48 February 7 • 2019
jn

ON THE SMALL SCREEN
Miracle Workers, a comedy, starts Feb. 12 
(10:30 p.m.) on TBS. Daniel Radcliffe, 
29, (Harry Potter) stars as 
Craig, a low-level angel 
responsible for handling all of 
humanity’
s prayers. His boss, 
God (Steve Buscemi), spends 
most of his time on his 
hobbies rather than attending 
to mankind’
s problems. The 
series is based on a novel by 
Simon Rich, 34. He’
s the son 
of Frank Rich, 69, the former 
New York Times theater 
critic and opinion columnist 
who now writes for New 
York magazine. As I’
ve noted 
before, Radcliffe’
s mother 
is Jewish, and he identifi
 es 
as Jewish although he isn’
t 
religious. 

AT THE MOVIES 
Cold Pursuit is an action 
thriller with a lot of irreverent 
comic lines. Nels Coxman 
(Liam Neeson) works for Ke-
hoe, a small town. He keeps 
its roads plowed during its 
long winters. Coxman and 
his wife (Laura Dern) are 
devastated by the death 
of their son, who probably 
was involved with drug 
dealers. Coxman turns into a 
vigilante, killing one-by-one 
the associates of a drug lord 
he believes caused his son’
s 
death. Sometimes he uses 
his snowplow. 
Emmy Rossum, 32, plays 
Kim, a rookie Kehoe police 
offi
 cer who doesn’
t have 
much to do until dead bodies 
start turning up everywhere. 
Rossum is best known as the 
co-star of the hit Showtime 
series Shameless. She 
announced last August that 
she would leave the show at 
the end of its ninth season. 
Her last new episodes began 
airing on Jan. 20. 

OVER ON NETFLIX
You, a surprise hit Netfl
 ix series, began 

as a 2014 novel of the same name by 
Caroline Kepnes, 42. Kepnes said that 
when she wrote the novel (2012) she was 
in a dark place because of the death that 
year of her (Jewish) father. (Her mother 
isn’
t Jewish). The novel follows Joe Gold-
berg, a 30-ish bookstore manager, who 
stalks and then dates Beck, 
an attractive and intelligent 
female college student. He 
quietly gets rid of anything or 
anyone who interferes with 
his obsession with Beck. 
Joe, a good-looking and 
deceptively charming fellow, 
is described as being Jewish 
on his father’
s side in the 
novel. But his religious back-
ground is left unmentioned 
in the TV series.
Last fall, the 10-epi-
sode fi
 rst season of You 
aired on Lifetime, which 
is not generally known for 
high-quality shows. The 
series was developed by and 
mostly co-written by Greg 
Berlanti and Sera Gamble, 
35. Gamble’
s parents, both 
doctors, left Poland in 1968 
following an anti-Semitic 
campaign by the Communist 
government that drove out 
most of the remaining Polish 
Jews (around 20,000). Sera, 
who was born in the States, 
had a Jewish religious 
upbringing. 
Lifetime decided not to 
renew the series despite 
good reviews (ratings were 
so/so). Netfl
 ix then opted 
to re-run the fi
 rst season 
last December, where it 
found a very big audience. 
I understand the appeal: 
The You main characters 
are much more vivid and 
multi-layered than the usual 
stalking story characters. 
When fi
 rst encountered, they 
remind you of the types of 
characters that appear in a 
charming romantic comedy. 
But Joe’
s “dark side” takes 
that “rom-com” trope into 
a wholly unexpected and 
morbidly fascinating place. A 
second Netfl
 ix season, probably based on 
the Kepnes’
 sequel novel, Hidden Bodies, 
is now being made. ■

NATE BLOOM

COLUMNIST

Caroline Kepnes

Emmy Rossum

Daniel Radcliffe

Sera Gamble 

celebrity jews
arts&life

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