Thursday, March 12, 2026 - One HARDCORE Thursday crossword!

Welcome to Gene and Mike, to the New York Times Crossword.

Hi, I'm Gene.

And I'm Mike.

And today we are doing the Crossword for Thursday, March 12th, 2026.

So, on Friday the 13th Eve?

Yes.

Were you lucky or unlucky in tackling today's Crossword?

Well, a little above.

I would like to also mention it is the snowstorm Eve up here in Northeast Wisconsin.

I'm ready.

I hope I am.

Anyway, I couldn't get it solved last night.

So, that made me feel kind of unlucky.

Uh-huh.

But this morning, a little more clear-headed, I did get it done.

Good.

So, I was lucky in that respect.

Excellent.

What about you?

I was able to get it done last night.

I found it to be a bit of a challenge.

Before I understood what was happening with the theme, I was just writing down answers that were clearly wrong and thinking,

I'll probably figure this out.

Well, that's kind of what I did too.

It's like, well, that's not a word.

But I just kept going.

I just kept going.

And, uh, pretty soon had all of the, uh, all the squares filled in.

Right.

But apparently not correctly.

Not correctly, but yes.

So, where was your mistake?

Oh, it was sort of a crazy one.

37 across rejoices.

And the answer to that was exalts.

Let me guess you had exalts.

I did.

With an A.

With an A.

Oh, because that's also a word.

Well, it is.

It is.

Um, I guess rejoiced.

Exalts is a better word for rejoices.

Uh-huh.

Exalts is kind of like.

You bring someone up to a higher level.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You, you know, not really rejoicing.

I guess maybe you're rejoicing because the other person is good.

Or something.

But anyway, so that meant 33 down, Stanley of Conclay.

And I knew this answer was to Chi, T-U-C-C-I.

But I had, of course, T-A-C-C-I.

And that's why the puzzle didn't sound.

That's why you shouldn't do it when it's really late at night.

And you're very tired.

It was only a 15 by 15 and not a 21 by 21.

Exactly.

Yes.

So I guess I was lucky there too.

Yeah.

So anyway, but yeah, I did, uh, I did eventually finish it this morning.

So, uh, the, the theme, I think we should talk about the thing.

Yeah.

It was a pretty amazing theme.

And like you say, a bit confusing.

Uh, and I'm going to start with the revealer because you need kind of really need to know what, what's going, know that answer to know what's going on.

But the revealer was 26 down, heavenly outcast or a hint to something found three times in this puzzle.

And the answer to that was fallen angel, fallen angel.

And there were three clues.

Uh, the answers made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

But they all had something in common.

And that was the word angel.

Uh, a N G E L appeared in the answers to each one of them, but not in the direction you thought it should go is actually in the opposite direction because those were all.

Uh, horizontal answers, those were crosses.

And the, um, the angel part of it went vertically or essentially was falling.

So the first one was 17 across, which was celebrity super couple of the 2000s.

The answer to that was a brand gelina, of course.

Uh, but, uh, but you only had six letters in the, in the grid.

So you put in the BR and then a N G E L went down.

And then in the last three, I N A. So you had brand gelina with the angel part of brand gelina falling down as a fallen angel does.

Have the rest of the answer in a enough.

So brand gelina.

Uh, we also had that, uh, at 21 across second most popular city in the US.

Well, of course, that is Los Angeles.

So you had LOS, and then an A with underneath it and G E L angel.

And then you go back up to the original quickly answer and you have the ES.

Mm hmm.

So it looks like the answer is LOS A LOS AES.

But you have to look downward to find the angel.

LOS, LOS Angeles or LOS Angel S.

Right.

And then the last one was 23 across Citrus, Portland, Tau.

And the answer there was Tau, T A O, but no, the A, you had to look down again.

There was angel.

So Tau, TENGELO was the correct answer.

Mm hmm.

And those angel answers were in some pretty interesting answers and pretty interesting clues.

The one in brand gelina was three down, moved to pass, perhaps.

And that was change lanes, you know, angel from the last part of change in the Ellen lanes.

Right.

The one for Los Angeles across with nine down mad scientist in a 1964 Kubrick title.

And that was strange love, Dr. Strangelove.

And so Angel was right in the middle of strange love there.

And then the one coming down from Tau for TENGELO was a 24 down activist scholar known for her work in the prison abolition movement.

And that was Angela Davis.

So that was the most overt and angel, I think of this, you know, first part of Angela's name there.

So, so lots of lots of angels going down or lots of fallen angels.

Mm hmm.

And that was the theme.

And that was I thought pretty clever when you when you really consider that.

Mm hmm.

It's pretty clever.

Yeah.

I mean, what when I was doing this, you know, brainer, I thought was, okay, fine, it's a brainer.

As a celebrity.

It's more like braina.

I guess it could be brainer.

I know that it is brainer.

I wasn't sure who brain a worm.

But I was willing to live with it.

And also 23 across Tau.

I thought, well, okay, there's some citrus called Tau.

No, there is not.

I started to get suspicious when I got around to the second most popular city in the U.S.

Los Aes.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

Not okay.

There's there's something missing here.

Mm hmm.

And that's where eventually I was able to understand thanks to the revealer than it was Los Angeles.

That's right.

I've heard people pronounce Los Angeles like an old-time radio.

I've heard people say it like Los Angles.

Los Angeles.

Oh, really?

I'm not sure.

I presume the correct pronunciation is Los Angeles, because that's how they would say it on

DRAGNET, which is always my go-to.

Is it unglay, unglay?

No, it's like Los Angles.

I've heard it pronounced like that.

It's just like, you don't know how to pronounce Los Angeles.

But no, I always use DRAGNET as my go-to when I need to know how to pronounce English words.

Well, of course, yeah.

Jack Webb was the expert.

Yeah.

I had...

I don't know.

They took me a while to get through, but it was definitely a lot of fun.

Like, one across Game Point was Arcade.

Yes.

It took me a bit to get started.

Mm hmm.

And then, two down.

Like, black ovals, vis-a-vis...

Let me try that one more time.

Like, black ovals, vis-a-vis diamonds.

That was rarer.

That is correct.

I think that was a great clue.

Mm hmm.

Have you ever seen a black oval?

I have never seen a black oval.

I can't even imagine what it would look like.

Probably because they're so rare.

Well, I suppose it's...

I mean, an oval is kind of a milky...

a milky gem.

You know, it's kind of got a milky appearance to it.

So I guess maybe it would look like chocolate milk.

It would look like a milky black.

If it's perfectly black, it shouldn't be an oval then.

Yeah, be an onyx.

Right.

We had seven down guitar pedal effect.

I wanted it to be wawaw.

Oh.

Quite sure why, but that sounded right,

except it wasn't...

Well, the correct answer was echo.

Echo, that is correct.

And then, 15 across.

No, let me tell that one more time.

Seven across settings for Nurse Jackie and the pit in brief ERS.

ERS, yes.

Have you seen any of them?

I've seen snippets of Nurse Jackie.

She's an emergency room nurse.

I haven't seen either.

I'm sorry to report.

There are just too many other shows for me to screen.

I see.

Okay.

Funny thing about narrowing down.

Mad scientist in the 90s,

was he for a Kubrick title.

Strange love.

Didn't he always used to wear a glove?

Dr. Strange love?

Yes.

I don't remember that.

I have.

Because I always thought the name was Dr. Strange glove.

And so, I wrote that down.

It's just like, huh, they're missing the GL of glove.

Oh.

And they were.

It's Strange love.

So, you learn something new every day.

Oh, yeah.

I guess.

The fact that I had the name of a 1964 title,

Wrong All These Year Strange glove.

Strange glove.

Yeah, they could have sworn he wore a glove.

Oh, I don't think so.

Maybe I'm thinking of Michael Jackson.

I don't know.

Somebody wore a glove.

That was a whole different generation, Michael Jackson.

That's true.

And that he did often wear a glove.

That's true.

Just one.

Just one.

Let's see.

We had 34 down groups surrounding a star.

I was like, planets.

I was going that away, but it was posse.

posse.

Were you ready for that?

I was.

Oh, that's good.

Yes.

I got a twenty four across star of a three time

World Cup champion team.

And that was PA-Lay.

Could have been messy.

No, there weren't enough squares.

Also, I don't know if he's won three times.

No, he's probably won five.

It seems to be a very good soccer player.

Right.

Not to tell, he was any slouch.

No, no.

He was.

He was a very, very good one too.

We had 42 across slip on our slide.

was a sample. That's right. I was not ready for that. Oh, you don't wear sandals. And that is true.

Let's see, 47 across get right down to business. Dive in. Mm-hmm.

Not ready for that one either. Mm-hmm. Eventually, I sort of susted out.

I thought 60 across was interesting. Terpitude. Pure evil. Yes. What an answer.

It's a pure evil. This is that a debut. Pure evil. It is a debut. I'd never seen it before,

but that doesn't mean anything. Yes, it does. It's a debut. Pure evil. Pure evil. I like the fact

that you can just say you are just the embodiment of Terpitude. And people won't know if you're

insulting them or complimenting them because I looked at Terpitude and thought it's not what I

used to remove paint. So, yeah, you are just the epitome of Terpitude. They'll be like, hang on,

let me get back to the store. The stores are better yet like dictionary out and see if you've

insulted me. You should try that out on your students. The ones who seem to not do very well

on their test and they do excellently on their assignments. Right.

You're just the epitome of Terpitude. They're not pure evil. They're just start for time

as it is when it comes to dancing. Right beneath that, 64 across the operating system,

developed the Bell Labs Unix. Unix. Spelled by the way for those of you who are not tech nerds,

you and I X. I just knew that from being in the same household as you.

Yes, because I would never have known that on my own, but living with a computer scientist

teaches you things like Unix and Terpitude. And Terpitude.

We had 63 across setting for Quincy Me on 1970s 80s TV more. The more, yes.

Like a cherry show. Hey, welcome to the morgue. It was kind of different, but we would watch that.

I mean, it was always like there would be a suspicious death. You know, he would examine

the deceased and it was like, I don't think this was suicide or he said that it was an accident,

but I'm pretty sure it was an homicide and then he wouldn't keep digging until he found out who

the culprit was that killed that person. Sounds a little bit like Colombo. Well, he was. There's a lot

like Colombo. Were there ever situations where there's like a giant sword sticking out of their

back? I don't think this was suicide. No, they were a little more subtle than that. And

the Jack Klugman was the person who played the Quincy, Dr. Quincy. And you know, he didn't act

like Colombo. Colombo is kind of acted like he didn't know what was going on. But

Quincy always knew what was going on and he was going to get to the bottom of it. So.

Let's see. What else do we have here? Ten across Midi's Gulf of Blank. And I thought Aiden

and then I thought, oh, I did too. Omar. I did not think of Suez. I mean, I know, but the Suez

Canal. Yes. You know, there was a Gulf attack. Yes. No, I knew there was a Gulf attack. But I

did that just did not come to mind. What a drone might be a mistaken for 11 down. It was a UFO.

That's right. Oh, sort of clever. And I liked 18 across incredibly committed hard core hard

car. You bet. That's a great turn. All right. I think that is it for today. Okay. So thanks

everyone for listening and get ready for the snowstorm. Although this probably only applies to

our listeners in North East Wisconsin. Yes. And assuming that we can we can dig our way through

the snow to get to our recording studio. I don't think you have to worry. If we can't we're

in serious trouble. We promise to do our very level best to be back here to talk about tomorrow.

Those crossword tomorrow. Bye. Bye.