Month: November 2023

Warning: Spoilers for Gen V’s season finale are below.

In Gen V, like in the bigger Boys universe, heroes are often villains, villains are usually monsters, and nothing is ever really as it seems. So, if fans were expecting the show to wrap up its first season with a climactic battle on the campus grounds of Godolkin University that ended with Marie and her supe crew scoring a hard-fought win for the good guys well then, what f*cking show have you been watching?

Cate and Sam are on a warpath, unleashing the troubled kids of The Woods to wreak havoc on the human faculty and staff at God U, and they’re not afraid to rack up student casualties in the process. Stopping them means getting down and bloody, and facing off against the most powerful member of The Seven who, unsurprisingly, is getting a hard-on from all this murderous mayhem.

Here’s our ranking of the most WTF moments in Gen V’s season finale, “The Guardians of Godolkin.”

The End of Hot Jeff Summer

Vought’s undercover social media guru almost escaped the carnage that Cate and her band of crazies unleashed on the human population at God U. He was one more dial of his radio-wave frequency box away from living his best, Hot Jeff Summer life. Unfortunately for him, Cate has a flair for the dramatic and what’s more shocking than watching a live stream of a guy who’s been mind-controlled into thinking it’s the fourth of July and his head is a firecracker?

Cate Gets Handsy

In yet another example that Dean Shetty was right to be drugging her protege all these years because the girl is too powerful and damaged for her own good, Cate pushes one of the guards of The Woods to literally eat his own hands once all of the prisoners have been freed. The munching of flesh and crunching of tiny finger bones will be haunting our dreams for a while now.

Sam’s Turn To The Dark Side

Sam, like Cate, has been abused enough that the line between right and wrong hasn’t just blurred — it’s completely disappeared. Faced with the opportunity to punish the people who hurt him (and ensure humans think twice before trying that again) he makes the devastating decision to turn on Emma and embrace the unfeeling void promised by the tips of Cate’s fingertips. He doesn’t get the chance to kill that many people considering Andre is there to stop him, but his choice to betray a person who’s only ever tried to help him in order to sate his own need for vengeance feels like the final nail in the coffin of the Sam/Emma ship. We hate to see it.

Emma’s Shrinkage

Speaking of bad break-ups, after Emma fails to convince Sam to be the good guy in this impossibly f*cked-up situation, he throws some of her biggest insecurities back in her face — which, rude. Somehow, without purging herself, Emma’s shrinking ability kicks in, which begs the question: Could this girl get small just by being sad? That’s all it took? Hormonal teenage girls are sad on the daily, she could’ve been Honey I Shrunk The Kids-ing herself without gagging herself in a public restroom this whole time?

Marie’s Glow Blow Up

Marie also discovers some interesting new uses for her blood-wielding abilities during the university uprising. She manages to turn Maverick visible and stop a girl’s heart. She even finds a way to collect the blood of the many dead bodies around her and transform them into throwing knives — which is as disgusting and cool as it sounds. But her best trick? Accidentally blowing up Cate’s hand when mindflayer Barbie tried to use her powers on her genderfluid hook-up buddy Jordan. That’s romance, people!

Homelander’s Visit

If there’s a supe-caused sh*tshow happening, you can bet Homelander is going to be there at some point. Superman’s evil alter-ego shows up just as Marie seems to have quelled Cate’s rebellion, but instead of congratulating her, he accuses her of turning on her own kind and lasers her unconscious. We forgot how much of a hypocritical a**hole this guy was.

The Real Guardians of Godolkin

If beaming down Marie didn’t already hint that Gen V’s finale wouldn’t get the happy ending it was heading for, then watching as she woke up in a sterile hospital room with no windows or doors and only Emma, Andre, and Jordan for company should’ve clued us in. Not only is Homelander spinning the disaster to make it look like the four of them were solely responsible for the destruction on God U’s campus, but he’s also painting Sam and Cate as the heroes who stopped the massacre. So, we guess that answers the question of which Gen V characters we’ll be seeing in season four of The Boys, right?

Warning: Spoilers for Gen V’s season finale are below.

In Gen V, like in the bigger Boys universe, heroes are often villains, villains are usually monsters, and nothing is ever really as it seems. So, if fans were expecting the show to wrap up its first season with a climactic battle on the campus grounds of Godolkin University that ended with Marie and her supe crew scoring a hard-fought win for the good guys well then, what f*cking show have you been watching?

Cate and Sam are on a warpath, unleashing the troubled kids of The Woods to wreak havoc on the human faculty and staff at God U, and they’re not afraid to rack up student casualties in the process. Stopping them means getting down and bloody, and facing off against the most powerful member of The Seven who, unsurprisingly, is getting a hard-on from all this murderous mayhem.

Here’s our ranking of the most WTF moments in Gen V’s season finale, “The Guardians of Godolkin.”

The End of Hot Jeff Summer

Vought’s undercover social media guru almost escaped the carnage that Cate and her band of crazies unleashed on the human population at God U. He was one more dial of his radio-wave frequency box away from living his best, Hot Jeff Summer life. Unfortunately for him, Cate has a flair for the dramatic and what’s more shocking than watching a live stream of a guy who’s been mind-controlled into thinking it’s the fourth of July and his head is a firecracker?

Cate Gets Handsy

In yet another example that Dean Shetty was right to be drugging her protege all these years because the girl is too powerful and damaged for her own good, Cate pushes one of the guards of The Woods to literally eat his own hands once all of the prisoners have been freed. The munching of flesh and crunching of tiny finger bones will be haunting our dreams for a while now.

Sam’s Turn To The Dark Side

Sam, like Cate, has been abused enough that the line between right and wrong hasn’t just blurred — it’s completely disappeared. Faced with the opportunity to punish the people who hurt him (and ensure humans think twice before trying that again) he makes the devastating decision to turn on Emma and embrace the unfeeling void promised by the tips of Cate’s fingertips. He doesn’t get the chance to kill that many people considering Andre is there to stop him, but his choice to betray a person who’s only ever tried to help him in order to sate his own need for vengeance feels like the final nail in the coffin of the Sam/Emma ship. We hate to see it.

Emma’s Shrinkage

Speaking of bad break-ups, after Emma fails to convince Sam to be the good guy in this impossibly f*cked-up situation, he throws some of her biggest insecurities back in her face — which, rude. Somehow, without purging herself, Emma’s shrinking ability kicks in, which begs the question: Could this girl get small just by being sad? That’s all it took? Hormonal teenage girls are sad on the daily, she could’ve been Honey I Shrunk The Kids-ing herself without gagging herself in a public restroom this whole time?

Marie’s Glow Blow Up

Marie also discovers some interesting new uses for her blood-wielding abilities during the university uprising. She manages to turn Maverick visible and stop a girl’s heart. She even finds a way to collect the blood of the many dead bodies around her and transform them into throwing knives — which is as disgusting and cool as it sounds. But her best trick? Accidentally blowing up Cate’s hand when mindflayer Barbie tried to use her powers on her genderfluid hook-up buddy Jordan. That’s romance, people!

Homelander’s Visit

If there’s a supe-caused sh*tshow happening, you can bet Homelander is going to be there at some point. Superman’s evil alter-ego shows up just as Marie seems to have quelled Cate’s rebellion, but instead of congratulating her, he accuses her of turning on her own kind and lasers her unconscious. We forgot how much of a hypocritical a**hole this guy was.

The Real Guardians of Godolkin

If beaming down Marie didn’t already hint that Gen V’s finale wouldn’t get the happy ending it was heading for, then watching as she woke up in a sterile hospital room with no windows or doors and only Emma, Andre, and Jordan for company should’ve clued us in. Not only is Homelander spinning the disaster to make it look like the four of them were solely responsible for the destruction on God U’s campus, but he’s also painting Sam and Cate as the heroes who stopped the massacre. So, we guess that answers the question of which Gen V characters we’ll be seeing in season four of The Boys, right?

The NBA is going all-out for the newest addition to its calendar. For years, it’s been reported that Adam Silver wanted the league to adopt some sort of additional competition that took place during the regular season, and earlier this year, the announcement came that the NBA would institute the inaugural In-Season Tournament during the 2023-24 campaign.

We’ve seen some of the ways that the league wants to hype up the event already. There will be dedicated nights of the week over the next month — Tuesdays (minus Election Day) and Fridays — that will serve as tournament nights. There will be special courts and jerseys for those games, and there’s a terrific ad for the whole thing that seems ripped from the Oceans series. Once the four semifinalists are determined, those teams will head to Las Vegas for the semifinals and final.

And on Friday morning, the league unveiled the latest way it’s looking to add a little bit of excitement to the festivities. LL Cool J and The Roots teamed up to combine the song “Mama Said Knock You Out” with the melody of “Here I Come” to create the official anthem for the event.

“I’ve been a fan of the NBA ever since I can remember, and it’s a real honor to have my record serving as the anthem for this monumental moment,” LL Cool J said in a statement. “I’m excited to see the energy of the song translate to the play on the court during the NBA In-Season Tournament.”

The first slate of In-Season Tournament games begins on Friday, Nov. 3.

The NBA is going all-out for the newest addition to its calendar. For years, it’s been reported that Adam Silver wanted the league to adopt some sort of additional competition that took place during the regular season, and earlier this year, the announcement came that the NBA would institute the inaugural In-Season Tournament during the 2023-24 campaign.

We’ve seen some of the ways that the league wants to hype up the event already. There will be dedicated nights of the week over the next month — Tuesdays (minus Election Day) and Fridays — that will serve as tournament nights. There will be special courts and jerseys for those games, and there’s a terrific ad for the whole thing that seems ripped from the Oceans series. Once the four semifinalists are determined, those teams will head to Las Vegas for the semifinals and final.

And on Friday morning, the league unveiled the latest way it’s looking to add a little bit of excitement to the festivities. LL Cool J and The Roots teamed up to combine the song “Mama Said Knock You Out” with the melody of “Here I Come” to create the official anthem for the event.

“I’ve been a fan of the NBA ever since I can remember, and it’s a real honor to have my record serving as the anthem for this monumental moment,” LL Cool J said in a statement. “I’m excited to see the energy of the song translate to the play on the court during the NBA In-Season Tournament.”

The first slate of In-Season Tournament games begins on Friday, Nov. 3.

It’s not every day that a new song by the popular indie-rock band The Beatles drops. But that’s what happened right as Steven and Ian were scheduled to record this week’s episode. So they started late, and listened to “Now And Then,” and then decided… that it sounds like a ’90s power pop band attempting to sound like The Beatles. Not necessarily a bad thing? But is it really necessary to take an old John Lennon demo, have Macca and Ringo lay on a new rhythm track, and label it the “last” Beatles tune?

After that discussion, the guys discuss “Soul Net,” a new single by the great shoegaze outfit Diiv. Back in the 2010s, it seemed like these guys were either accused of being overhyped or totally ignored. But their music from that era really holds up, and Steven and Ian are excited about the potential for a new album. They are also really into a new shoegaze band, Hotline TNT, who dropped a great new album called Cartwheel today.

Since the guys are so positive in this ep, it seemed OK to talk about a band they both hate, but also feel like isn’t popular enough to publicly hate. What are the ethics of “punching down” for critics talking about artistically suspect acts that haven’t reached the masses? Steven and Ian try to talk it out. Then, in the mailbag, they give the “yay or nay” treatment to They Might Be Giants.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the latest effort from Empty Country while Steven recommends Philadelphia band Golden Apples.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 162 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

It’s not every day that a new song by the popular indie-rock band The Beatles drops. But that’s what happened right as Steven and Ian were scheduled to record this week’s episode. So they started late, and listened to “Now And Then,” and then decided… that it sounds like a ’90s power pop band attempting to sound like The Beatles. Not necessarily a bad thing? But is it really necessary to take an old John Lennon demo, have Macca and Ringo lay on a new rhythm track, and label it the “last” Beatles tune?

After that discussion, the guys discuss “Soul Net,” a new single by the great shoegaze outfit Diiv. Back in the 2010s, it seemed like these guys were either accused of being overhyped or totally ignored. But their music from that era really holds up, and Steven and Ian are excited about the potential for a new album. They are also really into a new shoegaze band, Hotline TNT, who dropped a great new album called Cartwheel today.

Since the guys are so positive in this ep, it seemed OK to talk about a band they both hate, but also feel like isn’t popular enough to publicly hate. What are the ethics of “punching down” for critics talking about artistically suspect acts that haven’t reached the masses? Steven and Ian try to talk it out. Then, in the mailbag, they give the “yay or nay” treatment to They Might Be Giants.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the latest effort from Empty Country while Steven recommends Philadelphia band Golden Apples.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 162 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Stephen Colbert kicked off his The Late Show monologue on Thursday with the most important news story of the week, dare I say month, possibly year: “Ontario man’s 8-foot zucchini might be the longest in world.” He then moved on to less pressing issues, like the former president of the United States and his kids being on trial in a civil fraud case.

“Moving from Canada’s national pastime to America’s, hoping Donald Trump goes to jail, he is presently running for president and from the law,” Colbert said. “In Trump’s New York financial fraud trial, which is going on presently, the court is hearing testimony from Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric. Or as Trump calls them, the pretty one, the smart one, my favorite, Don Jr., and Eric.”

Speaking of Don Jr., the sniffly conspiracy theorist asked the courtroom artist working the trial to “make me look sexy,” according to Reuters. “It takes a lot of balls to hit on a sketch artist during your own trial,” Colbert said before guessing how things went down between Trump Jr. and the artist: “Hey, what are you doing later? I’m free after 5… maybe 4 with good behavior.”

You can watch Colbert’s The Late Show monologue above.

Stephen Colbert kicked off his The Late Show monologue on Thursday with the most important news story of the week, dare I say month, possibly year: “Ontario man’s 8-foot zucchini might be the longest in world.” He then moved on to less pressing issues, like the former president of the United States and his kids being on trial in a civil fraud case.

“Moving from Canada’s national pastime to America’s, hoping Donald Trump goes to jail, he is presently running for president and from the law,” Colbert said. “In Trump’s New York financial fraud trial, which is going on presently, the court is hearing testimony from Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric. Or as Trump calls them, the pretty one, the smart one, my favorite, Don Jr., and Eric.”

Speaking of Don Jr., the sniffly conspiracy theorist asked the courtroom artist working the trial to “make me look sexy,” according to Reuters. “It takes a lot of balls to hit on a sketch artist during your own trial,” Colbert said before guessing how things went down between Trump Jr. and the artist: “Hey, what are you doing later? I’m free after 5… maybe 4 with good behavior.”

You can watch Colbert’s The Late Show monologue above.

Jessica Simpson celebrated six years of sobriety by sharing “unrecognizable” photos of herself on Instagram.

“This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself. I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore,” Simpson wrote in a caption from 2021, which she re-posted this week. “I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity.”

To do so, she decided to “stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction and quite honestly I was exhausted. I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honor.” Simpson “wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward- never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world.”

The “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer (still a good song) — who Jennifer Lawrence would be starstruck to meet — noted that there’s “so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic. The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage.” The booze wasn’t issue, she wrote, “I was.”

Simpson, who lost over 100 pounds after she stopped drinking, didn’t love herself at the time but “today I do. I have made nice with the fears and I have accepted the parts of my life that are just sad. I own my personal power with soulful courage. I am wildly honest and comfortably open. I am free.”

You can see the photos below.

Jessica Simpson celebrated six years of sobriety by sharing “unrecognizable” photos of herself on Instagram.

“This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself. I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore,” Simpson wrote in a caption from 2021, which she re-posted this week. “I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity.”

To do so, she decided to “stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction and quite honestly I was exhausted. I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honor.” Simpson “wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward- never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world.”

The “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer (still a good song) — who Jennifer Lawrence would be starstruck to meet — noted that there’s “so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic. The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage.” The booze wasn’t issue, she wrote, “I was.”

Simpson, who lost over 100 pounds after she stopped drinking, didn’t love herself at the time but “today I do. I have made nice with the fears and I have accepted the parts of my life that are just sad. I own my personal power with soulful courage. I am wildly honest and comfortably open. I am free.”

You can see the photos below.