Happy Thanksgiving from The A.V. Club
It’s American Thanksgiving today, i.e., the annual holiday in which people everywhere come together, as a nation, to express our gratitude for the fact that we’re no longer on speaking terms with the Trump-loving portions of our families. (On account of all the shit that went down at our last three Thanksgivings, natch.) But on a more personal note, we’re also thankful—as always!—for our ability to then hide from said familial chaos by retreating to any one of America’s millions of fast-casual restaurants who (obnoxiously) do not give their harried and haggard employees the day off to spend with family members they might actually like. We can, in fact, report from lived experience that there is no more wonderfully surreal experience than eating dinner alone at an Applebee’s on Thanksgiving Day, surrounded by people who also do not want to be there, united in the warm glow of misery and a signature platter of the Sizzlin’ Cheddar & Bacon Chicken Skillet.
But while The A.V. Club is there with you in spirit today, dear reader—perched atop your shoulder, whispering justifications for ordering a third personal-person serving trough of mozzarella sticks—in a more practical sense, we’re taking the day off. (These wedge salads aren’t going to eat themselves, after all.) But we leave you in the capable hands of, well, ourselves, because there’s plenty of great writing up on the site this week to make this upcoming gluttony lacuna tolerable.
Take, for instance, our Thanksgiving TV streaming guide, the perfect road map for escaping the depths of a food coma (powered, presumably, by a plate of Loaded Sirloin Steak Fajitas or two). Or maybe you want to bum yourself out over the latest Mystery Science Theater 3000 news, all the better to then eat those feelings in the form of a bucket of Chef Bulgarelli’s Stuffed Rigatoni And Tomato Meat Sauce. And perhaps—briefly departing the Neighborhood, in body, if not in soul—you just want to hit up your local megaplex; prep yourself for the joyful conflation of family and murder that is Rian Johnson’s Knives Out by indulging yourself in our enthusiastic review. (And our interview with the Last Jedi director himself, while you’re out here going whole hog.)
Meanwhile we are, as ever, thankful for you, dear reader. For your interest. For your passionate conversations on the pop culture curiosities we all love. And especially for your understanding that none of this free advertising for the Applebee’s corporation (a proud member of Dine Brands Global) was sponsored by or approved of by anyone, save our own deep amusement at the idea of celebrating a holiday ostensibly about family by forcing yourself to choke down a cheeseburger where the bun has been replaced by a quesadilla, which has also then been filled with cheese.
God bless America. God bless you. God bless us all.