What The Frock

There are weeks when the news politely clears its throat, offers a tidy headline, and waits to be analyzed like a well-behaved Victorian child. This was not one of those weeks.

This was the sort of week that arrives wearing curling shoes, waving a cricket bat, humming auto-tuned pop, and insisting that nothing you are looking at is entirely real.

Which is precisely where this episode of What The Frock? begins.

Rabbi Dave opens in high spirits because, against reasonable expectation and several betting markets, the United States T20 cricket team has been winning. Not metaphorically. Actually winning. The Netherlands were dispatched. Namibia followed. For a glittering moment, America found itself in second place in a group containing India and Pakistan. Technically .

“Technically” is one of those words that should come with a helmet and a waiver form. Technically second is a triumph. Practically speaking, it is like being second in line behind two elephants who have not yet noticed you are there. Still, in a group that resembles a geopolitical summit with bats, a third place finish is something to frame and hang in the kitchen .

From there, we glide elegantly, or at least energetically, into the Winter Olympics, where it turns out that ice dancing may involve less dancing and more arithmetic. A French judge appears to have been massaging scores. Canadian curlers were caught nudging stones with a subtlety usually reserved for toddlers pretending not to eat the last biscuit. The Swedes, in a move that suggests they have been reading spy novels, set up their own camera to catch the deed .

Curling. A sport previously famous for sweeping politely. Now featuring international intrigue.

If you are thinking this is all a bit much, do not worry. The halftime show is waiting.

Enter Bad Bunny, auto-tune, and the modern miracle of “guaranteed human” music, which apparently guarantees only that something vaguely biological was present at some stage in the production process. Dave’s skepticism about engineered perfection collides with the larger question hovering over the episode like an uninvited satellite: what, precisely, is authentic anymore?

Because once you notice that vocals are corrected, scores are nudged, highlights are delayed, and viral clips may or may not be the fever dream of an algorithm, it becomes surprisingly difficult to tell whether you are watching reality or an extremely enthusiastic rehearsal.

The Savannah Guthrie saga only deepens the mystery. A missing mother. Endless coverage. Competing narratives. Ring camera footage. AI speculation. Every new detail seems to arrive already wrapped in doubt . The story is not so much unfolding as multiplying.

And just when you think the episode might settle into a sensible groove, it takes a brisk turn through Revolutionary War genealogy, ancestral surprises, and a debate over voter ID laws that leaves Dave peering into the abyss of bureaucratic logic with visible confusion .

The result is not chaos. It is something far more interesting. It is a guided tour through a week in which cricket feels geopolitical, curling feels criminal, music feels synthetic, and certainty feels optional.

So make a cup of something warm. Adjust your sense of reality accordingly.

The world may be strange. But at least you do not have to navigate it alone.