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Heartwarming, Heartbreaking: “Heartstopper” Season 2 Takes Its Characters to New Heights by Bringing Them to Gutwrenchingly Emotional Lows

Our comfort show just got more complex. Here’s everything Heartstopper Season 2 gets so so right about queer adolescence

Nick and Charlie in Paris in Season 2 of Heartstopper

Netflix

SPOILER ALERT: BINGE HEARTSTOPPER SEASON 2 BEFORE READING THIS. SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE

So you got what you wanted. And the thing you hoped for, dreamed about — the thing you thought would make everything else in your life perfect, you have that too. So, now what?

This is the question Heartstopper Season 2 poses. Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) ends season one with his dream not-so-straight crush, rugby lad Nick Nelson (Kit Connor), becoming his boyfriend and promising to come out for him. Everything is perfect. And Charlie is determined to be the thing that keeps it perfect.

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Top Stories

Only Icons in the Building

Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd Join Selena Gomez, Martin Short, and Steve Martin in the hit Hulu murder mystery

Selena Gomez at the 2nd Annual Academy Museum Gala held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, USA on October 15, 2022.

By Tinseltown / Shutterstock

If you’re not already a devoted fan of Only Murders in the Building, run — don’t walk — to Hulu to start binging your new-favorite show now. The Emmy-nominated series stars Selena alongside comedy veterans Martin Short and Steve Martin. The result: a charming, addictive comedy that only strengthens Selena’s already-massive career.

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TV Reviews

Review: "Genius: Aretha" Struggles but Cynthia Erivo Shines

The Hulu biopic series struggles to find the balance between narrative drama and the truth

Cynthia Erivo as the Queen of Soul

Genius: Aretha is an origin story in two parts. The Hulu series is split between two stories: a young Aretha coming into fame while balancing family and an older Aretha coming into her own sound while moving from gospel to pop music.

The result is an ambitious portrait of a legend which traces her genesis as an artist from her childhood to the peak of her career. While some elements of the series shine, especially Cynthia Erivo — whose acting performance and almost effortless renditions of Aretha songs anchor the show — at other points, it stumbles.

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Ducktales

Twitter has been abuzz today about which cartoon theme song is best.

This is no doubt a ploy by Disney to get everyone nostalgic enough to sign up for Disney+, and everyone has been predictably biased to focus on the shows that they loved when they were kids. But as someone who grew up in the 1990s—the true golden age of Saturday Morning TV—I felt the need to step in and provide the objective analysis the topic required. Without further ado, here is the definitive list of the greatest cartoon theme songs of all time. Don't even try to argue.

11.Batman: The Animated Series

This one has the distinct advantage of being composed by legendary film composer Danny Elfman, and borrows heavily from his work on Tim Burton's Batman, for which he won a Grammy. The dark, orchestral intensity sets the tone for one of the most serious and intense children's cartoons of all time.

10.Ducktales

Life is like a hurricane. If you don't already have the words "here in, Duckburg" playing in your head, you are a broken soul. Hughie Dewey and Louie, along with their uncle Scrooge, were the definition of cartoon adventure in the early 1990s, but the simple, catchy lyrics of the theme song are truly what keeps this show alive in our hearts. It's the reason I can't hear the word racecars without immediately thinking of lasers and "aeroplanes."

9.Darkwing Duck

Synthesizing the previous two entries with a duck-themed slapstick parody of the Batman universe, we have Darkwing Duck. While the content of the show was less memorable than Ducktales, the driving bassline and the high-energy vocals of the extremely 90s theme song are somehow timeless. The refrain of "When there's trouble, you call DW," and Darkwing's interlude, "Let's get dangerous," will live forever in my memory.

8.Arthur

Arthur was always kind of boring compared to other cartoons, yet I watched it a lot as a kid, because it was boring in the same way a big comfy sweater is boring on a cold day. It's a show full of sweetness and optimism, and never has a theme song so perfectly captured the hopeful and positive message of a show better than Ziggy Marley's "Believe in Yourself." You know you want to sing along to this one.

7.Gravity Falls

Gravity Falls taps into the weirdness and mystery of childhood to deliver one of the best cartoons of the past decade. And the instrumental theme song somehow manages to be eerie, mysterious, and madcap all at once, in a way that only the supernatural adventures of Dipper, Mabel, and Gruncle Stan could live up to. The snappy, fast-paced percussion combine with the playful penny whistle to instantly put me in a good mood.

6.Teen Titans

Teen Titan's Go! has gotten a lot of love and a lot of hate in recent years, the latter coming mostly from fans of the show's 2003 predecessor. Whatever you think of the two shows, there's no denying that the original show's high-energy Japanese surf rock theme song by Puffy Ami Yumi absolutely slaps. It's worthy of a listen even if you don't care about the show.

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Music Lists

In “Modern Love,” Anne Hathaway Shows Us Love Can’t Fix Bipolar Disorder

The show, based on Terri Cheney's column of the same title, provides a uniquely nuanced depiction of mental illness—and highlights the gaps that still exist in the ways we tell stories about it.

On the episode of Modern Love called "Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am," Anne Hathaway's character Lexi spends half her time in bed.

She spends the other half of her life gallivanting around New York City, wearing sparkles and styling herself after famous actresses, asking out men in grocery stores and making up for the time and the lovers she lost while she was catatonically depressed.

At best, the episode is a uniquely nuanced depiction of real mental illness, emphasizing the fact that Hathaway's illness may not be easily curable, refusing the temptation to glamorize her symptoms or suffocate her with pity and pessimism. At worst, it still falls into some old traps and perhaps could've done a better job of explaining the specifics of Lexi's diagnosis and the actuality of what bipolar is and is not.

Like all the episodes of Amazon Prime's new series Modern Love, it's based on a real-life story published in The New York Times' column of the same name. Hathaway's character is based on an essay by a woman named Terri Cheney, who specifies in the first paragraph that she suffers from what she refers to as "ultrararidian rapid cycling."

There are many different forms of bipolar disorder, far more than the typical binary of Bipolar I and II imply. Bipolar I, the best-known type, involves periods of severe mania and severe depression, whereas with Bipolar II, the manic episodes are usually slightly less severe, though periods of depression can be extremely intense. With both of these types, lengths and symptoms of manic and depressive episodes can vary, though most people experience one or two cycles per year, with episodes lasting around 13 weeks, according to a 2010 study. Episodes can be triggered by events such as seasonal changes, trauma, or grief, but they can also happen naturally due to to the vicissitudes of brain chemistry and daily life. Sometimes symptoms of mania and depression can co-occur, and this is referred to as a mixed episode.

There are many other variants of bipolar disorder, including cyclothymic disorder, which describes brief periods of mania and depression that are slightly less severe than full-on Bipolar I or II. Then there's the kind of extremely rapid switching that Hathaway's character experienced. Affecting 10-15% of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder, rapid cycling is officially diagnosed when someone experiences four or more cycles in one year. Ultra-rapid cycling is when a person cycles through episodes in one month or less, and the sort that Cheney and Lexi have is called ultra-ultra-rapid cycling or ultradian cycling, which means that cycles can occur within a 24-hour period.

As with most mental illnesses, every person's diagnosis is different. For Cheney, ultradian cycling means that she'd often spend days or weeks in bed, only to awaken suddenly to the sound of birdsong and a feeling of euphoria. Like her TV adaption, Cheney tells us that she tried dozens of treatments, including dangerous electroshock therapy, while keeping her illness secret from friends and family and making up for her down periods by exceeding expectations when she was up. She was able to pull together a life, but all this didn't make dating easy. "When dating me, you might go to bed with Madame Bovary and wake up with Hester Prynne," she wrote in her Times column.

Refreshingly, neither Cheney's essay nor the TV adaption equates the right treatment or the perfect person with a cure and a happy ending. Instead, after following their protagonist through a failed relationship that began during a manic episode and quickly tanked when her mood turned, the essay and show end with a bit of realistic hope. "I've finally accepted that there is no cure for the chemical imbalance in my brain, any more than there is a cure for love," Cheney writes, lines that Hathaway repeats in the episode's conclusion. "But there's a little yellow pill I'm very fond of, and a pale blue one, and some pretty pink capsules, and a handful of other colors that have turned my life around."

Battling the Stigma Onscreen: Violence, Love, and Bipolar Representation

While illnesses like depression and anxiety have become more socially acceptable and widely understood (although too often they're still not viewed as valid illnesses, instead treated like something that can be willfully overcome with a little yoga), bipolar and other personality disorders are still heavily stigmatized and misunderstood.

For example, people who suffer from personality disorders are far too frequently blamed for things like mass shootings, when actually only 3-5% of violent crimes are perpetrated by people with mental illnesses (and 97% of mass shooters are white males with histories of misogyny and domestic violence).

In reality, bipolar disorder has absolutely nothing to do with violence. It's also completely untrue that people with bipolar are unable to have relationships. Everyone is different, and people with bipolar disorder are just as capable (or incapable) of loving and being loved as anybody else.

While Hathaway/Cheney's illness appears to be unusually unpredictable, many people with mental illnesses can and do thrive in relationships. While unstable relationships can have particularly negative and triggering effects on people who suffer from mental illnesses, stable relationships of any kind can be incredibly beneficial. And while no one should use their mental illness as an excuse to use others as therapists or sole support systems, supportive friends, partners, and family members can be vital in terms of providing the kind of acceptance and structure that people with mental illness may have trouble giving themselves.

Still, it's a blessing that "Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am" doesn't over-glamorize the effects or importance of relationships. Anne Hathaway's Lexi finds relief in confessing to a coworker about her illness, but there is no implication that the coworker will be able to heal her or support her in any way. Confession and interpersonal love are perhaps over-emphasized in some forms of modern mental health discourse, but premature or forced confessions can have negative consequences, and confession by no means make up for actual treatment, large systemic changes, or genuine external and acceptance. Sometimes, acceptance means accepting the reality of illness and treatment in all their ugly and unpalatable forms, a reality that is too often forgotten in exchange for the more palatable narrative that tells us that love can heal all wounds.

The Future of Bipolar on TV: Hopefully More Diverse, and Created by People Who Really Suffer from Mental Illness

For her part, Terri Cheney, a prolific writer who has written several memoirs about her experience with mental illness, is apparently very satisfied with Hathaway's nuanced portrayal. "When you think of the illness in terms of a familiar face, it's less frightening and easier to understand," she told Glamour. "That's why having someone as famous as Anne portray a woman with bipolar disorder is so terrific: It's an antidote to shame."

As in her essay, Cheney is quick to emphasize the fact that sometimes there is no cure to mental illness; it's not like you can just confess that you have it and expunge it from your brain chemistry. "After a lifetime of living with a mental illness, I've discovered that the most helpful thing someone can say to me when I'm suffering is, 'Tell me where it hurts,'" she added. "I don't want advice. I don't want to be cheered up. I just want to be listened to and truly heard."

Hathaway also seems to understand the importance of her role. "I have people in my life who I love so deeply who have received various mental health diagnoses, and that's not the whole story of who they are," she said. "But in many cases, because of an intolerant society, that's the space of fear they're kept in."

As there's more mental illness representation on TV, hopefully we'll see more nuanced portrayals of people with mental illness. Many Hollywood shows and movies have heavily exaggerated the symptoms of bipolar disorder, giving characters who suffer from the disorder violent narratives or dramatic breakdowns (Empire, Silver Linings Playbook), painting them as anti-medication (Law and Order: SVU) and using episodes as plot devices (Homeland), despite gaining praise for featuring characters who suffer from it.

Perhaps in the future, shows will also begin discussing the disorder in more precise terms and becoming as open and explicit about treatments, medication, therapy, and the messy vicissitudes of daily life as they are with dramatizing mental breakdowns and choreographing manic episodes.

Maybe they could also try to focus on people of different race and class backgrounds, as mental illness is frequently whitewashed, though it cannot be separated from things like race and class, and certainly not everyone with bipolar has a swanky entertainment law job or lives in an apartment like Anne Hathaway's utterly absurd one. Perhaps Modern Love itself shouldn't be expected to get real about mental illness, for even this episode does feel lost in the show's saccharine, wealth-buoyed rom-com vibe, caught up in the "permanent delusion that New York makes people fall into a special kind of love, unattainable anyplace else (unless on a brief trip abroad)," as The Washington Post writes, a delusion that anyone who actually lives in New York knows is utterly untrue (but that always makes for a hit TV show).

Still, when all is said and done, there will never be a singular or perfect depiction of bipolar disorder, and a depiction of mental illness on a show like this one will certainly expose lots of people to a sympathetic narrative they otherwise might not have encountered.

Like all illnesses, bipolar disorder is an ongoing process that affects everyone in a completely unique way, and there is no quick fix for it. But with medication and support, it's something that's possible to live and thrive with—and yes, to love with.

Though Lexi never finds true love, she finds something else. She finds self-acceptance, openness, a growth mindset, and the belief that she isn't in need of fixing. And in this life, perhaps that's the best kind of fairy-tale ending we can ask for.

TV

Our Picks for the 2019 "Fleabag" Awards (I Mean Emmy Awards)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge can have my house, just take my house, take everything.

Brett Gelman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sian Clifford of FLEABAG

Photo by Todd Williamson/January Images/Shutterstock

The 2019 Emmy Awards will take place on September 22nd, meaning you only have a few more days to re-watch all of Fleabag before it sweeps the awards.

If you're anything like us, you've probably been sleeping and living in your Fleabag jumpsuit for the last few months, so it's probably time to give that bad boy a quick dry clean in time for your Phoebe Waller-Bridge-themed Emmy watching party! To get you ready for Fleabag's big night, we've compiled a list of the expected winners in the major categories!

Outstanding Comedy Series

Barry (HBO)
Fleabag (Prime Video)
The Good Place (NBC)
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video)
Russian Doll (Netflix)
Schitt's Creek (Pop TV)
Veep (HBO)

Our Pick: While there are some stellar series on this list, it's really a no brainer who will be taking home the Emmy: Fleabag. While the other series may be funny, nothing can really compare to the funniest, most heartfelt show ever made. If you aren't convinced, just watch the opening scene of Season 2. Praise be to our lord and savior, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Fleabag Series 2: The Opening Scenewww.youtube.com


Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Christina Applegate, Dead to Me
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Natasha Lyonne, Russian Doll
Catherine O'Hara, Schitt's Creek
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag

Our Pick: Are you even paying attention? It's embarrassing I even have to say it: Phoebe Waller-Motherf*cking-Bridge. How many times have you watched her monologue at the salon about the importance of hair? WRONG. The answer is not enough times.

"Hair is everything." Excerpt from Fleabag episode, Season 2.www.youtube.com

Outstanding Drama Series

Better Call Saul (AMC)
Bodyguard (Netflix)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
Killing Eve (BBC America)
Ozark (Netflix)
Pose (FX)
Succession (HBO)
This Is Us (NBC)



Our Pick: Okay, so this one is a really difficult call; after all, Waller-Bridge also wrote Killing Eve. But we're gonna have to go with...Fleabag.Yes, I recognize Fleabag isn't actually nominated in this category, but do you remember the scene between Fleabag and Belinda at the bar? DO YOU REMEMBER? Show me a more brilliantly well-crafted dramatic scene than this one. I'll wait.

Why You Should Look Forward To The Menopause | Fleabag Series 2www.youtube.com

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson, black-ish
Don Cheadle, Black Monday
Ted Danson, The Good Place
Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method
Bill Hader, Barry
Eugene Levy, Schitt's Creek

Our Pick: I know, I know. Neither Phoebe Waller-Bridge nor Fleabag are in this category, and it wouldn't have even been possible for them to be nominated. In light of that, our official pick is...Hugh Skinner! Skinner plays Harry, Fleabag's meek boyfriend/ex-boyfriend, and is undoubtedly one of the funniest parts of the show. Remember when Fleabag tried to prank him in the shower? Watch it again, anyways.

Fleabag Season 1 - Clip: Prank | Prime Videowww.youtube.com


Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jason Bateman, Ozark
Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Kit Harington, Game of Thrones
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Billy Porter, Pose
Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us

Our Pick: Everyone knows This Is Us is one of the most dramatic, cry-inducing shows ever made, and it's hard to compete with anything Billy Porter does, but that's not gonna stop us from picking Andrew Scott! No, yes, Fleabag is technically not a drama series, and no, Andrew Scott is not eligible in this category, but I'm honestly tired of your negativity, so just shove it, okay? Watch the final scene of Fleabag season 2 and then try to tell me Andrew Scott doesn't deserve this award. Also, KNEEL.

Fleabag 2x06 - "I Love You" - Ending Scene (1080p)www.youtube.com


Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones
Jodie Comer, Killing Eve
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Laura Linney, Ozark
Mandy Moore, This Is Us
Sandra Oh, Killing Eve
Robin Wright, House of Cards

Our Pick: Look at me. Look at me. "Are you alright, Father?" "Oh, look at you calling me father like it doesn't turn you on just to say it..." Sorry, had to get that out of my system real fast.

Anyways, the Emmy goes to Phoebe-Waller Bridge! Also, can we throw a few of those golden statues Olivia Colman's way? She's just the best.

If you have ever questioned whether Fleabag was the best show ever created, let this revisitation of Waller-Bridge's confessional monologue set your mind at ease.

FLEABAG (season2 ep4)www.youtube.com