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