The Netflix Series That Puts Hallmark Holiday Films to Shame

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [View in Browser]( [Subscribe]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - Dash & Lily on Netflix: Cute! - The Weeknd at the Super Bowl: Meh! - Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones: Iconic! - Nicole Kidman’s green coat: To die for! - Celebrity interviewer Leta Powell Drake: A legend! Dash & Lily Is the Warm Hug We Deserve At its core, Dash & Lily is a cruel taunt. The Christmas-themed romantic-comedy series, which premiered on Netflix this week and has already shot to the top of its most popular list, is set in [New York City during the holidays](, a postcard from Before Times reminding us of the magical spirit of the city at that time of year. The corniest thing about me is how much I love the city at Christmas. I just used the word “magical” to describe it and am not even embarrassed. This year we won’t get to experience that magic, thanks to the sewage geyser spewing throughout 2020, and it’s surprising how sad that makes me. [Alternate text] The New York City at Christmastime that is so charmingly and irresistibly romanticized in Dash & Lily is perfect, because it is just that: a romanticization. It’s reflecting back the twinkling, crisp, cozy, anything is possible—even falling in love!—unrealistic version that we have in our head. It’s such a pleasure to see that it’s also instantly heartbreaking. From the first frame, Dash & Lily is an explosion of New York holiday nostalgia, and an exercise in delighting in—rather than being tortured with—bitterness over it. Dash & Lily is based on the young adult book series Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares. Dash (played by Austin Abrams) is a Christmas Scrooge, a natural extension of his otherwise cynical personality. His divorced parents respectively abandon him over the holidays, so he’s crashing in his dad’s bachelor pad alone during school’s winter break. Lily (played by Midori Francis), on the other hand, lives for Christmas. She’s a crafty, enthusiastic 17-year-old who doesn’t get along with kids her age and has no friends, which is why her family’s all-out embrace of the holidays is such a treat for her. This year, however, her parents have to travel, leaving Lily and her older brother, Langston (Troy Iwata), to their own devices to create their own Christmas experience. It’s Langston and his new boyfriend’s idea to help Lily out of her shell—and maybe even meet a boy—by crafting a scavenger hunt of dares in a red notebook and [leaving it in the Strand bookstore](. Dash finds the book and, intrigued, completes the dares. The two then become flirty pen pals, writing to each other through the book and staging new dares designed to help the other out of their funks: Lily gets Dash to let down his jaded exterior and start to earnestly embrace the sweetness in the world; Dash gets Lily to step out of her comfort zone and discover that she’s worthy of having self-confidence. It’s all very cute. When I was describing the series to a few friends, they both audibly sighed and their faces relaxed into a serene smile when I merely mentioned the phrase “pen pals.” Both Dash and Lily are so darned adorable it’s no surprise that Netflix audiences are already devouring the series. Not only does the famous Strand bookstore play a huge role in the show, the characters subway-hop through the entire city and its landmarks, both touristy and local. They go to Think Coffee and Two Boots Pizza in the Village, the Christmas land at Macy’s in Herald Square, to the Broadway costume warehouses at Silvercup Studios in Queens, to get pie in Brooklyn, to go caroling in Washington Square Park, to get drunk at McSorley’s Old Ale House. It really has you yearning for the NYC of before, when things were open and the streets were alive. Of course, these are not places I really ever frequented or activities I took part in. But, oh, do I ache for the option! The best thing about Dash & Lily is how much better it is than the Santa sack of holiday trash that piles up on networks and streaming services this time of year. [Alternate text] I don’t really understand how the cottage industry of holiday-themed romances that blanket Hallmark and Lifetime’s 4 Million Days of Christmas—and now streaming services, too—also involve the con of them being horrible, to the point that it’s supposed to be part of the appeal. I’m not sure all the people who carol on about how addicted they are to marathons of this dreck actually enjoy them, or if they just enjoy the faux personality trait they get to adopt once a year as the person who likes watching a city girl return to her rural home town, fall in love with the pie shop owner, and kiss exactly once, ad nauseum for two months straight. On the one hand, I am a staunch supporter of anything that keeps Lacey Chabert gainfully employed—and if I said it once, I’ve said it a million times, The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again star Vanessa Hudgens is the Eddie Murphy of our generation. But as a Christmas lover, it’s offensive to me that when there are so many good Christmas movies, these cookie-cutter romances are the ones everyone obsesses over. It’s why I’m so grateful for Dash & Lily! It elevates everything that is so superficial and phoned in about those other films. It’s profound in sneaky ways; there is a devastating arc revealing what casual childhood bullying does to a person, even if they seem adjusted years later. Just as cruelty is unnecessary, sadness lingers. And it’s deceptively funny. An instant icon: Lily’s wise aunt who remembers visiting McSorley’s “with Estelle Getty and the cast of Hair.” It feels like New York in all the ways [Emily in Paris does not feel like Paris](, and feels like Christmas in all the ways I’m already devastated for missing out on this year. It’s about nice people who deserve happiness experiencing kindness when they need it and falling in love. It’s cute, people! We deserve this! Ban Men From the Super Bowl Halftime Show There is a segment of the population for whom it never once crossed their minds that, with the pandemic only getting worse, [there would still be a Super Bowl]( this year. I am president of this population. With everything that’s going on…football? Really? This week I learned that a) this would indeed be happening, and that b) [The Weeknd]( has been selected to perform at the halftime show, [as holy an honor as there comes in the music world](. No disrespect to The Weeknd—he reps the best days of the week, and we salute that—but what a disappointing choice! [Alternate text] How do you get the people who I represent to care about football in the midst of a pandemic? Not with The Weeknd! For one thing, I am devout in the belief that only women should be allowed to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. There’s unimpeachable reasoning behind this: pop divas make better music and I would like to see them play it on TV. The roster of artists booked for the biggest gig in entertainment has been so eclectic over the years that I’m not sure there’s any argument, audience-wise, for appealing to women (and gay men) with one act versus appealing to heteromasculine stereotypes with, like, a legacy rock band. No matter who they book, the ratings are through the roof. So book a pop diva. That’s who I want to see. Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, even Katy Perry: They put on some of the best live shows I’ve seen with [their Super Bowl gigs](. They worked way harder at producing a worthy spectacle than their male counterparts ([Justin Timberlake, what the hell was that!?](), and what do we deserve as a people right now if not a spectacle? Sure, I like The Weeknd’s music, and thought [his opening for the MTV VMAs]( this summer was thrilling. But a whole Halftime Show of it? Meh!!! There are exceptions to this “only women” rule, of course. Prince gave the best Super Bowl Halftime Show of all time. And, of course, there’s Michael Jackson. But going forward? I want Diana Ross exiting the stadium in a helicopter energy only, and the men are just not capable of that kind of drama anymore! Even when someone’s not a superfan of Lady Gaga, for example, there doesn’t exist a single person—young, old, gay, straight, male, female—who wasn’t at least curious what she was going to do on the Super Bowl stage. Are those same people fidgeting with excitement over what The Weeknd is going to bring? Is it really fair to put us through the labor of explaining to our parents who The Weeknd is? Have we not been through enough? The Week’s Most Thrilling On-Set Photo Filming has begun on Ryan Murphy’s Impeachment: American Crime Story, about the impeachment of Bill Clinton following his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Clive Owen will play Bill, Beanie Feldstein will be Monica, and we will be sitting mouth agape that this series is even happening at all. Something to live for! We bring this up because an on-set photo was taken this week of [Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones](. Ashford is a Tony-winning treasure, currently starring on CBS’ B Positive, who has had bit roles in around 750 things and is reliably the best part about each one. People either fall in the camp of not really knowing who she is, or becoming absolutely obsessed superfans. Maybe this series will bridge that gap! In any case, here she is as Paula and it is very important that you notice the baby. [Alternate text] I Can’t Stop Thinking About Nicole Kidman’s Coat The last week has been a wild ride of uncertainty and stress, then bliss, then frustration, then back to uncertainty and stress again. As a coping mechanism, I’ve had to occasionally disassociate from all of it: the election circus, the idiot’s tweets, the terrifying escalation of the pandemic, the news that [Emily in Paris got renewed](. And so every so often I would turn off my brain, and each time I did, an image came to me. It was visceral. Crystal-clear every time. I would be visited by the image of Nicole Kidman in her red curly wig and floor-length green coat from The Undoing. [Alternate text] We are all too lucky to have Nicole Kidman starring in a mystery-thriller in which she titularly becomes undone to entertain us in the middle of a pandemic. The show is so pulpy and addicting, and so generous with its scenes featuring this gorgeous green duster, a glamour piece befitting a classy witch, or, in this case, a rich Manhattan therapist whose husband maybe did murder. A fan club for Nicole’s coat! I’ve Been Doing My Celeb Interviews All Wrong I can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as I have watching this montage of celebrity interviewer Leta Powell Drake being obtuse and insane while talking to major stars. It’s impossible to pick a best moment. “Well now he’s dead” right off the bat is a classic, but accusatorily asking Tom Hanks how he kisses underwater without making bubbles is the current favorite. [Watch it again and again here](. It is my gift to you. [Alternate text] [Alternate text] - The Crown: Diana arrives and, not to spoil things, but she really shakes things up! (Sunday on Netflix) - Ammonite: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan fall in love while talking about fossils. (Friday in theaters) - Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey: A charming holiday musical that shares the same name as the illicit drug on Riverdale. (Friday on Netflix) [Alternate text] - The Nest: Carrie Coon and Jude Law being sexy and confusing and yet somehow I didn’t like it. (Tuesday on VOD) - The Princess Switch 2: Switched Game: You’ll never convince me this is good. (Thursday on Netflix) Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2020 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. 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