In their series Subway Heroes, Hayley and Victoria discuss anything and everything in the 30 Rock universe.

Hayley: It is a very impossible thing to narrow my love of 30 Rock down into one singular episode, but I can probably do a top five. Most of them happen one right after the other in Season 2, which I believe is the strongest season of the show:

1. Rosemary's Baby (S2E4)
2. MILF Island (S2E11)
3. Subway Hero (S2E12)
4. Succession (S2E13)
5. Sandwich Day (S2E14)

Hello readers!

You might have noticed you didn’t get a new issue of GPG on Tuesday. Going forward, we’re shifting our editorial calendar and will just be publishing on Thursdays (bearing any breaking news we feel the need to weigh in on, of course). This week is Victoria, next week is a joint issue, then the week after is a Hayley issue, then another joint issue. As always, let us know if there’s anything you’re dying for us to write about.

Victoria: Confession: I am kinda excited about food again!! For months I have felt a deep malaise about the task of feeding myself and my family. We have to eat something for dinner every day? What the fuck!!

But May begins the best time of the year for produce, which makes me excited about cooking again! So I wanted to talk about some of our favorite things to eat and drink and cook and bake during late spring and early summer.

As soon as corn shows up in my grocery store, dirt cheap and so alluring, I make Melissa Clark's creamy corn pasta, which could not be easier. At the end of corn season last year I made Melissa King's corn and coconut soup, and I can't wait to make it again soon! Smitten Kitchen's corn fritters are also a huge hit in my house: crunchy and cheesy and just about perfect.

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In their series 30 Rock

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Hayley: This past Sunday, Nomadland won the Oscar for Best Picture, and its director Chloé Zhao became the first woman of color to win the Oscar for Best Director. It was one of a handful high points in a bizarre ceremony that felt like something important, even if it didn't have quite that same Oscars feeling.

I enjoyed Nomadland, which isn't surprising, because it's the kind of meandering and reflective character-driven slice of life movie that I am always drawn to. The reception for Nomadland has been pretty much medium to positive, but there is a commonality among some detractors, mainly that Nomadland made working at Amazon look too appealing.

Of all the things explored in Nomadland, this feels like an odd sentiment to latch on to, mostly because I disagree, but I GUESS I'll expand. The Amazon warehouse scenes in this movie are incredibly bleak. Filming this at an actual Amazon warehouse is impressive, and I'm surprised they were given access to do so. It gives the movie an added layer of verisimilitude, one that is haunting and tenuous. It's pretty much implied that working these seasonal Amazon gigs are terrible, and this implication is made within the thematic elements of the movie. It would be weird if Fern (Frances McDormand) was like, "Hey! Everyone! Let's unionize!" or something. Nomadland is Fern's movie, and it follows Fern's choices.

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Hayley: For a long time we have wanted to talk about , but there is so much to talk about that we felt a little unsure of how to proceed. After making , we decided we would dedicate ourselves to an entire series right here on Gold-Plated Girls.

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Victoria: Ten years ago this month, Bridesmaids came out, and boy did it rule. Before we get into the nitty gritty details of the movie and why it remains a bona fide classic, I want to journey back to this time in American life. When Bridesmaids was released, the movie was given the monumental task of proving that women could be funny. And we, as women, were charged with seeing it to prove that women wanted to see other women be funny.

I just did a search on Google News of stories from that time. In December 2010, Slash Films published an article with the incredible title "Paul Feig’s ‘Bridesmaids’ “Might Be The First Genuine ‘Female’ Comedy.”" Melissa McCarthy was not even MENTIONED in it. The Vanity Fair set visit article was titled "With Bridesmaids, Can Judd Apatow’s Dude-Friendly Formula Go Girly?" (Melissa is mentioned once in this one). Nevermind that Kristen Wiig wrote the movie and Feig directed, the narrative was somehow about Judd? God. Newsday called it "'The Hangover' for women." The Hangover wishes. I will just link to the NPR review, and pray that I will never be as wrong about anything as this person is.

In her series, , Hayley examines the ways that single women are portrayed onscreen, plotting them on a highly scientific matrix of Horny/Sexless and Messy/Organized.

Hi friends!

I know we said you wouldn’t get a new GPG issue until next Tuesday, but I, Victoria, felt fiesty about this topic, so I decided to do a special edition! As promised, we’ve moved the whole newsletter over to Buttondown. You can still access our archives here, and you can send your friends to sign up.

Hayley: In our conversation about the , you mentioned that James Marsden is one of Hollywood's most underutilized hot guys. I agree, and I think that we need to have a bigger discussion on this important topic. 

Last week, when the Oscar nominations came out, the Academy celebrated because for the first time two women had been nominated for Best Director. Of course, this landmark is wicked depressing; only five other women have ever been nominated, and only one has won.

But this year they are two. Chloé Zhao wrote and directed Nomadland (six Oscar nominations in total), which I liked, and Emerald Fennell wrote and directed Promising Young Woman (five Oscar nominations in total), which I really, really did not like. I only learned today that Fennell is also an actress, and plays Camilla on . That’s not relevant, but it’s fun context. Fennell was also the head writer for the second season of .

Victoria: Both of us have found one podcast that rises above the others over the last year: You're Wrong About. For each episode, hosts Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall pick a past media phenomenon to revisit, explaining how the popular narratives about the event got the substance of what actually happened wrong.

I started to listen to YWA before the pandemic, but it's one of like three podcasts I can stomach lately (and one of those is my sleep podcast, so it barely counts). I've been listening to newer episodes, but I've also gone back to the very first one and have been working my way from there. I pull up a game on phone and pop in my headphones and let them carry me away.

In her series, The Single Woman in Hollywood, Hayley examines the ways that single women are portrayed onscreen, plotting them on a highly scientific matrix of Horny/Sexless and Messy/Organized.

“Listen to me: The right guy is an illusion. Start living your lives.”

Hayley: Okay, let's talk about one of the best episodes of one of the best television shows of all time that also HAPPENS to be topical: The twelfth episode of season six of 30 Rock, "St. Patrick's Day." 

We established early on in our friendship that this is one of our top episodes. Which is odd, because it happens on the other side of season four, where the quality of the show definitely drops. "St. Patrick's Day" is pure gold because it feels like early , but it also has its own special flair. 

When I think of fan casts, I think of all the Harry Potter fans who spent hours on tumblr in the 2000s deciding who they would cast in a Marauders sequel film (I was always partial to Andrew Garfield as James and Ezra Miller as Sirius). A quick google tells me that people still do this, and many people would like the Sprouse Twins and/or Harry Styles to be involved. Sure.

Anyway, those 2000s tumblr teens were right: coming up with casting ideas for things rules. And sometimes it actually comes true! Gwendoline Christie first heard about the role of Brienne on Game of Thrones because fans kept suggesting her for the part. Fans of the romance novel long wanted Lucy Hale to play the lead in a movie adaptation (which uh….I don't know who cares about Lucy Hale like that, but sure), and she started filming it in the fall. Dreams come true.

Victoria: Last weekend, I was cooking and listening to Spotify radio. A song I had not heard in a long time came on: “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” by Scissor Sisters. Immediately, I was transported back to the summer of 2008, when I binge-watched Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice.