Category: News

The wildest show on TV is back.

The second season of Yellowjackets ramps up the mysticism and mystery as it follows the dual timelines of a team of high school soccer stars who accidentally crash-land in the Canadian wilderness. In this next installment, the unforgiving winter means resources are scarce and tensions are high, pushing the teens to resort to drastic measures with consequences that haunt their future selves.

There’s something for everyone in season two. Murder. Starvation. Kidnappings. Hallucinations. Weird Symbols. And New Age cults styled in bohemian rags practicing the kind of forest rituals that would leave a Goop writer salivating. But we’re keeping track of it all in a way that feels fitting given the nature of the unhinged players in this dark and twisted survival game.

Welcome to our Yellowjackets Sting Meter. We’ll measure the erratic, unexplainable behavior of the show’s main lineup, ranking them according to how dangerous, deadly, and certifiably insane they appear in each episode. Who’s just a whacky worker bee and who gets crowned Mad Queen of episode one’s “Friends, Romans, Countrymen”? Let’s find out.

Queen Bee – Lottie Matthews

As far as cult leaders go, Lottie Matthews has certainly earned the right to be worshipped at the altar of her own making. At the end of season one, she brought down a wild bear with just a switchblade and a bit of spunk, sacrificing the animal’s heart to a lone stump in the woods and naming herself the conduit between this sentient wilderness and the group of hungry, terrified teenagers trapped in the thick of it. Scoring a shed’s-worth of meat for your hormonal peers means they’re more willing to drink your bloody herbal teas and trust your psychic premonitions — but Lottie’s no one-trick-pony.

In the present, she’s found a way to mold the minds of the weak and suffering without the aid of starvation. She’s had her brain fried thanks to a years-long stay at a Swedish institution, and she’s emerged from her insanity cocoon as a backwoods self-help guru in flowing kimonos with a blowout to match. She’s having visions, hearing voices, and forcing grown men to expose their flaccid penises while being buried alive by disciples donning animal masks. She is an icon. She is the moment. She is … absolutely f*cking terrifying.

Van

Van is the kind of ride-or-die who happily camps out in a haunted attic and suffers nightly rope burns and lip munchings to keep her partner from wandering the woods in a sleepwalking haze. Get you a girlfriend like Van.

Coach Ben

Yes, Coach Ben is technically the only “adult” in this situation and he should be taking a more active role in leading the girls away from occult sacrifices and cannibalistic ideation. But he’s tired. He just lost a leg. Let him make his little maps and sleep on his rusty cot and dream about the gay life he could’ve led, okay?

Travis

Travis is just a teenage boy and as such, he will never reach Queen Bee status. In fact, I’d be surprised if he graduates to two stings over the course of this season. His panic attacks and hunting prowess make him a liability, but not a threat. Yet. If he insists on having these delusional hallucinations of his (most likely dead) brother Javi though, we’ll have to re-evaluate.

Misty

Teen Misty is still paying her dues for that whole shroom-poisoning-orgy debacle last season so as annoying as her culinary input is at the moment — of course the stew needs more herb girl! It could also use more meat if Shauna would just wrap up her kiki with that human popsicle — she’s fairly tame in this episode. Her adult counterpart is slightly more unhinged — who sends guests home with a plastic container of punch? — and her cookie decorating skills leave something to be desired. But, you know how it goes. Misty’s gonna Misty.

Jeff

Jeff just had to help his wife destroy an apartment full of her nudes painted by her dead ex-lover. Let Jeff get sweaty raging out to Papa Roach in his minivan and accidentally set a tiny tree or two on fire, okay? The world’s burning anyway.

Nat

Nat’s a good person with a solid head on her shoulders who’s being peer pressured into drinking blood and giving her boyfriend false hope that his missing brother isn’t buried under feet of snow. She’s also a recovering addict who recently attempted suicide and is now a hostage of Lottie’s cult. I’d say an errant fork lodged in the meaty bit of her captor’s hand is the least violent thing she could’ve done but blood was spilled so fine … two stings for Nat.

Taissa

Taissa’s sleepwalking episodes are getting dangerous and deadlier — in the past and in the present. Her dead-eyed alter-ego is taking out her night terrors on poor Van in the past while Tai refuses to seek help from Lottie in her waking hours. In the present, she’s slowly cracking under the pressure of an impending divorce and her recent election win. She’s beheaded one dog and adopted another – someone rescue Steve before it’s too late! — and her estranged wife is threatening to go to the press about it all. This woman needs the number of a good therapist, stat.

Shauna

It’s always a joy to watch Melanie Lynskey go completely off the rails but, while adult Shauna has a comedically hard time prepping for a police interrogation and scrubbing any trace of herself from her dismembered paramour’s art studio, it’s Sophie Nelisse who gets to chow down on the scenery — and a wayward ear — this episode. Shauna’s gone full Norman Bates, playing MASH with her dead friend’s frozen corpse and pocketing the bits of her that break off when an imaginary argument gets a little too heated. Eventually, she decides to snack on that lonely appendage and it’s hard to tell whether she dipped her toe into the depth of cannibalism because she misses her best friend or, you know, pregnancy cravings.

Citizen Detectives Thread

• Is it just us or does the weird symbol in the woods look a bit like the scar on Van’s face?
• Why didn’t Simone confront Tai about the family dog sacrifice before the fiasco in the school pickup line?
• How did Lottie know where to find Nat? More importantly, how did she know when to find her?
• What’s the significance of the burial therapy experiment that Lottie’s cult performs?
• Why didn’t Shauna laugh at Jeff’s nugget factory joke? It was funny.

By and large, the ladies of Yellowjackets are a fierce bunch. That’s only to be expected, given everything that they went through in the woods. And well, things are a lot less fierce for one character who didn’t endure that plane crash. That would be Jeff (Warren Cole), the husband to Shauna (Melanie Lynskey). Jeff recently found out that Shauna cheated on him, and due to complications, that lover is now dead. Shauna and three of her teammates got rid of the body during the first season finale, and now, the show embarks upon the second season premiere, and Jeff is not doing totally great.

During the course of this episode, Jeff and Shauna make a trip to the studio of her lover, who practically plastered the place with sensual portraits of her. They set about destroying that evidence, and after Shauna confesses her fantasies about Jeff cheating on her, they get it on in the studio. It’s intense. It’s probably humiliating for Jeff, too. He’s got a lot going on inside, and that’s what brings us to the perfect song selected for Jeff’s post-coital mindset.

That would be “Last Resort” by Papa Roach. You know the tune, no doubt.

“Cut my life into pieces / This is my last resort.”

Yes, it’s the “Driving Off Listening To Papa Roach” song once written about at length by our own Vince Mancini, who reminded the world of the spoofed “news” about ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan. Vince also detailed a similar situation to what Jeff is going through with these results:

Perhaps the “Last Resort” joke, at least in driving-off-listening-to-it form, sounds like a cuck’s lament precisely because it came from a cuckoldry story. How about that for cosmic symmetry? Cuck my life into pieces…

Where poor, cucked Jeff is concerned, he actually chose this tune. It made for a virtual record-scratch of an interlude, and he got his frustrations out while rocking out. Furiously so. He even got all “sweaty,” and this left people “snorting” and “screaming” on Twitter. One even wrote, “NOT LAST RESORT IM FUCKIGNSCRWAMINGGGJRJ.” A meme is reborn:

Showtime’s ‘Yellowjackets’ airs on Sunday nights.

The Final Four will have a distinctly South Florida flair this year, as a day after Florida Atlantic punched its ticket to Houston by beating Kansas State in a thriller, the Miami Hurricanes did the same in a rather stunning comeback win over 2-seed Texas.

Texas took control of the game late in the first half, extending their lead to eight at the break, and quickly pushed that out to 13 early in the second half. The Longhorns were lighting it up from the three-point line, while Miami couldn’t buy one from distance, but as the second half wore on, Texas’ hot shooting started to dry up and the Hurricanes started to absolutely dominate getting downhill, steadily chipping away at the lead.

Jordan Miller was the unquestioned star for the Hurricanes on Sunday evening, scoring 27 points on perfect shooting — 7-of-7 from the field and 13-of-13 from the free throw line — as he took over offensively, with Texas having no answers for him when he attacked, with or without the ball.

Miami would take their first lead of the second half with 5:26 to play on a lob to Norchad Omier, who converted the and-1 opportunity to put Miami up 73-72.

From there, the two teams would trade blows, with Marcus Carr doing his best to keep the Longhorns close as he led Texas with 17 points on the evening.

Unfortunately for Texas, their offense would go cold at the wrong time, scoring just two points in the final 1:31 of the game as Miami pulled away at the free throw line where they made eight consecutive free throws (and 9 of 10) in the final minute of the game to earn their first trip to the Final Four in school history with an 88-81 win.

For Jim Larranaga, it’s his second stunning run to the Final Four, as he punches his ticket with the Hurricanes 17 years to the day after his George Mason squad likewise won their Elite Eight game in 2006 on their legendary Final Four run. Miami will meet UConn in the late game of Saturday’s national semifinal doubleheader, tipping off at 8:49 p.m. ET, pending how long FAU-San Diego State goes in the early game, which tips at 6:09 p.m. ET in Houston, with both games on CBS.

Miley Cyrus may be celebrating her endless summer vacation, but Waukesha elementary students aren’t even looking forward to their spring concert. After the student began rehearsals for their annual spring concert, parents were shocked to learn that despite the school approving the song list for the event, the Waukesha County school board has issued a banned on a few songs from the program. Unfortunately, one of those songs banned was Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton’s song “Rainbowland.”

The Wisconsin administrators stated that the duet “could be perceived as controversial.” Initially released in 2017 via Cyrus’ Younger Now album, the track’s lyrics, like the stanza, “Where we’re free to be exactly who we are / Let’s all dig down deep inside / Brush the judgment and fear aside / Make wrong things right /And end the fight,” is about love and acceptance.

However, the Waukesha County school board didn’t feel comfortable including the piece in one of their elementary school’s spring concerts.

Social media users fired off, stating that the administrators’ actions were the exact reason why a song like “Rainbowland” should be included in the program.

Across the country, similar bans have been placed, including Florida’s erasure of African-American studies and Tennessee’s drag ban.

Watch the full newscast below.

LeBron James made his return to the Lakers on Sunday in a 118-108 loss to the Bulls in Los Angeles and will have two full days to recover before they play the Bulls again in Chicago on Wednesday.

With the Lakers fighting for a play-in berth, now in ninth a half-game behind Minnesota and New Orleans, each of their last seven games will be critical. After missing a month due to his foot injury, James’ return is a welcome addition for their postseason push, but Sunday proved his presence alone won’t guarantee them wins down the stretch. As for how close the Lakers came to losing their star for the season, James explained after Sunday’s loss that multiple doctors advised him to have surgery to repair what he says was a torn tendon in his foot — he was listed out with a right foot tendon injury.

How did he avoid surgery? Apparently he found a doctor he calls “the LeBron James of feet” who advised him he could recover without surgery with the right rehab plan.

It’s an incredible soundbite from James, and also one that naturally led to an awful lot of replies to the video either wondering why he sought out the second-best foot doctor or why he didn’t find the Michael Jordan of feet. In any case, James has managed to battle through what was apparently a much more serious issue than even the Lakers had initially let on. The question, of course, is how much that will continue to linger and what impact that will have on James and the Lakers in their quest for the playoffs — particularly as they embark on a five-game road trip where he’ll have to recover after games away from home.

Ben Affleck may get a lot of flack for his grumpy face, but according to Jane Fonda, it’s Jennifer Lopez that the public should be worried about. During the legendary actress’ appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show alongside her 80 For Brady co-star Lily Tomlin, she dished about her time working with the singer on the 2005 film Monster-In-Law.

As host Barrymore asked the pair about their memories of some of their most beloved characters when Fonda was asked about Monster-In-Law, of course, the infamous slap scene took center stage. “The thing that comes to mind right away is we have a slapping scene – I slap her, she slaps me,” said Fonda.

But as Fonda continued, things got a bit more interesting, “Well, Jennifer, as per Jennifer, she had this enormous diamond ring, and so when she slapped me one of the times, it cut open across my eye – my eyebrow,” and as the in-studio audience gasped she added, “And, she’s never apologized.”

TikToker users may add this story to their ongoing list of reasons not to like the star, but clearly, the interaction didn’t leave the pair with any bad blood. Especially given the fact that Fonda attended and was named by Lopez as one of her role models during her speech as she unveiled her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

Watch the full clip from The Drew Barrymore Show above.

The Lakers entered Sunday afternoon riding a wave of positivity, having three in a row and 7 of their last 10 to vault into 8th in the Western Conference. A win over the Bulls at home would pull them within a game of the Clippers and Warriors who are tied for 6th, and after nearly a month rehabbing a foot injury, LeBron James was making his return to the L.A. lineup — coming off of the bench for just the second time in his NBA career.

However, the Bulls relished the opportunity to play spoiler, as Zach LaVine scored 32 points and DeMar DeRozan had 17 points and 10 assists to lead Chicago to a 118-108 win. The Lakers had six players score over 13 points in the game, including James with 19 off the bench, but they were not able to slow down the Bulls’ offense enough, as Chicago shot 54 percent from the field and 45 percent from three on the afternoon. It was not a good loss for a Laker team that’s about to embark on a five-game road trip, starting in Chicago against these same Bulls and finishing with a crosstown matchup with the Clippers, and adding insult to injury was Patrick Beverley, who relished the opportunity to rub some salt in the wound facing the team that released him earlier this year.

Beverley drove on James in the pick-and-roll, hitting him with a little stop and spin in the lane for a push shot that put Chicago back up by 10 with just over a minute to play, effectively icing the game. Naturally, Beverley let James know about it by hitting him with the “too small” gesture, delighting in every moment.

There aren’t many players that enjoy these kinds of moments more than Beverley, particularly when it’s time to go up against a former team that discarded him. Getting to put a dent in the Lakers’ hopes of making a leap all the way to playoff contention surely brought an extra bit of joy to Patrick in the win. He also held onto the taunt long enough to ensure LeBron saw, and James and the Lakers will have an immediate chance to exact a bit of revenge in what is now an extremely important road game for them on Wednesday night in Chicago.

Questlove has dedicated his lengthy and highly-decorated career to uplifting Black people. He’s launched his new publishing imprint Auwa Books. He’s organized the 50th anniversary of hip hop tribute at this year’s Grammy Awards. He’s made public archival footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival for his Oscar Award-winning, documentary Summer Of Soul. He’s spoken out against the erasure of African-American studies in Florida schools. He’s done it all. Yet despite all of his accomplishments, still, to some, all Black people look alike.

After “Because I Got High” musician Afroman was sued by several Ohio police officers because he used footage of their botched raid of his home, Questlove took to Instagram for an epic storytime. Long story short, back in 2003, Questlove got mistaken for Afroman and was chased through London by fans of the musician.

In the post shared to Instagram, Questlove writes, “Man. The one time in my life I got chased in a city unprepared ‘Speed Demon’ video style was when I had a day off in London. I thought I’d hang around the old neighborhood and go record shopping. I had zero clue that ‘Because I Got High’ was a massive hit in Europe.”

When spotted by, as he put it, “[t]hree drunk dudes,” shouting, “Oh sh*t Afroman! ‘because I got high,’” things quickly escalated. Questlove continued, “[It] started with three dudes, and then they got belligerent, and now the site of me speed walking only confirms their drunken notions. Now it’s 4….soon 7. Now, I’m crossing the street, almost getting hit cause I forget the traffic goes the opposite way. Now it’s a mob of 11 yelling and singing ‘Because I Got High.’”

Questlove confesses the experience “[w]as more annoying than dangerous.” Still, he’s “Slightly irked that I know to this day those mofos for the last 20 years have been the life of the party giving their version of spotting a one-hit wonder who refused to show his gratitude when they acknowledged him.”

This weekend sees the end of two mega-popular entertainments: John Wick with Chapter 4 and Succession with Season 4. It’s a bittersweet development: Both are going out on top rather than fizzling out, and besides all things must pass anyway. Still, it’s sad to think of a future without either, and though there’s a chance both may live on in some fashion. Succession’s own creator is feeling pretty verklempt, too. In fact, he kind of wishes someone would have stopped him from ending things.

Caught on the red carpet by Variety at the Season 4 premiere last week, Jesse Armstrong said that he feels the ending has a “natural” feeling, that it gives the whole show a decent shape.

“That’s how I pitched it to my writers’ room, kind of hoping I’d get argued out of it so we’d see a way to do more seasons, because I love working with these people,” Armstrong said. “I think there’s a feeling of completeness and rightness to the shape of the show.”

Armstrong even knew how it was going to end “pretty early” on, and whatever it is he stuck with it over the years. He took inspiration from the conclusions of some previous HBO juggernauts, including the magisterial closer to Six Feet Under as well as the controversial capper of The Sopranos. He hinted that the one he came up with, though, is “bespoke.”

So get ready for Succession to go bespoke.

(Via Variety)

It may not be any fun if the homies can’t have none, but one Mississippi news anchor learned the hard way that sometimes it’s for your good to avoid temptation. WLBT journalist and meteorologist Barbie Bassett’s on-air use of rapper Snoop Dogg’s lyric and signature slang catchphrase was the reason why she might be out of a job.

During a broadcast, as Bassett and her co-anchors discussed the entrepreneur’s latest collaboration with the wine company, 19 Crimes, she closed with a line that the musician popularized in the early 2000s, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle.”

On the surface, the phrase that has appeared in several of Snoop’s songs as a throwaway lyric, may seem innocent enough. However, when translated from AAVE (African-American Vernacular English), it means, “for sure, my n****.”

Although the network has not released a formal statement, Bassett is no longer listed under the news team on its website. Bassett’s professional biography has also been scrubbed from the website.

When the clip went viral on social media, people called for Bassett to be rehired as it was a simple mistake. However, in another clip Bassett used the term “Grandmammy” to refer to her coworker of color’s grandmother. “Mammy” is a negative stereotype of Black women seen in earlier films where Black women were domestic servants to white families. Users now feel that Bassett’s use of the term “nizzle” was intentional.

To be clear, Basset did apologize for using the term “grandmammy.” But she hasn’t issued one for using the term “nizzle.” This isn’t the first time an anchor used Snoop Dogg’s lyrics on air.