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What's making us happy: A guide for your weekend viewing

Courtesy of HBO Max

This week, Steven Spielberg's West Side Story was released in theaters and Sex and the City characters (well, most of them) returned to television in And Just Like That.

Here's what NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.

How to ADHD, YouTube

It is increasingly looking like I am going to join the hordes of adults who are diagnosed with ADHD late in life. One thing that is really making me happy right now is a YouTube channel I found called "How to ADHD."

It is a channel that was started and hosted by a young woman named Jessica McCabe. I ended up finding the channel because I searched ADHD and came across her TED talk, in which she talks quite a bit about the way that women are diagnosed differently, and also that if you were an overachieving child, you may not have gotten diagnosed.

Like so many of us, I'm learning new things about myself all the time and then often wondering, "Where do I go for information about this?" It's a lovely channel that I've found useful and has helped me already in some of my doctor requests. — Daisy Rosario

South Side, HBO Max

This is such a smart show. I want to say it's like a mixture of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia meets High Maintenance meets Atlanta.

This show is kind of like a workplace comedy, in which the various characters of the south side of Chicago all sort of interact and are connected in interesting and interpersonal ways. It focuses on four main characters, including two who work for a rental company. They have to take back items that people in the community have rented, and the show includes the hijinks that ensue.

The second season, especially, gets even more creative. I just want everyone to watch this show. I feel like it's been under the radar. Aisha Harris

Sort Of, HBO Max

Sort Of stars co-creator Bilal Baig as a young non-binary person, the child of Pakistani immigrants who is trying to get their life together in the gig economy.

They are working as a bartender at a queer cafe, they are also work as a nanny to this wealthy couple with three kids.

Baig is a real star. The character Sabi is so deadpan, so witheringly funny that you almost think, "Oh, I understand what the series is doing. They are serving me nonbinary, South Asian Daria."

But the show keeps throwing you curves, and when Baig needs to bring you up short with a sudden emotional gut punch, all that affectlessness drops away and they just nail it. It's very smart, it's very sad, it's very funny. — Glen Weldon


NPR Kroc Fellow Mia Estrada adapted this Pop Culture Happy Hour segment into a digital page.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Glen Weldon is a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. He reviews books, movies, comics and more for the NPR Arts Desk.
Aisha Harris
Aisha Harris is a host of Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Daisy Rosario
Mia Estrada
Mia Estrada is a 2021-2022 Kroc Fellow. She will spend the year rotating through different parts of NPR, including the Culture Desk, National Desk and Weekend Edition.