Megan Garber
The Phantom Reckoning
From Les Moonves to Louis C.K. to so many others implicated in #MeToo, there have been many performances of accountability theater. But those in power have repeatedly proven themselves unwilling to make amends.
-
![]()
Lucas Jackson / Reuters CNN Was Ill-Equipped for This
During the debate it hosted on Tuesday night, the news network made its best effort to convert discussions of policy into the thing it knows best: punditry.
-
![]()
Hulton Archive / Handout / Getty The Quiet Cruelty of When Harry Met Sally
The classic rom-com invented the “high-maintenance” woman. Thirty years later, its reductive diagnosis lives on.
-
![]()
Jennifer Clasen / HBO The Problem With That Big Little Lies Courtroom Scene
The show once known for its subtle depictions of trauma is now taking refuge in melodrama.
-
![]()
Lucas Jackson / Reuters / The Atlantic Aziz Ansari and the Physics of Moving Forward
In his new stand-up special, the comedian celebrates progress—but denigrates the work that progress requires.
-
![]()
Elizabeth Williams / via AP When Jeffrey Epstein Joked About Sex Abuse
One of the many gutting elements of the allegations against the billionaire financier: how gleefully he flaunted his impunity.
-
![]()
Reuters / Courtesy E. Jean Carroll You Should Really Read E. Jean Carroll’s Memoir
What Do We Need Men For? is overwhelming. It is exhausting. That is the point.
-
![]()
Carolyn Kaster / AP The Real Meaning of Trump’s ‘She’s Not My Type’ Defense
The president, in attempting to downplay E. Jean Carroll’s rape allegation against him, isn’t talking about attraction. He’s talking about protection.
-
![]()
Craig Ruttle / AP The Cruel Paradox at the Heart of E. Jean Carroll’s Allegation Against Trump
The famous writer’s rape accusation against the president fell victim to the familiar workings of attention fatigue.
-
![]()
Jennifer Clasen / HBO Big Little Lies and the Painful Truths of a Parent-Child Talk
In the second episode of the show’s new season, Jane does the thing she has been desperately reluctant to do.
-
![]()
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters Sarah Sanders Broke the News
The press secretary for the Trump White House, who announced her resignation today, used her pulpit to spread the gospel of winning.
-
![]()
Charlie Gross / HBO What the Beto O’Rourke Documentary Says About Political Charisma
HBO’s Running With Beto is an apt snapshot of the 2018 Senate campaign that went viral, in part, on the promise of streamed intimacy.
-
![]()
Helen Sloan / HBO Game of Thrones’ Final Rebuke of Anger
Dany. Sansa. Bran. Why did the show that used to be so interested in emotion come, in the end, to mistrust it?
-
![]()
Paul Morigi / Getty Revisionism Is Winning in American Politics
Joe Biden wants to move on. Mark Halperin wants to come back. Donald Trump is Donald Trump. They’re all missing the point of true reckonings.
-
![]()
HBO The Only Thing Worse Than a ‘Mad’ Daenerys
The late-breaking plot shift in Game of Thrones’ penultimate episode was sudden and swift and senseless. That is precisely what made it so terrifying.
-
![]()
Helen Sloan / HBO Game of Thrones Is Considering ‘Electability.’ It Isn’t Going Well.
Sorry, Dany: Jon Snow, it turns out, is just the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer—or at least a glass of Dornish wine—with.
-
![]()
Corey Nickols / Getty / Arsh Raziuddin / ... ‘The Goddess of Good Sex’
Dr. Ruth, the world’s most famous sex therapist—and at 90, the subject of a new documentary—has long harnessed the power of pop culture to tackle that most intimate of subjects.
-
![]()
Netflix Knock Down the House and the Quiet Insurgency of Tears
The new Netflix documentary makes a subtly radical argument: that the emotions of women running for office are not liabilities, but sources of power.
-
![]()
CNN / screenshot CNN Is About to Host a Hunger Games Town Hall
The televised Q&A is a sometimes awkward fusion of politics and entertainment—and it’s becoming a key element of the 2020 hype cycle.
-
![]()
Mark Wilson / Getty The Perverse Paradox of the Mueller Report
Donald Trump’s outrageous behavior described by the special counsel is, at this point, so deeply familiar that it has lost its power to outrage.
-
![]()
HBO Game of Thrones: Jon Snow Finally Learns the Truth
And in the process, he—and the show that has shaped him—reckons once again with the totalizing power of lies.
