When I started on Ozempic, in April 2025, my appetite was by definition abnormal: I ate too much, too often, with little regard for anything besides quieting whatever compulsion drove me to this sort of behavior. A weekly dose of the GLP-1 agonist semaglutide, which is sold under brand names like Ozempic and Wegovy, transformed me. It diminished both my hunger and my cravings for processed sugar and fried foods; it made me into the sort of person who eats when hungry and at no other time, which is something I hadn’t experienced for at least a decade.
We tend to talk more about the way these drugs reshape our bodies than the effect they have on our thinking. There is real psychological power in feeling, at long last, like you are in control of the appetites that once controlled you. Semaglutide slows the digestive process so that one meal keeps a person feeling fuller for longer, while also curbing cravings, so that all calories become more or less equal. Fried foods and processed sugar are no more appealing than a salad or some chicken breast, making it easier to tell yourself: No, I’m not going to eat a doughnut or some pizza. Instead I’ll have a protein bar or an apple or maybe nothing at all.
In my case, Ozempic lived up to its burgeoning reputation as a miracle drug. The weight came off so quickly at first that I found myself with questions about the effects this might have. Was it possible to get all the macronutrients I needed while eating so little? Would my fats and proteins spin out of balance? Was my skin ready for the body it contained to shrink so quickly? These questions were not always easy to answer.
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The guy who plays the Punisher offers to make me a cup of tea. When I decline, Jon Bernthal, forty-nine, reaches for a square tin box and pops off the lid to reveal a pile of purple gummies. I am certain there’s weed in them. “Want one?” he asks, pushing the tin in front of me. I pause, eyeballing them. “They’re soft throat lozenges. Sugar-free. These fuckers are good, dude.” My throat is fine, but I oblige. Bernthal drops one in his mouth and leans back in his chair, assuming the position for a raw and honest talk about life.
An hour earlier, he met me inside the stage door at the August Wilson Theatre in Manhattan—where he’s starring in the Broadway adaptation of Dog Day Afternoon—dressed in blue jeans and an orange hoodie, an American flag on the left breast. Under the flag are the words “We Support the Troops.” He was shirtless beneath the sweatshirt, a tattoo on his left pectoral that says “Lil Bird,” his nickname for his wife, Erin, peeking out. He had the hood pulled over his head, which was already covered in a stocking cap. He wore what looked like wrestling shoes on his feet. They’re not wrestling shoes, although he did wear them to grapple with one of his sons earlier that day.
This is exactly how I expected Bernthal to dress, given the roughneck originality of his work: He transformed The Walking Dead into a show about morality; he blistered the screen with profanity and chaos, opposite Brad Pitt, in Fury; he found the soul of an ultraviolent superhero in The Punisher. The independent film Small Engine Repair, in which he plays a townie from Manchester, New Hampshire, and We Own This City, embodying real-life crooked Baltimore cop Wayne Jenkins, are platonic ideals of a Bernthal performance: He can be charming and funny, pulling hard on a cigarette or sipping on a Mike’s Hard Lemonade, walking the line between tenderness and menace. Against your better judgment, you’re drawn to his characters, mortal flaws and all.
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Did TV get better or worse in 2026? It’s always so difficult to compare. Even when we’re looking back at a banger of a year featuring Severance season 2, Adolescence, and debuts for both The Pitt and The Studio, just the first four months of 2026 so far have produced some killer contenders. Widow’s Bay is already shaping up to be the show of the summer. Hacks is pulling out all the stops for its final season, and Beef season 2 blew us away with its depiction of modern love.
Of course, the new king of TV, Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle), also returned for an emotional season 2 of The Pitt. The Bear just dropped a surprise episode ahead of its fifth and final season, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms pulled off a feel-good Game of Thrones spinoff, and Steve Carell returned to his comedy roots on HBO’s Rooster. What’s more? Audiences saw James Marsden on three(!) hit shows this year across Paradise, Your Friends & Neighbors, and Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat. Even if it feels a bit too early to call it—I’d say that 2026 is certainly giving last year a run for its money.
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It was when I became too invested in defeating Pope Leo XIV, or the “Weak on Crime Pope,” that I saw the brilliance of Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell.
You see, the pope has a buff that makes him impervious. You—as the protagonist, President Donald Trump—cannot beat him unless you backtrack to the dungeon entrance and say a prayer with Pete Hegseth. This will unlock “2 Corinthians,” a spell that renders the pope vulnerable to special attacks like “Mar-a-Lazer” and “the Power Grab.” When I beat the pope and collected a barrel of Iranian oil as a prize, I told my editors my overdue draft of another story would be submitted later.
Operation Epic Furious is a new retro-style arcade video game that does more than jab at the cartoonishly vile and grossly incompetent Trump administration. It throws knockout haymakers. In the game, Trump must collect oil barrels in Iran and return to the U.S. in one piece. Along the way he’ll meet kiss-ass allies like Kash Patel, RFK Jr., and “Lil’ Marco” Rubio and fight bosses like “Handsome Zohran” and “Looksmaxxer Terrorist” in JRPG-style turn-based combat. Think Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and first-generation Pokémon, with a similarly infectious chiptune soundtrack.
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On a cold night in early January 2026, Forstag entered a packed bar in downtown Missoula, Montana. The Union Club had long been the gritty workers’ pub in town, the de facto Democratic headquarters for both launching campaigns and tracking polls. The thirty-one-year-old, compact and muscled with a thick mop of red hair, was dressed in his usual worn Carhartt work jacket, jeans, and work boots.
The crowd inside was astonishingly young. The twenty-something woman next to me had been a wildland firefighter and recognized other Forest Service workers in the room. Forstag seemed to know everyone. He hugged several people as he made his way past the pool tables and shook hands as he crossed the dimly lit dance floor.
Two months before, Forstag had driven his 1984 Toyota van, with its temperamental spark plugs and homemade bed, to a lake tucked into a valley outside town. Underneath blazing-gold larch trees that would soon drop their needles, he spent the night alone, thinking, writing. Crying.
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Bruce Springsteen—man, myth, rock demigod—materializes at a mic as if beamed to it from beyond the clouds, drawing thunderous applause from the sold-out crowd in Phoenix’s Mortgage Matchup Center. Springsteen is decked in a pinstripe shirt and a tie beneath a vest and slim jeans and has traded his once-standard rocker boots for a pair of big-soled running shoes. He’s backed by a 19-member version of the E Street Band, whose ranks tonight include guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, a catalyst for this tour. Before strumming a single note on his Telecaster, the Hall of Famer dives into his first monologue of this “political” show.
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