Month: October 2022

(House of the Dragon spoilers will be found below.)

The first House of the Dragon season feels like nonstop drama and action. Surprisingly little of the revelations have to do with literal dragons, although the warring human-dragons provide plenty of conflict each week. Much of this has to do with their dynamics, including Rhaenyra’s current husband, Daemon, offing Vaemond’s head (minus the tongue) when he called out Rhaenyra’s children for being bastards and then insulted Rhaenyra’s virtue in one of the most glaring ways possible. As well, there’s been plenty of audience reaction to the ickier aspects of the Targaryen and Velaryon houses, including plenty of age-inappropriate and/or incestuous interactions.

Then there’s the inappropriate randiness displayed this week by Larys Strong. As our own Jessica Toomer notes, “Larys Strong is nasty.” This, of course, doesn’t have everything to do with his foot fetish. He’s in decent company with that desire, after all, given that plenty of people (including Quentin Tarantino) share the same. What’s gross about this is that Larys requires Alicent to display her feet in exchange for information (on how Otto found Aegon first). He gets off on holding an advantage/debts over people in power, and that manifests sexually with Larys.

Alicent is clearly not into this, as she sighed while knowing that she needed to appease his desires. Larys did keep his end of the (gross) bargain while letting Alicent know about the “web of spies” swarming around the Red Keep, and that includes Alicent’s own lady-in-waiting. Sure, Alicent got her information, but people are not here for the price that she had to pay. In fact, they’d like some eye bleach, thank you very much.

Also, it looks like Ser Criston is receiving a run for his incel money.

HBO’s House of the Dragon airs on Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

(House of the Dragon spoilers will be found below.)

The penultimate episode of the first House of the Dragon season is already upon us. Last week gave us a fine soap opera by finally putting King Viserys I out of his rotting misery, and Prince Daemon Targaryen taking Vaemond’s head (although leaving him with his tongue) when he dared to call out Rhaenyra’s children as bastards (and he said even worse). We haven’t seen Daemon during this episode, although mini-Daemon is afoot and is skulking up a storm.

Yep, we’re talking about Aemond Targaryen, and it’s quite something that this family regularly throws on hoods to do mischief, and most people don’t recognize them. That’s not universal, though, since it seems that the front woman of one house of ill repute recognizes the most bitter Targaryen of his generation. More to the point, though, there’s the similar vibe to how Daemon’s idol (Daemon, still the crown prince of mischief) donned a hood that didn’t totally disguise him when he took Rhaenyra out for a pleasure tour, but it did allow him to murder his first wife and get away with it. Crime hoodie!

Alright, so Aemond tossed on his hood this week (during “The Green Council” episode) as though no one would notice his eye patch. He accompanied Ser Criston while they attempted to track down Aegon Targaryen. He’d gone missing, and everyone assumed that Aegon was up to no good, and Alicent had definitely misunderstood Viserys’ final words to her and beloved that he wished for Aegon to be king. You know, even though he’s the worst character of the show and a rapist, Alicent chose to believe this, and The Green Council subsequently wished to put their “long-standing plan” into motion.

Aemond, of course, wants to be Daemon so bad that it hurts. Aemond also wishes to be king, and it’s not clear (early on in the episode) if he truly means to help Criston, who’s on board with Aegon as king because of his devotion to Alicent (and hatred of Rhaenyra). As well, Aemond communicates that he wants to rule and is more fit to do so than Aegon, given that he’s trained with the sword, studies philosophy, and has the largest dragon in the world. Dude is salty, and people love it. Ewan Mitchell is killing this role, and people cannot get enough of the hood. Let the memes commence.

HBO’s House of the Dragon airs on Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

Donald Trump isn’t someone who likes being told what to do, or a person who enjoys being held accountable for his actions. But none of that matters to Lewis A. Kaplan, the U.S. District Judge who has ordered the former president to sit for a deposition this Wednesday and answer questions under oath related to journalist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case.

While Trump would surely like nothing more than to see all remnants of his dealings with Carroll, who claims she was raped by Trump in the 1990s, go bye-bye, he’s not likely to get his wish. As Raw Story reports, former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman took to Twitter early Sunday morning to lay out the options standing before Trump at this moment. And — spoiler alert! — none of them are great.

While Trump could simply show up as told and answer questions truthfully under oath, that wouldn’t be very Trumpian of him. As Litman explains it, he really has five options:

He could show up and a) admit the rape after scores of public denials. That would be tantamount to a confession that he defamed her; b) insist he never did, setting up a he said she said credibility dispute before a New York jury that he’d likely lose; c) take the 5th but that would be admissible against him in the defamation suit, which is civil (absent some unusual New York doctrine I’m unaware of), or d) say he doesn’t recall, which would represent a distinct retreat from his public stance.

Trump’s fifth and final option would be to appeal, but Litman notes that that would bring with it the “need to show irreparable injury from the mere fact of having to show up and tell the truth.” And while it would entail a slight delay in the proceedings, it would likely be brief enough to not change much of what is going on behind the scenes. Still, Litman predicts that that will be Trump’s preferred move. Beyond that, going the “I don’t recall” route or pleading the Fifth might be his most likely choices, in that order.

Given that Carroll is going after Trump for defaming her — not for the rape itself, as the statute of limitations at the time the incident occurred in the ‘90s was five years — the former president didn’t do himself any favors by further branding her a liar when he was ordered to answer questions under oath. In a string of posts to his TRUTH Social media platform, Trump claimed:

“I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event… She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.”

While public outbursts such as that one certainly are not helping Trump’s case, it’s at least slightly better than his original denial, where, instead of saying that he would never be party to such a vicious crime, he instead stated “She’s not my type” as the number one reason why Carroll was lying.

(Via Raw Story)

The Memphis Grizzlies have been as good as any team in the last decade at building through the draft in their recent rebuild, as they went from the veteran-heavy Grit N’ Grind era to a young, burgeoning contender that earned the West’s 2-seed a year ago by nailing pick after pick.

Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. are the most notable of those, and both have been rewarded with big extensions recently, but their depth is a major reason for their success and that has been built by hitting on picks outside of the lottery as well. Among those is Brandon Clarke, as the 21st pick in the 2019 Draft out of Gonzaga has become a key bench contributor to the frontcourt rotation, and on Sunday he got rewarded with a handsome contract extension.

At $13 million per year, Clarke will now be well compensated as the backup power forward in Memphis — one who figures to see a minutes increase at the start of this season while Jaren Jackson Jr. recovers from surgery for a foot injury. Clarke has averaged 10.9 points and 5.6 rebounds per game in his three seasons in Memphis, and provides additional help-side rim protection on the other end with his tremendous athleticism, averaging 1.1 blocks per game a year ago.

For the Grizzlies, it’s clear they believe in this core group and have spent the past couple summers locking those players into longterm deals, with Clarke the latest to get rewarded.

Billie Eilish has said in the past that sharing the details of her romantic relationships is, “Very much not something I’m interested in.” But as Eilish’s profile and star power has only grown over the years, she’s finding this to be a difficult proposition. She had to defend ex-boyfriend Brandon Quention Adams from some scathing remarks from her fans last year. Now after breaking up with her most recent boyfriend, actor Matthew Tyler Vorce earlier in 2022, Eilish was spotted with a potential new love interest.

Who Is Billie Eilish’s Rumored Boyfriend?

This past weekend, Eilish was spotted holding hands with Jesse Rutherford, the singer of alt rock band The Neighbourhood, at Hollywood Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. The Neighbourhood are best known for hit singles like “Sweater Weather” and “Daddy Issues.” The former is certified platinum nine times over, so Rutherford and Eilish both have a knack for penning hits.

Apparently, Eilish’s brother Finneas was also in attendance as screenshots from Finneas’ Instagram have shown him hanging with Rutherford and subsequent photos of his sister in the mix with both Finneas and Rutherford have surfaced as well.

Eilish and Rutherford were also spotted sharing a booth at a restaurant. Just friends?

But if Rutherford is indeed Eilish’s new boyfriend, fans are are already expressing concern over the fact that while Eilish is still only 20 years old, Rutherford is 31. And there are photos of Eilish and Rutherford together as far back as 2017 (when Eilish was still 15.)

Not that this means anything besides the fact that they’ve known each other for quite some time. Regardless, people are already assuming the worst in this situation. And the way the internet moves, keeping her love life private is not a luxury that Billie Eilish seems to have anymore.

Tennessee picked up its biggest win in a very long time on Saturday evening, as the Vols managed to out-gun Alabama in a 52-49 shootout in Knoxville, winning on a last second field goal that just crept over the crossbar.

It’s the first time Tennessee has beaten Alabama since Nick Saban took over in Tuscaloosa, and it moved them from being one of college football’s nice stories to a legitimate contender in the minds of most. As one would expect after such a win, the 100,000 fans in Neyland Stadium poured onto the field and, for some reason, Tennessee doesn’t have the goal posts with a hinge that can be taken down so we got an old school goal post teardown scene, with fans eventually hauling the uprights out of the stadium like ants carrying leaves, and deposited them in the Tennessee River, as is tradition.

On Sunday, the SEC fined Tennessee $100,000 for the fans storming the field, which they won’t really care about, and school president Randy Boyd joked on Saturday night he didn’t care how much the goal posts were gonna cost to replace. However, the Vols posted on Sunday with a cheeky fundraiser trying to raise $150,000 to “replace the goal posts,” which got a mixed reaction on Twitter.

As of writing they’d raised $32,000, so it clearly worked with some folks, but there were plenty who replied and quote tweeted with links to the Vols $1.34 billion endowment or the $55 million payment they received last year simply for being in the SEC. Fundraising off a big win is standard operating procedure in college football, but this felt to some like an odd way to go about it for a program certainly not hurting for funding.

Rihanna‘s Emmy-winning Savage X Fenty fashion show returns for its fourth iteration next month. Rihanna announced the show this past weekend via social media with a video clip of her modeling some of the newest Savage X Fenty collections.

The musical performers and models have not yet been announced, however, a press release promises “a new all-star lineup of models, actors, some of the biggest names in music, and more, debuting the latest Savage X Fenty styles.” At the helm of the show is Rihanna herself, who serves as its creative director and executive producer.

Parris Goebel, who won an Emmy award for Vol. 3‘s choreography, will return as the choreographer for Vol. 4.

In tandem with the show’s stream on Prime Video, the new Savage X Fenty collection will be available to shop online at the official Savage X Fenty website, as well as the Amazon Fashion store.

The announcement of Savage X Fenty, Vol. 4 arrives just weeks after Rihanna was announced as the 2023 Super Bowl halftime performer. With such an incredible career milestone ahead of her, it may not be too long until we get new music from the Bajan pop icon.

Check out the teaser clip for Savage X Fenty, Vol. 4 above.

Savage X Fenty, Vol. 4 streams 11/9 on Prime Video.

NASCAR headed to Las Vegas on Sunday for the South Point 400, the first race in the third stage of the playoffs. However, it were a couple of drivers not in the playoffs currently that became the story of the race on Lap 94 when Bubba Wallace, who won Stage 1, got pushed up into the wall by Kyle Larson and then retaliated by driving down and spinning out Larson, who clipped Christopher Bell, who is in the playoffs after winning last week to advance, as Larson and Wallace went spinning up into the wall.

Wallace wasn’t done expressing his frustration with Larson as he charged over to the driver of the No. 5 after they both climbed out of their cars and tried to fight Larson, who was not trying to rumble as he just kept trying to get away as Wallace shoved him multiple times.

One would think a fine or something is coming Wallace’s way for the reaction — both on track with spinning Larson and after with the shoves — but it’s clear he felt Larson crossed a line with racing him up the track and into the wall coming out of the corner and he wasn’t letting him get away unscathed, diving down to clip the 5 and then letting him know all about it after.

Bubba explained exactly what he thought of Larson’s move after he left the infield care center.

Megan Thee Stallion‘s reign as the Hot Girl Coach just won’t let up anytime soon. During her appearance on last night’s Saturday Night Live, the “Anxiety” rapper was at the helm as a nurse at a “Hot Girl Hospital” in a hilarious medical drama spoof.

A voiceover indicated that the spoof show came “from Shonda Rhimes and the top commenters on The Shade Room’s Instagram.” By her side were Ego Nwodim and Punkie Johnson as fellow nurses assisting with treatments like BBLs and Fashion Nova fashion makeovers, as well as conducting emergency twerk exams.

During the sketch, Megan, Nwodim, and Johnson help a “mid as hell” patient played by Heidi Gardner become a full-fledged Hot Girl.

This sketch aligns perfectly with Megan’s health administration ambitions. Earlier in the night, during her monologue, she noted that she graduated from Texas Southern University.

“I got my degree in health administration because I have always wanted to help the people in my community,” she said. “I believe that it is important to have a sharp mind and a sharp body-ody-ody-ody-ody,” in reference to her 2020 hit, “Body.”

Check out the “Hot Girl Hospital” sketch above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

“Where my Jews at?”

That’s what Donald Trump wants to know. As Mediaite reports, the chronic complainer took time out of his busy Sunday morning to grumble about the lack of support he gets from America’s Jewish community, despite doing (what he believes is) so much for them. The former president took to his own (failing) TRUTH Social platform to carp — and to issue a seemingly stark warning:

No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story – Highest approval rating in the World, could easily be P.M.! U.S. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!

It’s hardly the first time Trump has complained about not being more widely embraced by America’s Jewish voters — though he’s done a fairly good job of further alienating them with by perpetrating stereotypes and making regular assertions that being Jewish and voting Democrat means you are “being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel,” as he said during a White House event in 2019.

In 2021, Mediaite notes, Trump was a guest on Jonathan Freedland’s Unholy podcast, where he further claimed:

There’s people in this country that are Jewish no longer love Israel. I’ll tell you the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country. It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress, and today I think it’s the exact opposite. And I think Obama and Biden did that. And yet in the election, they still get a lot of votes from Jewish people, which tells you that the Jewish people, and I’ve said this for a long time, the Jewish people in the United States, either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel. I mean you look at the New York Times, the New York Times hates Israel. Hates them. And they’re Jewish people that run the New York Times, I mean the Sulzberger family.

“In those examples,” writes Mediaite’s Ken Meyer, “Trump broached two anti-Semitic stereotypes: one arguing that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own countries, the other, that Jews control the media.”

Meyer wasn’t the only person to point out Trump’s antisemitic embrace of the dual loyalty trope:

(Via Mediaite)