Royal fans have known this day was coming for a while, but today truly marks the end of an era for Prince William and Prince Harry. It was announced today (June 20) that Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, will split from the Royal Foundation he originally created with his brother.
Before fans of either couple get up in arms, this split is basically a continuation of the separation of the Cambridge and Sussex households—a move that was announced earlier this year. The Royal Foundation was founded by Prince William and Prince Harry in 2009 as the umbrella under which they could do charity work that was important to them. Kate Middleton joined as a patron after her marriage to William in 2011, as did Markle after her own royal wedding last year. It was under the moniker of the Royal Foundation that Prince William, Prince Harry, and Middleton launched their Heads Together mental health initiative in 2016.
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Going forward, things will be done a bit differently. “The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex has today announced the conclusions of a review into its structure, and how it will best support Their Royal Highnesses with future charitable activity,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Later this year The Royal Foundation will become the principal charitable and philanthropic vehicle for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will establish their own new charitable foundation with transitional operating support from The Royal Foundation.”
It’s hard to believe it’s been six years since we first entered Litchfield Penitentiary alongside Taylor Schilling’s Piper Chapman and met the diverse array of women inside. In 2013, Orange Is the New Black helped put Netflix on the map as a place to find incredible original content, and it was one of the OG bingeworthy shows. Those things seem commonplace now, but the show truly was a game changer in many ways.
Since then we’ve laughed and cried alongside these incredible female characters like Red, Taystee, Nicky, Suzanne (Crazy Eyes), and Pennsatucky. But now it’s time to say goodbye. On July 26, Netflix will begin streaming the seventh and final season of OITNB—and I, for one, am canceling all my weekend plans to spend it with my “friends.”
Seriously, this teaser trailer showing the cast singing along to Regina Spektor’s iconic theme song, “You’ve Got Time,” got me unexpectedly emotional.
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When last we left them in season six, Piper was released from prison while Taystee faced a guilty verdict in her trial for Piscatella’s murder. As always, Netflix isn’t sharing a ton of plot details, but here’s what we know, thanks to a quick plot summary and some new images.
JoJo Whilden/Netflix
“In its final season, the ladies of Litchfield come to terms with the fact that prison has changed them forever. Piper struggles with life on the outside, while life in Max, as corrupt and unjust as ever, goes on without her,” Netflix said in a press release. “Taystee’s friendship with Cindy still hangs in the balance as her life sentence looms, Gloria and her kitchen staff are confronted by the hard truth of Polycon’s newest profit stream, while others chase drugs or dreams and grapple with the reality of their place in this world.”
From the looks of things, there will be plenty of emotional moments for everyone—and we can’t wait.
Caution: Spoilers for the finale of The Bachelor, as well as The Bachelorette announcement, are ahead.
The action picks right back up with Colton knocking on Cassie’s door and asking to talk. He says it was so hard watching her leave that he’s “sacrificed everything” to be with her.
“Sorry…what?” she replies. This is off to a good start.
Colton reveals that he broke up with Tayshia and Hannah. Cassie smiles and puts her hand over her mouth to cover it. Colton pushes on, telling her he doesn’t need an engagement. He’s happy to take the relationship day-by-day, if that’s what she wants. “I’m so nervous right now,” she answers. “What? This is crazy. This is really crazy.”
Cassie repeats what she’s been saying, loud and clear, all along: She’s not on the same page as him, and he should pursue other women if he wants a serious commitment.
Nope, Colton says. “Sacrifice is what you do when you love somebody.” (Pause for a quick soap box: I know every relationship is different, and you can’t compare them, and blah blah blah. But the biggest thing I’ve ever had to sacrifice for my husband is the hours I lost going to a Phish concert for him. I’ll never get that Saturday back, but my point is this: Love doesn’t have to be hard, nor does that make it somehow greater or more passionate. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.)
Whatever, this seems to work for Cassie. Now secure, Colton tells her about the fence jump, but she just giggles and changes the conversation. Cassie, I don’t think you’re fully appreciating the Drama of this moment! They literally lost Colton. The Portuguese police were almost called!
Now that Cassie’s giving him a second chance, Colton has another bombshell: His family is waiting to meet them in Spain, if she’ll go. She agrees, adding, “This is so weird!”
Colton meets up with his family first, and right away—before anyone gets a chance to talk—he announces that he’s no longer a virgin. They all laugh. After a beat too long, Colton tells them he was just joking. Good one, Colton. Then he gives them the real breakdown: There’s only one woman here to meet them this week. Oh, and she broke up with me. Oh, and she’s not sure if she loves me or not.
Colton’s family is skeptical, to say the least. Cassie, meanwhile, is nervous to meet them because, hey, it turns out having to explain to a mom why you’re not in love with her son is pretty awkward.
All things considered, the visit goes OK. Colton’s mom does lightly suggest that maybe he should be with someone who reciprocates his feelings. Colton, however, is all, Nope. No doubts. Cassie is IT. I am IN LOVE. I stick by my DECISIONS. I am TOTALLY OK with her being ambivalent about her feelings. Man, all those Bird Box memes are right:
The next day, Colton and Cassie have a date. She keeps using words like “nervous” and “anxious” to describe how she’s feeling; that said, she finally admits she loves him. (Only to the camera, though, not to Colton.) They have a Serious Chat™, during which Cassie admits she’s not freaked out about Colton so much as the idea of commitment. Her last ex was controlling, and she doesn’t want to lose her freedom again. “I want us to do what’s best for us,” Colton replies. He says he wants them to have their own hobbies, interests, friends, etc. Basically, “I want you to live your life.” It’s amazing where we’re at in society that Colton saying the most basic thing—that he wants her to have friends and other interests—is presented as swoon-worthy.
Pick any scene in the season two premiere of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—really, any scene—and it will show you just how brilliant Rachel Brosnahan is as stand-up comedian and Upper West Side divorcée Midge Maisel. (She didn’t win that Emmy for nothing…) But if I had to pick a scene that stayed with me long after the episode ended, it’d be that heartbreaking last one.
In the four-minute moment—stop reading now if you haven’t watched—Midge is swept up in emotion while she watches couples kiss in Paris. It’s romantic and gorgeous, but Midge is miserable. It serves as a reminder of what she used to have—or rather, what she thought she had. Out of loneliness and fear, Midge phones estranged husband, Joel (Michael Zegen), in New York to get back together. Yes, the same Joel who cheated on her with his secretary.
The moment could have been a disaster, but it ends up being a showcase of expert storytelling in the hands of co-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino. The scene somehow humanizes Joel, while still making your heart break for Midge. She wants to make their marriage work; Joel does, too, but he knows he can’t. After seeing his wife shine on stage—in a way he never could—he realized he’d be holding her back. The very thing Midge excels at, finding humor in the devastation she felt because of Joel, is the one obstacle he can’t get past. He doesn’t want her to stop performing, but he also can’t be with her because of it.
PHOTO: Nicole Rivelli
The scene is so good, it may come as a surprise that it was filmed in under two hours and without any formal rehearsal. It was also a big concern for Brosnahan and Zegen after they read the script. The phone call represents a big shift for the Maisel’s relationship, and Brosnahan wanted to make sure it stayed authentic to her character. “To be honest, I was so frustrated by that scene when I first read it,” she tells us. “We spent season one establishing that when Midge gets hurt she doesn’t cry, she gets funnier. This scene really broke that rule. I had a little bit of a hard time pushing past that, because when Joel left, Midge didn’t cry. She got on stage. Here it really breaks her.”
Zegen felt the same way. “I also had problems with it,” he says. “I didn’t really understand where Joel was coming from. He’s telling Midge that he can’t be with her, even though he tried to get back with her over and over again.” Plus, as Brosnahan notes, “They had all but gotten together immediately before that moment [in the season one finale], which is what Midge was saying.”
But, “The key thing Joel tells her is, ‘I can’t be a joke,'” Zegen says. “I think that really says a lot. [Her comedy] is completely embarrassing, not to mention emasculating, for him.”
PHOTO: Nicole Rivelli
Sherman-Palladino understood the actors’ concerns and walked them through the scene. “[She explained] that so much has changed for them over the course of the first season, and I think ultimately what breaks from this one is there’s something that feels even more permanent about this,” Brosnahan says. “No one cheated [this time] and no one walked out the door. They’re just at a crossroads, and in that moment they are both choosing to walk different ways. That’s what’s so heartbreaking about this. It shows how much they have grown and evolved over the course of the first season.”
Once Brosnahan and Zegen hammered out the specifics of the scene, Brosnahan says she was really able to sink her teeth into the moment—especially when Joel says, “I love you too, honey, and you’re going to be OK.” Midge hangs up the phone and collapses in tears before walking away. “That moment was the one that felt the most clear to me of that whole scene,” Brosnahan says. “Amy just let me walk with it; in that moment, she and Joel have said everything they want to say and are both choosing to walk away. It breaks my heart because [the scene shows] you can love someone that much and know you’ll never be together.”
PHOTO: Nicole Rivelli
Brosnahan also hints that even if Midge and Joel do get back together, it may never stick. “Early on, before we even shot the pilot, I was asking Amy where Midge is [theoretically] headed,” Brosnahan says. “She told me—and this still breaks my heart—that Midge will go on to be wildly successful, live in a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue with 12 poodles, and will have everything she could have imagined this new dream to become. But, she’ll still remember the day before Joel left her as the happiest day of her life. So I think the moment [with the two of them on the phone] is the beginning of her journey toward that path. I do believe they’re soulmates, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be together.”
The second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Corruption runs so deep on House of Cards that its major characters can, at times, seem comically evil. It takes an honest, kind, and unpretentious character to remind the viewer how genuinely frightening it must be to work alongside power-obsessed politicians. In the sixth—and final—season, now on Netflix, that character is Kelsey Stewart, a White House tour guide who becomes Claire Underwood’s press secretary and whose regard for Claire begins in awe and evolves into fear. (Caution: Spoilers ahead.)
Kristen Sieh, the actor who plays Kelsey, tells Glamour that House of Cards’ showrunners (Melissa James Gibson and Frank Pugliese) specifically wanted Kelsey to be at the opposite ethical pole from Claire. “Melissa and Frank were saying to me that Kelsey is the only person with a heart in the show,” Sieh explains, with a laugh.
Claire and Kelsey’s personal lives are entangled this season based on a mutual connection to Tom Yates, Claire’s former lover who last season engaged in an impromptu act of intimacy with Kelsey in the White House press room. Kelsey’s naivety in handling the incident puts her in peril when Claire convinces her to take down the Vice President by falsely linking him to Tom’s death, an event that Claire herself caused. With convincing pathos, she tells Kelsey, “I’m not going to let the Vice President get away with this. You and I as women—we have to fight back. I need you by my side.”
Women’s anger and retaliation is a dominant theme in the show’s final season, and Claire Underwood (well, actually, Claire Hale—she uses her maiden name as president) is determined to make the White House a place for women to flourish in place of the men who, in Claire’s view, resent the very idea of a female president. She promotes Kelsey to press secretary and installs an all-female cabinet, all while making asides to the camera, as only a House of Cards anti-hero can, that she’ll undermine these female colleagues as she sees fit. In a complicated twist of feminism, Claire helps women advance politically by keeping them on the tightest of leashes.
PHOTO: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Devious as Claire is, Sieh believes that female villains like her are still worth celebrating. “I think it’s beautiful to watch women step into these roles that we love to hate. The scenes between Patricia Clarkson and Robin [Wright] are some of the most exciting moments of television that I’ve watched in a long time. And Diane Lane—she ends up plotting the assassination of the president. The most interesting part about feminism in this season is that power is the corrupter. Power and tyranny come in all the different forms imaginable,” she says.
When Kevin Spacey was removed from the show and Robin Wright took his place as star, many viewers noted that Claire was the more interesting Underwood all along. Her unshakeable focus and cold-as-ice demeanor were fascinating to watch, in part because they existed in the shadow of her husband. It wasn’t until the latter half of season five that Claire’s ambition surged past Frank toward the Oval Office. Now, in the show’s final season, Claire holds the reigns. But her presidency is exemplified by the same cruel narcissism as with her predecessor—only this time, those ominous footsteps you hear through the West Wing hallways are not the clomps of Frank’s wingtips, but the taps of Claire’s heels.
“Something I love about this season is the tropes of femininity,” Sieh says. “Like loving bags and hair and clothes—all these tribal ideas are turned on their heads.” In one climactic scene, Claire gives a Kelsey a purse while announcing that Kelsey’s role as press secretary will be temporarily silenced so Claire can control the messaging from the White House. “She hands me a purse,” Sieh says. “It’s the same purse [Claire] brought when she poisoned Tom Yates. For Kelsey, there’s this absurdity of a hyper-feminine interaction with Claire, who’s this bulldog.”
PHOTO: David Giesbrecht/Netflix
That scene, in which Claire says icily, “I’ll let you know when you need to speak,” leaves Kelsey stunned and heartbroken at realizing the true nature of her boss. With so much villainy, what is the show saying about a president who empowers women while underhandedly controlling them? Is empowerment even the right word?
“I think it is,” Sieh says. “How you behave or allow yourself to be manipulated or not, or keep your ideals intact, that’s the personal journey. But just being in the room is incredibly important.” In other words, Kelsey would eventually wizen up and figure out the system. “That’s where you get wisdom.”
When we speak, it’s the day before the midterm elections, and Sieh turns her thoughts to female representation in Washington. “I was just looking up how many female congresswomen there are,” she says. “There are only 23 female senators and only four women of color.” Within a day, more than 100 women would win seats in Congress, representing an array of ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. With hope, they’ll blend some of Claire’s savviness and Kelsey’s integrity. Surely both characters would be happy to hear more of those tapping sounds through the halls of Congress.
The final scene in A Star Is Born—in which Lady Gaga sings the powerful ballad “I’ll Never Love Again”—is more than enough to have anyone sobbing into their popcorn. But in case the movie didn’t leave you gutted enough, the real-life tragedy that occurred in Gaga’s life the same day she filmed the heartbreaking scene will have you crying all over again.
In a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Gaga revealed that while she was on set getting ready to shoot, she received news that one of her closest friends, Sonja Durham, was nearing the end of her battle with stage IV cancer. “On that day my friend Sonja—who had been battling cancer for years—her friend called me and I could hear her moaning in the background and she said she’s not doing well,” Gaga said. “And I thought she was dying, so I left the set.”
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The pop star says she didn’t even tell costar and director Bradley Cooper that she had left. “I just got in my car and started driving and I missed her by 10 minutes,” she said.
Gaga shared that she laid with Sonja’s son and husband, and consulted her friend’s widower about whether she should return to set. “He said, ‘You’ve gotta do what Sonja would want you to do,'” Gaga recalled. “She gave me a tragic gift that day and I took it with me to set, and I sang that song for Jackson and for her on that very same day within an hour.”
When she returned to set, she said, Cooper was kind and supportive in the wake of her loss. “Bradley was so beautiful with me that day, he was so loving. He was like, ‘You don’t have to do it too many times, it’s OK.’ And, I was like, ‘All I wanna do is sing, man,'” she said.
And so Gaga stepped in front of the camera and sang lyrics that had suddenly become even more poignant than they already are in the context of the film. “Wish I could, I could have said goodbye / I would have said what I wanted to, maybe even cried for you / If I knew it would be the last time / I would have broke my heart in two / Tryin’ to save a part of you,” she sings, per Genius.
In the interview, Gaga continued, “Life is hard, man, but we’ve gotta stick together. What’s more important than any of this, the fame, the accolades? What’s important is the process of love and kindness. I think the star of this film is human courage, bravery.”
