Month: April 2021

Sasha Sloan is on her way up. She dropped her debut album Only Child last year, and that was preceded by collaborations with artists like Kygo, Camila Cabello, Charli XCX, and plenty of others. Now she has expanded that last, as her latest single, “When Was It Over?,” is a collaboration with country star Sam Hunt. Sure enough, the acoustic ballad wears its country influence on its sleeve, and Sloan and Hunt’s vocals pair nicely on the emotional track.

Sloan says of the track, “‘When Was It Over?’ is about not being able to let go of someone even when you know there’s nothing left. [Co-writer Shane McAnally] brought the title into the room and Sam and I both loved it. The rest fell into place from there.”

While naming Sloan a rising pop star to keep an eye on in 2020, Uproxx’s Caitlin White wrote, “With one foot in the EDM world and another in the realm of soft songwriting, on her debut full-length, last year’s Only Child, she finally began to meld the two, bringing whispers of a drop and other energy-shifting elements to sparse, acoustic tracks. […] If you’re looking for 2020 gems that got overlooked, her debut is definitely one — and it’s more than likely the follow-up will be even better.”

Listen to “When Was It Over?” above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Inside The NBA crew has been together in their current form for over a decade, and as such it’s hard to avoid repeating yourself or coming back to the same topics at some point. At times this plays out in basketball debates, as Shaq, Chuck, and Kenny fall into the same arguments, but it also happens with their random tangents as well.

On Thursday night, the crew once again got into it over Shaq’s gas tank theory, in which he doesn’t want to fill his entire tank up every time he stops but just put in enough to get where he needs to go. It drives the rest of the crew nuts, as they point out he’s eventually going to have to put that gas in his tank again to go somewhere else, but he just refuses to back down from his stance. This time, Ernie Johnson had enough, begging them not to get into this same argument they’ve been in for four years now, but even Ernie’s despair couldn’t stop this train from going off the tracks as Kenny and Shaq allowed themselves to get riled up by Chuck once again about gas.

The cut to Ernie’s despondent face in the midst of all of this is why they win so many Emmys. It is truly some sensational production work. The best part is that Chuck got it started, knowing exactly what would happen and then just sat off to the side cackling while Kenny can’t help but engage with Shaq in the world’s dumbest conversation. Shaq breaking out stat sheets to try and illustrate his point is also tremendous, as if the problem here is that Kenny just needs a visual aid to understand his lunacy.

Ahead of Avengers: Endgame, theaters across the country hosted Marvel marathons by showing all 22 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I like Marvel movies, but I would rather run an actual marathon than watch 22 movies in 59 hours. That is, in my professional opinion, too many movies. A less butt-numbing idea is to spread the marathon out over multiple weekends, like what Universal is doing with Fast & Furious.

A different Fast & Furious movie will be shown in select theaters every Friday between the end of April and June, when F9 comes out. The “Fast Friday” series begins with The Fast and the Furious on April 30, followed by 2 Fast Furious on May 7, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift on May 14, Fast & Furious on May 21, Fast Five on May 28, Fast & Furious 6 on June 4, Furious 7 on June 11, and The Fate of the Furious on June 18.

Best of all, the screenings are free. Not F9, though. You have to pay for that one (and it will be worth every cent).

You know what the Marvel and Fast & Furious marathons have in common? Vin Diesel. All I’m saying is, it’s not too soon to start planning a XXX retrospective ahead of the 20th anniversary next year… Anyway, to find out more information about “Fast Friday,” including how to get tickets and which theaters are participating, you can head here.

When I was growing up, first we had Street Fighter, and everyone was obsessed. We were like little drug addicts, congregating in liquor stores and dingy arcades, where kids from all walks of life would come together to beat up each other’s avatars in this irresistible game, and afterward wander around itching and begging for quarters like pre-pubescent crackheads. For a perfect snapshot of this time, there’s an episode of Baywatch where someone throws a beer can at Hobie, and then later Mitch smells it and thinks he’s been drinking, but it turns out Hobie was just playing Street Fighter in a weird little convenience store surrounded by delinquents instead, which is almost the same thing.

Have I set the scene well enough? Okay, well Mortal Kombat was basically the dingier, grosser, more extreme version of Street Fighter. If Street Fighter was Baywatch, Mortal Kombat was your uncle’s porn. We had to go over to the arcade in the bad part of town to play that one, a game with blood and gore where players openly vied to murder each other, just for the thrill of it. This was both revolutionary and seemed instinctively “wrong,” and everything about playing it made you feel slightly dirtier afterwards. This is all a long way of saying that for as much as I’ve ridiculed video game adaptations over the years, Mortal Kombat, an insanely dumb cash grab that I had to watch alone in my bedroom, shamefully, because it has far too much gore and swear words for my seven-year-old stepson, who surely would’ve loved it, made me feel almost exactly the same way.

Firstly I would recommend skipping the first 20 or 30 minutes of this movie. It sets up the plot and the characters but scarcely has a movie’s appeal relied less on characters and plots. It is meant to be viewed while chuckling stonedly at the catchphrases you recognize between asking “wait, what?” at the story developments. Paying too much attention to the latter spoils the effect.

All of the characters from the video games are there (I think?). Only now, some of them are part of Earthworld, while others are from Outworld, a meaner, more brutal version of Earth, that wants to dominate Earth, which it can by winning the latest iteration of Mortal Kombat. Outworld is a place that’s, like, bad, you see, and the Earthworld characters — among them Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, the glowing-eyed demi-God Raiden, and main character Cole Young, a family-man MMA fighter — have to defend it from the Outworld bad guys: Sub-Zero, Kabal, Shang Tsung, and various monsters. There, you’re caught up.

In essence, it’s the Avengers blueprint. Some bad guys from another world come here and want to rule. The difference here is that there’s no sheen of all this being some kind of social good, where powerful heroes are meant to both inspire and protect humanity. These characters are all just meat sacks for the grist mill, there to avenge their ancestors and satisfy our blood lust and nothing more. Yes, making an R-rated movie out of a nineties video game is a dumb idea, with inspiration that is purely commercial. Its very existence raises a number of questions. Is it for kids? If so, then why R-rated? And based on a game they wouldn’t remember? Is it for adults? Then why based on a video game for kids? Yet in this case, the entire endeavor is so pointless that it almost becomes art.

Something about Mortal Kombat‘s total lack of pretense towards nutritional value is weirdly refreshing. When Kung Lao, the character who wears the bladed hat, turned his hat into a circular saw on the ground and used it to bisect a bad lady in half lengthwise only seconds after she’d been introduced, complete with glistening CGI gore, I nearly cackled. Likewise, the constant and unnecessary swearing, presumably present only to make us feel like we’re sneaking cigarettes behind the autoshop building, is consistently entertaining, and a weirdly perfect complement for all the otherwise stilted dialogue like “Silence!” and “I have come back from hell to avenge my family.”

When Cole Young, the MMA fighter, and his wife, survive an attack by Goro, the four-armed monster, she tells her young teen daughter casually, while packing up the family’s things, “I just wanna get out of here, fuck another four-armed monster showing up.”

Fuck another four-armed monster showing up. I had to pause and rewind. This sentence belongs in the Louvre.

The whole movie is written like this, a mix of uncanny valley broken English videogame speak, Joss Whedonesque smarm, and a 12-year-old who just watched Eddie Murphy’s Raw for the first time. It evokes the same feeling that the Mortal Kombat videogame offered, that somewhere on Earth, there lived an unscrupulous man who believed that America’s youth desperately wanted to watch characters impale, behead, immolate, and bludgeon each other. He probably hated us, but he was right.

‘Mortal Kombat’ hit theaters this weekend and is available to stream via HBO Max. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

If you visit the IMDB page for Hulu’s newest three-part documentary, Sasquatch, you’ll be met with an overwhelming amount of negative reviews, a discovery that took me aback after finishing up my three-hour binge. Across all these reviews, nearly all dissatisfied viewers made the same claim: for a series called Sasquatch, it has very little to do with hunting down the California cryptid. Admittedly, they’re right, this documentary is not as much about the mythical monsters that lurk in the woods as much as it’s about the ones who live among us.

Sasquatch follows slightly eccentric investigative journalist David Holthouse as he attempts to piece together an October night he never wished to recall: the grisly murder of three men at a marijuana farm hidden in the Mendocino county mountains. When Holthouse begins his investigation — nearly 30 years after the aforementioned murder — he has only his hazy memory and one suspect’s name to go off of: Bigfoot. However, the hunt for something big and hairy quickly turns into a situation far bigger and hairier.

In Sasquatch’s first episode, we watch Holthouse follow Bigfoot’s massive (metaphorical) footprints throughout the Northern California region, interviewing various see-ers and believers while gathering as much information as he can about California culture and cannabis farms in the process. By episode two, however, the show’s tone pivots dramatically as Holthouse reckons with the fact that the monster he’s looking for might be a few feet shorter than he anticipated, and decidedly more human. The journalist is forced to confront drug lords, the “toothless and ruthless,” and suspected murders throughout the series, as well as his past.

While the show doesn’t give most viewers deeper insight into the whereabouts of sasquatch, it does take them on a journey through the infamous Emerald Triangle, a region in Northern California known for producing the highest quality marijuana in the United States. In addition, it touches upon the war on drugs, immigration, xenophobia, and the frankly staggering amount of unsolved murder cases in Northern California. In the most subtle of ways, Sasquatch asks us to question if folklore and imaginary monsters are merely a way we absolve ourselves from acknowledging the real problems and villains surrounding us, such as racism and hate-fueled violence.

Sasquatch’s story is compelling, giving enough pieces, clues, and cliffhangers to keep folks interested while savoring its slow burn. The odd-yet-charismatic Holthouse is an engaging person to watch explore and hunt down ‘monsters,’ and the cinematography and eerie animation when he’s off-screen are just as captivating. Like all tall tales, Sasquatch doesn’t resolve itself in a clean and orderly fashion. The documentary is full of rumors, lies, contradictions, and speculation, all reasons I firmly believe the show’s name is far more apt than deceptive. Ultimately, if you go into Sasquatch looking for the legend, like all ‘squatchers’ you might wind up disappointed. However, if you go in looking for a story, you’re in for a chilling ride.

Earl Sweatshirt has seemingly been laying low since the 2019 release of his Feet Of Clay EP — save for a few guest spots throughout 2020 and an appearance on Armand Hammer’s Alchemist-produced 2021 album Haram — but the wandering wordsmith has returned to once again collaborate with The Alchemist on the latter’s upcoming EP, This Thing of Ours, due next Friday, April 30. The track, called “Nobles,” features a trademark, soulful Alchemist beat and an appearance by rapper/skater Navy Blue.

Earl previously collaborated with The Alchemist on “The Whole World” from the deluxe version of Feet Of Clay featuring Maxo, as well as on Alc’s 2018 single “E Coli.” The Los Angeles duo has consistently displayed impressive chemistry, prompting some fans to call for them to work on a full project, a la Alchemist’s 2020 work with Griselda’s Conway and Freddie Gibbs.

The results of those two projects were prolific; The Alchemist was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Album for Alfredo, bringing the veteran producer and rapper both a new level of attention and expanded public acclaim. The Alchemist’s next EP, which also features Boldy James (with whom he also released a joint project in 2020), Maxo, Pink Siifu, and Sideshow, will certainly build on that newfound success.

Listen to The Alchemist’s “Navy Blue” featuring Earl Sweatshirt and Navy Blue below.

Earl Sweatshirt is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Clint Capela likely wasn’t at the top of mind for every NBA observer in advance of the 2020-21 season, and that is defensible. After all, Capela last appeared on the court for the Houston Rockets on Jan. 29, 2020 before suffering a right foot injury. Ahead of the 2020 trade deadline, the veteran center was dealt to the Atlanta Hawks as part of a massive four-team exchange. Capela was still out of commission when he arrived in Atlanta and, with the Hawks not invited to the Orlando bubble for the league’s restart, there was an “out of sight, out of mind” element for Capela. Fast-forward to late April 2021, though, and Capela is an integral piece of an up-and-coming team, and he is enjoying the best season of his seven-year career.

After coming along slowly behind Dwight Howard in Houston, Capela averaged 14.3 points and 11.1 rebounds per game in his final four seasons with the Rockets. Noted for his uber-efficient scoring (64.5 percent from the floor in that sample), Capela served as an effective release valve for James Harden and company, filling a vital role but also doing so in relatively understated fashion. He was also viewed as an above-average defensive player, but Capela also wasn’t place in the rarified air that comes with conversation surrounding All-Defense teams at the league-wide level. In Atlanta, though, Capela is operating in a different stratosphere, at least through his first 52 games in a new uniform.

For starters, Capela is leading the NBA in rebounding by a comfortable margin at 14.7 rebounds per game, continuing a steady incline in that he has averaged more rebounds per game in seven consecutive seasons. The 6’10 anchor from Switzerland leads the NBA in defensive rebound percentage (34.8 percent), offensive rebound percentage (17.7 percent) and total rebound percentage (26.4 percent), almost singlehandedly transforming the Hawks from a below-average rebounding team to an above-average one. From there, Capela is tied for No. 3 in the NBA in both total blocked shots (114) and blocked shots per game (2.2), providing highly value rim protection for a group that has operated with sub-optimal defense at the point of attack this season.

Not only does Capela serve as the unquestioned centerpiece of Atlanta’s defense, but he has been a valuable piece on the opposite end of the floor. After an uneven start while he found his sea legs again, Capela lands in the top ten of the NBA in field goal percentage (60.4 percent), and he is a devastating lob threat for Trae Young and Atlanta’s other creators. He is also making small strides as a decision-maker, including a career-best turnover rate of only 8.5 percent. Capela will never be mistaken for a heliocentric offensive piece, even if the Hawks make sure to reward him with the occasional post-up, but his offensive rebounding is invaluable, and Capela attracts consistent defensive attention while scoring efficiently.

Capela’s season-long production has been tremendous but over the last month he’s been stepped up further to play the best basketball of his career in the current moment, as evidenced by some off-the-charts numbers in recent days. The big man is averaging 20.1 points per game, on 67 percent shooting, in the last seven games since April 7, and is also pulling down a robust 18.1 rebounds per contest. In zooming out a bit to the full month of April, Capela is putting up 19.9 points, 16.7 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game, and the Hawks are 9-2 in the last 11 games with Capela on the floor.

It’s difficult to overstate just how important Caplea is to the Hawks, as his value goes well beyond his significant box-score statistics. Perhaps the best example of how dominant he’s been this season is the difference between Atlanta’s performance when he plays compared to when he doesn’t. In 1,586 minutes this season, the Hawks are outscoring their opponents by 6.7 points per 100 possessions with Capela on the floor. That is the top on-court net rating on Atlanta’s roster, and Capela’s presence buoys the team’s defense in allowing only 107.9 points per 100 possessions.

On the flip side, the Hawks fall off a cliff when he heads to the bench, either for in-game rest or due to a full-game absence. Atlanta has a -4.2 net rating in the 1,271 minutes with Capela off the court, and that inefficiency can be traced to a defensive rating of 113.9 points allowed per 100 possessions. Some of that on-off disparity can inevitably be tied to Atlanta operating without top-tier backup center play, with rookie Onyeka Okongwu still finding his footing (even with improved play lately) and a mash-up of other options early in the season. Still, it is night and day, both statistically and by way of the eye test, when Capela is in the middle of Atlanta’s attack compared to when he isn’t.

A deeper look at more advanced impact metrics paints a similar picture and, if anything, Capela finds himself in an even more impressive light. Per FiveThirtyEight, Capela is the No. 2 player in defensive RAPTOR, trailing only perennial Defensive Player of the Year contender Rudy Gobert, and Capela is No. 6 in overall WAR (8.1) by the same metric. In addition to his defensive impact, FiveThirtyEight installs Capela as a top-10 offensive center in RAPTOR, underlying his overall effectiveness.

It isn’t simply one catch-all metric telling that story, either. Capela is No. 2, again behind Gobert, in ESPN’s defensive real plus-minus, and he ranks in the top 10 in both overall RPM and estimated plus-minus (EPM) for the season. Simply put, any evidence-based recounting of Capela’s performance this season yields a tremendous defensive player, and he is also staying on the floor effectively, based in part by a foul rate that ranks in the 85th percentile.

Through 59 games, the Hawks rank only 20th in defensive rating as a team. Given that figure, it is difficult to envision Capela receiving full-fledged Defensive Player of the Year buzz, especially in a world that includes Gobert leading the team with the best record in the NBA. At the same time, Capela suffers from a similar fate that his teammate, Trae Young, faced last season in that the Hawks are simply not good enough without him to make a casual observer understand just how good he has been by examining league-wide numbers.

Capela, who will be 27 in May, seems to be in the absolute prime of his career, and after just three-quarters of one season, it is apparent that the Hawks extracted a trade-deadline steal when they landed him for the price of Evan Turner’s expiring contract and a mid-first round pick. It remains to be seen as to whether this is a new level of dominance for Capela but, with two more years left on a relatively modest contract, the Hawks have to be thrilled with the production he’s providing, and a case could be made that Capela has been their single most valuable player this season, even when acknowledging Young’s individual brilliance.

The Hawks are in a playoff race for the first time since 2016-17, and there are many reasons for that. After all, Young is a dynamic offensive engine, John Collins is a rising standout, and Atlanta spent big on Bogdan Bogdanovic and Danilo Gallinari to pair with their evolving young core. Still, Atlanta wouldn’t be where they are without Capela to anchor their defense, and he’s earned a deeper look as one of the five most impactful defensive players in the NBA this season.

It’s been weird watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier over the last six weeks because, when I see the complaints about the show, I have that dread that *I* must be the one who’s watching it the wrong way. As I wade through the discourse about the Flag Smashers not being a great villain or that some of the individual episodes seem slow, my first instinct is to think, well, obviously there’s something wrong with me because I’m enjoying the series quite a bit. But then I kind of figured out I was watching the show a different way. And I’m still open to the fact it is the wrong way, but I never cared about any of the Flag Smashers stuff and I didn’t care about the mystery of what they were up to. (And to be fair, over the years, this is what the MCU has trained its audience to do.) The only thing I cared about was Sam Wilson. And Sam Wilson finally got his day.

All of the pomp and circumstance was, yes, mostly filler to insulate what was really going on. And, again, to be fair, that’s not usually how the Marvel properties operate. In reality The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was a six-episode meditation about a Black man struggling with the idea of being the face of the United States and all the repercussions that would entail. And coming from Malcolm Spellman and his writing staff, this is something they’ve obviously thought about a lot. How would this go down in real life? Would someone like Sam actually decide to become Captain America when virtually everyone he trusts is telling him it’s a bad idea and he’ll be hated for doing so? How do we sell white America on the idea of a Black Captain America? And I’m sure they also knew if they tried to sell it as “a meditation about a Black man struggling with the idea of being the face of the United States,” that probably wouldn’t go over particularity well.

Look, I love Sam Wilson. Sam was literally the first comic book character I ever read so he’s always had a special place for me. When I was old enough to start appreciating comics, I busted into my dad’s stash and he had a plethora of Captain America and the Falcon comics from the early 1970s. I remember thinking Steve Rogers was boring, but his buddy, Sam Wilson, now this guy was cool. And on top of that, he had a cool pet. When my parents started getting me my own new comics in the early to mid-1980s, I was shocked Falcon just wasn’t around that much anymore. (Back in 2012 when the first Avengers movie came out, I interviewed Kevin Feige and out of the blue asked if Falcon would be in the next Captain America movie, which wound up being Captain America and the Winter Soldier. In retrospect his answers are pretty funny, doing everything he could to say “Yes” without saying, “Yes.”) But even part of the MCU, Sam kind of got lumped in as a sidekick with not much to do. Mackie can be such an electric actor that you could see the potential bursting out, even though it never quite happened until now. Often Sam was relegated to dumb scenes like the one where Tony Stark shot him in Captain America: Civil War for no reason after Rhodey got hurt. That scene always bothered me: that Falcon was expendable enough in the story to just be used as someone for Tony to use his temper on.

I think a lot about true north superheroes and how we don’t really get those much anymore, or what that even means these days. If 1978’s Superman came out today, would audiences even like it? I used to think they would, but now I’m not as sure. A lot of Superman’s dialogue could be written off as corny. Chris Evans’s Captain America captured some of that. And the first Wonder Woman movie had some of that, too. But things have changed. And if the last few years of reality has taught us anything, it’s that a modern true north hero isn’t going to look like the past examples. The new true north hero is going to look like someone like Sam Wilson. And it’s going to be Sam Wilson giving a kind half corny speech about how global powers should settle their differences with refugees in mind. All the white heroes got to do that in the past, well now it’s Sam’s turn. But interlaced in all that was some truly heavy words. The idea of a Black man, dressed as Captain America for the first time in a public setting, admitting he knows people hate him for it, shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a remarkable moment that is easily dismissed as corny (as I half did) but there’s a lot going on in that corn. There are a lot of Black writers behind those words saying some stuff they want to say, now through the cipher of Captain America for the first time. I think it might be a good idea to listen. Anyway, that’s how I watched this show. That’s the arc I cared about.

And, through those words, yes, Sam Wilson, and Anthony Mackie, finally got his day.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Spoilers for The Falcon And The Winter Soldier will be found below.

After wrapping up its six-episode run, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier season finale is dominating social media thanks to Marvel fans enjoying the heroic reveal of Anthony Mackie’s Captain America. And make no mistake, Mackie’s Sam Wilson is Captain America now. The season finale did its best to cement Sam’s claim to Cap’s mantle as he earned the right to the shield not just in battle, but by directly challenging the government to fix the post-Blip situation that’s going south and ensure that Isaiah Bradley, the first Black Captain America, is finally honored and acknowledged for his service to his country.

That being said, Sam’s new Captain America suit is just downright badass, and the fans are loving the comics-accurate look after finally seeing the new Cap in action.

There was also lots of love for Sebastian Stan‘s Bucky. After spending several years and movies trying to make up for his actions as the Winter Soldier, Marvel fans were happy to see Bucky finally find peace, and more importantly, a family as he lets his guard down to embrace Sam’s community.

Despite being revealed as the “villain” of the series — although, like U.S. Agent, her motivations are cloudy — fans enjoyed Emily VanCamp‘s Sharon Carter having a diabolical turn as her character becomes a force to be reckoned with in the MCU.

And, of course, with any Marvel production, there’s always the lingering question of, “Hey, couldn’t one of the other Avengers lend a hand?” In this case, Spider-Man who had the events of the season finale go down literally in his backyard.

As for what’s next for the series, this last reaction sums up how everyone felt after seeing the new title card:

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Mythic Quest is so good at this

It is almost unreasonable how good Mythic Quest is at special episodes. The show’s first one, its moving and timely and uplifting quarantine special, was a certified dynamo, a bright comet streaking across the jet black sky, a flash of hope and emotion and laughs in a period when those were tough things to come by. I remember watching it about a year ago, early into the pandemic, and just staring at my ceiling for a while as the end credits rolled. It was powerful. I wrote a whole big thing about it. Mythic Quest is a good show.

And now it’s back with another special episode, a bookend to the quarantine story that also serves as a jumping-off point for the upcoming second season. The episode is titled “Everlight” and it debuted last weekend and I’ve already watched it twice. The gist goes like this: it is the first day back in the office for the staff of the fictional video game company that makes Mythic Quest, the game within the show, and to make things fun and exciting the company’s leaders, Ian (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao), hold their annual big event, also called Everlight, in which the employees LARP it up in a battle of light versus darkness. There are metaphors galore here, with “the light” breaking through “a time of darkness,” and there’s also narration by the real and actual Anthony Hopkins, which is cool for a lot of reasons, one of which is that it allows me to share this tweet with you.

Anyway, like the quarantine episode, this sucker is big and ambitious and full of themes that play out small and large. It’s a tight half-hour that will make you laugh and feel good. This is no small feat. Not many shows know all of their characters this well this early into their run, or ever, if we’re being honest about it. Everyone hits their marks so well. McElhenney remains completely at home inhabiting an egomaniac with a secret tender heart. Danny Pudi is a blast as the company’s soulless money man. But the real key here, the secret sauce that makes this all work, is Charlotte Nicdao’s performance as Poppy.

I really don’t know how to describe this in accurate terms. She is so good at this, the comedy and the tender moments and even just the faces she makes in doing those other things. There’s a running gag in the episode about her not getting Ian’s sports references that killed me, mostly due to her timing on the responses to McElhenney’s annoyance. There’s another running gag about her throwing “fireballs” in the battle, which in reality involves her whizzing orange balls at people and them whizzing the balls back at her much harder. I am going to post a GIF of one of these moments now, but please know that this does not do the moment justice because GIFs do not contain sound and therefore cannot capture the delightful “oohawwbleh” sound she makes as she flails backward.

This is how you do physical comedy.

There are three main lessons I would like you to take away from this discussion. The first, again, is that Mythic Quest is a good show. It already was a good show. The first season was terrific, even before the one-two punch of special episodes, thanks to a workplace comedy vibe that has a lot in common with the best parts of The Office. The second thing I would like you to take away from this discussion is that the new season premieres in two weeks, which gives you plenty of time to catch up if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s so easy. Just go to the same place you went to watch Ted Lasso and then click like two times and blammo, there you go. You can binge it all this weekend, easily. I know because I did it. You are at least as good at binge-watching shows as I am.

Which brings me to the third thing. Lord in heaven knows there are enough bleak and dark shows out there, deep dives into gruesome murders and gritty takes on classic stories and all that. Those are fine in moderation. But come on. It is spring and we are, hopefully, coming out on the right side of some real bad stuff and the sun is out and the leaves are popping. Give yourself a break. Let some damn light in. Watch and enjoy Mythic Quest, a good show that will make you feel good. Trust me on this. I would not lie to you.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Kyra Sedgwick has a very fun story

Kyra Sedgwick is an actress who is probably best known for starring in the TNT series The Closer. Actually, no, scratch that. Kyra Sedgwick is an actress who was probably best known for starring in the TNT series The Closer because, effective immediately, at least in my brain, Kyra Sedgwick will forever be remembered for telling an incredible story about snooping around Tom Cruise’s house. That happened this week on The Drew Barrymore Show. I am going to tell you about it.

But first, some background: Kyra was at a party at Tom’s house in the early 1990s to celebrate the premiere of A Few Good Men, which co-starred her husband, Kevin Bacon. And so Kyra was walking around minding her own business, kind of, to the extent one can ever mind their own business in Tom Cruise’s house because, like, what are you gonna do, not snoop a little bit? Come on. I think even Tom knows a little snooping is going to happen. It’s like that scene in mob movies where the boss realizes one guy in the crew is a narc because he was the only guy who wasn’t skimming a little bit. If you tell Tom Cruise you didn’t snoop around at all, he knows you probably went through the drawers in his bedroom.

Anyway, so Kyra stumbled across a mysterious button above the fireplace and — like any of you would do if you found a mysterious button in Tom Cruise’s house, do not lie to me — she pushed the heck out of that button. As transcribed by USA Today:

“There was this, like, fireplace mantle, and I was looking around and there was this little button underneath the mantle,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh what is that little button?’ So I pressed the little button because I thought maybe something interesting will happen. Nothing happened and then I got a little nervous.”

Sedgwick said she told on herself because it didn’t “seem right” that nothing happened. She interrupted Cruise in the middle of a story to come clean.

“He goes, ‘That’s the panic button,’” Sedgwick said. “And so the cops came, they had to stop the screening… they had to see (Cruise). I think there were more than like five cop cars, it was something.”

A few notes here:

• I have a deep respect for Kyra Sedgwick now, not just for pushing that damn button, but for coming clean about it in the moment and for ratting herself out as a snooper on national television 30 years later
• It would not be very fun to be so famous that you have to install a silent alarm in your own home like you live in a bank vault or something
• Kyra Sedgwick has probably told this story at so many dinner parties and I bet it killed every single time

This last thing is not something we should gloss over. It is great to have a killer dinner party story. Everyone should have at least one they can tell well in a pinch. I have maybe three or four, just reliable stand-bys that I know will get at least a little laugh. None of them are anywhere near as good as “I was snooping around Tom Cruise’s house and set off the silent alarm that calls the cops,” though. Although, now that I think about it, maybe this isn’t that great a dinner party story after all because then the host would suspect you of snooping around their house. Real Catch-22 here. Kyra Sedgwick has given us so much to think about.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — It is time to correct a historical wrong

I know I bring up F9 almost every week. In my defense, there’s a good reason for this: I really like talking about F9. I could talk about it all day. I could talk about the history of the franchise and various fun little tidbits and how Vin Diesel wrote and directed a short film called Los Bandoleros that fills in the gaps in the series leading into the return of Dominic Toretto in the fourth movie. But mostly, I could talk about Han, the mysteriously wealthy street racer introduced and killed off in the third film, and then re-introduced in the fourth film through a glorious chronological two-step, and then killed off again in the sixth film after explaining how he got to Tokyo for the third film, and then re-introduced again in the trailer for F9, over a year ago, through some as yet unknown series of events that HAS BEEN KILLING ME JUST TELL ME HOW HE IS ALIVE AGAIN THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

[clears throat]

Sorry. Got a little worked up there. Anyway, it turns out I’m not the only one who can talk a lot about Han. So can series mastermind Justin Lin, the man who directed films three through six and created the whole Han arc. Turns out he wasn’t all that happy with the thing where Jason Statham’s character was welcomed to the Family with open arms in the eighth movie and given a loving spinoff with The Rock after he was revealed to be the one who killed Han as retribution for Dom and company leaving his brother on life support.

The fact that a few years later I was able to join and, in a way, evolve and correct that, that means a lot to me. And the fact that we as a franchise can keep evolving and growing, that means a lot. So being away, and the way I found out, I still don’t know what happened, but it’s okay because I got to come back. And one of the great things is that it feels a little poetic. Honestly, if none of that happened, Han wouldn’t come back. And so when I left [after Fast 6], I came in with Han, I’m leaving with Han. So if there was no justice for Han and I came back, I probably wouldn’t have brought him back. Again, it feels like everything happened for a reason. And I’m not here to judge anything, but I’m glad we’re able to put the right touches on it, and, like I said in January, “justice for Han” isn’t just this movie. I think how we treat this character as we move forward, that’s going to be the “justice for Han.”

God, I love this franchise so much. It’s basically a soap opera both on-screen and in real life, but one with rocket-charged Hondas and oiled-up Adonises strewn across the screen. And here’s the best part: This quote from Lin is actually two weeks old, and someone asked Jason Statham about it while he was out doing the press tour for his upcoming movie Wrath of Man, and Jason Statham said this about the whole Han situation.

“They better bring me back, because I need to put out that fire,” Statham tells EW with a laugh. “If he’s got any score to settle, it’s with me.”

Yes.

YES.

I need Han and Deckard Shaw to face off.

I need Han to get revenge once and for all.

I need it to happen… IN SPACE?

I don’t know. Maybe that last thing is asking too much. Or maybe it’s not asking enough. That’s the beautiful thing about this franchise. The limits to what can happen on-screen extend exactly as far as the limits of your imagination. It’s getting to the point where the whole thing is bordering on science fiction and I do not care because I love it very much.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Hey, look at that, some good trailers

Well well well, look at that, it’s the trailer for the second season of Ted Lasso, a wonderful show that kind of took the world by storm thanks to a combination of good vibes and mustaches. This is a terrific development, mostly because it means the second season is on its way. I mean, we knew it was on its way. Everyone said it was. And, like, I do not think the people involved in the show would lie to us about any of that, but it’s still nice to have confirmation.

Hey, speaking of things that are nice…

This is the trailer for Kevin Can F Himself, starring Annie Murphy from Schitt’s Creek. It looks pretty interesting, and Annie Murphy was so good in Schitt’s Creek, so let’s go right ahead and file this one under Reasonably Optimistic, too.

There have been a lot of trailers dropping lately, actually. Almost too many to keep up with. Things slowed down so much at the beginning of the pandemic that now, between the finished movies that were being held for theaters and the productions of shows and movies that kicked into overdrive once people figured out how to do it reasonably safely, we are headed toward an absolute onslaught of content. There are worse problems to have, to be sure, but I do wonder if it’ll all be kind of overwhelming at first. It’s going to be weird. I suspect more mustaches and good vibes will help with the transition.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — This is all quite fascinating… to me

Bob Odenkirk is the best. He’s been the best for a while, too, between Mr. Show and Better Call Saul and now Nobody, the action movie from the writer of John Wick in which Bob Odenkirk basically plays “John Wick but still has a family and has a handler played by RZA,” which is a solid piece of business. He’s out doing press for Nobody now, which is nice because it means we’ve been getting a bunch of great Bob Odenkirk interviews to read. Like, for example, this one from GQ. It’s a really good one, serious in parts about the real-life home invasions that informed his portrayal of the characters, and funny in parts like, well, this.

What did “going too far” mean in this case? I know you spent the past few years doing some pretty intense physical training for this movie.

I was at a party, and Tim Olyphant and I were talking, and he always kills me. He just makes me laugh. I said, “I’m training so hard for this movie.” And he looks at me and he goes, “Just get a stuntman to do it.”

And it was the first time it even occurred to me that I could do that! So I stood there, silently thinking, “Well, yeah. Of course you could do that.” Anda then I thought, “What’s the point of that? I want to do this.”

This is… cool. It’s cool. All of it is cool, too. The thing where he chose to do his own stunts is cool, the thing where he was at a party with Timothy Olyphant is cool, the thing where Timothy Olyphant told him to just use a stuntman is cool, and the thing where he calls Timothy Olyphant “Tim” is cool. That last one, especially. I do not think I’ve ever heard anyone call Timothy Olyphant “Tim” before. It is very cool that Bob Odenkirk calls Timothy Olyphant “Tim.”

And it gets even better because that wasn’t the only cool name-related thing involving Bob Odenkirk this week. He and the major players from Nobody, including RZA and Christopher Lloyd, teamed up to live-tweet a viewing of the movie in as spoiler-free a way as possible. The whole thing was interesting and informative if you’ve seen or were watching the movie, but that’s not the point right now. The point right now is that, if this tweet is to believed, Bob Odenkirk calls RZA “Bobby.”

I want to know everything about all of this at once. Is this a “Bobby” as in Bobby Digital, one of RZA’s many Wu-Tang aliases, or is this a “Bobby” as in Robert Diggs, RZA’s given birth name? I can’t decide which option I like more. Either way it is extremely cool. There’s something very fascinating about the idea of Bob Odenkirk just casually calling RZA, who has been known as the RZA for over 30 years now, by his government name, though. It would be like if someone was telling you their friend Dwayne was stopping by and then the doorbell rang and The Rock was standing there.

Now I need to know if Bob Odenkirk calls The Rock “Dwayne.” This will haunt me all weekend.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Lori:

I realized this week that a year stuck mostly inside has made me rusty at interpersonal communication. I was out at a restaurant for the first time in forever (vaccinated, WOO-HOO) and when the waiter gave us our check and said “Have a nice day,” I almost caught myself replying “I love you, too.” I had seen this happen in sitcoms but never in real life. It reminded me of your fascination with the “we’re not so different” scene that’s in action movies but has never happened in the real world. Does this happen to you a lot, where something from a movie or television show occurs in real life and throws you for a loop? Please take this the right way but I feel like it does.

Oh God. Oh my God. I don’t have time to possibly take offense to your mostly correct implication that I am a weirdo who watches so many movies and television shows that I process real-life events through a prism of television tropes because your waiter story reminded me of my own waiter story from about 10 years ago. I stopped at a Red Robin outside of Philly on my way home from law school for the summer. I was so fried and sleep-deprived from finals and operating at maybe 30-35 percent. I ate my meal and started heading out and a very nice waiter held the door for me. As I was going through the door, he said “Have a great day” and my broken, mangled brain told my mouth to say “Yup, sweet dreams.” It was lunchtime. Not that there would have been an appropriate time to say that. But still. Yeesh.

I have not been back to that Red Robin since.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Italy!

A hospital employee in Italy has been accused of skipping work on full pay for 15 years, local media report.

I love him.

He was reportedly paid €538,000 (£464,000) in total over the years he is thought not to have been working.

Six managers at the hospital are also being investigated in connection with the alleged absenteeism.

To be clear, I do not, in theory, support swindling the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that could otherwise be used on worthwhile public programs that benefit the less fortunate. But also, I am so proud of this guy. Do you realize what he did? He pulled a reverse “Stephen Root in Office Space,” where instead of the company stopping his paychecks and waiting for him to quit, he just quit and waited for them to stop paying him. It’s beautiful. I kind of do not want to know anything else about this. I feel like it can only get worse from here.

Okay. Okay. Let’s look at one more blockquote. Carefully.

The police have also accused him of threatening his manager to stop her from filing a disciplinary report against him.

That manager later retired, police added, and his ongoing absence was never noticed by her successor or human resources.

Dammit. The threat part took most of the fun out of this. This is why you shouldn’t read to the end of things. Get to the good part and then bail right away. I don’t even know why you’re still reading this article. You should have closed the tab after that Kyra Sedgwick story. I appreciate that you didn’t, of course, but it was a real risk on your part. Be smarter than this next week.