This contains spoilers from Season 3 of Netflix’s The Crown. Carrie Willard Netflix released Season 3 of The Crown this past week, and there is simply too much to unpack all at once. I’ve been enthralled since Season 1, and again in Season 2. This third season is so very good, and so very rich in […]
You Don’t Know Me, Fred Rogers
As a Generation X child who grew up with a stay-at-home mom in the upper Midwest, it was almost mandatory that my younger brother and I watched Sesame Street during lunch, and then afterward, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. I know exactly what my mom was thinking, putting two preschoolers in front of the television like that […]
The Breakdown Is Just the Beginning: Reese and Payton’s Rules for Life
Recently, I was bequeathed a second-hand copy of Reese Witherspoon’s book, Whiskey in a Teacup, by a friend who knows my fraught relationship with all things Witherspoon/Hello Sunshine/Draper James. When said friend handed over the tome on the school playground, my eyes rolled even as my breath caught: the hot-pink cover (because OF COURSE it’s […]
“Out of Nowhere…I Can Imagine Good Things Happening”: Justice and Unbelievable
Recently I barreled through the Netflix mini-series Unbelievable. It covers the true story of a woman who is charged with lying about being raped, and the two detectives who (unknowingly? accidentally? by design?) solve her case years later. The first episode is, yes, “hard to watch.” Marie’s suffering, as she is asked to tell and […]
Mining Netflix: “Father Brown”
What do you get when you cross Sherlock Holmes with Pope Francis and Arthur Weasley? You get a slightly bumpling but brilliant Catholic priest who moonlights as a murder detective. “Father Brown” is the literary creation of G.K. Chesterton, and the BBC show based on him is now airing on Netflix in its entirety. I […]
What We’re Watching and Listening To: October Edition
Kicking off a new monthly column, surveying various members of the Mockingbird community on what they’re watching and listening to. We start this month with recommendations from a couple of the ‘HQ’ staff: Ethan Richardson Chernobyl. In preparation for the Future Issue of our magazine, this one had been on my list for a while, […]
Ruh Ro… Fifty Years of Faith in Accidents
What brought you here was your insatiable appetite for a juicy mystery. – Emile Mondavarious Imagine a cool, moonlit night. Skeletal trees line a narrow gravel road, and headlights are glowing in the distance. A vehicle is coming: an old, sputtering pick-up steered by some middle-aged mustachioed man. A groovy, slightly haunting tune plays as, […]
Praise Be!!!…Indeed…
The Handmaid’s Tale, streaming on Hulu, is not for the faint of heart, y’all. I’d argue, though, that it’s worth the ride. “HMT” rejects the instincts in us that reduce religion to a power-play, useful only for control and exploitation. It also embraces the Gospel. If you’re privy to the main story, you know that […]
It’s Funny Because It’s True: Death, Resurrection, and Aziz Ansari
It’s been said before that standup comedians are the revered preachers of our day. They’re the ones who tell it like it is, who speak with authority; the ones who aren’t afraid to call us out for our collective wrongs, but who do so with such wit and humor that they somehow cut through our […]
A Bachelorette Treatise on Sin
What could possibly go wrong when you throw together a beautiful woman, a couple dozen handsome men, a dash of love, and a sprinkle of Christianity?! Well, on Monday night, Bachelor Nation found out as we witnessed the long-anticipated showdown between Bachelorette Hannah and contestant Luke P.—one that certainly will go down in franchise history. […]
“What in the Name of Jesus Just Happened?”: Stranger Things 3 Blows Up Fireworks and Idols
This delightfully expansive, spoiler-ridden piece was written by Professor Leigh Hickman, who gave such a stunning presentation on the show at our Tyler conference earlier this year – video below. Stranger Things is back and stranger than ever. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are dating and making out to 80s love songs. […]
Dead to Me: A Dark Comedy of Forgiveness
This one was written by Sam Guthrie. In the Netflix original series, Dead to Me, Judy (Linda Cardellini) helps Jen (Christina Applegate) cope with the sudden loss of her husband, Ted. The two form an unlikely friendship tracking down Jen’s husband’s killer in the pristine landscape of Malibu. Thanks to Liz Feldman, the creator of […]
