Inkoo Kang
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Television critic @newyorker. Pronounced in-goo. Find me at the other place and/or get updates from me: inkoo.substack.com/
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Articles by Inkoo Kang
“Tip Toe” Is a Rare Outcry Against Social Revanchism
Early in the new miniseries “Tip Toe,” two older gay men debate how worried they should be as homophobia surges in the U.K. Leo Struthers (Alan Cumming), the owner of a bar in Manchester’s storied queer quarter, asks his longtime friend Melba (Paul Rhys) whether the vintage intolerance of the nineteen-nineties seems to be coming around again. “It’s back, you fucking idiot,” Melba responds.
What to Do in N.Y.C. This Winter
The holiday blitz seems to be creeping up earlier every year—and there’s plenty of cheer to go around at venues across the city in the next couple of months. (We see you, “A Kidman Carol.”) But winter is also a time to settle in for serious entertainment.
“Tip Toe” Is a Rare Outcry Against Social Revanchism
Reality TV 9 hours ago ‘The Traitors: New Blood’ Episode 8 Recap: Who Is the Pardon Power Winner? TODAY - Ariana Brockington • 9h Host Alan Cumming surprised the players with a midday Round Table as more Faithfuls became suspicious of one Traitor. Warning: Spoilers from “The Traitors: New Blood” Episode 8 below… “Fruit-gate” is being put to rest at last.
“Slow Horses,” Apple TV’s Best Show, Retains Its Pungent Relevance
What does a spy story smell like? The genre, oft beloved by its fans for its cerebral chill, tends to evoke the same stock scents: the burnt rubber of a car chase, the lingering gun smoke after a firefight. “Slow Horses,” Apple TV’s darkly comic espionage drama about a division of MI5 where the screwups and sluggards get sent, takes care to develop a scent profile like few shows ever do; its base notes include old socks, unrefrigerated takeout, and farts.
“Slow Horses,” Apple TV’s Best Show, Retains Its Pungent Relevance
13 hours ago After delivering a cliffhanger ending in season 6, fans of Slow Horses are wondering how the story could continue once season 7 rolls around. The fans are in luck—the MI5 agents of Slough House are clocking back in for another season, and the franchise doesn’t seem to be headed for an end anytime …
What to Read if You Loved “East of Eden”
Of the sixteen novels that John Steinbeck published before his death, in 1968, “East of Eden” was his favorite. “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this,” he said of the multigenerational epic, which follows two families in the author’s agrarian home town of Salinas, California.
Zoe Kazan’s Heady and Bighearted “East of Eden”
These epic strokes rarely stir the heart. The show thrives instead in the interpersonal details, particularly in the many small hurts that develop into injuries to the soul. Letts makes the most of his brief screen time as a manipulator whose petty genius lies in creating an artificial scarcity for his affections. Adam and Charles’s shared fear that they are their father’s second choice curdles into rage at one another—a schism made permanent after the arrival of Cathy.
Sharon Horgan, Autofiction Auteur
Horgan spoke to me over Zoom from her London home, where she lives with her dog and a couple of “chatty” cats; in keeping with her autobiographical style, she filmed scenes from “Youth” nearby. We spoke about how she got the show green-lit despite never officially pitching it, about growing older with her series, and about how her approach to autofiction has shifted throughout her career. Our conversation has been edited and condensed. How did “Youth” come about?
“My Brilliant Career” Was the Sleeper Hit of the Summer
In the recent TV adaptation of the classic Australian novel “My Brilliant Career,” from 1901, a childhood of running, swimming, and speaking freely in the bush comes to an abrupt end. Sybylla Melvyn (Philippa Northeast), the dreamy eldest child of a large, mostly female brood, is told by her mother early in the pilot that arrangements have been made for her to go live with her maternal grandmother (Anna Chancellor), a society matron whom the young woman has never met.
In “Adults,” Gen Z Gets the Hangout Sitcom It Deserves
The married creators of “Adults,” Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, seem well aware of the lineage of their series. (At one point, a character played by the “Girls” star Zosia Mamet asks one of the protagonists, “You think you’re the first people to be young and adorable in New York?”) Perhaps that’s why the pair has striven to create fresh archetypes.
What to Do in New York City This Fall
As the breeze cools down, the culture season heats up, with many new shows confronting our current moment, alongside escapist entertainments that may just help us forget. Social media and tech billionaires seem to be on artists’ minds, with a television reboot of “Carrie” for the Snapchat age; the playwright Anne Washburn’s take on a Texan TikToker; Alex Gibney’s documentary about a certain Tesla mogul; and Aaron Sorkin’s fictional uncovering of the dark underbelly of Facebook Likes.
“Furious” Is a Crime Drama for a Post-Epstein World
The first episode of “Furious” ends with a date from hell. It’s a late night in Manhattan, and Oliver (Rob Delaney) is a wealthy, middle-aged lawyer and a walking assemblage of red flags. Between lines of coke, he yammers on to Catherine (Lola Petticrew), the young server he’s just picked up, about how his ex-wife’s incessant chatter led to the end of their marriage, and how she should’ve made more allowances for his sex addiction.
Goings On Newsletter
New Yorker subscribers get an exclusive curated reading list, plus unlimited access to our seasonal previews and more. If you’re not already a subscriber, join us today » In today’s newsletter, Julio Torres’s sea wench. Plus: • We’ve entered the age of broke TV • The divine red-carpet looks of “The Odyssey” press tour • Who is the dumbest celebrity?
Welcome to the Age of Broke TV
The FX drama “The Bear,” which began with the chef Carmy Berzatto’s dream of transforming his late brother’s sandwich shop into a fine-dining destination, has always been concerned with the precarity of the restaurant business. But in its final season, which aired last month, it dialled up the financial pressure as never before, leaving characters scrambling for solvency both in and out of the kitchen.
How Tina Fey Wrote the Most Realistic—and Optimistic—Marriage on TV
Long before the term heteropessimism was coined, Tina Fey made the sentiment a staple of her comedy on “30 Rock.” Her quasi-autobiographical heroine, Liz Lemon, was the chronically single head writer of a “Saturday Night Live”-like sketch show, and a woman who rarely minded being overworked and undersexed.
A Wondrous Array of Boundary Pushers at SummerStage
This year, City Parks Foundation SummerStage celebrates its landmark fortieth anniversary by bringing a wide and wondrous array of free shows to more than a dozen parks across the five boroughs, including Central Park. With the festival already in full swing, many of the most exciting acts are yet to come.
Goings On Newsletter
New Yorker subscribers get an exclusive curated reading list, plus unlimited access to our seasonal previews and more. If you’re not already a subscriber, join us today » In today’s newsletter, “Greater New York” takes the pulse of the city. Plus: • How TV portrays sex work • Films at Cannes, ranked from best to worst • What’s missing from Belle Burden’s “Strangers” A still from “Down the Barrel (of a Lens),” from 2023.
The Stories That TV Tells About Online Sex Work
Much of the emotional potency of the show’s début season came from Levinson’s canny, perhaps even prescient, channelling of Zoomer doomerism. Multiple story lines channelled the anxiety that the internet may be uniquely bad for teen-age girls, who hooked up with suspect men, got catfished, and had their nudes leaked.
Summer Culture Preview
Ballet Stars, Dance Parties In summertime, the city develops a new personality: open, relaxed, even, at times, outdoorsy. Each year, the plaza at Lincoln Center goes through a vernal transformation, its formal granite parterre converted to a busy dance floor with twinkling lights, part of the center’s Summer for the City programming. Free nightly dance parties happen there from June 10 to Aug. 8 (often with headphones, so as not to disturb performances at the nearby theatres).
“The Audacity” Is a Brutal Silicon Valley Satire with an Agenda
Midway through my watch of the new tech-satire series “The Audacity,” I received an e-mail from Google that I had received many times before. My personal data had been found online, it said. This time, it was my phone number; previously, it had been more private information. The most I could do, it seemed, was ask Google to remove the offending pages from its search results, one by one, over months, then years. I wish I could say I was more bothered.
“Half Man” Tests the Limits of Brotherly Love
“Half Man” is a grimmer affair than Gadd’s previous series, “Baby Reindeer,” a fictionalized account of his experience being aggressively stalked by a woman for four years. The most potent material in the new show is connected to themes he explored there as well: internalized homophobia, the sexual assault of men, and the evasion of blame.
How the Creator of “Beef” Got from Petty Feuds to Class Warfare
When the Netflix anthology series “Beef” premièred, in 2023, it was a revelation in more ways than one. The show, which traced the depths into which two Angelenos descend after a road-rage incident, reintroduced Ali Wong as a dramatic lead, gave Steven Yeun a chance to go darkly comic, and shined a rare light on the issue of Asian American mental health.
How the Creator of “Beef” Got from Petty Feuds to Class Warfare
When the Netflix anthology series “Beef” premièred, in 2023, it was a revelation in more ways than one. The show, which traced the depths into which two Angelenos descend after a road-rage incident, reintroduced Ali Wong as a dramatic lead, gave Steven Yeun a chance to go darkly comic, and shined a rare light on the issue of Asian American mental health.
“Big Mistakes” Is a Crime Show for the Girls and the Gays
At the start of the new comedic thriller “Big Mistakes,” the lives of Nicky Dardano (Dan Levy), a quasi-closeted pastor, and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega), an elementary-school teacher, are far from ideal. That’s before Morgan steals a necklace from a chintzy gift shop run by a Turkish gangster named Yusuf, who proceeds to kidnap the pair, intimidate them at gunpoint, and threaten their family, forcing them to perform an array of odd jobs to make up for the petty theft.
“Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” and Age of the Prestige Prank Show
Three years ago, the quasi-scripted comedy “Jury Duty,” an unassuming offering on the now defunct streaming service Freevee, became a social-media sensation through its particular brand of gentle brazenness. Its creators, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, Frankensteined the series by stitching together two moribund TV genres—the mockumentary sitcom and the prank show—to construct something new, if still lumbering.
The Self-Serving Seduction of "Vladimir"
Like "Lolita," the new campus comedy "Vladimir" takes its title from the object of its protagonist's delusional obsession. The series' Vladimir, played by Leo Woodall, is a rising literary star and a young father who's just arrived at a sleepy upstate college, where he and his wife are set to teach. More relevant to his new colleague, M (Rachel Weisz), a creative-writing professor, he is also fantastically hard-bodied, as dedicated to his gains at the gym as he is to the life of the mind.
The Shocking Season 4 Finale of "Industry"
The fourth season of HBO's "Industry" has been a gruesome one for the show's fan favorites (spoilers ahead!), with one character, Rishi, breaking both his ankles after a coke-fuelled jump off a balcony, and another, Eric, exiling himself from public life after a corporate sting catches him on tape with a sex worker who turned out to be underage.
Our Spring Culture Picks
Snow be gone! It’s time for the spring air to give us energy and hope as we head out to a new slate of shows around town. As might be expected, the culture is steeped with foreboding, offering a reflection of the national mood: a second installment of the TV series “Beef,” which takes personal grievance to new heights; Kaija Saariaho’s opera “Innocence,” at the Met, about the lingering trauma of a school shooting; the Whitney Biennial, a survey of artists responding to the American experiment.
"Industry" Is a Study in Wasted Youths
At first glance, the HBO financial drama "Industry" would seem to fall neatly in line with the network's other programming about the wretchedly wealthy. Its first three seasons followed the ups and downs of young, improbably good-looking bankers in a London built almost entirely of glass, brick, and blow, their worst impulses spurred on by a corporate culture of excess.
“Industry” Is a Study in Wasted Youths
1 hour ago There has been a lot of attention paid to the new Trump Accounts – especially the promised $1,000 federal government contributions for eligible newborns and the public declarations by companies and philanthropists that they will be making contributions, too. But the fine print on exactly how the …
In "Riot Women," the Punks Are All Grown Up
The British drama "Riot Women" begins with a blackly comic suicide attempt. Beth (Joanna Scanlan), a teacher on what she calls "the wrong side of fifty," burdened by loneliness, depression, and the incessant needs of others, pours herself a stiff drink and steps up to the noose she's hung from the rafters of her airy farmhouse. Then the phone rings: her ungrateful brother, making demands. She tries again-another ring, another request, this time from a friend. She plays the piano, doesn't she?
TV Review: Ryan Murphy’s “The Beauty,” on FX and Hulu on Disney+
In the new Ryan Murphy horror thriller “The Beauty,” a virus turns its hosts into perfect physical specimens overnight. Men wake up with rippling biceps, Hawaiian-roll abs, and the kind of jawline even other men notice. Women emerge youthful and thin (of course), with Disney-princess eyes and movie-star lips.
The Extremely Online Bona Fides of “I Love L.A.”
In Sunday’s season finale of “I Love L.A.,” Los Angeles is blamed for getting between the show’s protagonist, Maia (Rachel Sennott), and her live-in boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson). After their relationship falls apart, Maia, an aspiring talent manager, absconds to New York with her only client, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), a party girl turned influencer, so that the pair can attend a fashion dinner that will increase Tallulah’s profile.
The Best TV Shows of 2025
Fourteen years ago, Emily Nussbaum, one of my esteemed predecessors in the TV-critic chair, notoriously titled her Top Ten list “I Hate Top Ten Lists.” I’ve seldom felt the same. I’m not much of a holiday person, but, for most of the time that I’ve been a working critic, I’ve loved the end-of-year ritual of sorting the so-so from the superb and the overhyped from the justly praised, pruning my favorites down to a most-deserving few.
The Obliging Apocalypse of “Pluribus”
Even before her fellow-humans’ contamination, Carol didn’t seem to have much use for them. She spent her days churning out best-selling romances that she deemed “mindless crap” and harbored a corresponding contempt for her fans, hiding both her queerness and her more serious literary ambitions in a bid for broader appeal. A certified misanthrope, she makes no attempt to check in on friends or family after the initial catastrophe; Helen aside, it’s not clear whether she has any.
Shows to Watch While Navigating the Holidays
All happy families are alike; every unhappy family, well, that’s a different story. With the holidays rapidly approaching, Inkoo Kang has some suggestions for television shows about family dynamics to help us navigate our own. Plus: • Can Iceland’s geothermal power save the rest of us? It’s impossible not to think about family as we head into the holiday season. This is the time of year when we’re faced with the joys and the obligations of kinship.
“Death by Lightning” Dramatizes the Assassination America Forgot
History is littered with examples of the havoc wreaked by politicians’ will to power. No wonder, then, that voters cling to the fantasy of the self-effacing candidate—the kind who demonstrates his worthiness of the office by not wanting it at all.
Winter Culture Previews
You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. With November comes the onset of 4 P.M. darkness, not to mention the cold—but venues across the city this winter will emanate light and heat.
What Hollywood Is Missing About A.I.
In 2025, A.I. seems to pop up on TV nearly as often as it does in real life. On the hospital-mockumentary sitcom “St. Denis Medical,” a curmudgeonly physician resents the unerring faith that a patient has in his A.I. diagnostic tool. In the high-school-set comedy “English Teacher,” an idealistic educator campaigns for “smart” trash cans, only to discover that the new camera-equipped bins are part of an elaborate data-harvesting scheme.
The Safe Space of “Good Hang with Amy Poehler”
Amy Poehler may be the most-liked woman in Hollywood. Her latest project, the mega-popular podcast “Good Hang with Amy Poehler,” certainly encourages that impression. It’s perhaps her biggest platform since the hit series “Parks and Recreation,” in which she played the idealistic bureaucrat Leslie Knope, went off the air a decade ago.
“The Lowdown” Is a Noir for Our Era
Some actors you can watch doing the same thing over and over again. Cary Grant built a career on smirking suavity; Cate Blanchett has made an art form of falling apart with tragic intensity. Lately, Ethan Hawke has joined their ranks: the onetime Gen X heartthrob has reinvented himself in middle age as a character actor with impeccable taste in auteurist projects. His specialty is now the heedless hero whose certainty about his righteousness drives him to extremes.
“The Lowdown” Is a Noir for Our Era
Unexpected: ChatGPT and the Return of God What has been seen by many as the coming secular triumph over God, is now concluding that in fact, God must exist. This article is republished from …
How Donald Trump’s Culture-Wars Playbook Felled Jimmy Kimmel
On Wednesday, bowing to pressure from the Trump Administration, ABC pulled the late-night series “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air. The show, which had run for more than two decades, was shelved indefinitely over a monologue addressing the murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk—one in which Kimmel did not disparage Kirk, nor, indeed, comment on him at all.
“The Paper” Is Old News
The Toledo Truth-Teller, the fictional broadsheet at the center of the new comedy “The Paper,” lives in the shadow of its past. A half century ago, the publication had more than a thousand people on its payroll, including a hundred journalists dedicated solely to Buckeye politics; today, it occupies less than one floor of the multi-story Romanesque Revival building that bears its name.
“And Just Like That . . . ,” Carrie Bradshaw Bids an Unsatisfying Farewell
On Thursday, the third and final season of “And Just Like That . . . ,” the sequel series to “Sex and the City,” came to an unceremonious end. The episode takes place over Thanksgiving, but the central quintet does not celebrate the holiday together, with only Carrie joining Miranda on a minor-milestone day: the first time that Miranda’s grown son Brady, now expecting his own child with a woman he barely knows, assumes turkey-dinner duties for his makeshift tribe.
Fall Culture Preview
You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. As you catch those last golden rays of summer, here’s something to look forward to: fall culture. Great art (and even not so great art) can soothe and buoy even the most beleaguered souls. Here’s hoping this season is no exception—our critics have gathered the most exciting cultural happenings in our fall preview.
“And Just Like That . . . ,” Carrie Bradshaw Bids an Unsatisfying Farewell
And Just Like That… Ends on an Anticlimactic Note Carrie finally embraces her singlehood in a nod to Sex and the City’s roots. But does it work? Spoilers below. And just like that, it’s over. I couldn’t help but wonder…did I even enjoy that? And if I found myself hate-watching this Sex and the City reboot, like many other fans, why am I sad it’s …
Hollywood’s Conservative Pivot
“King of the Hill,” the animated sitcom that first ran for thirteen Americana-powered seasons between 1997 and 2010, had a deceptively simple premise. The family at its heart collectively represented the median of their suburban Texas milieu: the middle-aged Hank Hill was an uptight fusspot who clung to old-fashioned virtues; his sparkplug wife, Peggy, balked at being labelled a feminist; and their preteen son, Bobby, searched for alternatives to his parents’ cultural inertia.
Conor McPherson’s Reliable Treasure
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Conor McPherson’s small 1997 masterwork “The Weir” has been one of the most reliable treasures of the Irish Repertory Theatre. First directed by Ciarán O’Reilly in 2013, revived in 2015, and released as a digital performance in 2020, O’Reilly’s exquisite production returns again this summer (through Aug. 31). It’s shrewd counter-programming for these sweltering days: McPherson’s play, set in rural Ireland, shivers with sudden gusts of storm.
By Helen Shaw Verified, Jane Bua Verified, Inkoo Kang Verified, Sheldon Pearce Verified, Brian Seibert, Richard Brody Verified, Taran Dugal
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The New Yorker
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“Too Much” Remixes the Rom-Com
Starting over in New York is a cliché for a reason; so is starting over by leaving it behind. Lena Dunham, who became the poster child for a certain kind of Brooklyn millennial during the run of her first series, “Girls,” recently reflected on her “breakup” with the city in this magazine. Now she’s returned to television with “Too Much,” a romantic comedy about rediscovering oneself by saying goodbye to all that. The show’s protagonist, Jess (Megan Stalter), has little reason to stick around.
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