Podcast: Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Pandemic or no pandemic, we could all stand to be happier. Tune in to this weekly podcast from co-hosts Gretchen Rubin and her sister, screenwriter Elizabeth Craft. The friendly duo explore ways to make life better through habit changes, nightly rituals, power hours, meditation, mantras and more. And if you want more, check out one of Rubin’s bestselling books, which include the perfect-for-isolation Happier at Home. gretchenrubin.com/podcasts. –C. Moon Reed

Television: The Great

From its baroque title card to the peppy indie rock playing under the end credits, Hulu’s “occasionally true story” of Catherine the Great is a brutal comic delight—imagine Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette colliding with the fast-talking nihilism of Armando Iannucci. Elle Fanning plays the future leader of Russia as dewy-eyed and idealistic, but calculating; Nicholas Hoult is a horny but nonetheless dangerous Peter III. Every bloody second leading up to the inevitable coup is gold. Hulu. –Geoff Carter

Television: High Fidelity

The crowd still complaining about Ghostbusters rebooting with female stars or the Ocean’s franchise putting women out front surely won’t dig Hulu’s recent High Fidelity series, but it wasn’t made for them anyway. The latest interpretation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel plays like a hip, modern update of 2000’s High Fidelity film, with Zoë Kravitz succeeding John Cusack as record store-owning protagonist Rob.

She seeks out the great loves of her past, constructs Top 5 lists with her co-workers—scene-stealing pair Da’Vine Joy Randolph and David H. Holmes—and spins songs you already know (David Bowie and The Pointer Sisters) and some you might not (Swamp Dogg and Durand Jones & The Indications). You’ll come away with the makings of a great new playlist … and the realization you’ve been saying the “Beta” in Beta Band wrong all these years. Hulu. –Spencer Patterson

Music: Perfume Genius: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Michael Alden Hadreas’ fifth studio album is the singer/songwriter/pianist’s most stunning work yet—an homage to lovers past and present and a statement on growing older and the painful lessons that can come with it. Each song on Set My Heart on Fire Immediately offers a uniquely cathartic release, with Hadreas’ powerful vocals centered atop his virtuosic piano arrangements. Flowing with ferocity and tenderness, Perfume Genius cements his place among this era’s genre-defying greats. –Leslie Ventura

Television: Run

This Phoebe Waller-Bridge-produced show—starring Merritt Wever and Domhnall Gleeson—starts out as a breezy, transcontinental train romp—two former college lovers made a pact to one day run away together and do so 15 years later, setting off a chain of events they could not have foreseen. The plot hinges on the “what ifs,” of lives we wish we lived and choices we wish we made. At the end of that train ride, will the lovers rectify their regrets? Find out in seven bittersweet episodes. HBO. –Genevie Durano