It’s quite the week to be a Texas-set TV melodrama.While Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” spinoff “Dutton Ranch” faces more questions about off-screen challenges after stars Cole Hauser and Ed Harris recently shared their misgivings about making the first season of the Paramount+ series, over on Netflix, “Ransom Canyon” is hoping its romance drama sizzles on-screen with viewers. Based on Jodi Thomas’ novel series, the small-town western romance stars Josh Duhamel as rancher Staten Kirkland and Minka Kelly as dance hall owner Quinn O’Grady, childhood friends whose longtime will-they, won’t-they dynamic delivers a sweeping slow-burn romance amid land battles and family secrets. The drama is part of Netflix’s offerings of cozy comfort shows, joining the likes of “Virgin River” and “Sweet Magnolias,” with its picturesque small town vibes and plenty of family and romance conundrums. Kelly stopped by Guest Spot this week to discuss the new season and shared her thoughts on the appeal of the comfort-watch genre.“Life, our world and everything is just so hard and complicated right now that we all just want to escape a little bit,” she says. “We all can relate to and get lost in romance and relationships because we’ve all been through every aspect of it at some point. It’s also a very beautiful show to look at. It’s just easy to to get swept up in. It feels good, and it’s sexy, and it’s fun — sometimes we just need something a little easy to take our minds off of things for a little while.” You are reading Screen Gab newsletter Sign up to get recommendations for the TV shows and streaming movies you can’t miss, plus exclusive interviews with the talent behind your favorite titles, in your inbox every Friday By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads. Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our writers recommend a wordless, Oscar-winning animated film about a courageous cat, as well as a fun pairing of a rewatch podcast and its source material. While you dig into that, I’m going to finally purchase tickets to watch the “Odyssey” — let’s hope there are seats available that won’t break my neck or my sleep cycle. — Yvonne VillarrealTurn onRecommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times A scene from the animated movie “Flow.” (Festival de Cannes) “Flow” (HBO Max)If you have children and they’re like mine, it can be hard to get them out of the loop of watching the same movie over and over again. Thankfully, from the moment we turned on “Flow,” they were captivated by the story of a black cat who bands together with a lemur, a capybara, a dog and a secretary bird as a flood swallows the land they roam and they’re forced to survive on a boat. There’s no dialogue, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t communicating — meows, chirps, squawks and barks sub in for human language (there are no humans to be found here). The vistas are colorful and beautifully rendered, as are the animals as they float through their inundated world, which includes a whale they encounter on their journey. The Latvian film won the Oscar for animated feature in 2025, if you need any more endorsement. — Maira Garcia Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen in a scene from “Portlandia.” (Augusta Quirk/IFC) “Portlandia” (Netflix) / “Podlandia: A-O Rewatch With Fred and Carrie” (YouTube)Best friends Fred Armisen, (quite) late of “SNL,” and Portlander Carrie Brownstein, still of the band Sleater-Kinney (see them at the Greek Theatre, Sept. 8), have just embarked on a public rewatch of their wonderful site-specific sketch comedy. “Portlandia,” which originally ran on IFC cable channel from 2011-18 , at once celebrated and satirized its craft-driven, lifestyle-diverse, entrepreneurial, whimsical host city. The stars, playing many roles including “themselves,” welcomed a roster of notable guests too lengthy to even begin to list, but suffice it to say if you’ve been alive to culture in this century, the odds are some of your favorites will appear here. (I will mention, however, late Monkee Michael Nesmith, who plays the father of Kyle MacLachlan’s mayor; actual Portland then-Mayor Sam Adams appears as MacLachlan’s assistant.) As a comedy, the series did not lack for tension — “If there’s an overall theme here,” I wrote when the show premiered, “it’s that heaven contains its own portion of hell — that right living takes work, relaxation causes stress, and that a thin line separates responsibility and rage.” But the podcast, while not uncritical, promises only good times with good company. — Robert LloydGuest spotA weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching Minka Kelly as Quinn O’Grady in Netflix’s “Ransom Canyon.” (Jeff Neumann/Netflix) Does absence really make the heart grow fonder? On “Ransom Canyon,” it sets the stage for a time-honored romance trope: the love triangle. Season 2 of Netflix’s romance drama picks up six months after Quinn (Minka Kelly) left for New York, where she worked as a concert pianist with the New York Philharmonic — to earn extra money to save her dance hall, Gracie’s, back home — and began dating another musician Oliver (Ben Robson). And her homecoming to the eponymous small Texas town isn’t without some drama: a visit from her mother (Patricia Clarkson) quickly adds a new layer of tension to their dynamic and unresolved emotions are reignited in her complex relationship with Staten (Josh Duhamel) once the new man in her life arrives to propose. As if all that drama wasn’t already as expansive as the show’s rugged backdrop, Quinn is also trying to launch a country music festival as a way to save the town.Over a video call, Kelly shared her thoughts on Quinn’s journey in Season 2, her hopes for the next chapter in the Quinten saga and the actor currently earning her praise with his impressive depiction of a psychedelic trip. — Y.V.Quinn is back after being in New York for six months; she was doing what she loves, and she met a new person, but the pull of home was still tugging at her and she’s on this mission to save it. What interested you about where we pick up with Quinn at the start of the season?There’s something we can relate to in that pull between the place that we call home and a potential new beginning. It’s also so funny too. It’s not that I’m drawn to go back to Albuquerque, but there’s this also parallel here for me because I grew up where we shoot the show, and then I get to go home to my new life. There was a lot that I found to be very relatable in in this storyline in this new seasonThis woman has got more going on than just worrying about a relationship. We’re multifaceted creatures who can handle a lot, and we take on a lot of responsibility, maybe sometimes more than we can really handle. And I know a lot of women who feel that responsibility, and it was really fun to see her going: I’m choosing neither one of you right now, I have other things I have to do. Because usually it’s the men that are doing that, and it’s the women that are pining for the man. Has filming the show in Albuquerque allowed you to see your hometown differently? I hadn’t been back in such a long time. Going back for this was surreal to me. And I’d written a book about living in Albuquerque and making peace with it. And then right after that, the show comes. It’s actually been a really beautiful experience. It wasn’t really the boogeyman I thought it would be. It’s not as big as I remembered it, and it’s so much more beautiful than I remembered it. I never really got to appreciate all the beauty there is. I’ve never seen more beautiful sunsets or sunrises in my life, and that was lost on me as a little girl. I didn’t really take that in. And I’ve always loved the food in New Mexico, so that’s been fun to to taste those flavors again — the green chili and you know the sopapillas, which you don’t get anywhere else. It’s awesome, and it’s also so close to L.A., which I love. I get back on the weekends to my family every weekend, which is really lucky. With any good romance story, there has to be obstacles. But how do you feel about the slow burn? What did you want to see out of this dynamic with Staten and Quinn?I can relate to, you know, being in your own way when it comes to being in a relationship, when you really don’t know how to communicate what you want or what you need, and you’re hoping the other one just intuits it and reads your mind and just says the right and the perfect thing. Real life is messy and real relationships are messy and they’re hard. I wanted to see them get their head out of their a— and fight for what they want and be honest about that and put their guards down, especially Staten. He’s so hard-headed and he’s got such a big wall up and I thought it was really refreshing this season to see him be vulnerable and actually say, ‘I really miss you’ and ‘I love you.’ That’s new territory for him. And I had such a fun time with him this season. He was just so full of life, and he was funny and charming. And you know, the time did him really, really good. He did some healing. Now it’s Quinn that’s the one that doesn’t know what to do, and I think that’s life. Minka Kelly as Quinn and Ben Robson as Oliver in “Ransom Canyon.” (Netflix) What did seeing her with somebody like Oliver, and seeing their dynamic, reveal to you about Quinn?It’s funny when you think the grass is greener and you think you want one thing, and then that thing shows up, and you’re like, “Huh, I guess that wasn’t all that mattered. I guess it’s the thing that really does just feel like home.” Granted, home was a healthy, safe place. That means more than whatever it is on paper that you think matters when it comes to choosing who to spend your life with. Spoiler here for our readers — by the end of the season, we see that timing works out in Quinn and Staten’s favor, at least for now. What do you hope for the relationship in a Season 3? Where do you want them to go from here? Where do you want Quinn to go from here?I hope we get a Season 3, and when and if we do, I think it’ll be really interesting to explore the dynamics of them having finally chosen each other, and what that really looks like, because up until now it’s been the forbidden fruit. Will they? Won’t they? That cycle can be addicting, the highs and the lows. We know how to do that. We know how to struggle. But when you get what you’ve always wanted, do you know how to do that? Do you know how to really navigate the real nuts and bolts of a relationship and living together and compromising and sacrificing. Have they had the talk of like what life really looks like together? I think it’ll be really fun to explore what that looks like — two very strong, independent, driven people under one roof. How does that really work?To wrap things up, what have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know.“Widow’s Bay” [Apple TV]. Matthew Rhys is so much fun to watch, and what’s incredible about this show is everyone around him is just as cool and interesting and unique and dynamic. The choices that they’re making is so exciting to watch because everything is so unexpected. I particularly loved the episode where he takes too many mushrooms. That was just the most accurate psilocybin journey I’ve ever seen depicted on television, and unless you had too many mushrooms once upon a time in your life, you don’t really understand. I wonder. “Do people who haven’t experienced this really understand what that flashback to reality really feels like?”What about your comfort watch — is there a TV show or film that you return to over and over again?A bunch of rom-coms are running through my head. “When Harry Met Sally” [SVOD], “How to Lose a Guy in 10 days” [Prime Video] is always so fun. I love it. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. “Purple Rain” [YouTube, Pluto TV] is one for me. For people who haven’t seen it, it doesn’t necessarily hold up for a new watch — there’s problematic things about it. Apollonia was my girl crush. I wanted to be Apollonia when I was little. ICYMI Must-read stories you might have missed
