A Jewish symbol in 'The Last of Us,' TV's 'Lesbian Larry David' and cheesy shows for Shavuot
I love a good cheesecake TV episode.
Hey couch potato latkes! It’s been a busy week; I went to a Jewish adult summer camp for a day (yup, really!) and accompanied my son’s class on a school field trip to the zoo (first graders are terrifying), so I haven’t had as much time to be productively watching TV. Here are my meager TV thoughts from the past week.
I’m still reeling from “The Last of Us” finale, and I wrote about the Jewish symbol that was featured in that episode: a hamsa that Dina, who in the game is Jewish, gave to Ellie, the protagonist and her love interest. I went into a deep dive about it all, including a beautiful Jewish detail in the game I can’t stop thinking about.
I still have to binge this new season of “Nine Perfect Strangers,” but my colleague Evelyn Frick wrote for Hey Alma about how Christine Baranski (my QUEEN!) allegedly called King Princess (all my other royalties!!) “the Lesbian Larry David.” I couldn’t love anything more.
Also at Hey Alma, Evelyn wrote about how Jewish comedian Andy Kaufman paved the way for Nathan Fielder’s antics.
Can we also talk about how Nathan Fielder called the aviation industry dumb and maybe low-key started a fight with Jewish news maven Wolf Blitzer? The chutzpah on this terrifying/annoying?/cringe-inducing/genius man!!
Tiktok failed to load.
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserI haven’t had time to watch a lot of TV this week but I did find a new family-friendly TV show, which is, surprisingly… “Somebody Feed Phil”? I just make sure the specific episode is rated PG, and my kids are hypnotized by Phil Rosenthal and all the deliciousness happening on screen since they’re already so familiar with him from reading his children’s book an estimated 216,765 times. His cheesy dad jokes are perfect for Shavuot (the Jewish holiday in which we celebrate getting the Torah, study it all night and consume all the dairy we can), and he also features a yummy (but not kosher) grilled cheese in the Orlando episode (which is not rated PG, so I had to watch that by myself) and lots of cheesy pizza in the New York episode that my kid adored.
Speaking of cheese, if you want to watch cheesy shows in honor of Shavuot, may I recommend eating cheesecake while watching “The Golden Girls” love on cheesecake, watching “The Big Bang Theory” gang at the Cheesecake Factory with some Cheesecake Factory offerings and dropping cheesecake at your neighbor’s door (and definitely not stealing it!!!) while watching the “Friends” episode “The One with the Cheesecakes.” You could also watch this entire show about cheese.
Chag shameach everyone!