1 Reality Show, 2 Gossipy Investigations, and More to Fill Your Weekend

The best of what we've been watching, reading, and listening to.

By Jezebel Staff | November 3, 2023 | 9:30pm

Entertainment Jez Recs

The holidays are certainly in the air because Mariah Carey has been hit with a $20 million copyright infringement lawsuit for her legendary banger “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The argument is quite the stretch—though crazier suits have won! Still, if you’ve had a long week, at least you didn’t spend these wild and precious seven days filing suit against one of the most commercially successful songs of all time. And you didn’t lie about your height on a podcast. And your new job didn’t announce to the world that you’re basically broke. And you didn’t use a domestic violence hashtag to celebrate a new project with your lover.

Things definitely look a bit better when you look at all the stupid shit other people are doing, right? Here are the shows, movies, and long reads to reward yourself with for not being one of them this week.

Watch Milli Vanilli on Paramount+

Luke Korem’s look at the great lip-syncing scandal of 1990 benefits handsomely from the sort of retrospective reassessment that is so popular in these sorts of documentaries. Milli Vanilli is surprisingly sensitive in its tracing of the rise and fall of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, the dance act collectively known as Milli Vanilli who were unfathomably popular in the late ’80s/early ’90s…until it was discovered that theirs were not the voices on their albums. At the time, they were ridiculed and all responsibility was heaped on them—never mind they had a svengali, Frank Farian, who previously traded in this type of vocalist-performer deception with his disco act Boney M, and never mind that they had a huge label, Clive Davis’ Arista, behind them, propping up their lie.

Morvan is still around to tell his side of the story, which he does sympathetically and with clarity. There’s even footage of a recent performance in which he sang a Milli Vanilli song—pretty well! But Pilatus, who died from a drug overdose in 1998, is the real tragic figure here: an orphan who found in the masses the love he had always sought, only to have it snatched away from him when he flew too close to the sun. —Rich Juzwiak

Read ESPN’s in-depth story on James Harden’s rocky relationship with his boss

Breakups are hard. And recently, there’s been no better, more crushing example of this than the deterioration of Philadelphia 76ers general manager Daryl Morey and former Sixers star James Harden’s decade-long relationship. It began with Morey and Harden linking up at the Houston Rockets during Morey’s tenure as the Rockets’ general manager in the mid to late 2010s; their collaboration made Harden a 10-time all-star and, at different points, the most dominant player in the league. This summer, the relationship ended in catastrophe: Harden publicly called Morey a liar, saying Morey denied him fair pay by not offering Harden his desired contract extension, and compared their split to the end of a marriage. With Harden now traded to the Los Angeles Clippers, an in-depth, at times uncomfortably detailed story this week in ESPN (aptly titled “Paintings, silence and history: The ‘final straw’ of the James Harden-Daryl Morey era”) shines new light on the former dynamic duo’s tragic falling-out, revealing the particularly eyebrow-raising tidbit that Morey still keeps a life-sized portrait of Harden in his home.

You don’t need to love or even peripherally follow basketball to gawk at this hot mess and unpack why love sometimes just isn’t enough, why relationships fail, and whether trust that’s lost can ever be rebuilt (according to Harden: no).
—Kylie Cheung

Watch Lessons in Chemistry

Are Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman in relationships? Do they have partners, or wives or husbands or situationships or anything? I’m refusing to Google this information because after watching just one-and-a-half episodes of Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry, I think they should be together in real life. It is, without a doubt, one of the sweetest and most endearing love stories I’ve seen in a long, long time.

It’s the 1950s, and Larson plays Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist who was essentially forced out of her Ph.D. program because she was raped and who’s been reduced to a lab tech role at her current job because of sexism. Pullman plays Dr. Calvin Evans, also a brilliant chemist, but one who’s actually getting recognition for his work because he’s a man. The show looks like a retro daydream; there’s an adorable dog and a lot of cooking. I haven’t read the bestselling book that this series is adapted from so I have no idea what to expect beyond this second episode, but let me tell you: I am invested. —Lauren Tousignant

Watch The Real Housewives of Miami

I know I’m the resident Bravo girlie here at Jezebel, and thus quite biased when it comes to the network’s programming. But it also means I’m an expert, and in my expert opinion, the Real Housewives of Miami franchise is the closest you can come to the golden age of reality television (see: Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, any “of Loves” you can recall). It’s deliciously messy (one of its stars, Larsa Pippen—as in Scottie Pippen’s ex-wife—is now dating Michael Jordan’s son), yet decidedly real (two cast members are dealing with cancer diagnoses and another finds herself in the throes of a cheating scandal). The Miami franchise is so good that even though it was once relegated to the Peacock app, it’s now back right where it belongs: Bravo’s primetime slot. Even if you’re not a Housewives regular, one episode of might just turn you. —Audra Heinrichs

Read this forensic fashion investigation into Ron DeSantis’ boots

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has some weird things going on with his shoes. Internet sleuths have noticed that the rabid conservative—who loves to attack both gender-affirming care and drag—has weird-fitting boots and walks somewhat carefully, prompting speculation that he’s wearing heel lifts. When he was finally asked about it, DeSantis claimed that he wears “standard, off-the-rack Lucchese boots.” But a Politico magazine piece has me absolutely convinced he has lifts in them there boots. Derek Guy, known as “menswear guy” on Twitter, contacted bespoke shoemakers to get their thoughts on what’s going on, and they all believed DeSantis is wearing lifts, based on the curled-up toe, stretch and crease patterns, and how his shins look too long for his proportions. There’s even a goddamn annotated diagram to bolster the argument, which shows that DeSantis’ foot appears to be set a few inches back from where it should be, thereby throwing off the fit of the entire boot. The shoemakers said this would happen if he inserted heel lifts into a pair of ready-made boots, rather than going custom.

The story is CSI for crimes against fashion and also features a hilarious editor’s note in response to a comment from the DeSantis campaign, which is very much not owned after their candidate got caught affirming his gender. Click immediately. —Susan Rinkunas