Marbled savory snack from China / SUN 11-6-22 / Electronic toy with a blue pull handle / Flat-topped military hat / The Tasmanian one has been extinct since the 19th century / God who was said to be in love with this sister while still in the womb / Support group with a hyphen in its name

Theme answers:

• SQUARE EN ROUTE (from "square root") (24A: Why the party's about to get less hip?)
• HOW EN SUITE IT IS (from "How sweet it is!") (35A: Realtor's exclamation about a primary bathroom?)
• MARINE ENCORE (from "Marine Corps") (49A: How Shamu acknowledged the crowd's appreciation?)
• "EN GARDE, IANS OF THE GALAXY!" (from "Guardians of the Galaxy") (70A: "Prepare for a sword fight, McKellen, Fleming and all other namesakes out there!"?)
• MAKE-UP ENTREE (from ... I guess, "make-up tray" (?)) (90A: Dish cooked to smooth things over after a fight?)
• CHOPPING EN BLOC (from "chopping block") (106A: What students in a karate class are often doing?)
• THE ROYAL ENNUI (from "the Royal We") (118A: Challenge for a court jester?)

Word of the Day:"The MEAGRE Company" (Frans Hals portrait) (30A) —

The Meagre Company, or The Company of Captain Reinier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw, refers to the only militia group portrait, or schutterstuk, painted by Frans Halsoutside of Haarlem, and today is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum, where it is considered one of its main attractions of the Honor Gallery. Hals was unhappy about commuting to Amsterdam to work on the painting and, unlike his previous group portraits, was unable to deliver it on time. The sitters contracted Pieter Codde to finish the work.

Hals was originally commissioned in 1633, after the favorable reception of his previous militia group portrait, The Officers of the St Adrian Militia Company in 1633, in which all ensigns are holding flags and all officers are holding their weapons. The sergeants were shown, holding halberds to differentiate them from officers with spontoons. Hals seems to have initially intended an Amsterdam version of the same painting, beginning on the left with a smiling flag bearer wearing a flamboyant cut-sleeve jacket with lace and holding a flag in the color of his sash. Though it is impossible to tell on which side of the canvas Hals began painting, the light falls onto the figures from the left in the "standard" Hals tradition and this is also where the most important figures are situated within the painting. Since each sitter paid for his own portrait, it is presumed that Hals began with the most important sitters in order to "sell" canvas room to other paying officers. Whether or not Hals did in fact start on the left or drew a sketch of the entire group at once, the flag bearer on the left in this painting has been painted in a remarkably flamboyant way from the tip of his hat to the toe of his boots. This was possibly to prove to the decision makers in Amsterdam that Hals was capable of painting a schutterstuk in the "Amsterdam style", which included the entire figure. In Haarlem, the civic guards were traditionally portrayed in the kniestuk style of being "cut off at the knee" in three-quarter length portraits. (wikipedia)

Liked the way this one started, with the BLURRIER TAQUERIA of the NW corner, but with the revelation of the first themer, SQUARE EN ROUTE, I could feel my spirits deflate a little. "We're just adding 'EN'!? That's what 'Length-ening' means!? O... boy." There was something that seemed so, well, MEAGRE about the concept (more on MEAGRE later). And then came MARINE ENCORE, following the same add-an-EN pattern, which felt even more flaccid, and I reconciled myself to merely enduring yet another Sunday. But I will admit that "HOW EN SUITE IT IS!" ... well, it didn't win me over, exactly, but it definitely brought me around a bit. That is the kind of all-out loopiness I really want, in fact *need*, to see in themes that are this basic (e.g. add-a-letter (or two), drop-a-letter (or two), etc.). You wanna do some dumb puns, well OK, but please, nothing ... MEAGRE. Go for it. Better to be really truly gorily horrible, completely loony, then merely mildly chuckleworthy. "HOW EN SUITE IT IS!" has a fearless insanity that I admire. I also really do like that we're dealing not just with an "EN" addition, but with a complete word change as well (in the word that follows the "EN"), even though the title of the puzzle doesn't capture that aspect of the theme At All (it's a really bad title, tbh). I even retrospectively went back and gave a little credit to the clue on SQUARE EN ROUTE (24A: Why the party's about to get less hip?). It creates a ludicrous situation. Now, not all the themers (or their clues) do this, but there were enough that did. Enough, that is, to make me like this puzzle somewhat more than I like your average straightforwardly themed Sunday puzzle, and way more than I liked it at first blush. THE ROYAL ENNUI is very clever, and, well, I find it very difficult to be mad at an answer like "EN GARDE, IANS OF THE GALAXY!" That is a Marvel movie I would actually see.

There is some "oof" fill here and there, though. Let's start with MEAGRE, which clearly I am not yet over. I am kinda happy to learn about the Hals painting, which has a cool history, and which Van Gogh apparently rhapsodized over in a letter to his brother, Theo. But as fill, MEAGRE is super-ugly, and today it's also ridiculously hard. I needed every cross and was still certain something was wrong. Apparently this is how Brits spell "meager" (!?), but in its (very few) recentish past appearances, solvers were always alerted of both its meaning and its Britishness—we get Neither here: nothing to tell us that meagerness is at issue, and nothing to tell us about the British spelling. Worse, we get a *Dutch* painter, so the hell knows what letters are going to show up, really.

MEAGRE made me MOAN even more than ÉTAPE (oof, crosswordese of the oldenest kind) or EWASTE (a thing that I acknowledge is real but that is still bottom of the E-barrel fill). Then there's the execrable and always unwelcome EL*N MUSK, why!? That is a choice. I do not understand that choice. I also do not understand putting "IT" in your puzzle not once not twice not thrice but quattrice! HOW EN SUITE *IT* IS, IN *IT*, "*IT* CAME!," BOP-IT! make it stop. A couple of "IT"s in a Sunday-sized puzzle is probably not going to draw anyone's attention, but four ... four is four, and it's a lot. You may think, "I ... CON DU IT ..." ... but you really shouldn't.

Round-up!:

• 13A: A boatload (LOTS) — I had TONS because of course I did, the Curse of the Kealoa* is upon me!
• 108D: Joy of TV (BEHAR) — I have it on good authority that she solves crossword puzzles. That authority is a 2016 US Weekly interview where she says "I do the New York Times Crossword every day."
• 97D: "On Juneteenth" author ___ Gordon-Reed (ANNETTE) — she's a professor of law and American history at Harvard. I assumed "On Juneteenth" was a poem. I was wrong. It's a well-regarded short book explaining the significance of the annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S.
• 111A: Flatbread made with atta (ROTI)— had the "O" and wrote in DOSA, which is"a thin pancake in South Indian cuisine made from a fermented batter of ground black gram (lentil) and rice" (wikipedia). No atta in sight :(
• 17A: "Keep Ya Head Up" rapper, informally (PAC) — as in Tupac Shakur, or 2Pac.
• 92D: Unlike p (RATIONAL) —I got this easily despite having no idea what "p" stands for. I figured it was something something math something number something, and I was right. Looks like lowercase "p" can mean lots of things, depending on context, but nearest I can figure here, it's somehow "pi" (!!?). You couldn't just write the additional "i"?? [UPDATE: the clue *actually* reads [Unlike π] but my software couldn't handle the character and so rendered it "p"]

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