Father John Misty has revealed the latest video from his album, Chloe And The Next 20th Century. In “Buddy’s Rendezvous,” a man played by Craig Stark is released from prison and embarks on a journey through Los Angeles to reconnect with his daughter, played by Arrow DeWilde.
Clips of memories from a simpler time play throughout the video, as the father eventually makes his way to his daughter and her boyfriend, played by Gilbert Trejo.
The video was directed by Misty’s, wife Emma Elizabeth Tillman.
“‘Buddy’s Rendezvous’ is a world unto itself,” said Emma in a statement. “It is a place out of time. My dream for the video is that it would surrender itself to the power of the song… Although the video and the song can be considered love letters to Los Angeles, the themes are universal. Disappointments, regrets, forgiveness, tenderness, perseverance, and love. The incredible performances by Arrow, Craig, Gilbert, and David Haley all coalesce to bring this vision to life. Cinematography by James Wall on 16mm evokes the down and out feeling of LA, merging past and present. This video could not have been accomplished without the talent of producer Bria Little and creative director and editor Jonathan King.”
Robert Williams is making his impact felt during the NBA Finals, as the hyper-athletic big man has been pushing through a knee injury to serve as a lynchpin to the Boston Celtics‘ defense. Williams is averaging seven points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks in only 25.2 minutes a night against the Golden State Warriors, and when he’s able to perform at his best, scoring on the Celtics becomes much tougher.
Still, that knee injury has left Williams compromised. The man affectionately known has Timelord tore his meniscus earlier this season and came back rather quickly from surgery. A new piece by Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports went through what Williams has done in an effort to take the floor, which has included a whole lot of treatment and, at times, having his knee drained.
“The medical staff has ensured him that he is not at further risk of worsening the repaired knee,” Haynes wrote. “It’s all a matter of pain tolerance.”
One former Celtic saw this report and couldn’t help but remember his own experience with Boston’s medical staff. Isaiah Thomas famously played through a hip injury during the 2017 postseason, which led to him getting shut down in the middle of the conference finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Upon seeing this report, Thomas said the following:
The hip injury nearly torpedoed Thomas’ trade from Boston to Cleveland that offseason, but it ultimately went through. Eventually, Thomas needed to undergo surgery on his hip.
In recent years, as music festivals have become a more prominent portion of the industry’s ecosystem, more artists have begun to fund and promote their own festivals to take advantage. If most of your income comes from live performances, why not get yourself and a bunch of your work friends paid while offering entertainment for your hometown crowd? Entries to this promising space include J. Cole’s Dreamville Festival, Pharrell’s Something In The Water (which is this weekend), Tyler The Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival, and most infamously, Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival. This autumn, a new contender may be throwing his hat in the ring: Kid Cudi.
— The Chosen One : I YOU FRESHIE 4EVER (@KidCudi) June 15, 2022
On social media, Kid Cudi announced that his Moonman’s Landing event would take place in Cleveland, Ohio on September 17, 2022. Although details remain scarce and it isn’t even really confirmed that the event being teased is indeed a festival, that outcome seems the likeliest, as Cudi certainly falls within that same upper echelon of hip-hop with the above-mentioned names and has seen plenty of success on the festival circuit, especially at Rolling Loud, where many of the above performers have appeared.
— The Chosen One : I YOU FRESHIE 4EVER (@KidCudi) June 15, 2022
Whatever Moonman’s Landing turns out to be, it’ll land in the middle of a huge month for Cudi. He’s also releasing his new album, Entergalactic, and its accompanying Netflix animated series on September 30.
Yellowjackets and Euphoria fans have never, ever been happier than to read Variety‘s interview between Christina Ricci and Sydney Sweeney. After bonding over how they’ve both been turned into memes — Sweeney for Cassie on Euphoria and Olivia on The White Lotus; Ricci for Misty on Yellowjackets — the conversation turned to sex scenes.
After Ricci commented that it seems like the Euphoria cast has ownership over their bodies, Sweeney replied, “It’s a very safe environment. I’m very fortunate that I am coming up during a time where there is so much thought in this process, and we now have intimacy coordinators.” Ricci has never worked with an intimacy coordinator, which Sweeney described as “a stunt coordinator for a sex scene. They bring in tools.”
Speaking for all of us, Ricci wondered: “What kind of tools?”
“Sometimes there’s yoga mats that you can put in between each other. Or there’s like pads that you can put, or yoga blocks — there’s some weird stuff. And even if you have agreed to something, they ask you on the spot on the day, ‘Did you change your mind? Because you can.’ It’s really nice. I’ve never felt uncomfortable.”
Ricci, who hasn’t “done a sex scene in a couple years” because “I’m at that age where they don’t ask you to do them so much anymore,” also discussed shooting what sounds like 2006’s Black Snake Moan. “Once I had to do a movie where I was naked pretty much the entire time. The thing that made me more uncomfortable was other people being uncomfortable with me being naked. So what I did, and you probably wouldn’t be allowed to do this now — I just stayed naked,” she said.
The violent coup attempt staged by Donald Trump supporters at his behest is making major news again as televised hearings about the events of January 6 continue in Washington later this month. While some may attempt to downplay the severity of the violence and threat to American democracy from Trump’s failed effort to decertify Joe Biden’s presidential election, the video evidence and testimony already on display has served as a reminder of how bad things got and who was responsible for the attack at the Capital.
And as Stephen Colbert will gladly remind America, the “violent fascist” Proud Boys were front and center to the deadly mayhem. Even if they don’t like the coverage he’s given the attacks on network television in the aftermath of the Trump-encouraged conspiracy. On Wednesday’s show, Colbert broke down what’s happening during the hearings, including Proud Boy leader Joseph Biggs complaining about the “negative press and media coverage” he’s received from Colbert and others.
That section of his opening monologue starts around the 3:30 mark of the video. Colbert, who also pokes fun at Biggs’ insistence that the Proud Boys are not violent right wing organizers and are merely a “fraternity,” had a clear message for anyone upset about the attention he’s giving the group and its leaders.
“Some of the folks being featured in the videos in these hearings are not happy with about all the publicity,” Colbert said (via Huffington Post), noting that Biggs mentioned his show on CBS specifically in an attempt to convince a judge to move his trial for sedition. The callout came from a Newsweek story that covered an earlier segment from The Late Show.
“Biggs’ attorney argued that his client can’t get a fair trial thanks to ‘this week’s televised hearings of the House Select Committee on January 6’ and all the media coverage “from Morning Joe to Stephen Colbert’s Late Show,” Colbert recited from legal filings, drawing cheers from the crowd. The host pretended to get emotional about the callout for his work, too.
“You know, ladies and gentleman, I do a lot of jokes about these violent fascists but,” he paused dramatically, “To hear that even one of them noticed… I… I feel so seen. You hate me, you really hate me.”
He then delivered a clear message in response to the request for comment he got on the “high-profile” case.
“You are going to jail, you neo-numbnut,” Colbert said. “And if you don’t like it, you can come and get me. My name is Joe Scarborough and I love coffee. Welcome to the monkey house, brother.”
Earlier in the week, Herschel Walker took a significant hit to his “model dad” persona when it was revealed that the football star turned Republican senate candidate actually has a secret son. However, less than 24 hour laters, Walker has now admitted that he actually has two more secret children in the mix, bringing the grand total to three.
After The Daily Beast broke the initial news of the 10-year-old boy that he fathered out of wedlock, Walker confirmed on Wednesday night that he has two additional children that the public does not know about. One is a 13-year-old boy, and the other is a daughter that he had in college. The football star has aggressively campaigned with his son, Christian, and has been a vocal critic of absentee fathers in the Black community, which makes the revelations particularly damning. (In a 2020 interview with Diamond and Silk, Walker said, “if you have a child with a woman, even if you have to leave that woman… you don’t leave the child.”)
Realizing how bad the situation looks, Walker has issued a public statement attempting to downplay the whole secret children thing. Via The Daily Beast:
“I have four children. Three sons and a daughter. They’re not ‘undisclosed’—they’re my kids,” Walker said in his statement. “I support them all and love them all. I’ve never denied my children, I confirmed this when I was appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, I just chose not to use them as props to win a political campaign. What parent would want their child involved in garbage, gutter politics like this?”
Walker also pushed back on the notion that the children were “hidden” from the public. “I can take the heat, that’s politics,” he said, “but leave my kids alone.”
The Air Jordan VI is one of the most important sneakers in the entire Air Jordan lineage. While the silhouette might not be as iconic as the Jordan I, III, or IV, the VI represents a turning point for the brand and marked an important shift in both Jordan’s on-court career and his pop culture legacy. Stylistically, it isn’t that different from the Jordan that proceeded it or the one that would follow it (this sneaker, like the III, IV, and V, was designed by Tinker Hatfield), it kept the previous design’s visible air unit and icy sole, but ditched the mesh quarter and fighter-jet-inspired design for something sleeker and luxury sports car-inspired, complete with a spoiler-mimicking heel tab and a plush inner-booty sleeve.
But the most significant thing about the Air Jordan VI is that it’s the silhouette Jordan rocked when he earned his first NBA Championship ring and officially kicked off the Bull’s Dynasty era, making the Chicago Bulls the greatest basketball team of the ’90s (and arguably the modern era). For that alone, the Jordan VI will always have legendary status amongst sneakerheads, basketball fanatics, and Jordan fans alike.
The Air Jordan VI is also significant as it would be the final design to incorporate Nike branding on the shoe’s exterior — subsequent designs would drop the Nike branding as the Air Jordan label continued to solidify itself as its own entity. It wasn’t without its big endorsements either, Spike Lee’s Mars Blackmon was still repping the sneakers in ad campaigns, but the biggest co-sign for the sneaker aside from Jordan himself was its inclusion in Batman Returns, where the sneaker was implemented into Michael Keaton’s bat suit, which, no disrespect to Will Smith, is a way doper co-sign than the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
In celebration of this monumental sneaker silhouette, we’re running through the greatest Jordan VI colorways of all time, in order of when they dropped. Let’s dive in.
Air Jordan VI — Black Infrared, 1991
GOAT
The Black Infrared is the quintessential Jordan VI, it’s the silhouette’s most iconic colorway and still one of the best. This moody black colorway with an icy outsole and splashes of Infrared accents features a nubuck leather upper with matching black laces, embroidered branding, a Jumpman logo underfoot, and an infrared lace lock.
The sneaker also features a layer of 3M in the upper, giving the sneaker a dope reflective sheen. It’s no wonder they appealed to Batman. The most recent iteration of this sneaker dropped in 2019, and restored the reflective sheen of the original, making it the best iteration of the sneaker yet. But here’s hoping we get a new retro release soon so we don’t have to pay aftermarket prices for it.
Released as part of the first run of colorways for the Air Jordan VI, the White Infrared features the exact same design as the Black Infrared, but with an all-white upper in black of the all-black. Debut Jordan colorways always consist of a white and black alternate, and in the case of the Air Jordan VI we have to give it to the Black Infrared, it’s just a cooler-looking shoe.
The White Infrared still has the Infrared accents and the reflective sheen, but it just doesn’t catch the eye the same way. It’s still one of the best Air Jordan VIs, but from the initial run of colorways, this is by far the weakest.
The Black Infrared may be the most iconic sneaker in the initial five-colorway run, but the Sport Blue is the hidden gem of the bunch. The sneaker has only received one retro re-release, in 2014 — a real shame because that true blue midsole looks great sandwiched between a pristine white leather upper and that icy outsole.
Black accents on the outsole, tongue, and heel spoiler help add a bit of contrast to the design, balancing it out and making for great eye candy. If you’re reading this Nike, re-release this one ASAP!
For the last couple of years, I couldn’t quite figure out just what I loved so much about A Ma Maniere’s Jordan drops. There was an unmistakable elegance to the simple colorways favored by A Ma Maniere that has always looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place why. It turns out it’s because they most resemble the Air Jordan VI Maroon, another of the VI’s debut colorways.
The Maroon features maroon accents over a translucent outsole with a pristine white leather upper. They’re the least flashy of the initial five colorways, but the one that has aged like fine wine.
If calling the Black Infrared the “quintessential Jordan VI” triggered you and sent you straight to the comment section to have some words with me, it’s probably because you’re a fan of the Carmine, and that’s a very fair response. There is a reason we included it alongside the Black Infrared in our main cover photo for this article, it’s hard to find a colorway better than the Carmine (not for us, it’s the Black Infrared, duh).
The Carmine features white leather overlays atop a shimmering Carmine red base with black accents on the midsole and tongue and an icy outsole. The colored base helps to make the panel design really pop, which is what makes this colorway stand out so strongly. It combines the best of the Black and White Infrared and turns it into something classier, and more regal in appearance. This sneaker was most recently retroed in 2021, so it’s still chilling on aftermarket sites at a fairly reasonable price. Lucky us!
With the popularity of the Carmine colorway, by 1992 it was already clear to Nike that the Air Jordan VI had a sort of luxurious look to it not seen since the Air Jordan II, and to capitalize on that it gave us the fanciest AJ-VI colorway, and still a current favorite amongst sneakerheads, the Bordeaux.
Featuring a soft nubuck leather upper in grey with black overlays, and red wine-colored accents on the heel tab, lace shroud, and throat, the Bordeaux sports a translucent tongue and outsole, and a surprising splash of orange via the lace lock. It’s an elegant design that looks better like it should be on display somewhere, but luckily it was retro-released last year and is still easily found on aftermarket sites. Meaning there is no shame in tarnishing its collectible quality by wearing them until the soles come off.
Released to coincide with the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, this Olympic colorway was worn by Team USA and released to the public in the same year before being retired until 2012 for the London Olympics. I’ve always viewed the Olympics as a sort of spin on the Carmine, it features a rich navy blue leather base with white paneling and navy and red accents on the tongue, heel, and laces.
It’s not quite as luxurious as the Carmine, but it recalls that colorway thanks to its bright white overlays and richly colored base.
A slight spin on the Olympic colorway, the Midnight Navy swaps out that navy blue upper with an all-white base with white leather paneling and a moody midnight blue tongue, heel pull, lace lock, and midsole with matching embroidered branding at the heel and lace shroud.
The sneaker received a retro re-release in 2022 which means it’s pretty cheap on the aftermarket. If you leave this article hungry for an Air Jordan VI, this is going to be the cheapest and easiest buy.
Released alongside a matching Jordan XI, the Defining Moments Jordan VI, known by sneakerheads simply as ‘The DMP,’ was made to commemorate Jordan’s first legendary NBA three-peat. The Jordan VI DMP features a special black and gold colorway that exudes royalty.
The sneaker features a blacked-out suede upper with gold accents at the heel, spoiler, and midsole. It’s a celebration not just of Jordan, but of the Jordan VI itself.
In the early 2000s, Michael Jordan launched his own motorsports team and while the team never really made a splash on the scene, it did result in a few dope motorsport-related colorways that have gone down as legendary colorways amongst sneaker collectors and Jordan fans.
This particular sneaker featured the same design as the bike used by MJ’s team in 2010 and sported a white elephant print lining that peeked out at the heel and throat, a white leather base, golden Jordan branding at the tongue, a white spoiler with black accent work and a matching black midsole, translucent outsole, and an embroidered 23 logo at the heel.
No roundup of the best Air Jordan colorways would be complete without a Doernbecher. Made as part of Nike’s annual collaboration with the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, this sneaker features a dark blue, red, and white colorway with a suede upper, a murky translucent outsole, and exposed stitching.
The outer quarter features the date of 06/08 while the inner panel features the date of 04/09, representing the first and last date of chemo therapy endured by the sneaker’s designer, the Doernbecher patient Jordan Dark. It stands as one of the greatest Jordan colorways of all time and looks like something fit for Superman.
The only Air Jordan on any of our roundups so far to be explicitly anime-inspired, the Slam Dunk Sakuragis are named for the anime series Slam Dunk, and feature details inspired by the series’ protagonist Hanamichi Sakuragi.
The sneaker features a red crimson upper with an all-over graphic wrap that includes scenes from the manga, with an embroidered number 10 at the heel, an icy outsole, and a translucent heel tab, tongue, and lace lock.
I’ve always personally thought that the Air Jordan VI Cigar was kind of corny and too gaudy for its own good, but a Jordan VI roundup of the best colorways would feel incomplete without including this fan-favorite colorway. Like a lot of colorways in the Jordan VI family, this sneaker once again serves as a celebration of Jordan’s first NBA championship win.
Released alongside a Champagne Bottle colorway to commemorate the moment, complete with a gold championship ring lace lock, a golden lace shroud, and a cigar leaf colored leather upper, representing the mood of Jordan’s post-game locker room celebration.
There was no way we were going to include the Cigar without also including the sneaker it released alongside, the much superior Champagne Bottle. Featuring a forest green patent leather upper with black and gold accents, a speckled midsole, and the gold ring and lace shroud, the Champagne Bottle stands as one of the most unique Jordan VI colorways to drop in the sneaker’s over 30-year history.
2014 was clearly a special year for the Air Jordan VI, but no colorway released that year is quite as striking as this all-Infrared colorway. Featuring a leather upper in Infrared with matching panels and contrasting black laces with a cool white midsole and a translucent outsole, the Infrared 23 serves as a celebration of the silhouette itself thanks to its remixed design that recalls the best pairs of the debut run from ’91.
It’s a great modern take on a ‘90s classic, the only problem is it’s now almost 10 years old, which means we’re due for a refresh!
For this roundup, it came down to having to pick between featuring the UNC White or UNC Black model and… we’re going to have to go with the Black. The UNC is a legendary Jordan colorway that has appeared on many silhouettes in the Jordan lineage, but the UNC Black strikes us as unique thanks to its all-black nubuck upper which creates a striking contrast against the University of North Carolina-repping University Blue accents.
The sneaker was released in 2017 in celebration of North Carolina’s NCAA win. It’s probably my favorite version of the UNC makeup ever.
Made in collaboration with the French soccer club Paris Saint Germaine, the PSG Jordan VI is a luxurious and stylish take on the silhouette. Sporting a stealthy nubuck leather upper in black and Iron Grey, the PSG features reflective infrared accents, patterns inspired by the PSG jersey, ‘PANAME’ branding, sock liners that read “ICE C’EST” (roughly, ‘here is Paris’), a reworked heel logo that borrows PSG’s official insignia atop a murky black translucent outsole and a matching heel pull.
You don’t need to be a soccer fan to appreciate this pair.
While the Jordan VI seems to have fallen slightly out of fashion in recent years, the sneaker’s most notable modern releases have really pushed and played with the design to offer us something previously unseen. Case in point, Travis Scott’s Air Jordan VI Olive, which features a mixed nubuck and suede upper in olive with Sail and University Red accents and a stash pocket attached to the collar.
The stash pocket was already a big enough deviation from the original design, but Cactus Jack also saw fit to add glow-in-the-dark features to the murky outsole. It’s a surprise to us that it took this long for anybody to think to add glowing features to that outsole but we’re happy someone finally did it, as gimmicky a move it is.
A bubblegum pink Air Jordan VI is the last thing I ever thought I’d see, but leave it to Aleali May to give it to us! This is hands down one of my favorite Jordan VIs of all time and featured a Rust Pink leather base with Bright Crimson accents on the midsole, heel tab, and embroidered Jumpman logo over a murky white translucent outsole.
Roundup out the design is a shimmering pink lace shroud with a matching liner at the sneaker’s throat. The sneaker dropped as a Women’s exclusive — many tears from big-footed sneakerheads who automatically caught the L on this one.
The Hare colorway is more commonly associated with the Air Jordan VII, but how could we not include the Air Jordan VI Hare when it was easily one of the best drops of 2020? A very dark year for reasons I can’t seem to remember (kidding, of course).
The Jordan VI Hare features an eggshell suede base with white panels, True Red accents, and the traditional Hare color palette at the tongue, with a triple-color lace lock, double-color outsole and a purple embroidered Jumpman at the heel panel. It’s one of the most colorful Jordan VIs to ever drop, and still one of the best.
What comes to mind when you think of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? The Statue of Liberty, pizza, maybe the Manhattan skyline? All of these are defining traits of New York City, which doubles as the home to our favorite fictional group of reptiles. The Turtles have always embodied New York in a way that few other fictional characters in pop culture do.
With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge coming out, the publishers over at Dotemu knew early on they wanted one of the game’s many themes to be the Turtles’ love for the city. They also wanted tie something in that paid tribute to the era when the Ninja Turtles were at their peak. So, they looked around and quickly realized who they wanted to partner with the Wu-Tang Clan — specifically Ghostface Killah and Raekwon.
“We knew that, for the soundtrack of the Turtles, we wanted to have guests,” Dotemu’s Adrien Marie tells UPROXX. “We wanted to have big guest stars because it makes sense for the project and we wanted to raise the bar. Adding to what we have already been doing, we have a lot of different artists and guest stars, but we wanted to go further into mainstream music … we also were thinking about the fact that TMNT and hip-hop makes sense. A deep part of our perception is that it’s very anchored in there, it’s in the TMNT DNA, to have something hip-hop, and so we were thinking about hip-hop artists. And it’s New York, so we didn’t want to have any West Coast artists. So, our thought process was that we need to have East Coast hip-hop artists from the ’90s and the Wu-Tang Clan was at the top of the list.”
Of course, the Wu-Tang Clan was formed in Staten Island. There are few people in music that better represent New York than them, so having Ghostface Killah and Raekown involved in the game was an obvious decision. So much of Shredder’s Revenge is about capturing the original spirit of the Turtles that many people grew up with in the ’80s and ’90s. From having a new rendition of the original theme song playing in the opening cinematic, to the entire game’s style, it’s a trip down memory lane for everyone involved.
So how exactly did Dotemu and the developers over at Tribute Games involve them? The spoiler-free answer is that it does play in the game and it’s one of the best moments of the entire game, but there are some secrets to the song that we don’t want to reveal without a spoiler warning.
A disclaimer: If you plan on playing Shredder’s Revenge then be warned that the following few paragraphs will have spoilers for both the game and music.
The track that Ghostface Killah and Raekwon made plays during the boss fight with Shredder towards the end of the game. It’s a really cool moment, because Shredder joins in a little earlier than expected. It’s a fun fight and the best thing to do is blast the music and enjoy the moment to its fullest, but there’s a fun little secret that Marie told us about what the song is supposed to represent.
“So, the idea was to have a rap battle,” Marie says. “Cyrille [Lambert] wanted the first part to be Shredder’s, which is why the first part of the song is from the point of view of Shredder, and then the other side of the track is the reverse. It’s when, after all of the menacing lyrics from Shredder, you have the Turtles fighting back. This is why the second part of the track is the Turtles saying, ‘No, this is this is our fight and we’re going to win.’ Based on that, Cyrille worked with Kid Katana records, and Tee Lopes, the composer of the soundtrack of the game, Tee created a beat, then Raekown and Ghostface recorded their parts.”
The song is a delight, it’s reminiscent of the infamous “Go Ninja” scene from the second movie. If they ever decide to make another Ninja Turtles movie, please let them do a battle rap scene and bring back the Wu-Tang Clan to make a cameo.
Beyonce shared the release date for something called “Renaissance” on Wednesday night, and her fans are (predictably) losing it. While Beyonce has hinted at working on new music, her fans couldn’t help but feel totally parched at the dearth of fresh releases from the pop=R&B queen. Her last album, Lemonade, was released over six years ago and since then, the closest she’s come to putting out a full-length body of work was the soundtrack hybrid album, The Lion King: The Gift, which she later repurposed into the musical film Black Is King for Disney Plus.
So it’s understandable that the Beyhive freaked out a little bit when Beyonce rebooted her social media profiles, removing all content including bios, profile pics, and posts. It’s a move she herself pioneered, indicating that a new project could soon be on the way. However, when she also updated her official website, there were some members of the Hive who felt the star was just stringing them along. There were plenty of protesters hoping that Beyonce wasn’t just building up to another Ivy Park drop, but then Spotify and Tidal got involved and the mystery deepened.
Now, we know exactly when some new Beyonce music will be hitting those DSPs and the meme floodgates have not just opened but totally burst. As usual, the Beyhive is being as hilarious as possible while celebrating the impending end to their dreaded drought. Check out some of the best responses below.
Mayans M.C. keeps on riding, long after Sons Of Anarchy‘s final rodeo saw Jax Teller greet The Reaper. Spinoff co-creator Elgin James is firmly carrying out showrunner duties (and those of writing and directing while inspiring Danny Pino to follow suit in that last category) as the show finishes its fourth season this week. The ensemble series now sees JD Pardo‘s EZ Reyes calling the shots for the Santo Padre chapter (as VP) and pushing the club to war with the Sons after sending a message to Charming. It’s been a bloody escalation so far, and there’s no indication of any form of peace on the horizon, especially with Kim Coates’ Tig returning to the franchise in the season finale.
Alongside EZ would be his wary brother, Angel, portrayed by Clayton Cardenas in an increasingly layered way this season. Don’t get me wrong, though: Angel’s always been multi-faceted, at once helping to pioneer a rebellion while also taking time to crack morbid jokes about a decapitated head. This season, however, Angel’s journey feels amplified. His complicated personal life (including the Nails business) sprouted more wrinkles with Adelita’s revelation that their child is still alive. And Angel, who helped his little brother join the Mayans, is now witnessing EZ’s transformation in a different way.
It’s all a recipe for explosive turmoil, and a very uncomfortable brotherly confrontation (after the devastating death of a beloved club member) helped close out the season. Clayton was cool enough to help us process all the fallout and give us some levity on where he’d love Angel to go from here.
I wasn’t sure if we were on camera or not, but I wore a Sons of Anarchy shirt to see if I could start a rivalry here.
Well, let’s see it! You’re gonna piss me off already.
Am I on? This is going to be war, I know it, and I’m also messing with you. The real truth is that I only have Sons shirts, no Mayans shirts yet.
[Laughs] We’re gonna have to send some stuff out.
We are already off the rails, so let’s keep on rolling. It feels like only yesterday when we were all waiting for Mayans to begin. It’s already been four seasons, do you stop and marvel at that sometimes?
Of course! I still, specifically, remember with JD, when we were at Salton Sea. Well, we did two pilots. The first pilot in early 2017 and in late 2017, but I remember the first pilot, there was a picture of us. It was the first picture that we ever did together, and it was not eerie but really comforting to have this feeling of, “Wow, we’re in this together.” We don’t have brothers in real life, but there was this instant bond of brotherhood. Me and him really circle back to that moment. You never saw it as part of the pilot, but we documented it on our own. It was really cool.
Speaking of JD, I can’t figure out, between Angel and EZ, who has changed more over the show so far?
I think it’s fairly even. I’m not aware these arcs being known from the inception of this. You’d have to ask the creators, so a lot of it was new to me. I know a lot of it was new to JD as well, but I think what we really see, in this season in particular, is the dominant characteristics of each individual. With EZ, we see his need to always feel empowered and feel in control. With Angel, it was always (from childhood) the need to feel loved. And to see how these two have met in the middle, and now, the apex of where they’re headed to in life? It’s fairly even. It’s different, obviously, but the same.
FX
Angel began the show as a pioneer of the rebellion, and now, well, he’s got a complicated personal life. He’s a freaking dad who’s talking about lactation. How do you balance all of the sides of him?
I don’t know if it’s as much of a struggle as the audience sees it. What we’re seeing now is Angel morph into this person that he’s always yearned to be. I think when he saw his brother join the club, he saw bits and pieces of reasons to want to move on and grow beyond the club. I think with having a family now, it’s kind of like a justice to the means now. Like a reason to lean into the life that he yearned for, with Felipe never being the father that he wanted. That’s kind of his path now, being the father that he never had and having a life and Adelita and his son that he always wanted, quite honestly.
If you had any advice for Angel right now, what would you say to him?
With Angel, it’s all heart with how decisions are made. I would tell him to take his time and have a little bit of trepidation. I would tell him to slow down and to try and circle back to his father and try and mend the relationship. It isn’t broke, it’s definitely scarred, but I feel like we’re always needing a father figure in life. It doesn’t have to be a father necessarily, but that figure’s needed. I’d like him to circle back on that.
Would you say that his relationship is EZ is broken?
No, I don’t think that relationship’s broken, but it’s just misunderstood now. I feel like if anybody’s gonna be in EZ’s ear and have an effect, with where Angel sees EZ going, it’s gonna be his brother. That’s the only person who knows all his secrets and knows him at his best and his worst. He’s known him since his inception. Those kinds of people that we have in our life, there’s this tight bond that cannot be broken, no matter where we are in life, no matter how far away we are from one another. That will always be there.
Angel began the episode in an emotional way while reacting to Letty’s speech at Coco’s funeral. Other than the obvious, what was that about, do you think?
Besides the obvious, I think the big moral mistake was to sleep with his dead brother’s daughter. Beyond not wanting to disrupt what was going on, Angel’s absolutely torn up inside about doing what he did, but also, I don’t think he ever got to say his last words to Coco. There was never a resolution to it. There were definitely apologies needed for not being there when Coco was hurt and needing help. There was a scene where, when the two of them were together, I think that Angel was more in disbelief by what Coco was saying. He didn’t get to say the words that needed to be said, and I think that’s what’s running through Angel’s head because, coming up when Angel was getting patched in, Coco was his best friend. Coco was there with him every day, in flashbacks, they were tight-knit, and I think when Angel started to see him go down this path of drugs, he had to step back and take care of himself. He didn’t know how to help his friend, and I think he feels remorse and regret.
100%! These are two monumental characters in each of these storylines, and they both have huge fandoms, and they both meant a lot to the story and meant a lot to the leads of both shows. They both had resounding effects and trickle down from each of those. Of course, it’s hard not to compare the two, I think that only one would respectfully have to. It’s somebody that we, obviously with the cast, know that Richard [Cabral] is an amazing talent, and he’ll go on to do great things. But you know, in Mayans and in Sons, nobody’s safe. That’s what makes our show so riveting and compelling to watch because you never know how it’s gonna go. And people that you think have important storylines can be killed off right away, and it’ll shift right into somebody else’s storyline. That’s through the beauty of Elgin James’ poetry. You never know what you’re gonna get, but everything will always be [justified].
Well, if you had a way to write Angel’s ending in this show, whether he makes it out alive or not, where would he go?
[Smiles] I would write Angel running off into the sunset. I’m from these types of neighborhoods, this culture, and because you’re born into something, or at a formative age, you start leaning into this group of people because you think that’s what’s cool and right and where you think you want to be in the future, sometimes you outgrow yourself. And I see that with Angel. I see him viewing the club as not what he thought it was anymore. He’s maturing, and I think he sees the future differently than his brothers do. I could see him running off into the sunset [gestures] and having a farm.
[Laughing]
Yeah, man! A nut farm. Oh man, I love nut farms. Angel loves nut farms. Sunflower seeds! He’d be growing a nut farm with Adelita and his son. And they have animals around. I could totally envision that for him. Something total polar opposite from what we’re seeing right now, I could see him living that life.
FX
If you could have him run off into that sunset and join another TV show, though, where would you want him to go?
Oh my god. If he had a British accent, he would be on Peaky Blinders.
That would work. And the final season is on Netflix now.
I’m on episode 4 now, and they do great work over there. And there’s a variety of shows, but that’s the latest one right now. I could see him on Snowfall, too. I could see that drug world crossing over into the Mayans culture, especially the bike subculture and pushing drugs to the border.
Gonna get a little dicey with this next question, but from what I’ve seen, fans are zeroing in on one criticism: where is law enforcement when trouble goes down, say, during the hospital scene? Does this jibe with how you see this subculture operating at the border, or do you have to suspend belief?
I hear the same thing. Let’s keep in mind that this is television and not reality, but through the lens of reality, I’ll play with it. In some of these small border towns, there isn’t a large abundance of police… let’s just run through the hospital. I know it looked like it was 20 freaking minutes long, but in reality, it was probably 5-10 minutes max. Granted, there’s security there, but let’s just say that we do have police at the end of the scene coming in there. But I hear people saying, “Oh the police would be there in a second, and a SWAT team.” Hey, in Santo Padre, we don’t have SWAT. We have, two hours away, it’s Calexico. We have to have them come down. I understand that the fans want a sense of realism, but hey, that’s real, man. These aren’t metropolitan cities we’re talking about here. These are underprivileged towns that don’t have what you would think as the amount of firemen, police, and just public resources as a whole. So I understand it, and we are definitely conscious of the realism involved here.
People do love to have opinions and quibbles in forums.
People want to create a conversation, and they want to debate, and hey, we’re up to it. You guys wanna debate small little tidbits in our show, we’re all here for it, but my point here is that I don’t want it to be overlooked that the creator and writers of our show aren’t aware of those things. They’re fully aware of it. It’s something that’s talked for hours. It’s not that we’re overlooking it, but we’re playing along the lines of television and reality. It’s a fine line, but we’re always trying to lean on the side of realistic for sure.
It’s about time to say goodbye, but real quick here: I recently talked with Danny Pino about the episode he directed.
Danny Pino? [Grabs his heart.]
Oh yes. Do you have any aspirations to do the same?
Of course. I would love to move into directing, I think that’s probably the most realistic transition and something that I want. Obviously, there’s a lot of work that I need to do to move forward with that, but watching Danny? Oh my god. He was phenomenal. He was probably — I’m gonna hear a lot of sh*t for this — after Elgin James, Danny Pino is probably my favorite director of the season for sure. And here’s the reason why: Danny is a well-seasoned, respected actor in our industry, so there’s many times that Danny would say just one little thing, and I knew exactly what he meant. With other directors, there’s sometimes a freaking 20-minute conversation trying to get a point across, and a lot of times when you’re working with a variety of directors on the show, that’s half the job. Learning their language, learning what they mean, that takes 50% of your time. But Danny Pino, he knew what to say to me and he knew exactly when to say it, and when to lean in.
He’s so humble and gracious, so I can imagine he was great as a leader.
I’ll tell you a real quick story. At the end of Danny’s episode, we had a very emotional scene with Carla [Baratta], and everyone’s moving onto the next scene and set, but I’m still emoting, and I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, and Danny Pino — he has the next thing to shoot and needs to move on — but he sees me there, emoting. And everybody’s left where I was at. And he just comes right over and sits next to me on the bed, and no words were said. We’re both just staring at the wall. We had this beautiful nonverbal communication. And it was literally for about 10 minutes, but in this nonverbal dialogue, he was saying, “Thank you, I hear you, I know what you did. I know what it takes to get there.” It was the most beautiful, unspoken poetry that I’ve heard in my life. And I commend him for that and respect him so much for that and I love him for that, and I told him the story recently in Miami, and we both got emotional. Love him to death.
FX’s ‘Mayans M.C.’ is currently streaming the entire fourth season on Hulu.
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