by Jessie and Ross Trudeau
[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty: 3.5/5
Fall solving is, hands down, the best solving. Taking my coffee onto the patio and watch it steam up over the Sunday puzzle while the cat sniffs the air in that tentative way they do when there’s a chill? Glorious. Jessie and I hope you have time to savor some grid today, because after you’re done here you can tackle our latest in the New York Times.
And if that’s not enough puzzle content for you, we’re also going to be live solving tonight with Parker over at Cursewords Live. Drop by tonight (Sunday, 10/9) at 8p eastern and say hello in the chat!
A couple thoughts and spoilers for “Together at Last!” below. Thanks to Are We Married? and Gene for test solving today’s grid.
Another use for diagonal symmetry! We found it! I’ve deployed it a bunch for puzzles that require specific grid art, or 90 degree flips related to theme, and puzzles where the theme answers share a common starting letter … but it’s becoming clear that shared *last* letter concepts are really where my heart lies.
There weren’t that many other examples we could find to choose from. JIM/PAM from the office could have tucked away in the southeast corner, but it put a little too much stress on the fill (in the end). We’d be curious to hear other salient examples of film/TV couples that share a common last letter in their names *and* canonically “end up together” in their film/TV universe. Drop a line in the comments!
Happy solving, friends!
-Ross
Nice one! Don’t understand the highlighted squares, wgat am I missing?
Thanks, Ralph! They’re meant to approximate hearts <3 <3 <3 😀
Ross & Jessie,
Enjoyed the puzzle, esp. 29 DOWN – here’s hoping we move in that direction faster than we are now!
Thanks, Bill — onward and upward!
Fun puzzle. We came up with Harry and Sally.
An excellent example! This one occurred to us, but then we realized we couldn’t include them in this formulation since the names are the title of the film!
We also came up with Jerry and Dorothy from Jerry’s Maguire and Addie/Blane or Duckie, depending on how you think Pretty in Pink should end.
HA! Both of these escaped our attention!
Hi there! Medium-time solver, first-time commenter. Just wanted to ask if 36A/20D were intentionally unpaired? As for other couples, WALL-E/EVE, Phoebe/Mike, Aragorn/Arwen, and Mindy/Danny (duplicate Danny though) all end up together, while George/Louise (Jefferson) and Lucy/Ricky (Ricardo) start together, really. Ultimately, I loved the lovely theme!
Yeah, what about Ginny and Harry? (That was going to be my question, too!)
A great puzzle that I finished with no errors in spite of being unaware of three of the pairs of lovers … 🤪.
What an engaging puzzle! Harder than expected coming up with examples so this is all I have: Charlie and Rose (Bogart and K. Hepburn) from the classic “The African Queen”, about an unlikely couple eventually bonding while floating on (and in) treacherous waters, and being married at last. Not exactly household character names, but they do end with the same letter.
Also, it pains me to point this out, but “Robin and Marian” was the title of a 1970’s movie with Sean Connery as Robin and Audrey Hepburn as Marian.
PLANET and COMET in “Don’t Look Up” ? 😛
Dark, Rich 😉
Jessie and Rossie? (Sittin’ in a tree….)
For some reason I thoughts the letters inside the hearts would spell something—maybe it did and I missed it?
Were Ginny (36A) and Harry (20D) from Harry Potter intentionally not clued as a couple?
Indeed!