How Guy Fieri and Kelly Clarkson Kept Me Sane This Year

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

Manage newsletters View in browser with Kevin Fallon Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This week:  A reminder that some things this year were actually nice. Your weekly And Just Like That… update. A trip down memory lane.  Patti LuPone comes out as having diarrhea. And Katy Perry unveils her giant toilet. Make America Flavortown Again There was a night this past year that I'll always remember when things really were at their darkest. The [gestures broadly] everything of the world had, as it is wont to do, gotten me feeling down. So I did the thing that I do when I'm low. I turned on the Food Network. Guy Fieri was not on the screen. I've never felt more abandoned in my life. I don't know what it is about Fieri's shows specifically that I find so soothing, but Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Guy's Grocery Games have been my indisputable pandemic comfort TV. I can, and have, watched them for hours, ignoring the mountain of screeners of new and exciting TV series that I'm privileged enough to get. Sometimes, or in the case of this last year, a lot of the time, you just need a hit of Fieri. Flavortown is my safe space. I'm thinking about Guy Fieri as the year winds down and I reflect on the pop culture that was because, for all the excellent film and television that I've watched, I think those Food Network binges are the things that have meant the most to me. The world around me was unsettling. Things were changing constantly, and in scary ways. (Hi, Omicron.) But I could always rely on Guy. He was stable. He was constant. He was my rock.   It was almost a profound realization, to remember that there were actually things from this past year that made me happy. Some of them didn't involve a grown man with spiked frosted tips describing why a pork sandwich from a restaurant in Minnesota tastes so scrumptious. A lot of them involved Kelly Clarkson.   Once again, Kellyoke, the gimmick where Clarkson covers a new song at the start of every episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show—and typically sings them better than the original artist—brought me joy. I don't care to divulge how many times I've watched her cover of "River Deep - Mountain High." I could never have imagined that her rendition of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" or Ariana Grande's "7 Rings" could be so thrilling. I do think, however, that her performance of Vanessa Williams' "Save the Best for Last" was engineered specifically to make me happy.    Because, you know, the world is ending and there's been no such thing as "plans" for nearly two years, I've traveled back in time to embrace a once-popular activity known as "watching television live." The habit of being in front of the TV at the same time each week to watch the newest episodes of Top Chef (a spectacular season) or The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (I could talk about it for hours, and have) was kind of giddy, even. It's not much, but it was something to look forward to each week.   Speaking of Real Housewives, my friend sent me what I have to believe is every TikTok video of people making fun of Erika Jayne's "Tom's house was broken into…" speech, as well as every video meming Reba McEntire's "I'm a Survivor" theme song from her sitcom Reba, and I cherished each and every one. While I still don't necessarily understand what TikTok is and how it works—self-care means coming to terms with that—the videos of people doing the Megan Thee Stallion dance to Adele's "Water Under the Bridge" somehow found their way onto my phone and I became obsessed with them. The only physical activity I've done over the holidays is try to learn the dance myself. It was a preposterous failure.   If you read my list of the year's best TV shows for The Daily Beast, you know that I liked few things more than watching The Other Two, PEN15, Hacks, and What We Do in the Shadows this past year. But I'd be lying if I didn't mention the series that I actually enjoyed the most. Every night before bed, I watched a few episodes of The Nanny on HBO Max. Brilliance. Ridiculous brilliance. In this house, we stan Fran Drescher (and often accidentally have sex dreams about Mr. Sheffield.) I'm not ever big into rewatching things, so it says a lot that there are two films that I've watched multiple times each this year: Tick, Tick…BOOM! and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. Two flawless pieces of cinema. I did also watch the "96,000" pool number from In the Heights about a dozen times when the movie first hit HBO Max.  I found every single meme of Oprah from her Harry and Meghan interview to be an absolute delight. I read three books this year that I haven't stopped thinking about—Mark Harris' Mike Nichols biography; Casey Wilson's memoir, The Wreckage of My Presence; and Dave Quinn's Real Housewives oral history—all brilliant in obviously different ways. Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell's duet of "Wheels of a Dream" at the Tony Awards is three perfect minutes of television.  As seriously as I take pop culture and its impact on our lives, thinking about all of this was a nice—and, especially now, crucial—reminder of how fun and often silly it is, and that's so important, too. Yes, I'll get around to watching that three-hour Japanese film that all the critics are raving about, and can't wait to catch up on the last few episodes of Yellowjackets that I missed (that, by the way, is the best show airing at the moment and you'd be smart to watch). But for now, Guy Fieri is getting fish tacos at a food truck in Hawaii, and he's calling my name. And Just Like That… Is Getting Good!  And Just Like That… manages to be both the cringiest thing currently airing on TV and also brilliant, a major accomplishment that has earned the Sex and the City sequel status as the TV series I currently most look forward to each week. [Insert Marie Kondo's "I love mess" gif.] And this week's episode was it's cringiest and most brilliant one yet. It's also the one that felt most like a classic episode of Sex and the City.   (Warning: Spoilers ahead.) Listen, everything to do with Sara Ramirez's character's woke gender podcast and her stand-up "concert" (whatever the hell that means) are embarrassing to the point of unwatchable, and not even fun. That said, it led to two of the most consequential plot twists.   I hadn't banked on two of And Just Like That…'s most obvious and inelegant storylines evolving into something so profound. They were really hitting us over the head with Miranda's alcoholism and the foreshadowing that she would have a lesbian affair with Ramirez's Che. But when it all came to a head in this week's episode, which featured the world's most traumatizing sex scene—fingering and pee, all in one sequence!—it coalesced into one of the more meaningful moments of the series.    Cynthia Nixon and Sarah Jessica Parker were spectacular in the scene, which has Miranda having to answer for her drinking, her affair, and neglecting her friend. That's why I have and will always defend this series.    Sure, the quality of the episodes have been all over the place. But there is something magical and irresistible about these actors in these roles with that chemistry that, even with Kim Cattrall's absence (I loved the way that plot line progressed this week, and that they keep mentioning her instead of ignoring her), makes watching them together again so satisfying.  Things I Can't Believe Actually Happened This Year There is a thread that went viral on Twitter this week that is a recap of all the events that happened this year that, even if for a day, absolutely dominated the news cycle—the biggest news of the time that was completely forgotten about in a matter of weeks.  The Armie Hammer cannibal thing? That was this year, folks. The whole thing where people were gobbling up GameStop stock? Yep, that too. You cannot convince me that the lawyer who accidentally had a cat filter on his Zoom call was in 2021 and not several years ago (apparently it was), and I refuse to acknowledge the fact that the ship got stuck in the Suez Canal not even six months ago.    In any case, it's a fun, if somewhat traumatizing memory jog through the year that seemed both endless and practically a blip in time. (Read it here.) Broadway Is Teeming With COVID and Poop New York City right now is in a really cool space where the question is no longer if you're going to get COVID, but when. That explains the semi-crisis happening on Broadway, where cast and crew members are contracting the virus at the same rate that the rest of us are—which is to say that everyone is getting it—and shows have had to cancel performances because too many people are out.   It sucks, because this spring it really did feel like Broadway and the arts were making a strong comeback, and it was enough to start defrosting our icy cynicism and feel hope for the future. Well, that was fleeting! Two major moments went viral this week, owing to these COVID-related cancellations. Hugh Jackman gave a generous and emotional speech during the curtain call for The Music Man after understudy Kathy Voytko filled in for star Sutton Foster, who had contracted COVID. Jackman paid tribute to the swings and understudies on Broadway whose contributions are often undersung and for whom the level of difficulty of their jobs far surpasses the leads whose names are on the marquee.  It was a beautiful sentiment. Days later, The Music Man canceled several upcoming performances because Jackman himself tested positive.  Then there was Patti LuPone, who was defending the revival of Company against rumors that the show's own cancellations were due to COVID. In fact, that was not the case. It is because LuPone was among several cast members who had explosive diarrhea. "My toilet can confirm this," she said in a statement—just about as iconic a moment as we've had in this pandemic.  It's Called Art, Sweetie Katy Perry opened her Las Vegas residency this week. Here she is twerking on a mountain of toilet paper rolls next to a massive toilet from which a poo with a corn kernel for a tooth sings along to "California Gurls."  Happy New Year, everyone. What to watch this week:  Queer Eye: Start the new year the same way we've started every day of the last one: Sobbing. (Fri. on Netflix) Abbott Elementary: The most promising new series on broadcast TV. (Tues. on ABC) Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts: These reunions are all dumb and boring, and I will watch every second of all of them. (Sat. on HBO Max) What to skip this week: Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer: This show was tacky two decades ago. What are we doing here? (Thurs. on Fox) Advertisement © Copyright 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 Privacy Policy If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, click here to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can safely unsubscribe.