A Beloved Show That Needs to Finally End

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Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Kate Guarino, a supervisory senior associate editor on the audience team who has written about why the FIFA Women’s World Cup is about more than soccer.

Kate is a die-hard Grey’s Anatomy fan who believes it’s finally time for the series to end. She’s also a certified rom-com enthusiast with a soft spot for Notting Hill—a film with a “quiet beauty” that shows that “being truly known is a rare gift.”

First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

• The koala paradox
• The schools that are no longer teaching kids to read books
• It’s time to stop inviting plus-ones to weddings.

The Culture Survey: Kate Guarino

The last debate I had about culture: Is it time for Grey’s Anatomy to end? To preface, I might just be the world’s biggest fan of the show. I took a class about Shonda Rhimes. I can tell you the exact episode that aired the day I was accepted to the college I would later attend. Still, the longest-running prime-time medical drama in U.S. television history has gone on long enough.

You might say that I could simply stop watching, but I’m already 430 episodes deep. The show has proved its ability to reinvent itself, but after 20 seasons, its writers can’t help recycling plot points. Meredith Grey, the titular character, no longer has a proper foil, because most of her friends have left or died, and many remaining characters have lost their humanity and depth. But in a landscape of declining broadcast ratings, no one at ABC seems willing to cancel a show that continues to bring in viewers. Real Grey’s fans know that nothing prepares you for a hard goodbye, but the series deserves an ending befitting its legacy, and that ending should come while the show is still a little recognizable to those who love it.

The entertainment product my friends are talking about most right now: Taylor Swift is in her mash-up era. The pop star has made clear that when it comes to the acoustic set of her record-breaking tour, there are no rules. On a recent stop in Edinburgh, she combined “All of the Girls You Loved Before,” an outtake from her 2019 album, Lover, with the 2009 song “Crazier,” from Hannah Montana: The Movie. One of my closest friends is anti-mash-up and believes that you miss out on hearing the full song. I, on the other hand, think it’s a chance to hear more music and a reminder of just how many Swift songs exist. [Related: What made Taylor Swift’s concert unbelievable]

The upcoming arts event I’m most looking forward to: I’m currently on a waitlist for tickets to the Newport Folk Festival, which my sister and I went to last year. There is something so special about the mix of generations at Newport—both in the audience and onstage. As my colleague Elaine Godfrey wrote last August, the vibe of the festival is “peaceful and kind … Even the music goes gently.”

My favorite blockbuster: I’m a sucker for a good rom-com, and there is something particularly endearing about Notting Hill. Julia Roberts portrays a fictional Hollywood star who falls for the bookstore owner William Thacker (played by Hugh Grant). There’s a quiet beauty to the film, which suggests that whether you’re famous or anonymous, being truly known is a rare gift. This movie was also one of the first times I saw a character with a visible disability whose storyline doesn’t focus solely on that aspect of her life. Bella, a friend of William’s, was injured in an accident. Though she does express sadness about not being able to have children, she is in a loving relationship, has a supportive group of friends, and is not afraid to joke about her condition. As a person with a disability, I found her character refreshingly realistic.

The television show I’m most enjoying right now: When it comes to crime thrillers, the Brits do them well. The BBC show Vigil (available on Peacock) stars Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie as two detectives who investigate a murder aboard a Royal Navy vessel in the first season and a disastrous weapons test in the second season. The series is far more than a crime procedural; it’s a thoughtful commentary on foreign policy and a moving portrait of queer love.

An actor I would watch in anything: You might know her as a lovestruck college student, a Russian spy masquerading as an American housewife, or, more recently, a reluctant U.S. ambassador. Yes, I’m talking about Keri Russell. That woman has range! I was lucky enough to see her in the play Burn This, with Adam Driver. She later admitted that being on Broadway for the first time was nerve-racking, but watching the production, I was awed by her wonderful stage presence. Keri Russell, I will follow your work anywhere (more on that later). [Related: A splashy drama about the diplomacy of marriage]

A musical artist who means a lot to me: In the past three years, I have seen Brandi Carlile in concert five times, in five different cities and two countries. Am I a little obsessed? Yes, but you should be too. Her vocal range and lyrics are impeccable, and her repertoire features a stunning mix of folk, rock, and country. She has organized sets for artists such as Joni Mitchell and Tanya Tucker, in an effort to cement their legacies with fans young and old. Carlile also knows the power of leading by example. In her memoir, Broken Horses, she talks openly about starting a family with her wife, Catherine, and about the importance of having examples of queer domesticity.

A piece of journalism that recently changed my perspective on a topic: Rachel Aviv’s New Yorker article that questioned whether Lucy Letby, the British nurse convicted of killing seven babies and attempting to murder six others, was actually guilty.

A poem that I returned to: Last month, at the 92nd Street Y, I saw the actor Matthew Rhys in a reading of a new play, about how the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote Under Milk Wood and brought it to New York in 1953. At the end of the show, Rhys performed Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” I’d read it before, but Rhys gave the words new life. As an added bonus, joining Rhys onstage were Kate Burton (who played Meredith’s mother on Grey’s Anatomy) and Rhys’s real-life partner, the aforementioned Keri Russell.

A painting that I cherish: Above my bed hangs a gold-framed commemorative poster from a 1964 exhibition of Andy Warhol’s Flowers. It is a vibrant and colorful work that holds a special place in my heart because I’ve had it in my bedroom my whole life: first in my house growing up, and now in my own apartment. Before that, it decorated my mom’s childhood bedroom. Though I don’t look at the poster all that often, there’s something particularly meaningful about a piece of art that has been with both of us through our formative years and beyond.

The Week Ahead

1. A Quiet Place: Day One, an apocalyptic-horror film starring Lupita Nyong’o as a woman trying to survive an alien invasion in New York City (in theaters Friday)
2. Season 3 of The Bear, a comedy-drama TV series about a young chef transforming his family sandwich shop into a fine-dining restaurant (premieres on Thursday)
3. Cue the Sun!, a book by the New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum about the invention of reality TV and the genre’s lasting effects on American society (out Tuesday)

Essay

The 1970s Movie That Explains 2020s America

By Ronald Brownstein

This spring, I went to see Chinatown in a theater for the first time since its release, on June 20, 1974. The movie was headlining at the annual TCM Classic Film Festival on Hollywood Boulevard. Inside, every seat in the huge IMAX theater was taken. When Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway kissed for the first time, they filled the towering screen with every bit as much star power as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall did in Hollywood’s golden age. But the rapid descent into tragedy during the film’s second half had the audience rapt …

I was struck by how, after all these years, Chinatown looks both of its time and ahead of it.

Read the full article.

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