The Washington Post - 23.08.2019

C4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 , 2019

ACROSS
1 Irrigation need
5 ’90s trade pact
10 “Go no further!”
14 Heart
15 “... __ player, /
That struts and
frets his hour
upon the stage”:
Macbeth
16 Lake near
Carson City
17 Gratitude for
a well-played
role?
20 Papal
messenger
21 On the other
side of: Abbr.
22 Enzyme suffix
23 Unscrupulous
25 Youthful maiden
of myth
27 Crackin’, peelin’
and fadin’?
31 Clean, as greens
32 Newton
honorific
33 LGBT
History Mo.
34 ’60s campus gp.
35 Start growing
37 Hem partner
40 Asian language
42 Hammer site
43 Kofi Annan’s
birthplace
45 Couples
therapist?
49 Like Macbeth
in “Macbeth”
50 Jumpy
51 Jeff Lynne
rock gp.
52 HP product
53 Hit
55 Extreme
example of
layering for cold
weather?
60 Discrete things
61 Poetry Muse
62 Fruit with fuzz
63 First name in
Latin bands
64 “Holy cow!”
65 Venerable col-
lege that owns a
river island

DOWN
1 Angel dust,
briefly
2 Investment
option, briefly

3 Misappropriates

4 Nonresident

doctors

5 Controversial

combat

material

6 Cal. entry

7 Golf alert

8 Golf club part

9 Understood

by few

10 Seuss title top

11 “Aloha __”:

Hawaiian “Good

evening” that

sounds like a

repeated fish

12 Ease

13 Principle

16 Lighting area?

18 Patterned

mineral

19 Lidocaine

brand endorsed

by Shaq

23 Car loan nos.

24 Hotel employee

26 Mil. rank

28 Comcast, e.g.:

Abbr.

29 Warning

sound

30 Wide-ranging

35 “You’re not the

only one!”

36 Ocean State sch.

37 Like some

homemade

sweaters

38 Rare blood type,

briefly

39 Word with

hard or soft

40 Lucy of

“Elementary”

41 Bygone HBO

series about a

sports agent

43 Generate

44 Southern

cornmeal

fare

45 “Ecce homo”

speaker

46 Makes up (for)

47 Scottish

archipelago

48 Ancient statuary

fragments

49 Unenthusiastic

53 Cinch

54 Parisian bean?

56 “That’s quite

enough”

57 “Do it, __ will!”

58 What a V-sign

probably means

in a restaurant

59 Envy, say

LA TIMES CROSSWORD By Jeffrey Wechsler

THURSDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION

© 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 8/23/19

Dear Carolyn: I

recently started

working longer

hours, and it gets

exhausting. I used

to hang out with

my friends — who

are very dear to

me — every day

after work, but

now I’m too tired to stay up late

like before. They are aware my

hours changed but continue to

call, text and even come by my

house.

I often tell them I have more

work to do — I don’t — because I

don’t want to offend them by

telling them I would rather

watch “The Office” and go to bed

than hang out with them.

Is my lying and laziness

justified, or should I just get over

myself and go with them?

— Lazy Liar

Lazy Liar: The laziness is so

justified that it’s not even

laziness. It’s called fatigue, and it

deserves respect.

Your “very dear” friends

deserve respect, too, so go out or

don’t go out — whatever you

need to do — but either way, stop

lying to them! Please.

“Sorry, I prefer reruns to your

company” is hardly the only way

to deliver an honest “no.”

Just have a general, ground-

laying conversation where you

make it clear you value them,

miss them, but on workdays have

no energy left to see them. Then

echo that language to respond to

specific invitations (“Sorry,

wiped out”). Consistency is a

stealth defense against hard

feelings.

You can give the people who

drop by the same I’m-wiped-out

answer, or you can invite them in

for short visits. Rest is essential,

but letting friendships languish

is a health risk of a different sort,

so there is an argument for the

occasional “get over myself ”

rally. Just make sure you’re good

at drawing and holding lines on

when it’s time to get your sleep.

“Everybody out, bedtime,” has its

charms.

You could also turn! off! your!

phone! since everyone should be

doing that anyway. But that’s a

rant for another day.

Hi, Carolyn: A group of us

moms has been friends since our

sons, now 30, were young. We

moms still get together, but it’s

tough because of “Cyndi.” She

only wants to go out for lunch at

terrible restaurants she chooses;

her picks have no healthy

choices, bad service, and are

sometimes dirty.

We feel sorry for Cyndi

because her husband died when

our kids were in high school, and

her son coped with drug abuse.

Despite interventions, he

remains addicted, can’t keep a

job and disappears for months.

We suggest inexpensive,

healthy alternatives, taking turns

choosing, but Cyndi refuses.

Some of us work, so a group

lunch out takes effort. She

doesn’t have money issues. We

went without her once, and she

was crushed.

After lunch yesterday, I got

sick from the greasy food

(again!). We feel like she’s taking

advantage. Help!

— Nauseous

Nauseous: That’s because she is

taking advantage — of your pity-

based unwillingness to say no.

Whoever’s turn it is picks a

restaurant, and that’s where you

go. No debate. Including when

it’s Cyndi’s turn. If Cyndi opts out

of others’ choices, then that’s on

her.

It has nothing to do with

grease or guilt. There’s no drama

in a cheerfully unyielding, take-

or-leave-it, rotating system of

date, restaurant, time — which

you introduce as a way to cut the

planning workload, and support

for which you obtain from the

rest in advance.

Write to Carolyn Hax at

[email protected]. Get her

column delivered to your inbox each

morning at wapo.st/haxpost.

 Join the discussion live at noon

Fridays at live.washingtonpost.com

A tired and true response to invitations

Carolyn

Hax

NICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

This show, which shares both
the outre mood of AMC’s superb
“Lodge 49” (currently in its sec-
ond season) and the criminal lure
of FX’s “Fargo,” is drenched in the
idea that life is one big sham.
Amid so much TV escapism, I
adore its steadfast and believable
cynicism.
Kirsten Dunst, so memorable
in “Fargo’s” second season, gives
another fantastic performance
here as Krystal Stubbs, a new
mother whose alcoholic husband,
Travis (Alexander Skarsgard), has
quit his office job to devote his life
to FAM (Founders American Mer-
chandise), an Amway-esque
multilevel marketing scheme.
Travis is utterly suckered into
the strategy of selling FAM-
branded household goods while
recruiting gullible others (known
as “downliners”) to join the sales
force, motivating them to order
more stock and recruit still more
salespeople, while brainwashing
them with costly, FAM-generated
cassette tapes that contain lec-
tures of self-determined gobble-
dygook.
Hounded by his obnoxious
“upline” supervisor, Cody Bonar
(Théodore Pellerin), an exhaust-
ed and delusional Travis finally
falls asleep at the wheel and
meets an untimely demise when
his car plunges into a swamp and
he’s devoured by an alligator.
That’s not a spoiler so much as
a setup, as a grieving and now-
penniless Krystal turns her rage
first toward the alligators (shoot-
ing them and then butchering
and storing their meat in her
spare freezer) and then toward
the phony-baloney FAM and the
surplus of its merchandise that’s
stacked in her garage.
Once derided by Travis as a
“stinker thinker” for her skepti-
cism about FAM, Krystal belated-
ly discovers that Travis lost all
their money and took out a sec-
ond mortgage to elevate his sta-
tus in the program’s vaunted
clique of sales tiers. At the center
of the scheme, a guru named Obie
Garbeau II (Ted Levine), is blind-

TV REVIEW FROM C1 ly worshiped by Cody and other
top sellers.
Krystal, a former Miss All-
Terrain Vehicle pageant winner
and outspoken employee at a
fading water park, tries to miti-
gate her losses with a FAM-
stocked yard sale, but she’s quick-
ly shut down by Cody, who in-
forms her the merchandise can be
sold only through official FAM
protocols. Facing foreclosure on
everything from her house to the
braces on her teeth (which she
removes with nothing more than
a bottle of Scotch and a pair of
needle-nose pliers), Krystal de-
cides to join FAM rather than
fight it.
But even here her ingenuity is
thwarted, when FAM shuts down
her efforts to recruit her downlin-
ers to her jubilant water-aerobics
classes at the park. As Cody tries
to lure Krystal further into FAM,
she decides to take control and
thwart the company from within.
She’s a fierce and fascinating anti-
hero, willing to do just about
anything to keep a roof over her
head and her baby daughter fed.
In a fit of resentment, Krystal
unwittingly recruits her sweet
next-door neighbor and water-
park manager, Ernie (“Getting
On’s” Mel Rodriguez), into FAM,
and he, in turn, elevates Krystal
and Cody’s status by recruiting
Spanish-speaking members of his
church. Rodriguez gives an ach-
ingly beautiful performance, fully
expressing the range of Ernie’s
private anxieties and outward
hopefulness. Beth Ditto, who
plays Ernie’s wife, Bets, just about
equals his performance, and to-
gether their characters give the
series both a moral anchor and a
place to unload our sympathies —
something that so many similarly
twisted TV dramas forget to do.
As both a period piece and a
sendup of a certain Floridian
soullessness, “On Becoming a
God” (created by Robert Funke
and Matt Lutsky, with Esta Spald-
ing as showrunner) has a master-
ful sense of authenticity and re-
straint. The 1990s are a welcome
sight after countless recent TV
shows set in the ’80s. The timing

seems right, as do the atmos-

pheric details — there’s even a

brief appearance from a glad-

handing Vice President Dan

Quayle (Joe Knezevich) in full

reelection campaign mode.

As I readily binged the entire

season’s worth of episodes (10 in

all), I kept thinking of that

strange man whose infomercials

used to haunt late-night TV in the

’90s, as he would babble on about

real estate and “tiny, classified

ads.” Yes, Don Lapre. I had to

Google him to fully recall. He’s

dead — cut his own throat in jail

in 2011, awaiting trial on federal

fraud charges.

“On Becoming a God” wallows

in that sort of world, and while it

gets a tad shaggy toward the

finale (which exits on a convinc-

ing bid for a second season, with-

out being a cliffhanger), a strong

theme of distrust and suspicion

carries through, along with a

warning: Beware the charlatans

in your lives. Unfriend the Face-

book acquaintance hawking her

“pharmaceutical grade” essential

oils. Say no to the sales pitch.

Scrutinize the Sunday sermon.

Don’t answer calls from unknown

numbers. Steer clear of gurus.

Check your credit. Avoid Florida.

Better yet, avoid everything.

Snakes are out there and always

have been.

[email protected]

On Becoming a God in Central

Florida (45 minutes) premieres

Sunday at 10 p.m. on Showtime.

The rats down the

road from Mickey

PHOTOS BY PATTI PERRET/SONY/SHOWTIME

ABOVE: Kirsten Dunst stars as

Krystal Stubbs, who leads a

joyous water aerobics class at

splash park, in “On Becoming a

God in Central Florida.” LEFT:

Mel Rodriguez and Beth Ditto

as her neighbors, who get

drawn into a marketing scam.

As both a period piece

and a sendup of a

certain Floridian

soullessness, “On

Becoming a God” has a

masterful sense of

authenticity and

restraint.