AMC’s new show Dietland
Dietland is based on a novel by Sarai Walker, in which our protagonist, Plum Kettle, suddenly finds herself in the midst of worldwide drama and intrigue centered around the weight-loss industry. Plum (Joy Nash) is a solitary young woman saving up for weight-loss surgery while ghostwriting letters for Kitty (Julianna Margulies). Then through a series of increasingly more bizarre encounters, she gets drawn into a shady conspiracy and starts to realize that perhaps her prospective weight loss has a lot more stacked against it than just the prospect of her eating less. Meanwhile, a feminist terrorist group called Jennifer is dropping dead male sexual predators out of the sky. It was a lot to take in when I binged the first three episodes, but now after episode four, I’m still curious about where this insane corkscrew plot is going to go, and straight-up captivated by Margulies hamming it up as uber-vain businesswoman Kitty. Catch up at amc.com (I’m also reading the novel, which is great.) [Gwen Ihnat]
Justice fra diavolo
This is the stuff that populates my Google News feed: A Connecticut woman was recently awarded more than $85,000 resulting from a plate of pasta that hit her in the face while she dined at a restaurant. The man behind the pasta flinging had aimed the dish at a man with whom he was arguing, but then he missed and hit the poor bystander. The assailant claims he was acting in “self-defense.” (I’d really like to hear more about that.) Why I’m mentioning this weird story, though, is because the carbohydrate in question was pasta fra diavolo, one of my favorites at the red-sauce joint in my hometown. I could really go for a plate of it now—not flung at my head, though. [Kate Bernot]