The daily gossip: Lil Nas X drops a Christmas song, McDreamy is back, and more

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1. Lil Nas X drops a Christmas song you won't be caroling at grandma's
2. Grey's Anatomy brought back McDreamy in shocking twist
3. Harry Styles auditioned for The X Factor 'to find out if I could sing'
4. Matrix 4 cast and crew party like it's pre-pandemic
5. Modern Austen is a show that is happening

published 13 November 2020

1. Lil Nas X drops a Christmas song you won't be caroling at grandma's

Gonna take my reindeer to the old town road? Lil Nas X released his new Christmas single, "Holiday," on Friday, complete with a music video in which he plays Santa (in addition to two other futuristic North Pole inhabitants). "Up on the Housetop" this is not: "Ayy, it's a holiday/I got hoes on hoes and they outta control," he sings, apparently taking some creative liberties with Old Saint Nick's usual catchphrase. "Holiday" is the rapper and children book author's first release since his EP dropped in 2019. But be careful: "If you were looking for a yuletide to sing with your grandparents while slurping eggnog, 'Holiday' might not be for you," Vulture warns, as — if you didn't catch this before — "its festively horny in nature." Listen here.

McDreamy returned to Grey's Anatomy during Thursday's season 17 premiere, a surprise Deadline called "one of the series' biggest twists ever." In the episode, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) collapses in the hospital parking lot, and in her dream is reunited with Derek Shepherd, who died on the show in 2015. Fans were delighted by the cameo of Patrick Dempsey, who played Derek for 11 seasons on the show. "Patrick and I have this chemistry where I think even from when we first met, for some reason it just felt like we've known each other for a hundred years, and it's just the same feeling," Pompeo told Deadline, adding that working with him again was "like riding a bike … I think we have a genuine affection for each other."

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Harry Styles has made history at Vogue, becoming the magazine's first ever solo male star on the cover with the December 2020 issue. In his interview, he described auditioning for the talent-search show The X Factor, recalling: "I went to the audition to find out if I could sing or if my mum was just being nice to me." Harry's sister, Gemma, added that Styles used to only be able to sing in an assumed voice prior to his breakout on The X Factor. "He used to do quite a good sort of Elvis warble," she recalled, noting that he would only sing in his own voice in the bathroom because "he just couldn't have anyone looking at him!"

Lockdown got you down? Pandemic cramping your style? Here's a solution: Stage a "party scene" for your movie, and go wild. That's what the 200-person cast and crew of The Matrix 4 did in Germany, which is currently under lockdown. The revelers "were treated to a pyrotechnics and dance performance, a DJ playing on a packed dance floor, tattoo stations inside caravans, several bars serving wine and sake, a sushi and dessert station (sans red or blue pills), and cushioned Bedouin tents," Page Six reports. Keanu Reeves and his girlfriend were spotted at the party, though there was no filming actually going on. The bash was reportedly given the code name "ice cream team event," which would be almost funny, if there weren't 1.3 million people dead from COVID-19.

From the network that brought us Hot Archie comes a modern Jane Austen show called, uh, Modern Austen. The CW is developing the author's novels for a six-episode anthology series, with season one setting Pride and Prejudice in contemporary San Francisco. While there's little information out there yet about plot and casting, since the show is in its earliest stages, this does appear to mean that in all likelihood Mr. Darcy is regrettably a tech bro now. As AV Club further helpfully clarifies, "to be clear ... [the Jane Austen characters] exist in that modern world naturally, not that the original characters are time traveling — especially since 'Jane Austen hangs out with time travelers' has already been done on this very network."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.