From Richard Rushfield’s latest chapter of The Ankler: “What makes Chappelle’s slow-burn rumination so unusual is that you’ve got here a performer at the peak of his powers, publicly outing the business practices of a pillar of the corporate community, and there is nothing they can do to him. Not a thing.

“This dust-up will only enhance [Chappelle’s] status with his audience and, given his prominence, any streamer would still kill to be in business with him.

“But again, this shows why Netflix continues to run circles around Hollywood as a matter of pure adroitness. Just as Chappelle refers to, having someone who wasn’t there 20 years ago, let alone 100 years ago, who isn’t deeply, culturally at the DNA level resistant to fighting tooth and nail any change to The Way We Do Business, allows them to pick up the phone and say, Yeah, we don’t like that. Take it down.

“There was a time when if an actor on one studio’s payroll made a fuss about his contract of yore at another studio, his current employer would’ve taken him aside and had a little conversation about how things work around here and why are you jeopardizing the launch of your new season carrying on about your personal, etc etc. Netflix does not play that game. And now it’s going to be a lot harder for anyone else to either.”