Worth the Watch + Listen + Play 📺🎧🎮

Hello! And welcome to another round of things on my recent radar I think are worth sharing. Sorry I skipped last week, August has been a lot of work and I’m still judging a big book award and drowning in titles. But I have a delicious chocolate cake making me super happy today and I carved out some time to tell you about a video game, a podcast, a film, and a show—all of which I do think are worth your time.

Listen 🎧

The long running podcast all about writing and the publishing world, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, has a new Monday episode drop that is literary agents CeCe Lyra and Carly Watters “Shooting the Shit”. Which translates to them “gossiping” about what’s going on in publishing and also what’s been on their radar for the week, like discussing Nikki Payne’s recent post, Sidney Sweeney and The White Utopia Fantasy in romance. The episodes have quickly become my end-of-day-treat for surviving Monday.

Watch 📺

Companion (HBO Max)

I had scrolled past this a few times because I thought it was a possession horror film based on the poster, which I just wasn’t in the mood for, but I was totally wrong (and the poster is super misleading). This is actually a fun, twisty in the way it unfolds, social horror with an awesome—super satisfing—ending. I went in clearly knowing nothing about it and recommend the same if you want maximum enjoyment of how you learn what is actually going on.

If you’re a must-know before you get into something: the basic setup is 3 couples meet in a remote house in the woods (not a cabin, think rich people) and things take a serious turn when one murders the other’s partner in self-defense. Turns out the “murderer” is a submissive android companion who must be shut down now but she escapes leaving the rest of the friend group to meltdown…

(Re)Watch

The Good Place (Netflix)

I can’t believe this is already just shy of 10 years old! I also can’t believe that it hits even harder now than when it first came out—it’s aged very well, which lots of shows can’t say.

The joy of this show comes in many ways, starting with that you’ll think the show is one thing and find out that it will keep pulling the rug out from underneath you in a fun way. It starts with a group of people finding out they are now in heaven and Michael (Ted Danson) is the architect of this delightful neighborhood that they’ll spend eternity in. Problem? Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) immediately realizes they think she’s someone else and needs to keep this hidden.

One of my favorite things about this show is that it doesn’t spin on this one plot idea forever, it moves the plot constantly in unexpected ways. It’s also deeply funny, with loveable characters that are fuckups, really makes you think a lot about the idea of what being a “good” human actually means, and if you were on social media in 2016 you know how unbelievably memeable this show is.

I loved the show the first time, and am currently almost done with my rewatch, and am loving it even more this second time around—Jason is still my favorite!I highly recommend watching it for the first time and as a rewatch.

Play 🎮

Fez (Nintendo Switch)

In June I told you about my love of Animal Well, which eventually left me with a game hangover and nothing new filling the void. Enter Fez, another puzzle game following the cutest little white blobby character. He is not a great jumper but in a game that automatically always saves and starts you exactly where you died it doesn’t matter because it’s like living forever. It’s 2D, and you have to change the perspective constantly of where you’re standing to figure out how to move to where you need to go. It’s not as absorbing as Animal Well, but it totally works by distracting me for 15 -30 minutes a day when I need a break and I’m really enjoying it.

That’s all for now! Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to shout out anything you’ve been loving lately!