Month: April 2021

There are so many elements about the headline above that make me so happy, but the details behind it (courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter) make me even happier. There is the fact that Netflix has a vampire hunter action thriller coming out called Day Shift, where the main character’s cover is that of a pool cleaner. There is the fact that the pool cleaner is played by Jamie Foxx in full “girl dad” mode. I was already all the way in, but then they went ahead and added Snoop Dogg to it. Give it to me now. Right now.

The film’s the directorial debut for J.J. Perry, a seasoned second-unit director on films like John Wick (yes), The Fate Of The Furious (yes), and Bloodshot (oh no), so we can be reasonably well-assured that the action scenes will be on-point — and really, isn’t that all you want from a Jamie Foxx vampire hunter/pool cleaner flick? The script, written by Tyler Tice, was discovered at a screenplay competition, so it can’t be all bad, and the cast, which includes Dave Franco, Eric Lange, Karla Souza, Meagan Good, and Zion Broadnax, among others, seems strong enough to support the admittedly kinda silly concept.

There are a lot of ways this could go wrong, but I’m choosing to remain positive because if nothing else, there is the possibility of watching Snoop Dogg react to a vampire attack to look forward to, and “Snoop Dogg reacting to things” is a genre with a wealth of fun moments — especially if the things turn out to be supernatural and unusual. Also, Jamie Foxx’s last Netflix action flick Project Power (in which he was again in full “girl dad” mode) was really enjoyable, as is his current ’90s-style sitcom on the platform, Dad Stop Embarrassing Me (do you see the theme developing?).

There’s nothing on when Day Shift will hit streaming, but turnaround on Netflix films is usually pretty quick so expect to see this one out at a theme appropriate time — say, Halloween.

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 — I love when good things happen

I’ve been working my way through Warrior the last few months, and let me tell you something I discovered while doing that: Warrior rules. The show is inspired by ideas Bruce Lee put on paper before he died and is produced by a team led by his daughter Shannon and Fast & Furious mastermind Justin Lin. It’s set in old-timey San Francisco, and it features tons of martial arts battles and tales of immigration and Chinese gangsters and Irish mobsters and crooked politicians and has just about everything you could ever want in a cool show to watch on Friday nights at your leisure, including enough graphic sex and violence that you might feel more comfortable watching it with your headphones in even if you’re by yourself. Warrior is awesome.

It was also, as recently as this week, very much in limbo. The show ran for two seasons on Cinemax and a third was far from promised, especially with the HBO/Cinemax integration with HBO Max throwing things into chaos. It wasn’t even on HBO Max when the platform rolled out, reportedly because its Cinemax-y levels of pulpy sex/violence didn’t fit with the new brand the network was trying to build. But then, at some point, both seasons found their way to the catalog, and people like me started diving in, and enough of us existed to make a third season a viable option. That happened earlier this week. Warrior got the green light for more episodes that will come straight to HBO Max sometime next year. Which is great because, again, Warrior rules, and is more timely than ever with the recent rise of anti-Asian prejudice. The always-correct Mo Ryan broke the news at GQ, complete with an interview with Justin Lin.

Few TV yarns could be more overdue or relevant, right? Which is why Warrior fans ground their teeth in frustration when the show’s second season, which arrived on the waning Cinemax last October, looked like the end of the road for the drama.

Then there was an executive shuffle last August at HBO Max, and months after that, both seasons of Warrior finally arrived on the streaming service, where the show’s following grew by leaps and bounds according to executive producer Justin Lin. The director/producer has a lot of projects on his agenda–not least this summer’s F9 and a whole slew of upcoming Fast & Furious movies–but he and fellow executive producer Shannon Lee (Bruce Lee’s daughter) have been shepherding Warrior through the Hollywood trenches for years, and they never gave up on the one-of-a-kind period piece.

It’s great. It’s great for a bunch of different reasons, too. It’s great because the show is filled with badass action and cool stories and stuff like this happens frequently, which gives the geniuses at the HBO Max captions department room to get as creative as they desire.

But it’s also great because, like, this was kind of the promise of streaming services way back when, to provide a place for niche programming to reach a highly-targeted audience in a way that makes it financially viable. The whole “save this show” discussion. It hasn’t always worked out this way, which stinks, and yes this is me once again getting upset that Happy Endings and Lodge 49 couldn’t find a home despite bringing me as much joy as any shows I’ve ever watched. But this is good. It’s a move in the right direction. Warrior is back.

I think this development calls for one of my new favorite GIFs.

Warrior is a blast. Go watch Warrior. Watch it for yourself, of course, because you deserve to have some fun on Friday nights, but also watch it for me. I can’t wait to talk about season three, whenever it happens, and if we’re all caught up by then it will be so much more fun.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Might go run around the house with a pickle in my mouth

What an incredible week this was. For me, at least. Which is, I suppose, what’s important here, seeing as I’m the one typing all the words into this box. It feels rude to put it that way, though. I hope your weeks were nice, too. I hope everyone had as good a week as I had. I hope the vibes were excellent everywhere.

And how could they not have been? On the same day this week, Wednesday, which wasn’t even my birthday, we had: One, a new trailer for F9 in which Helen Mirren drifts in a purple sports car and Ludacris and Tyrese appear to launch themselves into the cosmos inside a NoS-powered spaceship that appears to be just a car outfitted for flight with rockets and duct tape; and two, this image from Walton Goggins’ Instagram in which he gives the world a thumbs up from the set of The Righteous Gemstones season two while dressed as Baby Billy Freeman. I do not know what else anyone could possibly ask for.

The Baby Billy thing is very interesting to me in part because it allows me to post the video of him singing “Misbehavin’” again, so let’s go ahead and do that quickly…

… and in part because Baby Billy ended the first season by getting struck by lightning. On another show, this might create concern. Less so on The Righteous Gemstones. It’s not that the show disregards the laws of science and nature as much as it is that the show is so ridiculous and silly and clever that I’m sure they figure it out. Danny McBride is a smart dude. He keeps casting Walton Goggins, so he must be a smart dude. I’m so excited to have a second season en route, even if it is so far out that they’re just posting set photos now. I can wait. Good things take time. Not too much time, though, I hope. I need Baby Billy back as soon as possible, even if his take on my plight might not be sympathetic.

He makes a fair point.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — I’m sorry, but this is a sketch from Kroll Show, not a real television show

This is a trailer for an upcoming Netflix reality series called Pet Stars. The show follows two women who run a publicity firm for famous pets. This is how the people at Netflix describe it.

“This pair handles Hollywood’s cutest, most well-known animal clients — top hats, treats and poop to boot. Their mission centers around making the world a better place, one animal at a time, and throughout the episodes, viewers not only get to see how they run their business securing partnerships for pets, but also how they work with rescues to highlight animals in need of a better life! Whether it’s a business opportunity or a life-changing new home, their first love (and priority) are the animals.”

I should also note that the trailer opens with a dog farting. Like, right at the beginning, before anyone says any words, before you even have any idea what the show is or is about. Just fade in, blammo, dog farting. It is a bold way to introduce your show to the audience and I have yet to figure out if it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen or the most brilliant. I mean, I’m here writing about it and posting the trailer, so I guess they really snookered me on that aspect of it all. And now I’m about to post notable screencaps from it, like this one of a dog that is surfing…

… and this one of a sweet boy in sunglasses, so again, kudos to them, because none of that happens if they don’t hook me with that immediate doggy fart. I’m not a complicated man.

But none of that takes away from the fact that this is easily the most Kroll Show-ass television show I’ve ever seen. I hope you know what I mean by that. I hope you watched Kroll Show. Kroll Show was so good and ran from three seasons from 2013-15 and did a better job of poking fun at reality television than any show I’ve ever seen with the possible exception of The Soup. And it got so much better as it went on and twisted together into a bonkers pretzel stuffed with a slew of crazy goofballs interacting with each other. The “Pawnsylvania” series of sketches remain the single most accurate depiction of Pennsylvania I have ever seen.

But this? This doggy public relations business? This is some stuff straight out of PubLizity. Watch this clip and try to deny it. Watch all of Kroll Show, too, if you haven’t, but start with this clip.

If Pet Stars doesn’t feature one of the owner’s nieces, and if that niece isn’t named Denise, I will be livid. Although, I suspect I’ll never watch to find out. A farting dog will only get you so far in life, you know?

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Put Phoebe Waller-Bridge in every franchise

Well, guess what: Phoebe Waller-Bridge is going to be in the next Indiana Jones movie. So is Mads Mikkelson, which is cool, but not the point right now. We are going to focus on the PWB of it all. There was a news report about it and everything. Here, look.

Sources tell Deadline that Fleabag Emmy winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge is set to co-star opposite Ford in the fifth installment, with Ford returning as everyone’s favorite fedora-wearing, whip-slinging archaeologist.

The hope is to start production this summer, with Mangold meeting with other talent for other roles in preparation for production. Plot details are still vague on what new adventure awaits Jones, as are details behind who Waller-Bridge will play. The film is set to bow on July 29, 2022.

This is at least the third huge movie franchise to get a little Phoebe Waller-Bridge added into the stew, with her voice work on Star Wars and her script punch-up on Bond coming first. But this is the coolest. And the biggest. And I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but… do we want to jump way out on this and start asking if Phoebe Waller-Bridge is going to take over this franchise? I’m sorry. I know it’s too soon for that. I shouldn’t even bring it up. But, like…

Listen. It’s not fair for me to be asking that at this point, before the details on the role have even been announced. But you saw Fleabag. Very few people have the kind of smirking cool it takes to lead a project like that, and it’s a trait that works well in huge movie franchises, too. And Harrison Ford, bless his soul, is not getting any younger. This would all set up nicely. Don’t jump to any conclusions yet. But think about it. It could work. I don’t know if she can pull off the hat. We’ll have to see. But think about it.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — I am intrigued by the Urkel weed

It brings me great pleasure to report to you today that Jaleel White, Steve Urkel himself, has gotten into the weed business. It brings me great pleasure for a number of reasons, too, some of which are related to the fact that he’s decided to cash in on someone else naming a strain Purple Urkle many years ago, and some of which are related to the thing where it would be a blast to hop out of a time machine in like 1993 and tell someone that weed is basically legal in 2021 and Steve Urkel is talking about his personal strain to Forbes Magazine.

“The thing that always stood out to me was there no clear brand leader for fire purple weed,” says Jaleel White. “It made no sense to me, that no company of significance had claimed this lane, so why not me?”

I know we’re all used to reading about weed being more and more normal and becoming corporate and turning into big business, but seriously, read those sentences a few times and let them marinate in your brain juices for a while this weekend. It’s all kinds of wild. Even the parts of it that aren’t directly related to Jaleel White selling Urkel weed. And it gets wilder. Look at this.

710 Labs founder Brad Melshenker met White on a flight, and the duo connected over their passion for cannabis. “710 has never been a brand that pursued celebrity deals or endorsements as our agenda has always been quality above all else,” Melshenker says. “We tend to let the product speak for itself. But over the years Jaleel and I became friends and organically our conversations developed into a project. He was on a journey to find the real Purple Urkel from back in the early 2000’s. Not only that, he wanted to find the most flavorful purple cultivars and had been collecting seeds with his friend Sean over the years just for this purpose.”

Dude sat next to Jaleel White on an airplane and they talked about weed while soaring through the air like birds, and now they’re turning it into a potentially lucrative business. The future is freaking nutso, people.

Do me a favor. Forget the time machine. Call up someone over the age of, let’s say, 65 and explain this story to them this weekend. Just the basics. But be sure to read them this paragraph, too, word for word.

“Jaleel is a big fan of the Noodle Doinks and the Live Resin Pods,” says Melshenker. “The Noodle Doinks will come in 3 pheno’s of Purple Urkle and of Stefan, and the Live Resin Pods will come in Mendo Purps x Zkittlez to start, which by the way, is probably my favorite pod flavor to date. It’s a straight candy flavor with a grape Big League Chew vibe on the exhale.”

This is by far the funniest thing about weed being a medically approved treatment for certain conditions now. The verbiage hasn’t caught up to its socially acceptable status yet. You can still say things like “Yeah, my arthritis has really been under control lately thanks to the Noodle Doinks” with a perfectly straight face and mean it. I hope it never changes. And I hope Jaleel White becomes a weed millionaire, like George Foreman did with his grill. That would make me happy.

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 Rob:

Brian. BRIAN. I saw your article about the F9 trailer and I’m so excited for you. It’s happening. IT’S HAPPENING. You should rent out a theater and sell tickets and host your own screening. THEY’RE GOING TO SPACE. YOU CALLED IT. IT’S HAPPENING. FAMILY.

What I liked about this email is that I received it at 1:47 AM on Thursday morning. Please send me lots of emails like this at weird hours of the night. Have a few drinks first, or hit your Noodle Doinks, if that’s what you like to do at 1:30 AM. Get weird. It makes my job fun.

But yes. All of this is true. I am fantastically excited, as I wrote in my piece on the trailer. Not excited enough to host my own screening because that seems like a lot of Saturday work and I absolutely do not support doing lots of work on a Saturday when it can be avoided. But excited enough to post this screencap of Bow Wow at the barbecue at the beginning of the trailer. Bow Wow is Family now. This is official.

And I am definitely excited enough to share this quote from Vin Diesel about the decision to cast John Cena as Dominic Toretto’s evil secret brother.

“I remember once we started getting closer to production, [director] Justin (Lin) and I would talk about how harrowing it would be to actually cast a new Toretto. The brother of Toretto,” Diesel said.

“There’s so many different directions you could go. And I remember John Cena coming into this Dom Shrine that I had where I would kind of go to meditate and train and start getting into that Dom state of mind. And I remember John coming in and… call this crazy, but I remember feeling as though Pablo, Paul Walker, had sent him in. I remember talking to Justin that night and saying, ‘My gut and my heart feels like this was meant to be.’”

Two things are undeniably true here:

• I must see the Dom Shrine
• Dom Shrine would be an incredible fake name

This franchise has given all of us so much, truly.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To London!

Have you seen Darius, the world’s longest rabbit?

NO. WHY? WHAT HAPPENED TO DARIUS?!

Four feet long and weighing 50 pounds, the heavyweight bunny should be easy to spot. But he went missing this past weekend, and now the police are involved, appealing for information about his apparent abduction from his home in a small English village.

Is this…

Do we have…

Could it be…

A RABBIT HEIST????

Darius’s owner, Annette Edwards, has offered a reward of 2,000 pounds, about $2,745, for his safe return, no questions asked. She detailed his disappearance on Sunday from her home in Stoulton, England, in a post on Twitter, calling it a “very sad day.” She added that the rabbit was too old to breed now, “So please bring him back.”

Here’s what I need: An elite team. Led by someone who was the best there ever was but retired and got out of the game and preferably lives in a cabin on a woody mountain now. And a driver. And a face man. And a tech expert. And Jason Statham. The real Statham, too, not a character played by Statham. That’s how serious I am about this.

We have to find this rabbit.

A former model turned rabbit breeder who has held four world-record titles for the size of her animals, Ms. Edwards has previously sold Darius’s offspring for as much as £250 each.

A former model turned record-setting large rabbit breeder? Excuse me? Someone call Soderbergh and get him on this. I need this movie in production while we look for the rabbit. There’s no time to waste here. The story has everything short of a human dressing as Jessica Rabbit and an insurance policy so large that it makes you wonder if something nefarious is at play here.

Darius drew attention online and traveled across the country for events alongside Ms. Edwards, who often appeared with him dressed as the cartoon character Jessica Rabbit. Darius was insured for $1.6 million and traveled with a bodyguard, according to NBC’s Today show in a 2010 article.

FIND THE RABBIT AND MAKE THE MOVIE.

I NEED IT.

Sometimes, sad things happen, and different people cope with these events in different ways. Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez recently confirmed that they have called off their engagement and ended their relationship, and it would seem that Rodriguez is pretty sad about it. That’s a natural response considering how big a part of his life his former fiancée had become, and he decided to express his grief with the help of Coldplay.

After the news of the break-up was revealed, A-Rod took to his Instagram story to express his sadness through video. In the clip, the shot pans across a table covered in framed photos of Rodriguez and/or Lopez, ending on a photo of a heart with an arrow through it drawn in sand on a beach, with the text “Jennifer + Alex” seemingly added to the image digitally. All the while, Coldplay’s “Fix You,” one of the most overtly emotional songs of the past two decades, plays in the background. Specifically, the 10-second clip features the lyrics, “When you lose something you cannot replace / Tears stream down your face.”

After some rumors from earlier this year, the now-former couple confirmed their break-up yesterday with a statement, saying, “We have realized we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so. We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects. We wish the best for each other and one another’s children. Out of respect for them, the only other comment we have to say is thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and support.”

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

Sometimes, sad things happen, and different people cope with these events in different ways. Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez recently confirmed that they have called off their engagement and ended their relationship, and it would seem that Rodriguez is pretty sad about it. That’s a natural response considering how big a part of his life his former fiancée had become, and he decided to express his grief with the help of Coldplay.

After the news of the break-up was revealed, A-Rod took to his Instagram story to express his sadness through video. In the clip, the shot pans across a table covered in framed photos of Rodriguez and/or Lopez, ending on a photo of a heart with an arrow through it drawn in sand on a beach, with the text “Jennifer + Alex” seemingly added to the image digitally. All the while, Coldplay’s “Fix You,” one of the most overtly emotional songs of the past two decades, plays in the background. Specifically, the 10-second clip features the lyrics, “When you lose something you cannot replace / Tears stream down your face.”

After some rumors from earlier this year, the now-former couple confirmed their break-up yesterday with a statement, saying, “We have realized we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so. We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects. We wish the best for each other and one another’s children. Out of respect for them, the only other comment we have to say is thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and support.”

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

Maxine Waters isn’t the only one who dressed down Jim Jordan on Thursday after the congressman peppered Dr. Fauci with relentless questions about when Americans will stop having their freedom and liberties “assaulted.” Jimmy Kimmel devoted the opening of his monologue (beginning after the 1:00 mark) to slamming the “shaved ape from Ohio” for forcing Fauci to “endure his relentless stupidity,” and the late night host didn’t hold back.

“You know who else was assaulted? Those wrestlers when you were their coach at Ohio State,” Kimmel said, earning an audible reaction from behind the cameras. “I guess you didn’t notice that, but go on.”

After playing another clip of Jordan continuing to berate Fauci and demand what the “objective” or acceptable number is for Americans to get their freedom back, Kimmel went to work schooling the Republican senator and anyone else who’s rejecting the advice of medical experts:

“Listen, meathead. First of all, Dr. Fauci hasn’t assaulted anyone. All of a sudden he cares about people being assaulted. And, secondly, doing squats at 24-Hour Fitness doesn’t make you a healthy expert. Look, I’ve said this before, and I think it’s worth repeating. All the doctors tell you to wear masks and be careful and that the vaccine is safe. So if you decide it isn’t, well, that’s fine. Don’t get it. But you’re not allowed to go to the doctors anymore. Why would you? They don’t know anything. Go treat your gonorrhea with witch hazel and a cotton swab.”

Not content with just one jab at Jordan’s scandalous tenure as the Ohio State wrestling coach, Kimmel took one more shot to wrap his thoughts on Jordan’s meltdown. “Dr. Fauci, this guy has been doing this forever. He’s giving his very educated opinions. The closest Jim Jordan ever got to being an infectious disease is contracting scabies on a wrestling mat,” Kimmel declared.

The mint julep is an iconic American cocktail. It’s also very much tied to the Kentucky Derby and Southern American culture, in general. The drink dates all the way back to the early 1800s, when “juleps” were still considered medicinal applications with herbs, floral waters, and booze (mostly brandy and rum back then), plus a little sugar to make it palatable.

The modern mint julep — an elixir of sugar, mint, and bourbon — was dialed in over the years and falls in the “smash” category of cocktails, along with drinks like the whiskey smash and the mojito.

The brilliance of this drink is that it’s very simple at its core but takes some real technique to do just right. You’ll need crushed ice, muddling skills, and way more mint than you’d first guess. Other than that, this is a pretty quick cocktail to make as long as you have everything ready. It’s super refreshing. And it’s an excellent vehicle to really highlight some nice bourbon.

Mint Julep

Ingredients:

• 3-oz. Woodford Reserve bourbon
• 2 sugar cubes
• 1 barspoon tap water
• Fresh mint (six leaves for cocktail and more for garnish)
• Crushed ice

Woodford Reserve (grab a bottle here) is the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby. So, it makes sense to go with that. Plus, Woodford Reserve’s standard bourbon is pretty damn tasty on its own. So you know you’re in good hands.

Let’s talk about the sugar for a moment. You can 100 percent use simple bar syrup in this drink to really speed up the preparation. In that case, use about 0.5-oz. of simple instead of the sugar cubes. For me, that takes away from the granulated sugar vibe at the bottom of the drink. This drink is meant to be sipped slowly. So by the time you get to the bottom of the drink, the sugar should have fully dissolved. I like to use raw sugar cane cubes. They have a little more of a molasses sweetness and tend to crush and dissolve a little more easily than a standard white sugar cube.

You should use fresh spearmint if you can find it. That being said, I used standard mint and it was fine. I ended up using six mint leaves, plucked from the stem. But they were really big. If you have those smaller mint leaves (think the size of your thumbnail), you’ll need about ten or more.

Finally, there’s the ice. Shaved ice and hand-crushed ice is the fancy way to make this drink. Standard crushed ice works perfectly fine. What’s happening — and what makes this such a great hot-weather cocktail — is that the crushed ice creates a ton of surface area that then refreezes. That extra surface area gets the cocktail so cold, it dips below the freezing point and stops the ice melt for quite a while. That makes this drink a great, long-sipping cocktail.

It also helps with the frosting over the glass, which is nice and chilly to touch.

What You’ll Need:

• Collins glass, large lowball glass, or a pewter cup
• Muddler
• Jigger
• Barspoon
• Metal straw

Method:

• Add sugar cubes, water, and six whole mint leaves (no stems) to the bottom of the highball glass. Muddle to crush the sugar cubes, which will slightly grind the mint leaves which, in turn, releases their oils. Don’t over crush or grind — just muddle enough that the sugar cubes are broken up and form a nice base.
• Add the bourbon and stir a few times just to marry all the flavors together.
• Add enough crushed ice to fill the glass about two-thirds full.
• Stir until well mixed and a frost starts to form on the outside of the vessel.
• Top off with more crushed ice, creating a small dome. Use your palm to press down slightly, packing in the ice.
• Make a small hole for the straw and mint with your barspoon.
• Take a bouquet of mint (more than you think you’ll need), slap it on the back of your hand a couple of times to awaken the oils, and then place the mint and straw into the hole you made in the ice.
• Serve.

Bottom Line:

This is amazingly refreshing. It also really lets the bourbon shine. You get all those Woodford bourbon notes of orange chocolates, spicy tobacco, and rich toffee while the mint counterpoints the whole experience. There’s a reason you put that bouquet of mint with the straw. You really want to amp up the olfactory experience of the fresh mint oils to prime your senses before you sip, adding a deeper, minty dimension to the drink.

The sugar is definitely there and reminds you that if you drink too many of these the hangover tomorrow morning will be real. But again, it isn’t overwhelming. It’s more of a nice touch that takes the edge off the bourbon and sweetens the mint, rather than the star (as it is in some tiki-style drinks).

Look at that frost forming. That’s refreshment right there. Try one this weekend or early next week. Caring about the derby is optional.

Sometimes, you’ll see this made with a few dashes of Angostura bitters either in the cocktail or over the ice. It’s completely unnecessary. If you want to add some bitters, go for it! But, it’ll take away from the magic simplicity of this cocktail.

I can definitely see sitting back, watching the horses, and downing a few of these as the day races by.

If you were ever wondering how to make an album, Atlanta rising star JID recently shared his version of an instruction manual, posting a photo dump of behind-the-scenes glimpses of the recording sessions for his upcoming album, The Forever Story. “This is how u make an album,” he wrote in the slideshow’s caption. The slideshow itself captures plenty of in-studio shots and shenanigans with collaborators like fellow Spillage Village member 6lack, Compton rapper Buddy, Florida rebel Denzel Curry, DMV area genre-bender Rico Nasty, and St. Louis space poet Smino.

Meanwhile, in his efforts to tide fans over until the new album is completed, JID has been releasing freestyles like “Cludder Freestyle” and “JIDtranada Freestyle“; remixes like the Denzel Curry collaboration “Bruuuh,” the updated Spillage Village track “Baptized” with Deante’ Hitchcock, IDK, and Flatbush Zombies, and the explosive Conway The Machine track “Scatter Brain” with Ludacris; and his own standalone single, “Skegee,” which sheds light on a dark corner of American history.

The Forever Story, whose title references JID’s debut album The Never Story, will be the dynamic rapper’s first full-length solo release since 2018’s DiCaprio 2. In the meantime, however, he could be found giving standout performances on group efforts like 2019’s Dreamville compilation Revenge Of The Dreamers III and 2020’s Spillage Village excursion, Spilligion.

Check out JID’s behind-the-scenes slideshow above.

MEGA-SPOILERS for ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ will be found below.

This season’s penultimate The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode gave us many notable moments. We saw a tear-producing follow-up conversation between Isaiah Bradley (the Black Captain America) and Sam Wilson. We learned that Bucky is persona non grata (at least for awhile) in Wakanda. We also learned that Zemo’s dancing days are over (although we’ll always have the Zemo Cut) after the Dora Milaje came to fetch him and settle the score for his crimes against King T’Chaka.

The show kept things light during moments, like when Sam wasn’t too happy when Bucky flirted with his sister, Sarah, although it’s easy to see where both guys are coming from here. No one would want their sister to date a formerly brainwashed, homicidal tool of HYDRA, yet Bucky is working hard on redemption and deserves some happiness. Few people would argue that point (or Sam’s weigh in), nor does anyone really dispute that the John Walker situation escalated at warp speed, and that last week’s development meant that an inevitable follow-up and consequences were coming.

Well, the new Captain America is dunzo. Walker got stripped of his duties after he flipped his lid and murdered a Flag Smasher (with the shield!) while the whole world was literally watching. That this happened in full public view and hurts the American image seems to be the biggest reason why the U.S. government’s pushing Walker out of his gig. And John suggested, chillingly, that he’s done what he was programmed to do as a soldier, which actually makes him an accurate representation of America.

That led to this week’s most stunning development, which I would argue qualifies as the most surprising cameo appearance of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (obviously, Brad Pitt’s Deadpool 2 fly-in does not count, since that wasn’t MCU, and it was a Fox joint). It’s a truly surprising development — especially considering all of the speculation about some A-lister portraying Mephisto in WandaVision (which didn’t happen) and fans hoping that Chris Evans would (somehow?) cameo as Steve Rogers on this show — that no one would have seen coming. Keeping this one under wraps, even with Marvel Studios’ historic reputation for keeping things close to its sleeve, qualifies as an impressive accomplishment.

As John Walker attempted to process the loss of his Cap gig outside his no-good tribunal, a pair of boots approached, and it turned out to be the legendary Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. You can call her “Val.”

So, who is this Val person portrayed by the Veep and Seinfeld star? Vanity Fair reports that Marvel Studios originally wanted to debut the character in Black Widow, but those plans changed, even outside of any pandemic considerations.

In the comics, Val’s also been known as Madame Hydra, and she has a mysterious past with parents who were Leviathan sleeper agents. She’s been a leading S.H.I.E.L.D. member and once kicked Nick Fury’s ass during a training session. So, she’s probably telling the truth when she quips that those boots weren’t made for walking. One can imagine that we’ll be seeing more of Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, whether that happens in next week’s season finale or further down the MCU line.

Val seems to slide right into the story here, as mysterious as she appears to be, because she’s very aware of how Walker managed to stuff some super-soldier serum into his veins before going on last week’s rampage. Val informs Walker that he did the right thing, and taking the serum was the second best thing he’s ever done (because it makes him very valuable to interested parties). Then she tells him that the better move would be to answer her phone calls (he can’t call her because Val’s business card is blank).

What is Val doing on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and might she actually be the mysterious Power Broker? If so, we should find out soon because next week is season finale time. In the alternative, it sure seems like Val could want to scoop up John because she’s very interested in his super-serum-infused ways. If that’s the case, she could be interested in recruiting some of Karli Morgenthau’s pals as well, although John and Karli would never be able to work together after the events of last week. Speaking of Karli, damn, she’s gathering her own forces via cell phone signal, so we will hopefully be able to see an are-they-good-or-bad conclusion for the Flag Smashers. And please, can we see Sharon Carter beating up more bad dudes, too? Then send Bucky to Aruba, please. It would be the greatest end to a TV season ever.

Disney+ streams new ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ episodes on Fridays.

This week’s episode of Indiecast kicks off with a discussion of the new collaborative track from Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl, a very goofy moment in rock history. The conversation then segues into the mailbag segment, which raises the question of which indie artists should follow in Taylor Swift’s footsteps to take another stab at their earlier material.

The main crux of this week’s episode revolves around new albums from The Armed and Greta Van Fleet, the former of which gets their name from being the most jacked band since Manowar. The latter? Not so much.

Both bands are indicative of a strange moment in the modern mainstream rock landscape, in ways that are almost diametrically opposed. The Armed evocative of the heyday of mainstream hard rock, one of the most commercially successful genres ever. Greta Van Fleet, on the other hand, are a band so preposterous that they become almost endearing and endlessly fun to engage with.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 35 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. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Chrissy Teigen crawled out of the chasm that is Twitter in late March. “This no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively, and I think that’s the right time to call something,” she tweeted as part of her farewell. “My life goal is to make people happy. The pain I feel when I don’t is too much for me. I’ve always been portrayed as the strong clap back girl but I’m just not.” She may not clap back, but she is back — on Twitter.

Less than a month after leaving the social media platform, Teigen announced her return on Friday. “Turns out it feels TERRIBLE to silence yourself and also no longer enjoy belly chuckles randomly throughout the day and also lose like 2000 friends at once lol,” she wrote. “I choose to take the bad with the good!!” When one of Teigen’s million-plus followers asked the author and television host, who was welcomed back by Chelsea Clinton and Rosanna Arquette, what she’s been up to during her Twitter sabbatical, she replied, “I’ve spent weeks just saying tweets to shampoo bottles.”

Let’s catch Chrissy Teigen up on everything she’s missed, beginning with this tweet:

Actually. That’s it. Nothing else good happened on Twitter. Leave while you still can.