Anagrams. Some people love ‘em, some heat ‘em.
My wife, Jill, used to be a talented Scrabble player, but she sometimes kept herself up at night, her brain anagramming the snot out of random seraphs. Probably a good thing she gave it up.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I've seen a lot of anagram concepts in crosswords, so I'm mixed on meth.
I appreciated the consistency Dani showed today, each themer following a consistent "(name) + [apostrophe] S + (anagram of name)" pattern. Nice change of pace to get a full set of female names, too, all too uncommon in a heavily male-leaning crossworld.
13-letter themers are tough to work with. Note how LAUREN'S UNREAL forces a long down in WELLS FARGO. Dani could have broken this up by blacking out TAS at 45-Across, but that's a visually unappealing option. I don't mind WELLS FARGO, but it didn't do a lot for me giving their recent banking scandal.
Not a lot of other options there, though, the W??L???R?? pattern only returning a handful of alternatives like WORLD WAR II, WILLOW TREE, and from our private list, WALLY WORLD, WORLD B FREE.
(A certain crossword editor fits that pattern, but he's said he never wants to feature himself in a puzzle.)
Those two long downs, WELLS FARGO and EVEN BETTER (which is even better than Wells Fargo — what bank isn't? *rimshot*), force the only dabs of glue in the puzzle, OTO and ELY. A strong result given the layout Dani chose.
I'd have liked some rationale to counteract my anagrannui, but I couldn't think of anything besides WOMENS LIB, which feels outdated, and LOOSE WOMEN. Any blogger stupid enough to even mention that last one should get flamed to hell and back. Talk about a big GAS BILL!
Nice bonuses in GAS BILL, NFL GAME, COMPASS, TOP DOG. Along with a polished grid, it all came together as a solid early-week offering.