Month: September 2021

For some who are terminally online, the phrase “Hubby started running fever. I have the paste” may go down as one of the most haunting moments of a deadly pandemic stretching ever closer toward its second full year. It hasn’t been great, but at this point, if you’re a fully vaccinated person following best social distancing practices and using masks, there’s really not much more you can do to help those who cannot help themselves.

Which is why the rise of anti-vaxxers using an animal dewormer called Ivermectin is so baffling to watch from afar. Through a series of far right grifts, the animal medication has become an object of obsession from people who believe the entirely unproven claim that the “horse paste” can prevent or cure coronavirus. In some places, people are overdosing on the paste that’s not properly dosed for humans, and even Joe Rogan is downing the paste to stave off his own COVID-19 infection.

The Daily Show is certainly not afraid to seize upon weird right-wing phenomena and make fun of it. Recently, the show has advertised a fake law firm for Capitol rioters. And on Friday, that fake commercial trend continued with an ad for an even “more effective horse medicine” to use instead of just, you know, getting a vaccine.

“The only COVID vaccine designed specifically for horses,” the ad reads, which is a willful misunderstanding of why anti-vaxxers are looking for any solution to coronavirus but the vaccination designed for humans.

Videos like these do nothing to actually end the pandemic, but they do cast a stark light on the lengths people will go to avoid following best practices because of their conspiracy-addled brains. But maybe, just maybe, it’s a kernel of a good idea for vaccine marketers if things stay as bleak as they currently are.

It’s no secret that Drake and Kanye West haven’t been on the best of terms in the last few years. Both men released albums just a week apart whose primary rollout strategies seemed to consist mostly of the two trying to out-troll each other (which kinda worked, considering the streaming numbers and Twitter chatter both have generated so far). Meanwhile, it’s also pretty widely accepted that Jay-Z is one of if not the greatest of all time in rap, so scoring an appearance from him is tantamount to having Michael Jordan bless your hoop career.

So it’s pretty funny that both Donda, which dropped last week, and Certified Lover Boy, which came out earlier this morning, both prominently feature verses from the Brooklyn business mogul, despite Kanye and Drake fighting like two cats in a sack for the past several months (or rather, sniping at each other like Love & Hip-Hop cast members at a reunion special, take your pick). At least, the denizens of Rap Twitter seem to think so, breaking out the jokes and the memes to point out Hov’s split loyalties.

Interestingly enough, the situation is somewhat similar to one involving two of these personalities nearly 20 years ago. Kanye once found himself bridging the gap between Jay-Z and his erstwhile rival Nas at the height of their feud over the “King Of New York” title, producing beats for both men’s albums including the infamous “Takeover” diss from Jay to Nas. Perhaps Jay sees himself playing the vital role Kanye played back then, having the age and experience to make amends with Nas in the meantime (although you could argue things haven’t always been exactly peaceful between them). Who knows? Until then, have a laugh at some of the many, many Twitter jokes about the situation below.

The Killers are fresh off the release of Pressure Machine, their second album in under a year. Last night, they brought a slice of the concept album to The Late Late Show with their pre-taped performance of “In Another Life.”

Ahead of the performance, Brandon Flowers took some time to chat with James Corden. Of Pressure Machine, he said, “These are a different type of song. People are accustomed to hearing big anthemic songs from The Killers, and we feel that pressure when we go in the studio, to deliver and to keep people in the seats at the arenas and the stadiums. And so when everything got shut down, these other songs, in this silence, were able to bloom that otherwise would have been to quiet to compete with your typical Killers song.”

He also noted of “In Another Life,” “I think a lot of people can identify with thinking about those moments in your life and these decisions you made, and they may have seemed micro, but you wonder how big they ended up being and what road they led you down. I think that that’s really where this came from, and me wondering, had I not left… there’s been so much made about The Killers being from Las Vegas, but I spent so much of my formative years in this little town in rural Utah. You wonder about what your life would have been like had I stayed.”

Watch clips from The Killers on Corden above.

Pressure Machine is out now via Island Records. Get it here.

In a solid move that proves he takes the health and safety of his fans seriously, Patton Oswalt has pulled four dates from his upcoming comedy tour after venues refused to put COVID restrictions in place despite the continue rise in cases from the Delta variant. Oswalt wanted proof of vaccination and a recent negative test before allowing audiences to enter, and while most venues complied with the reasonable request, others did not.

“I’ll give you one guess as to which state it was,” Oswalt said in an Instagram video announcing the canceled tour dates. While that state was, of course, Florida, it wasn’t the only one. Oswalt also had to pull a show in Salt Lake City, Utah. Via Variety:

“This difficult decision was made due to the rising numbers of COVID cases. I have an ego but my ego is not big enough to think that people should die to hear my stupid comedy,” the performer said. “Hopefully in the future we can rebook those, when sanity holds sway again.”

You can Oswalt’s Instagram video below:

For anyone planning to catch “Patton Oswalt Live: Who’s Ready To Laugh?” comedy tour and live in the affected states, here are the dates that have been pulled:

12/27 – Fort Lauderdale
12/29 – Orlando
12/30 – Clearwater
1/7 – Salt Lake City

If you’d like Patton to return to your city, get the jab and mask up until the cases go down. It’s that easy.

(Via Patton Oswalt on Instagram)

Training camps will open across the NBA in less than one month. That may seem wild given that Summer League concluded only two weeks ago in Las Vegas, but the league is in the midst of another shortened offseason and the bright lights will come on in the very near future. One of the staples of the offseason is the discussion (or argument) about where teams might fall in the standings, and die-hards often use season win total over/under projections as a baseline for this exercise.

To that end, it is time to go over or under on each team in the Southwest Division. For record-keeping purposes, each line below comes from the folks at DraftKings and they will come to you in alphabetical order.

Dallas Mavericks – Over 48.5

This isn’t a number that I love, in part because the Mavericks hired Jason Kidd. Dallas won at a 48-win pace a season ago, even with a rough start, a thoroughly underwhelming season from Kristaps Porzingis, and the knowledge that the swap involving Seth Curry and Josh Richardson ended in disaster for the Mavericks. That should forecast optimism, particularly with Luka Doncic as a leading MVP candidate and some reasonable moves on the margins with Reggie Bullock and the re-signing of Tim Hardaway Jr. As such, the Mavericks feel like an Over team to me, but that optimism is at least slightly mitigated by what I view as a marked coaching downgrade.

Houston Rockets – Under 27.5

Before we get to the ugly stuff, I’m excited about Houston’s future. Jalen Green looks the part of a future standout, Alperen Sengun is incredibly fun, Usman Garuba and Josh Christopher are quite intriguing, and the Rockets still have Christian Wood, Kevin Porter Jr. and others. The Rockets should even be fun to watch but, after a 17-win disaster a year ago, Houston isn’t going to be good and they have incentive to lose late in the season. Young teams are often bad teams. That’s good to remember amid the future-facing excitement.

Memphis Grizzlies – Under 41.5

The Grizzlies are another tricky evaluation. Memphis openly prioritized the future over the present, both with the trades involving Jonas Valanciunas and Grayson Allen, as well as the draft-night selection of Ziaire Williams. With that in mind, one could expect regression from a 38-34 record last year, especially when taking into account how good Valanciunas was for Memphis. On the other hand, the Grizzlies got only 11 games from Jaren Jackson Jr., and he was clearly limited even when playing. Jackson Jr. should help Memphis, but the organizational priority seems to aim beyond 2022 and the West should be competitive. I still don’t love it, but lean Under.

New Orleans Pelicans – Under 39.5

Which New Orleans team is real? Their 31-41 record would put them on a 35-win pace over an 82-game sample. Their point differential, however, is closer to a 39-or-40 win team. That is the starting point of this breakdown, but the Pelicans… might actually be worse on paper? New Orleans does upgrade from Steven Adams to Jonas Valanciunas, albeit at considerable asset cost, but the Pelicans downgrade from Lonzo Ball to Devonte Graham. Then, there is a clear unknown at head coach, and it isn’t as if their competition got worse. Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram are good, but it’s tough to figure out the overall direction in New Orleans. That means an Under lean.

San Antonio Spurs – Over 28.5

If you haven’t seen the over/under for the Spurs, you’re forgiven for falling out of your chair. After making the playoffs in 22 straight seasons, the Spurs have now missed in back-to-back years, but San Antonio was still the equivalent of a 37-or-38 win team a season ago. Now, they are projected for a win total under 30? The Spurs do lose DeMar DeRozan, who was a key piece of their offense, but San Antonio does bring in very helpful vets in Thad Young and Doug McDermott (although Young could be on the move sooner than later). Those pieces, coupled with talent on the perimeter and the (very) important presence of Gregg Popoovich, leads me to the Over. They won’t be good, but they’ll be competitive.

At this point, people reacting to Lil Nas X’s provocations are doing more work to promote him and his music than he is. Every time he comes up with a colorful troll, they react loudly on the internet, drawing more attention to his stunts and the work behind them. He responds with another promotional prank and they lose it all over again. At this point, it’d probably be best for them if they stopped reacting, which is exactly what Nas wants.

But then we wouldn’t get gems like watching Twitter relentlessly roasting Boosie for his borderline obsession with the 22-year-old rapper turned pop star. Certainly, it’s a lot of fun to just imagine Boosie sitting around thinking about Nas’ latest antics and getting very … ahem … piqued about it. In this case, the antic in question is Nas’ recently released “pregnancy” photoshoot (with his album Montero, his baby — get it?), which was published by no less an outlet than People magazine — a subversive, historical act in itself.

Lil Nas seems to have long since decided that since he’ll be made a public spectacle anyway, he’s going to control the narrative and wring every advantage for himself out of the media’s invasive coverage, lightly satirizing the public fascination with the lives of celebrities along the way. And Boosie can’t stand it. “NAS X WTF U JUST DONT STOP,” he tweet at three o’clock in the morning. “I THINK HES GOING TO TURN AROUND N SUCK ONE OF HIS BACK GROUND DANCERS DICK ON NATIONAL TV.”

While that’s … well, not something that you even can do because the FCC is a thing, it’s very interesting that that’s where Boosie’s mind goes. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks — or at least, fans Twitter do. It didn’t take long for folks to question why Boosie seems to spend so much time thinking about Lil Nas X when he could be doing, y’know, literally anything else. When Montero does come out, it’s easy to wonder whether the Louisiana rap legend will be one of the first to hit “play” while pondering what Nas’ next move will be.

Before there was Rick and Morty, there was Doc and Mharti.

Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty is one of the biggest shows on television with millions of fans (and millions earned on meta commercials). But creator Justin Roiland’s original vision had nothing to do with incest babies or talking pickles — he just wanted to “troll” Universal Pictures with a Back to the Future parody.

“I actually made this as a way to poke fun at the idea of getting cease and desist letters,” he said. “At the time (October 2006) I had nothing to lose and my original intention was to call this “back to the future: the new official universal studios cartoon featuring the new Doc Brown and Marty McFly” and then I’d just sit back and wait for a letter from their lawyers to arrive. That’s actually why it’s so filthy. I was just looking to ‘troll’ a big studio.”

The Rick and Morty empire began here:

Doc Brown and Marty McFly are the obvious inspirations for Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith, so in a full-circle move, Adult Swim has released a live-action promo ahead of the season five finale where Rick is played by Doc Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd. Jaeden Martell (It) portrays Morty, which isn’t a reference, but it is excellent casting.

The tweet is a reference to a multi-verse, but fans are focused on Doc Brown’s Rick.

The Rick and Morty finale airs this Sunday, September 5.

(Spoilers for Shang-Chi and the MCU will obviously be found below.)

Pushing a superhero tentpole movie out the door in less than two years after initial announcement is a substantial feat during normal times, so Destin Daniel Cretton definitely did the thing with Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings during, well, our current times. The film’s a stunning action piece that worldbuilds like a mofo and gives us plenty of dragon action, and the end-credit scenes manage to top them all. Well, maybe all of them. Nick Fury’s announcement of the Avengers initiative probably can’t be beat, but let’s just say that we don’t simply have people sitting around and fretting over the Tesseract. Instead, the first end-credits scene does a lot to tie this otherwise free-standing movie to the MCU with much appreciated humor on the side.

First, it’s worth noting that we don’t precisely know when this movie falls into the MCU timeline. Much of the action takes place in San Francisco (with no Ant-Man run-ins), and it’s set in a time where smart phones are all the rage, yet full-on in-flight meals are offered in coach (which hasn’t happened since pre 9/11). That’s a wholly confusing combination, and we’re also clearly observing a post-snap world, as indicated during a casual conversation early-on in the movie. And it’s also a time when Doctor Strange sidekick Wong is participating in a fight club (where he bests Tim Roth’s Abomination) that’s run by Shang-Chi’s estranged sister, Xialing. That’s fun.

In the first end-credits scene, Wong reappears to pluck Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) out of their post-climactic return to reality. He takes them to analyze the Ten Rings (the literal pieces or jewelry, not the personal army of Shang-Chi’s dad, Wenwu) and their origins. The end result is that the origins are mysterious and date back millennia, and the Ten Rings act as a sort-of beacon when activated. More importantly for our immediate purposes, though, Bruce Banner (not in Professor Hulk form, yet he still appears to be suffering from Infinity Gauntlet burns) and Carol Danvers (with long hair intact) are on hand to offer commentary. Then Carol pops off on a Captain Marvel adventure, Banner awkwardly wishes everyone well without knowing what to make of the rings, and Wong tells Shang-Chi and Katy that their lives have changed forever.

From there, we see Wong join his new friends for karaoke, which is simply delightful. Here’s what’s also great about this scene: it simply presents tons and tons of questions for the future and doesn’t make us feel slighted by not answering them. Also, hey, this is the first theater-only Marvel release in since the start of the pandemic, so it was nice to feel some levity. People freaking loved this scene.

And here’s a fan theory about the second end-credits scene, in which is a brief one that shows Xialing taking over her father’s organization and using it to train an army of fighters that just happen to be all female. We then see a message about the Ten Rings being scheduled for a return. Well, a Twitter user wants to know this: what if Xialing is actually training the rescued Black Widows? Well, timeline considerations aside, it’s not impossible!

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will arrive in February 2021.

Even if you’re not familiar with Billie Eilish‘s story by now, you probably know that the 19-year-old pop sensation is inextricably linked with Los Angeles. So it only makes sense that she would host a cinematic (because, LA; because, movies) concert in her hometown. Even if no one can technically attend. Enter: Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter To Los Angeles, currently streaming on Disney+.

If you need catching up, here’s a primer on Billie’s SoCal heritage: Born in East LA to showbiz parents, Billie grew up singing in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and started writing songs as early as age 11. Her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was famously written in her teeny Highland Park bedroom with brother and producer Finneas. Today, Eilish is a multiple-Grammy-winning household name, ultra-famous for her otherworldly vocals, lyrical honesty, and genre-jumping soundscapes. She’s also gotten the film treatment before: earlier this year, fans got an up-close look at Billie’s incalculable rise to fame in RJ Cutler’s Apple TV+ documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, which felt satisfying to watch largely due to how unflinchingly it portrayed the upshots and unglamorous downsides to its subject’s viral success.

The viewer got to tag along with Billie as she and Finneas pieced together what would become When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? They watched Billie meet her musical hero, Justin Bieber, fill her room with free swag, and amasses literal armfuls of Grammys. Yet the doc also showed the frustrating and mundane aspects of global fame: negative comments from fans and tour injuries and burnout, among other things. Now, in support of the recently released Happier Than Ever, which she has not been able to properly perform live due to the pandemic (yet — her tour kicks off this month), Billie has teamed up with Disney for the hour-long A Love Letter to Los Angeles, where she performs her second album from start to finish. It’s probably unfair to compare The World’s A Little Blurry to A Love Letter, given how different they are. And yet: knowing the raw visual experiences audiences have had with Billie, between Cutler’s doc and her many music videos, it’s easy to feel slightly underwhelmed by this glossy, Disney-princess iteration.

Of course, this is not to say that watching A Love Letter To Los Angeles is a waste of time; far from it. As promised in the title, the special is a true celebration of Billie’s hometown, with the singer — at times animated like an actual Disney character — driving around Hollywood at night, gazing at billboards splashed with her face, and sitting in Eastside dining gem Brite Spot. The very same children’s choir she grew up singing in joins her on Happier Than Ever standout “Goldwing.” Billie and Finneas are joined by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who add a dramatic, old-Hollywood oomph to the proceedings. Even the performance setting, Hollywood Bowl (totally empty this time), feels appropriate, given how much that outdoor venue means to both the LA music and film worlds (the Bowl has famously appeared in movies like Beaches, Xanadu, and the original A Star Is Born). Because the seats are empty, fans will no doubt love the unexpectedly intimate experience of watching Billie from the comfort of their living rooms. If they’re also from LA, which the special takes great care to portray in the rosiest light possible, they’ll love it that much more.

But something also gets lost when looking at Billie through the sanitized Disney lens. Billie as animation is nice, sometimes majestic (though having her sprout actual cartoon wings feels irritatingly on-the-nose; it’s the City of Angels, OK, we get it). And while the Los Angeles Philharmonic adds soaring layers to songs like “Everybody Dies” and “Therefore I Am,” Billie’s own vocals sound pre-recorded, which takes away from the live experience. Even the color tones throughout look monochrome, with Billie and Finneas costumed in various shades of brown and taupe. For an artist that transmits such a gorgeous array of color and substance at all times, these visuals risk looking a little drab.

Part of what makes Billie an appealing pop star is the raw, relatable emotion she displayed in The World’s A Little Blurry, not to mention the articulate, timely lyricism on Happier Than Ever, where she addresses fame, industry double-standards, and abuses of power. And, don’t get me wrong, an evening concert in an empty Hollywood Bowl, surrounded by orchestral standard-bearers, is nothing to outright dismiss. Probably the best way to enjoy the Disney+ concert special is if you think of it as an amuse-bouche to the real thing.

A Love Letter to Los Angeles is now streaming on Disney+. Happier Than Ever is out now Darkroom/Interscope.

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 — This is getting out of hand

It only dawned on me recently that there are so many good shows now. I think the problem is that we went so long without lots of good shows at once. Things got weird for a while there between various shutdowns and protocols and delays. There were still some good shows in there, but they were spaced out a bunch and some of them weren’t even really that good, if we’re being honest. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. And in a world with no shows, Manifest becomes so blisteringly popular after getting canceled that Netflix saves it for a supersized 20-episode final season. Again, it was weird.

But things are getting normal enough now that the flood of shows can rush back to our screens again, and they sure have done that. And they still are doing that. And they will continue to do that for the foreseeable future. It’s crazy that we all used to live like this, just inundated with shows coming at us from every angle, on our computers and televisions and sometimes from the same website where we buy power tools and Gatorade. It’s going to take some adjusting to get back into it.

But hopefully, it doesn’t take long. Look at what we’ve got going on right now. What We Do in the Shadows just came back and that show remains just about perfect. Reservation Dogs is on FX and Hulu, too, and that sucker is a heck of a ride. Only Murders in the Building and Nine Perfect Strangers are on Hulu too, and while I’m enjoying the first one of those a whole lot more than the second, it is undeniable that both are big deals with big stars attached.

Ted Lasso is on, too. People got all worked up about that one recently, not in a great way (more on this in the next section), but that ship is righting itself and remains one of the most pleasant and enjoyable half hours of television you’ll watch any week. Sandra Oh is in a big Netflix show called The Chair that was created by Amanda Peet and produced by the Game of Thrones guys. My beloved Holey Moley is in the middle of its third and stupidest season yet, which I mean in the best way possible. The Other Two and Pen15 and Archer are all back. The White Lotus just ended and gave us a finale so wild that this was not even a top-three crazy thing that happened.

And it is only going to get more intense from here. Take a look at the upcoming schedule if you don’t believe me. Billions is back this weekend. Succession is back in October. Curb Your Enthusiasm is back in October. The Morning Show returns in a couple of weeks. Impeachment: American Crime Story debuts next week and, even though the reviews haven’t been too hot, that’s still a buzzy piece of pop culture you can plop on your plate. B.J. Novak has a big new prestige-y show called The Premise coming to FX soon. There’s a Ken Burns documentary about Muhammad Ali on the way and I am going to watch it just entirely too hard.

And that’s just the fancier stuff. Network television is coming back, too, which is notable because network dramas have gotten so, so weird lately. They’re like middle children who start acting out when all the attention gets distributed between the oldest and youngest kids. The best current example of this is 9-1-1, a show that once killed a man by having a mall escalator malfunction and crush him as he proposed to his girlfriend. But there are new ones getting added to the mix. Ordinary Joe is an upcoming series that stars James Wolk — Bob Benson from Mad Men, renegade zoologist Jackson Oz from Zoo — as a man living out multiple versions of his life on different timelines, including one where he is a rock star. Natalie Zea is starting in a new show called La Brea that looks just as bonkers as you could ever want. Look at this thing.

So I guess what I’m saying here is that we have a good news / bad news situation on our hands. The good news is that there is so much stuff out there that it’ll be easy to keep yourself entertained as the weather cools off and the sun goes down earlier and we maybe have to hunker down a bit again. The bad news is people are about to start a lot of conversations with, “Oh my God, do you watch…?” and it’s going to get really stressful when you keep answering “ummm, no” and they sigh at you and say “You have to watch it. It’s so good.” You remember those conversations. They’re coming back. This isn’t even all the shows. I’m probably missing an obvious one. I bet someone will reach out to me in a tweet that starts with “actually…” to tell me another good show I’m forgetting. I bet it’s already happened.

So, look. I’ll do my best to keep you abreast of the big stuff, usually in this very column, just so you can be interesting in that conversation. Just so you can speak semi-knowledgeably and not get shamed for missing out on stuff. But it’s going to get really intense really fast. I need you to be ready. I need you to lock in with me. We have to agree to be in this one together to get through it all alive.

But mostly, I need you to watch Reservation Dogs. You do watch Reservation Dogs, right?

You don’t?!

You have to watch Reservation Dogs. It’s so good.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — The Ted Lasso Discourse is officially good again

The Ted Lasso Discourse has been trending in a bad direction for a bit now. It’s all understandable, I guess, if I want to give everyone and everything the benefit of the doubt. The show had a good and uplifting first season that came out of nowhere at a time when people really needed something good and uplifting. The second season was still good and uplifting through the first handful of episodes, but some people felt it was treading water a bit. Again, this is fine. The problem was that all the writers on the internet saw this red meat in front of their faces and started a feeding frenzy. I say this without much judgment because I am also a writer on the internet and Lord in Heaven knows I’ve participated in these buffets in the past, too.

But it is my great pleasure to report that the Ted Lasso Discourse is good again now, and it’s good again for one simple reason: the conspiracy theorists have entered the chat.

There were actually two Ted Lasso conspiracies this week, which is something that is making me smile right now as I type it. Let’s start with the more tame one, just to ease into it. Some people who like to log into various forums and speculate about upcoming Apple products thought that the company might have premiered its new notchless iPhone 13 in the most recent episode. That’s it up there, allegedly, in the hands of Rebecca’s mom at lunch. Our Ryan Nagelhout looked into this one a bit and more or less had it debunked in an hour.

Apple is certainly known for its product placement in its TV shows, as anyone who watched the first season of The Morning Show can attest. But Lasso, a show where a fake soccer team plays against real soccer teams and was filmed amid a pandemic, makes use of a good amount of CGI to make the show somewhat realistic-looking. So this may just be, well, a fake phone that wasn’t an exact model of a real Apple device. Or a computer-created device that simply doesn’t include all the quirks of the real deal.

These are all good and fair points. But even if they weren’t, I mean, it would be really funny if Apple chose to debut their biggest product of the year by putting it in the corner of the screen in the hands of a character’s mom who was only there for a guest spot. Not, like, Jason Sudeikis. Or one of the big-name stars of The Morning Show, which is also coming back soon, as we discussed earlier. Rebecca’s mom. I almost want it to be true.

And speaking of Ted Lasso conspiracies that may or may not involve CGI and that I want to be true, there was also this: A collection of beautiful minds on the Ted Lasso Reddit page are convinced that Roy Kent, the gruff former player who is now an assistant coach, is actually a character that was created with CGI. Our Josh Kurp investigated this one and, boy, was it ever an investigation.

As spotted by Twitter user @guymrdth, the Ted Lasso subreddit includes a thread started last July with the headline, “Ok just started the show and… CGI??” The post reads, “I just started watching the pilot, and i’m up to the scene where roy is called into teds office. Am i crazy or does he look like a complete cgi character?”

Which is incredible. It’s perfect. Going from “Ted Lasso develops slowly and I’m tired of its optimism and also nothing happens” to “ROY KENT IS A SECRET CARTOON” is about as good a twist in a discourse as you’ll ever see. It’s my new favorite thing. I am thisclose to just deciding to accept it as fact and start telling strangers. I might make it My Thing. It’s so stupid and harmless and I did not think any of it could bring me any more joy.

Until…

This, to be as clear as possible, is Brett Goldstein, Roy Kent himself, replying to a tweet that references the conspiracy and includes the link to Josh’s report, with a robot emoji. I saw that and I started typing exclamation points in so many different boxes. I really did not see any way any of this could get better. I figured we had maxed it all out. I was happy with that.

Until…

The Ted Lasso Discourse is officially good again. We did it. I mean, the conspiracy theorists did it, mostly. But we were there. Counts for something.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Holy crap, it is happening…

The Accountant is a good movie. We’ve all discussed this many times and we’ll probably discuss it all again the next time I watch it some weeknight on TNT and refuse to shut up about it, but it’s still true. It’s got everything you could want out of a basic cable movie: Ben Affleck as a forensic accountant who is on the autism spectrum and also a highly-trained assassin; Anna Kendrick telling a long story about paying for a fancy dress with money she won through card-counting; a cast that somehow includes Jon Bernthal and JK Simmons and John Lithgow and Jean Goddamn Smart. It’s incredible. The third act is just one insane reveal after another. I am incapable of turning it off once I start.

And now, finally, after five full years, it is getting a sequel. Allegedly. It was supposed to get a sequel a while ago. Then it didn’t. But now it is, at least according to director Gavin O’Connor, who spilled the beans on a CinemaBlend podcast this week. And if “there’s going to be a sequel to The Accountant” is the type of news that will make you, like me, stop dead in your tracks as though the ghost of Abraham Lincoln showed up at your door with a Hawaiian pizza, I have more good news: It might actually become a trilogy.

”Yeah. Yeah. So, I’ve always wanted to do three because what, the second one’s going to be more with — we’re going to integrate his brother into the story. So there’ll be more screen time for Bernthal in the second one. And then the third movie’s going to be, I call it, ‘Rain Man on steroids.’ The third movie is going to be the two brothers, this odd couple. The third one is going to be a buddy picture.”

I am barely joking when I say I might rent out an entire theater for the next Accountant movie. You can come. We’ll all go out for dinner first. We’ll sit at one long table and talk about The Accountant and then when the bill comes I will grab it and I will do this.

And then I will ask everyone to pitch in. I’m not made of money. But it’ll be fun.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Basketball news

You know how sometimes you see a headline about a movie that was just announced and despite every fiber of your body wanting to shout “WHAT?!” the reaction that comes out is more along the lines of, “yeah, that sounds about right”? Maybe that’s just me. I don’t know. Either way, it sure did happen again this week when news broke that the comedic braintrust of Lord and Miller are making a movie about one-time Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman’s infamous 48-hour midseason escape to Las Vegas.

Via Variety:

Rodman, then a star player for the Chicago Bulls, asked his coach Phil Jackson if he could take a 48-hour vacation in Las Vegas in the middle of the NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz. Even though the Bulls were on the cusp of their second three-peat championship in eight years, Jackson consented, and a sports legend was born. While Rodman and his teammate Michael Jordan detailed these events in the ESPN docuseries “The Last Dance,” the movie will take its own path with the story.

This is, obviously, fascinating, both that Lord and Miller will get to give their own take on it all and the part that it is a real thing that happened. I do not like being the “imagine if this happened today” guy, but, like, imagine if this happened today. Imagine what social media would look like. It would be total chaos. I would love it. Go read up on all of this if you’re not familiar. Or just go watch or rewatch The Last Dance. This part happens at the end of the third episode and through the fourth. My only real hope with it all is that the movie includes a dramatic recreation of, well, this.

Rodman (and Electra) eventually returned from their foray. But, perhaps predictably, not in the most punctual manner. Jordan was on the case.

“He didn’t come back on time. We had to go get his ass out of bed,” Jordan said in the documentary. “And I’m not going to say what’s in his bed or where he was.”

“There’s a knock on the door. It’s Michael Jordan,” Electra said. “I hid. I didn’t want him to see me like that, so I’m just hiding behind the couch with covers over me.”

I need this. I must have it. I had no idea I even wanted it until earlier this week but now I will simply die without it. And while we’re on the subject of basketball-related things involving television and movies that I must have…

MAGIC JOHNSON GO ON BILLIONS

AS THE GOVERNOR

OR MAYOR

OR A CRYPTO BILLIONAIRE

PLEASE

THANK YOU

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Hey look, a good podcast

Seth Rogen has a new podcast. It’s called Storytime and it is pretty self-explanatory. He has guests come on and tell their favorite stories. Some of the stories are funny, some might be serious, some might even be sad. It’s a great idea for a podcast, or for your own life if you’re trying to fill a gap in a conversation that’s grown stale or awkward. People love to tell stories, especially wild ones, especially wild ones where they are the protagonist.

Rogen spoke with Vulture about the new endeavor, which I bring to your attention now for two main reasons: One, because it is cool and you might like it; and two, because Seth Rogen seems like a pretty righteous dude.

Between Yearbook and the podcast, it feels like you’re doing a lot of looking back with these projects. Do you figure you’re aging into a more retrospective phase in your career?
Probably! I’m not doing anything interesting anymore. I’m just a rich guy living in the Hills who never leaves the house.

There are loads of movies and books about that.
Yeah, but they all suck! [Laughs.] Part of it is just self-awareness that my life is uninteresting now. It is objectively not something I would watch if it was dramatized back to me. I’m also interested in how a lot of people I know are getting to the age where they’re starting to look back and think, What are the events that turned me into the person I am? Once you reach your 40s, you start to feel like you’re finally the person you’re going to be, you know? You’ll always change and evolve, but it’s the first time you start seeing no one knows a lot more than you and that you have as much right to reflect as anybody does.

This is all cool. Seth Rogen gets it. The guy is just making funny movies and weird vases and smoking weed on the beach and recording podcasts with his buddies. If I were still in high school and my guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I might just show her this paragraph. Although I suppose that would create some kind of rip in the space-time continuum considering I just wrote this paragraph in the present as a grown-up. There’s a lot to consider here, really.

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 Beth:

You’re the expert on fake and funny names, so I have to ask: What’s your favorite character name from a TV show or movie?

Well, this is impossible. There are so many good ones that I think my brain is overloaded and blanking out. I will say, though, that no matter your opinion on the later seasons of The Office, introducing a pompous slick new manager named Robert California was a stroke of genius. I’m a big fan of locations as last names so that one has always stuck with me. Plus, it’s just a lot of fun to say.

Robert California.

I’ll probably think of two dozen more tonight but this feels pretty solid.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To the great northwest!

Almost a dozen go-karts were stolen from the Family Fun Center in Tukwila on Monday night and police have been recovering the go-karts all over town.

A couple things worth noting here:

• This whole situation was uncovered and examined in beautiful detail by Brian Floyd in this Twitter thread
• GO-KART HEIST

I must know everything about this immediately. I jumped ahead and read the part about the first two go-karts being discovered on the grounds of someone’s business, but don’t worry. There’s plenty more. Like, for example, this.

A third go-kart was found near the Family Fun Center and a fourth was found at the Foster Golf on Interurban Avenue South.

Several go-karts were recovered nearly six miles away in Renton.

SIX MILES

The go-karts were discovered SIX MILES away. Several of them! That is so far to ride in any go-kart, let alone a handful of them that you and your rascal friends have just stolen under the cover of night. I love this. I love it so much. And I love this next part even more.

Police have been driving found go-karts on city streets to return them to the Family Fun Center.

Perhaps you read that last sentence and thought to yourself, “Hmm. You know what would really drive this home for me? If there was a video of the cops driving these go-karts back to the Family Fun Center, possibly with a police escort, possibly with hilariously on-point soundtrack backing it, possibly tweeted from the local news station’s verified account. That would be nice.”

Well, good news, buddy. Crank the sound up for this sucker.

I don’t know who I’m more proud of, the thieves who stole go-karts and left them littered over the entire Pacific Northwest, or the people at the damn news network who made that video. Let’s just call it a tie and move on. There are no losers here.