The End of ‘Better Call Saul’ :I’ll be sad
forever when “Better Call Saul” is over, so part of me is actually dreading the
sixth and final season. I never want to say goodbye to Jimmy or Kim — but man,
am I dying to see them again. By the time “Saul” returns on AMC this spring, it
will have been off the air for two full years. (Bob Odenkirk, its star,
recovered from a heart attack that occurred on set this year.) If there was
ever a show that knew how to think about endgames, it’s this one, among the
most carefully woven dramas of our time. Of course, thanks to “Breaking Bad,”
we know exactly where some of these characters are headed but not how they get
there or how they feel about it or whom they’ll hurt along the way. Hurry back!
But also, go slow. — MARGARET LYONS
A ‘Downton Abbey’ Sequel Travels to France:
OK, so, yes, it was weird that my friends Sherri-Ann and Amber and I were the
only Black people in the theater when we saw the movie “Downton Abbey” in 2019.
At the time, we agreed that despite the absence of people of color in the
theater and on screen, we still found delight in the grandeur — the clothing,
the castle, the cast of characters, especially the Dowager Countess of
Grantham, Violet Crawley, marvelously played by Dame Maggie Smith. Now that
we’ve set our calendars to March 18 for the sequel, “Downton Abbey: A New Era,”
I’m looking forward to seeing how the franchise tries to reinvent itself on the
cusp of a new era, the 1930s, and how it fares in the current racial moment. (A
Black female face pops up in a trailer.) Partly set in the South of France
after the Dowager Countess learns she has inherited a villa there, the movie
sends the upstairs Crawley clan and their downstairs employees off on another
adventure, with another wedding. Although Julian Fellowes, creator of
“Downton,” has a new show, “The Gilded Age,” premiering on HBO in January —
which seems to be a bit more thoughtful in its take on race, class and identity
— here’s hoping that this sequel to “Downton” takes a bow in grand Grantham
style. — SALAMISHAH TILLET
Cecily Strong in a One-Woman Show: Jane
Wagner’s 1985 play “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe”
was custom made for the chameleonic gifts of her life partner (and, later,
wife), Lily Tomlin. Who else could have inhabited its 12 highly distinct
characters — among them a runaway punk, a bored one-percenter and a trio of
disillusioned feminists — with such sardonic sympathy? When Tomlin won a 1986 Tony
Award for her work, it seemed to seal the idea that the performer and the play
were forever one. But in the kind of casting that makes you smack your head
with delight, Cecily Strong takes up Tomlin’s mantle in a revival directed by
Leigh Silverman at New York City’s The Shed, expected to open Jan 11. Strong —
whose “Saturday Night Live” characters include Jeanine Pirro, the Girl You Wish
You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party and, most recently, Goober
the Clown Who Had an Abortion When She Was 23 — seems like another custom fit,
nearly four decades later. — JESSE GREEN
Afrofuturism at Carnegie Hall: Stepping
outside its own history as a bastion of Western classical music, New York
City’s Carnegie Hall will be the hub of a citywide, multidisciplinary festival
of Afrofuturism: the visionary, tech-savvy ways that African-diaspora culture
has imagined alternate paths forward. Carnegie’s series is expected to start
Feb 12 with the quick-cutting, sometimes head-spinning electronic musician
Flying Lotus. (One challenge might be the main hall’s acoustics.) Shows at
Zankel Hall include the galactic jazz of the Sun Ra Arkestra with cellist and
singer Kelsey Lu and spoken-word insurgent Moor Mother (Feb 17); flutist Nicole
Mitchell leading her Black Earth Ensemble; and clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid with
her Autophysiopsychic Millennium (Feb 24); African-rooted hip-hop duo
Chimurenga Renaissance and Malian songwriter Fatoumata Diawara (March 4); and
DJ, composer and techno pioneer Carl Craig leading his Synthesizer Ensemble
(March 19). There’s far more: Five dozen other cultural organisations will have
festival events. — JON PARELES
The Metropolitan Opera Rethinks Verdi: Verdi’s
“Don Carlos” may not be a flawless opera. But it’s a profound work; I think of
it as Verdi’s “Hamlet.” Written for the Paris Opera, it nodded to the French
grand style and included epic scenes and massed choruses. But at its 1867
premiere, it was deemed overly long and ineffective. Verdi revised the opera
several times, making cuts, translating the French libretto into Italian,
leaving a confused legacy of revisions. New York City’s Metropolitan Opera is
giving audiences a chance to hear the work as originally conceived in its
five-act French version, which many consider the best. Yannick Nézet-Séguin,
who has led superb Met performances of the Italian adaptation, will be in this
pit for this new production by David McVicar. The starry cast, headed by tenor
Matthew Polenzani in the title role, includes Sonya Yoncheva, Elina Garanca, Etienne
Dupuis, Eric Owens and John Relyea. When performances begin Feb 28, be prepared
for a 5-hour show with two intermissions; I can’t wait. — ANTHONY TOMMASINI
True-Crime, Starring Renée Zellweger: This
winter brings more than the usual number of big stars taking time out for the
small screen, including Uma Thurman (“Suspicion”), Christopher Walken
(“Severance”) and Samuel Jackson (“The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray”). The one
that piques my interest the most is Renée Zellweger, taking on only her second
lead television role in “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC.
Zellweger can be hit or miss, but her hits — “The Whole Wide World,” “Chicago,”
“Judy” — keep her in the very top rank of American actresses. Here, she plays
Pam Hupp, implicated in multiple deaths and currently serving a life sentence
for one of them, in a true-crime miniseries whose showrunner, Jenny Klein, was
a producer on solid TV offerings such as “The Witcher” and “Jessica Jones.” —
MIKE HALE
At 91, Faith Ringgold Gets a Retrospective:
When New York City’s Museum of Modern Art opened its expanded home in 2019, its
most important Picasso suddenly found itself with a new companion: a
tumultuous, panoramic painting of American violence that Faith Ringgold painted
in 1967. Ringgold, born 91 years ago in Harlem, has never been an obscure
figure: Her art was displayed in the Clinton White House as well as most of New
York’s museums; her children’s books have won prizes and reached bestseller
lists. But she has had to wait too long for a career-spanning retrospective in
her hometown. The one at New Museum, which opens Feb 17, will reveal how
Ringgold intertwined the political and the personal: first in her rigorously
composed “American People” paintings, which channeled the civil rights movement
into gridded, repeating, syncopated forms; and then in pieced-fabric “story
quilts” depicting Michael Jackson or Aunt Jemima, and geometric abstractions
inspired by Tibetan silks and embroideries. The show comes with a major chance
for rediscovery: the first outing in over two decades of her “French
Collection,” a 12-quilt cycle that recasts the history of Paris in the 1920s
through the eyes of a fictional African American artist and model. — JASON
FARAGO
A Viking Prince Seeks Revenge: Robert Eggers has
directed only two feature films, and yet he’s already known as a maker of
beautifully strange, critically acclaimed movies. “The Witch,” from 2016, was
followed three years later by the grim and perplexing “The Lighthouse.” Both
established Eggers as a stylistic descendant of the Brothers Grimm, a crafter
of macabre fables that descend into torrents of madness. Which is why I’m
excited to see his third feature film, “The Northman,” expected to premiere
April 22, about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father.
Steeped in Icelandic mythology, the story is based on the tale of Amleth, the
inspiration for Prince Hamlet, my favorite sad boy of English literature.
Eggers wrote the screenplay with Icelandic poet Sjón, so we can surely expect an
epic with epic writing to match. There’s also a stellar cast, including
Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe
— and Björk as a witch. I’d watch for that alone. — MAYA PHILLIPS
Transformation, Via Tap and Modern Dance:
There are times, however rare, when a virtual dance can be just as stirring as
a live one. Ayodele Casel’s joyful and galvanising “Chasing Magic,” presented
by New York City’s The Joyce Theater in April, was just that. Now the tap
dancer and choreographer unveils a new version of the work, directed by Torya
Beard, for the stage — an actual one — starting Tuesday, barring any COVID
cancellations. And the following month, “Four Quartets,” an ambitious
evening-length work by modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz, lands at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music (Feb 10-12). Based on TS Eliot’s poems, the production
features live narration by actress Kathleen Chalfant, music by Finnish composer
Kaija Saariaho and a set by Brice Marden; in it, Tanowitz continues her exploration
of the relationship between emotion and form. It’s true that one is tap; the
other is modern dance. What do they have in common? Both have much to say and
to show about the transporting, transformative power of dance. — GIA KOURLAS
Rapper Saba Explores Trauma: Diaristic and
quietly intense, Saba, a rapper from Chicago, is the kind of artist who
navigates grief with a cool solace. In 2018, his record “Care for Me”
considered this theme in the aftermath of the murder of his cousin and
collaborator, who was stabbed to death a year earlier. Out Feb 4, his next
album, “Few Good Things,” confronts equally gutting life challenges: the
anxiety of generational poverty and the depths of survivor’s guilt. It reprises
Saba’s slithering and poetic flows, which breathe out a profound sense of
narrative. The beats are still buttery, jazzy and meticulously arranged. But
this time around, there is more wisdom — a recognition that living through
trauma means finding gratitude and affirmation in the moments you can. — ISABELIA
HERRERA
Comedian Taylor Tomlinson on Tour:
“Quarter-Life Special,” the debut stand-up special from Taylor Tomlinson,
introduced a young artist with real potential. Tomlinson tautly evoked a clear
persona (cheerful but not the life of the party; more like, as she put it, “the
faint pulse of the pot luck”) and told jokes marked by a diverse arsenal of
act-outs and manners of misdirection. She covered standard territory (dating,
sex, parents, kids) with enough insight and dark shadings to get your attention.
Most excitingly, every once in a while, she let her thought process spin out
into deliriously unexpected directions, such as the story that led her to
imagine a test for sadness conducted by police. “Instead of a Breathalyzer,”
she explained, “they have you sigh into a harmonica.” This Netflix special made
a splash, but it would have probably been a bigger one if it didn’t come out in
March 2020. One pandemic later, she has another hour ready and another Netflix
special on the way. She’s now performing it on tour, which is expected to stop
in New York City in January at Town Hall and then the Beacon Theater. — JASON
ZINOMAN
This article originally appeared in The New
York Times.
©2021 The New York Times Company
