Learning “More” About the Biebers and Overthinking in Book Form. Plus, Checking on Harry and Meghan!

Key takeaways

• The Harry and Meghan story has cooled into low-stakes coverage built on photo ops rather than statements: Prince George started at Eton, Meghan was welcomed by name at Soho Farmhouse near the Cotswolds, and Harry signed the wall at Tower Bridge Studios, a podcast studio the hosts find fitting given his abandoned podcast plans.
• A palace committee is set to meet, possibly this week, on whether Harry's family gets security and who pays. The hosts argue the framing that it must be either the UK government or nothing is a farce, since King Charles has enormous private wealth as the country's biggest landowner and could simply fund it and end the fight, which they read as a proxy war over HRH status and family belonging.
• W magazine's new youth title, stylized "Aw Yout" and pronounced "W Youth," launched with a Justin and Hailey Bieber cover whose entire text is a shared iMessage-style questionnaire. Sample answers include "way too hard to pick" and "too hard to pick" for favorite artist, "golf" and "I don't have a fun hobby," the Bible and Angelina Ballerina for books, and an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. The hosts see it as a printed Instagram post and question whether launching any print magazine makes sense now.
• Juliette finished Rachel Cusk's novel about a narrator obsessed with a Natalie Portman-like actress and found it a bad hang: relentlessly introspective, unclear whether the self-loathing narrator is meant ironically, and readable mainly as a comment on how celebrity and Instagram-style comparison corrode everyone. She cites critiques from Molly Young and Parul Sehgal.
• Both hosts avoid movies, shows, and books about motherhood, preferring reading as pure pleasure. Amanda favors historical fiction and narrative nonfiction because those forms leave little room for the self-reflexive narrator. They note Tracy Ellis Ross chose her SAG name so both parents would see themselves on screen.
• Quick hits: Natalie Portman had a baby and has not acknowledged the Cusk novel; Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wore coordinated outfits to the Ambassadors Club Indian restaurant near Herald Square, prompting speculation about why she dressed as if for a wedding; Ben Affleck is doing Aflac ads timed to his October Netflix film with Kerry Washington.

Notable moments

• "After eight days in Venice, I know what tiramisu is," Amanda says, tying her long stay to a rewatch of When Harry Met Sally and mourning Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner.
• Juliette zooms in on Harry's signature and decides it reads as an H and a dramatic D, likely for Duke of Sussex, while noting Meghan's Instagram display name remains "Meghan, Duchess of Sussex."
• The hosts imagine Harry going on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO, "Spare part two as a podcast," because Bartlett rarely interrupts.
• Amanda pitches Alex Earle's Netflix show as unexpectedly sociological, centered on tension with stepmom Ashley Dupre of the Eliot Spitzer scandal.
• Juliette reads roughly 70 percent of the Bieber cover story aloud, landing on Justin listing The Breakup as a favorite movie, which the show previously cut from its rom-com canon.
• Juliette sums up the Cusk novel with a meme reference: "you're thinking too much about yourselves in book form," and says she quit engaging after a passage about a dog.
• Amanda praises the Sandra Bullock interview in Interview magazine, conducted by Jennifer Aniston for Practical Magic 2, as inventive art direction.
• Feedback segment: Juliette finally buys the back-in-stock Loeffler Randall Cooper Mary Jane sneaker; Amanda ranks Megababe's heel and blister stick above Coldies as her Venice MVP.
• Amanda reports washing her hands next to Suki Waterhouse at the Robert Pattinson OpenAI movie premiere, where Pattinson plays a Chris Hansen-style figure.
• Juliette's 17-month-old son has his first tantrum, kicking his toy fire truck out of hunger before cold oatmeal restores peace.

Time saved: 45 minutes.