Tuesday, January 27, 2026 |
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Donald Trump is many things, most of which I cannot say in this newsletter without using asterisks. But if there's one thing he's definitely not, it is thick-skinned. The man's ego could be bruised by a light breeze. And the events occurring in Minnesota are much, much stronger than a light breeze. They are a monumental squall that is shaking the executive administration to its core. The president's polling numbers are understandably falling, and because his failing mind simply cannot handle the criticism, he's taking action in hopes of returning to the public's mediocre graces. Esquire political columnist Charles P. Pierce lays it out like it is in his newest post. Read it below. —Chris Hatler, deputy editor |
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The president's inflated ego can't handle the bad optics, and his cronies are paying the price.
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In Washington, it has dawned on the president that slaughtering nurses and moms in broad daylight is not a good look, so we suddenly hear about the president making nicey-nice with Mayor Jacob Frey and Governor Tim Walz. Kristi Noem is hearing the ice crack under her feet, and there is even some loose talk about Stephen Miller's slipping beyond the pale, some of it apparently coming from Noem herself. The administration's allies in Congress are running around, as Abraham Lincoln once said of General Joseph Hooker, "like ducks hit on the head." |
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It's official: winter is here. Yes, yes, we know the holidays already passed. As we write this, the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day are coming up, and we're underneath a foot of snow on the East Coast. But now at the end of January, this is when we're really thinking about layering. All the winter coats in the world won't keep us warm in times like this. We need a go-to layer. We need a V-neck sweater. We already have parkas, your warm hats, snow boots, thick pants, and chunky crewnecks, but a V-neck sweater is a bit more dressed up than all of those. Most of the time, it'll be a thin layer of quality wool. You can wear on its own over a white tee or layered into a proper suit. A V-neck sweater adds warmth without bulk, and maybe it's just the cut but it feels slightly more elevated than chunkier knits. |
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George Saunders insists, despite appearances to the contrary, that he's not obsessed with death. "I'm not walking around in my preordered shroud or anything," he tells me over Zoom. But thinking about the dead and dying does put a spring in his step. "When I get up from writing about it, I feel good," he continues. "I'm not in bed. I'm not unconscious. It would be amazing if there was a drug that made you feel like total shit for two minutes a day called Here's What You're Going to Feel Like on Your Deathbed." After writing blisteringly funny short stories for decades, Saunders is perhaps best known for Lincoln in the Bardo, his 2017 Booker Prize–winning novel set during and after the death of Abraham Lincoln's 11-year-old son. Now 67 years old, Saunders is back with another heartrending novel—Vigil, about the last night of an oil company CEO's life—which was at least partially inspired by Saunders's own fascination with mortality. It hits shelves today. |
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 Ira Parker knew that he had to do something different for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The second Game of Thrones spin-off series couldn't follow the same expensive and exhaustive world-building as the original series, nor the same Downton Abbey with dragons model as House of the Dragon. Audiences were clearly disappointed by the former two offerings and craving something fresh. So, Parker had just the right idea: Make them laugh. "When I watched the original Game of Thrones, I loved it because of its comedy," the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner tells me over Zoom. "That's the Game of Thrones that lives in my head, and I know that because when I did my very, very first draft of a House of the Dragon script, the note that came back to me was, 'This sounds like a screwball comedy. What the fuck are you doing?' " Rewatching those early episodes, it's easy to see what Parker remembers. Game of Thrones was once full of wisecracks from Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) and more on-the-ground stories about dirty, cross-country travel throughout Westeros's medieval fantasy landscape. It was a crude, unforgiving life outside of the royal castle—and a world with no toilets or personal hygiene where men blindly follow their lords into endless wars had endless comedy potential. So, Parker ran with it. Before landing the gig as the head of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, he served as a co-executive producer on House of the Dragon, as well as on The Sympathizer and Better Things. And according to Parker, he didn't even pitch HBO on helming his own spin-off. He simply got a call from someone at the network at four o'clock in the morning asking him, "What do you think about Dunk and Egg?"—referring to George R. R. Martin's yet-untouched series of novellas. As he later found out, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal personally recommended him for the series. "I can't believe how lucky I am," Parker says. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows a lowly "hedge knight" named Dunk, who is out to prove himself in a local jousting tournament. It's a smaller story, set in one location—which is obviously cheaper for HBO to produce but also incredibly refreshing for such a vast IP as Thrones. And of course, there are still plenty of mentions of Targaryens, Lannisters, and all the great Houses of Westeros. Dunk is played by Peter Claffey, a former professional rugby player, who couldn't be more perfect for the role. Dunk is a lovable fool who wants to walk the honorable path in a whole where everyone else is looking to cheat and murder their way ahead. But where another series might look to explore how that environment might taint someone like Dunk, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms seeks to give audiences a hero to root for in this crazy world. "He's the most likable character in television," says Parker. "It's very easy with Dunk because he is such a fish out of water. Some of these guys he's interacting with are just straight-up weirdos, but Dunk doesn't know if he's the weirdo. He's not like George's other underdog characters. He doesn't have that quick wit, so you adapt and you figure out where his comedy comes from." For Dunk, it's his anxieties, and of course, that he's a giant teddy bear in a world of monsters. In the first two episodes, "Dunk is always trying to figure out if Lionel Baratheon is seriously going to kill him, or he's just joking around," Parker says. "And, obviously, Egg—just to have him be so smart, even though he's the youngin'—that provides us with really rich comedy. It's such a good flip of the dynamic." Though audiences still have four episodes to go before they find out how season 1 wraps up, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is already renewed for season 2. There are technically three novellas to cover—unless Martin ever writes more. For now, Parker is just hoping that viewers fall in love with Dunk and have a few laughs along the way. "We've been shooting [season 2] every day for the last two weeks," he reveals. "We'll see how the audience responds and we'll go from there, but I love these characters and I love these stories so much." Below, Parker shares more about how he turned A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms into a comedy, the difficulties that come with telling a small-scale story in Westeros, and what he hopes for season 2 and beyond. |
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I didn't know what to expect when A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms began. Following Game of Thrones's disastrous finale and House of the Dragon season 2's many disappointments, the franchise that at once felt like the most talked-about TV show of all time started to feel like it was doomed to repeat the same mistakes forever. It often feels like HBO set up an audience with a massive story, only to knock them back down with excuses over budgets, terrible wigs, and the fact that they had to finish the story before creator George R. R. Martin even wrote the next novel. When I heard that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was telling a smaller tale about one character in a single location, I was intrigued. Based on Martin's Dunk & Egg novellas, this story has no dragons, no magic, and no zipping back-and-forth across Westeros. It sounded like the perfect solution to two of the streaming industry's largest problems: 1/ Every entertainment company wants universes of IP until they realize that scale does not easily translate into TV, and 2/ No showrunner can predict how much they can or cannot deviate from the source material and still hold their fanbase intact. So, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms took a knife to both and tried something brave by trimming the dragon fat. If it doesn't work, it's only six episodes. But from the first forty minutes, it feels like the first story in this franchise that's finally free. |
The world of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones grows ever larger with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the third and newest HBO series based on Martin's books. The show follows a noble errant knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his squire, Egg. Like Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon before it, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms occupies a specific time and place in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga. We already know it's another prequel, but just how far back does the story actually unfold in relation to Game of Thrones? |
Oh, George. Here we are again. It's been another year now since you wrote a rant on your personal blog about how it's so annoying that fans keep asking you to fulfill your promises. Such woe it is to have written an adored story! Well, what is it this time, pal? "I'm so far behind on everything," George R. R. Martin admits in a new profile with The Hollywood Reporter. The fantasy writer, whose novels were adapted by HBO into Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and most recently A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, has been writing the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series for fourteen years now. He swears that his next two novels, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, will have a different ending than HBO's Game of Thrones. He just has the worst case of writers' block I've ever seen. "I have to write more Dunk and Egg," Martin continues. "There's supposed to be another Fire and Blood book, too. I do think if I can just get some of these other things off my back, I could finish The Winds of Winter pretty soon. It's been made clear to me that Winds is the priority, but … I don't know. Sometimes I'm not in the mood for that." Not in the mood?! |
Unlike George R. R. Martin, many other novelists are still motivated to actually write. In our list of the most-anticipated books of 2026, writer Adam Morgan previewed many exciting new works from heavyweight authors George Saunders, Colson Whitehead, Daniyal Mueenuddin, and Chuck Klosterman. What book are you most excited to read this year? Let me know by writing to me at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com. Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here. |
Sinners is nominated for 16 awards at the 2026 Academy Awards. / Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures |
The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk |
The Oscars nominations are here. The Academy rewarded the year's big hits—from Ryan Coogler's vampire epic to nearly everyone who made One Battle After Another—but there's something both meaningful and reassuring about that. Read Anthony Breznican's breakdown of the nominees here. The apocalyptic first weeks of 2026 have kicked off an usual Instagram trend, even by modern social media standards: yearning for 2016. As Eric Francisco writes, "While scouring for slideshow pics from my iCloud this weekend, I was struck by a revelation. Seeing photos of premieres and activations to movies I haven't thought about in literally ten years, I remembered how much 2016 was a weird year especially for movies." Read more here.
DId you catch The Pitt this week? The medical drama honored the Tree of Life Synagogue victims with a tribute that senior entertainment editor Brady Langmann called "nothing short of remarkable." Read about the episode here.
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Noah Wyle stars in The Pitt, which honored the Tree of Life Synagogue victims in season 2, episode 3 / photo by: HBO Max |
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The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week |
Winner: Sexy Killer Vampires Sinners broke the Academy Awards record by securing a whopping 16 nominations. "It has been a decade since the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and the Academy Awards leadership have spent that time trying to expand its membership to be more representative of the world at large," Anthony Breznican wrote in our breakdown of the announcement. "Those efforts are evident in the selections in the nominee list. Not only is it a healthy mix of people from various walks of life, but it recognizes an array of films that also speak deeply to the world at large." Loser: Avatar 4 This year's Oscars snubbed the third Avatar film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, marking the first time that an Avatar film has not been nominated for Best Picture. Even worse? James Cameron isn't even sure if he wants to direct the next installment. Is this the end of Avatar? Winner: Breakfast Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Just ask William Shatner, who went viral this week after he was photographed eating cereal at a stoplight while driving his car. "Fiber, in its various forms, is an absolute necessity for good health," Shatner later explained in a Facebook video. And for those who were wondering, it was Raisin Bran. Loser: Not Explaining Why You Were Eating Breakfast While Driving At no point in Shatner's explanation video—which he still felt compelled to record—does he explain why he ate cereal while driving. As the video goes on, Shatner says bizarre things like "If you don't have health, you're permanently disturbed" instead of getting to the real question here. Maybe he's teasing a new Super Bowl ad slogan! "Raisin Bran: If you don't have health, you're permanently disturbed." Winner: Ben Affleck's Billy Bob Thornton Impression The final winner of the week is Ben Affleck, who debuted a perfect impression of Billy Bob Thornton during an interview for his new Netflix film, The Rip. Billy Bob, if you're seeing this, let's get Affleck on Landman season 3. |
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