Movie bad guys don’t get more menacing than Max Cady. Taking up a role made indelible by both Robert Mitchum in 1962’s Cape Fear and Robert De Niro in the 1991 remake, Javier Bardem brings his own charismatic energy to portraying the freed convict in this series adaptation. Out of prison after an overturned murder conviction, Cady has beef with an attorney couple, played by Patrick Wilson and Amy Adams, who were responsible for putting him behind bars. As he wages an escalating campaign of intimidation, the lives of the couple and their children begin to unravel. 
Friday, June 5, Apple TV 

by Lois Romano

“No first lady has been more demonized than Mary Todd Lincoln,” said Amy S. Greenberg in The New York Times. Even before her husband’s 1865 assassination, the former Lexington, Ky., socialite was portrayed as unhinged and unworthy of both the White House and Abraham Lincoln’s love. With An Inconvenient Widow, former Washington Post reporter Lois Romano seeks to rehabilitate Mary Todd’s reputation — “an ambitious project,” given that there’s “a kernel of reality” even in the over-the-top depiction of the first lady in the Broadway comedy smash Oh, Mary! She was erratic, vain, and, even during a deeply depleting war, a compulsive spendthrift. Though Romano at times goes too far in defense of her subject, she’s right that the demonization of Mary has been wildly disproportionate. “Whatever her faults, and they were many, she deserved better, and Romano deserves praise for granting her, at long last, a measure of grace.”

Romano’s ambition here isn’t new, said Thomas Mallon in The New Yorker. “Measured rehabilitation of the first lady’s character has been the dominant mode of Mary Lincoln biography for more than 70 years.” But in the popular imagination, untruths persist that should be corrected. First, she was not a traitor. Born in 1818 into a slaveholding family, Mary evolved into a committed abolitionist and an im­placable Unionist who poured time into caring for wounded Union soldiers. Earlier, because she was well-educated and witty, she sometimes impressed reporters covering the 1860 presidential campaign even more than her husband did. But opinion turned against her when she began lavishly redecorating the White House, and the death of a second young son, in 1862, didn’t win her lasting sympathy. Her reputation was buried when Abraham’s former law partner, William Herndon, began spreading lies about her shortly after the assassination.

Though Herndon would object, Romano “offers a persuasive portrait of a loving, mutually supportive marriage,” said Melanie Kirkpatrick in The Wall Street Journal. The author also “emphasizes the impact of grief on Mary’s mental health.” Three of Mary’s four sons died by 18, and in the wake of her husband’s death, she struggled not just emotionally but also financially, having to fight for years for a congressional pension. Meanwhile, her politically ambitious surviving son, Robert, was so embarrassed by the negative press she attracted that he had her committed to a mental institution, a decision she had to fight to reverse. She died of a stroke in 1882, and while she “won’t go down in history as one of the most congenial first ladies,” Romano’s “exemplary” examination of her life may ensure she’ll be remembered for both her flaws and her merits.

The NASCAR great who drove to win

Kyle Busch hated to lose and made sure everyone knew it. The NASCAR driver, who died at 41 last week of pneumonia that worsened into sepsis, possessed a brazen confidence and a brutally honest tongue. Busch nicknamed himself Rowdy, picked fights, and capped victories with a bow. But he earned his swagger, winning a record 234 national series races over a quarter-century along with two Cup Series titles, in 2015 and 2019. The 2015 championship showed his sheer determination: He missed a third of the season after breaking his right leg and left foot in a crash at Daytona International Speedway. But with intense rehab, he regained the strength to compete, won five races, and took the cup title. “The first thing they’ll remember me by will be my on-track success,” Busch said in 2011. Then “they’ll see the whole transition of my life, and how I made it through. And it was all under the skeptics’ eyes.”

“Busch was born to be behind the wheel,” said The Wall Street Journal. His mechanic father raced locally and his older brother, Kurt, became a member of the NASCAR hall of fame. Busch was ready to race at the sport’s top level at 16, but the Cup Series was backed by Winston, and a legal settlement barred under-18s from competing in events sponsored by tobacco firms. He eventually joined NASCAR in 2003, finishing second in his debut in the O’Reilly series, and in 2008 began his 15-year stretch with Joe Gibbs Racing. Clocking wins in his signature vehicle — a No. 18 Toyota emblazoned with M&Ms —  he gained a reputation “for his postrace fights and regular feuds with other drivers,” said ESPN.com. In 2023, he surprised fans by switching teams to Richard Childress Racing, whose eponymous owner had fought Busch in a garage 12 years earlier after he bumped one of his racers on the track. 

Busch’s dominance started to slip as he aged, and “the lack of regular wins in later years seemed to mellow him,” said The New York Times. After he and his wife struggled to conceive, he started a nonprofit to help people afford in vitro fertilization. He had two children and raced against his 11-year-old son for the first time last year —  and bragged about winning. Busch kept driving as his health unexpectedly deteriorated in May. Not realizing he had pneumonia, he radioed for treatment for a sinus cold after one race; the next week he notched his last-ever win, in Dover, Del. After that race, an interviewer asked why winning never got old. Because, Busch replied, “you never know when the last one is.”