Sophie Gilbert

What the Sexual Violence of Game of Thrones Begot

Ten years after the hit series debuted, television’s reliance on rape culture still feels exploitative.

• Sophie Gilbert
• May 4, 2021

The Power of a Skeptical Captain America

All season long, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier asked not only what it meant for a Black man to inherit the storied shield—it asked whether the shield was worthy of him.

• Sophie Gilbert
• April 23, 2021

What HBO’s New Crime Show Gets Exactly Right

Mare of Easttown, starring Kate Winslet as a Delaware County detective, is brilliantly specific in its portrayal of a community. More of its peers should follow suit.

• Sophie Gilbert
• April 21, 2021

When Love Is Optimized, Is It Still Love?

Television, of late, has been obsessing over technological advances that don’t yet exist—rather than the innovations that are already changing our romantic lives.

• Sophie Gilbert
• April 15, 2021

The Crime Drama That Will Enthrall and Repel You

In the ornately violent AMC series Gangs of London, even the pigeons are on cocaine.

• Sophie Gilbert
• April 7, 2021

The Mortifications of Beverly Cleary

The author recognized that humiliation is a kind of trauma—and that gentle humor could help neutralize it.

• Sophie Gilbert
• March 30, 2021

The Unending Assaults on Girlhood

Rape culture permeates adolescence. The lessons that it teaches girls cast long shadows.

• Sophie Gilbert
• March 30, 2021

The New QAnon Docuseries Is a Gamified Mess

HBO’s six-part Q: Into the Storm turns the conspiracy theory into a rollicking adventure.

• Sophie Gilbert
• March 21, 2021

Becoming a Parent During the Pandemic Was the Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done

This completely different person I’ve become since I gave birth is someone virtually no one knows.

• Sophie Gilbert
• March 10, 2021

What Will We Want When We Can Travel Again?

Two new TV series offer hints.

• Sophie Gilbert
• March 3, 2021

The Awful Intimacy of Allen v. Farrow

A new docuseries about the molestation allegation against Woody Allen is determinedly focused on making its case, sometimes at the expense of nuance.

• Sophie Gilbert
• February 23, 2021

Why Were We So Cruel to Britney Spears?

The more vulnerable she became, the greater the public’s interest was in watching her disintegrate.

• Sophie Gilbert
• February 13, 2021

The Dark Fate of Clarice Starling

Across decades of Silence of the Lambs sequels and spin-offs, Hannibal Lecter has become a pop-cultural juggernaut. Starling, not so much.

• Sophie Gilbert
• February 12, 2021

The Slow, Creeping Horror of The Salisbury Poisonings

The AMC miniseries sidelines international intrigue to focus on the mundane dread of contamination.

• Sophie Gilbert
• February 1, 2021

The Literary Origins of Netflix’s Latest Smash Hit

Lupin, the French-language series about a charismatic thief, embraces its source material—and then transcends it.

• Sophie Gilbert
• January 27, 2021

TV Captured Trump by Looking Away

The best shows of the 45th presidency captured the essence of an unprecedented leader by seeing past his act.

• Sophie Gilbert
• January 23, 2021

Promising Young Woman Sets a Ravishing Trap

Emerald Fennell’s debut movie is a revenge thriller explicitly designed to subvert assumptions about femininity and serious works of art.

• Sophie Gilbert
• December 28, 2020

Margaret & Diana & Elizabeth & Nancy

Netflix’s The Crown and Showtime’s The Reagans offer four different models of female power colliding with history, and with one another.

• Sophie Gilbert
• November 20, 2020

The Radical Exposure of Amy Schumer

The miniseries Expecting Amy captures the comedian’s complicated pregnancy with extreme honesty.

• Sophie Gilbert
• July 12, 2020

Padma Lakshmi’s New Food Show Is a Trojan Horse

Taste the Nation is breezy in tone, but it exposes the betrayals at the heart of “American” cuisine.

• Sophie Gilbert
• July 8, 2020