Kathryn Vanarendonk

New Jersey

TV Staff Writer at Vulture

critic @vulture, child wrangler. kathryn.vanarendonk @ https://t.co/6LbuHJVbFk - i'm hanging out more at bsky lately

Articles

Netflix Adaptation Is Timeless for Today

6 days ago | vulture.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

The mystique of Judy Blume’s 1975 novel Forever … lies in its frankness. Her depiction of two teens who fall in love and go on ski trips and slowly, gradually work their way from kissing to hand jobs and intercourse and orgasms hits at a precise, paradoxical point of what’s most shocking about teenage life: It is full of taboos, yet all those taboos are being broken all the time.
The Last of Us - TV Episode Recaps & News

3 weeks ago | vulture.com | Roxana Hadadi |Kathryn Vanarendonk |Joe Reid |Katie Heaney

When The Last of Us came out for the PlayStation 3 in 2013, critics and gamers alike hailed it as a new achievement for video games as a medium, praising not just the gameplay but its complex story that was closer to what you might expect from prestige TV than most games at the time. Now, a decade later, Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, creator of the game, have closed the loop, turning the game into a series for HBO.
Are You Happy With How You Watch TV?

3 weeks ago | vulture.com | Joe Adalian |Kathryn Vanarendonk

Last year — more than a decade after Netflix’s first binge-drop series, House of Cards, established a new mode of TV consumption, and with popular weekly release series such as Shōgun and Hacks on our minds — we started to wonder about the preferences that were settling in with modern TV viewers. Had the on-demand appeal of streaming’s binge releases achieved primacy? Was the traditional weekly rollout enjoying a cultural resurgence?
The Baldwins Almost Succeeded

1 month ago | vulture.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

Sometimes you nearly forget this exercise in crisis management was a wild miscalculation. At the conclusion of the eight-episode season of The Baldwins, the mind turns to contemplate what it just experienced. It is challenging — not because there’s nothing to reflect on, but because watching the full season of The Baldwins feels like entering a Hamptons-themed pinball machine.
‘The Pitt’ Creator Explains Finale, Season 2 Plans

1 month ago | vulture.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

As The Pitt shuts down season one, the next shift is taking shape for creator R. Scott Gemmill. “Fifteen episodes of our show is like 24 episodes of a regular season of television,” says The Pitt’s creator and showrunner, R. Scott Gemmill. “Fifteen episodes of our show is like 24 episodes of a regular season of television,” says The Pitt’s creator and showrunner, R. Scott Gemmill. The finale of The Pitt feels like an exhale.
The Last of Us Grows Up

1 month ago | vulture.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

Zombies are never just zombies. They’re metaphors for disease, as in World War Z, or for infectious emotional states like panic and fear, as in The Walking Dead. They can be exaggerated expressions of becoming a brainless follower zapped by digital life. Sometimes they’re classic “every human has a monster inside them” monsters.
‘The White Lotus’ Finale Didn’t Earn Laurie’s Speech: Review

1 month ago | vulture.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

Spoilers follow for The White Lotus season-three finale, “Amor Fati.” The pinnacle of The White Lotus’s third season could have been Laurie’s monologue. At dinner on the last night of their girls’ trip, Laurie, played by Carrie Coon, listens to her friends Jaclyn and Kate talk about how lovely the trip has been, how happy they are, and how it feels like they’ve finally come into a season of life where they can reap the rewards of their past choices. “My garden is in bloom,” Kate says.
The White Lotus Didn’t Earn It

1 month ago | gossipbucket.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

A big swirling bucket of the latest rumors, celebrity news and Hollywood gossip. The premier celebrity gossip app. The only apps that gives you a comprehensive real time celeb news stream. Gossip Bucket aggregates and streams the latest gossip news and headlines from the top sources in one place.
The White Lotus Didn’t Earn It

1 month ago | flipboard.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

2 hours ago“Chekhov’s blender,” the ghost of Tanya and a bloody end to a languid time in Thailand. The vacation’s over, White Lotus guests have been sent home in body bags, and we’re all out of lorazepam. If you don’t want spoilers, take a lesson from the monkey statues and hide your eyes right now. The third …
Netflix Medical Drama Dead on Arrival

1 month ago | vulture.com | Kathryn Vanarendonk

Pulse makes clear from its earliest shots that a critical percentage of its creative drive has been phoned in. As the Netflix medical drama begins, an oncoming hurricane causes a bus of student athletes to careen off a bridge into the ocean. The sequence looks like a poorly rendered outtake from a video game circa 2012, a bus-shaped object nose-diving into waveless water as one-dimensional storm clouds gather behind.