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‘The Walking Dead’ Ends With a Promise of More Life

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

This article includes spoilers for the series finale of “The Walking Dead.”

“The Walking Dead” has been ending for a very long time.

When it debuted on AMC in the fall of 2010, “The Walking Dead” was something of an aberration in the prestige TV landscape — a gory, effects-heavy horror-drama for adults that combined graphic, grand guignol violence with the strong moral center of shows like “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad.” It soon emerged as an unlikely hit: At the height of its popularity, around 2013-16, it became one of the most-watched cable TV series in history, with roughly 21 million people tuning in to the Season 7 premiere to find out who was killed by the new villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) after the previous season’s much-discussed (and wildly controversial) cliffhanger finale.

Since we learned the answer to that question — it was a double whammy, with both Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) taking a baseball bat to the head — the show’s prominence has steadily declined. Ratings have plummeted, hovering these days between one and two million viewers per episode, while central cast members have either fled to the spinoff “Fear the Walking Dead” or been written out entirely.

They include Andrew Lincoln, who starred as the series lead, Rick Grimes, before leaving midway through Season 9. Of the original group of survivors, only the fan-favorites Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) remain, flanked by a handful of multiseason stalwarts like Negan, Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Eugene (Josh McDermitt).

The 11th and final season of the postapocalyptic zombie drama has been broken up into three batches of eight hourlong episodes, the first chunk of which premiered way back in August 2021. In that span of time, our remaining heroes have abandoned Alexandria, their home for the previous six seasons; been reluctantly inducted into the Commonwealth, a huge, prosperous community run by an ostensibly benevolent governor, Pamela Milton (Laila Robins); battled and defeated the nefarious foes the Reapers, led by the mustachioed tyrant Pope (Ritchie Coster); and skirmished elaborately with Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton), the Commonwealth’s manipulative deputy governor, who caused all kinds of trouble before finally being killed off a few weeks ago.

It was a lot of ground to cover in one season. Much of it is based on material outlined in the Walking Dead comic books by Robert Kirkman — in particular the arrival of our core protagonists to the Commonwealth, which is where the comics ended in 2019, and the ensuing struggle for power between the Commonwealth’s corrupt leaders and our (mostly) noble heroes. But the series has diverged from the source material often enough over the years, cavalierly killing off foundational comic-book characters or following new threads of its own invention. Plenty of questions remained about how the show would end.

The penultimate episode, last week, left us with a vintage “Walking Dead” cliffhanger: The plucky Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) is shot during a tense standoff between the core group and the Commonwealth’s now fully villainous powers that be, and while attempting to save her before she bleeds out, Daryl, Carol and the others are surrounded on all sides by flesh-eating walkers. The finale picks up where we left off, with a mad scramble to escape the walker horde and save Judith’s life.

Whether you want to relive the magic one last time or just close the book on a show you stopped watching years ago, we have you covered. Here are five takeaways from the long-awaited end of “The Walking Dead.”

Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) was one last tyrant for the heroes to vanquish.Credit…Jace Downs/AMC

A close call

The previous episode’s cliffhanger ended up being short-lived. As Daryl hauls the ailing Judith into an abandoned Commonwealth hospital and out of harm’s way, he is knocked unconscious by a city trooper, leaving Judith to fend off an encroaching walker and make sure they’re out of harm’s way. Carol and the others soon join them inside, but while Judith’s condition has begun to stabilize — thanks to a generous (and very convenient) blood transfusion from Daryl, whose blood type, he reveals, “goes with anybody” — Luke (Dan Fogler) and his girlfriend, Jules (Alex Sgambati), are not so lucky, succumbing to their zombie wounds.

Across town, Rosita (Christian Serratos), Eugene and Father Gabriel arrive at the local day-care center, which, in one of the show’s darker turns, has been almost completely overrun by walkers — Rosita’s infant daughter, Coco, turns up as the lone survivor. Baby in tow, the three reconvene with Daryl, Carol and the others, now also joined by Maggie, Negan, Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Lydia (Cassady McClincy). They’ve even managed to rescue Mercer (Michael James Shaw) from the Commonwealth prison.

The reunited crew commandeers an army truck and drives to the nearby safe house they’ve apparently had at the ready, where the surgeon Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) is on hand to bring Judith back to full health.

Cult of personality

Everyone’s back together. Judith is out of danger. Next on the agenda? Taking care of the governor-turned-despot Pamela, who has gathered the Commonwealth’s wealthiest and retreated to the city’s gated inner sanctum, leaving the proletariat to fend for themselves against the ravenous swarm of walkers. Mercer doesn’t like it and tells the group that he intends to save the people and take her down — on his own, if necessary. But this isn’t a group to take evil dictatorships lightly. They all agree to depose Pamela and liberate the Commonwealth once and for all.

Thus a showdown. As the city’s under-classes beg to be admitted into the protected community, the walker horde bears down on them and, with only moments to spare, our heroes surround Pamela and her troops and demand the gate be opened. Father Gabriel makes to open the gate, under threat of being gunned down — leaving the ordinarily taciturn Daryl to step up with a title drop for the ages.

“We’ve got one enemy,” he declares, urging both sides to come together and unite against the walkers. “We ain’t the walking dead.”

Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan will star in a “Walking Dead” spinoff slated to premiere in 2023.Credit…Jace Downs/AMC

It’s a rousing enough speech to persuade Pamela’s last remaining allies to abandon her and join the cause for good. She is summarily placed under arrest (for “high crimes against the people of the Commonwealth”), the gates are opened, and the zombies are held at bay. Judith even has some words of encouragement for Pamela, hoping to inspire a change of heart. “It’s never too late,” she urges.

Landslide

Like Negan before her, Pamela is overthrown and jailed, left to ponder her crimes. The walker horde is disposed of using a bunch of oil drums, a turntable and an old Living Colour LP rigged to set off a huge explosion, which winds up obliterating the gated community and the mansion where Pamela lived — a nifty trick that doubles as a symbolic gesture. Carol, taking over as governor, plans to dismantle the caste system that made the Commonwealth so unjust. Why not start by blowing up the rich part of town?

In the aftermath, the people of the Commonwealth come together to eat and drink to the sounds of Fleetwood Mac. In what amounts to an extended wistful denouement, various characters engage in long heart-to-hearts. Negan offers Maggie a long overdue apology for his murder of Glenn, which she doesn’t accept, exactly, but nonetheless appreciates. (“I don’t want to hate you anymore,” she tells him. Expect the healing to continue in the coming Maggie-Negan spinoff, “Dead City,” due next year.) Negan even gets a slight, respectful nod from Daryl, which is perhaps the biggest sign so far that people are finally ready to accept his redemption.

One year later

Fade out and flash forward: It’s been one year since Pamela was ousted, and we get a cursory look at what the people of the Commonwealth have been up to in the interim.

Connie (Lauren Ridloff) is still working as a reporter “keeping the administration honest” and is happier than ever. Judith receives a letter and farewell package from none other than Negan, wishing her well as he prepares to decamp for his new series. The town as a whole appears to be thriving, no longer under urgent threat of siege or walker invasion. It’s about as close as the show has ever gotten to demonstrating a capacity for optimism. A happy ending? In the context of “The Walking Dead,” it’s ecstatic.

McBride’s Carol was one of only two of the show’s original group of survivors to make it to the end.Credit…Jace Downs/AMC

But there is one man who isn’t content to enjoy peace and quiet. Daryl Dixon, ever the nomad, is preparing to leave the Commonwealth behind and head out on the open road on his motorbike to find … well, it’s hard to say. But according to reports, it could take him as far as France in yet another “Walking Dead” spinoff.

The need to keep Daryl’s story in motion as everything else wraps up tidily creates a somewhat disjointed effect, but at least we get a great final scene between Daryl and Carol, who have been inseparable since they bonded in the show’s second season. “It’s not like we’re never going to see each other again,” he assures her before he leaves, possibly teasing a future onscreen reunion. More moving is her tearful rejoinder.

“I’m allowed to be sad,” she says, fighting tears. “You’re my best friend.”

Rick-sy business

Of course, one of the biggest differences between “The Walking Dead” and its source material is that the story’s original hero, Rick Grimes, exited the show four years ago, whereas he remained the main character of the comic book throughout its run. The comic ends with Rick’s death — he is murdered in cold blood by Pamela’s twerpy, sociopathic son, a crime that precipitates widespread social change and upheaval across the Commonwealth community. Since that couldn’t be the ending, one of the biggest unknowns going into this finale was what would transpire instead.

As it turns out, the show ends with Rick’s (and Lincoln’s) return. The final moments of “The Walking Dead” show us Rick wandering a corpse-strewn beach, penning a letter to his family and stuffing it into a bottle.

A Lincoln-led mini-series about Rick’s continuing adventures is in the works, and here we get a few tantalizing glimpses of what it might be like: Rick is on his own and on the run, and after hurling his message in a bottle into the sea, he is tracked down by some men in a helicopter who warn him by megaphone that he has no choice but to surrender. It is clear from the interaction that they have been through this before. It is also clear that Rick hasn’t given up hope of one day reuniting with his family, even after at least seven years since leaving the main story (in the story’s timeline).

As Rick Grimes, Andrew Lincoln was the show’s anchor for more than nine seasons.Credit…Gene Page/AMC

Rick’s brief appearance has the wistful tone of reminiscence. His beach wanderings are intercut with a montage of departed cast members from seasons past, and we get a bit of voice-over narration from Lincoln that evokes an earlier conversation between Rick and his longtime partner Michonne (Danai Gurira). “I think about the dead all the time,” Rick says, as faces of who didn’t make it, beloved characters (Chandler Riggs’s Carl, Jon Bernthal’s Shane) as well as some forgettable ones (Jeffrey DeMunn’s Dale, Lawrence Gilliard Jr.’s Bob), cross the screen. Naturally, he concludes with a line that has become something of a mantra for the series: “We’re the ones who live.”

It’s a fitting line to end on, capturing the dogged resilience of the human spirit that has arguably been the show’s overarching theme.

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Michael J. Fox, Diane Warren and Cher at the Raucous Governors Awards

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

It’s an honor to be nominated for an Oscar, and Diane Warren would know: The veteran songwriter has been recognized by the academy 13 times, setting a record as the woman who has received the most nominations without a win.

But at the Governors Awards on Saturday night in Los Angeles, Warren finally got the gold she has long sought, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out honorary Oscars that went to her, the actor Michael J. Fox and the directors Euzhan Palcy and Peter Weir.

“I’ve waited 34 years to say this,” Warren cried in her speech, hoisting her Oscar aloft. “I’d like to thank the academy!”

The Governors Awards are always moving and raucous, but they remain untelevised: In a bid to shorten the Oscar broadcast, the honors were cleaved from the show in 2009. Meant to honor artists who have made an essential contribution to cinema without necessarily having won an Oscar, the night also provides another essential purpose: It allows this year’s award contenders to schmooze like their lives depended on it.

Even before dinner was served at the ceremony held at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel, A-list guests like Cate Blanchett, Eddie Redmayne, Jennifer Lawrence and Florence Pugh could be spotted chatting with well-wishers in a ballroom chock-full of Oscar voters. Since it’s early in the season and any awards bid can still be considered viable, the ceremony was packed with even more stars than are seen at a typical Oscar broadcast: A brief walk through the room produced run-ins with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” actors Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, “Elvis” star Austin Butler, and Brendan Fraser, mounting an industry comeback with his transformative role in “The Whale.”

But eventually the hand shakes and back pats were put on pause and the acceptance speeches began. Fox was first up: The 61-year-old “Back to the Future” star was honored with the academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which he accepted in front of a crowd that included his wife, Tracy Pollan, longtime friend Woody Harrelson, and frequent co-star Christopher Lloyd. Fox recalled receiving a Parkinson’s diagnosis at age 29 and how it motivated him to start a foundation that would raise money to research the disease.

“It struck me that everything I’ve been given — success, my life with Tracy, my family — had prepared me for this profound opportunity and responsibility. It was a gift,” Fox said, adding wryly that he sometimes calls Parkinson’s “the gift that keeps on taking.”

Weir, the director of films like “Dead Poets Society,” “Witness,” and “The Truman Show,” spoke amiably from the stage about his early days as a member of the Australian new wave and his close relationship with stars like Robin Williams. Now 78, he has not made a movie in 12 years and considers himself retired. But Palcy, the other director to receive an honorary award on Saturday, is itching to get back on set.

The first Black woman to direct a major studio film (1989’s “A Dry White Season,” starring Marlon Brando), Palcy stepped away from Hollywood fare after too many executives told her that Black stories simply weren’t bankable. But the 64-year-old director noted that she has several scripts she is ready to shoot, and the time is now right to make them.

“Come on, guys, look at my sister standing by me,” Palcy said, gesturing to the presenter Viola Davis, whose film “The Woman King,” directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, topped the box office in September. As Davis smiled and flexed a bicep, Palcy delivered a rousing speech: “Black is bankable! Female is bankable! Black and female is bankable!”

Cher presented the songwriter Diane Warren with her honorary Oscar.Credit…Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The tribute to Warren offered the night’s funniest moments: After a clip reel that included her hits like “How Do I Live” from the Nicolas Cage action flick “Con Air” and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from “Armageddon,” the presenter Cher took the stage to praise her friend’s indefatigable drive.

“One of my fondest memories is when she followed me into an Al-Anon meeting to play me a song,” Cher said.

Warren was surprised that Cher had shown up to the ceremony at all. “Cher doesn’t go east of the 405,” Warren cracked, referring to the freeway that adjoins tony Brentwood neighborhood.

Unlike perennial contenders who demur when asked about the Oscars or pretend they had no idea when the nominations would be announced, Warren has always been refreshingly plain-spoken in interviews: She wants to be nominated, has researched her competition and is continually gunning for a win. And when I caught up with Warren at the end of the night, she grinned like the cat who had caught the canary.

“I can’t believe I have an Academy Award,” she said. “I am now Oscar winner Diane Warren! Who knew?” Rest assured, the statuette will receive pride of place at her house: “I’m not the cool person who goes, ‘Oh, I don’t know where it is,’” she said. “No, this is my buddy.”

After desiring the Oscar for so long, did anything about the honor surprise her?

“It’s heavy,” she said, admiring her new trophy. “I can use it as a weapon!”

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Liza Colón-Zayas Swears by Brené Brown, ‘Hacks’ and Hugs

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

“I’m sorry!” Liza Colón-Zayas said from the bedroom of her Bronx home on a Friday afternoon as car horns blared over the phone. “This is the only time of the day it’s loud!”

She walked over to the window. “Shut up!” she yelled, closing it. “I’ve never seen parents as crazy as when they’re picking up their children from the nursery across the street.”

The actress, who won hearts last summer as the hardscrabble cook Tina in the FX series “The Bear,” has some crazy of her own on tap this fall, when she stars in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy “Between Riverside and Crazy,” which focuses on a retired policeman threatened with eviction and his extended family and friends. When the play opens at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater on Dec. 19, it will be Colón-Zayas’s Broadway debut but the third time she’s played the role of the Church Lady, after productions at Atlantic Theater Company in 2014 and Second Stage’s Off Broadway theater in 2015.

This time, she said, “I’m a different person, it’s a different world. I have to excavate this character again.”

If you saw “Church Lady” and pictured a saintly little woman, think again — in his review of the Atlantic production, The New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote that a memorable scene between Colón-Zayas and Stephen McKinley Henderson in the play’s second act — no spoilers, just look for the communion wafer — “may be the sexiest scene on a New York stage this summer.”

“These characters are deeply flawed — no one is a saint,” Colón-Zayas said. “It’s so dark and so hilarious and authentic.”

It’s that same realism that she finds appealing about Tina on “The Bear.”

“I have a lot of similar characteristics in surviving this industry,” Colón-Zayas said. “I didn’t come out of a conservatory. I don’t look like a leading lady. And yet here I am.” (Another similarity, she noted, is that both she and Tina have a “foul mouth.”)

Colón-Zayas is married to a fellow actor, David Zayas, who this month wrapped up his role as Eddie in the Broadway production of “Cost of Living.” She talked about the shows they are watching together, how her 84-year-old mother makes her day, where to find the best cheesesteak in New York and other necessities. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

1. Hugs Covid messed with me. That elbow bump greeting was well intentioned, but mostly it felt like an embarrassing jerky display of flailing arms. I’m so happy we can hug now.

2. Stephen Adly GuirgisHe’s my favorite living playwright. We go way back, and he’s written many roles for me. As a born and raised New Yorker, his ear for the streets is unlike anyone else’s. His rhythm and the layer of comedy in his plays makes the pain palatable.

3. My Mom’s Greeting Cards Mami always remembers to celebrate all of her loved ones’ birthdays and anniversaries. She’ll write these sweet personal messages in every one and use up all the space, then there’ll be an arrow pointing to more writing on the back. She’s always been my cheerleader. She’s 84 and has gone through a lot of struggles in this life, has all kinds of chronic illnesses, but she just emanates positivity.

4. Home Being an actor means going deep and giving it all to the audience, so home is a place to recharge. Give me my couch, the remote control, my delivery app, and I’m in my happy place. There’s a little Italian place near us called Bella Notte, and they make the greatest cheesesteak sandwich ever. Yes, I said that! Sorry, Philadelphia.

5. Binging Shows With My Husband I love watching shows with David because he does the hilarious commentary. Some of our recent binges are “Succession,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Hacks,” and of course “The Bear.” “Hacks” is so brilliantly funny and offbeat, and “Abbott Elementary” has that mockumentary feel but representing people who work in schools who look like me. And of course I love “The Bear” — I was not shocked, but a little super-impressed with how well the pilot turned out.

6. “Atlas of the Heart” by Brené BrownMy friend, the actress Elizabeth Rodriguez, is always up on the latest self-help books, articles and podcasts. When she raved about this one, I decided to check it out. Mind-blowing. Brown breaks down a long list of human emotions and triggers and helps the reader understand the subtle differences in order to accurately name, face and address them. Just a couple of days ago, I was feeling anxious, and this immediately got me grounded and able to recognize my anxiety or my impostor syndrome. I feel like I need to be playing this one on a loop every three months.

7. Labyrinth Theater Company This ensemble theater, which was formerly Latino Actors Base, has been my artistic support system since 1992. Our ragtag company celebrates its 30th anniversary this fall. I’ve made lifelong friends, met my husband and received the best training there. They helped embrace who I am, rather than erase what makes me me. Finally having in-person meetings with them makes me giddy.

8. Board Games I love when I can get together with my grown kids and grandbabies and play board games. Trash talk is welcomed, and showboating is encouraged. My granddaughter just turned 9, and she loves Uno. We also play Parcheesi, and my 13-year-old grandson loves Monopoly and chess. He’s brilliant — he beats my husband, and my husband doesn’t let him win.

9. The Ocean My friends laugh when I say I’m not a fan of nature — I hate mud, sweating and critters; life’s too short to be uncomfortable — but I love the ocean. Floating in the sea is the only way I can be fully in the moment. Just hearing my breathing and allowing my body to levitate while staring at the sky — I’m feeling more relaxed already.

10. Movie Scores My father would blast movie scores like “The Ten Commandments” on his giant reel-to-reel and pretend he was conducting an orchestra. So, I fell in love with that grandiose music and still listen to it. Sometimes I find even when I’m just walking down a loud, disgusting dirty street, if I’m listening to a big, melodramatic film score, I can take in the world with a little more attention and less judgment.

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Buffalo Museum to Reopen in May

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

The former Albright-Knox Art Gallery, now named the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, will reopen to the public on May 25, 2023, with a vastly renovated and expanded campus designed by the OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu.

A $20 million commitment from New York State, announced Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, completes the Buffalo museum’s $230 million capital campaign, believed to be the largest for a cultural institution in the history of western New York. .

Throughout its history, the museum has been early to acquire works by living artists — beginning with a gift from the Hudson River School painter Albert Bierstadt in 1863, the year after it opened. It was also among the first institutions to collect artists including Jackson Pollock, Henry Moore, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol and Mark Bradford.

The expansion is a “transformative project that will provide a significant boost to Buffalo’s future,” said Governor Hochul, whose hometown is Buffalo. The museum has been closed since construction began in November 2019.

With this campus overhaul, the museum’s annual economic impact on the state would increase to $47 million from $24 million as annual attendance would rise to 185,000 to 205,000, from 135,000, according to the University at Buffalo Regional Institute, a research center that the museum partnered with to conduct a comprehensive two-part regional study.

The centerpiece of Shigematsu’s design is a new three-story gallery building, sheathed in a glass curtain wall. The building will be connected by a fanciful transparent bridge, snaking through a grove of oak trees, to the 1905 neo-Classical building designed by E.B. Green. Shigematsu has overseen substantial renovations to the 1905 building, as well as to a modernist building designed in 1962 by Gordon Bunshaft, who bridged the two structures with an outdoor sculpture court that was rarely used, given Buffalo’s inclement weather.

Now, the courtyard is being enclosed with a dramatic canopy of glass and mirrors rising from a funnel form, in a site-specific artwork by Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann of Studio Other Spaces that creates a new community gathering space for the campus.

A rendering of the canopy of glass and mirrors, a site-specific artwork by Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann of Studio Other Spaces.Credit…via Studio Other Spaces

“A key driver of this entire campus project has been to conceive an architectural solution that is synergistic with our mission to be an open and accessible museum to diverse audiences,” the museum’s director, Janne Siren, said.

The financier Jeffrey E. Gundlach, a Buffalo native represented by the G in the museum’s new name, gave $65 million for the expansion, with the stipulation that the campaign include both private contributions and government support. (The new gallery building is also named after Gundlach.)

Overall, the museum is doubling its exhibition space to 50,000 square feet, all dedicated to the permanent collection in an inaugural reinstallation that will display more than 400 works.

Roughly 15 percent have never been exhibited, including recent acquisitions of work by Nick Cave, Ed Clark, Simone Forti, Jeffrey Gibson, Arthur Jafa, Simone Leigh and Stanley Whitney. A highlight will be the exhibition of all 33 of the museum’s monumental paintings by the Abstract Expressionist pioneer Clyfford Still, the second largest holdings of the artist worldwide after the Clyfford Still Museum’s collection. Still personally gave 31 of these works to the Buffalo museum in 1961 after his first career retrospective there in 1959.

“Still recognized the museum as a good home for his art,” Siren said, “a home that had this artist-centric ethos.”

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The Trisha Brown Company Hires a Choreographer Not Named Trisha Brown

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

For all of its 52-year history, the Trisha Brown Dance Company has exclusively presented work by its founding artistic director, the choreographer Trisha Brown, who died in 2017. But the company announced on Monday that it has commissioned its first dance by a choreographer other than Brown: Judith Sánchez Ruíz, whose “Let’s Talk About Bleeding” will have its premiere during the company’s 2023 season at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan.

“We’re happy to do Trisha’s work forever,” said Barbara Dufty, the company’s executive director. “But we feel the field is asking for something more, and we want to highlight a new voice, an artist with a connection to Trisha’s legacy.”

Sánchez Ruíz, who was born in Cuba and trained at the National School of Arts in Havana, danced with the Brown company from 2006 to 2009. She formed her own company in 2010. The next year, she moved to Berlin, where she spent three years dancing in Sasha Waltz’s troupe before establishing herself there as an independent, self-produced choreographer.

Carolyn Lucas, the Brown company’s associate artistic director, said she had long followed Sánchez Ruíz’s career with admiration. But it was a series that Sánchez Ruíz created in tribute to Brown after her death — particularly a 2020 solo — that convinced Lucas to commission her. “It was so beautiful,” Lucas said. “It showed such command, such a deep mining of materials. For me, thinking of a choreographer to invite, that was it.”

Lucas described the commission as a big step but an inevitable one. Like many dance companies built on the work of a single, now-dead choreographer, the Brown troupe has a core mission to preserve and perform the repertory left by its founder, but “it’s no mystery that presenters need to have new work,” Lucas said, adding, “I feel really confident about bringing Judith into conversation with Trisha’s legacy.”

Sánchez Ruíz — speaking on a call from Hong Kong, where she is an artist in residence at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts — said she felt intensely grateful to Brown. “When I auditioned for the company, I was 33 and had a baby,” she said. “Getting accepted felt like a miracle. And in terms of what I learned about composition and how to generate material creatively, I always call my Trisha years my Ph.D.

“After I left the company,” she continued, “Trisha came to all my premieres, and that meant the world to me. We had many conversations about being a woman choreographer” — about perseverance and boldness.

Sánchez Ruíz described working with the current Brown dancers, most of whom are new, as communication across generational difference. “I’m teaching them, actually,” she said — about what she learned from Brown, about what she has learned since and about what she pulls from the dancers. Making the first outside commission for the Brown company, she added, is “a great responsibility. I’m very curious about how it will go.”

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How Did Mud Get Everywhere?

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

Balenciaga’s spring 2023 show, which took place this October at a darkened convention center on the outskirts of Paris, was a complete mess. To match the collection’s aggressive, almost militaristic severity — a multipocket combat jacket, graffitied hoodies, a dress made entirely from the brand’s repurposed leather City bags — the Spanish artist Santiago Sierra hauled over 9,700 cubic feet of dank earth into the venue to create troughs through which models plodded, their clothes gathering sludge with each step. A custom scent, redolent of decomposition and developed by the Norwegian smell researcher and artist Sissel Tolaas, lingered in the post-apocalyptic bog. According to Balenciaga’s artistic director, Demna, the set was “a metaphor for digging for truth.”

In recent years, particularly after the arrival of the novel coronavirus and the ensuing travel restrictions, it was sand that emerged as the perfect escapist symbol: a shorthand for a vacation destination where we could all bury our heads for a bit. Most memorable was Lina Lapelytė’s opera “Sun & Sea,” which toured globally during the pandemic after winning a top prize at the 2019 Venice Biennale and featured beachgoers who performed Vaiva Grainytė’s libretto about the climate crisis. While the Earth warms, they just keep on relaxing.

The German actor Lars Eidinger in Thomas Ostermeier’s 2022 production of “Hamlet” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Credit…Photo by Arno Declair, courtesy of BAM

But if sand is a Beckettian distraction, the Balenciaga show reflected the storm brewing in our own backyard. “With dirt and mud, you’re trying to bring a certain kind of reality back into the white cube realm of grand bourgeoisie,” says the 54-year-old German experimental theater director Thomas Ostermeier. “You’re creating tension between sterile spaces and this very sensual material.” In his savage reinterpretation of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” which made its American debut earlier this fall as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, the Danish royal family spirals into madness on a burial site designed by Ostermeier’s German collaborator Jan Pappelbaum with an acre of mud. As the story unfolds and the characters unravel, wet soil comes to represent their decaying mental state: The actors rub it on their faces and stuff it into one another’s mouths. “The more the world goes down, the more Shakespeare becomes relevant,” Ostermeier says.

In the French Austrian choreographer Gisèle Vienne’s “Crowd,” which also had a run at BAM in October, a troupe of dancers writhe to techno music on a dirt-covered stage. As its name suggests, the performance takes place at a packed rave where revelers use their bodies to convey feelings of isolation and ecstasy in a story written by Vienne and the American author Dennis Cooper. As the performers lose themselves in E.D.M. tracks from the ’90s, grinding on one another and across the grimy floor, the audience, too, feels as if they’ve stepped into a party at the end of the world — though the image that lingers is not of the rager itself but the wasteland left in its wake.

A spring 2023 runway look by Balenciaga.Credit…Imaxtree

Similarly, for her contribution to this year’s Venice Biennale, “Earthly Paradise,” Delcy Morelos created hedges of soil that surround the viewer’s body like the walls of a labyrinth — a quietly unnerving immersion in what she has called the “intimate humidity of the earth.” The Colombian artist, who will mount her next installation at Dia Chelsea in fall 2023, seemed to be engaging with the legacy of “The New York Earth Room” (1977) by the American artist Walter De Maria, itself made from about 280,000 pounds of dirt, and a rumination on our complicated relationship with nature (the piece is still maintained in SoHo by Dia Art Foundation). Of course, as an analogy for our present moment — or our “empire of dirt,” to quote the Nine Inch Nails frontman, Trent Reznor — mud isn’t subtle: The world is in a state of decrepitude. Even the way we talk about things — dirty money, internet trolls — is sullied. The clearest way out of the muck, these artists and creators seem to be saying, isn’t to button up and double down on the hallmarks of civilized prosperity but to return to nature, embracing collective catharsis and the occasional anarchic release. If they’re to be believed, we must adhere to a sort of sociological composting — of breaking things down so that they might grow back stronger, of getting into the mud together, if only to enjoy the cleansing that comes after. As Ostermeier sees it, his stage isn’t just a graveyard: “It’s also a playground.”

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In Morocco, a Hotel That Offers the Luxury of Peace and Quiet

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

In the early ’90s, Fabrizio Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa, a French Italian aristocrat from Paris and a former dealer in 18th-century French furniture, moved to Marrakesh. Ruspoli, who grew up visiting his grandmother in Morocco, quickly felt at home among the city’s well-known expats — among them at the time the interior designer Bill Willis, the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé — and soon purchased the popular French restaurant La Maison Arabe, transforming it into the medina’s first riad hotel. But in the three decades since his arrival, says Ruspoli, Marrakesh has, for better and worse, grown “along with the noise of scooters.” So three years ago, he decided to sell the hotel to seek a quieter life about an hour’s drive outside of town in the Atlas Mountains. But not too quiet: This fall, Ruspoli and his longtime partner, José Abete, opened a new property, Olinto, in the lush Ouirgane Valley. Set on 10 acres planted with olive groves and fragrant gardens, the hotel has dramatic views of the red earth mountains, with nine vine-covered guesthouses with rooftop sitting areas, private gardens and, in some cases, pools. A spa will open sometime next year, but for now, guests can lounge on the many wisteria-lined terraces and enjoy massages in the traditional hammam. Ruspoli, who says he was “born playing a piano,” named his new project in honor of his like-minded ancestor Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, a patron of Handel, who adopted the moniker Olinto, after a village in ancient Greece, as part of his membership in a musical and literary society called the Academy of Arcadia. “My hope is to host something similar here: a retreat and, eventually, a small music festival surrounded by my gardens,” he says. Rates start at $700 per night, olinto.net.

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Key Union Votes Down Freight Rail Contract, Making Strike More Likely

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

Members of a union that primarily represent freight rail conductors have narrowly voted down a tentative labor contract, their union said Monday.

If the two sides cannot reach another tentative agreement by early December, the rail workers could strike — an outcome that industry officials have estimated could cost the economy more than $2 billion per day.

Roughly 51 percent of the voting members of the union, SMART Transportation Division, rejected the agreement. Members of a second large union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which primarily represents engineers, voted to approve the agreement by a margin of 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent.

“SMART-TD members with their votes have spoken, it’s now back to the bargaining table for our operating craft members,” the SMART-TD president, Jeremy Ferguson, said in a statement. “This can all be settled through negotiations and without a strike. A settlement would be in the best interests of the workers, the railroads, shippers and the American people.”

The proposal, reached in September with help from the Biden administration, covered members of a dozen rail industry unions and would have raised wages by nearly 25 percent over the five years that began in 2020, when the last contract expired.

But rail workers have said their top concerns are the grueling, unpredictable schedules that take a toll on their personal lives and their health. Many have complained that extended time on the road and long stretches of on-call work make it difficult to see a doctor for an illness or injury, or to be present at family milestones like a child’s birthday.

Rail carriers say that employees can generally attend to these needs by taking paid vacation. The workers say their employers limit their options for taking paid time off in practice — for example, by narrowing the windows in which they can take vacation or rejecting a requested personal day.

The tentative agreement would have allowed workers to take off up to three times each year for a routine medical appointment without risking disciplinary action, but many workers said that the concession was insufficient and that it did not address the deeper issue underlying their concerns: a business model that seeks to minimize labor costs and that results in chronic understaffing.

The Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency that regulates freight rail, has estimated that large freight carriers employed roughly 30 percent fewer workers this year than they did six years ago.

Before the conductors union voted down the agreement, three smaller unions that would be covered by the agreement voted against it. That in itself could have led to an industrywide strike because rail workers are unlikely to cross the picket lines of other unions.

Skeptical conductors and engineers have pointed out that the tentative agreement could have worsened staffing problems and made their schedules even less predictable by allowing the carriers to apply a staffing change they have long sought.

Under the current system, conductors and engineers fall to the bottom of a list of available crews when they complete a trip, then gradually work their way up to the top, at which point they are sent out again.

If a co-worker calls in sick, a worker from a group known as an extra board can be substituted so that the other conductors and engineers do not move up the list more quickly and can maintain some predictability in their schedule.

Workers say cuts to the extra board in recent years have eroded this predictability. The tentative agreement made it possible for the carriers to establish so-called self-supporting pools that eliminate the use of substitute workers, though it appeared to give the unions some formal say over whether to do so.

“The self-protecting pools is a really, really big one,” said Michael Paul Lindsey, an Idaho-based member of the engineers union, alluding to the reasons that many workers opposed the deal.

Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, who in September helped broker the agreement that the unions voted down, said in an interview with CNN this month that Congress would have to mandate a contract to avoid a strike if the two sides could not resolve their differences.

Mr. Lindsey said Mr. Walsh’s pronouncement angered his co-workers, who believed they should be allowed to strike if the industry did not make sufficient concessions. He said many workers suspected that the administration had been primarily concerned with preventing the labor dispute from boiling over before this month’s midterm elections rather than addressing their concerns.

“People feel completely sold out,” Mr. Lindsey said, adding, “Now that it’s after the election, there’s going to be no accountability.”

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Disney Brings Back Bob Iger After Ousting Chapek as C.E.O.

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

In a move that dropped jaws in Hollywood and prompted comparisons to an implausible screenplay, the board of the Walt Disney Company fired Bob Chapek as chief executive on Sunday and announced that Robert A. Iger would return to run the company, effective immediately.

In effect, Disney is replacing Mr. Iger’s handpicked successor as chief executive with Mr. Iger. In a Sunday night email to Disney employees, Mr. Iger said it was “with an incredible sense of gratitude and humility — and, I must admit, a bit of amazement — that I write to you this evening with the news that I am returning.”

Mr. Iger, 71, agreed to a two-year contract after the board determined that Mr. Chapek, 62, had done irreparable damage to his ability to lead, with a string of missteps resulting in the lost confidence of Wall Street and most senior Disney executives, as well as many rank-and-file employees. Mr. Iger previously served as Disney’s chief executive from 2005 to 2020, a run that was widely seen as one of the most successful in Hollywood history.

Mr. Iger left Disney entirely at the end of 2021, having served as executive chairman for two years to help Mr. Chapek gain his footing. Now, Mr. Iger has been given two years by the board to steer the company on to the right path and groom another successor.

“We thank Bob Chapek for his service,” Susan Arnold, the board chair, said in a statement. “The board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the company through this pivotal period.”

Bob Chapek at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, California, in September. Credit…Alex Welsh for The New York Times

Ms. Arnold called Mr. Iger on Thursday and asked him to consider returning to the company, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. In recent months, Mr. Iger has made no secret of his extreme disappointment with Mr. Chapek, telling people close to him that he was “devastated” by the downward direction that Disney had taken and that it felt that Disney was losing its soul.

Mr. Iger had delayed his retirement from Disney three times and, in some ways, seemed reluctant to leave the company when he did. At the same time, Mr. Iger was firm when people in the upper ranks of Hollywood asked him in recent months if he would ever return: No.

Since leaving Disney, Mr. Iger has joined Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital as a venture partner; joined the board of Genies Inc., a crypto start-up that allows people to create digital avatars; started to work on a second book; and spent time on his yacht in locales like the Ionian Sea. It was not immediately clear whether he will cut ties with Thrive Capital.

Mr. Iger said in a statement on Sunday night that he was “extremely optimistic for the future of this great company and thrilled to be asked by the board to return as CEO.”

Mr. Chapek did not respond to requests for comment.

The surprise reinstatement of Mr. Iger and ouster of Mr. Chapek comes in the wake of a disastrous earnings announcement on Nov. 8. Disney blindsided Wall Street by reporting $1.5 billion in losses at its fledgling streaming division, up from $630 million a year earlier. Mr. Chapek said that higher Disney+ production, marketing and technology costs had contributed to the “peak” losses.

In total, Disney generated $20.15 billion in revenue in three months that ended on Oct. 1, a 9 percent increase from a year earlier. But analysts had expected $21.3 billion. Profit totaled $162 million, or 9 cents a share, roughly flat from a year earlier. Excluding items affecting comparisons, per-share profit for the most recent quarter was 30 cents, much less than analysts had expected.

It is almost unheard-of for Disney to miss expectations on both revenue and earnings per share.

Disney shares dropped 12 percent the next morning, in part because investors — and many people inside Disney — were shocked by the happy-go-lucky tone that Mr. Chapek struck while discussing the earnings report on a conference call with analysts. Mr. Chapek’s demeanor struck many as tone deaf, in particular when he started to implausibly talk about how great the response had been to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, a relatively inconsequential event at Disneyland. At least one adviser had warned Mr. Chapek ahead of time that his prepared remarks were inappropriately sunny.

Immediately, the CNBC host Jim Cramer began to call for Mr. Chapek’s firing during comments on his show. On Friday, Mr. Cramer said that Mr. Chapek was “incapable of running a fantastic company” and “we need someone new at Disney.”

Mr. Cramer added, “That balance sheet is the balance sheet from hell.”

The comments by Mr. Cramer ricocheted among senior executives at Disney, who became increasingly irate, with a few telling each other that they had lost confidence in Mr. Chapek’s ability to lead Disney out of its slump. Disney shares have fallen 41 percent since January, to about $98, and much of the compensation of senior creative leaders at Disney comes in stock options.

Mr. Chapek was named C.E.O. in February 2020, taking over from Mr. Iger. The handoff did not go smoothly. The coronavirus pandemic forced Mr. Chapek to close most of the company. This year, Mr. Chapek contended with one crisis after another, some of his own making.

In March, Disney became entangled in a heated dispute with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, over legislation meant to prohibit classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity through the third grade. Mr. Chapek tried not to take a side at first, at least publicly, which prompted an employee revolt. Mr. Chapek then denounced the bill, setting off a political firestorm, with right-wing figures railing against “woke Disney.”

In June, Mr. Chapek abruptly fired Disney’s top television executive, to howls of disapproval from Hollywood. In August, the activist investor Dan Loeb pushed Mr. Chapek to consider a range of changes, including shaking up the board and spinning off ESPN. (Mr. Loeb later backtracked on a spinoff, saying on Twitter that he had learned more about Disney’s “growth and innovation plans” for ESPN.)

All the while, some of Disney’s most dedicated theme park customers have been growing indignant over price increases they see as nickel and diming. This summer, Disney told investors that theme park profits would have been even higher if not for an “unfavorable attendance mix” at Disney World, which annual pass holders took as an affront. T-shirts, mugs and stickers began selling online bearing the word “Unfavorables” in Disneyland’s signature calligraphy.

Benjamin Mullin contributed reporting.

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Beyond Meat Is Struggling, and the Plant-Based Meat Industry Worries

by SITKI KOVALI
written by SITKI KOVALI

For a while, it seemed Beyond Meat was taking over the world.

Its faux burgers and sausages were landing on dinner plates in homes throughout the United States and on the menu boards of chains like Subway, Carl’s Jr.and Starbucks. When the company went public in 2019, its shares skyrocketed as investors bet that the meatless movement was finally having its moment. During the pandemic, Beyond Meat’s grocery store sales surged as curious consumers tried its vegan options.

But these days, Beyond Meat has lost some of its sizzle.

Its stock has slumped nearly 83 percent in the past year. Sales, which the company had expected to rise as much as 33 percent this year, are now likely to show only minor growth. McDonald’s concluded a pilot of the McPlant burger — made with a Beyond Meat patty — this year with no plans to put it on the menu permanently.

In late October, the company said it was laying off 200 people, or 19 percent of its work force. And four top executives have departed in recent months, including the chief financial officer, the chief supply chain officer and the chief operating officer, whom Beyond Meat had suspended after his arrest on allegations that he bit another man’s nose in a parking garage altercation.

What investors and others are debating now is whether Beyond Meat’s struggles are specific to the company or a harbinger of deeper issues in the plant-based meat industry.

“At the category level, we’re seeing volumes for plant-based meats down 22 consecutive months now,” said John Baumgartner, a consumer food analyst at the financial institution Mizuho Americas.

A few years ago, investors expected the category to explode with growth year after year, Mr. Baumgartner said. Now, he said, those expectations are being reconsidered.

“We’re positive on the future for plant-based meat, but this is a 20- to 25-year story,” he said. “It’s not going to happen in three to five to 10 years.”

Beyond the Orange Chicken “showed us just how great the demand is for an innovative plant-based dish at Panda,” said Evelyn Wah, a Panda Express executive. Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Some say the slowdown in sales is a product of food inflation, as consumers trade pricier plant-based meat for less-expensive animal meat. But others wonder if the companies have simply reached the maximum number of consumers willing to try or repeatedly purchase faux burgers and sausages.

Analysts at Deloitte, who conducted a survey of consumers this year, questioned whether the 53 percent who were not buying plant-based meats could be turned into customers.

“The category had been growing at double-digit for a long time and was expected to continue, but what we saw this year is that the number of consumers who were buying it did not increase,” said Justin Cook, the U.S. consumer products research leader at Deloitte.

While inflation played a role, so did a decline in the perception that plant-based meats are healthier than animal proteins. (The companies focus on the environmental benefits.) But the Deloitte analysts said another problem might be resistance to a product that some segment of customers see as “woke” and linked to politically left-leaning ideas.

In August, when the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain stated on its Facebook page that it had begun offering the meatless “Impossible Sausage,” the post was flooded with thousands of comments from irate customers. “Go woke, go broke,” one wrote. “You just lost a ton of your base. You obviously don’t know your patrons.”

The data around the category are mixed. Over the past year, volume sales of refrigerated plant-based meats slid 11.6 percent, with packages of faux ground meat and patties taking a particular beating, according to IRI, a market research firm. But volume sales of frozen plant-based meats, which are typically less expensive than the refrigerated products, fell only slightly. Volume sales of faux chicken nuggets and patties rose sharply.

Beyond Meat’s chief executive, Ethan Brown, said his company was competing in an increasingly crowded field. Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Moreover, while some plant-based meat manufacturers are struggling, others are seeing rising sales.

In October, the Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS said it was closing Planterra Foods, its plant-based meat operation, after just two years. And volume sales for the vegetarian-meat maker Morningstar Farms, which Kellogg has said it plans to spin off or potentially sell, dropped sharply in nearly every category this year, according to the IRI data. On a call with Wall Street analysts in August, Kellogg’s chief executive, Steven Cahillane, attributed the drop to supply-chain issues with a co-manufacturer of the products.

But privately held Impossible Foods said demand for its products grew tremendously last year.

“We’re not experiencing anything like what Beyond Meat has reported or some of the other brands in the space,” Keely Sulprizio, a spokeswoman for Impossible Foods, said in an email. “Quite the opposite: We’re seeing hypergrowth, with over 60 percent year-over-year dollar sales growth in retail alone.”

The IRI data show that while volume sales of Impossible ground meat and faux burger patties were down slightly, volumes of other categories, including frozen faux meat and chicken, soared.

“We launched in frozen more recently with a larger family size, and it’s been very popular with both retailers and consumers,” Ms. Sulprizio said.

In a call with Wall Street analysts in early November, Ethan Brown, the founder and chief executive of Beyond Meat, said an increasing number of plant-based meat players were battling for a smaller group of consumers as shoppers traded down to less-expensive animal proteins. As a result, “a shakeout does appear to be underway, and we expect more brands to either retreat or consolidate,” Mr. Brown said. Beyond Meat declined to comment for this article beyond the call with analysts.

While the company hoped to restore growth to its refrigerated products, which have some of the highest profit margins, Mr. Brown noted that it was expanding distribution for many of its frozen products.

“Frozen plant-based chicken is the largest single subcategory in all of plant-based meats and continues to grow at a double-digit pace,” he said.

Mr. Brown also noted that McDonald’s continued to offer the McPlant burger in other markets, including Britain and Ireland, and that Beyond Meat was testing new products with other chains, including KFC and Taco Bell.

In addition to Panda Express, chains like KFC and Taco Bell are testing Beyond Meat products, Mr. Brown said.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Panda Express, for instance, said in September that it would offer Beyond the Original Orange Chicken on its menu nationally for a limited time after an initial offering in New York City and Southern California sold out in less than two weeks last year.

It “showed us just how great the demand is for an innovative plant-based dish at Panda,” Evelyn Wah, vice president of brand innovation for Panda Express, said in an email. She added, “We’ve been pleased with the positive sentiment we’ve received from our guests.”

Mr. Baumgartner said that when his firm had asked consumers in a survey why they weren’t buying plant-based meats, they said they didn’t like the taste. While the competitive companies have continued to improve existing products while quickly rolling out new ones, he said, he is concerned that some products are coming to market too quickly.

“You’re not selling iPhone version 1.0 and maybe it’s not the best and greatest, but the consumer can upgrade to version 2.0, which has better graphics and keypad,” Mr. Baumgartner said. “If you roll something out in the food industry that’s not quite where it needs to be in terms of quality and taste and the consumer tries it and has a bad experience, he’s not coming back.”

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