Paladin

Hmmm… CAROUSES vs CAROUSEL Oh well…

This was a GREAT Saturday puzzle! I stared at it for what seemed like hours before slowly working up from the SE corner. When finally done I felt like a DOOFUS for not parsing 31A correctly. Great one David, great one.

Wow! Now that’s a Saturday puzzle. On first pass all I could confidently enter was ANGELFALLS (thank you, National Geographic) and IRISH (thanks, grandparents). 45 minutes later it was finally done. The sort of challenge I’d expect from Sam.

And here I thought a dervish wore a FEZ. Learn something new every day. Thanks Luke.

Well, I definitely NEEDAHUG after that one!

Very clever debut puzzle, boys. Keep ‘em coming. “Ah ha!” came at 17A and it was smooth sailing from there on.

Took me a while - what’s the catch? Aye, there’s the RUB. Superb Saturday boys.

That was a challenge Julian! A real Friday puzzle. I’ve 12D enough times to be 58A, but 36A and I 33A.

Got hung up in the NW quadrant here. Was pretty sure of ELY but nothing seemed to fit. It didn’t help to have ASTA at 28A either. Great Friday puzzle Ryan.

Ok - KISMET vs KARMIC. Otherwise a smooth speedy fill. At least I haven’t 69A’d. Nice one Scott and Katie.

Found this one quite difficult even guessing the theme correctly early on. Never head of PHILIVEY. Hope he spent his winnings wisely.

Nice Friday challenge Rebecca. About 40 minutes with only one correction (BANANAS not BONKERS). Arya was my favorite in GoT.

Nice puzzle Eric. I had to engage in a bit of NEUROPLASTICITY to complete it!

A bit more difficult than the usual Tuesday. Nice construct Chloe.

Gotta say that FISH for 27D held me up a bit. Nice one Samuel.

NE and SW fell pretty fast. Not so the rest of this one. Most difficult I’ve experienced in a very long time.

Seemed a bit more Thursdayish than Wednesday. BULLETRAIN gave it away for me. Nice one Mort.

Confidently entered VRGLASSES at 3D to come up a letter short. Oops!😬 Guess that jinxed it for me. Nice puzzle Spencer and Jem.

A real Saturday puzzle! Thanks.

SE corner did me in. CREEPO vs SLEAZO? Who knew. Not me!

Nice one David - smooth solve. re 14D, I wonder how Zimbalist Jr ended up in acting rather than music, given his parents’ many talents. Still, 77 Sunset Strip made for good early tv.

PANCAKEBATTER had me held up for a while. Solved this one from the bottom up. Excellent puzzle Daniel.

Great Friday puzzle Sarah and Rafael. BETALAUNCH at 11D was my final correction. Nice to see our UNSUNGHEROs acknowledged too.

Smooth solve for a Saturday - must have been on the same frequency as Rebecca and Rafael. LARA, RIRI and ANAIS are new ones for me, but I did remember NANCY at least…

Initially had 32D as EYEEXAM and 27A as SAKI. Needless to say… Excellent puzzle Carly. 24D 😅

Finished in the NE quadrant today - changing SITE to SPOT and slapping my head over the suddenly obvious 12D. Nice debut Mansi - keep them coming.

Stymied at the right. I so wanted 16D to be ELIXEROFEUPHORIA. Nice puzzle Kevin.

Very challenging, altho I got 1A and 20A immediately. SQUIRCLE is a new one, solved by the crosses only. Nice puzzle Rich.

Wow! CHAD crossing CCCP, MCAT, and the great Anna MAGNANI were my only entries on the first pass. Great one Katie - keep ‘em coming!

Done without a lookup. NE and SW quadrants fell quickly. STALK at 52D slowed things up a bit. 6D was a head-slapper. Nice Saturday John.

Enough, people! Crosswords are a form of ESCapism after all, aren’t they?

Well, that was fun! ALANPARSONS? My first guess was GRAMPARSONS. Never heard of THRASHER - not on my magazine rack fer sure, dude!

First pass? Not so good. Expected a plural at 22A, but I guess two buns make a butt. The Scrivner clue was excellent. ONION vs OLIVE at 63A was a bit of a dilemma until I remembered 38D. Nice puzzle Andy.

What a great Thursday puzzle! I got 69A before sussing the 5 key clues. Very nice Damon (loved 49A!).

Well, BANGERS was a given and it led to a clockwise solve from PEERS to BOOTYCALLS. Seemed a bit of an easy Friday. Ergo dreading what Saturday will bring!

And here I was sure it BENET! Ah well… Golfer here - so PARFIVE was a gimme. But I’ve always thought 3 under should be a CONDOR since they are the biggest birds.

Great Thursday puzzle, free of the dreaded rebus! Thanks Samuel.

Sailed through until the SE corner. I had 42D as SEEDS, thinking of the upcoming NCAA basketball tournaments. Oh well… Nice one Larry.

When I opened my print edition newspaper to the puzzle I knew I was going to have fun with this one. Nice job, Esha. We have quite a few 24A in the Sandy Hook National Park right now.

Was sure of the CURIEs but struggled a bit between TIBET and NEPAL. Excellent Friday puzzle Evan. The bottom fell faster than the top by at least 20 minutes. BTW my autistic son loves 64A so that was an early gimme.

Last time I played PADIDDLE in the back seat of a friend’s car was in 1962! Ah, the memories 😊

For the longest time all I had were ACRE, ARUBA, DEATHSPIRAL, and ORO. Took way too long to fill in the rest. Excellent puzzle Vu.

Toughie today. NW quad went quickly, but the the puzzle seemed to be saying LIKEHELLYOUWILL to me. Finally finished with HAIRMETAL, something I’m happy to have never heard!

An easy one after Friday’s stumper. But I take issue with 21A “DONT”. I’ve always heard either “WONT” or “CANT” in the phrase. This from a onetime Georgia boy.

re: the ELK vs ELKS kerfluffel, don’t ask me - I’m a Moose!

A real Friday challenge for me. I wasn’t quite 1A when done since I’ve never heard of 12D (I’m a pen and paper solver so no 🎶 on completion). Nice puzzle Christina!

Good Friday puzzle - just enough to keep me scratching my head. Loved 13D. re the NONPOLAR/POLAR/APOLAR comments, chromatography is often done on an apolar support using polar or nonpolar solvents. Cue the emus.

NW eluded me - no idea who 17A is/was. Tried LATEGAMEREPORTS at 4D and finally gave up. A real challenge after yesterday’s easy as pi puzzle.

Nice puzzle today. One nit to pick: 52A “TRAP”. There are grass and sand bunkers on golf courses. The word TRAP doesn’t appear in the Rules of Golf. For that matter neither do TEEBOX and PIN. Cue the emus