Law enforcer in Leicester / THU 3-5-26 / CVS Health subsidiary / Replay technique, informally / Winning hit at Wimbledon / Gomez's cousin on 1960s TV / Leif, to Eric the Red / One-named artist who sang the U.S. national anthem at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony / Performs at a Thunderbirds show

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (this will vary widely depending on when you pick up the gimmick)

[17A: User of the Force]

THEME: DARK / HORSES (66A: With 68-Across, long-shot candidates ... or a hint to six squares in this puzzle) — six black ("dark") squares actually contain letters (H, O, R, S, E, S, respectively), which you must supply in order to make sense of twelve answers that run through them:

Theme answers:

• ORCHESTRATE / OVERTHROW (5D: Choreograph / 19A: Remove from power)
• DISHONOR / RAMONES (35A: Bring shame upon / 22D: "Blitzkrieg Bop" band)
• EVERPRESENT / ORCHESTRATE (38A: Always there / 5D: Choreograph)
• EVERPRESENT / PASSING SHOT (38A: Always there / 26D: Winning hit at Wimbledon)
• ALIENATE / LIVES ON (42A: Estrange / 28D: Endures)
• CONSTABLE / PASSING SHOT (61A: Law enforcer in Leicester / 26D: Winning hit at Wimbledon)

Word of the Day: NATE Archibald (44A: N.B.A. great ___ Archibald) —

Nathaniel "Tiny" Archibald (born September 2, 1948) is an American former professional basketball player. He spent 14 years playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA), most notably with the Cincinnati Royals/Kansas City–Omaha Kings and Boston Celtics. In 1991, he was enshrined into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.

Archibald was a willing passer and an adequate shooter from midrange. However, it was his quickness, speed and shiftiness that made him difficult to guard in the open court, as he would regularly drive past defenders on his way to the basket. This versatility helped Archibald lead the NBA in scoring and assists in the same season (1972–73), making him the first of only two players in league history to achieve such a feat.

• • •

[Dark Horse Comics presents... TALES OF THE [17-Down]]

This is architecturally spectacular, but only on review. The solve itself, while not very difficult, was chaotic, and yet underneath all that chaos the puzzle itself, at the basic clue/answer level, was actually kind of lifeless. So I was very impressed, ultimately, by the structure of it all, and somewhat bored by the act of moving in and around that structure. If you look at the clues, there's nothing very interesting happening at all. There's nothing you would consider entertaining or eye-grabbing answers, no particularly tricky or clever clues. Everything here is in the service of the theme, which (revealer aside), is an entirely structural theme. The clues, the meanings of words, none of these have any relation to the theme. Letters are building blocks. There's no engagement with solvers at the level of word meaning, really. Words are broken up, but breaking them up is purely an act of the physical manipulation of letters. I don't have to figure anything out at the level of word meaning or wordplay. At the ends of puzzles like these I always feel like I'm supposed to clap (and I am clapping) but more because the constructor made a really intricate contraption than because I particularly enjoyed myself while solving it. So it's a very well made puzzle ... just not one that thrilled me as a solver. 

It's possible that the thrill was gone quickly for me today because I picked up the basics of the theme very, very early, at ORCHESTRATE, when I had an undeniable ORC that made no sense for the clue (). I had already been thinking "Orchestrate" was a synonym for [Choreograph], so I just experimented: if I were a "-HESTRA," where would I go??? Tried the most obvious place first: directly through the black square at the end of ORC. And that turned out to be right. Let out a little "ooh" when I realized that ORCHESTRATE would have to go through two different black squares. And that was that. Well not that that. I had no idea what the black "H" and "R" were doing, but ... hidden-letter gimmick, unlocked. I went through the following black square and it was just a regular black square, with regular answers on the other side. Very quickly, I ended up all the way at the bottom of the grid:

I realize now that part of what made the solve feel chaotic was that I had no way to mark those squares as I was solving. On paper, you could write on those squares or indicate their specialness in some way, but online, you just have to keep imagining the letter there, and since there are so many black squares in a puzzle, those special squares were really hard to keep straight. Lots of bumbling around not because I didn't understand, but because I kept losing track of squares I'd already sussed out. So ... fussy, not hard. BAH. Anyway, the revealer phrase came shortly after ORCHESTRATE, and while that let me know what letters would be in play, I still had to go find them. A kind of Easter egg hunt. There was some fun in that, some challenge. But actually solving the clues themselves wasn't too hard (or too interesting). But you do have to admire the structural elegance of this thing. "H-O-R-S-E-S" all appear in order, when reading top to bottom, and all the regularly-filled elements of the puzzle are plausible crossword answers even when they are unclued (i.e. ORC is a real thing and ALI is a real thing and CON is a real thing, etc.). That is, no gibberish. Having three different answers that traverse two "dark" letters also struck me as impressive. It's quite a machine, this puzzle. Wish I'd enjoyed driving it more. The only real challenge this one presented for me involved holding those hidden-letter black squares in my mind. Everything else felt Tuesday. Tepid Tuesday.

Bullets:

• 1A: Replay technique, informally (SLO-MO) — a gimme. SLO-MO to OPER, MEETS, and ... ORC? Oh, ORCHESTRA. While I didn't fly through the puzzle (because of all the black-square business), I cannot find another place in this puzzle where I struggled in any way with the actual clues. Oh, except ...
• 36D: One-named artist who sang the U.S. national anthem at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony (H.E.R.) — I keep forgetting H.E.R. exists. I know H.E.R. won a Grammy, because the puzzle tells me so every once in a while, but for whatever reason H.E.R.'s name keeps falling out of my bag of one-named artists. In three letters, I think SIA, SZA ... ??? You gotta go to four and five letters to get to the real one-named titans: CHER, ENYA, ADELE. Part of the issue is that I know actual songs by all the other one-named artists. I can't hum a thing by H.E.R.. Let's see if I can begin to change that today:

[255M views on YouTube]

• 38A: Always there (EVERPRESENT) — the first three letters here were probably the toughest part for me today, or the part I stumbled over the most. I couldn't figure out the Down cross (LIVES ON) and because I was focused on that trick square, I did not expect another trick square to be so close by, which means I kept assuming the answer to 38A: Always there was just three letters long. E'ER? E'ER seemed very close to [Always there]. But no. .... ERE? No. Colder. 
• 46D: Big Dutch bank (ING) — bank names made solely out of random letters. Not my idea of a good time. I think I wrote GNC here at first, but that's a vitamin and supplement store chain.
• 52D: Typewriter feature (TAB SET) — more unappealing fill. Do the keys actually say "TAB SET"? I have a typewriter here and it's just got a right-facing arrow on its "tab" key. This formal name for a bygone thing wasn't hard, but it wasn't pleasant either.
• 2D: San Diego suburb (LA MESA) — if you're in the San Diego suburbs, I'd say you're in the weeds, fill-wise. If you're in the city, great, everyone knows cities. If you're in the suburbs, yikes. Only locals know suburbs. You should probably avoid suburbs. Remember: NATICK* is a suburb. 

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*NATICK is the term for an unfair / uninferable crossing, esp. of proper nouns

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