foolish watcher

So, you’ve been caught sneaking out of your state to go on a Caribbean vacation while your constituents are freezing to death. What now?

Therese Odell
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It’s Thursday? I think? Maybe? Can someone confirm? As if our sense of time hadn’t already been turned upside down, now this winter storm comes and freezes my brain, along with everything else.

But at least this guy likes the snow:

 

Ted Cruz, man.

As I am sure you’ve heard by now, while our state is in complete fucking chaos — power outages, water outages, food shortages, people dying in fires, dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, freezing to death ALL WHILE A GLOBAL PANDEMIC IS ALSO KILLING THOUSANDS OF US  — our illustrious junior senator decided this was the perfect time for a little Mexican vaycay.

This aged like fine wine:

As you can imagine, this was not exactly warmly received here or anywhere, honestly, and people spent the morning dunking on “Flyin’ Ted.”

So, then the Right’s narrative was, “Well, Ted isn’t a Texas official, what’s he going to do by sticking around Texas?” and, even more hilariously, “Actually, he’s a hero for leaving the state.” I’m not even kidding.

First of all, as these former Congressional staffers — one of John Cornyn’s, in fact — attest, a Congressperson is in a unique position to help when their state is in a crisis:

But second of all, Cruz then undermined this argument by booking a flight home for this afternoon and claiming that it was his plan all along to fly his wife and daughter to Mexico and then turn around and fly home today. Yeah, he booked that flight home this morning:

And as for that argument that he was thinking of others by not using up precious resources:

Cruz then put out a statement about the trip placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of his young daughters:

Classic Ted!

Meanwhile, you know who didn’t abandon us even though we didn’t vote for him for some GODDAMNED REASON?

Don’t blame me. I voted for Beto. And M.J. Hagar. And Lupe Valdez. And Mike Collier. And Sima Ladjevardian. And so did millions of other Texans.

Resign Ted.

In actually good news, Rush Limbaugh is very dead and I hope you notice I did not include him in my “R.I.P.” section because I don’t want him to rest in peace. I want him to spend eternity suffering. And I know, there’s a lot of hand-wringing going on about the proprieties of dancing on someone’s grave, but LOL, I don’t give a fuck. He was a poison, a cancer on our national conversation, who not just gave permission to people to embrace their worst, most hateful inclinations but actually introduced those thoughts in the first place.

“Feminazi,” “Barack the Magic Negro,” spreading the Big Lie, calling COVID basically a cold, calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” for advocating for contraception, telling a Black caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back,” accusing the Left of the Christchurch massacre and Charlottesville and causing Deepwater Horizon, denying climate change, mocking Michael J. Fox for having Parkinson’s Disease, and perhaps the most reprehensible act of a reprehensible career, his “AIDS Update,” in which he would read out the names of gay people who had died of AIDS while playing songs like “Back in the Saddle Again,” “Kiss Him Goodbye,” “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again” and “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,” and saying, “Gays deserved their fate.”

As a proud Feminazi who uses contraception, voted for Barack Obama twice, whose father has Parkinson’s Disease and whose son is gay, all I can say is rot in Hell, you fucking monster.

In other stories that I had to push pause on: Gina Carano and The Mandalorian business. Disney has announced that there are no plans to recast her character, which is honestly for the best. There is room for more than one badass female character in the series. Her character Cara Dune was rumored to be the lead in one of the gagillion new series Disney announced in December, but Disney is all, “Nah, it’s not like that.”

And now Hasbro is canceling her action figures, too. 

Meanwhile, conservatives are petitioning Disney to bring her back (lol, nope) and Carano has a lot to say about the matter. She announced she’s making a movie with that jackass Ben Shapiro and his conservative website The Daily Caller. Sounds great! She also revealed that Disney asked her to apologize after her first run-in with controversy when she made light of pronoun issues, but she refused to, so they barred her from doing press for season two. Which ONLY MAKES SENSE, because had she been doing press, the only thing people would have asked her about was being a transphobe and Disney’s entire press campaign for the series would be derailed, but sure, this is “cancel culture.”

But you know who’s laughing? Disney, who now has more than 95 million subscribers to Disney+. 

One of the other big stories that broke while I was freezing in my own home was that Claudia Conway auditioned for American Idol on Sunday and SPOILER ALERT: she got a ticket to Hollywood. Which, great for her. But the whole thing is so cringey, what with her mother, that desiccated monster Kellyanne, playing the supportive mother, and George Conway wiping away tears. The show does touch upon the drama we have all been forced to bear witness to with this family over the past year — Katy Perry opens Claudia’s audition by asking her if she’s okay, for chrissakes — but we’re all just going to pretend that Kellyanne didn’t post topless photos of Claudia on Twitter a few weeks ago?

Look, it’s fine that Claudia auditioned and did well enough to move on to the next stage. But it really feels exploitative on ABC’s part to include her parents so prominently in this package, especially in the wake of all of the abuse allegations. Let’s not whitewash the Conways, please.

If you don’t have Netflix — wait, who doesn’t have Netflix? — you can stream The Trial of the Chicago 7 for free for the next 48 hours as tribute to the anniversary of the trial verdict.

For All Mankind is returning on Apple+ tomorrow. You can play with this augmented reality app, For All Mankind: Time Capsule, in the meantime.

The Undoing was HBO’s most-watched show of 2020, and a bigger hit than both seasons of Big Little Lies.

Here’s who won The Masked Dancer if you were shivering in the dark and missed the finale. And The Masked Singer has revealed five costumes for the upcoming season. Um, “Monster Grandpa” sounds like someone who should be on a registry somewhere, Fox.

Oh lord, Teresa Giudice has bought a ridiculously expensive mansion with this new boyfriend. GIRL, NOT A GREAT IDEA.

Going Viral

By Worldometer’s numbers, we have surpassed 500,000 American deaths from this virus. By Johns Hopkins’ count, we should surpass 500,000 Americans dead sometime in the next five days or so. It’s so horrific, life expectancy has dropped in this country. But the good news is, the number of vaccines being administered continues to go up (though this winter storm has slowed the process down a bit).

And then there is this piece of shit, who is giving special access to the vaccine to his donors and threatening to pull vaccines from communities who criticize him. How is there possibly talk about this guy becoming a national Republican figure?

These photos from a funeral home coping with COVID are harrowing and heart-breaking.

Dr. Fauci said he was nervous about catching COVID-19 at Trump’s White House. Huh! Why?

An Israeli nonprofit that funds and advocates breakthroughs in science, the Dan David Foundation, has awarded Dr. Fauci a million-dollar prize for “courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the challenging COVID crisis.”

Matt Gutman, an ABC national correspondent was suspended for violating COVID policy by going into a hospital for a story without getting permission first.

COVID has prevented Whoopi Goldberg from being in the London revival of Sister Act The Musical.

When the Golden Globes air at the end of this month, presenters will be in person with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Unsure how the awards will be given remotely … maybe these guys will be sent out again?

Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed that she caught COVID last year and is now hawking her bullshit alternative medicines to others. Gross.

Snooki caught the virus. STAY AWAY FROM GOOP, SNOOKI.

OH NO, So You Think You Can Dance is probably dead thanks to this fucking virus.

Hong Kong Disneyland is set to re-open tomorrow.

In the event you emerge from your frozen house and travel again, here are some good tips on how to deal with your fellow passengers who are not following COVID safety rules.

Renewals

Cancellations

In Development

Casting News

Mark Your Calendars

 

R.I.P.

Christopher Pennock, Actor on Dark Shadows, General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, Guiding Light, Days of Our Lives, Cannon, The Love Boat, Cagney & Lacey, Melrose Place, Simon & Simon, Dynasty, The A-Team, Silk Stalkings, Baywatch among others

Harry Bring, Producer on The X-Files, Criminal Minds, and Army Wives, among others

Ari Gold, Musical artist who collaborated with RuPaul’s Drag Race

Richard Bracken, Emmy-nominated film and television editor

Johnny Pacheco, Salsa bandleader

Brayden Smith, Five-time champion on Jeopardy! (The last five-time champion during Alex Trebek’s era.)

WATCH THIS

It’s a Sin: In this five-part miniseries set in the eighties, a group of gay men and their friends live through the HIV crisis in the U.K. Series premiere. HBO Max

Tell Me Your Secrets: Lily Rabe stars in this thriller about three characters who are connected through dark, troubling pasts. Series premiere. Amazon

The Widower: Dateline examines the strange case of Thomas Randolph, an eccentric Las Vegas man who was accused of murdering at least one of his six wives (four of whom ended up dead) and the hitman he hired to kill her. (It’s a three-part series that will run tonight, Friday, and Saturday.)  9 p.m., NBC

Your Attention Please: The Concert: Craig Robinson hosts this virtual concert featuring performances by 24kGoldn, Joy Oladokun, Kiana Ledé, Lil Yachty, and Swae Lee. 7 p.m., Hulu

For All Mankind: Season two. Apple TV+

Late Night:

THUR 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC Celebrity Wheel of Fortune
(new)		 The Chase
(new)		 The Hustler
(new)
CBS Young Sheldon
(new)		 B Positive
(new)		 Mom
(new)		 The Unicorn
(new)		 Clarice
(new)
CW Walker
(new)		 Legacies
(new)		 News/Local
FOX Hell’s Kitchen
(new)		 Call Me Kat
(new)		 Last Man Standing
(new)
NBC Mr. Mayor
(new)		 Young Rock
(repeat)		 Law & Order Special Victims Unit
(new)		 Dateline: The Widower
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