay more cannibalism and way less middle-aged ennui but what this show lacks in actually eating human flesh it more than makes up for in very HONGARY wigs. There are only 3 MAIN wigs in the show - that of teenage Natalie, teenage Misty, and grownup Misty. So I will be judging those on an episode by episode basis based on CANNIBAL WIG ratings. Let’s discuss!

Episode 1

CANNIBAL WIGS: 6/10

The beginning of this pilot is the closest we get to actual cannibalism on the entire season of this show. Based solely on the first 10 minutes of the pilot, I really thought we were gonna get more cannibalism but ALAS. NOTE: it probably feels like I’m really into cannibalism but my point is: I was EXPECTING more cannibalism. The entire point of this show felt like it was cannibalism? I do not endorse eating people!

ANYWAY! We begin with a mystery girl being murdered in the snow followed by horned/masked girls eating meat (IT IS NEVER EXPLICITLY SHOWN THAT THEY ATE THE GIRL - SHE MIGHT HAVE JUST BEEN A SACRIFICE!) In any case, the identity of the would-be cannibals is cloaked in mystery and also antlers and DIY face masks that you definitely can buy on Etsy.

Flashing back to New Jersey in the mid-90s, everything is JUST. SO. MID. 90S. But not in that really specific way that Pen15 does the early aughts. More like when a millennial dresses up like a Clueless character for Halloween. In any case, we meet the Yellowjackets - an elite high school girls soccer team who are about to fly to nationals. I wonder what will happen! 

We also meet the younger version of Juliette Lewis. SIDE NOTE: I love Juliette Lewis but she is like 7-10 years older than all the actresses who are supposed to be her same age which is WILD but like I guess whatever? Anyway back to the younger Natalie - she looks nothing like Lewis and has a blonde dye job. This is real hair and it’s fine for a 90s bleach job! Therefore Natalie is giving us 0/0 cannibal wigs. The true horrors are YET TO COME all around!!

The real cannibal wigs come in the form of MISTY, the team’s equipment manager (?) and grade-A lurker. We are definitely supposed to hate this chick from the start and excellent job of making her wig as awful as her personality? This dusty, thirsty wig is terrible BEFORE the crash!

And flashing forward to present day, Misty (now in the form of Christina friggin’ Ricci!) got herself a haircut but this looks like the same mousy, dried wig as in the 90s. HOW AND WHY!!!! I don’t understand why movies and tv shows insist on telling us that women keep the same hair for 30 years (yes I know it’s for consistency in identification purposes...) since most women I know change their hair a little bit more than just a cut over the course of their lifetimes. Still: not a lot has changed in the character of Misty in 25 years...she’s still very much a lurker! It must be said that wearing this wig apparently made people treat Christina Ricci differently so this is a very POWERFUL CANNIBAL WIG. 

By episode’s end it is discovered that Misty is the one offering fresh meat (of human or animal origins?) at the beginning of the episode. OK?!?! This wig has definitely flattened itself out and SEEN SOME THINGS between crash and cannibalism (again: MAYBE????). THIS IS THE REVENANT BUT WITH LESS HAIR MOISTURE. OH THE HUMANITY.

Episode 2:

CANNIBAL WIGS: 9/10

BANG! CRASH! We’re flashing back to the early 90s y’all! Misty gets honestly the best wig of any timeline here. Full of body and strawberry blonde color, this is really the best version of Misty. WHERE CAN I GET THAT SWEATSHIRT TO SAY NOTHING OF THE LIP PHONE?! Also tweens are cruel and shouldn’t be prank calling Misty because YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT BULLYING IS GOING TO TURN MISTY INTO OH GOD.

BANG. CRASH. Flashing forward to that whole chartered plane to nowhere situation....Misty is suddenly THE. MOST. VALUABLE. YELLOWJACKET. She took Red Cross babysitting class! Twice! She springs into action, bandaging people, chopping off broken legs, and generally being kind of badass? In a scary way. Her wig looks, well, like it survived a plane crash. Which is to say that it only looks slightly worse than when it was back in New Jersey? THIS IS A HUNGRY WIG THAT WILL DEFINITELY EAT HUMANS IF MISTY DOESN’T FIRST. 

BANG....CRASH. Present day Misty is.....oof. Clearly they shot the pilot and then shot the rest of the episodes much later because this is NOT the same wig that Christina Ricci had in the first episode! It is much blonder and much thirstier. This wig is halfway to a Cruella DeVille and honestly SO IS MISTY. Never prank call anyone because they will definitely smash an airplane black box and maybe try to kill your grandma in a nursing home later!

BANGCRASH oh no young Natalie got a reshoot wig! This is not the real hair that the actress had in the pilot. THIS IS A CANNIBAL WIG!!!! Totally different texture, fullness, and lack of darker roots. DID THEY THINK WE WOULDN’T NOTICE?!

THIS EPISODE SERVED SERIOUS CANNIBAL WIGS!!!!! 

Episode 3

CANNIBAL WIGS: 7/10

WELP. It’s starting to set in that these girls are gonna be in the wilderness for a while but luckily they found a water source!! BEACH PARTY! Sadly, Natalie’s wig has somehow gotten more platinum and dried out. THIS WIG IS HUNGRY AND THIRSTY!

OH GOD FORGET I SAID THIRSTY. PLEASE DRY THIS WIG OFF. OH GOD. 

Anyway, in addition to finding water, the girls (and 3 dudes..) also find a cabin! Don’t worry: it is VERY CREEPY. (Not as creepy as these wigs, though).

All that can be said about present day Misty’s wig is just above. PLEASE LEAVE, WIG. WE HAVE NOTHING FOR YOU HERE.

ALSO: Apparently Misty has a bird. OF COURSE MISTY HAS A BIRD.

Episode 4

CANNIBAL WIGS: 8/10

So they found a cabin, and the cabin has a gun! ALSO A LOT OF AMMUNITION! So it’s time for all the teens to try to shoot shit to see who is best at hunting and not worry about wasting bullets. EVERYONE SUCKS AT SHOOTING! 

Even Misty, who is starting to rethink the whole smashing of blackbox thing - everyone is finding her insufferable again though her wig has rebounded to pre-crash heights. Also legit: WHERE CAN I BUY HER ENTIRE CAT SWEATSHIRT COLLECTION?

Present day Misty is still blonder than the pilot, still definitely insane. I don’t even know what to call this hair color. Off-beige?! This wig is so very distracting I just can’t you guys.

Also Misty takes an old lady out for cocktails in order to spy on Juliette Lewis and ORDERS A CHOCOLATE MARTINI. EMERGENCY, YOU GUYS. THIS WOMAN IS NOT OK AND NEITHER AM I NOW.

I realize that I’m leaving out like 70% of storylines on this show for lack of wigs. HOWEVER, in this episode, the character of Tai who is running for NJ state senate or something (who cares!) and THIS WOMAN shows up at some fundraiser!! #1 - THE ONLY THING PEOPLE EVER ASK THE YELLOWJACKET WOMEN ABOUT IS BEING A YELLOWJACKET. THE. ONLY. THING. It’s wild. #2 Is this supposed to be a wig within the context of the show? Let us all hope so because this wig is very obvious, very shiny and NEEDS TO WATCH ITS TONE. 

Back at gun school, Travis (the one teenage dude) is REALLY trying to prove his manliness. I HATE TRAVIS THERE I SAID IT. Not as much as I hate Natalie’s wig of course, but duh.

In a flashback (within a flashback!) we see pre-crash (and pre-blonde!) Natalie living in some kind of trailerpark Lifetime movie and it is ROUGH you guys. The wig is somewhat more rough, but still not as rough as the blonde one post-crash.

THIS WAS MY FACE DURING THIS ENTIRE FLASHBACK SEQUENCE. WOOF! Anyway, I’m glad Natalie’s dad died and yay for her being able to use a gun? BOO ON THIS WIG FOREVER.

BUT BOO ON THIS BLONDE WIG FOREVER AND EVER AMEN. #90s (Also Natalie shot a deer so they can eat but it’s not cannibalism BOO)

Episode 5 

CANNIBAL WIGS: 7/10

Now Christina Ricci’s wig is darker? This wig is seriously gaslighting me, you guys. But Misty is gaslighting everyone else so I guess: FAIR.

OF COURSE Misty is a Citizen Detective (officially?) and uses her nerdy connections to help Juliette Lewis uncover wtf happened to Travis. This wig looks no better under bar lighting, FYI.

Back at the crash, Coach Ben has HAD IT with Misty and, you know, how she keeps trying to help him via poisoning him. Still: her wig is lethal and should come with a chemical warning.

Meanwhile, all the girls’ periods have synced up (UGH WHY IS THIS ALWAYS A STORYLINE WITH GROUPS OF GIRLS) which conveniently leads to us discovering that young Shauna is pregnant. However, I do appreciate that this show tackles survivalist maxi pads which I don’t believe Lost ever even attempted. 

Also: that cabin is still creepy! Creepy enough that Jackie suggests a friggin SEANCE CAN YOU BELIEVE. Misty’s wig sadly doesn’t catch on fire, but Lottie gets possessed! I was here for it!

The possession is broken by that one token religious girl throwing a bible (not bc it was a bible I don’t think - books are just heavy?) Also: Natalie’s wig when pulled back into a ponytail NEEDS AN EXORCISM.

Episode 6

CANNIBAL WIGS: 8/10

This episode was kind of boring! Natalie and Travis (who are definitely gonna have sex - yuck) shot a deer full of maggots! Double yuck also still not cannibalism. BORING!

However: MISTY’S HAIR IS SO BLONDE NOW WTF. This wigmaster keeps changing wigs on us like we’re not going to notice. UNLESS MISTY SOMEHOW HAD SUN-IN WITH HER ON THIS TRIP WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY #90s AND VERY MISTY.

Natalie’s wig is also blonder!! YOU GUYS! WHAT! IF THIS IS NOT A SUN-IN PRODUCT PLACEMENT THEN THIS IS INEXCUSABLE! 

Back in present day, Misty is still bonkers and her hair is still...off-beige? She is now holding a reporter hostage which is very Misery and I think Kathy Bates would honestly be proud.

Episode 7

CANNIBAL WIGS: 9/10

Ok so I realize that I really have been ignoring Tai but it’s only because I find her to be one of the more boring characters? Also: wigless. HOWEVER, that all changes this episode because THIS BITCH SLEEPWALKS AND EATS DIRT. Sadly, this means her creepy kid isn’t actually having creepy visions of a mystery woman - it’s just his dirt eating mom. BORING!

Young Tai is getting less boring, too, because she is SICK of cabin life and decides to break free by leading an expedition to...over the mountain maybe? I don’t know but the important part is that SHE GIVES HERSELF A HAIRCUT. WELCOME TO CANNIBAL WIG LEVEL, TAI!

This wig is not great but as wigs on this show go...it is actually maybe the best one? Probably just because it is very very short. It is fine! Also Tai’s (secret) girlfriend Van likes the new lewk and comes along on the expedition which IS A TERRIBLE IDEA BECAUSE VAN’S FACE IS HALF EATEN OFF BY WOLVES. YES YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY. And whilst Tai sleepwalked into a goddamned tree! WHAT. Anyway, Van’s face is a MESS and they almost burn her body but then SHE COMES BACK TO LIFE AND VAN IS INDESTRUCTIBLE VAN4EVER.

Misty also goes on the mountain expedition and puts this wig in a half pony! NOOOOOO. This wig just keeps getting worse and sadly is yet to be eaten by wolves. 

UGH NATALIE AND TRAVIS. These two are insufferable. But nothing is worse than this platinum blonde wig back in a ponytail!!!

Anyway, this hookup from hell is cut short either because they tried to have sex in an open window or I don’t know whatever - who cares? Natalie’s wig is SO SAD about it but at least Travis tried to use protection (seriously why did coach Ben have so many condoms?!) Safety first, you guys! 

Back in contemporary times, Christina Ricci has gone full Annie Wilkes and I love it. SHE LOVES IT! Bitch is having so much fun! Her wig remains a mess but nothing new on that front. Also the boring blackmailing subplot that I wasn’t really paying attention to comes to a head and results in a blackmailer covered in GLITTER but not in the fun Mariah Carey way. 

Episode 8

CANNIBAL WIGS: 7/10

Trouble in non the opposite of paradise! NATALIE AND TRAVIS KIND OF BROKE UP BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T HAVE SEX?! Ugh whatever DON’T CARE. Travis is literally the only dude on earth and even though he is mopey and boring and sucks at hunting, all the girls suddenly want him and HE SUCKS! SO DOES NATALIE’S WIG! Oh also Jackie really sucks for telling Travis about Natalie sleeping with his sworn enemy and telling everyone that Shauna is pregnant. UGH JACKIE. However: VAN IS ALIVE! VAN4EVER!

But really: in what world are we supposed to believe this is not a wig? It is such a bad wig that Natalie is starting to look like wigmaster’s enemy Anya Taylor-Joy so WOOF. Anyway, a big part of this episode was devoted to the jesus-y girl LAURA LEE who is such a southern bible-belt character shoehorned into this NJ soccer narrative that I refuse to give her any attention (plus she’s wigless). Anyway, she attended Mary Magdalene Summer camp (I knew religious people liked hookers!) and hit her head in a pool or something and now she knows how to fly a plane and y’all THIS IS WILD. Everyone is just like: ok we will CUT DOWN TREES so you can fly an old propeller plane for us to freedom?! THEY’RE LOGGERS NOW?!?!?!?! Obviously, the plane, Laura Lee, AND HER TEDDY BEAR immediately combust. Sayonara!

Coach Ben knew the plane was a bad idea but no one is listening to Coach Ben anymore (plus dude actually logged some trees to support the plane idea UGH). HOWEVER this was a big episode because it was revealed that Coach Ben is gay! SHANTAY YOU STAY!! But why are you confiding in the chick with the worst hair?!?!! FOR SHAME!

Back in 2021, Misty’s wig has gotten dusty as HELL. It’s probably from going down in the basement so much to deal with her kidnap victim but still: this wig is not aging well. Oh also! That rando Shauna is having an affair with is maybe someone bad! DUH!

Also! Tai and her fabulous coif have a sleepover party at Shauna’s and I DEMAND ANSWERS about this Prince Harry themed “You Can Still Marry Harry” poster which is definitely circa 2011 when Prince William got married AKA A DECADE AGO - WHY WOULD SHAUNA’S TEENAGE DAUGHTER HAVE THIS AND ALSO DOES SHAUNA’S DAUGHTER JUST LIVE AT ALANA’S HOUSE NOW WTF?!

Episode 9 

CANNIBAL WIGS: 8/10

THIS EPISODE. You guys. I can’t. The crash survivors have concluded that they are definitely all gonna starve to death with impending winter so LET’S THROW A HOMECOMING DANCE. The idea that girls just wanna have a dance is eyeroll-inducing but not as much as the fact that they call it DOOMSCOMING and also somehow manage to all have formalwear AND make Etsy-level woodland decorations for the affair. TRULY: NO. Not since A Quiet Place served bespoke farmhouse wedding vibes has anything seemed so extra and insane in a post-apocalyptic world. 

Honestly, if they put 1/10th the amount of effort they clearly put into making these MATCHING FORMAL EYEPATCHES maybe they wouldn’t need an end of the world event? It must have taken 1000x the amount of time to make Lottie’s antler queen headdress alone as it seems to take them to find worms to eat! NO!

Anyway, Van and Tai’s lesbian smooch ALMOST inspires Coach Ben to out himself to the group at large but not quite! Why he would lead Misty along when he could simply tell her he doesn’t even like her gender is mystifying but so is this entire affair.

Misty really dolls herself up and her hair basically looks the way it did pre-crash? I would LOVE to know how these girls are maintaining their hair by only having access to a lake AND how Coach Ben is keeping his whites so white but NO TIME FOR THAT - MISTY HAS A TRAPPER KEEPER FULL OF POISON MUSHROOMS! OF COURSE SHE DOES! In an attempt to poison Coach Ben (AGAIN!) she shrooms the entire group via mushroom stew. Only Jackie manages to waste the VERY VIABLE FOOD so that she can go have sex with Travis. 

NATALIE IS SAD ABOUT IT! Coach Ben comforts her about it and although he clearly has access to hair products, does not offer her ANY when clearly this wig is the most thirsty it has EVER BEEN! C’MON BEN! They also figure out about the shrooms!

It is very too late to tell the group who have COMPLETELY LOST THEIR MIND ON SHROOMS and proceed to lead a savage revenge party on the sex cabin and try to rape/murder Travis. I don’t like Travis but as the token teen boy, it really sucks to be him right now? Unless this is his thing which it might be - ugh, Travis. Also I keep forgetting he has a little brother who is collateral shroom damage in all this and is told to run away and is DEFINITELY gonna die.

UNLESS! He is the grown up dude Shauna was having an affair with and for sure just murdered so oh well I guess we’ll never know? JULIETTE LEWIS IS PISSED ABOUT IT! So pissed that she goes back to Misty who is trying out lipstick with her hostage victim which is honestly very Stockholm syndrome on the level of Ruthless People. Misty OF COURSE will help them dispose of this body (whoever he is!) as long as they can all be galpals. 

Oh and her wig is INCREDIBLY DEFLATED in this episode as is the will to live by this reporter/hostage who definitely will die no matter what. 

Episode 10

CANNIBAL WIGS: 7/10

WE MADE IT TO THE LAST EPISODE!! Are you still reading this? Am I still writing this? What is real and what is a shroom hallucination?!?! WHO KNOWS! It’s the day after DOOMSCOMING and everyone had a NIGHT. LOOK AT NATALIE’S WIG!! Even though it saved stupid Travis from death (THIS TIME!) this wig is never gonna be the same. YIKES. Jackie and Shauna for SURE are never gonna be the same since Jackie reveals that she 100% read Shauna’s journal (writing a journal has a 1000% guarantee someone else will read it! Paper trail, people!) After QUOTING BEACHES (I’m not kidding), Shauna banishes Jackie from the suddenly cozy ass creepy cabin which now has Quiet Place farmhouse vibes UGH. 

Meanwhile: HOW IS VAN’S FACE HEALED SO WELL! HALF OF IT WAS GONE RECENTLY FROM A WOLF ATTACK! As someone who has recently undergone oral surgery and several rounds of antibiotics, I can confirm that Van is a marvel of (lack of) modern medicine. Also now she has an asymmetrical wig? YOU DO YOU VAN! Also: Tai’s wig is still fine. Misty’s wig is awful but so is Misty and no one is letting her near them because she shroomed them all. FAIR!  Not fair? JACKIE DIED OF HYPOTHERMIA ! WHAT?! I mean sure: she had no viable survivalist skills other than bullying, manipulation and journal reading but wouldn’t she have begged to come inside if she was freezing to death?? THIS BITCH DIED OF PRIDE! Shauna falls to her knees and screams which this show seems to think is something people do a lot (Jackie herself did it when the jesus plane exploded!) Anyway: aren’t Natalie and Travis also outside being cold? WHERE IS JAVI?!?!?!

THESE ARE ALL GONNA HAVE TO BE CLIFFHANGERS TIL SEASON 2 HARRUMPH. MOVING ON: THIS BITCH! I guess I must have missed something with all the shrooming and death but I have no clue who this person is however SHE THREW THE CLASS OF 1996 25th REUNION. She is also the only character in this entire show where people grew up in New Jersey who actually has a New Jersey accent. ONLY IMPORTANT PLOTHOLE. Her hair is so beachy housewife and I’m here for this bitch and how awkward she makes everyone feel.

(MISTY STILL MAKES EVERYONE FEEL MORE AWKWARD). This wig is still VERY DEFLATED but Misty is living her best life! She helped her frenemies dispose of a body, recouped some rubbermaids, murdered a hostage via poisoned cigarette and WORE THIS TUXEDO JACKET. More on fashion later but so much happened in this episode! Tai won her stupid political whatever by maybe making a satanic dog sacrifice (unless her kid did?), Shauna’s husband actually isn’t a cheater but is a blackmailer, Shauna burned some popcorn, and JULIETTE LEWIS BREAKS A SNACK MACHINE THEN TRIES TO KILL HERSELF ONLY TO BE STOLEN AWAY BY CULT MEMBERS. THERE ARE SO MANY LOOSE ENDS FOR SEASON 2.

BUT WHO CARES - FASHION!!!! I think we are all that dude in the striped polo when I say: THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE AN ENTRANCE. I want everything that all these bitches are wearing. Also: are we to believe that this reunion is the same day as election day (or day after when results were called?) WHO HAS A MIDWEEK REUNION. I DEMAND ANSWERS! 

ALSO THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO CONCRETE CANNIBALISM IN THIS SHOW AS I WAS PROMISED! ONLY CANNIBAL WIGS! BOO!

(Yes, I’ll watch season 2).

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

OSCAR. SEASON. IS. HERE.

This movie only has one wig but it is worn by DAME JUDI DENCH so attention must be paid!!! Also if you like super pretentious movies about THE TROUBLES and have found a way to be ok with Kenneth Branagh, this movie is for you! Also that one wig! Let’s discuss!

I don’t like Kenneth Branagh for a wide range of offenses from cheating on Emma Thompson to directing Thor AND DUNKIRK but everyone seems to just LOVE this movie so fine I watched it. If you want to understand THE TROUBLES better, please watch the incomparable Derry Girls THE END PERIODT. This movie is set a good 30 years prior in 60s Belfast where “Buddy” (who is honestly a very adorable kid) plays Branagh as a boy during a very scary and violent chapter of Northern Ireland history. The film begins with sweeping color aerials of Belfast then goes back to B&W times IN B&W!! IT IS SUCH A PRETENTIOUS CHOICE I CAN’T YOU GUYS.

Branagh never misses an opportunity to PRETENTION just a little bit MORE STILL by framing everyone in every goddamned doorway or window, canting angles, beholding the magic of TV and film by using half the budget on archival footage and even getting so meta as to HAVE THE KID STANDING IN FOR HIMSELF READING A THOR COMIC BOOK! NO!

Also his parents are just SO ATTRACTIVE because they’re played by that bitch from Outlander and that dude from 50 Shades of Grey (I’ve watched neither but I understand the themes are SEX) that this childhood fantasy/nightmare truly feels like a very pretty fairy tale sometimes.

Anyway, the only wig present is on the head of DAME JUDI DENCH as Granny and truly: may we all be blessed with Dame Judi Dench’s wig budget someday. I assume that when one becomes a Dame, the Queen bestows wig approval as well. THE ULTIMATE HONOR! 

DAME JUDI DENCH can do no wrong, and neither can this wig because it does the best thing a wig can do: NOT LOOK LIKE A WIG. It looks like hair (I’m sure the B&W photography helps?), has lovely lowlights and highlights, has no noticeable seams, is not distracting, and is age appropriate. It’s basically the one thing in this movie that I applaud. 

ONE CAN ONLY APPLAUD DAME JUDI DENCH EVER and truly - she is wonderful and magical in this role (the kid ain’t bad either!) But really folks - just give people dame-worthy wig budgets and maybe more wigs will wurq!

Despite the performances (INCLUDING THAT OF THIS STELLAR WIG!) this movie just was too pretentious for me (GET YOURSELF TO DERRY GIRLS YOU GUYS). But I cannot deny this powerful wig.

VERDICT: WURQS

2022 already feels like the apocalypse but I guess we’re not fully there since only 3/4 horsewomen are present in this Sex And The City reboot.  A true congratulations should be extended to Mannequin4EVER Kim Cattrall for successfully avoiding this mess and the rest of us who decided to watch it should honestly question our sanity. I decided to watch (and somehow kept watching!) because the garbage fires of real life feel not quite as bad whilst hate watching this absolute train wreck. 

I have never been a huge SATC devotee though I watched the first series fairly regularly and absolutely hated the first movie enough to not watch the second. Both the series and films have been exercises in tone-deaf escapism and this reboot is basically that x1000. The biggest cringe factor comes in the form of failed NY governor Cynthia Nixon - both in characterization and WIG. Since she has the only consistent wig in the series, I will be grading each episode on CRINGIA NIXONS. Spoilers ahead, if you give a shit? Let’s discuss!

EPISODE 1

CRINGIA NIXONS: 6/10

I think the biggest issue with this show is how it feels the need to OVEREXPLAIN EVERYTHING. We begin now, but not quite - the pandemic happened but is a distant memory (LOLOL sobbing) so they can get in a bunch of sourdough starter jokes without having to wear masks? They also spend about 20 minutes at least explaining away Kim Cattrall which was truly not necessary but I guess she’s in London now and sayonara why are we still talking about her (ALSO OMG I MISS HER THIS SHOW IS SO BORING WITHOUT SAMANTHA). 

Another thing that is dwelled upon for at least 15 minutes in this episode (and then days and days and days on the internet) is the fact that Miranda had the goddamned audacity to go grey! CHARLOTTE IS SO UPSET YOU GUYS. Cynthia Nixon was always a blonde forced into the world of redheads and now is actually closer to her real hue and seriously - who gives a shit? (CHARLOTTE AND THE INTERNET REALLY GIVE A SHIT). This appears to be Nixon’s actual hair and meh? Her red dye jobs of the past were much worse!

However, the main CRINGEWORTHY part of this episode is Miranda’s trip to college! Girlfriend is going back to school (MAZEL!) but not without offending her African-American professor, the entire class, and all our collective sensibilities! SO AWKWARD.

Also apparently Miranda is an alcoholic now which is only vaguely hinted in this episode when she tries to get a 10am drink pre-class and then later brings purse wine to a child’s piano recital. In comparison to all this CRINGE, her hair honestly looks fine. 

ALSO the only thing this show has successfully done is predicted the #metoo-ing of Chris Noth and rightfully killed Big off. GOOD RIDDANCE and truly I have never cry-laughed so hard as the end of this episode which I guess is the ending of Titanic of our time (like Jack, Big could have lived but whatever!). 

EPISODE 2

CRINGIA NIXONS: 3/10

The first thing Carrie does after FINALLY calling 911 after Big dies is: calling Miranda. Of course, Miranda hightails it over there to comfort her friend and spoon with her on her bed and honestly: it is very nice!!!

Not nice: in this episode; they decided to give Cynthia a.....semi perm? Clearly no one knew what to do with this hair but sorta curling it DOES NOT HELP! Oh and there is a very cringeworthy scene on a subway platform where she tries to bond with the professor she offended and a FIST BUMP HAPPENS AND BARF.

Then we get even more curly for Big’s funeral! WHY DID ANYONE OK THIS HAIR? Anyway, Miranda delivers a very nice eulogy which is later revealed to be written by Carrie but not delivered by her so I guess it was a nice friendship gesture? Also: Miranda definitely tried to get a 10am cocktail AGAIN and I see where this is going....yikes.

VERY YIKES: Miranda goes “Rambo” (UGH I HATE THIS REFERENCE) on Sara Ramirez for giving pot to her teenage son and then pulls a total 180 when she discovers Sara is Carrie’s boss. I ALSO SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING AND NO THANKS.

EPISODE 3

CRINGIA NIXONS: 6/10

Things begin...ok (???) at the reading of Big’s will which involves a SHOCKER that he left money to his first wife Natasha who I definitely forgot existed. However, Cynthia’s hair is looking just fine here and let’s keep it that way?

Eeek I dunno guys....this is not looking promising. Not only is Miranda wearing a leather backpack AND a leather purse but Carrie walked to Columbia IN HEELS just so there could be an awkward joke about how these two are the only 50-somethings on college steps. OLD PEOPLE GO TO COLLEGE. WHAT.

AND THEN!!!! The whole group goes to see Sara Ramirez’s “comedy” set and don’t stay for the afterparty but MIRANDA DOES!!! WHY?!! Well: alcoholism, definitely. But lesbianism, maybe? THIS HAIR AND THIS ENTIRE PLOTLINE IS VERY TROUBLING AND VERY CRINGY!

EPISODE 4

CRINGIA NIXONS: 9/10

AND HERE WE ARE. I don’t know what huge tectonic shift of the universe brought us to this moment but this was the episode where Cynthia Nixon was like FUCK IT I’LL JUST WEAR A WIG AND NO ONE WILL NOTICE. 

NOPE.

Beyond the fact that this wig is TERRIBLE....it looks nothing like the hair she had just one episode before! Gone are the blonde and red highlights! Present is the much fuller bob and complete lack of skin under the hair part.

THIS WIG IS SO OBVIOUS AND BASIC AND TERRIBLE AND CRINGY THAT IT ACTUALLY SERVES AS A PERFECT METAPHOR FOR THIS ENTIRE SHOW!!!!!

This wig goes to restaurants a few times in this episode but the truly most mind-bending and cringy assault on our senses and sensibilities is this scene in which MIRANDA GOES TO DINNER WITH HER PROFESSOR?!?! NEVER EVER EVER WOULD THIS HAPPEN!!!

And they wait 45 minutes because their reservation got messed up and no other restaurants exist!

And! They discuss IVF and if anyone in the world actually wants to be a parent (which is honestly valid but never would Miranda AND HER PROFESSOR have this conversation in actual real life). 

AND! THIS! WIG!

EPISODE 5

CRINGIA NIXONS: 11/10

OMG YOU GUYS THIS EPISODE. I’m going to begin with the least cringy part (which is still very cringy): Miranda owns an Amazon box opening caftan and then later uses the phrase “she Amazoned me” which is a sentence NO ONE SHOULD USE EVER. Also apparently Miranda’s son’s girlfriend SENDS SHIT TO MIRANDA’S HOUSE? WHAT? This show really has no concept of anything but especially not real estate because Carrie owns 2 apartments and just sold her palace with Big and conveniently moved back into her OG apt that was just sitting around being expensive real estate that no one lived in?!?!

Anyway this apartment allows us to suddenly realize that Carrie has a hip issue (YES THIS EPISODE IS CALLED TRAGICALLY HIP AND I WANNA BARF TOO). Carrie’s new real estate agent/BFF gets her a hip consult ASAP and I guess neither heels nor age have anything to do with this physical malady: just a congenital hip issue that didn’t come up til now - let’s rush her to surgery!

5 minutes later in the recovery room, MIRANDA’S WIG LOOKS LIKE THIS and is THRILLED to hear from her new crush, Sara Ramirez, who Carrie doesn’t want to see post op bc DUH THAT’S HER BOSS so Miranda turns it into a HOSPITAL LUNCH DATE?!?! UGH THE CRINGE!

IT GETS SO MUCH WORSE! Back at Carrie’s OG apartment, Carrie just shared a very TMI story on her VERY STUPID PODCAST that involved Samantha and Charlotte is worried that Kim Cattrall will give a shit. This results in a text conversation with Samantha that is the ONLY BEARABLE PART OF THIS ENTIRE SHOW. EVEN KIM CATTRALL IN GHOST TEXT FORM IS BETTER THAN ANYONE ACTUALLY PRESENT.

ANYWAY! Carrie is still not very mobile post-op and her friends are taking turns helping her get to the bathroom and Miranda is currently in charge. Carrie is passed out on muscle relaxers and who is at the door bearing tequila but SARA RAMIREZ!!! Of course they turn this opportunity into a VERY UNBEARABLY CRINGY HOOKUP AND THE WIG ISN’T EVEN THE WORSE PART! The very worst part is that Carrie wakes up mid-hookup needing to pee, calls for help and is FORCED TO PEE INTO A SNAPPLE BOTTLE THAT SOMEHOW STILL SPILLS ON HER BED. Anything in the world that you could possibly imagine to be awful could not possibly compare to what my eyes were subjected to in this 5 minutes of television.

AND THEN! Sara Ramirez leaves and Carrie confronts Miranda AND THIS GODDAMNED DISHEVELED WIG about all the awfulness of the last 5 minutes and MIRANDA JUST STANDS THERE AND SAYS SHE’S SAD! ME TOO FOR HAVING TO WATCH ANY OF THIS HARRUMPH!

EPISODE 6

CRINGIA NIXONS: 9/10

WELP! Miranda has a spring in her step and a cup just FULL of coffee and LIFE IS GREAT BECAUSE OF THAT SARA RAMIREZ HOOKUP! She even sort of admits to herself that maybe she has an issue with drinking! Ok! 

Things are still VERY CRINGY with her friend/professor who is now just her galpal because SURE? Meanwhile Carrie buys ANOTHER apartment which she doesn’t need because she actually already has a dwelling and it is the least Carrie apartment you could ever think of and is maybe all just a computer and/or episode of Black Mirror. She goes with Charlotte to her storage unit WHICH IS LARGER THAN 5 APARTMENTS to furnish the new apartment WITHOUT MOVING ANYTHING OUT OF HER CURRENT OG APARTMENT and NO ONE LOOKS AT ANY LABELS ON ANY BOXES and just sort of randomly open boxes to find hats and lamps and OH GOD NO BIG’S RECORDS. I realize that this is a fantasy world where nothing makes sense but this scene makes so little sense that my brain stopped receiving oxygen.

AND. THEN. The girls have the most fanciful picnic with fake wine that EVERYONE LOVES AND THEN HATES and DEAR GOD HOW IS NO ONE SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT THIS WIG. Instead, Carrie blurts out that Miranda had an affair with Sara Ramirez and it leads to the most hilariously awkward/unbelievable fight between friends that then is definitely not resolved but whatever - fake wine!

By episode’s end, Carrie has sold ANOTHER apartment and returned to her existing apartment and Miranda now lives in her laundry room which is bigger than most apartments anyway and is STILL FANTASIZING ABOUT SARA RAMIREZ AND TEXTS HER. AND! THIS! WIG! LIVES! ANOTHER! DAY!

(ALSO of course Miranda has one of those iphone cases that doubles as a card holder WOULDN’T SHE JUST!)

EPISODE 7

CRINGIA NIXONS: 10/10

As a boy named Christian wisely told Cher Horowitz once, a total Monet is a mess up close. So you squint, this wig doesn’t really look so bad. 

JUST KIDDING IT’S ALWAYS BAD NO MATTER WHAT AT ANY DISTANCE. And though Miranda hasn’t heard from Sara Ramirez in 3 weeks since that steamy laundry room text, THE DISTANCE IS KILLING HER. THIS WIG IS KILLING ME.

In perhaps the cringiest moment since Miranda had sex in Carrie’s kitchen with Sara Ramirez....MIRANDA TRIES TO RECREATE THAT MOMENT WITH STEVE. NO THANK YOU PLEASE. There is also a scene of Miranda and Steve bickering at the Grand Army Plaza farmer’s market that was so cringy I completely blocked it out. 

Carrie seems to have also blocked out the fact that Miranda had sex in her kitchen AND FORCED HER TO PEE IN A SNAPPLE BOTTLE (!!) and doesn’t tell Miranda that Sara Ramirez is going to be at Charlotte’s kids’ school fundraiser or whatever. Also Miranda’s hair looks like a 60s astronaut helmet and NOT IN A GOOD WAY.

She immediately runs over to Sara Ramirez and her wig deflates!! IS THIS FORESHADOWING?!

EPISODE 8

CRINGIA NIXONS: 9/10

The wig always knew. There is trouble in paradise with Miranda and Sara Ramirez and not only because Miranda wore AN OFF SHOULDER SWEATER TO A PRIDE EVENT IN JUNE OR THAT HER WIG IS STILL FAILING AT BEACH WAVES. It’s more because Miranda literally runs away from said pride event because she spots her son and his girlfriend in the crowd (#allies!) and oops btw she’s not in an open marriage and is actually having an affair. SARA RAMIREZ IS NOT HAPPY NOR ARE ANY OF US.

Over at dinner with the girls, Samantha has officially been replaced by Seema and OH GOD I MISS KIM CATTRALL. Also, Miranda’s wig is straight again and somehow shorter?! Also also, she announces that she wants a divorce. Everyone is very MEH about it?

Well ok I guess Carrie is sort of shocked. But that could be a reaction to the wig. 

Anyway, Miranda breezes over in her very bent and not breezy wig to Sara Ramirez’s podcast office and is like CAN WE BE IN LOVE?!?!?! And maybe???

She finally breaks the divorce news to Steve and OH GOD IT IS CRINGY and awkward and sad. But I guess not as sad as this couch? Anyway, he takes it way better than he should have and MIRANDA RUNS AWAY TO CLEVELAND TO SEE SARA RAMIREZ?!?!?!

EPISODE 9

CRINGIA NIXONS: 10/10

Ok so first of all: I honestly don’t care if Miranda is with Sara Ramirez or Steve or whatever because this show and this wig is terrible. BUT WHAT HAPPENED IN CLEVELAND?! WILL WE EVER KNOW OR CARE????? Also: does she not have a drinking problem anymore?! The most important update is that Miranda’s wig now has gel in it and also she is definitely stalking Sara Ramirez.

Miranda show’s up at Sara Ramirez’s apartment and is scared there is someone else in there but no Sara Ramirez is just working and Miranda do you have a job or is it JUST STALKING SARA RAMIREZ? Does she have enough $$ from lawyering once to just full time go to Columbia and have a bad wig and make everyone cringe in literally every interaction she has with them??

Well apparently she DOES have another job and it is setting up a women’s shelter and making all her fancy schmancy friends paint it (LIKE THEY HAVE PAINTING SKILLS!) rather than just writing a check. Fair but OH GOD THE WIG! Also Carrie shows up in overalls AND METALLIC PLATFORM HEELS. I REPEAT: METALLIC PLATFORM HEELS TO PAINT IN. YES SHE GETS PAINT ON THEM AND ALSO LOSES BIG’S WEDDING RING DOWN A SINK AND STEVE HAS TO GET IT. YES STEVE WAS FORCED TO PAINT TOO. WHAT IS THIS SHOW.

In only slightly more cringy news, Charlotte’s fancy school friend (LIKE I REMEMBER HER NAME) shows up in a goddamned SUV limo and calls in taco trucks to feed everyone! And then Charlotte wears an all-white coverall and gets her period in it! ABSOLUTELY NOT, SHOW! NO!!

EPISODE 10

CRINGIA NIXONS: 12/10

We made it to the last episode you guys!!! WE ALL DESERVE 2 KINDS OF CHALLAH BREAD FOR MAKING IT TO THE END. This episode really goes out with a kitchen sink of nonsense: Sara Ramirez reminds us she has a Tony by covering a David Lee Roth cover! Seema gets a dude! Big haunts a lamp AND an Eiffel Tower-themed purse! Charlotte gives herself a THEY-mitzvah wearing castoffs from Pretty in Pink! That podcast dude has an instagram-worthy surprise wedding! Carrie trades one silver fox for another and gets a podcast! The storylines of the jewelry-making neighbor, Steve, and Miranda’s drinking problem are completely ghosted! Mario Cantone tries to single-handedly revive the Borscht belt! Charlotte’s friend wears a SEQUINED TURBAN AND I DEMAND TO KNOW WHERE TO BUY IT! And then THERE’S MIRANDA. AND THIS FUCKING WIG.

I don’t know what planet anyone was on when they decided Miranda’s fate but we can all agree that SHE. IS. THE CRINGIEST. Beyond the storyline of her blowing up her marriage to be with Sara Ramirez, she was trying to find herself by going back to grad school but that too is blown up by Sara Ramirez moving to LA to “be the new Roseanne” WHAT. In an outfit and wig cast off by The Hunger Games (I assume -like I’ve seen any of them!) she announces this to Carrie at Rock/Charlotte’s they-mitzvah and everything about that sentence makes me want to drown in a cosmo. I will say that the only character I truly cared about in this entire season was Jet, the trans rabbi. May she get to that wedding in Bushwick SHE HAS A HARD OUT AT 2 AND SO DO I. 

I applaud SJP for whoever does her hair extensions because clearly that is where the entire wig budget went for this season - LOOK AT MIRANDA’S WIG!!!! EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. AND. THEN.

In the final moments of this episode, Miranda decides to become a completely different person and return to her red roots AND WEAR ALL THE MAKEUP WHILE DRESSED AS A WILDERNESS GIRL. I understand that people/characters/wigs can grow and change but truly WHAT THE FUCK. I guess this wig is an upgrade from the grey one but THIS WIG IS BAD! THIS SHOW IS BAD! EVERYONE GO EAT SOME CHALLAH!

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

Happy new year from another biopic of the damned!! Sure this came out a few months ago but it only *just* became available to stream on HBO this week. If you care at all about the life of gay icon and makeup loving televangelist, Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner, please just watch the 2000 documentary of the same name NARRATED BY RUPAUL. However, if you like thirsty wigs, Oscar thirst traps, and general thirst generated by drinking way too much diet coke, this movie is for you! Let’s discuss. 

We begin at the end - or at least close to the end? Tammy Faye herself joined the 700 Club in the sky in 2007 but we begin this biopic in 1994 where a heavily made up/old aged/bewigged Jessica Chastain (as Tammy Faye) tells her makeup girl (AND US) that she can’t take any more makeup off because IT IS TATTOOED ONTO HER FACE. This is for sure a parable for this film itself because there are only so many layers of makeup you can take off to reveal the true Tammy Faye UNLESS YOU ARE A PERFECT DOCUMENTARY.

We are then transported back to 60s Minnesota where a young, brunette Tammy Faye is attending bible college and is immediately smitten with a young Jim Bakker. First off: obviously, Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield are far more attractive than their real life counterparts but this movie really tries to make them kinda sorta look like them? This brunette wig is FINE and definitely a remnant of first season THE CROWN but like whatever? Meanwhile, Tammy decides to marry Jim AFTER HE TELLS HER A HORRIFIC STORY ABOUT ALMOST MURDERING A CHILD IN ORDER TO NOT HAVE PREMARITAL SEX. IS THIS STORY TRUE?!?! (It is maybe true). Also they get married in order to have sex. Religion, man! 

Tammy spends most of the movie attempting to win approval from her mother, as played by the ever ornery Cherry Jones. Most of her wigs are just like little old lady wigs which you could probably buy from The Paula Young wig catalog (and you probably should!) Also Cherry Jones should have an Oscar! Just saying!

Anyway, a now married Bakker couple sets out to spread religion through songs and handmade puppets and end up as local tv hosts. Tammy inexplicably becomes platinum blonde and this wig is - again I guess fine? Tammy’s obsession with her appearance, specifically always wearing makeup and having her hair perfectly coiffed is absolutely never explained. Also! As is always the case with male wigs - this 70s cut on Jim is pretty terrible all around!

Also terrible all around? MEN, ALWAYS! Tammy is forced out of her tv job for the audacity of having a child and then is not allowed to sit at a table full of assholes at Jerry Falwell’s house so she can eat a hot dog. Tammy is a low-key feminist and LGBTQIA supporter from the start but probably isn’t even aware of that herself? Tammy’s wide eyed cluelessness is very endearing and at times definitely baffling. 

Also baffling? MAN WIGS ALWAYS. Andrew Garfield’s parade of man wigs in this movie is NOT GREAT. The texture is just plain awful but as man wigs go, they don’t really jut out at the back of the neck like most do, so I guess they’re not the worst?

They say the higher the hair, the closer to god, and I guess the wigmaster on this took that to heart? As Tammy and Jim’s celebrity grows...so does their hair! These wigs are honestly not awful! I cannot say the same for the old age makeup but I’m not here to judge that.

Truly, no one on the planet is having as much fun as Jessica Chastain in this movie and like: good for her?!

Also Vincent D’Onofrio plays Jerry Falwell which is legit LOL but truly when I look at both of these dude wigs I am SHOCKED to find them to be ok?? 

Meanwhile, Tammy is NOT OK despite outward appearances of turquoise calm. Her strawberry perm has gotten out of control and she almost sorta has an affair right before giving birth (OMG IS THIS TRUE?!?!)

Her post-partum depression comes with a bent blonde wig and an opioid addiction. I have to give it up to this wig for being so purposefully bent.

BUT WHY IS HER MAKEUP SO PRISTINE?!?! Consistency, people! If your hair is a mess, your eye makeup should be too! AND WE’RE TALKING ABOUT TAMMY FAYE!

Anyway, as Tammy’s fame and addiction spiral out of control, we are treated to a delicious disco bop that I seriously cannot get out of my head. Truly: Jessica Chastain, I’m glad that you were having a blast making this!

As we hit the scandal years, the old age makeup takes a turn for the completely ridiculous but the wigs remain consistently fine. They do their best to look like these bonkers weirdos!

I really do appreciate all the different shades of tawny that these wigs are giving us. Tammy was a spectrum of blondes, y’all. 

And look at these feathered bangs!! I FEEL THIS LATE 80S VIBE IN MY SOUL. Anyway, we all know the story - Tammy and Jim lost everything (and rightly so) but again - the wig arc remains very detailed!

As we come back to the beginning, we see older/redhead Tammy once again...and TAMMY DOES A WIG REVEAL! I screamed!!! The fact that this shitty red wig is revealed to be a wig within the context of the film WAS EVERYTHING. I am often wig gaslighted by wigs we know to be wigs within the narrative of films which are the same quality as wigs being passed off as real hair. 

I LOVE THAT THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT WIG CONSISTENCIES HERE FOR REAL HAIR AND WIGS! THIS NEVER HAPPENS! THIS WIG IS PURPOSELY SHITTY AND I LOVE IT!!!!! Therefore, as many male wig ghostmares as their might have been via Andrew Garfield, I have to give this movie a passing grade for showing us the light and grace of differing wigs as wigs! (HOWEVER PLEASE JUST WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY INSTEAD)

VERDICT: WURQS

Oh good LORDT this movie. If you like TENNIS, overbearing parents, WILLSMITH!!!!!!!!, the 90s, SPORTS!, 90s SPORTS, 90s TENNIS SPORTS!!!!!!!!1, the plot of Cinderella screamed at you, snobby white people in shorts, bad dude wigs, and NANCY FRIGGIN REAGAN then this movie is definitely for you! Read on for many spoilers unless you don’t know of the existence of Venus and Serena Williams and THEIR DAD RICHARD WILLIAMA AKA THE ONLY WILLIAMS THAT MATTERS! Oh, also wigs. Let’s discuss.

Did you know that Will Smith doesn’t have an Oscar? Well he doesn’t but he clearly wants one and thus: why this movie is here! GET WILL THAT OSCAR NOW!! MAYBE! Let it be known that I don’t care about tennis, any sports of any kind, or most biopics so this movie is 0% for me. I watched it for the wigs (duh) and because it’s free on HBOMax til December 19. If you want to watch this movie, please watch it for $0. But also if you value your time or mental sanity, please don’t watch this movie. The running time is somewhere between 2.5 hours and an entire lifetime. 

So this movie is about Venus and Serena Williams but rather than making a straight up biopic of them, it focuses on their Rasputin-like father, Richard, who I guess is just as known as them if sports are your thing? Anyway, the film begins sometime in the 90s in Compton, where struggling Richard is taking his tennis phenom kids (as well as 3 other daughters WHO DON’T COUNT BECAUSE THEY CAN’T DO TENNIS) to the courts where he tries to get rich assholes to back his kids (THEY DON’T BECAUSE WHITE TENNIS SNOBS SUCK!) Meanwhile, the girls train at a dodgy Compton court where Richard also has to confront local gangs who sexually harass his daughters. Choosing to focus on Richard and not the girls is a CHOICE and as a theater nerd all I can compare it to is the musical “Gypsy” which focuses on Mama Rose, not her burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee. Essentially, this is a bizarro Gypsy about tennis ?! I dunno guys.

This movie is equal parts only for people who love Venus and Serena... and only for people...who know nothing about them? The film seems to constantly question: are these two crazy kids gonna make it (???????????) as if they’re not both some of the greatest living athletes ever. Even I know who they are and the closest I’ve come to playing tennis is watching that one scene from “Clueless” more than 100 times. 

Will Smith leans HEAVILY into southern drawl and greying temples and GETTING THAT OSCAR, BEBE! Richard pushes his kids hard. He spews life lessons like a Hallmark card on speed, makes them watch “Cinderella” and when they don’t get message that he wants it to convey, makes them watch it again, he trains them endlessly on tennis courts IN THE FUCKING RAIN. When nosy neighbors fear for the safety of these girls (SAME, NEIGHBORS!) he shades child protective services for being racist and makes his kids spell “CIVILIZATION” in front of them. Richard has a dream, a life plan for his kids, a preordained GOAL that the entire family MUST. LIVE. UP. TO. It reminded me of the dad of the Shaggs, except these girls are extremely talented. Also we are meant to believe that Richard is singularly driving this bus (sometimes literally - they get around in a VW bus) and that he is not completely deranged. 

Meanwhile, his ultra supportive wife, Brandy, played by the goddess  Aunjanue Ellis, does everything to keep the household afloat, deferring to Richard on all things tennis while supporting them financially and defending the kids against Richard’s complete insanity (HE TRIES TO MAKE THE GIRLS WALK 3 MILES HOME AFTER WINNING AT TENNIS YOU GUYS!) Brandy’s wig, much like her entire vibe, is very relaxed yet bouncy. I should point out that the hair and wigs on all the girls are great throughout. 

BUT THEN THE WHITE DUDES. UGH. So Richard finally scores a fancy ass tennis coach for the girls in the form of a very greying Tony Goldwyn. Despite wanting this coach VERY BADLY, Richard still micromanages him, coaches the girls himself, and drives this dude to insanity (NOT UNLIKE THE VIEWING AUDIENCE). 

ENTER: THAT DUDE FROM THE WALKING DEAD (yes, that’s his name!) In a wig so horribly feathered I can only believe it was left over from "Wonder Woman: 1984″ and a questionable Midwestern accent definitely left over from FX’s “Fargo”, Walking Dead dude is READY TO COACH THESE GIRLS AT TENNISSSSSSSSSS!!!! I am ready to throw this wig into the garbage because the texture is trash and much like all bad dude wigs, it juts out at the back. NO. 

Richard definitely gaslights him into believing that he will allow him to coach (LOLOL KING RICHARD IS ALWAYS COACH, WALKING DEAD DUDE!) even when the entire family moves to FLORIDA as soundtracked by Kenny effing Rogers and then Richard refuses to let the girls do whatever tennis thing Walking Dead wanted him to do (I STILL DON’T CARE ABOUT TENNIS). I do very much care about this AWFUL WIG. ABSOLUTELY NOT, WIG.

At some point, Walking Dead dude decides to part this wig on the side LIKE THAT IS GONNA MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE!!! I CAN STILL SEE YOU WIG, AND YOU STINK MORE THAN THE FACT THAT RICHARD REFUSES TO TAKE MULTIMILLION DOLLAR DEALS FOR HIS TENNIS DAUGHTERS!

Walking Dead Dude is not the only one to get a wig glowup. Brandy also gets this new wig which is honestly pretty great, as is Aunjanue in this scene in which she has HAD IT with Richard (plz get HER an Oscar, not Will!) Golden highlights suit you, girl. Now get that Oscar gold! 

In the final moments (hours?) of this movie, the hairdressers apparently painstakingly recreated the Williams’ sisters braids in the form of wigs that Venus and Serena approved themselves. I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you in case you are wondering if these girls ever became tennis superstars and Richard became famous enough to have an entire movie made about him.

I honestly cannot argue with the accuracy and quality of these wigs, especially given the fact that they also are forced to play tennis for seemingly eternities. THESE WIGS DO NOT LOOK LIKE WIGS AND LOOK VERY GOOD which is the highest wig compliment one can get. I almost decided to say that this whole movie WURQED because of them!

BUT.

Earlier in the movie, the younger girls are visited by the ghost (?) of Nancy Reagan in what can only be described as an Orphan Annie wig. My daughter was Annie for Halloween in a wig far superior to this one. The quality, texture, seams...EVERYTHING about this wig are 1000% WRONG. I had a lot of thoughts and faces about this wig (the Williams’ sisters reactions are my ID actually). Are we supposed to believe that Nancy herself is wearing a wig? Does she know that by wearing red she is actually becoming Annie? Did she seriously say “JUST SAY NO” wherever she went? Regardless, I have to say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to this wig and this movie and this movie’s wigs solely based on this one awful wig. 

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ