Month: May 2021

I have watched every single episode in The Walking Dead universe. In ten years, we have seen an episode that ended with multiple heads found on spikes. We have seen a man beat two beloved characters to death with a baseball bat, and then we saw that same man have sex with a woman while the two wore nothing but faces sliced off of corpses. We have seen a son kill his mother after she gave birth to his sister. We have seen some super messed up things over the last decade, and while this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead may not have been as brutal as some of those episodes, it was definitely one of the darkest. It may have also been the most gut-punchiest — it was one of those episodes where it looked like they were going to slug you in the face, but as soon as you dodged the blow, Fear kicked you in the stomach and then kneed you in the nose when you fell to the ground.

Much of “In Dreams” is a dream sequence that unfolds in the mind of Grace. Like most people, I rolled my eyes when I realized the episode was a long dream, which is basically the moment the episode begins and Grace is saved by Athena, who we quickly learn is the teenage version of the baby to whom Grace is about to give birth. In the real world, Grace has been hurt — a car bomb orchestrated by the Mole People blew up near her — and she’s unconscious but in labor.

In her dream vision of the future, however, Grace not only meets her daughter (who saves her life several times) but also sees a white-haired Morgan and sees that his community has not only survived but thrived. Sherry and Dwight reunited and have two kids. June is the local doctor. Daniel and Strand are close friends. Grace also learns in this vision of the future that she dies in childbirth — she sees her own gravestone — but that everyone rallies around her daughter, Athena, and that solidarity is what allows the community to flourish.

Over the course of this vision, Grace understands that her death in childbirth, though tragic, will ultimately serve the greater good. Her daughter Athena (played spectacularly by Sahana Srinivasan) will be an inspirational figure for the community. By the end of the episode, we (the audience) have come to terms with Grace’s death knowing that — at least in her vision of the future — everything turns out well. Losing actress Karen David, however, will be a hard pill to swallow for fans of the series, but before the end of the episode, we make peace with it.

That’s when Fear pulls the rug out from under us. While Grace is unconscious and in labor, Morgan in the present reality is trying to revive her while also fending off Riley and the Mole people, who want the key to the submarine that Morgan has around his neck. Morgan is trapped inside of a barn with Grace, whose subconscious finally convinces her near the end of the episode to wake up and deliver the baby because that baby is going to grow up to be Athena and save Morgan’s community.

Morgan, meanwhile, is able to kill most of The Mole people, except for Riley (who Morgan shoots in the shoulder but for some reason allows to live), who returns and holds a gun to Grace’s head and demands the key. Because of the vision that Grace had of her daughter wearing the key and telling her, “It was the price of peace,” Grace tells Morgan to give up the key. She believes, based on her dream, that everything is going to be OK.

Everything will not be OK.

After Riley leaves, Grace gives birth to Athena, and we steel ourselves for Grace’s death, as predicted in her vision. But she doesn’t die. Are we going to get a miracle ending where Grace and the baby both survive? No. Instead, Grace gives birth to a stillborn baby, which Morgan delivers but cannot revive. Grace is inconsolably sad. Morgan is traumatized. Grace will survive because her baby, Athena, apparently absorbed all of the radiation in her body, which killed the baby before its first breath.

“I don’t understand,” Morgan mumbles while Grace sobs. “I don’t understand.”

“What I saw,” Grace says, “they weren’t my last moments. They were hers.

“I thought it was going to be different,” she continues. “But it was just a dream.”

In creative writing classes, they always say to never end a story with a character waking up and realizing it was all a nightmare. But this is different. This is a character waking up from a dream only to realize that reality is her worst nightmare. It’s a brutal ending.

The episode leaves us a lot to process, but Karen David (and Sahana Srinivasan) should be commended for their remarkable performances, and Andrew Chambliss, Ian Goldberg, and Nazrin Choudhury should be both commended and cursed for writing one of the best but most devastating episodes in the history of The Walking Dead universe. It’s also one more reason why the sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead may be one of the best if not the best season in all of The Walking Dead.

‘Fear The Walking Dead’ airs on Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST.

Tom Cruise has scaled the world’s tallest building, held his breathe underwater for six-and-a-half minutes, climbed a mountain, hung off the side of a plane, and piloted a helicopter during an aerial chase sequence, all for our entertainment. Thank you, Tom. But the next Mission: Impossible will have his “most dangerous” stunt yet.

That’s according to Empire magazine, which spoke to Cruise about the death-defying sequence in M:I 7 — it involves riding a motorcycle off of a cliff, as one does. “If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp. The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike,” he said. “I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”

“If I do, that’s not going to end well” is true for most stunts, but especially this one.

Yes, that small dot (in the Getty photo) is Tom Cruise. It took “months” to train for the motorcycle cliff dive (good song title), but the actor was just happy to return to set following a delay due to the pandemic. “All those emotions were going through my mind,” he said (not a reference to his on-set tirade). “I was thinking about the people I work with, and my industry. And for the whole crew to know that we’d started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief. It was very emotional, I gotta tell you.”

Mission: Impossible 7 comes out May 27, 2022.

(Via Empire)

What’s even better than a cameo from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin on an episode of American Idol? A whole host of contestants singing Coldplay songs, too. Tonight’s episode of the long-standing singing competition show was devoted to the British group entirely, with all seven competitors selecting a song from the band’s massive catalogue to sing. Contestants chose some of the band’s best-known work, selecting tracks like “Paradise,” “Everglow,” “Magic,” “Fix You,” “Yellow,” “Violet Hill,” and “In My Place.”

The band’s frontman, Chris Martin, was also involved with mentoring for the episode, and a performance of his own, joining the whole band for the first television performance of their brand new single, “Higher Power.” The Max Martin-produced track was debuted late last week via a space station encounter with French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. And despite its intergalactic debut, and American Idol inclusion, the song and its potential album follow-up have already irritated Lady Gaga fans, who think the fictional planet of “Kaotica” sounds a little too close to Chromatica.

Well, you can’t win ’em all right? Check out the band’s performance above and keep your ears out for more info on their not announced but not not announced new record. Odds that the album’s title will be announced as Kaotica are ever in our favor.

Fox News isn’t all bad. On one hand they let Tucker Carlson spew all manner of nonsense — racist conspiracy theories, lies about the 2020 election, defenses of the failed but fatal insurrection of Jan. 6. Then again, they do have Chris Wallace, one of their only employees who dares deviate from the Republican line. He stood up to Trump himself, so naturally he wasn’t afraid to let a lowly GOP congressman have it.

That lawmaker was Indiana representative Jim Banks, one of the key figures in the House who’ve called for Liz Cheney’s ouster because she doesn’t buy Trump’s lies. On Matthews’ show on Sunday, Banks tried to defend his attempt to remove from her position of power, claiming her continued criticism of the disgraced former president had become “an unwelcome distraction,” and that she’s failed to unite the party in trying to take back Congress in 2022.

But Matthews wasn’t buying it . He decided to ask him something point-blank: Does he believe Joe Biden legitimately won the presidency? Like many in the GOP who believe what he does, Banks tried to dodge the question.

“Yes, Joe Biden was elected. He was inaugurated on January 20,” Banks replied, dancing around the question.

But Wallace kept pressing, asking him, “Do you still question whether or not Joe Biden won the election fair and square and got over 270 electoral votes, fair and square?”

“I stand by my vote to object on January 6 and stand by the Texas lawsuit. I have serious concerns about how the election in November was carried out,” Banks told Matthews. “That is where most Republicans in the GOP conference are unified around that single mission and goal and anything that distracts from it will hold us back from doing that.”

That wasn’t good enough for Wallace. “I’m just asking a question,” he told Banks. “Liz Cheney is saying it’s a big lie to say the election was stolen. Liz Cheney is saying that, in fact, Donald Trump contributed to the riot. I’m asking you for your opinion on those issues. Is it a lie that the election was stolen? Did he contribute to the insurrection on the Capitol?”

Banks then claimed he’d “never said the election was stolen,” but also tried to say he had “very serious concerns with how the election was conducted last November.”

Wallace tried one last time to get a straight answer. “When Liz Cheney says history’s watching and you upon can’t go forward until you resolve this question—the election was fair and square, Donald Trump played a negative role—you think she’s misguided making those points?” he asked.

Banks finally gave Matthews a (mostly) straight answer, saying he’s called on Cheney to “rejoin the Republican team and help us go out and win a majority in the midterm election.” He still never took a stance on whether he thought the election as legitimate — which a large number of Republicans, bolstered by others on the same network as Matthews, do not.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Last week, Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic admitted that he had been “complaining way too much” this year en route to pick up 15 technical fouls. Per NBA rules, if Doncic picks up one more technical foul, he’ll face a mandatory one game suspension.

On Sunday in a game against the Cavs, Doncic avoided getting a technical. Which is good, considering the Mavs are currently fifth in the Western Conference and not in the play-in tournament. What’s less good that Doncic got ejected, anyway, for tapping Cavs guard Collin Sexton below the belt.

Upon review, Doncic was hit with a Flagrant 2 and ejected. Here’s how he reacted:

In the locker room, Doncic apparently did the only thing to do in that situation: open up Twitter.

Ultimately, this is as harmless a Flagrant 2 as there is in the NBA. There’s no mandated suspension that comes with this and it’s debatable whether Doncic even deserved it or not. It also didn’t cost Dallas a win — the Mavericks were up 11 when he was ejected in the third quarter and went on to win by 27. The win also keeps them in the pole position for the No. 5 seed in the West, likely resulting in a first-round matchup with the Nuggets.

The Cavs are also sneaky winners here too. Cleveland is currently stumbling its way to the end of the season and Doncic exiting the game didn’t keep them from that. So, somehow, everyone wins here despite one of the league’s best players being ejected.

If you care about pop stars turned movie stars, Lady Gaga, or just internet memes, then the fact that Mother Monster was filming House Of Gucci in Italy was probably already on your radar. That first look photo of that circulated of Adam Driver and Stefani Germanotta decked out in their very ’90s costumes for the film ensured that plenty of people who aren’t fashionistas or Joanne super fans found out about the movie. But now, it looks like filming is wrapping up for the project, and at the end of the project Gaga has some heartfelt words for the support she felt from Italian fans during the filming.

“I wish to thank all of Italy for cheering me on while I film this movie—I hug & kiss you, tell you I believe in you,” she wrote on Twitter earlier today. “To my place of origin—a country built on the promise of hard work & family. I hope I made you proud. I’m proud to be Italian. Ti Amo. #HouseOfGucci.”

It’s no surprise she’s feeling a little emotional toward the end of this project, after all, it was right in the middle of all of this that her beloved dogs were stolen and her dog watcher was shot and seriously injured in the process. Luckily those dogs are safely home, and Gaga is about to return there, too. It might’ve been a rough start to 2021, but now she’s full of gratitude for fans, even leaving flowers for them and blowing a kiss:

Now, could we get a Chromatica tour on the books? Thanks Stef!

The world of horse racing was hit by a scandal earlier in the day on Sunday when news broke that Kentucky Derby winning horse Medina Spirit failed a post-race drug test. Medina Spirit tested positive for higher than usual levels of betamethasone, and as a result, the horse will have another sample tested that could determine whether or not its win at Churchill Downs will be thrown out.

There are plenty of gigantic ramifications that could come as a result of this — namely that its trainer, Bob Baffert, had set the all-time record when Medina Spirit became his seventh horse to win the Derby. Far down the list of ramifications is that it allowed former president Donald Trump the opportunity to remind people that he really misses having internet platforms to opine on things, as he released a statement in which he called Medina Spirit “a junky” and made up some stuff about how the whole world is laughing at us.

The question that exists here, beyond why exactly Trump commented on this, is how a horse having an elevated level of an anti-inflammatory corticosteroid is proof that things are going bad in a country. Other questions we have: whether he knew for sure that Medina Spirit was the horse or if he thought it was the jockey, can a horse be “a junky.”

Baltimore rapper YTK went viral on Saturday morning after he released his new single, “Let It Off,” which features a distinct sample of Mariah Carey’s 2005 track “Shake It Off.” After someone on Twitter reposted it with the caption, “Mariah Carey has 24 hours to respond,” Carey responded in a very light-hearted manner, writing “How about y’all have 24 hours to respond to my lawyers (purple heart).” It was later revealed that the singer’s reply was indeed a joke, but what some may not have realized is that Questlove also had a role in the ordeal.

The person who posting the inciting tweet reached out to Questlove to aid in clearing the sample for YTK’s track. Questlove then messaged Mariah and was able to put the Baltimore rapper in touch with the right people to begin the clearance process. He later explained on Twitter why he helped YTK get the sample cleared. “I’m DYIN,” The Roots drummer wrote in a tweet. “I helped w the Mariah sample cause 11 years ago we were in the same situation in which Erykah has 24 hours to clear “Gone Baby Don’t Be Long” w Paul McCartney & Lenny Kravitz saw the tweet & hit up Stella to hit her pops & the song was saved! #PayItForward.”

“Gone Baby Don’t Be Long” can be found on Erykah Badu’s 2010 album, New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh), on which Questlove is credited on two songs. As for YTK, it remains to be seen if and when the rapper will land the sample clearance.

Seth Rogen and James Franco first achieved notice together. They were both on Freaks and Geeks, the one-season show that launched so many careers, and since then they’ve regularly teamed up, from Pineapple Express to This is the End to The Interview. But they may never do so again: In a new interview with the Sunday Times (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), Rogen finally spoke bluntly about the long-standing sexual misconduct allegations lodged at his longtime screen partner.

Franco has been accused of inappropriate behavior a number of times in the last decade. In 2014, a 17-year-old accused him of contacting her over Instagram DM, trying to schedule a meet-up. In 2018, five women accused him of various unseemly behavior. Franco has denied all the allegations. When Rogen was recently asked about those accusations, he took a sharper tack than he ever had before.

“What I can say is that I despise abuse and harassment and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that,” Rogen said.

The actor and filmmaker also talked about the time he made a joke about the allegations made against Franco while hosting SNL in 2014. “I decided to prank James Franco,” he joked. “I posed as a girl on Instagram [and] told him I was way young. He seemed unphased. I have a date to meet him at the Ace Hotel.”

Cut to seven years later and Rogen says he “very much regrets making that joke,” which he called “terrible.” He added, “I also look back to that interview in 2018 where I comment that I would keep working with James, and the truth is that I have not and I do not plan to right now.”

Recently Rogen has re-evaluated some of his past actions, including apologizing to Emma Watson for his handling of a scene in This is the End that got a little too extreme, prompting her to drop out of it entirely.

(Via The Sunday Times and EW)

Despite having 12 albums to his name, DJ Khaled hasn’t spent too much time atop the album charts. His first No. 1 was 2016’s Major Key, which came a decade after his debut Listen… The Album. Khaled earned his second chart-topper a year later with Grateful. He came up short in 2019 with Father Of Ashad, whose release was infamously bungled. This time around, Khaled has nothing to worry about, as Khaled Khaled debuted at the top of the Billboard 200.

The album debuted with a total of 93,000 units in its first week, a number comprised of 76,000 streaming equivalent album units and 14,000 pure album sales. Despite it topping the charts, the first-week total is the lowest amount for Khaled since his 2015 album, I Changed A Lot, which debuted with only 25,000 equivalent album units.

Looking further down the chart, the next four positions are occupied by former No. 1 albums. Moneybagg Yo’s first chart-topping album, A Gangsta’s Pain, clocks in at No. 2, while Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album holds still at No. 3. Justin Bieber’s Justice takes a step upward from No. 4 while Young Thug and YSL’s Slime Language 2 slipped down to No. 5

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