Drug trafficker informally / WED 1-27-21 / Servius Tullius e.g. in ancient Rome / Texas politico O'Rourke / Longtime actress co-starring in Netflix's Grace and Frankie

Constructor: Mike Knobler

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: What lies beneath... — familiar phrases that start with "beneath," "under," and "below" (respectively) are situated in the grid literally "beneath" (or "below" or "under") a word defined by the latter part of the familiar phrases. Thus:

Theme answers:

• 
  BENEATH CONTEMPT is situated "beneath" a word meaning "contempt" (i.e. SCORN)
• 17A: Despicable ... or where this answer goes? + 15A: "Silence is the most perfect expression of ___" (line in a Shaw play)
• UNDER THE WEATHER is situated "under" a form of "weather"(i.e. MONSOON)
• 39A: Sick ... or where this answer goes? + 36A: What to expect between June and September in India
• BELOW THE SURFACE is situated "below" a type of "surface" (i.e. FACET)
• 62A: Latent ... or where this answer goes? + 57A: Side to be considered

Word of the Day: AGAR (14A: Vegetarian substitute for gelatin) —

1: a gelatinous colloidal extract of a red alga (as of the genera Gelidium, Gracilaria, and Eucheuma) used especially in culture media or as a gelling and stabilizing agent in foods

2: a culture medium containing agar (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

I think this theme is fantastic, and the me who started this puzzle is very surprised to hear himself say that, because things did not start out so promising. The fill early on (and throughout, honestly) just EKEs BY. Lots of short, overfamiliar stuff including not one but two of the dreaded playground retorts. Loved JANE FONDA, but everything around her suggested to me that we weren't going anywhere good:

This corner suggests that a very crusty, olden puzzle is about to roll right over you. So bad of an omen did it seem that I stopped (as you can see) and took a screenshot. But immediately (and I mean immediately) after I redug into the puzzle after this screenshot, the theme leapt across the grid. I got both grid-spanning themers, bam bam:

So I thought, well, if nothing else, this puzzle just got a whole lot easier, real quick. I could tell pretty quickly where the theme was going, but I didn't stop to work it out; I just went back to filling the grid as fast as I could, knowing the theme would reveal itself in time. And while filling the grid wasn't exactly joyful (the fill remains in a kind of dry 1980s state throughout, with almost no sparkle or personality and an abundance dull short answers), the theme, when it came into full view at the very end, really does come out looking great. All the phrases are perfect 15 grid-spanners, all of them "under" phrases, all of them have their crowning word centered directly on top of them. The mirror symmetry of the grid allows for a visually pleasing execution of the theme. So while the fill is meh, the theme itself feels very thoughtfully worked out and very polished. There's really nowhere to go with the fill, considering the way the grid is built (i.e. with almost all the answers being 3, 4, or 5 letters in length. JANE FONDA and TUMMYACHE really pop against the drabness of the rest of it. But today, merely not being terrible is enough for the fill. The theme is a gem, and that is plenty.

Five things:

• 26D: Enlist again (RE-UP) — this was the very last answer I filled in on the very first Sunday puzzle I ever successfully completed (spring of '91). I was solving with friends and said "Roop ... roip ... that can't be ... oh, wait, is it RE-UP? Oh my god, it's RE-UP, it's right, we're done!" Much celebration, in the form of milkshake-drinking, ensued, probably. And yet when I see RE-UP today, it just seems like crummy crosswordese.  
• 5A: Frequent sights in Road Runner cartoons (CACTI) — I know you put MESAS in here at first so don't even try to pretend you didn't.
• 38A: What's what, in Italy (CHE) — got this entirely from crosses and when I checked the clue, I was startled not to see the famous revolutionary staring at me. I do not mind this cluing of CHE at all (if you *have* to use CHE).
• 67A: Burnish (RUB) — weirdly, one of the harder moments of the puzzle for me, since I only ever hear "burnish" used metaphorically (as something one does to one's reputation). EKE BY is rough, as is so much of the dregs of this grid (or maybe the "lees" of this grid, since it's all just settled on the bottom, this gunky mess of EKE BY and WSW crossing WDS crossing AHAS plural next to UEY. You can see REX down there, huddled in the SW corner trying to keep his distance from all that mess.

• 41D: Drive ... or drive mad? (TEE OFF) — another hard moment; clue writer tries to get cute, and doesn't really hit the nail on the head with either halves of the clue, frankly. I had the TE- and the terminal -F and no idea what to do with it. But then James Brown came to the FUNKy rescue (61A: "I only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in ___": James Brown), and that second "F" helped me parse it correctly. I'm on the record as not enjoying fill-in-the-blank quote clues, but James Brown gets a pass. You know who doesn't get a pass. George Bernard Shaw. At least I assume it's George Bernard and not, I don't know, Artie that we're talking about at 15A: "Silence is the most perfect expression of ___" (line in a Shaw play) (SCORN). *A* Shaw play? You're gonna fill-in-the-blank me on a quote from a play you won't even name, by an author you won't even fully name???? No. I'm fine with Shaw standing on its own, actually, but *a* play is awful. At least name the play. (Haha, here's why they fudged it: the quote is from the fifth part of Back to Methuselah, which is really a series of five plays—this quote being from the part entitled "As Far As Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920"; since the play is not famous and is really five plays ... you can see why they just threw up their hands and went with "*a* Shaw play" (still very unsatisfying))

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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