48 February 7 • 2019
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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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