Month: July 2021

John Mayer’s new album Sob Rock is set to drop in less than 24 hours, and ahead of then, he sat down for a big conversation about it with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. During their chat, he explained why he views the new album as a “sh*tpost.”

He said:

“What I would love other people to understand is that there is no more reason to have to adhere to any given idea of cool. Especially post-pandemic, which, for the first time in anyone’s lives, stopped the clock on hyper-modern day trade of culture. And so for me, I went, ‘Well, I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. And in fact, I can make a record that’s, in some way, provocative, if not antagonizing,’ right? And then I did what I thought was going to be antagonizing, and this is the most important part of the conversation, I think, creatively. You may just have to dress up your intentions to make something different. And call it by a name that no one else is going to call it after it’s made, and for me it was like, ‘I want to get in trouble. I want someone to tell me this is sh*t.’

And I made a record that, to me at the time, only in a way to coax something out of me that I wouldn’t have normally done, sh*tpost a record. It’s called Sob Rock because it’s a sh*tpost. But more importantly, it’s what I thought was a sh*tpost, and this gets down to where artists sit in front of you and play you what they think is their garbage, and you go, ‘That’s the best thing I ever heard you play.’ It makes a mockery of their interpretation of the experience, which is just enough to break out of the mold and make something unique.”

He went on to say that part of the inspiration behind the album was his need to do something different, saying, “The reason you have to is because I never want to be that artist who runs out of paint colors and begins to just make the same songs over and over again. If you’re lucky enough to be 20 years in, you do have to deal with the fact that, wow, these paint colors they want me to use, it’s another blue painting. It’s another blue painting with a white stripe. It’s another blue painting with a white tree. It’s another blue painting with a white car. So for me, I’m only interested if I get to put new paints on the canvas. And if my way of doing it at this time was, literally no one’s looking. This one’s called Sob Rock because you just would never have imagined that was the name of the record.”

Watch the full interview above.

Sob Rock is out 7/16 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.

Donald Trump has a habit of downplaying many of the most terrible things he’s ever said or done with the “I was only joking” excuse. But the former president has never been known for his rapier wit—nor for enjoying being the butt of other people’s jokes. So it was hardly surprising when he tweeted his annoyance at late-night shows like SNL for making fun, or when he attempted to get the DOJ to investigate these late-night comedy shows for… making jokes. But Trump wasn’t the only one complaining: Many of Trump’s unhinged MAGA faithful took a cue from their leader and bombarded the FCC to complain about all the Trump-ribbing happening on Saturday Night Live—a show that’s been poking fun at politicians of all ideological stripe for almost 50 years.

As VICE reports, Trump supporters logged a whopping 360 pages of complaints against NBC, SNL, and other comedians who dared to mock the former president and his endless series of gaffes while occupying the White House. While some of the complaints were as eloquent and to-the-point as Trump himself—”a tv show snl nbc”—others offered quite a bit more food for thought.

A couple of key moments inspired the most amount of MAGA-produced vitriol, like when Michael Che referred to the 45th president as a “bitch” and a “cracker” during his “Weekend Update” segment. Here’s just a sampling of those responses:

“Michael Che referred to the President as a ‘cracker.’ This racial slur is offensive to every non-racist American regardless of race, ethnicity, or skin color.”

Got it.

“A host of Saturday Night Live referred to the President of the United States as a “bitch” and a “cracker” on live television. That type of language has no place on public cable TV, especially on a program that so many families enjoy.”

Families?!

“SNL’s derogatory “Cracker” and “Bitch” comments about President Trump are atrocious and I will no longer be watching SNL at all—nor my children—now or ever.”

Who are these kids watching SNL with their parents? Who are these parents watching SNL with their kids?

“What happened on SNL last Saturday where they called Trump a ‘cracker’ and a ‘bitch’ is completely unacceptable. To see if it’s acceptable, simply think if someone said that about President Obama. How can people keep getting away with this indecency?”

Pretty sure Obama wouldn’t have given a sh*t. And most definitely would not have tweeted about it.

“SNL continues to use racial terms which incites violence and hate speech. SNL should be removed from television completely for being racist. Example: calling white people ‘crackers.’”

Using “racial terms” to incite violence and hate speech? That sounds familiar. This person should be a writer for SNL.

You can read all 360 pages of hilarious quotes and complaints on Government Attic.

(Via VICE)

Mindy Kaling dropped by The Late Show on Wednesday to promote her wonderful Netflix show, Never Have I Ever, which returned for season two today. She had a lovely chat with host Stephen Colbert about making dosas with Vice President Kamala Harris and teenage slang, but late in the interview, he apologized for an awkward encounter they had earlier that day. What happened?

“I was backstage getting changed, and I was just in a pair of pants and my bra,” Kaling started before Colbert jumped in. “And I don’t usually do this,” he said. “I usually wait until the guests are in the wings, but I thought I would just go, ‘Hey, have a great show!’ So I popped the door open. I knocked, but I did that knock-and-pop.” (I’m shocked Seinfeld never got around to the “knock-and-pop over nine seasons.)

Kaling didn’t “have any clothes on,” but instead of getting mad at Colbert, she was filled with regret: “I just thought the entire time, ‘I wish I had worn a sexier bra.’ Because I was like, ‘You know, he works hard.’ I have a 10-month-old. It was like a gray bra. Just sad.”

Colbert insisted that he didn’t see a thing, but Kaling blames herself. “And then I was thinking, ‘Whose fault is it, though? Is it the person who doesn’t lock?’ I should have locked the door,” she said. Her team “hurled themselves in front of you like I was an assassin,” Colbert joked, making Kaling “[feel] like Meghan Markle. They were like, ‘You will not pass!’ Like you had bad intentions. Like, it’s still Stephen Colbert.”

You can watch the interview above.

T-Pain famously brought Auto-Tuned vocals to the consciousness of the music mainstream, so he’s somebody who can speak on originality. Indeed, he did just that recently when he drew some attention with a rant he delivered during a Twitch stream, in which he loudly and explicitly shared his frustrations with derivative and unoriginal rappers. He’s not the only one who feels this way, as Dr. Dre has now backed up T-Pain’s rant.

Sharing a clip of the video on Instagram, Dre wrote, “Shoutout to @tpain!! I’m here laughing my f*ckin ass off, but he’s right. I know and feel exactly what you’re saying.”

As a reminder, T-Pain said, “Stop doing that! Do something else, you’re not original! Give me some original sh*t! Stop! Just f*cking do something else! God damn it! Do some different music! We have all the sh*t you’re doing. Lil Uzi Vert is already doing it. Lil Baby is already doing it. DaBaby is already doing it. It’s literally two n****s with Baby in their names that’s already doing all the music you want! Do something else! That’s it! Stop sending me this bullsh*t and then get mad when I don’t like it. Jesus god-damn tap-dancing Christ!”

Revisit T-Pain’s full rant below.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

At one point during Roadrunner, the new documentary about Anthony Bourdain, Bourdain is on a horse ride through the Italian countryside with his last girlfriend, Italian actress and director Asia Argento. Argento asks Bourdain, “Do you feel like you’re in one of your cowboy movies?”

The conversation evolves, with Bourdain telling Argento how he’s always wanted to live in a movie. “Why would you want to live in a movie?” asks Argento, who comes from a family of filmmakers. “I dunno,” Bourdain says. “Because movies are better than real life, I guess?”

“But movies are an illusion,” says Argento.

***

My first impression of Anthony Bourdain was that I didn’t like him. In the beginning, I knew him only through promos for one of his early TV shows. Here was this gangly beanpole in cowboy boots, talking to us via performatively jaded voice-of-God narration, who seemed to be the ultimate personification of New York-Invented-Punk. If you grew up anywhere else, and especially if you grew up going to punk shows anywhere else, you’re sort of hardwired to hate this kind of person — who treats New York as the center of culture in between drags on a cigarette while bragging about not being able to drive. Which is to say, Bourdain initially struck me as A Type Of Guy.

Yet somewhere during the course of his career — partly through actually reading his books, partly through his shows evolving into something a little less performatively anti-cuddly (Bourdain in the beginning existed largely as the Anti-Food Network guy) — I started to get the sense that Anthony Bourdain and I were simpático in some meaningful way. It was a feeling I rarely, if ever, voiced out loud because I knew how corny that sounded. Bourdain was a guy who seemed to make everyone feel that way. He was an all-purpose aspirational avatar for the common man. This was foundational to his entire appeal. Sure, to the world I might look like some dork filing TPS reports in a cubicle, but in my heart I’m a world traveler, sampling shots of cobra venom at a Thai bar and indulging lengthy but meaningful meditations on everything from egg salad to Henry Kissinger.

There’s nothing sadder than thinking of yourself as the guy from TV. And yet, there were objectively some specific parallels between Bourdain and I, weren’t there? Movie obsession, punk rock, literary non-fiction, even jiu-jitsu in his later years — this guy liked all the things I like! What if he wasn’t just A Type Of Guy, but the same Type Of Guy I was?

Even for Morgan Neville, Roadrunner’s Oscar-winning director, this notion of Bourdain-as-fellow-traveler was central to his decision to take on the project. “I’d made films about Iggy Pop, Keith Richards, Orson Welles, Johnny Cash,” Neville told me. “These were Tony’s heroes. Not that taste equals understanding, but at least I felt like I was starting at a place where I had some baseline understanding of the type of guy he was.”

Neville went so far as to make a playlist of every song Bourdain had ever mentioned in a show, piece of writing, interview, or podcast. It ended up being 18 and a half hours long. Because Bourdain was such a “culture vulture,” with interests so diffuse and far-ranging — it raises an interesting question: was there actually anything to that feeling of shared purpose, or was it the horoscope effect? Did we truly share some central humanity with Anthony Bourdain, or was it simply a kind of inevitable overlap, a triangulation between us, as cultural consumers, and Bourdain, the ultimate cultural consumer? Did Bourdain merely become one of those illusions he loved so much?

It was a question that kept gnawing at me throughout my viewing of Roadrunner, even as the film made me laugh and cry, doing all those things movies are supposed to do, and all but cementing my notions of Anthony Bourdain as a fellow traveler. The “Roadrunner” title is a bit of a twofer: it’s the name both of a Modern Lovers song that Bourdain loved, and a description of Bourdain himself, as applied by his friend, the artist David Choe. Who points out in the film, “Tony was the only guy I know who got off heroin cold turkey.”

Thus, as Roadrunner tells it, Bourdain spent his life trying to “outrun his addiction,” transposing it to other obsessions — writing, cooking, traveling, jiu-jitsu, being a father, being a boyfriend. One of the best things Roadrunner does is to offer a pathology to explain why Bourdain was such a cultural sponge. That double entendre title is a clue to Neville’s purpose in Roadrunner, which is, essentially, an attempt at finding the essence of Anthony Bourdain the person amidst all the illusions. Obviously, he was more than just our avatar, some booksmart Jimmy Buffet for overeducated cynics.

Getting to that requires exploring Bourdain’s flaws, the things he would’ve been reticent to put on his own show. This, obviously, is a difficult prospect. Roadrunner has footage of Bourdain appearing to bear his soul, notably at a 12-step meeting in Massachusetts, and again with a psychotherapist in Brazil. Both were originally filmed for Bourdain’s own show, not as genuine introspection but simply attempts to “do as the locals do,” in which Bourdain the host would try, as he often did, to get people to open up by leading by example. He never went to a real 12-step meeting or recovery program in his own life. The clips were never meant to be broadcast, but for Roadrunner they’re perfect. Are these clips Tony offering genuine introspection or merely creating the illusion of it? I suppose it’s a bit like asking about trees falling in the forest.

Bourdain’s final chapter and eventual suicide is the elephant in the room throughout Roadrunner, a shocking end waiting to be acknowledged, explored, explained. Of course, it’s virtually impossible to explain a suicide (and I’ve had some frank conversations with acquaintances who have attempted it), but knowing that doesn’t stop us from tilting at the windmill of ultimate understanding. Survivors can only project, and then argue over whose projection is most correct. We try to retell the same story again and again, hoping that this time it will finally… make sense? What we really want is a different ending.

Some Bourdain friends, like Eric Ripert, refuse to discuss Bourdain’s final days at all. Others talk about Bourdain’s relationship with Asia Argento. “This is going to end badly,” and “this woman will be the death of me,” Bourdain told friends. Ah, clues! But how many times had Bourdain spoken this way other times, about other things in his life, and not ended up hanging himself? Probably a lot.

Roadrunner covers how, partly through Argento, who dramatically recounted her rape by Harvey Weinstein onstage at Cannes, Bourdain became obsessed with the #MeToo movement. He welcomed his role in it, going so far as to cut certain long-time friends out of his life after he’d deemed them antithetical to the cause.

Neville is traversing a minefield here. Almost any depiction of Bourdain in his final days, and especially of Argento’s supposed infidelity, risks being interpreted as an attempt to explain what he did. And explaining and blaming are kissing cousins in this context. Not to mention falling into any number of Evil Woman and Fatal Attraction tropes, fueling an already booming public backlash against Argento.

A lot happened after Bourdain’s death — a New York Times story about Argento paying hush money to a young actor she’d allegedly had sex with while he was underage, which Bourdain knew about; Argento insisting that they were in an open relationship. Save for the infidelity part and its perceived effect on Bourdain, none of this is in Roadrunner. You can sense Neville dipping a toe into this chapter of the story and not liking how it felt.

The lack of an Argento perspective in Roadrunner is glaring. When I asked Neville about it, he told me not interviewing her was a deliberate choice.

“That part of the story is like narrative quicksand. Whenever there was more of it, it just brought up ten more questions, and it gets really complicated,” he said. “I felt like if I’d interviewed her, it would just end up in this kind of she said-they said, litigating everybody’s behavior. And it wasn’t making me feel like I understood Tony any better.”

Neville’s explanation makes complete sense, but you wouldn’t get any of it from the movie itself. Argento is merely an absence. If she’s not there, shouldn’t the film at least be clear on why? That’s the trouble with trying to create an intimate portrait of a man everyone thought they knew in some way. We all can’t help but have opinions on which parts of his story mattered most.

Thus, while Roadrunner is a love letter to Bourdain and a nostalgic watch for all of us who thought we saw something of ourselves in him, it’s also a comment on our inability to truly know anyone else. In that sense, it’s a fitting tribute to its subject, a man who tried assiduously not to present himself as someone who had all the answers; who was as much of a sucker for all those romantic old illusions as we all are.

‘Roadrunner’ opens in theaters on Friday, July 16th and will eventually air on CNN and stream via HBO Max. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

The NBA Finals are stressful, and even the best basketball players in the world can feel the nerves as the stakes get higher and a championship grows ever closer. Many have wondered over the last two games if that is what is happening with Giannis Antetokounmpo, who has asked to check out of both Games 3 and 4 early in the fourth quarter before re-entering later.

Antetokounmpo has eventually returned to the game and looked like his normal, dominant self, but his early exits have caused some speculation as to what is going on with him. Some have posited he’s been too jittery, nervous, or anxious at the outset, the product of getting overhyped for his first home Finals games. However, Giannis is apparently dealing with something else: the call of nature.

It is an incredibly Giannis way to say that he has had to check out of the games to go pee, which, of course, could be a product of some nerves. Whatever the case, Giannis might need to figure out a way to add a bathroom run into his pregame routine going forward, because it’s not ideal for your best player to constantly have to check out of the game after three minutes to take a leak. Still, that’s better than him having some other problem and his play on the court after those bathroom breaks has been outstanding, the Bucks just might need to encourage him to get that out of the way before tipoff.

Game 4 of the 2021 NBA Finals was the best of the series, with the Milwaukee Bucks coming back in the fourth quarter to even the series against the Suns as it goes back to Phoenix on the backs of some sensational play from their top stars, Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Middleton led the way offensively with 40 points, providing the much-needed shot-making for Milwaukee to keep them within striking distance while Devin Booker was going crazy on the other side. The All-Star wing was nothing short of sensational, hitting key shots in key moments, both to end the first half and down the stretch in the fourth to help the Bucks take the lead and pull away.

However, the moment of the game, undoubtedly, belongs to Giannis Antetokounmpo. The two-time MVP started slow, but finished the night with 26 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists, three steals, and two blocks, none bigger than his last of the night that prevented what looked like a sure lob finish by Deandre Ayton that would’ve tied the game at 101-101.

It immediately goes on the list of the best blocks in Finals history, particularly when considering the stakes of the moment. Phoenix would never regain the lead or get the game tied again, and the Bucks don’t get the free throws late to put the game on ice if Giannis doesn’t snuff out that lob. Everything about the play is outstanding, from the way he shuts off Booker’s driving lane, meeting him high at the free throw line to ensure he can’t get comfortably to his favorite midrange jumper, and then having the ability to pivot as soon as the lob goes up, cover the ground to get to the rim, and somehow have the bounce and extension to block a 7’1 man who caught the ball at the top of the square from finishing (all without fouling).

I, at this moment, cannot get enough of this block so here are as many looks at is as I can find, starting with the slowed down reverse angle the broadcast showed.

Here’s phantom cam.

Here’s baseline phantom cam.

Here’s the super slowed down wide angle from the broadcast (where you can really see how much ground he covers with such efficiency).

And here is the photo that will live on forever for Bucks fans.

Even Giannis’ postgame breakdown of the block is tremendous, as he admits he thought he was about to get dunked on.

Just how often we see that block in video packages during future Finals will be determined by the outcome of the series, but win or lose, that is one of the most incredible individual defensive efforts you will see in a moment such as that and it deserves to be celebrated as such. For Giannis, it is maybe the best example of his gifts as a defender, from size, length, and strength to footwork and speed, it is all on full display for what has to be the signature moment of his career thus far.

Britney Spears has received plenty of love from the music industry as she continues her conservatorship battle. Courtney Love recently shared a cover of the pop sensation’s 2000 track, “Lucky,” while musicians like Justin Timberlake, Halsey, Mariah Carey, and more took to social media to deliver warm messages to her. Another wave of support came on Wednesday after Britney appeared in court once again to receive approval for a new lawyer. It’s here that she also voiced her displeasure with her father’s role in the conservatorship. After the hearing was all said and done, she was met with encouraging words from Ariana Grande in an Instagram post.

The singer commented under a post of Britney riding a horse and doing cartwheels in a field, writing, “YOU ARE SO VERY LOVED AND SUPPORTED,” adding a white heart at the beginning and end of her message.

Grande’s message comes after a judge allowed Britney to retain her newly appointed lawyer. Former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart will now represent the singer after her former attorney, Samuel D. Ingham III, resigned from the position. In that same hearing, the singer reportedly thanked the #FreeBritney movement for their support, saying, “It’s because of them I am here today. It’s because of them I have the f*cking strength to speak up against my family who have silenced me for years.”

The singer is also requesting more than just the end of the conservatorship. “I’m here to get rid of my dad and charge him with conservatorship abuse,” she said in court, according to NBC News, adding that “this conservatorship has allowed my dad to ruin my life.”

You can check out the post from Britney and Ariana’s comment above.

The NBA Finals arrived at Game 4 in Milwaukee with the Suns leading 2-1, but the Bucks feeling confident after a 20-point win in Game 3. In that game, Devin Booker had his worst performance of the playoffs, scoring just 10 points and sitting the entire fourth quarter as Monty Williams seemed intent on getting his star some rest in what was increasingly becoming a lost cause.

That decision seemed to pay dividends early in Game 4, as Booker came out on a mission and carried the Suns offense almost single-handedly with one of the best individual scoring efforts the NBA Finals has ever seen. Booker scored 38 points on 22 shots in the first three quarters of action, serving as the only Suns player in double figures until a fourth quarter Jae Crowder free throw got him to 10 with just over seven minutes to play (Crowder finished with 15, second most on the Suns). Booker did it all without making a three-pointer — he made a couple almost threes with his foot on the line — as it was a midrange shot-making exhibition from the young star to bounce back from a disappointing Game 3 in a big way.

On the other side, Khris Middleton did his best to provide an answer for the Bucks, keeping Milwaukee in the game and knocking down a late three in the second quarter to tie the game going to the half.

Booker picked up where he left off in the third quarter, just lighting up the Bucks with 18 in the third as he looked to be headed for a legendary Finals performance.

However, like Deandre Ayton in Game 3, foul trouble plagued Booker who picked up his fifth foul just over a minute into the fourth quarter and went to the bench for the next five minutes, where the Bucks started reeling in the sluggish Phoenix offense — but to the Suns credit, they were able to hold the lead until Booker returned.

Milwaukee’s offense was likewise struggling to hit shots for much of Game 4, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton (to an extent) as the lone exceptions. It was those two who provided the playmaking on both ends late to lead the Bucks to a thrilling victory, as they showed a resiliency in the fourth once thought to be a significant void on this Bucks team.

A seemingly pivotal moment in the game came with under four minutes to play when the Bucks got out on the fastbreak and somehow Booker wasn’t called for a foul as he wrapped up Jrue Holiday, with Giannis cleaning up the loose ball to make it a one-point Phoenix lead.

Booker clearly tried to give a foul, putting his hand on Holiday’s back and wrapping up, but somehow wasn’t called, a gift from the basketball gods to the Suns to keep their star in the game. However, that didn’t prove to be the break Phoenix needed to win the game and take a commanding series lead, as Pat Connaughton gave the Bucks their first lead of the fourth quarter with a corner three off a beautiful feed from Giannis.

Booker had the answer initially with his first bucket of the fourth to tie the game, and then Jae Crowder knocked down a pair of free throws to give Phoenix a two-point lead again at 99-97.

At that point, Middleton woke up with back-to-back midrange jumpers to give Milwaukee a 101-99 lead. On the ensuing Suns possession, Booker drew all of the attention of the Bucks defense and threw a lob up to a wide open Deandre Ayton that looked to surely tie the game, but Giannis had other ideas producing the play of the game with an outrageous block on Ayton’s dunk attempt.

That block will live in Finals lore forever should the Bucks come back to win the championship, as it’s up there with some of the very best individual defensive plays we’ve ever seen, considering the moment.

Middleton missed two shots on the other end to take a two-possession lead, but Chris Paul slipped and turned it over for Phoenix, with Middleton finishing over Booker on the runout to give Milwaukee a 103-99 lead with under a minute to play.

A Booker miss on a layup (where he thought he was fouled) effectively put the game away as Middleton earned back-to-back trips to the free throw line to put the game on ice. In the end, the Bucks finished with a 109-103 win and send the series back to Phoenix all even at 2-2, with Game 4 providing the most drama we’ve had thus far in the Finals.

It delivered on all notes, with Booker providing a sensational individual performance with 42 points on 28 shots, Middleton nearly matching him with 40 points of his own on 33 shots, and Giannis stepping up on both ends when his team needed him most, posting 26 points, 14 rebounds, eight assists, three steals, and two blocks — including the lasting image of the game with his block on Ayton.

As for Game 5, we’ll have to see if the Suns can finally get their stars going at the same time. That issue has often plagued the Bucks, but in Game 4 it was Phoenix’s turn to see one of its stars struggle to provide the needed support for the other, as Chris Paul was rather disastrous out there with 10 points, seven assists, and five turnovers on 5-of-13 shooting. For Milwaukee, Jrue Holiday was likewise dreadful offensively, continuing his shooting woes in the series, but his defensive effort on Paul negated that and Middleton stepped up in a heroic way to carry the Bucks offense for stretches, most notably late in the fourth quarter.

Listen. I know Black Widow is still in theaters, What If and Hawkeye are just around the corner, a second season of Loki has been confirmed, and both Shang-Chi and The Immortals look like they are going to slap, but let me just say: I’m going to miss Loki. I’m going to miss Tom Hiddleston’s buttery-smooth deliveries, Sylvie’s endless spunk, Mobius mild-mannered charm, and of course that wonderfully synth-y scores. But above all, I’m going to miss these little break down’s and deep dives into fan theories — so let’s revisit one, then do this one last time.

For quite some time, we’ve suspected Kang the Conqueror was behind all of *waves arms around* this and, as it turns out, we were right. While the series’ final episode never dropped the character’s name outright, the charismatic self-proclaimed “conqueror” played by Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country) is none other than Kang himself — or, at the very least, a variant of Kang.

You see, during Loki, Sylvie, and Kang’s exchange, Kang tells the pair that while the operation he’s running seems a bit shady, he is the lesser of far greater evils and he actually created the TVA in an effort to prevent a war across timelines. According to Kang, by creating the TVA and maintaining a sacred timeline, he subsequently prevented the rise of his evil selves and presumably the less quirky and far more deadly Kang(s). Based on this knowledge — as well as his attire and the lack of Major’s role being listed as “Kang” in the credits — it would seem this man is actually Immortus, a futuristic and much more peaceful version of the villain. However, this first appearance of Immortus is also the last thanks to Sylvie, and his final words (“see you soon”) imply the actual baddie is on his way. So, let’s refresh on just who he is and what’s he’s going to be doing in the MCU.

Kang the Conqueror (real name Nathaniel Richards, a descendent of Reed Richards’ family) is a Marvel villain who is pretty damn close to Thanos and Doctor Doom level in terms of threat level. While he doesn’t have any superpowers per se, he is a master physicist and genius who specializes in time travel and engineering, which enables him to do some serious multiverse damage. Back when Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was revealed, Jonathan Majors was announced to be playing Kang in the 2023 film. All of this in addition to the details of WandaVision, What If, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — all of which have a lot to do with multiverses — led us to believe he was going to be the main villain in Marvel’s phase four, and Loki has started the build-up even earlier than anticipated.

As far as what lies ahead, now that the real Kang has essentially been untethered from a dead-end universe, we can expect him to emerge to wreak havoc in the MCU, particularly in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and it wouldn’t be surprising to see more allusions to him in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. In each of the films, the Marvel multiverse is seemingly a major factor, as Spider-Man potentially features former Spider-Men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in it as well as villains from their respective franchises and I mean, “multiverse” is literally in the next Doctor Strange films name. As the MCU adds more names to its roster, it’s likely we’ll see the next group of older heroes — heroes like Thor, Star Lord, Doctor Strange, and the like — make their departure. Loki is only the start of how much Marvel will be pulling on our heartstrings in the coming years, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we can’t wait to experience it all.