Month: March 2021

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

After weeks of speculating what the ramifications of bringing Evans Peters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe might mean, the WandaVision finale went a direction that we can safely say no one saw coming: a boner joke. Instead of a dramatic bridging between the Fox X-Men movies and the MCU, which the show seemed to be heading towards thanks to the official Disney+ caption labeling Peters as “the version of Pietro from the X-Men films” when he first arrived in Episode 7, Peters ended up being an entirely different character. Namely, Agnes’ mysterious husband Ralph whose last name is Boehner, which sounds exactly like you think it does.

The problem is the “Ralph Boehner” moment is the last we see of Peters in the finale. He literally laughs at his own last name just to drive home the boner joke, and that’s the end of his story. Obviously, that wasn’t the explanation Marvel fans were looking for after weeks of hoping for some sort of big Multiverse X-Men reveal, and they’ve been sharing their feelings on Pietro being reduced to a dick joke on Twitter.

Of course, even in the end, WandaVision can’t help but stir up fan theories. Right now Marvel funs are furiously sifting through the finale for clues that maybe Pietro is more than just a boner gag, and they’re zeroing in on the fact he has a photo of himself with his name on it, which seems odd. Not to mention, he laughed at “Ralph Boehner” like he’d just heard it for the first time, and we still don’t know the identity of the witness protection suspect Jimmy Woo was looking for…

At the time of his death, Pop Smoke was one of the hottest commodities in the rap game but he wasn’t the only drill-influenced artist with a stranglehold on radio and playlists. Chicago artist Polo G, working from the blueprint established by Windy City forebearers like Chief Keef and Lil Durk, also had a parade of hits traveling down the pipeline. Although the two shared common roots — they were even the same age — they never got to work together while Pop was alive. That’s a shame because “Fashion,” their posthumous collaboration from the Boogie soundtrack, is a stone-cold banger.

Built over a more New York drill-style beat — which is, technically, more of a UK drill style — the track leaves plenty of space for the two rappers’ lyrics to breathe, although there is a truly thunderous low-end typical of the style as well. There’s an interesting contrast between their styles as well, Pop’s gravelly, laid-back growl offering a smooth complement to Polo’s jagged, high-energy cadence.

Boogie, Pop Smoke’s acting debut and Eddie Huang’s directorial one, is out today via Focus Films. It follows a first-generation Chinese-American high-school hoop star as he tries to decide what to do with his future, with Pop Smoke playing his rival. Pop appears multiple times on the soundtrack, including on the song “AP.” The music for the film is by New York rap legend Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest and go-to New York hip-hop television composer Adrian Younge, who previously worked on Marvel’s Luke Cage.

Listen to “Fashion” above.

Things are going pretty well for Desus and Mero right now. Well, as anyone who has followed along with their careers over the years can tell you, the pair are as good as any at having fun with just about anything they do. But even beyond that, there are plenty of things that are making them happy amid all the weirdness in the world right now.

The pair are well-documented fans of the New York Knicks, which will enter the NBA’s All-Star break at 19-18, good for fifth place in the Eastern Conference. The team is the surprise of the season so far this year, getting spurred on by the individual brilliance of All-Star selection Julius Randle and head coach Tom Thibodeau’s tough, hard-nosed approach to basketball. The duo, like all Knicks fans, have been starved for a ray of hope to come from Madison Square Garden, and that hunger has been satiated in a big way so far this year.

The two are also parlaying their ability to be good at, well, most things they do into hosting an awards show, teaming up with Gatorade and taking the reins for this weekend’s Bolt24 Real Star Awards. What awards will they be giving out? Well, they couldn’t tell us most of them, but Mero made a promise: these are “fire awards.”

Dime caught up with the pair to discuss the Knicks, taking the various punches that come with Knicks fandom, why the Nets are “carpetbaggers,” and of course, their partnership with Gatorade, which will become clear in about two seconds.

I think the obvious place to start is how has this season been as Knicks fans?

Mero: HOOOOO HOOOO HOOOO HOOO, BABY. Refreshing, like a long sip of Bolt24.

Desus: Well-played! Well-played!

Mero: There you go! All the vitamins involved, all the electrolytes, we’re feeling refreshed and revived and great. For real, though.

Desus: We joke, but he’s 100 percent right. If you think about, to keep the analogy going, Knick fans have been dehydrated for quite some time.

Mero: For real.

Desus: I mean, the last energy drink we had was one called Linsanity, so now, we are back. We can actually check the standings and not be scared, we’re hopelessly optimistic. We’re using the forbidden P-word,”playoffs.” So you know, we’re having a good time, man. It’s a great time to be a Knick fan.

Mero: It’s been a while since I’ve had to use “the Knicks covered, so they won” excuse, the moral victory excuse. It feels like a really good time to be a Knicks fan, hovering around .500.

In your own words, what happens in New York City when the Knicks are good? Because, I’m from New Jersey, and I don’t think people understand how the Knicks are the one team that unites the entire city when they’re good.

Desus: Absolutely. And it’s just one of those thing where even if you’re … the Knicks are basically the default team. Like, if you don’t watch basketball, you don’t follow any sports, but you’re from New York, you’re like, “Oh, I’m a Knick fan.” Or you do the thing New Yorkers do where if the Knicks get in the playoffs, all of a sudden, you start watching, you start rooting for them, you start cheering for them.

So it’s a natural team for New York, it’s an established team, and New Yorkers love this team. And now you see it on the back of the Daily News, on the back of the New York Post, good news about the Knicks, and it’s raising the hopes and spirits in the city right now, especially when the city really needs it, because the city got really hit hard by COVID, and you know, just a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel is helping people get through it.

Mero: Oh, man, it’s such a beautiful thing. Because people tell us all the time, “Hey guys, yo, your guys show, your podcast, the stuff you guys put out, it gives me a little bit of respite from all this wild stuff that’s going on.” And, like, the Knicks are that for us, right now. Watching the Knicks be up 20? In the fourth quarter? You’re like, “Yo! Let’s go!”

Desus: I mean, they might blow it and have to only win by two, but it still feels good.

Mero: Still’s a W.

Desus: A win is a win.

When was the moment that it dawned on you guys that this team is different, that it’s not just the kind of Knicks team that we’ve seen in the past where they have a nice little stretch but you know they’re gonna hit that bump and then the Knicks happen.

Mero: It’s really Thibs, man. Thibs, and the roster’s so young. Thibs is an NBA coach, but he’s like a college coach in his brain. He’s really like, “Yo, I don’t care if you’ve got 35 points, if you blow this defensive assignment, I’m yanking you.” Everybody bought in, I feel like the average age on the roster is like 17 and a half.

Desus: Super young.

Mero: That’s exactly what they need, a real coach that’s gonna be like, “Yo, this is a system, we’re all buying in, don’t worry about minutes, just play hard and success will come.”

Desus: Also, very early in the season, I think probably the first game, every Knick fan was like, “Wow, they are doing ball movement, something we have not seen for how many seasons with the Knicks?” The Knicks, what was it, pass the ball, you just hold the ball until there’s like five seconds left on the shot clock and chuck it up, or just keep passing it around, no one has it. Now they’re running plays, just seeing that, you knew this team was going to be different. You knew this team, Thibs was doing his thing, and it was a whole new day in the Knicks organization.

Mero: Listen, I don’t wanna be hyperbolic, but like, yo, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Skyhook, Immanuel Quickly floater, same thing, right there. Unstoppable move, works every time.

Desus: Also, shout out to our guy Obi Toppin. He’s out there doing big things, it was a big pickup when we got him for the Knicks. Also, you know, to parallel, he’s gonna be one of the people in the Bolt24 Real Star Awards. That right there is cool because we’re New Yorkers, he’s a New York Knick, you know the vibes, bro. You gotta throw him an award real quick, throwing some of our friends awards, Sue Bird, it’s gonna be litty.

The story I always tell whenever I tell someone how starved New Yorkers were for a good Knicks team is that I went to a game in 2015 where they lost to the Hornets by 28 and Quincy Acy got MVP chants because he played hard. Do you guys have any stories like that where it’s just Knicks fans will fall in love with anyone?

Mero: Yup.

Desus: Bro. Bro, come on.

Mero: Ron Baker! Ron Baker!

Desus: First of all, I wanna let you know, I was probably at that game. I went through the Quincy moment. But yeah, like he said, Ron Baker, I own a Ron Baker jersey.

There we go.

Desus: If you wanna know how dysfunctional Knicks fans are. I was at that first Jeremy Lin game and I remember, we were just chanting, we just wanted him to play. The Knicks always have that one player that…

Mero: 12th guy on the bench.

Desus: You have no chance of him being good, so you’re like, “Yo, we’re already losing, let’s see him play.” And Lin came in, it changed everything for a couple weeks. I was there for when Melo set the scoring record against Charlotte, so many Knick memories. But yeah, we Knick fans love to give anyone an MVP chant for the littlest thing. We gave Doug Christie an MVP chant. Doug Christie!

Mero: Doug Christie, fam.

Desus: Come on!

Mero: Yo, I’m out here publicly comparing Julius Randle to LeBron James with no sarcasm, no irony whatsoever. I’m like, yo, Julius Randle? LeBron James? Same thing. Same court vision, all that.

Desus: Just getting everyone on Twitter upset, I love it.

I wanted to ask about the Nets, because I think non-NY people will say there’s Yankees/Mets, there’s Jets/Giants, there’s Rangers/Islanders, Knicks/Nets have to be part of that. But I’ve never gotten that sense as someone from the tri-state area that Knicks fans view the Nets as anything other than “the team that came to our city,” what about you guys?

Desus: Literally, that’s what it is.

Mero: The little brother team.

Desus: It’s one of those things where Nets fans are like, “We’re your rivals.” And we’re like, no you’re not. We’re chillin over here, because it’s just like they literally just moved to Brooklyn, they’re still figuring out how to ride the train, the Knicks are established. Us Knick fans are invested in the Knicks — we’ve had so many losing seasons and that’s what New York is about. New York is not about being a carpetbagger and getting quick success, you gotta earn your keep here. You have to prove that you can make it here, like Frank Sinatra said.

So, it’s never seen as a rivalry. Every now and then we’ll joke, “Oh, it’s a rivalry,” whatever, but Knick fans, if the Nets win, we don’t care. You go on the timeline, if the Knicks win, it’s taking over everything, everyone’s reporting on it, ESPN is like, “The Knicks are great this year!” Meanwhile, the Nets have three superstar players, they’re barely winning some games, and it’s not as hyped as everyone thought it was gonna be. That’s because when the Knicks are good, everyone benefits from it in the NBA, and that’s what people wanna see.

Mero: And it’s like what Desus was saying, when the Knicks do something good, it’s like, that’s what they report on. That’s how the media is covering the Knicks and the Nets right now — the Knicks are like, wow, the Knicks are overperforming! They’re performing beyond expectations! And with the Nets, it’s like, they need help defensively, they have no interior defense, they need perimeter defenders, they’re very thin on the bench, blah blah blah blah blah, you know what I mean? As a Knicks fan, it’s kind of, like, ha ha ha!

Desus: It’s also cause the Nets have set the bar so high. If they do anything less than a championship this season, they fail. Meanwhile, all the Knicks have to do is get to the playoffs and we’re gonna have a parade. What team you wanna be on?

What do you guys have going on with Gatorade?

Desus: Oh yeah, baby! We are hosting the first-ever Bolt24 Real Star Awards, it’s an awards show honoring the realest talent in basketball. But it’s Bodega Boys-style, so it’s a hot, fun mess. You guys are gonna enjoy it, you’re gonna be like … if you were worried, you’re like, “Desus and Mero are working with Gatorade and Bolt24, they sold out,” wait til you see this. No we did not.

Mero: Nooooo!

Desus: This is authentic, sucio boy, you’re gonna enjoy it. Bolt24 did their thing, they got us talent, we’re gonna be giving awards out to athletes, but not, like, regular awards.

Mero: Not, like, corny awards like most points scored in a game. Fire awards. We’re not even gonna tell you what it is.

Desus: Here’s one: Who’s most likely to wear a sweatsuit to a wedding?

Mero: There you go.

Desus: Someone’s gonna win that award.

I mean, Carmelo once wore a bathrobe to a bodega, so.

Desus: We can’t say anything!

Mero: We can’t reveal the winners!

I respect it.

Desus: Shout out to Bolt24, cause we’re drinking it through the whole awards show, it’s delicious, they’ve got a lot of flavors. My favorite is Watermelon Strawberry.

Mero: I bang with Cherry Lime, got mad vitamins, A, C, know what I’m sayin? Mad antioxidants, all that good stuff. It was mega hydrating. It was so hydrating to the point that we were like, “Yo, we gotta go to the bathroom, like, right now, cause we’re not athletes.”

Desus: But if did that to our washed bodies, imagine what it could to do if you’re an athlete.

The coolest thing is, if you wanna see this show, it’s gonna be on Instagram Live on our respective social handles, so either go to desusnice at Instagram, or thekidmero on Instagram, Saturday, March 6 at 7 p.m. Eastern, it’s gonna be right there. Special guests, I can name a couple: Damian Lillard, Seth Curry, Obi Toppin, Tacko Fall, Sue Bird, Robin Lopez, some surprise guests.

Mero: Some musical performances. It’s a real, legit award show.

Desus: It’s gonna be great.

The last time Sacha Baron Cohen was on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he wasn’t. It was Borat on the late-night talk show (that also served as the world’s introduction to Tutar, played by Oscar hopeful Maria Bakalova). But on Thursday, Baron Cohen came as himself to talk to host Jimmy Kimmel. He discussed Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and how he “really wanted to expose the hypocrisy… those using power to get ahead, criminality…”

Baron Cohen trailed off because his phone started ringing during the interview. “Bono?” the Golden Globe winner said, answering the call. “Hey man, what’s up? Yup, I’ve got AstraZeneca, I’ve got some Pfizer, what do you want? Yeah yeah yeah, Venmo is fine.”

To get by during these dark times, Baron Cohen has taken to selling COVID-19 vaccines to his famous friends, including Tom Cruise (“I thought the thetans were immune”), Kanye West (“I can get you Johnson & Johnson. No no, not Dakota and Don… What do you mean you only need one now? I’ve got you down for six. Oh, sorry, I hadn’t heard”), and Mark Ruffalo. A strung-out Isla Fisher also made a cameo, “looking higher than Don, Jr.” The interview only gets wilder from there, including a dig at the Hollywood Foreign Press and a police raid on the Baron Cohen/Fisher household. You can watch it above.

Tyler The Creator has shared songs with the likes of rapper-turned-hustler Pusha T now, he can confidently say they share something in common: They’re both Coke rappers.

[Ducks thrown tomato.]

Okay, okay, sorry. I know that was bad. But if you’re still reading, Tyler The Creator really has added Coca-Cola to his impressive list of brand partnerships. His new song, “Tell Me How,” soundtracked a new television commercial for the world’s favorite soft drink last month, and today, he’s released the full version of the song.

When the commercial first rolled out, Tyler naturally shared a few tweets to offer fans some background on the collaboration.

“That’s me playing the flute at the beginning,” he revealed. He also thanked the brand for the opportunity, saying that after getting over some initial skepticism, he realized he could elevate the form. “Thanks coca cola for reallll,” he wrote. “big love for the opportunity i was like ehh idk but then i fucking ran with it. commercials need sounds like this, thanksssss.”

The commercial represents a huge milestone for Tyler, who has completely transformed from the artist he was at the beginning of his career. Back then, brands would have been terrified to work with him and Odd Future; even Questlove was nervous they’d get The Tonight Show canceled (like, TV canceled. We weren’t doing Twitter cancels yet). Ten years later, Tyler is working with one of the biggest brands in the world — and very nearly becoming one himself.

Watch the Coca-Cola commercial up top and the song below.

It’s been teased for weeks now, but the time has finally come: Indiecast is delving into the career and music of Animal Collective. At one point in the aughts, the Baltimore-based group was inextricable from the overall concept of indie rock, and thus indie rock as an actual force in pop music. These days, however, the band seems to have little to no profile or lasting impact. What happened in the last decade or so that forced one of the most important bands in the genre into near obscurity? In the latest episode of Indiecast, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen look to get to the bottom of this mystery, while also reevaluating some of the band’s definitive works like Merriweather Post Pavilion and Centipede Hz.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Cohen is digging Florida quartet Home Is Where, who just released the new EP I Became Birds. Meanwhile, Hyden is enjoying the long-running rotating collective of musicians releasing projects under the name Sunburned Hand Of The Man.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 29 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

Sarah Silverman’s earlier career in stand-up was built around a certain shocking persona. Silverman, like a lot of comedians at the time, made jokes that would not fly today. In light of the Framing Britney Spears‘ documentary, a number of old interactions have been revisited and recontextualized, like an old interview of Lindsay Lohan by David Letterman. In fact, last month, Silverman apologized for jokes she made about Spears at the 2007 VMAs.

Now Silverman is apologizing to Paris Hilton for jokes she made about her at the same 2007 Video Music Awards hosted by Silverman. Hilton, like a number of celebrities during the pandemic (including Silverman) has recently gotten into the podcast game, and on a recent episode of This Is Paris, Hilton took Silverman to task for a joke that was “disgusting and cruel and mean.”

The joke was a reference to Hilton turning herself into the police for a parole violation around the time of the 2007 VMAs. “I heard that to make her feel comfortable in prison, the guards are going to paint the bars to look like penises,” Silverman joked. “I just worry that she’s gonna break her teeth on those things.” Silverman regrets the joke today.

“I’m gonna talk about Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton, on her latest podcast, calls me out for jokes I did about her when I hosted the 2007 MTV Movie Awards,” Silverman said this week on The Sarah Silverman Podcast. “As she said herself on the podcast, this would never happen today and she’s right, I wouldn’t. I would never do those jokes today.”

While admitting to having a lot to be sorry for about jokes in her past, Silverman suggested that she has evolved, and she has worked in recent years “do comedy that attempts to marry hard-hitting jokes with actual heart”:

“Back then, the consensus seemed to be that was not possible and I fully accepted that. I came up in a time when talk show hosts and comedians hired to make fun of pop culture were roasting the biggest celebrities and pop culture icons at the time and nobody was bigger than Paris Hilton.”

“So here we are in an awakened world and I am totally into it, it’s how we grow, it’s how we change. I’m super down with reflecting on the past and my part in perpetuating real ugly sh*t. And yes, we can continue to litigate the past, but I do believe that maybe that should be coupled with taking into account any growth that has come with those passing years.”

“I have lived too long to not have f*cked up a lot, and publicly,” Silverman said, and even noted that she felt bad about the jokes in the moment. She said that after delivering the joke and spotting Paris Hilton in the audience, she recognized that “there was a person under there.” She said that, a few days after the VMAs, she wrote a letter apologizing. “I felt awful and I never heard back, I certainly wouldn’t expect to anyways,” Silverman continued.

“Here I am, 14 years later, telling you, Paris, that I am really sorry. I was then and I am, much more completely and with far more understanding I think, now,” Silverman concluded.

Given Silverman’s history of stand-up, this may not be the last apology she is asked to make, but considering the way that Silverman has evolved as a comedian, I doubt she’d mind making those apologies.

Source: The Sarah Silverman Podcast

This morning, Cardi B stopped by Today to make a big announcement: She is releasing her own doll and dolls for other artists could be coming soon, too.

She explained her motivation behind the project, saying:

“I have a 2-year-old, right? And I buy dolls every time I go to Target and they expensive. Somebody came with this idea to me and I’m like, ‘That is great because I would love my daughter to play with a doll that looks like me.’ I mean, all these other dolls look like me, I might as well make one for myself. But then I also came up with a plan, because these dolls are supposed to represent different women. So I feel like after mine drops, I want to drop a doll of different artists. Then I also want to do fun things on Instagram and I want women that have different careers than me to tell me a little bit about their life and everything, and I want to pick them and I don’t know, maybe I have a doll and she’s a doctor, she’s a nurse, you know what I’m saying? Just different types of women and I want to display them and I want them to look beautiful just like me.”

She continued, “Growing up, I ain’t never seen a doll that looks like me, you know what I’m saying? I ain’t never seen a doll that really represents me. You go to the doll aisles when you’re my age, it’s either like there’s a real white one, there’s a real dark one, and there’s like barely one that’s in the middle. None of them have my style, none of them have my flavor. I want a doll that represents me.”

Cardi went on to note that to get the doll, customers can get on a waiting list on the Real Women Are website and that the doll will be available in July. The site indicates the doll will sell for $35 and shows off some product images of it. The site also notes, “This exclusive limited-edition drop is only available for 72 hours, and will never be available again.”

Watch Cardi discuss the doll above.

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

WandaVision‘s finale episode arrived as promised with a satisfying showdown between two powerful witches (and Elizabeth Olsen giving it her all alongside Kathryn Hahn, who tugged at the scenery-curtains but admirably refrained from chewing them up). The most immediately impactful happening, though, was how Paul Bettany kept setting up some magnificent trolling during interviews, and the delivery (or lack thereof) on said trolling. He promised an “extraordinary” cameo from an actor who he’d always wanted to work with, and speculation ran wild… would this be a Magneto cameo to further lay mutant-ground in the MCU and a fusion with the FOX superhero universe? Did “extraordinary” refer to an A-list actor who’d emerge as Mephisto and be the real big bad; and would he, you know, be played by Al Pacino? Well, Bettany kept on working the troll job right up until finale time. As it turned out, yes, that cameo really was Paul Bettany (as WhiteVision, not Walter White as I ridiculously joked last week) facing off with himself while holding a Ship of Theseus conversation, and yes, the guy’s a damn rascal. Good job, Paul Bettany.

I freaking admire it, actually. The real Vision became Vision again, and then Wanda lost Vision for good, but that had to happen, so she could continue on her journey. And after all that build-up, the show kept the focus on the title and looking forward to the rest of Phase Four with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. To that effect, we even saw Wanda ending her own finale, post-credits-style, while studying magic in a very Stephen Strange-like way. Yep, Scarlet Witch was astral projecting and absorbing all the skills from the Darkhold while Wanda’s bod was hanging out and enjoying some fresh mountain air. I believe this was a proper ending to this chapter of Wanda’s evolution before Scarlet Witch goes on to help advance the rest of the MCU’s Phase Four.

Let’s think of it this way. Thank god that cabin shot didn’t lead to some Dexter revelation, right? As in, Wanda deciding to skip that Doctor Strange sequel and just be, you know, a lumberjack while retiring from serial killing chaos magic. Now, that would be a real troll job, and Marvel Studios and Disney+ knew better than to pull such a move. Instead, there was a tease that we kind-of deserved and a tempering of expectations while guiding our focus to the fact that this was Wanda Maximoff’s story. We did not need some Luke Skywalker-esque moment for this finale, which did what it was supposed to do: put a bow on Wanda beginning to come to grips with all of the trauma she’s suffered (watching her parents die, becoming a tool for HYDRA before watching Pietro die, and, yep, watching Vision die) before going on to become an even more vital part of the MCU.

Kevin Feige did it again. He gave Wanda Maximoff her due after the MCU introduced her in Age Of Ultron as more powerful than any existing Avenger before downplaying her for years. Her badassery was largely forgotten until she vengefully faced off against Thanos during that Avengers: Endgame battle. So, that moment wasn’t simply part of the Phase Three finale montage, it meant something, and we had to wait for WandaVision for confirmation of how important Scarlet Witch is to the MCU, but it finally happened. Seeing an Al Pacino or an Ian McKellan or a Michael Fassbender cameo that equated to a Mark Hamill appearance (which worked for The Mandalorian, obviously, in a different context) would have taken away from what Wanda deserved.

So, Wanda got to finish her standalone story on her own terms (though damn, Kathryn Hahn does not miss, and her Agatha will be remembered), which means that I got one thing that I wanted from this show. A chunk of Twitter disagrees because they truly expected a mega-cameo, but I think they’ll eventually get over it.

We’re left with some loose ends, of course, like whether Wanda’s kids will resurface one day, and whether the people of Westview will truly go back to “normal,” but there was plenty of stuff we did learn. Jimmy Woo got to look good as authority (good for sweet Jimmy Woo), Darcy decided that she was too cool for school/a debriefing (“have fun in prison,” Hayward), and Monica Rambeau is coming into her Photon powers. The mid-credits scene appeared to set up the upcoming Secret Invasion series while pointing upward toward a sky-bound Nick Fury and Talos. Would I have liked to have seen Ben Mendelsohn doing the Skrull thing again? Well, sure, but there’s time for that later.

Oh yeah, Evan Peters’ Pietro is not secretly Mephisto, either. (He was Agnes’ husband, Ralph! So strange.)

Seriously man, no Mephisto for you! Yet there might be hope for a certain Sam Raimi regular to pick up that role for the Doctor Strange sequel, so we’ll see how that rolls. And we don’t yet know how Scarlet Witch will continue her story in that film. She could go on to spread more chaos magic, or she might get it together and antihero-it-up in a mostly positive way. I kind-of want her to go off the rails even more, though, given that Wanda has now lost not only Vision but her children (and we don’t know entirely whether they only existed in her mind, as with the comics) and might have no f*cks left to give. There’s always Agnes for the future, though, and Wanda knows exactly where to find her if she’s needed. WandaVision did a fine job of setting up Disney+ for the MCU shows, and next week, all eyes are on The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

‘WandaVision’ is available to stream in full in Disney+.

When Meghan McCain returned to The View in January following her maternity leave, the contentious conservative host arrived on the panel loaded for drama as always. But around mid-February, McCain started bring something entirely new to the table: Some wild new hairdos. The daughter of the late Senator John McCain has been sporting some unusual looks that have run the gamut from high pony tails to some Princess Leia-looking buns. The new looks have sparked several jokes on Twitter along with cracks that whoever is styling McCain’s hair could dislike her.

Of course, if there’s one thing about McCain is that she isn’t shy about vigorously defending any of her decisions, including her new look. When The Wrap published a piece on McCain’s “craziest hairstyles,” The View host clapped back with a surprisingly explanation for her follicle experimentation.

“Gonna say this one last time,” McCain tweeted. “I had a baby and didn’t shower for three months. It’s covid and I’m bored. Let a bitch live and experiment with hair and makeup.”

Despite jokes to the contrary, McCain has been having a ball trying out new looks while working remotely, and she regularly shouts out her new stylist, Carmen Currie, who doesn’t hate McCain and has been helping her get a little wild. “MANY of you have asked about who/how I have been getting ready in the pandemic. Now that I am DC based and taping @theviewabc out of the @abcnews bureau, I have been working with the incredible, talented, creative angel Carmen Currie,” McCain wrote on Instagram when her hair started turning heads in February. “It has been so amazing to be able to have fun and play with glam again (safely and covid tested) with someone who likes to mix it up as much as I do!”

(Via Meghan McCain on Twitter)