Someones going to pay for this crossword

MONDAY PUZZLE — Today’s crossword by Sam Trabucco solved almost like a Tuesday to me because the theme was a bit less straightforward than I was expecting for a Monday. Committing a puzzle to a specific day of the week is a fine line to walk.

Today’s Theme

Mr. Trabucco gets our solving week rolling with four two-word theme entries that can have the word “ROLL” inserted after the first word to make an entirely different phrase. That means that the entries can also be read as follows:

17A: EGG [ROLL]

24A: BARREL [ROLL]

51A: DRUM [ROLL]

60A: LOG [ROLL]

He also provides us with a revealer at 37A, which gives us a hint on how to understand the theme. HEADS WILL ROLL, in this case, means that the first word (the “HEAD”) will ROLL.

Nontheme News

There is a lot of good stuff here to play with (FAMILY TREE, HOT SEAT, END OF STORY), but there are some gluey bits that I think wouldn’t be missed if they were gone. Mr. Trabucco talks more about them below.

Tricky Clues

1D and 2D: Some seaworthy but tough clues for a Monday. The patron saint of mariners is ST. ELMO and the sea crossed by the Argonauts is the AEGEAN.

5D: Wordplay on a Monday! The thing that “might help you make your move” is a VAN.

39D: This is a fairly common trick in crossword cluing. When you see the word “partner,” think about something that can reasonably be separated by the word “and.” “Lock’s partner” would be KEY, as in the phrase “lock and KEY.”

Constructor’s Notes

This puzzle has an embarrassing back story. Originally, I managed to drop EGGHEADS in as the first theme entry, apparently not noticing that the revealer is HEADS WILL ROLL and it’s probably not wise to dupe theme words. And by “originally,” I mean “to the point where I was content to send it to Will,” because I didn’t realize my mistake until Joel sent a far-too-polite note about a “pretty bad dupe.” Luckily, they were cool with me reworking the grid around EGG HUNTS, et voilà. Figures the new grid would contain a TOO dupe, then — though, I’ve never actually been bothered by small dupes like that in the fill.

Anyway, when making easy puzzles (especially those which might end up on a Monday), I tend to hold myself to pretty high standards with respect to subpar/unfamiliar fill. I often see tweets on Mondays from solvers who just finished their first New York Times crossword ever, and the last thing I want is to stymie such a would-be new solver with an even potentially-frustrating crossing, or other similar downer of a moment. Setting the solver up for success and all that. I think it’s a huge responsibility for early-week puzzles, which can have particular influence on someone’s relationship to crosswords, to provide an experience which leaves them wanting more. I’d say this puzzle is solid in that regard — the least familiar/legit things are probably ET TU, LTRS, ETHNO-, EXT, but they’re all inferable/crossed fine at worst. Though, wow, did I write this during a phase when I valued getting an X into the grid at any cost? EXT is so avoidable, would not do again.

I hope you enjoyed the puzzle!