Wednesday, June 3, 2026, Jiahe Men

Today's theme revealer is TRIPLE THREAT, and one could say that today's puzzle is, itself, a triple threat, as the theme is multi-faceted. I looked it up and "triple threat" is defined as "highly skilled in three distinct but related areas," which I think is a fun fit with the "EGOT contender" element of the clue. Additionally, the puzzle has six theme answers in which one letter appears three times in a row. Add to that the fact that the tripled letters in each of the shaded areas spell out OR ELSE, a threat of its own and there you go, a trifecta. The theme answers were all good, although I personally prefer the term "Tree Book" to DEADTREEEDITION, but that would in no way suit today's theme. 

Solve-wise, I found this puzzle more challenging than the average Wednesday. It included a lot of people and things unknown to me like SADIE Sink, Linda PERRY, negitoro roll, SHAKA and, PADSEEEW, but, fortunately, still enough stuff for me to make a tri-dent. 

I noticed a welcome number of female references, the two referenced above, plus RIOTGRRRL, CARLY Rae Jepson, MAAM, and Tu Youyou, discoverer of a lifesaving treatment for MALARIA. I thought for a minute that there might be no "male" answers in the puzzle, but we do have IAGO, and NYY is clued by referencing Mssrs. October and November. Still, WOOT! :) 

I enjoyed the idea of a "dank" or "deep-fried" MEME, even though I'm not 100% sure exactly what about a meme would engender either of those descriptions. Perhaps because IMTOOOLDFORTHIS. I was amused by the reality check on transport options in the CARS movies that don't really make sense if "everyone" is a car. Heh. In a nice crossover event, we have AHAB intersecting with SHIP. My favorite C/AP today was "Give a makeup test?" for ASSAY. Ha! 

OTOH, perhaps because the constructor had to tri so hard to get the all the theme material in, the grid was a little choppy, with a prevalence of three- and four-letter answers. More specifically, I was tripped up by the clue for 34A. I get that one might want to make a trickier clue for crossword stalwart EDAM but citing a Czech dish for a Dutch cheese seemed like not such a gouda idea. 

~Frannie.