Castle 6.18 Review: "The Way of the Ninja"

Hulu’s very loose Four Weddings and a Funeral remake was (mostly) a delightful rom-com mini-series produced by Mindy Kaling. Taking the update of the 1994 film on its own, the show provided me with the warm, fuzzy, and not grim!dark TV feels I’ve been lacking recently. I really looked forward to it every week and think it mostly succeeded in fulfilling a hole in my TV viewing desires. It was a diverse show about love and relationships without the cloying and emotionally manipulative pulling of deeper emotions attempted by shows like This is Us (which I like), A Million Little Things (which I kinda gave up on), and The Village (which I hated the commercials for). But despite its diversity, both on screen and behind the camera, the show had a Duffy Problem.

2018 and the yea… two… several years prior have been ROUGH. And that’s a severe understatement. So I know myself, and many of my friends, are leaning heavily in the Christmas season this year. One way to do that is to sit with a blanket and a cup of cozy hot chocolate and watch cheesy Christmas movies. But usually these movies are alllll starring white people. I looked up several lists of this year’s Christmas romcoms and I saw more blondes than FOX News. (Some of them probably WATCH FOX News too…)
But thankfully, Lifetime, Netflix, and Hallmark (and, in a blessed update, TV One, BET Her, Freeform, and Bounce TV) have heard our cries and have finally provided some Christmas movies starring people of color. We celebrate Christmas and like seeing people fall in love too! There are a handful of titles on this list that look fun and cute and a great way to spend an afternoon, and hopefully more networks get on the bandwagon and every year we get more and more. (Also maybe some celebrating other holidays. Maybe I’ll write a Kwanzaa-themed romcom someday.) Until then, here’s what’s playing and where they’re airing. Leave a comment if I missed one!

This week’s Jane the Virgin review is up over on Just About Write!

In addition to raving about the episode and the differences between Team Michael (Team Snowflakes) vs Team Rafael (Team Flower Petals), I discuss the small ways in which series creator Jennie Urman empowers women in all aspects of her show. From it being a woman-led series, to she herself being the showrunner, Urman also laces the Miami telenovela industry with powerful women. Here’s a screenshot of what I wrote:

It’s important for shows that proclaim powerful women or proclaim diversity also show it behind the scenes. Practice what you preach.