Month: March 2021

The first trailer for The Suicide Squad had Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn comparing the rain to “angels splooging all over us,” King Shark biting some dude’s head off, and a freaking kaiju up in this sh*t. Also, a Steely Dan song. More trailers should have Steely Dan songs, preferably for movies where Idris Elba argues with John Cena about d*ck-covered beaches. But for all the goodness in the trailer, there’s one thing it didn’t have: enough of The Thinker, played by The Thick of It great Peter Capaldi.

This must have upset a lot of Doctor Who fans, as writer and director James Gunn singled out the 12th Doctor in his tweet about The Suicide Squad‘s first television spot. “#TheSuicideSquad TV spot number one. Capaldi talks!” Gunn tweeted, along with a confirmation that, yes, “The Thinker is Scottish.” Otherwise, the promo is essentially the same as the trailer, minus the swearing (this classic Harris Wittels tweet comes to mind).

Watch it below:

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Welcome to hell — a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave… and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them — all of them.

The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6.

Odds are, you have no idea who FastMoney Goon, Spinabenz, Whoppa Wit Da Choppa, or Yungeen Ace are. But the odds are, you probably know Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles,” so the probability that you’ll soon learn about this crop of hot, young rappers shot up exponentially with their savvy sample of the 2001 pop hit for their new single “Who I Smoke.” Thanks to the chopped-up loop, the song is as inescapably catchy as it is ludicrously violent, and it’s got fans on social media amused and befuddled in equal measure, even though it isn’t the first time a rapper has cheekily appropriated the buoyant hit.

For one thing, the song’s cartoonishly reckless threats of violence clash so much with the bubbly mood of the original sample, it’s hard to figure out if we should be taking these kids seriously or laughing them off. Whoppa’s verse contains an extended riff on enemies he’s supposedly sent to meet their maker, while Yungeen Ace straight up croons about the deaths of foes, with both rappers naming names. It’s so beyond disrespectful that you almost hope they’re just, like, naming Gamertags and referring to Call Of Duty shootouts instead of real ones.

However, that hasn’t stopped the track from becoming a viral hit and inspiring a raft of memes, jokes, and bemused commentary on Twitter pondering the ridiculousness of the situation. As for who these four rappers are, Google has few answers for any of them except for Yungeen Ace, an up-and-coming rapper from Jacksonville who I’ve covered before in passing. Let’s hope that their joyful breakout doesn’t turn out to bite them as it did the members of GS9 back in 2014. For now, enjoy the song above and the memes below.

Despite every award show continuing to go virtual as the pandemic remains ongoing health crisis in 2021, the Academy Awards decided to buck convention by holding an in-person event for the Oscars and go the extra step of explicitly forbidding anyone from accepting their award remotely. In a letter to nominees that attempted to assure them that the event will be safe, the Academy made the controversial move to ban all virtual acceptance speeches.

“For those of you unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about traveling, we want you to know there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show,” the letter stated. “We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and ENJOYABLE evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts.”

Needless to say, this move did not go over well with actors and producers who would have to go to considerable expense to safely quarantine themselves traveling to and from the Oscars. For stars that are currently filming, the logistics are even more untenable due to strict COVID regulations that could set back productions for weeks if not an entire month. However, the backlash seems to be getting through to the Academy, which is already showing signs of backing down. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

The Academy has apparently heard these worries, as all nominees have been directly contacted and invited to participate in a Tuesday morning Zoom “conversation with show producers” Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins, during which they will be given “updates about the show,” including options to participate remotely.

The 93rd Academy Awards will be held Sunday, April 25th.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

When it came to women’s suffrage, Kansas was a little ahead of the game in the late 19th century. Even if they didn’t mean to be.

Eight years before the U.S. granted women the right to vote in national elections, the Sunflower State became the first state in the Midwest to allow women to vote in statewide elections—and 25 years before that, women gained the right to vote in Kansas city elections.

On April 4, 1877, just weeks after women were given the right to vote municipally, the small town of Argonia, Kansas held its mayoral election. On the ticket was a 27-year-old mother of four and officer of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) named Susanna Salter.

Salter hadn’t planned on running. In fact, she didn’t even know she was in the running until her name showed up on the ballot.

According to the Kansas Historical Society, the WCTU wanted Argonia to enforce the state’s prohibition law and made that their focus in the city’s elections. They called a caucus, and with Salter presiding over the meeting in the absence of the union’s president, chose a slate of men they thought would be worthy candidates.

However, some men in Argonia had an issue with both the WCTU and women getting involved in politics. They didn’t want to see “petticoat rule” with women being able to vote, so they set about scheming. Two of the men attended the WCTU caucus and heckled it. They attempted to nominate a candidate and were voted down.

Afterward, 20 of these men held a secret caucus with the intention to embarrass the WCTU and teach the women of the town a lesson. They put together a slate of candidates that were identical with the one the WCTU put together, only they replaced the mayoral candidate’s name with Salter’s. It was a prank. They figured their slate would only get their 20 votes, assuming the WCTU would vote for the original slate of WCTU candidates and that no men would vote for a woman.

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Candidates didn’t have to file before election day, so voters arrived to find Salter’s name on the ballot—a fact she herself didn’t know until representatives from the Republican party showed up at her house to ask her about it. She was in the middle of the family washing when they explained the prank to her and asked if she would agree to serve if she got elected. She said she would, and they responded, “All right, we will elect you and just show those fellows who framed up this deal a thing or two.”

The Republicans campaigned all day to get out the vote, explaining to people what the faction of men were up to. And members of the WCTU showed up in droves to vote for the new slate with Salter’s name, instead of the mayoral candidate they had chosen as a caucus.

As a result, Salter ended up getting two-thirds of the vote in the town, totally upending the pranksters’ plan. At first, her husband was appalled to have her name on the ticket, but after she won, he quickly came around. He even joked about being “husband of the mayor,” which of course had never been a thing before.

Salter wasn’t exactly politically green, either. Her father had been the town’s first mayor, and her father-in-law, Melville J. Salter, was a former Kansas lieutenant governor.

And the men found out during the first council meeting that their fears of “petticoat rule” were unfounded. When Salter called the meeting to order, she said, “Gentlemen, what is your pleasure? You are the duly elected officials of this town, I am merely your presiding officer.” She had no intention of strongarming the men on the council.

Though the council actually didn’t do much that was of consequence, Saltern made national news with her historic win. When a reporter from the New York Sun attended one of the first council meetings, Salter put on a good show for him, knowing she was under the spotlight and setting a precedent for women in politics. She succeeded. According to the Kansas Historical Society, “When he wrote his story, he described the mayor’s dress and hat, and pointed out that she presided with great decorum. He noted that several times she checked discussion which she deemed irrelevant, showing that she was a good parliamentarian. The councilmen, though respectful, bore the air of protesting pupils of a not over-popular school mistress.”

Salter received international attention, even from nobility, with letters of congratulations coming from France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and other European countries. And editorial reviews of Salter’s job performance ranged from overtly positive, with the Sun referring to her as “an intelligent, capable and conscientious officer, fully equal to all the requirements of her position,” to overtly sexist, with one paper saying, “She is tired of the burdens of office. [She plans to] return to private life and leave the government of Argonia to the care of the sterner sex. Mayor Salter’s experience proves that woman suffrage is its own cure.”

An anonymous person sent her a notecard with a pair of men’s pants drawn on them with the following poem:

When a woman leaves her natural sphere,
And without her sex’s modesty or fear
Assays the part of man,
She, in her weak attempts to rule,
But makes herself a mark for ridicule,
A laughing-stock and sham.
Article of greatest use is to her then
Something worn distinctively by men —
A pair of pants will do.
Thus she will plainly demonstrate
That Nature made a great mistake
In sexing such a shrew.

Salter dutifully completed her term, but made it clear she had no interest in running officially, wanting instead to dedicate herself to caring for her young children. (She had actually borne her youngest child during her mayoral term.) But her election seemingly set off a chain reaction, as many Kansas cities also elected female mayors the following year.

That certainly wasn’t the punchline those 20 men were hoping for when they jokingly put her name on the ballot. But well done, gentlemen, for ultimately giving women the last laugh.

Kate Nash’s most recent album was 2018’s Yesterday Was Forever and she has also gained notoriety for her role in the now-canceled Netflix series GLOW. Now, she’s working on an even bigger project: Nash has decided to take action against sexual assault and abuse in the music industry.

On Saturday, Nash tweeted, “I woke up BITTAH about the music industry. If we don’t make a stand we’ll see discrimination on a whole new level post pandemic. Everyone must be held accountable for making the music industry a fairer place to work. Book women/non binary folk & POC at your festivals.”

After seemingly thinking more about that over the next couple days, Nash returned to Twitter today with a focused mission. She wrote in a pair of tweets, “Festival line ups that purposely lack diveristy & exclude non male acts create unwelcoming & potentially unsafe environments for punters. I’m building a platform to tackle sexual abuse & asaualt in my industry & I need your help. Please email me your negative experiences at festivals related to these issues. Sexism, racism, hate, violence, sexual abuse, assualt, rape. Anything you are comfortable sharing will be kept anonymous & used as data for research. Music industry I’m comin for u. #changethescene.”

Both of those tweets were accompanied by an image that reads:

“I am collecting data for the platform I’m building to tackle sexual assault & abuse in the music industry. I believe that festival line ups that lack diversity & exclude non male acts are part of the problem. Creating spaces that purposely lack diversity can make spaces unwelcoming & potentially unsafe for punters and that is unacceptable. I would like to hear from you if you have ever had a negative experience at a festival, felt unsafe, experienced sexual assault, abuse, racism, sexism, hate or violence. If you would like to share your experience with me then please email me at [email protected] Please include the name of the festival in your email. Personal details will remain anonymous and [this] information will be used for data and research purposes only and by emailing you agree to it being used for these purposes only. Please share this and help me collect this data.”

When challenged by a detractor to “Name a festival that is ‘purposely’ anti female,” Nash responded, “!! If you have experience in booking and informed knowledge on this matter pls email me we can connect bruv. If you’re just an agitated twitter person then keep tweeting me about your [uninformed] opinion as it’s a gas.”

Find Nash’s tweets below.

Deshaun Watson is currently facing 19 civil lawsuits filed by massage therapists who have accused him of sexual misconduct during sessions. Watson has categorically denied the allegations, but the details of the lawsuits show a pattern of inappropriate behavior with massage therapists that have included the star quarterback touching them with his penis, ejaculating on them, or forcing them to put their mouths on his penis.

On Monday, a 20th therapist came forward, one not attached to lawyer Tony Buzbee and his lawsuits, and offered her story of Watson’s inappropriate behavior during a session in Houston in 2019, speaking with Sports Illustrated’s Jenny Vrentas under an alias and offering a detailed account of Watson’s actions. While she said Watson never forced her to perform any sexual acts, she noted his session was “unlike any other interaction” she has ever had with a client, and tracked similarly to the details in the various lawsuits.

As has been noted by others in the lawsuits, the therapist says Watson asked her to work solely on his quads, inner thighs, and abdomen, lying face up the entire session. After 45 minutes, he removed the beach towel covering his genitals, claiming it was “too itchy,” a move that “shocked” the therapist. Watson asked for the 90 minute session to be extended another hour, and later developed an erection and began “thrusting in the air,” stopping briefly after she asked if it was a pained response to deep tissue work. She then detailed towards the end of the session that he became more overt in his behavior.

“There was one point that he did tell me that I could move [his penis] if I needed to, and I just completely ignored him.” She took this as a suggestion to touch his exposed penis.

Watson stayed on his back for the entire session. While massaging his abdomen, Mary says she noticed “different fluids on his stomach.” She remembers questioning whether it was really pre-ejaculate, telling herself, This can’t be what I think it is. In the final five to 10 minutes of the session, Mary says Watson began thrusting his pelvis in the air again, this time much faster. “At that point, I recognized it for what it was,” Mary says. She says she told him he needed to “calm down.” He stopped, the session ended and she left the room to let him get dressed. When she returned, he gave her a hug. Because of his request to use the back entrance, she then had to walk him out of the building.

Vrentas corroborated the therapist’s account with a friend the therapist had called immediately after the session, and reviewed text and direct messages that Watson later sent the therapist trying to set up an appointment — the therapist believed he was unaware he had already seen her as he declined to book a massage after both times reaching out when she made clear she was only there to do professional massage work.

The full account of the session is well worth reading, and the therapist says she isn’t sure if she will pursue legal action but felt compelled to come forward after seeing the others do the same with the lawsuits, as well as Watson’s fervent denial and insistence that he has always respected women.

“I just want a genuine apology, for us and our community, for putting us in these situations where we don’t know what to do,” she says. “There are so many people that are against us, saying, ‘Why would he do that? He has no reason to do that. He has a beautiful girlfriend; he has this, this, this and this.’ All of those things are true, but fame doesn’t create character.”

Watson’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, said they weren’t in a position to comment on “another anonymous story or complaint” when contacted by Vrentas for a comment or response to the story.

Lil Nas X’s collaborator on those controversial “Satan shoes,” MSCHF, is living up to its name. The design collective’s marketing for the customized Air Max 97 has certainly riled up a fair number of commentators, including Fox News’ Pete Hegseth. The Fox & Friends anchor bit the bait hard, censuring Nike over the shoes and making a false equivalence to a planned pair of Air Max 1s that was discontinued and recalled by the shoe giant over its use of the original, 13-star version of the American flag.

Of course, Hegseth missed the part where Nike wasn’t directly involved in the creation of MSCHF’s limited-edition pair and was promptly fact-checked by none other than Adam Klotz, the show’s weekend meteorologist. He pointed out that “they’re not really Nike. They’re Nike shoes, but there’s a middleman who bought Nike shoes and turned them into these.” To save face, Hegseth posited that the manufacturer could file a lawsuit against the customizer, which … no, man. Just, no.

As far as the story behind those Betsy Ross Air Max 1 goes, those were discontinued by the brand itself after Colin Kaepernick, one of Nike’s most prominent spokespeople, reached out to the company’s leadership with concerns about the old flag’s repurposed connotations. He wasn’t the only one; users on social media also called on Nike to reconsider the design, pointing out how its behind appropriated by some white supremacist groups due to its connection to the nation’s early history when slavery was still legal.

Meanwhile, Nike had just taken flak from conservative groups, including Fox News, over partnering with Kaepernick after his protest of the national anthem at football games. In both cases of conservative backlash, the targets of their complaints would appear to be the victors; not only did Nike boast a 4% sales increase in 2019, Lil Nas X’s customized sneakers sold out within a minute of going on sale.

Watch the clip from Fox & Friends above.

As Post Malone has become a bigger and bigger star in the music world, he has gradually been increasing his profile in the cinematic realm as well. Last year, he had a role in the Mark Wahlberg film Spenser Confidential, in which he had to opportunity to engage in fisticuffs with Marky Mark. Now he’s in another movie, and yet again, he squaring off against the leading man. Even just based on the new trailer for the Jason Statham-starring Wrath Of Man, it seems clear that Malone’s character doesn’t last too long.

In the film, Statham works for a company that uses armored trucks to transport large quantities of money. In a scene from the trailer, Malone is part of a crew trying to pull off a heist on one of these vehicles. Statham does his action star thing and kills everybody involved. It seem Malone gets away temporarily, only for Statham to track him down, shoot him from behind, then put one more bullet in him as he lays on the ground.

Malone filmed his parts in 2019, as photos of him on set surfaced around then, seemingly filming the scene depicted in the new trailer.

Watch the Wrath Of Man trailer above.

The 2021-entering Congressional Republicans included far-right conspiracy theorists like QAnon-loving Marjorie Taylor-Greene and rootin’ tootin. Lauren Boebert, so it makes sense that a grifter might want to rebrand in a similar manner. That appears to be the strategy of Dan Rodimer, who’s introduced his candidacy for Texas’s 6th Congressional District and unleashed one of the most bizarre ads imaginable in the process.

Rodimer (a former WWE wrestler) is seen in full-on cowboy garb while making a grunty face and pretending to take off bull riding, although he’s using a very obvious stunt double, who’s sporting completely different facial hair (both color and length) and is wearing a different vest. No matter, because Rodimer recovers from his “fall” before strutting through the dirt and promising that “Big Dan” will help “Make America Texas Again” because “the commies in D.C. are ruining America,” and he’s got transphobic rhetoric, too. What’s his ultimate goal? To eject Nancy Pelosi after helping to flip the House for the GOP.

If this doesn’t seem real, well, it sort-of isn’t. Yes, Dan Rodimer is running for Congress in Texas, and yes, he’s adopting this “cowboy” persona to do so. However, it all appears to be an act from a guy with a history elsewhere. Multiple places, actually. As unearthed by the Washington Post, Rodimer was born and bred in New Jersey and attended college in Florida. He later relocated to Nevada, where he lost two political elections (a 2019 run for the Nevada legislature and a 2020 bid for U.S. Congress). Here’s a Nevada ad where he’s relatively polished and suited up and not-at-all cowboy-like.

The Washington Post also notes Dan’s arrest record (he and Boebert have that in common), as well as pointing toward how he’s keeping up the act on his campaign website which states, he “has always thought of Texas as his true home.” He further claims to have (at some ambiguous point) owned property in Galveston and to have worked in Houston. Will his cowboy act work to get him elected? Well, his older campaign ads are making the rounds on Twitter with a compare-contrast approach.

It doesn’t seem to be going well!

Ahhh, Spring. A time of renewal, a time of rejuvenation. A time to get outside and enjoy the warmer weather. To soak up the sun after a long, cold winter stuck indoors … unless that is, you’re a TV fanatic. Then Spring is a time to use your chronic allergies and the onslaught of dormant cicadas as logical excuses for why you’re spending most of your free time staring at a small box.

Look, nature’s overrated but this lineup of upcoming TV shows landing on streaming platforms and cable networks sometime this Spring isn’t. So craft whatever ridiculous excuse you need to in order to binge these comedies, dramas, and steampunk fantasy series dropping in the next few months.

Loki (Disney+ series streaming June 11th)

WandaVision got surreal, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is getting real, and Loki will likely live up to his Trickster reputation and be entirely unpredictable. Presumably, he’s still in possession of the Tesseract, and time travel will be an element of this series, but where he goes from there, one can only guess. What we know for sure is that a prison jumpsuit is involved, Loki’s still got daddy issues galore, and naturally, he’ll always be burdened with glorious purpose. Tom Hiddleston sliding back into mischief-making mode is always a pleasure, so June 11 can’t come soon enough. — Kimberly Ricci

Made For Love (HBO Max series streaming April 1st)

A nightmare relationship scenario is run through a sci-fi filter with Made For Love, kicking up fears of tech overreach, the loss of privacy, and the erosion of what makes us singular beings when we’re paired off. Add in the suddenly relevant scenario of being locked in with one person and one person only for a long-assed time, and Made For Love may feel a little too real. But as terrifying a cerebral sci-fi horror as it seems, there’s also the potential for absurdist comedy in this latest showcase for the talents of Cristin Milioti, who with this and time loop sci-fi comedy Palm Springs, now becomes the unquestioned Queen of unintentionally relevant quarantine entertainment. — Jason Tabrys

Shrill: Season 3 (Hulu series streaming May 7th)

The important thing to know about Shrill is that Aidy Bryant is the best. There are other things to know, sure, like how the first two seasons navigated issues about body positivity and the journalism industry and the difficulties of navigating both of those first two things when you are a woman who is not proportioned like a Barbie doll. The show returns for a third and final season this May and, while all of it is worth mentioning for any number of reasons, the thing you’ll probably end up taking away from it is the same thing that led this blurb: Aidy Bryant is really, really good. It’s great she got a shot at a lead role and it would be great if this leads to another shot soon, too. — Brian Grubb

The Nevers (HBO series streaming April 11th)

If you look past the Joss Whedon of it all — and hopefully, you can — The Nevers is a terrific fantasy drama. Set in Victorian Era England, this steampunk period-piece sports major X-Men-but-with-corsets vibes. Picking up a few years after a mysterious event leaves a select group of Londoners with extra-ordinary abilities, the show centers on two gifted women running an orphanage that provides sanctuary for these “Touched” individuals. There are underground orgies galore, plus a handful of kick-ass action sequences and some intricate world-building, but it’s the show’s leads — Laura Donnelly and Ann Skelly — that really make this thing worth watching. — Jessica Toomer

Invincible (Amazon Prime series streaming now)

This animated romp will please both fans of The Boys and The Walking Dead, and the latter reference has everything to do with the source material penned by Robert Kirkman. Invincible is an ultraviolent and somehow fresh-feeling deconstruction of the superhero, and yes, we’ve seen plenty of dismantling already, but this story has heart, not to mention a stellar voice cast. Stephen Yeun makes a fantastic leading man here, and the rest of the cast (J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen, Walton Goggins, Jason Mantzoukas, Zazie Beetz, Zachary Quinto, Mark Hamill, and several TWD names) is ridiculously good. — Kimberly Ricci

Mythic Quest: Season 2 (Apple TV+ series streaming May 7th)

The first season of Mythic Quest was a blast. The show followed the development of a fictional video game from creation to completion, but it was barely about that, really. Co-creator and star Rob McElhenney turned the whole thing into an occasionally sweet, occasionally touching, always fun look at a kind of found family of weirdos. And that was before the show got to its quarantine episode, which premiered very early in the COVID panic and still somehow hit every aspect of it right on the head. Mythic Quest is good. The cast is great. Charlotte Nicdao puts on an acting showcase. And there’s even a surprise Jake Johnson and Cristin Milioti sighting. What’s not to like? If season two is half as good as the first, it will still be twice as good as most other shows on television. — Brian Grubb

The Handmaid’s Tale: Season 4 (Hulu series streaming April 28th)

It’s been nearly two years since the last season of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale premiered so you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Elisabeth Moss has become one of TV’s most watchable revolutionaries. She ended season three by shipping a bunch of innocent children across the border to Canada and resolving to destroy Gilead from the inside — well, her character June did anyway — and that plan hasn’t changed. Expect more political maneuverings and underground rebel factions and flashbacks for some characters who were sidelined a bit last season. — Jessica Toomer

Mosquito Coast (Apple TV+ series streaming April 30th)

Leftovers star Justin Theroux returns to series television as the head of a family on the run that’s trying to work through the kind of problem that seemingly can’t be easily solved. Adapted from a novel written by Theroux’s uncle, Paul, and adapted previously by Peter Weir with Harrison Ford in the lead, Mosquito Coast’s first trailer promises a whole lot of tension and globe-trotting adventure. — Jason Tabrys

Law And Order: Organized Crime (NBC series premiering April 1st)

Chris Meloni’s departure (and the way that Elliot Stabler was written out of SVU) always left an unsatisfying taste in the mouths of this long-running series’ fans. The good news, though, is that it’s all water under the Brooklyn bridge because Stabler is coming back to his old stomping grounds. The crossover episode with Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T will launch the show, and from there, it is all Stabler, all the time. Meloni’s movie and TV career outside this universe were worth the time blip, yet there’s no place like home for this ill-tempered detective, who will surely have to adjust his behavior in a TV-cop landscape that’s quite unlike the atmosphere of yesteryear. — Kimberly Ricci

Mare of Easttown (HBO series premiering April 18th)

We’re solidly in the age of Peak TV which means seeing god-like movie stars grace our puny small screens isn’t as shocking these days. But, come on! It’s Kate Winslet people! The premise for this crime drama centering on a small-town detective with her own dark hang-ups was good enough to get Winslet to do a TV show and that’s a good enough excuse for us to watch. — Jessica Toomer

Solar Opposites: Season 2 (Hulu series streaming now)

Season one of Solar Opposites featured one of last year’s single funniest (and best) episodes in “Terry And Korvo Steal A Bear,” the so-called wall episode where producers injected an epic life and death fight into a show about crash-landed aliens at once struggling to blast out of here and also fit in. And now the show is back, stocked with the same kind of big imagination that affords producers Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan an opportunity to grow a pandemic era surprise hit into the kind of cultural behemoth that they’re already familiar with, in their work on Rick And Morty. — Jason Tabrys

Chad (TBS series premiering April 6th)

Let’s explain the idea of Chad first. That will help. The show stars Nasim Pedrad — the female former SNL star — as a teenage boy named Chad. The show was originally ordered by Fox way back in 2016 and now is set for a first season at TBS five years later. It’s cool that the show has survived over this tumultuous half-decade of development, if only because it’s so ambitiously strange and sweet. It’s a grown woman playing a teenage boy who is trying to navigate high school and blend in while also understanding his Persian identity. Pedrad has a history of pulling off this kind of trick, though, at least in sketch form, so the show should be an interesting experiment at worst and a potentially eye-opening sweet little slice of life at best. — Brian Grubb

Rutherford Falls (Peacock series streaming April 22nd)

The absence of Parks & Rec and Schitt’s Creek leaves the quirky community comedy with a heart hole that Rutherford Falls is eager to try and fill. Whether people are ready to laugh at anything even vaguely connected to tense real-world conversations about heritage, relocated statues, and local politics is an open question. But with a talented cast (Ed Helms, Schitt’s Creek alum Dustin Milligan, and Jana Schmieding), Parks co-creator Michael Schur involved as a producer, and a clever first trailer, there are compelling reasons to see if Rutherford Falls can build on its potential and stick its landing. — Jason Tabrys

Ziwe (Showtime series premiering May 9th)

If we’re looking for bright-spots gifted to us by the last year or so in lockdown, multihyphenate comedian Ziwe has to be high on the list of things that got us through. A writer for Showtime’s Desus & Mero, the funny-woman gained an eye-popping following with her entertaining Instagram Live sit-downs last year before dropping an album early in 2021. So yes, she can really do it all and she’s out to prove that with her own variety series that leans on her improv roots and recruits some famous names — think Jane Krakowski, Jeremy O. Harris, Cristin Milioti, and more — to come play in her inventive comedic sandbox. — Jessica Toomer

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (Disney+ series streaming now)

The wheel-O-nostalgia has finally reached The Mighty Ducks and pulled Emilio Estevez back into one of his most significant on-screen roles in years alongside the always fantastic Lauren Graham. But it’s really all about the kids, and this batch has the right amount of quirk and precociousness to connect in the way that the original cast did with their peers in the ‘90s. The show seems hyper-focused on the hazards of overparenting and crushing expectations in youth sports, allowing for a “let kids be kids” rallying cry that should resonate across the board, allowing this to be about more than seeing Gordon Bombay live to quack again. — Jason Tabrys