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 – Dammit, Bosch made me cry
Bosch.
That’s a fun name to say. It’s a fun television show, too. It aired for a bunch of seasons on Amazon Prime and then skipped over to Amazon’s ad-supported tier FreeVee for two seasons of a spinoff called Bosch: Legacy that’s basically just the same as the original but with a new title and some commercials. Both of the shows feature Titus Welliver as, you guessed it, a murder detective in Los Angeles. Was he a loose cannon who played by his own rules? Brother, you know it. He also lived in a stunning glass house on a cliff and ate pancakes like a crazy person. Huge Dad Show energy here. I ripped through the whole series in like four weeks.
One of my favorite things about the series was how often other characters would grumble Bosch’s name after he got up to another classic Bosch shenanigan. No one was better at this than Lance Reddick, who played LAPD police commissioner and eventual city council member Irvin Irving, which is really just an incredible name. This should not come as a surprise. No one was better at playing a disgruntled authority figure than Lance Reddick. Look, here he is grumbling Bosch’s name while sitting at a piano with a glass of wine.
Here he is grumbling Bosch’s name with an f-bomb leading into it, which became a thing a lot of characters did on the show.
Here he is shouting it.
And here are two GIFs of him giving someone a devastating stare from the backseat of a chauffeured SUV before rolling up the window and having the driver pull away, which don’t really have much to do with anything but are so good and I don’t have many opportunities to post them so here we go.
Imagine your reaction if you were on the receiving end of that powerfully dismissive glare. I suspect all the bones in my body would crumble and leave me sloshed on the sidewalk like a sack of loose meat. He was really great at doing this. That’s the point.
It was one of many reasons I was so sad when he passed away earlier this year. And why I got kind of emotional when he popped up in the season finale of Bosch: Legacy for a brief cameo. And it turns out I wasn’t the only one. From a piece on the finale in Collider.
But let’s be honest, that’s not why fans like ourselves were delighted to see Reddick one more time. It was what he said. For one final time, when catching up on events, we were treated to the most iconic catchphrase of the season as Irving asks what the title character is up to. Mustering up as much disdain as possible, we get that immortal line for a final time: “F*cking Bosch.”
Yes.
Yes.
Look at greatness in action.
Did I expect, at any point, to find myself getting emotional watching a spinoff of Bosch on an ad-supported tier of a streaming service run by the website where I also just browsed for a new pair of thermal pajama pants? Well, no. I can honestly say I did not. But life is weird that way. These things sneak up on you.
And so, once again, rest in peace, Lance Reddick. You were better than anyone at doing this one specific thing you did, which is kind of a cool legacy.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died”
What we have here is the first trailer for Madame Web, a Spider-man/Spiderverse-adjacent movie that stars Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney and features a little appearance by Adam Scott, which is kind of wild. I did not have “Adam Scott in a Spider-related movie” on my 2023 bingo card. Which is on me, really. I also did not have “a powerful CEO might get hauled in front of Congress to get yelled at about a movie about a murderous cartoon coyote,” so I missed on a few things.
Anyway, here’s the official description for Madame Web.
“Meanwhile, in another universe…” In a switch from the typical genre, Madame Web tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures…if they can all survive a deadly present.
Okay, great. Wonderful. But did you guys watch the trailer up there? Like, the whole thing? Or at least through the two-minute mark? Because just before then, let’s say start around 1:40 to be safe, this happens.
he was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died pic.twitter.com/DkzYSFhKaH
— alex (@alex_abads) November 15, 2023
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
That’s a really incredible sentence. Read it through a few times. Really soak it all in. Don’t get in too deep, though. I got a little carried away yesterday and it went and bought up all the real estate in my brain. I tried to go into my web banking to pay some bills.
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
I tried to remember the password.
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
I tried to remember the account number for the bill I needed to pay.
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
I tried to wr-…
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
I tried t-…
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
I tr-…
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”
It was a real problem. It still is. Imagine saying that sentence out loud to anyone. Imagine living the kind of life where saying that makes sense. My mom has never been to the Amazon or researched a single spider. I could think about it all weekend. I might, actually.
There is a silver lining here, though. This completely bonkers line of dialogue — WHICH THEY PUT IN THE TRAILER — reminded me of an even more bonkers line of dialogue from my beloved but short-lived CBS series Zoo.
I say this every time I post this GIF, which has to be numbering into the mid-400s by now, but… like…
It’s definitely the lions, right?
Let’s not overthink this.
It’s definitely the lions.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – Who stole Whoopi Goldberg’s lasagna?
Well, here’s what happened: Joy Behar made Whoopi Goldberg a pan of lasagna for her birthday. That’s nice. Lasagna is one of the best foods. I would love it if someone — any of you, Joy Behar, Allen Iverson — made me a lasagna for my next birthday. A lovely gesture.
But then.
Intrigue.
“Yesterday I was home looking for [the lasagna], I had made three of them about two weeks ago,” Behar explained. “I ate one, me and my husband, I gave one to somebody else, and I saved one for you.”
When she checked the freezer for Goldberg’s lasagna, Behar said “it was not anywhere to be found.”
WHO STOLE WHOOPI GOLDBERG’S BIRTHDAY LASAGNA?
WAS IT YOU?
BE HONEST.
“There is a missing lasagna somewhere,” she declared, prompting Alyssa Farah Griffin to reply, “Where is the stolen lasagna?!”
Behar felt similarly outraged by the noodle nabbing. “I feel like putting out an APB for it [to] find the lasagna!”
CALL THE POLICE
CALL THE FBI
DEPUTIZE GIADA DE LAURENTIIS
GIVE HER A BADGE AND A GUN
SHE’S A LOOSE CANNON
BUT SHE GETS RESULTS
[LANCE REDDICK VOICE] F-CKING DE LAURENTIIS
The lost lasagna meant that Behar was forced to whip up another batch for Goldberg in honor of her special day. She added, “Anyway, enjoy it.”
What I like here is that it is really just a perfect daytime television story. Some lady made another lady some lasagna but it disappeared so she made another one. The end. Perfect.
I will say this, though: If I’m living in a house, or even just visiting one, and there’s a lasagna sitting in that freezer for more than… let’s say three days, I am absolutely defrosting and eating that lasagna. No jury would convict me.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Good lord, Sam Richardson is a talented man
The headline of this section will make sense in a second. We have to go on a little journey to get to it, though. I’ll be fast, I promise.
This is a video of Ted Lasso stars Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddington performing an actually kind of lovely little cover of “Shallow.” Fans of the show got very excited about it because a lot of them were very, very invested in the prospect of their two characters hooking up. It was a whole thing. Also, the performance was good and cute and for a very good cause, as TV Line explained in their write-up of the event, which is called Thundergong, which is… cool.
Sudeikis once again served as master of ceremonies at THUNDERGONG!, an annual benefit concert supporting the Steps of Faith Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds for amputees in need. This year’s event — which also featured appearances by Brendan Hunt and Sam Richardson — hauled in over $800,000.
Aaaaand there we go. The destination of the journey I sent us on at the beginning of this section. Please watch this short clip of Sam Richardson performing “Rosanna” by Toto at the event:
Sam Richardson is amazing. pic.twitter.com/CsqxM7orEf
— Alicia (@KC_Goddess29) November 12, 2023
Three notes here:
- This is so good
- Sam Richardson is always so good in everything he apples in, from Veep to Detroiters to Ted Lasso to The Afterparty to I Think You Should Leave, just a bomb of charisma and personality and talent, and I really hope someone somewhere figures out how to make him a massive star on the level of, like, Paul Rudd, who shares many of these qualities
- I have no clue how he did a leaping split in leather pants
Sam Richardson rules.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – CAR CHASE TV
We’ve seen live broadcasts of car chases on the news.
We’ve seen compilations of car chases on the internet.
We’ve seen entire television shows dedicated to the wildest police chases from around the world.
What we’ve never had, though, is an entire television channel dedicated exclusively to showing viewers car chases 24 hours a day, like how CNN is for news but with stolen Acuras trying to outrun 10 cop cars on a Los Angeles freeway.
Today, Pluto TV and Local Now launched a 24/7 car chase channel showing all the best car chases out there. The channel will include live feeds of real-time chases plus a curated list of some of the best car chases from local news stations around the United States. According to the ad for the network, there are over 10,000 car chases every year in California alone.
I need to be very clear about three things here:
- It is incredible to me that nobody thought to do this until 2023
- I would have watched this channel for hours a day as background noise while I was in college, occasionally perking up when something especially wild happened
- This should be the only thing shown in televisions in waiting rooms from now
Uproxx’s Matt Prigge wrote up a blog about this earlier in the week and, bless that lovely man, did a little journalism about it.
What to expect from the Car Chase Pluto channel? As this article is being typed up, the Car Chase channel is showing someone on a motorcycle trying to flee the fuzz along a darkened highway in southern California. It might never end, unless one of them finally runs out of gas. It’s murky and the images can be impossible to parse, but that just means it’s more real.
I’m serious about the waiting room thing. I don’t care what anybody says. If there’s a car chase on a television anywhere close enough to see it, people will watch. It’s better than leaving it on a channel where two talking heads shout at each other between commercials for prescription medicine to lower the blood pressure the talking heads just sent spiking.
It’s a good idea.
Listen to me.
Do like two hours a day from midnight to 2 AM where the chases are narrated by stoned college students.
That’s a good idea, too.
I’m just giving them away over here.
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 Sarah:
I don’t know why exactly this section of the new Vogue profile of Olivia Colman made me think of you, but it did: “The Norfolk-born Hollywood star will turn 50 in January as one of the most in-demand British stars working today, while having spent the majority of her career as a not-mega-famous person. As such, she has carved out a unique space for herself in the public’s affection. How would she summarise the Colman worldview, I ask? ‘Just be kind, and try not to be a twat,’ she replies with that winning hint of a lisp. ‘You’re not better than anyone.’”
Seems like your kind of vibe, too. I swear I meant this as a compliment when I started writing it.
So, a few things here. Let’s go with four:
- Olivia Colman rules and has for a while so I’m actually kind of touched that something cool like this that she said made you think of me
- This really is very good advice and I think some people could benefit from having it tattooed on their forearm where they can see it regularly
- The whole profile is definitely worth a read
- I was about to type “Olivia Colman should be in a Paddington movie” but then I remembered I literally mentioned that she’s going to be in the next one, Paddington in Peru, in this very column a few weeks ago
Great chat here. Thank you, Sarah.
AND NOW, THE NEWS
To the sky!
A cargo plane heading for Belgium was forced to return to New York City after a horse escaped from its crate on board.
Folks, we have a horse loose on an airplane.
“We have [a] live animal … horse … on board the airplane,” the plane’s pilot told air traffic control.
Please stop for one moment here and picture the face of the air traffic control person who received this message.
I’m serious.
Think about it.
Think about their whole day.
I’ve been doing it all week and it’s made me start giggling a little each time.
“Hey honey, how was your day at work as an air traffic controller?”
“Well…”
All week in my head.
“We need to return back to New York. We cannot get the horse back secured,” the pilot said, adding that flying the plane was not a problem.
I choose to believe this last part meant the horse was capable of serving as co-pilot if things got really dicey.
The plane also had to dump 20 tonnes of fuel into the Atlantic Ocean “approximately 10 miles west of Martha’s Vineyard”, due to the weight of the plane.
“We regret to inform you that the beach is closed today. The water quality is poor because an airplane had to dump 40,000 pounds of fuel into the ocean to make an emergency landing after a horse got loose in the cabin. We apologize for the inconvenience.”