Latest news with #Lurch
Vox
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vox
And Just Like That gives Carrie Bradshaw a weirdly perfect ending
is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic. And just like that, Carrie Bradshaw is single again. For the last three seasons, fans have watched TV's greatest anti-heroine begin an entire new set of adventures. After HBO original Sex and the City ended in 2004 (followed by the fun 2008 film of the same name and its not-so-fun 2010 sequel), And Just Like That picked up in 2021 with Carrie's happily ever after. The most fabulous woman in Manhattan seemed to have everything she's ever wanted: a loving marriage to her Mr. Big (Chris Noth), a condo on Fifth Avenue, financial security beyond her wildest dreams, and a truly gigantic closet. But no one is immune to late life's indignities, apparently not even Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). In the show's often-clunky style, Carrie faced a series of dismal realities. She became a widow; she hosted a podcast; she left behind her beloved apartment for a beautiful but strangely empty Gramercy Park brownstone. She wasted a bunch of her (and the audience's) time on an ill-fated attempt at rekindling her romance with the country Lurch known as Aidan Shaw (John Corbett). Money remained a non-issue for Carrie, but the show often reminded us that not even immense amounts of wealth could insulate you from life's dishonors. In the series finale — which showrunner Michael Patrick King abruptly announced at the beginning of August — Carrie finds herself at a place not unlike when we first met her in that pilot episode years ago: single, in heels, living in Manhattan, bolstered by her friends, but wondering if there's love left in the Greatest City on Earth. It's not the fairytale ending. But Carrie's story ending by herself feels true. Truer, even. The original show wrapped with true love for all of its heroines, but something felt off. The real point of Sex and the City was always Carrie's relationships with Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and Samantha (the now-absent Kim Cattrall). While And Just Like That has been criticized for its tone and poor writing (one secondary character was seemingly killed off twice), it managed to give Carrie Bradshaw an ending that captured the daring admission of the original: that being lucky in love is good, but being lucky in friendship is everything. And Just Like That's surprise Thanksgiving from hell From urinating on themselves, to getting roasted on stage by their nonbinary comedian ex, to dying on a Peloton, the characters of And Just Like That seemingly exist only to be humiliated. In King's world, life after 40 is nothing but a gauntlet of perverse embarrassments. The continued indignities of aging — so imaginatively bleak that death starts to seem like a sweet release — have turned And Just Like That into a show that people resent, criticize, and demand 17 more seasons of. One cannot fathom the horrors Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda will face each week, usually centered on their bodies betraying them or being left behind by a world that deems them too old. Each new mortification feels shocking, sacrilegious to the show's glamorous predecessor. At the same time, there's kind of a perverse glee in watching how deranged it all can get. What do you mean Carrie had hip replacement surgery and, in a temporary state of medicated paralysis, was left to listen helplessly as her coworker passionately throttled Miranda's lower half like a rotary phone in the other room? Charlotte battling a bout of vertigo and falling into an art installation with fake ejaculate cannot be real, can it? Miranda had sex with a virgin nun played by Rosie O'Donnell? What is a person supposed to say to that… okay??? Unfortunately for Carrie, she endures one final degradation in the series finale: Miranda's Thanksgiving. In the world of AJLT, a beloved American holiday about remembering the things we're grateful for unfurls into a nightmare. Everyone but Carrie has bailed on Miranda's get-together, staying with their own husbands and families. Since Carrie possesses neither, she has to witness a trainwreck that includes raw turkey, a clogged toilet and brown fecal water, an Italian greyhound emergency at the vet, the future mother of Miranda's grandchild and her obnoxious friends, and a failed, surprise set-up attempt. Eating with a giant doll is one of the small humiliations that a single woman like Carrie Bradshaw must endure on And Just Like That. Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max There's a heavy-handed point to all this misery. This gathering is a crystallization of Carrie's future. In this era of her life, Carrie Bradshaw is single, and if she doesn't want to spend Thanksgiving alone, she might have to endure a few lousy ones at the hands of her friends. It all comes around to the bigger question: What if Carrie's future does not include one more love? Is that okay? 'I have to quit thinking maybe a man, and start accepting maybe just me,' she tells Charlotte. 'And it's not a tragedy.' Having survived a holiday radiating such dark, melancholic energy, Carrie taps out. Going home alone isn't such a hardship, though. She returns to her gorgeous mansion to eat pie in heels. For her, it's heaven. After all, this is the woman who professed to find true joy in tearing open a sleeve of saltines and smearing a sliver of grape jelly on each one, while reading an entire issue of Vogue standing up. What Carrie has is actually the furthest thing from tragic, rather, something much more thrilling — something that the original show should have considered. And Just Like That dared to give Carrie and ending that Sex and the City didn't The most frustrating thing about Sex and the City is how its ending betrayed the show's heart and soul. For six seasons, the show touted the revolutionary concept that its heroines — Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha — just needed each other. SATC was unafraid to imagine that female friendship could be more powerful, more enduring, and more satisfying than romantic love. 'Don't laugh at me,' Charlotte tells her best friends in season four. 'But maybe we can be each other's soulmates.' The idea of soulmates has largely been framed as romantic good fortune, the notion that the universe has picked out lives meant to be lived together, if only these hopeful lovers can find one another. SATC offered a more optimistic reimagining, a theory that our best friends are the true matches we should be so lucky to find in this world. Despite the show's title, sex and love were never really part of the show's fairytale. Men were often terrible, rarely lasting more than an episode. Sex was rarely sexy, more often skewered than celebrated. It's sort of a shame then, at the end of the series, that these four soulmates all end up married to or are exclusively committed to men nowhere near as magical as they are. Miranda marries Steve (David Eigenberg), and opens up their home to his mother. Charlotte converts to Judaism, marries Harry (Evan Handler), and they adopt a baby from China. Samantha beats cancer and asks for a monogamous relationship with Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis). Carrie leaves her callous Russian boyfriend (Mikhail Baryshnikov) for Big, and returns to New York with the man she's been chasing all these years. Maybe Carrie Bradshaw never needed a man for a happy ending. Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max We're meant to see these as happy, fulfilled endings — even though our main characters were all essentially separated from one another. The relationships they nurtured through some of their worst moments — Carrie's heartbreaks, Miranda's mother dying, Samantha's cancer, Charlotte's divorce — were pushed aside to accommodate men. The show told us over and over that these friends could have a fulfilled life with just each other, but it didn't seem to truly believe its own revolutionary message. As clumsy as AJLT was at times, it had a better sense of what the original show meant. Carrie finally stumbled upon the realization that her life never needed marriage, romantic love, or maybe even sex, to be fabulously beautiful. Surely, these things don't hurt, but they were never the heart of the matter. Decades later, but never too late, Carrie finally got the ending she and her friends told us to believe in.
Daily Mirror
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Netflix Wednesday season 2 replaces star and fans are only just realising
Wednesday returned for season two this week, three years after the first outing dropped on Netflix. WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Wednesday. A Wednesday star has been replaced ahead of its second season - and it's not Xavier Thorpe actor Percy Hynes White. The first part of series two premiered on Wednesday, August 6, on Netflix, with Jenna Ortega reprising her role as Wednesday Addams, alongside the rest of her macabre family. Although not a family member, the towering butler Lurch, who is a staple in both 'Wednesday' and 'The Addams Family' film franchise, is a notable character. In the first season, Lurch was portrayed by Romanian actor George Burcea, who stands at an impressive 6ft 3in. However, Burcea didn't return for the second season of 'Wednesday', instead being replaced by an actor who quite literally towers over him. Season two of 'Wednesday' introduces Finnish actor Joonas Suotamo as Lurch. Suotamo, a former basketball player for the Penn State Nittany Lions in the US, brings new heights to the role. His most significant acting role to date has been playing Chewbacca in the Star Wars franchise, taking over from Peter Mayhew from 'The Force Awakens' onwards. Standing at a staggering 6ft 11in, it's clear why Suotamo was chosen for the visually striking role of Lurch. Lurch wasn't the only casting change made ahead of series two. Xavier Thorpe, a student at Nevermore Academy, no longer features in the horror comedy-drama. Xavier, a fellow psychic, was a potential love interest for Wednesday, although she didn't reciprocate his romantic feelings. In the opening episode of series two, it's revealed that Xavier's father opted to move the teenager from Nevermore Academy to a different school in Switzerland following the events of the first season. However, behind the scenes, Percy Hynes White, who portrayed Xavier, was not invited back for the second season of Wednesday due to sexual allegations levelled against him, which the 23 year old actor denies.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Every West Virginia monster festival in 2025
CLARKSBURG, (WBOY) — Cryptid festivals are a staple in West Virginia and are some of the most well-attended events throughout the year; if you have a favorite West Virginia monster, it probably has its own special day. If you want to get a taste of West Virginia's mysterious side in 2025, here's a list of all the biggest cryptid festivals in West Virginia this year: The Grafton Monster Festival will be holding its second-ever event this year to celebrate West Virginia's most amorphous cryptid. In its first year, the festival had numerous vendors, a cryptid cosplay contest and a Grafton Monster calling contest. The festival begins on Friday, June 13 at 5 p.m. in downtown Grafton, and you can find the latest details and announcements on the festival on the official Grafton Monster Festival Facebook page. Another new addition to the West Virginia cryptid festival circuit is Veggie Man Day, held at the Frank & Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University. Though smaller than most other cryptid festivals in the state, attendees will be able to peruse several different cryptid and paranormal-oriented artists and listen to different guest lectures throughout the day. The event will be held on Saturday, July 12, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., but if you've never even heard of Veggie Man, you can read all about its legend here. What is the Vegetable Man of West Virginia? The West Virginia Bigfoot Festival is one of the largest cryptid festivals in West Virginia and is organized each year by the West Virginia Bigfoot Museum. The three-day event will have plenty of food trucks, vendors and live music, and is a great time to check out the Bigfoot museum if you haven't already. This year's festival will be held at Holly-Gray Park between Flatwoods and Sutton in Braxton County. You can find the most recent updates to festival plans at the official event page on Facebook. Although not technically a cryptid, Lurch Fest is a celebration of Addams Family actor and Philippi native Ted Cassidy, who plays Lurch in the 1960s sitcom. The festival has been previously attended by Cassidy's son Sean, as well as Christofer Cook, a Ted Cassidy biographer. The event will be held outside the Barbour County Historical Museum from noon to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 2. The Flatwoods Monster Convention will be returning to Braxton County on Sept. 13. at the Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham in Flatwoods. This year's convention will have a costume contest, a Flatwoods Monster photo op and guest speakers. Admission for the convention is $10 and will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13. VIP tickets to the event on Sept. 12 are also available. The 3 most famous artworks inspired by West Virginia's Mothman cryptid The West Virginia cryptid calendar will end in a bang with its largest event, the annual Mothman Festival held in Point Pleasant. The event is attended by thousands of people each year who visit the town from across the country. Besides checking out the Mothman Museum, visitors can look forward to dozens of vendors, guest speakers, bus tours of the nearby TNT plant, live music and more. Mothman is easily the state's most popular cryptid, being the subject of two different movies (one of which was never released), a museum, a brick set, a variety of potato chips, a minigolf course and an escape room, along with much more. This year's Mothman Festival will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20 in downtown Point Pleasant. You can find more information at the festival's event page here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Age
08-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Age
This regal kitchen has dramatic views of Hobart's skyline and the Derwent River
From the outside, an imposing Italianate Victorian mansion in Hobart has a regal look that is enhanced by slender elongated chimneys and fine filagree wrought iron lacework. But rather than a foreboding front entrance overseen by Lurch the butler from the TV series The Addams Family, the front door is to the side and visitors are met by frisky Labradors. Renovated for a couple with three children and two dogs, the family home in the northern suburb of Mount Stuart is neither eerie nor pretentious. 'Our clients had a certain vision in their minds but were not exactly sure how to achieve it – something that was quite layered and, importantly, liveable. From memory, a few keywords were 'being able to see both the garden and the sky',' says architect Shamus Mulcahy, who worked closely with colleagues Bek Verrier and Sophie Bence, a co-director of Bence Mulcahy Architecture. Neither the dramatic view of the Hobart skyline or the Derwent River was clearly visible from the house's former kitchen, a 1980s glass box that had been crudely tacked onto the back of the house with little consideration for either aspect or heat retention. About two by four metres in area, the old rudimentary kitchen was far from functional or desirable to be in. Another idea suggested by the owners was to create a kitchen that felt more like a 'potting shed', where souvenirs from travels could be displayed alongside kitchen utensils within reach. Vases and objects lovingly brought back to life by the owners, and flowers picked from the garden are scattered on the mild steel shelves. And rather than a slab of marble on the benches, Bence Mulcahy opted for brass – with the imprints and marks made over time. Combined with Tasmanian oak joinery, the kitchen is a place to enjoy the art of cooking or the views that extend beyond the back garden to the Eastern Shore and Frederick Henry Bay. The six-metre-high void of the new dining nook also magnifies the vista, with the steel and glass window in the ensuite to the main bedroom, directly above, also benefiting from this aspect. 'It was quite a challenging brief as providing a view from the bath tub meant creating a stepped or recessed effect,' says Mulcahy, who was also conscious of retaining the established cyprus and the mature pear tree that now almost reach the home's pitched slate roof.
Sydney Morning Herald
08-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Sydney Morning Herald
This regal kitchen has dramatic views of Hobart's skyline and the Derwent River
From the outside, an imposing Italianate Victorian mansion in Hobart has a regal look that is enhanced by slender elongated chimneys and fine filagree wrought iron lacework. But rather than a foreboding front entrance overseen by Lurch the butler from the TV series The Addams Family, the front door is to the side and visitors are met by frisky Labradors. Renovated for a couple with three children and two dogs, the family home in the northern suburb of Mount Stuart is neither eerie nor pretentious. 'Our clients had a certain vision in their minds but were not exactly sure how to achieve it – something that was quite layered and, importantly, liveable. From memory, a few keywords were 'being able to see both the garden and the sky',' says architect Shamus Mulcahy, who worked closely with colleagues Bek Verrier and Sophie Bence, a co-director of Bence Mulcahy Architecture. Neither the dramatic view of the Hobart skyline or the Derwent River was clearly visible from the house's former kitchen, a 1980s glass box that had been crudely tacked onto the back of the house with little consideration for either aspect or heat retention. About two by four metres in area, the old rudimentary kitchen was far from functional or desirable to be in. Another idea suggested by the owners was to create a kitchen that felt more like a 'potting shed', where souvenirs from travels could be displayed alongside kitchen utensils within reach. Vases and objects lovingly brought back to life by the owners, and flowers picked from the garden are scattered on the mild steel shelves. And rather than a slab of marble on the benches, Bence Mulcahy opted for brass – with the imprints and marks made over time. Combined with Tasmanian oak joinery, the kitchen is a place to enjoy the art of cooking or the views that extend beyond the back garden to the Eastern Shore and Frederick Henry Bay. The six-metre-high void of the new dining nook also magnifies the vista, with the steel and glass window in the ensuite to the main bedroom, directly above, also benefiting from this aspect. 'It was quite a challenging brief as providing a view from the bath tub meant creating a stepped or recessed effect,' says Mulcahy, who was also conscious of retaining the established cyprus and the mature pear tree that now almost reach the home's pitched slate roof.
