Here are the answers:
- Horizontal Row 1
- Bring to light, as a scandal, or film: EXPOSE
- Movie that David Lynch says was inspired by a particular Bible passage: ERASERHEAD
- Horizontal Row 2
- Nickname of Castlevania and Bloodstained producer: IGA
- Apparatus that receives proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum: GOLGI
- Bent with elbows outward, hands on your hips: AKIMBO
- Horizontal Row 3
- Refuses to allow a subscription to lapse: RENEWS
- Places to taste rosés in Napa: WINERIES
- Arnett of "SmartLess": WILL
- Horizontal Row 4
- Simon who fights/commits crime as "The Saint": TEMPLAR
- Other surname of Borges: ACEVEDO
- Horizontal Row 5
- Night that begins "If music be the food of love...": TWELFTH
- Flightless bird haunting fourth season of Arrested Development: OSTRICH
- Horizontal Row 6
- Bearded actor married to Mullally: OFFERMAN
- People who deal in warps and wefts: WEAVERS
- Horizontal Row 7
- Languages like Akkadian, Arabic, Hebrew, or Phoenician: SEMITIC
- There are supposedly exactly seven of these bodies of water: SEAS
- Middle name of mustachioed assassin, portrayed by James Marsden in Zoolander: WILKES
- Horizontal Row 8
- "Safe to drink," referring to water, when you're being too fancy to call it "drinkable": POTABLE
- Conservation status of aurochs: EXTINCT
- Horizontal Row 9
- Of a quadrilateral, having more equal side lengths, or angles closer to ninety degrees: SQUARER
- Barbara of Double Indemnity: STANWYCK
- Horizontal Row 10
- The _______, a computer game where all you do is walk around an island and solve mazes: WITNESS
- Creepy faceless thing in department store window: MANNEQUIN
The problem is that most of the rows don't fit into the provided grid. They're a few letters too long.
If you think in terms of "nonstandard directions," you might notice the ill-fitting rows each contain the sequences NE, SE, SW, or NW. If you squeeze each of these "directions" into its own box, everything fits in the grid perfectly.
Then follow the diagonal from the top left corner, like you do in so many puzzles—but when you reach a tile marked NE, SE, SW, or NW, start going that way instead:
This path takes you over the letters EGGLIKE SHAPE FOUR LETTERS (using the final E twice, how clever), which clues the answer, OVAL.
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