Combatant in an octagon-shaped cage / WED 2-25-26 / So-called "melting pot," in brief / Tribal home, maybe, informally / Tick doc / ___ hair (edgy 2000s trend)

Constructor: Brad Lively

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BREAKDANCES (60A: Emulates the three figures in this puzzle ... or what the figures do within the answers to 17-, 27- and 46-Across?) — each theme answer features a little breakdancer in the shape of a letter; these human-shaped "letters" appear inside (i.e. "break") the names of "dances" (found in shaded squares inside the theme answers). Thus the the little breakdancers "BREAK DANCES":

Theme answers (blue letters represent the little breakdancing figures, red letters spell out the dances):

• CREDI[T] SCORE (17A: Failing to pay bills on time may affect this)
• VINCENT [V]AN GOGH (27A: "Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear" painter, 1889)
• HANNIBAL LE[C]TER (46A: Villain ranked #1 on A.F.I.'s "100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains" list)

Word of the Day: Steven YEUN (57D: Actor Steven of "Beef" and "Nope") —

Sang-yeop Yeun (Korean: 연상엽; born December 21, 1983), known professionally as Steven Yeun (/jʌn/ YUHN), is an American actor. He rose to prominence for playing Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead (2010–2016). He earned critical acclaim for the films Burning (2018) and Minari (2020). For the latter, he became the first East Asian-American nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. For the Netflix dark comedy series Beef (2023), which he produced and starred in, Yeun received Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Limited Series and Outstanding Lead Actor.

Yeun has also appeared in the films Okja (2017), Sorry to Bother You (2018), The Humans (2021), and Nope (2022). He has also voiced main characters in animated television series such as Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016–2018), Tales of Arcadia (2016–2021), Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters (2017–2018), Final Space (2018–2021), Tuca & Bertie (2019–2022), and Invincible (2021–present). (wikipedia)

• • •

The only thing keeping this puzzle from four-and-a-half stars is the fact that the breakdancing letters themselves are meaningless. That is, they're random letters. They don't spell anything or have any significance beyond their shape. That said, these are probably the three letters of the alphabet that most closely resemble breakdancer positions (try making yourself into an "H," for example—actually, esp. if you're over 50, definitely do not try this). The first two breakdancer-letters (the "T" and "V") make a nice sequence—handstand into a backspin. I can definitely see that happening, breakdancing-wise. That "C" is iffier, though. Whatever that little dude is doing to make himself a "C" seems the least "breakdancey" of these figures. So the breakdancer-letters have no larger significance and one of them seems more contrived (from a visual standpoint) than the others. Beyond that, though, this theme is kinda brilliant. Little dancers inside dances inside longer answers! Extreme nesting! And the dances are all solid, familiar, recognizable, and they touch every element in the overall theme answers. That is, every word in every themer is part of a dance—no words left hanging. That is how you do "hidden word" themes. The rest of the puzzle had its strengths and weaknesses. It's a very choppy grid with maybe more than its share of repeaters (NENE IKEA SSNS INRE ADE ORA EKED etc etc), but the clues were far more interesting than normal, and the theme was so strong that I didn't care so much about the weaknesses in the fill. I'm not normally a big fan of picture gimmicks in my puzzle, but this one is truly inventive, and from a craftsmanship standpoint, it's very solid. Ambitious and well executed. I had a good time.

I was entertained from the very first clue. 1A: [Taps casino table] is a fantastic (visual! audio!) clue for "HIT ME." There just seemed to be more color and pizzazz than usual in the clues today. More "?" clues. More details. The theme answers themselves were inherently interesting—well, not CREDIT SCORE, no one likes thinking about CREDIT SCOREs, but the others, for sure. I never saw the clue for either Van Gogh or Lecter—I really do work the short stuff first, since that tends to be higher-percentage (easier to get at first glance than longer stuff), and sometimes, by the time I even consider looking at the clue for a longer answer, I've already got enough letters in place to infer it. With HANNIBAL LECTER, I had the end worked out and the letter combo was so unusual that HANNIBAL LECTER was the only answer that made sense. Coincidentally, after the death of actor Tom Noonan last week, I watched the fantastic Michael Mann movie Manhunter (1986), in which Brian Cox (of Succession fame) plays ... HANNIBAL LECTER! A good five years before Hopkins! It's a bit part, but he's very good. Tom Noonan plays the main serial killer in the film, and he is extraordinary. 

[Cox]

[Noonan]

The puzzle was very easy, but that didn't bother me so much today, since the easiness allowed the theme to unfold and pop in a fast, energetic way, which seemed appropriate. Who wants a breakdancing puzzle to be a slog? There were only two answers that gave me any trouble. One is embarrassing: I have seen and enjoyed many Steven YEUN movies, but when I read his clue (57D: Actor Steven of "Beef" and "Nope"), I had the "YE-" in place and reflexively wrote in YEOH—a different actor altogether. Wrong ethnicity, wrong gender, wrong wrong wrong. Bah. My (extreme) bad. The other hold-up I don't feel nearly so bad about. CMD!? Is that short for "Command?" Yeesh, that is ... not pretty. Astonishingly, this abbr. was used only twice in the pre-Shortz era, but has (comparatively) flourished under Shortz, almost always with the same boring clue: today's clue: [Mil. authority] (16 appearances under Shortz, 10 of them with this clue, zzzz). This is the first appearance of CMD in ten years! It can go back into retirement now, I won't mind. Anyway, I spun out a bit on DOD today. I had the "D" in place and wrote in DOD (Dept. of Defense). That's a "Mil. authority," isn't it? 

Bullets:

• 11A: ___ hair (edgy 2000s trend) (EMO) — got EMO easy even though I can't really tell you what this hair looks like. I'm picturing Bill Hader as Stefan on SNL, but Stefan wasn't exactly EMO:

• 33A: Tribal home, maybe, informally (REZ) — a perfectly good answer (short for "Reservation"), but "maybe, informally" felt like one qualifier too many.
• 35A: So-called "melting pot," in brief (U.S.A.) — enjoying the shade this puzzle is throwing around today with "So-called." See also the clue on MADONNA (4D: So-called "Queen of Pop"). I've heard Michael Jackson called the "King of Pop," but this "Queen of Pop" moniker is less familiar to me, which is strange, as I grew up in peak Madonna Times, and even saw her in concert in Minneapolis a couple years ago.

• 30D: Tick doc (VET) — I was not aware that VETs treated arachnids. (Seriously, what is happening here? You take your dog to the vet when he gets ticks? Is that it?) (wait, is this a "Tik Tok" pun???) 😦
• 12D: Combatant in an octagon-shaped cage (MMA FIGHTER) — not a fan of MMA, but am a fan of this answer, which is bright and original and (most importantly) helped me figure out CMD.
• 11D: Sound-track? (ECHOLOCATE) — good answer, great clue. That NE corner really hums. I will say that even though CMD sucks, it is holding together the best part of the puzzle—which is the only reason cruddy fill should ever show its face.
• 29D: Cyber punk? (TROLL) — nice wordplay—reimagining the literary genre (cyberpunk) as an actual punk (i.e. asshole) online. Good stuff. I also like 37D: Bear's heirs? for CUBS. No real wordplay at work there, just a funny little rhyming clue. It's nice for easy clues to have a little personality sometimes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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