The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

This week we’re comforting ChatGPT, listening to Japanese Breakfast on loop, divided over the Severance finale and impressed by Benny Blanco’s glow-up

The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

• 
  Growing up

  Margot Robbie has been cast as Catherine Earnshaw in the new Wuthering Heights. Robbie is 34, Cat is meant to be 18. So what? SRK and Kajol were 30 and 24 in the campus romance Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Nicola Coughlan was the right fit for both a 15-year-old (Derry Girls) and a 17-year-old (Bridgerton), even though she was past 30 when filming. This will age well too. Chill.
• 
  Offloading a problem

  Well, well, well. AI came for our jobs and took some. Look what they got for free: Our problems. ChatGPT-type models are struggling with anxiety now. A study has found that content about war and accidents can make bots moody, even low-key racist or sexist. Who wouldn’t be? We’re just surprised that it took three years to break a bot.
• 
  Split down the middle

  Severance fans, pick a side: Innie or Outie? The finale shows Mark saving his wife Gemma from Lumon’s Testing Floor (Aww!) But then, Innie Mark runs off with Helly, leaving Gemma heartbroken. They’re all doomed, of course. Brunch Innies are rooting for Mark-Helly, BTW. Alexa, play We Found Love In A Hopeless Place.
• 
  So plucking mad

  Saw Benny Blanco get a glow-up last week? Girlfriend Selena Gomez got him to get rid of his unibrow. The tweezer did what tweezers do. But Blanco said he “couldn’t even tell the difference”. Huh? See that gap between your brows, Benny. It’s bigger than a Mumbai balcony.
• 
  Accepting our fate

  The Japanese anime film, Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle, lets viewers vote for the singers and the ending they want to see. Cool, but hardly new. Shows and movie franchises have been adapting to viewer choices already. It’s why Kali Prasad disappeared after Stranger Things S2. And why the Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror slaps. Free will? Nah, just good marketing.
• 
  Flailing spectacularly

  Those #RegulateYourNervousSystem vids that claim to calm you are duller than deep breaths. We already know about power walks, stretches and affirmations. That’s why we’re all over the chicken-banana dance, flapping wildly as we loosen up. OK, but the squirrels-in-your-pants dance from Phineas and Ferb is the GOAT.
• 
  Uncorking the whine

  Michelle Zauner’s band, Japanese Breakfast, has a new album out. For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) elevates every “I’m down” moment to an art form. There’s sarod, bell-piano and lots of violins. It’s the perfect soundtrack for when you’re living through your gothic-gloomy era. Life’s a movie anyway, right?
• 
  Trimming the excess

  There’s been so much backlash against a chubby filter on TikTok that the app had to pull it down. Users complained that the filter, which makes users look fatter, triggers those with eating disorders and mocks those who struggle with their weight. We agree. Why invent a new way to fat shame?