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The ‘Still’ Episode Of ‘The Walking Dead’ Is An Essential Rewatch Before AMC’s ‘Daryl Dixon’ Series

The Walking Dead franchise ended its flagship series last year and will put long-running spinoff Fear The Walking Dead through the rest of its final reinvention soon. In the meantime, a trio of spinoffs promises to keep this undead world alive without going overboard or full MCU. That’s a positive thing, too. We don’t need too much of this gang, and semi-regular Sunday installments are the right amount. So far, I enjoyed the Dead City spinoff with Semi-Old Negan and Maggie, and eventually, Rick Grimes and Michonne will appear in their joint series. If we do want to make an MCU comparison, though, TWD‘s appeal seems to be outlasting that of Marvel Studios. Also, Mr. Daryl Dixon’s spinoff appears to be kind-of my Loki.

That is to say, Daryl is an underdog and favorite of many TWD fans. That’s the case despite him not appearing in the original comics (the character was created for Norman Reedus) and despite his unimpressive series debut. He begins as “the hillbilly little brother” but emerges as someone who you’d always want to have your back.

Also, those still waters do run deep when Daryl allows that to happen. We will talk more about who Daryl became by the end of TWD when his Daryl Dixon spinoff — or Daryl In Paris, because I’ll never tire of my dumb joke — grows closer to premiere time. First, one must acknowledge that AMC is serious about the Daryl spinoff because Reedus’ crossbow-wielder has already received a second-season renewal. Also, if one wishes to adequately prepare for more Daryl, no one has time to rewatch eleven full seasons, but is there (as with Justified), one essential episode?

I gotta admit that it took some whittling to get there. After all, there are plenty of badass Daryl moments, like when he whipped out a rocket launcher on a group of Negan’s Saviors (S6 E9, “No Way Out”). There’s his troubled relationship with big brother Merle and the tearful scene when he had to put Walker Merle down (in S3 E15, “This Sorrowful Life”). There are endless explorations of his friendship with Carol and one of his first gestures (giving her a flower during that represented strength during S2 E4, “Cherokee Rose”) that touched her. There’s the moment when he first met Dog (S10 E18, “Find Me”) and the time when he ridiculed the Jesus nickname during a Rick-Daryl buddy comedy episode (S6 E10, “The Next World”). And don’t forget when Daryl led a Walker horde on his motorcycle (S6 E1, “First Time Again”)

Lots of pivotal moments add up to Daryl as a whole, but there is one episode that fully captures my unwashed boo’s essence.

First, it must be noted that Norman Reedus is talking about his new show in an unexpected light: “We’re making art, and there’s moving dialogue.” He added, “I feel like we’re not cranking it out for numbers on a Sunday night.” Whereas it’s fair to say that most Daryl moments were not filled with moving dialogue. He kept much close to his sleeve, but the inner workings of Daryl did emerge from time to time. That will be my overriding reason for naming S4 E 12, “Still,” as the most crucial rewatch before The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.

“Still” is an episode that lays Daryl Dixon’s rawness out for the audience to see. We saw hints of his emotional pain before this time, particularly in S2 E5, “Chupacabra,” when he hallucinated Merle taunting him. We also saw his inner compassion through his dogged efforts to find Carol’s daughter. In “Still,” however, we gain a fuller picture of both of these sides. Overall, it’s a terrifying but also life-affirming two-person play between Daryl and Maggie’s younger sister, Beth (Emily Kinney).

To set the stage, The Governor’s siege on Rick Grimes’ group scattered the survivors living in the prison. Somehow, Daryl and Beth ended up escaping together. This was a fairly silent endeavor until Beth decided to start pressing Daryl while he only wanted to enjoy his rattlesnake dinner.

Daryl Dixon Beth TWD
AMC

At this point, Beth is tired of Daryl acting mute and simply surviving. She’s desperate to feel a bit “normal” and like someone her age would feel in non-apocalyptic surroundings. So, she convinces Daryl to go on a search for booze, and he emotionlessly relents. This leads to a nightmarish jaunt through the remains of a country club and, eventually, Beth breaking down at a bar before she takes her first-ever drink. Daryl, in his own way, acknowledges her emotional state: “If you’re gonna have your first drink, it ain’t gonna be no damn peach schnapps.”

This decision takes them to a house that very much resembles the “home” where Daryl grew up. This is where a moonshine-fueled drinking game leads to the feeling that Daryl is holding a lot back. We learn that he’s never gone on vacation or had frozen yogurt or “gotten anything from Santa Claus.” He’s offended at her suggestion that he may have been in prison before, either as a criminal or as a guard. This leads to something that we seldom see from Daryl: a total loss of cool and control. He takes a swipe at her prior suicide attempt and commences crossbow antics with a Walker.

Through this defense mechanism, one the the strongest members of Rick’s bunch shows us his weakness. And in contrast, the physically weak Beth shows her emotional strength. She calls bullsh*t on Daryl for pretending like nothing matters and that those who were lost meant nothing: “Now god forbid you let anybody get too close.” He, in turn, confesses that he feels like he didn’t do enough to stop The Governor and save Beth’s dad. It’s a powerful exchange, and that includes this embrace, something that Daryl does not resist but certainly wasn’t used to experiencing.

Daryl Dixon Beth TWD
AMC

Their bond grows from this moment forward, and thank goodness it stayed platonic and sibling-like, unlike what some ‘shippers wanted, because there’s quite an age gap here.

In retrospect, this episode makes Beth’s future death hit much harder when it arrives in Season 5. That’s especially the case after — during the heat of their argument — Beth goaded, “You’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon.” When Daryl carried Beth’s dead body out of a hospital, he might have been recalling the time when they decided to burn down the moonshiner’s house and give it the finger.

Daryl Dixon Beth TWD
AMC

With this gesture, Beth helped Daryl leave his past behind, and it’s not that Daryl necessarily became more sociable in the post-Beth era. He did, however, gain more outward shades of his personality, some that might be of use to him when he suddenly washes ashore in France with no idea how he got there. He won’t know the language of the people that he meets, and he might need to open up again during a quest to return to his (new) home, The Commonwealth.

‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ will ride on September 10. On a related note, ‘Ride With Norman Reedus’ will return with Keanu Reeves on the same night.

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Beyoncé’s Birthday Request Reportedly Increased Some Etsy Stores’ Silver Outfit Sales By 200%

Beyoncé’s Adidas deal may not have been as lucrative as expected, but the pop queen still has the power to mobilize her massive fan base to change a company’s fortunes almost at a whim. In 2020, her lyrical shout-out sent aspiring entrepreneurs to OnlyFans en masse, and more recently, she reportedly raised some Etsy stores’ traffic by as much as 400% after making a very specific birthday request.

As the Houston singer nears the end of her Renaissance Tour, she asked the fans to turn her remaining dates into a shimmering display with silver outfits to celebrate Virgo season. “We’ll surround ourselves in a shimmering human disco ball each night, everybody mirroring each other’s joy,” she wrote on Instagram.

Fans have enthusiastically complied. According to TMZ, chrome-colored outfits on the e-com site’s network of handmade apparel shops are selling out across the platform. One company that makes sequin fans reported a 200 percent increase in sales in addition to the aforementioned 400% traffic bump.

Meanwhile, another retailer, Radiancy Designs, said its traffic quadrupled with 80% coming from Renaissance Tour-related search keywords. From this writer’s own experience over the weekend, even brick-and-mortar shops on LA’s popular Melrose shopping strip have been advertising their shiniest silver vestments in anticipation of the Renaissance Tour’s arrival later this week. So, good luck getting ready — although Beyoncé’s Amazon merch is still available!

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Zach Bryan Already Has His 2024 Plans Set Thanks To ‘The Quittin Time Tour’

Zach Bryan, fresh off the release of a new self-titled album, is currently on his Burn, Burn, Burn Tour. (Uproxx’s Philip Cosores saw a recent show and thought it was pretty amazing.) If you’re unable to catch this trek, though, Bryan has a new one on the way starting in 2024.

Bryan announced The Quittin Time Tour today (August 28), and it’s a lengthy run that stretches from March to December, with some weeks and months taken off during that time.

Furthermore, he’ll be joined on various dates by Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit, Turnpike Troubadours, Sheryl Crow, The Middle East, Sierra Ferrell, Matt Maeson, and Levi Turner. Also worth noting is that given the tour’s lack of dates during next year’s Coachella (which runs from April 12 to 21), perhaps a Bryan performance at the festival is in the cards.

As for tickets, pre-sale begins next week on September 6, while general on-sale starts on the 8th. Registration for pre-sale tickets is open now, here.

Check out the list of dates below.

03/06/2024 — Chicago, IL @ United Center *^
03/07/2024 — Chicago, IL @ United Center *^
03/09/2024 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena *^
03/10/2024 — Buffalo, NY @ KeyBank Center *^
03/12/2024 — State College, PA @ Bryce Jordan Center *^
03/14/2024 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center *^
03/15/2024 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center *^
03/17/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena *^
03/18/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena *^
03/20/2024 — Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum *^
03/22/2024 — Birmingham, AL @ Legacy Arena at the BJCC *^
03/25/2024 — Washington, D.C. @ Capital One Arena *^
03/27/2024 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center *^
03/28/2024 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center *^
04/26/2024 — Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena *^
04/29/2024 — Omaha, NE @ CHI Health Center *^
05/02/2024 — St. Louis, MO @ Enterprise Center *^
05/05/2024 — Greenville, SC @ Bon Secours Wellness Arena *^
05/06/2024 — Greenville, SC @ Bon Secours Wellness Arena *^
05/09/2024 — Knoxville, TN @ Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center *^
05/13/2024 — North Little Rock, AR @ Simmons Bank Arena *^
05/14/2024 — North Little Rock, AR @ Simmons Bank Arena *^
05/17/2024 — Oklahoma City, OK @ Paycom Center *^
05/18/2024 — Oklahoma City, OK @ Paycom Center *^
06/07/2024 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena #^
06/08/2024 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena #^
06/15/2024 — Denver, CO @ Empower Field at Mile High #^
06/22/2024 — Columbus, OH @ Buckeye Country Superfest
06/26/2024 — Foxborough, MA @ Gillette Stadium +^
07/30/2024 — San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center @^
07/31/2024 — San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center @^
08/03/2024 — Greensboro, NC @ Greensboro Coliseum @^
08/04/2024 — Greensboro, NC @ Greensboro Coliseum @^
08/07/2024 — Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field %^
08/10/2024 — Atlanta, GA @ Mercedes-Benz Stadium !^
08/14/2024 — Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium +^
08/17/2024 — Arlington, TX @ AT&T Stadium +^
08/20/2024 — Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center @^
08/24/2024 — Minneapolis, MN @ U.S. Bank Stadium %^
08/25/2024 — Grand Forks, ND @ Alerus Center @^
11/17/2024 — Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place @^
11/18/2024 — Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place @^
11/20/2024 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena @^
11/22/2024 — Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome @^
11/23/2024 — Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome @^
11/26/2024 — Portland, OR @ Moda Center @^
11/27/2024 — Portland, OR @ Moda Center @^
11/29/2024 — Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center @^
12/03/2024 — Glendale, AZ @ Desert Diamond Arena @^
12/04/2024 — Glendale, AZ @ Desert Diamond Arena @^
12/06/2024 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Delta Center @^
12/07/2024 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Delta Center @^
12/13/2024 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center @^
12/14/2024 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center @^

* with The Middle East
+ with Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit
% with Turnpike Troubadours
! with Sheryl Crow
# with Sierra Ferrell
@ with Matt Maeson
^ with Levi Turner

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Some Of Your Favorite AMC Shows Are Coming To Max…For A Limited Time Only!

What do you get when you take the HBO out of HBO Max and take the AMC off of Hulu? You get AMC Max! Sort of!! Beginning Friday, September 1st, there will be an assortment of AMC content on Max, just in time for the best season of the year: pre-Halloween.

The collection will be called “AMC+ Picks On Max” (which sounds kind of like AMC is bullying Max but whatever) and includes the first seasons of the new hit shows, Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire and Dark Winds, and some other internet favorites like Killing Eve (season four) and A Discovery of Witches. Of course, AMC’s favorite franchise has to be thrown into the mix, so the first seven seasons of Fear The Walking Dead will also land on Max. Are you getting the spooky theme here? It’s not like they are just throwing Breaking Bad up there.

The picks will only live on the streamer until October 31st when they will return back to their home over on the faraway land of AMC+. It might seem like a strange deal on paper, mostly because Max has nearly 50 million users while AMC has just over 11 million, but AMC just wants people to see their killer (get it!!!) content. Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios, said, “Our goal is to bring these shows to as many people as possible, in ways that best serve viewers.” Also joining Max will be Gangs of London and Ride With Norman Reedus.

Perhaps a couple of million views on Interview With A Vampire will inspire some people to subscribe to AMC+ for season two next year. OR they can just stay on Max and watch the 1994 movie of the same name. Whichever is easiest.

(Via Variety)

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Trump’s Trial Date Is Two Whole Years Sooner Than He Wanted And He Might Have His Loudmouth Lawyers To Thank For That

Donald Trump spent most of last week getting bombarded with the fallout from his indictment in Georgia, which has already resulted in the former president posing for a mugshot and watching his biggest fear come to life as three codefendants flipped on him. So the last thing Trump needed was more bad news, and that’s exactly what he got in Washington D.C. on Monday where his lawyers are fighting his third indictment for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

According to NBC News’ Ken Dilanian, Trump’s lawyers reportedly did their client no favors by making “bombastic comments” in court. The former president’s legal team was aggressively pushing for an April 2026 trial date. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set a date for March 4, 2024, one day before Super Tuesday.

Via Mediaite:

It’s really only two months distant from what the special counsel had proposed, which was January of 2024, and the judge said that that was too aggressive, but she really didn’t give the Trump team much of anything, and they didn’t help themselves at this hearing with some rather bombastic comments about the enormity of the case.

She told them right away look, April 2026 was not happening. It was not reasonable in her view, it was way too far from the actual point of the alleged crimes, witnesses could lose their memories, it just wasn’t feasible. So she said give me a reasonable timeframe that you need to process all the discovery in this case and they just wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t get off the April 2026 date that they were proposing.

The Washington D.C. trial involves Trump’s actions up to and including the January 6 attack. Following the indictment, former Vice President Mike Pence has begun to more openly criticize Trump’s attempts to “suspend the Constitution” with his fake electors scheme.

If Pence testifies against Trump in the proceedings, even right-wing pundits like Bill O’Reilly are convinced the former president will “go down.”

(Via Mediaite)

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Oliver Anthony’s Viral Moment Isn’t Over Yet As ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’ Is No. 1 On The Hot 100 For A Second Week

Last week, Oliver Anthony improbably had the biggest song in the country when “Rich Men North Of Richmonddebuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Now it’s confirmed that the track is more than a one-and-done: On the new Hot 100 dated September 2, “Rich Men North Of Richmond” is in the top spot for a second consecutive/total week.

The song actually saw a significant increase in streaming activity from its first week to its second: “Rich Men” had 22.9 million streams during the August 18 to 24 tracking week, which is a 31-percent increase. This is a bit of a rare feat: Of all the songs that premiered at No. 1 this decade (34 of them), “Rich Men” is just the second to get more streams in its second week, after Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U” did it in 2021.

Also a fun (but inconsequential) bit of trivia is that “Rich Men” is just the eighth No. 1 song with a US city in its title, and the first one since 1985, when Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” topped the chart.

Meanwhile, Doja Cat had an impressive week of her own: “Paint The Town Red” rose from No. 15 all the way up to No. 5, making it her seventh top-10 single.

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Donald Trump’s Attempt To Spread A Rumor About ‘Meatball’ Ron DeSantis Was Undone By An All-Time Hilarious Typo

“Covfefe” was a once in a generation typo (?) from Donald Trump, but he’s made plenty of other spelling errors on social media over the years. We’re not so different, you and I. Between 2017 and 2019, CNN found that the then-president made 188 misspellings on Twitter, including “Barrack Obama,” “Capital Hill,” and “smocking” gun.

Trump has become even more of a loose cannon (or is it “canon”?) since joining Truth Social. Earlier today, he wrote, “Roomer are strong in political circles that Ron DeSanctimonious, whose Presidential run is a shambles, and whose poll numbers have absolutely crashed, putting him 3rd and 4th in some states, will be dropping out of the Presidential race in order to run, in Florida, against Rick Scott for Senate. Now that’s an interesting one, isn’t it?”

Also interesting: Trump edited the post since it went live. But screenshots are forever.

As for what the hell he’s talking about:

It’s not clear where Trump got his information about DeSantis, whose presidential campaign has stalled after entering as the top challenger to the ex-president, but former Republican strategist Rick Wilson passed along the same rumor last week. “Hot Tallahassee rumor just landed in my lap,” Wilson posted last Tuesday on X. “‘Wait until DeSantis primaries Rick Scott.’”

Ron doesn’t need a rumor to sink his campaign. He’s doing a great job on his own.

(Via Raw Story)

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David Ayer Had Some Strong Words About Watching ‘Suicide Squad’ Get ‘F*cked’ By The Studio: ‘That Sh*t Broke Me’

David Ayer has long touted an “Ayer Cut” of Suicide Squad in the vein of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a.k.a. the Snyder Cut, which finally got its day in the sun thanks to a desperate need for content on HBO Max. While the theatrical version of Suicide Squad featured a breakout portrayal of Harley Quinn by Margot Robbie, the film was critically derided and Ayer has repeatedly blamed Warner Bros. for meddling with the film because it “scared the sh*t out of the executives.”

As Warner Bros. soured on continuing the DCEU (the studio made it a point to note that the Snyder Cut was the end of the line for the Snyder-verse), the chances of the Ayer Cut being released seemed increasingly slim. However, Ayer has continued to fight for his original version to be see the light of day. The director got extremely candid about how the previous Warners Bros. regime treated Suicide Squad during the latest episode of Jon Bernthal’s Real Ones podcast.

“Hollywood — I tell people — is like watching someone you love get f*cked by someone you hate,” Ayer told Bernthal. “The big one is Suicide Squad. That sh*t broke me. That handed me my ass.”

Via Variety:

“Come right off ‘Fury,’ right? I had the town in my hand — could’ve done anything, and I did do anything,” Ayer continued. “And [I] go on this journey with [‘Suicide Squad’]. And the same thing — authentic, truthful, let’s do all the rehearsal, let’s really get in each other’s souls. Let’s create this amazing, collaborative thing, right? And then ‘Deadpool’ opened, right? And they never tested ‘Batman v. Superman,’ so they were expecting a different result, and then they got hammered by all the critics. Then it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to turn David Ayer’s dark, soulful movie into a f*cking comedy now.’”

As for Ayer’s renewed intensity, the director recently revealed that new DC Studios chief James Gunn told him that the Ayer Cut “would have it’s time to be shared.” Ayer also said that Gunn “absolutely deserves to launch to launch his DC universe without more drama about old projects.”

Going on podcasts and talking about Suicide Squad getting “f*cked by someone you hate” kinda feels like the opposite of that.

(Via Variety)

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Coolio’s Final Episode Of ‘Futurama’ Includes A New Song And A Sweet Tribute To The Rapper

Coolio was, first and foremost, a rapper. But the “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “C U When U Get There” legend was also an actor. His long filmography includes Fox-then-Comedy Central-then-Hulu’s Futurama, where he voiced Kwanzaa-Bot. Before his death last September at 59 years old, he recorded a final appearance as Kwanzaa’s counterpart to Robot Santa and the Chanukah Zombie. That episode, “I Know What You Did Next Xmas,” premiered today on Hulu.

In one scene, Kwanzaa-Bot and the Chanukah Zombie try to teach some kids that there’s “a holiday for everyone,” but all they care about is X-Mas (don’t call it Christmas). Kwanzaa-Bot later returns in a post-credits scene, which you can watch above, where Coolio raps his “Futurama Xmas list for 3023.”

The song goes:

Gimme 12 Slurms a-slurping
11 Benders burping
10 episodes dropping
9 Scruffys mopping
8 Leelas drinking
7 Zoidbergs stinking
Chanukah and Kwanzaa, share a single stanza
Time traveling chumps
A 40 ounce of nog
Fry’s dead dog
2 turtle-duckens
And a voice over credit for me

The episode ends with a sweet tribute:

hulu

“All of us at Futurama send our sincere condolences to Coolio’s family, friends, and fans. He was one of our favorite guests, always upbeat,” Futurama producer David X. Cohen said when Coolio died. “This news was especially shocking since he looked and sounded great when we saw him in the studio just a few weeks ago, for what was an especially fun session. I thanked him for returning to do the part once again, and he said, ‘Everybody loves KwanzaaBot.’ It was an honor to have gotten the chance to work with him.”

You can watch Futurama on Hulu. Check out more below:

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Lonzo Ball Explained Why He Took Issue With Stephen A. Smith’s Injury Reporting

Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball recently confirmed, during a podcast episode with Trae Young, that he will miss the entire 2023-24 season as he continues rehabilitation from a long-term knee injury. Ball has spoken extensively about feeling bad for the Bulls and other aspects of his recovery, with basketball observers far and wide continuing to root for his progress. However, a subplot emerged when Ball blasted back at ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and told him to “stop yapping” after Smith reported on First Take that Ball has trouble standing up from a seated position — doing so in a video in which he proved he has no issue standing up on his injured leg.

That back and forth garnered a great deal of attention, with Smith adding fuel to the fire on subsequent appearances on First Take and his podcast, but K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago brings more context from Ball and his issues with the way Smith reported on the story. In an encouraging development, Johnson cited Ball saying “I’m going to play again” during remarks at an event in Atlanta, and he also shares Ball’s comments on Smith.

“The outside noise doesn’t bother me,” Ball said. “The Stephen A. thing, he has a wide platform. And to me, I just don’t appreciate when people put out fake news like that, especially someone of his stature that can touch a lot of people.”

The use of “fake news” will likely produce some reaction, but Ball’s point on Smith’s reaction is quite accurate. It would have to be grating on Ball, particularly in the midst of a lengthy recovery, to hear something that he knew to be false repeated by arguably the biggest name in day-to-day sports media matters, and the exchange very likely produced a level of attention on Ball that he didn’t necessarily appreciate.