Month: February 2021

The Lakers beat the Pistons on Saturday night, which wouldn’t typically be noteworthy, but after having lost to the Pistons in Detroit, they got taken to double overtime in the return game in L.A. as the Lakers can’t seem to shake their propensity for sleep-walking through games this regular season.

It’s not an issue anyone expects to linger into the playoffs, as the reigning champs get the benefit of the doubt that they’ll be able to flip the switch come playoff time, but it does mean they find themselves in some tight games late against teams that probably shouldn’t be pushing them to the brink. The good news is, for the most part, they’re coming out on top in these battles as they are 18-6 on the season and headed towards one of the top seeds in the West.

The bad news is, they’re having to call on LeBron James for heroics a bit more often than I think he would like in this regular season, coming off of a quick turnaround from winning a title in the Bubble back in October. On Saturday, it was James who put the dagger in the Pistons late in double overtime with a stepback three to go up four late and end the suddenly hour-long game.

Afterwards, he was asked about that shot and noted that his old heart can’t handle these two OT games like they used to and he just needed to end it.

It’s a joke but also, somewhere in there, is a hint of truth that James probably would prefer it if the Lakers were getting more easy wins than they have been so far this season. Part of the problem is how they seem to be going through the motions early in games — which at times includes James — and allow teams to hang around, but LeBron has been carrying the load so far and it has him firmly in the MVP race. Still, this is a team that has been in single-digit games seven times in their last 10 games, winning six of them, but that’s still a lot more tension than the defending champs would like on a nightly basis.

In any case, it helps to have LeBron in those situations but maybe the Lakers can ease the strain on his old heart by giving him a few easy wins in the near future.

Olivia Rodrigo has been flying high all of 2021. The pop singer has seen great success as a result of “Drivers License,” which currently sits at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart and has so for the past three weeks. While the song has been a part of some drama between Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter, it’s also earned her a huge wave of support from the likes of Cardi B, Halsey, and Taylor Swift. With Rodrigo eyeing a fourth consecutive week atop the singles chart, she brought her talents to the Grammy Museum to deliver a tender performance of “Drivers License” and to speak about her recent success with the single.

Her rendition of the single was a fairly simple one as it saw Rodrigo seated with nothing but a keyboard. However, the emotions that were woven into the track were on full display for her performance as they filled up the room she sat in.

“It’s absolutely beyond anything I ever could have dreamed up,” Rodrigo said when she was asked about her reaction to the song’s success. Elsewhere she discussed being “broken together” with fans that resonated with the track, as well as being “the hugest Swiftie in the world.” She also shared her thoughts on having the No. 1 song in the world in the midst of a pandemic.

“It’s also a really strange time,” she said. “The song is like No. 1 in the world, but I haven’t left my house, so I have no actual context of the song being out in the world. I just see the numbers.”

Press play on the performance above and watch her interview with the Grammy Museum here.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Saturday Night Live really explored the space with the Super Bowl in its latest episode, with its cold open focusing on the pregame show you’re likely to skip before the big game and another segment set at a bar with the Super Bowl on. But another sketch actually served a more practical purpose: warning people why they should cancel their big Super Bowl parties because other people cannot be trusted to be safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

The “Super Bowl Pod” sketch, which featured episode host Dan Levy, started with a group of friends watching the game in masks. They talk about how safe they’ve been, though, and so they take those masks off and start breaking down how careful they have been to avoid dangerous activities during a still-ongoing pandemic.

“We’ve all been so good,” one character says. “We deserve this.”

But things slowly unravel as each character, which promised they had been super careful, was actually doing dangerous things like international travel, indoor dining and “rawdog sex with strangers in the park.”

Even the character who “got the vaccine” didn’t do it right: he still had it in a vial that he carries with him everywhere he goes. The sketch is absurd, but it carries with it a notion that’s rang true far too often in the last year: lots of people think they’re being careful, but for many the definition of playing it safe is very different in a pandemic. Mistakes get made, which is why staying home and keeping away from others’ mistakes is always the safest possible play.

And the ending, with everyone wondering why they can’t smell or taste the spicy chili they’re eating with their hands, is a nice touch as well. It’s perhaps too-gentle a reminder that we’re still in a pandemic, which is why SNL ended the segment with an appearance from “Dr. Fauci” to make a few more jokes and remind everyone that this simulation is a terrible idea to replicate. So stay home with snack foods and condoms instead, I suppose.

“Right now you’re probably feeling like most Americans: bored, horny and borderline nuts. I know I am,” Kate McKinnon, as Fauci, said. “But what you just saw was the wrong way to Super Bowl.”

The sketch is funny, but there’s a real message behind it as well. Much like with Thanksgiving and Christmas, many public health officials worry that Super Bowl parties could be superspreader events, especially with new variants of coronavirus infecting people more rapidly than before. Masking it with a bit of humor is fine, but the advice behind the sketch is pretty valid: you should probably stay home and avoid big parties, even if everyone says they’re being safe.

Heidi Gardner, it should be noted, is actually a Chiefs fan. So that may have been her own Patrick Mahomes jersey she wore for the sketch. She also wore a custom Chiefs dress in the closing credits, and explained on Instagram that someone made the dress for her to wear in that exact moment.

Later in the episode, another Super Bowl sketch featured bar patrons performing a “football song” you definitely have never heard of.

Weekend Update also had some Super Bowl jokes, though they were mostly about Tampa if we’re being honest.

The Weeknd has collected a number of accolades throughout his career. From Grammy awards to No. 1 albums and a plethora of platinum plaques, the Toronto singer has seen success in all corners of his career. Now, just hours before he’s set to take the stage for the Super Bowl LV halftime show, The Weeknd can add another accomplishment to his lengthy resume: receiving his own day in his hometown of Toronto.

The news was shared on Sunday by Toronto mayor John Tory who shared a screenshot of the announcement to Twitter with a caption that read, “Proud to proclaim February 7th The Weeknd Day in Toronto as we honour @theweeknd who is performing today at the #SuperBowl.” He added, “Torontonians are cheering on proudly as he takes the stage at the #HalfTimeShow.”

In his full statement, Tory celebrated The Weeknd for quickly becoming “one of the world’s most popular musicians with over 75 million records sold worldwide and the #1 and #2 streaming albums in history,” as well as being “only the third Canadian ever to perform live at one of the world’s most watched events,” that being the Super Bowl halftime show. After listing a few more highlights that appear on The Weeknd’s resume, Toronto’s mayor delivered one last dose of appreciation to the singer. “Toronto is proud that one of its own, The Weeknd, has achieved such enormous popularity both here at home and on the world stage,” he said.

You can read the full announcement from Toronto’s mayor above.

The latest Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live started with jokes about the current president, but it still can’t escape the pull of Donald Trump’s presidency. Which is probably why the highlights were cracks at Trump and his most unhinged follower elected to congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene was stripped of her committee seats in the US House of Representatives earlier in the week, and Update made sure to mock her for that and the various conspiracy theories she has supported that led to the rebuke from Democrats. Michael Che joked that all those beliefs made her his “type” before issuing support for a conspiracy theory that seems much less immediately harmful to the health of the republic.

“I’m kidding, anyone who believes in those crazy conspiracies would have to be as blind as Stevie Wonder is pretending to be,” Che said.

The segment also covered the Fox News election fraud lawsuit, and called Donald Trump a “former social media influencer,” which drew applause. But the biggest laugh line came when Colin Jost begged Trump to reconsider his refusal to testify in his second impeachment trial in the Senate.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say ‘Come on, please?” Jost asked. “Give us one last show, man. You know? Stop feeling sorry for yourself, put in your extensions and bust into that trial like it’s Maury Povich and you are not the father.”

Later in the segment, SNL cracked a Morgan Wallen joke at Jost’s expense, though the show did let the musical guest who broke coronavirus safety protocols issue an apology by way of song just a few months before his hate speech controversy made him newsworthy once again.

It seems unlikely that he’ll get a chance at a second apology song for this particular incident, but you never know.

Though we have only seen one episode of The Walking Dead over the last 306 days, the next batch of six episodes is finally approaching. The episodes will debut later this month, on February 28th (although, the first episode will premiere one week earlier for AMC+ subscribers). Thanks to newly release episode descriptions, we now also know that Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character, Negan, will bookend the six episodes. In the first, he and Maggie will confront each other for the first time since Maggie left in an awkward scene (although, hilariously, there is appropriate social distancing!):

The first episode, however, expects to be more about Maggie’s backstory than it will be about Negan himself. The sixth episode, meanwhile, will be the long-awaited episode, “Here’s Negan.” The Negan origin story will feature his wife, Lucille (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s wife, Hilarie Burton), for whom his baseball bat was named. AMC has released a new trailer highlighting all six episodes.

For the curious, AMC has also released episode descriptions:

“Home Sweet Home”
Maggie (Lauren Cohan) has returned with a story she is not ready to share, even when her past catches up to her. Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) safety is at stake again. Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Maggie fight an unseen and unknown threat.

“Find Me”
An adventure for Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) turns sideways when they come across an old cabin. It takes Daryl back to the years when he left the group after Rick disappeared as he relives a time that only the apocalypse could manifest.

“One More”
Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) search for food and supplies to bring back to Alexandria. Small tragedies lead to bigger tragedies as faith is broken and optimism is fragmented when they are put to the ultimate test.

“Splinter”
Eugene (Josh McDermitt), Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paola Lázaro) are captured and separated. Princess struggles with memories of her traumatic past and tries to escape one way or another with the help of Ezekiel.

“Diverged”
Daryl and Carol come to a fork in the road and head their separate ways. Each going into their own type of survival mode, the easiest of challenges become much harder. Will their individual journeys be the tipping point needed to mend their friendship or is the distance between them permanent?

“Here’s Negan”
Carol takes Negan on a journey, hoping to minimize the increasing tension. Negan reflects on the events that led him to this point and comes to a conclusion about his future.

Finally, AMC has also released new images from the upcoming bonus episodes.

The Walking Dead returns on February 28th and will run until April 11th, when the back half of season six of Fear the Walking Dead returns.

There will be plenty of pregame coverage ahead of Super Bowl 55 on Sunday, but Saturday Night Live got things started a bit early with a look at some concerning Super Bowl commercials during its cold open. Rather than the politics-filled opens the show has focused on in 2020 and early in the new year, Saturday’s edition was framed as the CBS pregame show for the biggest football game of the season. A game that was cleverly described as “four hours of television for 11 minutes of action.”

The sketch featured a packed studio full of analysts doing their best to keep things awkward. There were some uncomfortable jokes about the NFL plowing through its season amid the coronavirus pandemic, and a riff about showing various simulcasts of the Super Bowl, including a catty one on Bravo and a kids broadcast on Nick. That probably had the best visual joke of the sketch, which featured a doctored video of slime spraying out of an injured player’s leg.

But the highlight of the sketch was a spoof on Super Bowl commercials, which may be a bit more dour than in recent years in real life. On SNL, however, corporate social justice co-signing was spoofed by a commercial about equal rights from Cheez-It, and a “conservative” ad from Papa Johns that had a not-so-subtle nod to the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories.

Kenan Thompson nearly broke during a riff about turtles and frogs, but recovered in time to set up Aidy Bryant to play both Super Bowl-bound coaches during an interview switchero. It was an early highlight in a rare SNL cold open that didn’t focus explicitly on the political, but it was a welcome break from all that if we’re being quite honest.

Though 2021 may be off to a rough start, Phoebe Bridgers fans got a delightful bit of news a few weeks ago — that she’d be making her debut on Saturday Night Live. Given the dearth of concerts and most of the country still following relatively strict lockdown orders, SNL is the closest we can get to a live show these days, and with a performer like Phoebe, the songs do not disappoint. Starting off with “Kyoto,” one of the more upbeat, early singles off her new record, Punisher, Bridgers closed out her two-song set with the towering closer off her latest record, “I Know The End.”

The song is a doomsday, apocalyptic affair, only made more fitting by the cataclysmic way 2020 unfolded, and Phoebe did the song justice on the SNL stage by going so far as to smash her guitar at the end of the performance. It’s the kind of tongue-in-cheek-but-deadly-serious move that’s made Phoebe such a beloved star over the past few years, and though there might’ve been a few diehard fans who wanted to hear songs off her first record, Stranger In The Alps, overall the song selection made sense for where Bridgers is right now. And that’s what makes a great TV performance. Check out the clip aboove.

Last year Phoebe Bridgers released her second album, Punisher, to immense critical acclaim. The follow-up to her debut record, Strangers In The Alps, came mid-summer, just as the pandemic was beginning to become a more intense reality and civil rights protests for Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd were erupting all over the country. In response to the growing unrest, she released her album a week early, hoping it would be a balm for some and wanting to step out of the spotlight while more important conversations were happening.

It’s that kind of self-awareness that has turned her into such a beloved young musician, and seeing her appear on Saturday Night Live — along with Schitt’s Creek star and creator Dan Levy — is a bright spot for fans during a rough start to 2021. For her first song on the show, Phoebe performed the more upbeat “Kyoto,” one of the first singles released off Punisher. It’s a song that might sound more hopeful, but deals with disassociation and disappointment. And for the special performance Phoebe and her band brought back what has now become a signature skeleton suit. Check out the video performance above and stay tuned for her second song later in the evening.

Cheer was an instant hit when it was released on Netflix in early 2020, the documentary series even garnering an SNL sketch of its own. But the story of the cheerleaders from Navarro College in Texas has become much more harrowing in the months since the series initially aired.

One of the show’s most notable cheerleaders, Jerry Harris, was arrested on child pornography charges in September. And according to reports, two more people featured on camera during the show’s episodes have been arrested for sexual misconduct involving minors. According to Deadline, Robert Joseph Scianna, a 25-year-old coach and choreographer, and Mitchell Ryan, a member of the Navarro College team, were arrested in separate cases earlier in the week.

Scianna Jr. was arrested Wednesday in Virginia and charged with felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child and using an electronic communication device to solicit sex. The Chesterfield County Police Department claimed he arranged to meet a juvenile with whom he connected on social media for sex.

Ryan was also arrested Wednesday in Texas. Ryan, 23, was charged with felony aggravated sexual assault of a child relating to an unspecified incident that allegedly occurred July 24, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department records show.

It’s troubling news to say the least, coming just months after Harris was arrested on charges of soliciting nude photos and sex from minors. Cheer was already a show that cast a lens on some of the more troubling and dangerous elements of the physical risks and demands competitive cheerleading puts on participants. But these recent cases are an indication there’s even more disturbing things going on that weren’t caught by cameras.