This week:
- The show all the youths are raving about.
- Everything’s coming up Rosie.
- This Disney news is ridiculous.
- So is this.
- My spiritual sister, Allison Janney.
I’m Going to the Cottage
Whoever is doing Canada’s PR deserves a raise.
Everyone wants to go to the cottage.
The first tease was the jaw-dropping piece of lakeside real estate that Shane and Ilya pledged their love for each other in during the season finale of Heated Rivalry, in between other enviable extracurricular activities.
Now, the beauty of the Toronto-adjacent summering destination Muskoka is poised to make summering in the Hamptons seem like a silly jaunt for the poors, thanks to the massively popular Prime Video series Sterling Point.
I have a suspicion why the destination is so popular. It’s partly because the series, which sat atop the most-watched chart for most of the last two weeks, does such a great job of displaying the waterfront retreat’s balance of cozy, local history and drool-worthy mansion fanciness.
But it’s also because Sterling Point itself is transportive, not just to those hilariously misnamed “cottages” (they’re basically estates), but to a time when TV was our angsty teenage respite. A genre that hasn’t existed in a while, but is finally coming back.
Sterling Point is the most CW TV series in years—which says a lot, considering the CW still exists.
I was raised on 30-year-olds playing high schoolers whose widowed parent moved to a crazy place where teenage brooding evolved into healing.
Dawson’s Creek, Everwood, One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls…this is my Mount Rushmore. These were my teachers. This was a formative time, one that seemed extinct until a show like Sterling Point came around.
Normally, I run from the youths. They frighten me. They make me feel insecure. I do not understand them. But this time, enough of them were talking about Sterling Point that I, as an old, wondered what all the fuss was about. Then I watched it, and came away relieved. If this Gen Z Everwood show is what they’re all obsessing over, then the kids are alright.
The show is created by Megan Park, a filmmaker whose breakout film title hilariously sums up my experience watching this series: My Old Ass.
It follows the contentious relationship between New Yorker Annie (the show’s single attempt to establish that she’s from New York is to put everyone in her family in Mets apparel at every opportunity) and Muskoka local Ramona (the only character who doesn’t have a DryBar blowout in every scene, to show she’s authentic).
Annie and her twin, whose name is irrelevant because I just call him “funny guy!” find out that their grandfather left them an entire island in the Canadian vacation hub, which they are so unfamiliar with that Annie popped an Ambien on the 45-minute flight to Toronto because she assumed the international trip would be overnight.
Their parents adopted them, and their mother died when they were young, so they had no relationship with her family. So receiving an island from the will of an estranged Pop Pop was shocking.
Annie, a spunky and studious 17-year-old, lies to her dad and travels to the island, Sterling Point, and immediately learns family secrets, including the fact that she likely has a sister she never knew about, Ramona.
If, like me, you grew up on CW (and, before it, WB shows), you know the formula. And, my god, watching Sterling Point, did I missed that formula.
All the teenagers are played by actors who’ve more recently attended 30th birthday parties than high-school proms. As is essential to a CW-style show, the lead actress has hair you’d want to write poems about; Ella Rubin, who plays Annie, looks as if Rachel Weisz and Anne Hathaway had a baby.
In the grand tradition of these teenage shows, the adult cast is stacked with industry MVPs—in this case, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jay Duplass, and Missi Pyle—and there are scores of classic CW rabid-dialogue-style pop-culture references. The closeted gay boyfriend suggesting “let’s watch Cynthia Erivo sing ‘Edelweiss’ at the Kennedy Center over and over. It’s incredibly healing” is probably the most specific and my favorite.
Most importantly, the series gives the tornado of teens’ high emotions what it deserves. That’s the biggest thing Sterling Point gets right: beyond the episodic cliffhanger mystery of who this mother was and why these characters traveled to Canada, it just lends dignity to the girls’ Richter-scale feelings.
TV, particularly teenage TV, has swung to extremes of cynicism or unrealistic fantasy. To have something so throwback and, to use a phrase of my generation, “in the feels” is so lovely.
Now, who wants to buy me a cottage?
The Cutie Patootie-assaince
The only celebrity I’ve ever written a fan letter to is Rosie O’Donnell. There was something about The Rosie O’Donnell Show that was gravitational for boys like me when we were growing up; she exposed us to Broadway, to our icons, and she taught us to be unapologetic about how much we were fans of the talent—and to express it with humor.
When Rosie hosted The View, I was an intern at Entertainment Tonight. I was in the control room for the Elisabeth Hasselbeck split-screen. Taking copious notes on every second of Rosie footage became my full-time job. Basically, Rosie has always followed me—or I have always followed Rosie—including to my recent birthday, where I forced my friends to buy very expensive tickets to see her one-woman show in New York.
Watching Rosie guest host Jimmy Kimmel Live! has been exhilarating. She brought the silly Happy Meal toys and tchotchkes to the desk. She referenced Koosh balls. She had a breakout Broadway star on the show as a guest.
But mostly I was reminded of how good she is at this. Her interviews were fantastic; unlike the robotic, cue-card-dictated interviews of the late-night cohort, she led each conversation as a fan and—get this—a human genuinely interested in their lives. The monologues cheekily referenced her nemesis, Trump, obviously. But they weren’t catered to media writers and CNN contributors, the way every other late-night joke is. They were fleeting, smart, and not preoccupied. They were Rosie.
I’ll be devastated if this superb week of guest hosting doesn’t turn into some sort of regular gig. If not a late-night or daytime show, maybe an Amy Poehler-esque YouTube series she can host from Ireland, where she now lives? I think it’s what we need.
This Is Snowgay Erasure
The big Disney PR event happened this week, and among the announcements was the upcoming animated sequel Frozen 3, teased with first-look footage and a few plot details.
Apparently, Olaf, the snowman voiced by Josh Gad, will get a love interest named Samantha.
Listen, love is love is love is love, or however many times Lin-Manuel Miranda said it in that speech, but Mr. Disney, you’re not going to suddenly convince me that snowman is not canonically gay.
C’mon. Did we all watch the same Frozen movies? Olaf is absolutely off-book on Steel Magnolias and has a ranking of Audra McDonald YouTube performances to pull up on gay music video night.
Sorry to Samantha, but I’m not buying it.
They Can’t Ruin This
On the subject of bastardizing beloved cartoons, what in the hell have they done to Bluey?
My Blue Heeler is adorably 2D. This CGI nonsense…blasphemy.
I Hear You
Allison Janney gave an interview revealing that, early in her career, an agent told her she would only play aliens or lesbians.
As someone who, when this was popular two decades ago, submitted multiple photos to an app that would reveal what celebrity you look most like, only for each result to be in the range of 70-90 percent match with Ellen DeGeneres, I understand the frustration.
Every time. Six different photos.
I shudder to think what the result would be if the app had an alien option. I see you, Allison.
More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
I chatted with Joanna Coles about the big summer shows and movies. Naturally, her hot takes shot out as if from a t-shirt cannon. Watch here.
Now that Queer Eye is over, I got the wild story of its unlikely beginning two decades ago. Read more
We are fully here for the McConaissance…aissance. Read more.
What to Watch This Week
Lanterns: Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose with Kyle Chandler in the lead. (Now on HBO Max)
It Ends: Congrats to all of you who like to watch horror movies. (Now in theaters)
Tony: The fantastic Anthony Bourdain movie is now opening in wide release. (Now in theaters)
What to Skip This Week
Nothing: It’s honestly the slowest week of the year for movie and TV releases. There’s nothing egregious coming out. Enjoy.
