Lizzy Caplan Ruined Me and Ariana Grande Understands

Lizzy Caplan is playing Janis Ian in Mean Girls—the sarcastic art-kid who sees through everything, hates everyone, and turns out to be right about all of it—and I was completely finished the first time I watched her. Somewhere around 2004, sitting with a film I had no particular reason to care about, I realized I had a type. Nobody warned me about Lizzy Caplan. They really should have.

The film itself: sixteen-year-old Cady Heron has spent her whole life in Africa and arrives at a North Shore high school with no working knowledge of how American social hierarchies function. She falls in with the Plastics—a clique of immaculate, terrifying girls led by Regina George—gets absorbed into their world, and then everything starts collapsing in the best possible way. Tina Fey wrote the script. Amy Poehler plays a mother trying desperately to be cool. Every line does exactly what it needs to do. I’ve seen it more times than I can honestly justify.

Ariana Grande has had a rough few years—Mac Miller died, the engagement to Pete Davidson fell apart, a terrorist attack at her own concert in Manchester. When someone absorbs that much in a short span, retreating into something warm and familiar makes complete sense. The video for "Thank You, Next" recreates Mean Girls scene by scene, and it’s joyful in the way that only happens when everyone involved is clearly having a great time making it. The song doesn’t need the video to work. But the video is good, and Cady Heron deserved this.