The Debbie Downer Origin Story

Rachel Dratch revisits Massachusetts and supports women in comedy.

Rachel Dratch attended the Women in Comedy Festival in Boston this weekend, partaking in an interview and Q&A session Sunday morning. She…

Comedy, Policy, and the Language of Casual Intimacy

On Difficult Women and Wanting More

Megan Boone, of ‘The Blacklist,’ speaks out about women in film.

Roxane Gay dedicated Difficult Women, her most recent short story collection, to “difficult women, who should be celebrated for their…

‘Sometimes People Just Break’

Please watch ‘Chris Gethard: Career Suicide.’

“And I think to myself: you should hit the brakes,” Chris Gethard says, aware that he was in the other driver’s blindspot. “And then I think: no, don’t. Because this way it’s…

‘The Stories We Tell Ourselves’

We need to talk about ‘Legion.’

FX’s new superhero series, Legion, is a bit like if someone had Wes Anderson direct a grownup Stranger Things by telling him the plot of X-Men but only showing him the first Hellboy movie. And…

Ryan Murphy’s Universe

The master of his sub-genre, whatever that is.

When Ryan Murphy first came to TV, it was as the co-creator (along with Gina Matthews) of the short-lived series Popular. Lasting two seasons and totaling forty-three episodes, The WB…

A Trivia Night Ends in Bloodshed

On HBO’s ‘Big Little Lies.’

“Never had a trivia night end in bloodshed before,” spoken by a tertiary character, is such a perfect summary of the first episode of Big Little Lies. The new HBO series, a seven hour movie…