Turquoise or Topaz / TUES 11-24-20 / Henna and others / Bobs and weaves / Billboard magazine feature

Theme answers:

• WHALE ILL BE DARNED (19A: "An Orca is actually a dolphin?!")
• OH THE HUGE MANATEE (37A: "Wow, that's a giant sea cow!")
• GREAT COD ALMIGHTY (55A: "This is the best fish I've ever had!")

Word of the Day:AHAB (7A: Husband of Jezebel in the Bible) —

Ahab was the seventh king of Israel, the son and successor of King Omri and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible presents Ahab as a wicked king, particularly for condoning Jezebel's influence on religious policies and his principal role behind Naboth's arbitrary execution. (Wikipedia)

I don’t have a ton to say about this puzzle overall. I found the theme to be groan-inducing (literally), though I could appreciate how it might be sort of halfway maybe funny to some? Maybe…? But even if you liked the theme, the middle themer — OH THE HUGE MANATEE— did not really work. Sorry, but that is just too much of a reach to be a play on “Oh, the humanity.” The other two involved a slight change in a word to fit a pun (well → whale and god → cod), but for some reason the theme answer smack dab in the middle of the puzzle involved dropping two letters (the “ge”). That one made me annoyed and may have colored my whole view of the puzzle (or maybe I”m just tired and hangry; yeah, that’s probably it). 

The puzzle took me longer than a usual Tuesday takes me, and I’m not entirely sure why. I thought it was decently challenging but not a ton more than a normal Tuesday, so I was a little surprised when I saw my time. It just somehow felt like things I usually get immediately took way longer to click for me. 

The long downs were nice, for the most part — I especially liked BLIND DATE (10D: It may be a setup) and BAT SIGNAL (36D: Summons in Gotham City), though I’m not sure the clue for AVALANCHE (3D: Deluge) quite works, does it? I think of a deluge as a severe flood, and that doesn't quite match up with AVALANCHE. Overall, my favorite clue/answer was 24A: Column with an angle as OPED. 57A: Light wind? as OBOE was also pretty clever. 

The rest of my thoughts on the puzzle are just a jumbled mess of things I didn’t particularly like (maybe I should go make myself some food or something). 41A as TUDE is pretty ugly and not really something people say. I don’t love split clues, and having SASHA (1D) be so far away from OBAMA (61A) seems random to me. I originally put “grasp” instead of CLASP for 17A: Hold on tight, which threw me for a bit. UHUH (33D) and NYNY (54D) seem kind of lazy to me. Also, I had a weirdly hard time coming up with LAWN for 13D: What a sprinkler may sprinkle, even though, looking back, it seems very obvious now. I also had a hard time coming up with SALADS (47D: Make-it-yourself dishes from bars) for some reason — though maybe it’s because salad bars just don’t exist in a time of COVID. 

• 5D: CYCLES reminded me of a bike ride the other day where I was feeling so great and fast on the way out, thinking I was just crushing it, and then I turned around to go back and realized I’d been benefitting from a major tailwind… The huge headwind on the way back was not fun at all. 
• NCIS (25A: Long-running CBS drama) is one show where I feel like the spinoff, NCIS: Los Angeles, is actually better than the original. 
• It’s nice that this puzzle mentions a Billboard CHART (5A), because that means I can now return to talking about BTS, who just came out with a new album called “BE” that’s going to debut next week at No. 1 on the chart. BTS also has a song called “Life Goes On” that may debut (fingers crossed!) at No. 1 on the Billboard chart next week, as well — you should listen to it!

And... that's it! Have a great week.

Signed, Clare Carroll, your resident BTS fan

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]