Greta

I oh-so-confidently filled in WILL FERRELL at 116A based on a few down clues, and then spent the rest of my puzzle so sure of myself, yet so perplexed as to when Will Ferrell became an expert marksman. And why dedicate a whole puzzle to this supposed feat and how had I never heard of it?! Once I finally returned to the bottom right corner I realized by the crosses that it had to be reworked. Silly me. Good start to my Sunday.

New Thursday record for me. Great way to start my day. Fun rebus, and once it all clicked with the revealer and the theme clues, it came together quickly.

I greatly enjoyed this puzzle. I got enough letters intersecting with 61 across to know BEEFEATER... and looking at the clue it just clicked. From there I knew the first letter of all of the starred clues which helped me chip away. But PIN for "exemplar of neatness" and WAS for "Time ____..." ? Not so happy about those.

As someone who filled in the Down entries first, this puzzle didn't quite work the way it was intended. DEGREES and FORBIDS and then FORRENT and TEEMING weren't hard clues for me to fill in right away... and then it jumbled the across answers. So I completed the entire puzzle with jumbled across answers on the assumption that was the trick. I understand the grid now, but this one wasn't quite my cup of tea.