Wordle's getting a game show, detective sheep, and my first red outfit in years

The NYT is turning Wordle into a TV show, therapists are starting to let AI into their offices, and yes, it’s time to start thinking about Memorial Day.

Let's get into it.

Wordle (yes, the game) is coming to primetime

The New York Times announced that Wordle is becoming a half-hour game show on NBC, complete with cash prizes. Jimmy Fallon is co-producing, and Today's Savannah Guthrie will host (filming was pushed from March to this summer while Guthrie's family searches for her mother Nancy, who went missing earlier this year). This is the first time the NYT has dipped into actual primetime entertainment on a major network, which is a pretty wild evolution for a newspaper. But also, ever since they bought Wordle back in 2022 for a few million $$ and immediately gained tens of millions of new users, their Games division has kind of become the thing keeping the whole ship afloat while traditional news readership shrinks. So turning your most addictive product into a TV franchise? Sounds smart!

Therapists are cautiously inviting AI into the room

So here's where things are with AI and mental health right now: a growing number of therapists are experimenting with AI tools in their practices, mostly for the boring stuff like transcriptions, updating records, and dealing with insurance billing. Which, fine, if it means my therapist spends less time on paperwork and more time asking me why I'm like this, I'm on board. But the bigger picture is more complicated. A poll found that roughly 1 in 6 adults have already used AI chatbots for mental health advice, and that number is way higher among younger adults. Which makes sense when you consider the therapist shortage, the cost of sessions, and the fact that AI is available at 2am when your brain decides to spiral. The problem is that chatbots can't pick up on body language, subtle mood shifts, or the fact that you're deflating while you talk. And it can get dark: there are now over a dozen lawsuits against OpenAI alleging serious harm after users relied on ChatGPT for mental health support. Worth remembering that the word "therapy" has zero legal protection, so if something calls itself a therapy tool, do your homework on who's actually behind it.

There is a movie about sheep who solve a murder, and it's getting rave reviews??

I wasn't expecting to type these words, but: The Sheep Detectives might be one of the best-reviewed movies of the year so far (will spare you all a “flocking to the theater” joke, you’re welcome). Hugh Jackman plays a shepherd who reads detective novels to his flock every night, and when he's murdered, the sheep decide to solve the case themselves. The voice cast is absolutely stacked: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (I LOVE HER), Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, and Nicholas Galitzine are all playing sheep. It's sitting at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and critics are calling it "enchanting" and "disarmingly profound," which is not what I expected from a movie about livestock. It opened over Mother's Day weekend and pulled in $16 million. If you're looking for something to watch this week that will make you feel things but also laugh, this is apparently it!

I hope your Mother's Day was as good as mine. I spent the weekend at home with Kim (my mom, the GOAT, the original working girl), which mostly consisted of pickleball, because pickleball is her love language and I am contractually obligated as her daughter to lose to her gracefully on the court. I use the word "gracefully" loosely here because there was definitely a moment where I disputed a line call and she gave me a look that sent me right back to age 12. Happy belated Mother's Day to Kim, to all the moms out there, and to the corporate girlies mothering entire teams without the title or the pay bump. You are mothers too.

A red moment! Truly groundbreaking for me, a girl whose closet is 90% black, 9% neutral, and 1% "this red top I keep reaching for because it's the only color I own." Paired with my favorite dark wash jeans and sunglasses that are the best investment I've ever made.

Memorial Day weekend is in two weeks, which means the unofficial start of summer is creeping up, and if you're anything like me, you're going to blink and suddenly it's Friday of a short week and you haven't planned a single thing. This is your sign to spend 15 minutes this week getting ahead of it.

Book the thing now. Whether it's a dinner reservation, a rental, or just texting your friend group to confirm plans, do it today. Short weekends fill up fast and Future You will be furious if she's stuck scrambling for the one reservation on earth that hasn’t been claimed last minute.

Do a 10-minute closet audit. Pull out your summer rotation and see what survived winter storage. If your go-to white jeans have a mystery stain from last August, you want to know now and not at 7 am the day of your plans.

Pre-load your reading list. Download a book, queue up a podcast playlist, save those articles you've been "meaning to get to" since March. Relaxation is 100x better when you're not doom-scrolling the ENTIRE weekend because you forgot to prepare actual entertainment (but obviously a bit of daily scrolling is needed and deserved).

Thanks for reading!