Two Netflix shows and approximately ten Canadian children's books

My latest interests

Hi everyone!

I’ve been busy with various things, and so it took a minute before I had amassed three things to celebrate in this newsletter. But then I discovered that one of my favourite shows had returned for a new season (without telling me???), and that’s the third thing, so let’s do this!

Thing 1: The Mole (Netflix, season 2)

I am an OG watcher of the reality competition series The Mole, back from the olde timey days when Anderson Cooper hosted this on ABC (tell me I’m not the only one who remembers classics like Burn Bags Burn and Anderson’s Funhouse?). Anyway, this series came back last year on Netflix, and a second season is just wrapping up this week!

The premise is similar to yet better than (yes, I said it) The Traitors. On The Mole, 12 ordinary American people are striving to win money. But one of the twelve is The Mole: a secret production plant whose job is to mess up their missions. All twelve people perform various reality show-type “missions” to add money to the prize pot. The Mole tries to make the prize pot as small as possible (because The Mole is paid a set amount for being on the show, and they don’t care how much the prize pot will contain).

At the end of each mission, the players complete a quiz of who they think The Mole is. Whoever scores lowest is booted from the show. This is where the show is better than my beloved The Traitors. On The Mole, the smartest people/best game players stick around to the end because that’s how the show is designed. On The Traitors, The Traitors themselves can eliminate the smartest people/best game players early, leaving that series with various sad finales where the most naive/trusting/worst game players are shocked to find out they’ve been manipulated all season.

Anyway, 7/10 episodes of season two of The Mole are on Netflix now, and the finale comes out this Friday!! It’s great. Super recommend. I'm always happy to see a new season of this, the best show.

Thing 2: Bodkin (on Netflix)

Bodkin is a recent Netflix limited series that I first heard about from Karyn Moynihan, who is an Irish person and, therefore, whose opinion I value when it comes to Ireland-based things (here is her review of Lindsay Lohan’s Irish Wish, for instance).

So Bodkin is similar thematically to my beloved Only Murders in the Building, in that it’s ostensibly about the making of a podcast, but it’s really about murder and people achieving self-actualization. Both shows, by the way, absolutely portray the true embarrassment that comes when a podcaster reveals to other people they are doing a podcast. I’ve been in that game for five years now, and I’m proud of my show, but it is a cringe thing to have to say to people, and it is definitely true that the response is often, “Oh, do people listen to that?”.

But I digress. SNL’s Will Forte plays the podcaster in Bodkin, and he visits the titular Irish town to investigate some mysterious disappearances that happened there 25 years ago. Accompanying him is ambitious research assistant Emmy (Robyn Cara) and hardboiled, sunglasses-wearing journalist Dove (Siobhán Cullen). Do all three of them have their own secret dark secrets? Yes. Does the town of Bodkin resent their presence and not want them to solve the mystery? Yes. Are there an alarming amount of eels in this series? Also yes.

It’s a fantastic series in a dark humour way, a bit like the movie The Banshees of Inisherin but less bleak (and with less finger-chopping-off) (though one digit does not survive the series).

Thing 3: Gordon Korman’s Oeuvre From 1981-1990

I was recently a guest on Worst Bestsellers, a podcast that usually talks about shitty books but, in the summer, talks about great books from childhood. I chose to discuss Gordon Korman’s 1984 book No Coins, Please, and you can listen to the episode here.

As I repeatedly say in this podcast episode, I was raised by Gordon Korman books. I read and re-read these at least annually through most of my childhood and adolescence. Re-reading No Coins, Please and how much I enjoyed it has inspired me to re-read his other older books as well, and they’re all such a delight. Korman wrote his first book, This Can’t be Happening at MacDonald Hall, when he was fourteen. And his early books all have this chaotic brilliance that I genuinely appreciate.

In looking at his oeuvre, I stop being familiar with his books after 1990’s Losing Joe’s Place, so that’s where I’ll stop my re-reading project. Korman has continued (and continues!) writing books, and the newer ones are fun, but without that nostalgic edge that I find so much comfort in.

His older books can be tricky to find, though I got several from my local public library. Several are also available as eBooks. You can also find many, including No Coins, Please, on the Internet Archive.

If Gordon Korman's books from the 1980s aren’t your nostalgic thing, I recommend finding your favourite books from childhood and just leaning into them and enjoying them again. These books are also well structured, so I appreciate them in a new way as a now-adult writer. Plus, they’re so funny.

xo Ann