LAT 7:20 (Kyle) 
[2.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 14:01 (Nate) 
[3.61 avg; 22 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) 
[4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 9:05 (Jim P) [3.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:32 (Adam S) 
[2.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
WaPo 631 (Matt G) [3.14 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Michael Lieberman’s New York Times crossword, “Nuclear Fusion” — Nate’s write-up
If you tried solving this week’s NYT Sunday crossword in the print magazine, you might have found it a tad more challenging (impossible) than expected. It turns out, they printed the wrong grid in the magazine! Thankfully, they caught the error early enough to include the proper grid elsewhere in the printed paper.
Phew! Okay, now that we all have the right puzzle, let’s dive in:
23A ISLAN(D H)OPPED [Traveled from Syros to Naxos to Mykonos, say]
24D (DH)EA(DT) [Race that’s too close to call] (read this as DEAD HEAT)
36A PLAYE(D T)O WIN [Wasn’t messing around, say]
4.19.26 Sunday New York Times Crossword
25A I FEE(L G)REAT [“That was rejuvenating!”]
26D (LG)AS(TP) [Desperate final effort] (read this as LAST GASP)
39A SECRE(T P)LOTS [Cabal’s schemes]
49A HAPP(Y C)AMPERS [They’ve got no complaints]
50D (YC)AR(DE) [Mowing, mulching, raking, etc.] (read this as YARD CARE)
63A CIN(DE)R(BL)OCK [Masonry unit]
64D (BL)OA(TD) [Ton of cargo] (read this as BOAT LOAD)
83A CONCER(T D)ATES [Listings on a band T-shirt]
90A TEXA(S H)OLD-EM [Popular poker variant]
92D (SH)EL(FP) [Where “The Four Agreements” and “The Five Love Languages” may be shelved] (read this as SELF HELP)
107A OUT O(F P)LACE [How a misfit might feel]
93A BIRT(H W)EIGHT [Baby book datum]
94A (HW)AR(DE) [Most merchandise at Ace and True Value] (read this as HARDWARE)
108A UNREA(D E)MAILS [Inbox zero targets]
Wow! What a tremendously interconnected puzzle and neat concept for a theme. To describe it as best as I can, phrases or terms of two four-letter words that share the same central two letters (like YARD CARE or BOAT LOAD) were fused together (see the puzzle’s title) to be represented as (YC)AR(DE) or (BL)OA(TD). Those two-letter rebuses were then included as parts of longer across entries. Impressively, there are eleven(!) long theme entries going across to connect through six of those fused down rebus entries. To construct a Sunday NYT crossword (especially given the expected word limit) is tough enough as it is. To be able to construct a relatively smooth puzzle like this one where so much of the grid is interconnected or theme-related? Wow! Even more, I appreciated that the constructor added in fun bonus fill, like HOLY CANNOLI, PROMPOSAL, SO EXCITED, and AIR HIGH FIVE.
I hope you enjoyed this puzzle, found the rebus bits a fun bit of challenge, and marveled at the construction like I did. It’s certainly a wonderful way to start the week!
PS – Yes, it’s Nate! I’m back to reviewing the Sunday NYT for Fiend. Tremendous thanks to Eric for taking it over while my husband and I recovered from the LA fires of January 2025. The good news is that we’re doing much better – we’re in a new house and settling in to make it our new home. Thank you again to everyone in Crossworld for being so supportive during such a tough time. <3
PPS – It was so great seeing so many of you at ACPT this past weekend! Each time I go, it reminds me of how truly lovely our little community is. I hope to see you next year at ACPT in Philly!
Dylan Schiff’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Squared Up”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers were originally phrases that had a hidden number spelled out within, except that number has been replaced with its square. The revealer is TAKE / ROOT (124a, [With 127-Across, become established … or a hint to making sense of the circled letters]), since you have to take the square root of the number presented in order to get the actual number (i.e. letters) needed.
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Squared Up” · Dylan Schiff · 4.19.26
- 25a. [Certain fairground instruments] WURLITZER ORGANS. ZERO2 = ZERO.
- 37a. [Film franchise featuring a dreamy, breathtaking man?] A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. ONE2 = ONE. Since the squares of 0 and 1 are themselves, these first two entries stay the same, thus disguising the theme and making the next entry quite confusing at first.
- 55a. [Minor inconveniences for affluent people] FIRSFOURRLD PROBLEMS. First-world problems. TWO2 = FOUR. Aptly, this is where the (first-world) problems begin. It took a fair amount of time to untangle this, because of course I had put the title out of my mind.
- 74a. [Critical stage in a spacecraft’s flight] EARNINENTRY. Earth reentry. THREE2 = NINE.
- 91a. [Soap since 1965] DAYSOSIXTEENLIVES. Days of our lives. FOUR2 = SIXTEEN.
- 111a. [“Come on, you’ve heard this a thousand times …”] ITWENTY-FIVESAID IT ONCE. “If I’ve said it once…”. FIVE2 = TWENTY-FIVE.
That was a little crazy, wasn’t it? Because you uncover the first two entries and all seems fine with the world. But then the third entry throws you for a loop and it’s all chaos from there. Except it’s not, of course, when a quick glance at the title makes it make sense. Eventually, the revealer cements what you’ve already figured out. Pretty nice, even if we’re left with gobbledygook in the grid. The circles help to distinguish the offending letters.
I appreciate the grid’s left/right symmetry which is possible since all the main theme entries are an odd-number of letters long. The revealer is technically eight-letters long, but it works broken in two, and I like the serendipity of the word ROOT being down at the bottom of the grid.
Pickled DAIKON
In the fill we have CERAMIC MUGS, old actress JILL IRELAND, SISTINE, PAVLOVA, PANGAEA, INSIDER, “NOW I SEE,” and SOLFEGE. That last one is a word I’ve heard, but couldn’t have told you what it meant. (It sounds like something delicious, though.) I also liked seeing DAIKON [Radish hidden in “Hyundai Kona”] in the grid. In Chamorro, we call it “daigo”. I needed all the crossings for Street Fighter character RYU, but I find the entry fun.
Clues of note:
Leonard Nimoy and JILL IRELAND from the episode “This Side of Paradise”
- 79a. [Phase of life, in slang]. ERA. So this applies to everyone now? Not just Taylor Swift? I guess we can all say we’re in our own Crossword Eras.
- 122a. [“Young Sheldon” brother]. GEORGIE. I hate that I know this and that the character has spin-off show, even though I’ve never seen a single episode of either of them nor The Big Bang Theory.
- 30d. [“Star Trek” guest actress whose surname is a country]. JILL IRELAND. A guest actress from one 1967 episode of a TV show? That’s too deep a cut if you ask me (even though I recognize her and the episode). Although she never had any big-name roles that have currency today, she does have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (And she’s not to be confused with supermodel/actress Kathy Ireland.)
And that’s all I’ve got. SIXTEEN stars.
Adrian Johnson and Alexandra Doumani’s Universal Crossword “Themeless Sunday 180” – Adam S’s write-up
Adrian Johnson and Alexandra Doumani’s Universal “Themeless Sunday 180” – 4/19/26
And for the second Sunday in a row, Adrian Johnson and Alexandra Doumani have the Sunday Themeless. With Willa Angel Chen Miller having had the last two Saturdays, that makes it a double-double, albeit not in the sense of Aaron Aaronson’s ORCA-winning article on Square Theory (well worth a read if you haven’t seen it – or there’s video of him talking about it here).
I promise to stop talking about asymmetry in themeless grids soon, but notwithstanding my general preference for symmetry, I thought this grid layout was a lot of fun. The long sweep across the top and down the right felt like the start of a racecourse, and quickly parlaying BRAIN SURGEONS into SATELLITE DISH made me feel like I came sprinting out of the blocks. As someone who grew up with British steeplechasing, the finger in the bottom right felt like a case of ‘UH OH – here comes the first fence. This will tell us who can KEEP UP.’
The long stuff was all good today, but the standout highlight for me was the amazing triple stack of EVIL SPIRIT, VILLAIN ARC, and PEAK CINEMA. All great entries individually, and I love the intentionality of how they go together. NO APOLOGIES and the TIRAMISU (hopefully properly marsala-soaked) were my other favorites.
This puzzle is also a good example of how the impact of crosswordese in a themeless is context-dependent. In isolation, PSA, PAI, ALPO, AVIA, GPS. OTC, POR, TBSP, the prepositional phrase OPT TO, SMS, and PTS feel like more glue than one would want. However, holding together a 68-worder with such stellar longer fill, I hardly noticed it when solving. So, at least, for me, this was a good tradeoff. And a reminder that it’s easy to fetishize clean fill so much that the grid becomes a little sterile.
- A few cluing notes:
13A BRAIN SURGEONS [They operate inside your head!]. Interesting choice to add the exclamation point, as it isn’t a typical bangit, and the clue works fine without it. At a guess, the constructors/editors wanted to acknowledge the answer is not something that is normally in “your” head (hopefully never, for any of us individually!) This was an interesting angle that, for me, didn’t quite stick the landing.
15A STREET MAGICIAN [One doing tricks on the road?]. Just the right degree of gentle for a Universal question mark clue. Initially misdirects to bikers or skaters, so a nice aha with a few crosses without remotely threatening Stumper/Fireball levels.
25A EVERCLEAR [Oregon indie band, or a strong liquor brand]. I appreciated the double clue, as both senses were vaguely hiding in the dark recesses of my subconscious and took some retrieving.
41A SAINT [Wholly holy sort] Nice!
21D PEAK CINEMA [Picture-perfect slang term?] Nailed it! No notes.
Nice job by Adrian and Alexandra on this one.
Adam Landau’s LA Times crossword “SUPERMARKET SWEEP” – Kyle’s write-up
LA Times solution grid “SUPERMARKET SWEEP” – Adam Landau – Sunday 04/19/2026
Mr. Landau’s name isn’t in the Crossword Fiend database, but it’s not his debut–he had another Sunday LAT puzzle last October. Two Sundays is a pretty good start to publishing crosswords! Congratulations, Adam, and thanks for today’s puzzle.
Adam’s imaginative theme takes popular brand names seen at the grocery store and builds wacky three-part phrases out of them. The clues include an aisle as a hint to the category of brands we’re looking for:
- 23A [Brief but strong infatuation in the beverage aisle?] BRISK MONSTER CRUSH
- 38A [Sly campaign to keep white birds out of the deodorant aisle?] SECRET DOVE BAN
- 51A [Huge supply of sled dogs in the household goods aisle?] HEFTY HUSKY BOUNTY
- 66A [Improve Alabama school spirit in the laundry aisle?] GAIN TIDE CHEER
- 84A [Ms. Witherspoon’s Peruvian friends in the candy aisle?] REESE’S ANDES PEEPS
- 92A [Full commitment to benevolence in the cereal aisle?] TOTAL KIND LIFE
- 114A [Exclusive gathering around a cauldron in the snack aisle?] PREMIUM KETTLE CLUB
I had fun getting these answers, and you can’t ask for much more than that in a Sunday theme.
Notes on fill and clues:
- I liked the crossing of 111A MAIZE and 102D AZURE in the lower-right corner, which evokes the University of Michigan’s “maize and blue” color scheme. Elsewhere, at 49D, we’ve got the Midwest’s US TEN highway [Route that includes a ferry between Wisc. and Mich.] I wonder if Mr. Landau is a Michigander?
- Interesting trivia in the clue for 65D RED [Like half of Indonesia’s flag]. It’s half red, half white. According to Wikipedia, one interpretation of the flag’s colors is red for the human body, and white for the soul.
- 68D [One performing a puja] HINDU. Puja is a ritual prayer.
- 89D [Intuit Dome player] CLIPPER, as in the NBA’s LA Clippers. Located in Inglewood, the Intuit Dome is the NBA’s newest arena.
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword, “The Crowd Goes Wild” — Matthew’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “The Crowd Goes Wild,” 4/19/2026
We’ve got a meta this week: “The Crowd Goes Wild” asks us to find a five-letter word. There are no obvious themers just from looking at the grid, but there are a bunch of clues that read like theme clues.
There are so many that I won’t write them all out, but the common thread is that each clues an entry that contains a string of three repeated letters, like DRESS SLAM or CEO OOPSY. Many of these feel especially like a Something Different puzzle, involving a name, like RAITT TEMPEH or OTT TUESDAY.
That abundance of names (and quirky theme clues) verged on tedious at times, but I still enjoyed myself. The meta-unlocking aspect of the solve is noticing that the theme entries pile up to create 3×3 squares of the same letter. That both helps with some of the trickier clues and highlights the meta answer: there are five 3×3 blocks, which spell TRIOS. Given that “three’s a crowd,” it’s a nice connection to the puzzle title.
Most of the long entries are used by the theme, so not a lot else jumped out at me from the fill. Have a good week!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I’m not going to take out my frustrations on the puzzle, but this was a really bad solving experience for me. In the Games app, they don’t give you Will Shortz’s notes about the Sunday Crossword. His notes helped explain what you were supposed to do to solve this one. Without them, I had no idea what to do and I had to carefully read the Wordplay column to figure it out.
Add this to the print edition error and the Times really screwed the pooch on this one.
I had no trouble finding a theme the usual way, from the constraints of entering answers. I did have a long, wasted, and frustrating Saturday, with the puzzle in the end put off contrary to intentions to Sunday. Still, a perfectly fine puzzle.
I started the actual solve by printing the puzzle from the Times online, where it appeared late Saturday evening and where I read the news as well, but not most other sections. I switched to the inside back page of the Sunday news section, to take advantage of a larger grid and larger font for clues, when the Sunday delivery arrived. FWIW, any weekend delivery option gets you both Saturday and Sunday, and I don’t get weekday delivery. I’m not quite that old-fashioned.
My problem was I didn’t understand what the title meant. Do the letters flow from one answer to another? Do I skip letters? Does one answer match up with another answer somewhere else? I don’t usually have the patience to go through all those options. (I am also maybe too conscious of my solve times.)
And it didn’t help that yesterday, I did this Sam Buttrey puzzle from the archive, where some answers switched places in the grid. So that idea was still rattling around in my head.
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/6/2023
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
NYT: Yuck! My husband and I were both perplexed. Had to come here to understsnd it. I kept thinking that there had to be science abbreviations ivolved from the “nuclear” part of the title, but I didn’t see any and Nate didn’t mention it. So, yes, impressive construction, but it was lost on us.
Yeah, I think the title of the puzzle didn’t really help communicate what the actual theme was about… fusion, sure, but the nuclear part had me thinking it was something with chemical symbols. Were there notes from Will about the puzzle above and beyond the title?
Will’s notes:
“Michael Lieberman, of Washington, D.C., is an attorney at Fairmark Partners, an antitrust firm. Before constructing this puzzle, he found a crossword with related wordplay that appeared in The New York Times in 2015. So Mike thought of longer examples and interlocked each one twice. Good puzzlemakers are always pushing boundaries.”
For me, knowing that there were words connected by rebus squares would have been helpful going into the puzzle.
“For me, knowing that there were words connected by rebus squares would have been helpful going into the puzzle.”
Yep!
I didn’t find those notes very helpful. “…[I]nterlocked each one twice.” was not sufficient or really descriptive.
Agreed that the theme relies on fusion but not nuclear. (I tried briefly picking out letters at the center of theme words, as their nucleus.) I did, though, hold that against the title and not the theme or the rest of the puzzle.
I was baffled by the NYT until about halfway through solving, then the light dawned and I realized how skillfully done it was. Both a clever construction and a fun solve, two things that don’t always go together.
ETA: I agree with Jamie above that the title was less than helpful.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
My experience exactly. I started with only one of the down answers and was a bit confused. Then I saw the two answers turning off the last letter of the first word and first letter of the second word and loved it! A great combination of imagination and execution!
NYT: I liked this one pretty well, with the WAPITI/TORO crossing being questionable.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
that one was tricky for me and so were cleF and Fae as well as rEctor and Edo but I liked the trickiness of the theme/gimmick
NYT: I did like the theme, but I had a lot of problems just north and west of center.
I think part of the problem was that CINDER BLOCK had the two rebuses that were not consistent with all the others, where the square shared the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second. These two were just 2 random pairs of letters.
Glitches aside, nice puzzle!
I thought that having a central entry as a themer expanded the theme within a greater symmetry, a positive. The fact that it took me longer to work out counts for me as a plus.
Oh, FWIW, roman a CLEF, RECTOR, and EDO were all gimmes. I remembered WAPITI wrongly as “wapati,” and I didn’t recognize FAE in the plural or TORO, but felt entirely fair.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Yes, it was harder for me than usual, but I felt like it was totally fair. It was clear at some point that we were dealing with a rebus, but it took me some thinking to understand the theme. Then the lightbulb went off and the hunt was on.
What a great puzzle. I am glad I didn’t see an explainer, because figuring it out was most of the fun!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Nate: 2 shout-outs to you today: 1) Congrats on a terrific write-up of today’s puzzle. My husband and I do the Sunday puzzle together in print, and after being totally flummoxed by several “gimme” fills (ONTARIO, PELE, SELFHELP) we realized something was awfully amiss, so we switched to the games app and saw the problem. [We hadn’t yet looked at the first section to see the correction]. You explained it so well – both the goof and the solve. Well done! 2) Welcome back to DOACF from the devastating loss of your home. Hope that you continue your peaceful, uneventful (except for happy ones) life in your new home.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Welcome back, Nate! I saw you in Stamford but didn’t get a chance to say hi. Glad to have you back!
Same here–I saw you from a distance but there were too many people milling around between us for me to come over and say hello. Glad to see you back in the Fiend commentary chair!
Good NYT— with one dumb single-letter error on my part. Realized pretty soon it was a multi-letter rebus, and a pretty one. But for me, Sunday puzzles will, once in a while, have an unfindable error, and that kinda spoiled it this time. But a clever, pretty puzzle nonetheless.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Took me a while to fully understand the gimmick, which led to a longer solve time than usual. Took me a bit to realize that CINDERBLOCK had two rebuses. Also, I inexplicably had TENSOR instead of TENSER since the O is nowhere near the E, which took me a bit to find and fix.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Great on creativity and theme execution. Title was definitely misleading with the nuclear bit. In retrospect, I think the central, shared part of the two words can be thought of as the nucleus, and it is fused, with the ends being variable…
Good thought!
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 5 stars
Ridiculous, zany, absurd, and wonderfully fun — I found myself smiling and even laughing out loud at the answers and clues. And I got the meta answer, woo-hoo! Thanks, Evan!
Agreed—really fun Sunday from Evan!
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 3.5 stars
Evan showing off :) Five 3×3 grids of repeated letters, symmetrically arranged, in order, to spell TRIOS. As Matt said, the 3×3 phenomenon helped with some of the “?” answers that relied on information unfamiliar to me. I didn’t have as much fun with this one as with most, but I did admire the finished puzzle.
I still cannot give Martin Herbach enough credit for providing this website with the technical resources that us readers draw upon. And I also respect his opinions when he finds a solver’s post that needs clarification. Kudos to you, Martin!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
This NYT was one we really liked. It was definitely a feat of architectural brilliance, and there was only one clunker that we could find (CAIT). What was so cool for us was that the ‘aha’ moments were multi-level; we were constantly solving more than one level of this puzzle at a time. I wish all Sunday Times puzzles were like this one!
NYT: I forgot to note that I was not happy with 29A’s clue “sold for quick cash, say” with an answer of “pawned.” Pawning means BORROWING money using an item as collateral,” not selling the item outright.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
I quit the puzzle early and did not regret it. The theme — there is no theme, just six pairs of rebuses unconnected in any meaning, nor is their presence announced by a revealer. Actual “thematic” material only consists of 24 squares.
The clues and fills are boring and difficult, Saturday Stumper style. The whole puzzle is drier than a piece of 100-year-old beef sinew.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT was really fun!
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 4 stars
WaPo: Note that TRIOS scrambles to RIOTS which fits the title (“The Crowd Goes Wild”).
This is discussed in the Monday comments.