Category: News

Injuries have been an unfortunate theme of the 2021 NBA Playoffs, and they impacted Game 5 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals on Thursday evening. Both Giannis Antetokounmpo (knee) and Trae Young (foot) missed the contest, leaving their teams without No. 1 options under the brightest of lights. The Milwaukee Bucks were able overcome the hole left by Antetokounmpo, however, as they raced to an early lead and never trailed on the way to a 123-112 victory.

After the Hawks came out flying in Game 4, the Bucks returned the favor at the outset on Thursday. Milwaukee led 10-2 at the first timeout, riding seven quick points from Jrue Holiday, and that wasn’t the end of their push. Milwaukee scored on their first 13 (!) offensive possessions, including five offensive rebounds on their first five missed shots. The end result of that onslaught was a 20-point lead in short order, with the Hawks seemingly on the ropes.

While it was a balanced attack for Milwaukee in what became a parade to the rim, Brook Lopez was huge for the Bucks. He scored 16 points in the first half and, on the whole, Lopez was effective in walling off the paint defensively and providing effective offense with his size.

It seemed as if the Hawks might fade at times in the first half but, to their credit, they punched back. Bogdan Bogdanovic led the way with 13 points before halftime and, little by little, Atlanta chipped away. The Hawks made 16 of their final 26 shots after a dreadful start and, when John Collins connected on a three-pointer in the final seconds, Atlanta took only a nine-point deficit into the locker room.

On the first possession of the third quarter, Bogdanovic connected on his fourth three-pointer of the game, bringing the Hawks to within six. Seemingly on cue, the Bucks put together a response with a 12-4 run to reclaim a 14-point advantage.

The rest of the third quarter was a back-and-forth battle, with the Hawks making a push to climb within a nine-point spread. Then, the Bucks scored the final four points of the period, extending their advantage to 13 points with 12 minutes to go.

Milwaukee opened the fourth quarter by scoring the first five points, taking an 18-point lead, and the Bucks were never seriously challenged from that point forward. Atlanta did cut the margin to 13 with less than four minutes left but, when Bobby Portis connected on a dagger three-pointer, the Bucks had enough of a cushion to withstand a late shooting barrage from the Hawks in securing the victory.

It would be fair to say that Milwaukee’s hot start was the No. 1 impetus in their overall success, but the Bucks were able to string together a highly impressive offensive performance, even with middling three-point shooting. The Bucks shot 51 percent from the floor, generating 66 points in the paint and grabbing 14 offensive rebounds that led directly to 19 second-chance points. Lopez (33 points) and Portis (22 points) both set new playoff career highs in scoring, and the shorthanded Bucks also received high-end efforts from Khris Middleton (26 points, 13 rebounds, eight assists) and Jrue Holiday (25 points, 13 assists, six rebounds).

On the other side, Atlanta was simply unable to overcome their early hiccup, even as they got hot from three-point distance, making 15 of their 38 attempts for the night. Bogdanovic led the way with 28 points and seven three-pointers, but the Hawks couldn’t protect the defensive glass and struggled to contain Milwaukee’s attack near the rim.

From here, the series shifts back to Atlanta for a win-or-go-home situation for the Hawks as they trail 3-2 in the series. Nate McMillan’s team has been highly resilient, though, and the Bucks will need to put forth a top-tier effort to close out the series, no matter what the injury situation is for both teams.

Toward the end of May, Demi Lovato revealed that they now identify as non-binary and have changed their pronouns to they/them. The news was shared during a video introduction to a new series called, 4D With Demi Lovato.

“This has come after a lot of healing and self-reflective work,” they said with the announcement. “I’m still learning and coming into myself, and I don’t claim to be an expert or a spokesperson. Sharing this with you now opens another level of vulnerability for me.”

It’s been more than a month since Lovato shared this and while some have adjusted to the change, people like Lizzo have no issue with correcting those who fail to use the correct pronouns for Lovato. An example came when the paparazzi caught up with Lizzo, who was wearing a shirt with Lovato’s face on it, after she attended dinner at Catch LA.

“Is that a message to Demi? Should she reach out?” one of the photographers asked Lizzo in a video, to which she replied, “They,” while holding out her finger. The photographer seemed to miss Lizzo’s correction and continued, asking, “Have her team contact your team?”

Lizzo once again corrected them, saying, “Their team,” adding, “Demi goes by they now.” After catching wind of the video, Lovato reposted it to their Instagram Story and wrote, ”@lizzobeeating you f—ing queen I love you [kissing emoji] thank you.” Lizzo reshared the post to her Story with a heart emoji.

You can watch the video of Lizzo’s interaction with the paparazzi above.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The United States’ top women’s sprinter for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics may not be able to compete. On Thursday, Richardson was pulled from the Diamond League event in Stockholm with no official reasoning given, but in the morning she simply tweeted, “I am human.”

Later in the day, word emerged from the Jamaica Gleaner and later confirmed by Tyler Dragon of the Cincinnati Enquirer that Richardson had produced a positive drug test at the U.S. Olympic Trials, where she qualified first in the 100 meter event with a 10.86 second run in the finals. It was not a positive PED test that has Richardson in trouble, but traces of marijuana that has Richardson potentially missing the biggest meet of her life.

Given where we are in 2021 with more and more places legalizing recreational marijuana, many were upset that Richardson could miss the Olympics because of traces of marijuana being found in her system — on top of the fact that weed is not in any way a performance enhancer. The suspension could be 1-3 months, and even if it is on the shorter end of that, the star sprinter could miss the start of the 100 meter rounds at the Olympics, forcing the U.S. to turn to the fourth-place finisher Jenna Prandini for the third spot on the team.

As Dragon notes, it’s possible under a one month ban, Richardson could still compete in the team event as a key member of the 4×100 team, but it’s still a brutal way to lose one of the potential biggest stars of the Games before it even starts.

J Balvin has been extremely active in 2021 and his increased presence in the music world comes just a little over a year after he dropped his fifth album, Colores. With his sixth effort seemingly just around the corner, the Latin star teams up with Skrillex to unveil their new collaboration, “In Da Getto.”

In it, the two artists call up their friends to throw a massive house party. The electric gathering features a game of spin the bottle, explosive fireworks in the night sky, and a brief session that finds Balvin getting his nails done. The visual also sees appearances from TikTok favorites Khaby Lame and dancer Mustafa.

The new song and video serve as Balvin’s fourth single of the year. He kicked off his 2021 campaign at the end of February with a trip back home to a barrio in Medellin for his “Ma’ G” video before returning weeks later with his “Tu Veneno” video. Then, at the beginning of April, he shared his third single of the year, “Otra Noche Sin Ti,” which presented a guest appearance from Khalid.

Outside of music, Balvin recently teamed up with UPS for a campaign in support of Latinx small businesses. “My early days in music felt very comparable to getting a small business off the ground, so I know what it means to start from scratch and chase your dreams,” he said about the partnership.

You can press play on the video for the song above.

Skrillex is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

On Wednesday morning, the entertainment world was surprised with the news that Bill Cosby would be released from prison by the end of the day. The comedian’s 2018 sexual assault conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. It came after former prosecutor Bruce Castor made a “non-prosecution agreement” with Cosby in which he would not criminally charge the comedian as long as he agreed to sit for a deposition in a civil case that was filed against him. However, Castor’s successors reopened the case and charged Cosby in 2015 which led to a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. This prior agreement with Castor is what caused the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to overturn the decision.

After hearing the news of Cudi’s impending freedom, a number of people took to Twitter to share their reactions. Some were disappointed and others celebrated the news. Kid Cudi’s stance was clear, but his response aimed directly at those who were happy for Cosby’s release. “People that are celebrating Bill Cosby being released are f*ckin idiots,” he wrote in a tweet.

One person that celebrated Cosby’s release from prison was his former Cosby Show co-star, Phylicia Rashad. “FINALLY!!!!” A terrible wrong is being righted,” she tweeted. “[A] miscarriage of justice is corrected!” To the surprise of no one, her message was not appreciated as many on the social media app slammed her the response. She would later delete the tweet and apologize for it in a second post.

“I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward,” she wrote. “My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing.”

For the first decade or so of their creative partnership, screenwriters Jake Emanuel and Willie Block were stuck living their version of what Emanuel calls the “classic screenwriter trajectory.” They were making work — sometimes for pay, other times on spec — and getting solid responses, but the material wasn’t actually getting made. (Aside from their time as staff writers on the animated rap-comedy Chozen, on FX)

Then came The Edge of Sleep — a narrative podcast, more like a teleplay — produced by QCODE. The show, about a night watchman who finds himself one of the last humans on earth, made serious noise and a big impression on listeners. That success led to The Edge of Sleep being optioned as a TV show and a new anthology series, also on QCODE, called Bad Vibes.

With The Edge of Sleep shooting in Toronto and season 2 of Bad Vibes already ordered, I spoke with Block and Emanuel about the new direction and energy they’re helping bring to the podcasting space.

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You guys are doing something in podcasting that interests me very much, which is… In a field that’s pretty saturated with smart people talking and noodling around on ideas, you are bringing fiction and storytelling into it and really returning the form to the radio era. Did you guys approach QCODE and pitch a show? Was the genesis?

Jake Emanuel: First of all, thanks so much for your kind words. We really appreciate it. And you know, right now it’s a pretty remarkable and chaotic time for Willie and I, because as you know, we are putting out our first season of Bad Vibes, which we’ve been thrilled by the responses so far, and while we’re doing that and still working on it, we are simultaneously preparing to shoot the first season of The Edge of Sleep as a TV series in one week in Vancouver.

That was our first podcast that came out at end of 2019, the beginning of 2020. And so we’re just very excited that we’re working on both of them at the same time, in very different capacities. Our background is as screenwriters and as storytellers. And we were lucky that we were able to sync up with two of the most revolutionary companies working in this space, which is QCODE and also Salt Audio, who are the composers, sound engineers, and sound designers for both of our shows. And it was QCODE’s vision right at the beginning — when they did their first podcast Blackout, with Rami Malik — “let’s tell incredible stories to have the best sound design that’s possible.”

You feel that quality instantly. Salt does The Midnight Miracle and I know and really respect their work, and they nailed it with your shows.

Jake Emanuel: One of the things that got Willie and I really excited initially about The Edge of Sleep, which eventually also led into Bad Vibes, was we thought, “Wow, with the abilities our sound engineers have, what they’re capable of, we can tell really big stories, stories on an epic scale that would be very difficult to do in the individual media.”

So for example, in Bad Vibes, obviously it’s an ode to shows like Tales From the Crypt, The Twilight Zone, which we love, but because of the abilities of our sound engineers, we can jump from an episode that takes place in World War I to an episode that takes place in outer space; episode to episode. And in The Edge of Sleep, we loved the idea to tell sort of a supernatural horror, fantastical story, that had to do with the nature of dreaming. And we were trying to tell the kind of story that we thought would be very difficult to translate into a movie or TV show, but we were clearly proven wrong.

When I listened to Edge of Sleep, there is this scary thing for a podcaster — and when I listened to Bad Vibes, too — there’s this scary thing that I would imagine you guys felt at different points of like, “Am I trusting my audience and inspiring them to create visuals in their heads? Or am I losing them?” I felt like both of your shows dance that line incredibly well. What makes them binge-able is that the audience wants to meet you more than halfway. Was that something that you guys, as screenwriters, had to cultivate?

Willie Block: I mean, 100%, that’s something we worry about all the time. I think we learned a lot on The Edge of Sleep — because in The Edge of Sleep, we do tell it as a bit of a remembrance. The main character telling the audience. So it’s like we combined a little bit more of the audio book with that one. But I think with what we learned, you kind of have to walk the audience halfway because you want them to picture in their head. It’s something we kind of… I think the magic of that particular element happens during after we do the first dialogue lock to when we start mixing it, because we take out certain lines and turn in certain sound effects because we want it to be not totally concrete — then everyone’s experiencing it in their own way.

And it is closer to a novel listing interpretation of it.

Jake Emanuel: And the other thing that I would add is The Edge of Sleep was our first time doing it. And so, you’re right, there is this classic age of radio that was sort of missing in the US, not in Britain, but for around 50 years. So, as we were writing The Edge of Sleep, trying to kind of learn it with our team since we’re trying to do this on a different scale that hadn’t really been done in the US for a long time. And as we wrote it, we certainly learned a lot of things around the way. So, for example, The Edge of Sleep is sort of a post-apocalyptic tale about worldwide events, but we realized that we had to make it very intimate and only tell it with a select number of characters because if you’re a listener, themes get very complicated in audio dramas if there’s more than two to three characters talking at the same time.

And so what’s funny is that with Bad Vibes, we were able to work with a tremendous amount of very talented screenwriters from a variety of different backgrounds. Some of them are comedic writers. Some of them even wrote YA novels. Some of them are great horror writers who have written wonderful horror movies. But for the most part, these were all writers who were writing audio fiction for the very first time. So as the showrunners of Bad Vibes, we were kind of excited to help navigate these writers and help them tell their tales, learning the lessons that we had learned from The Edge of Sleep.

What’s an example there?

Jake Emanuel: So for example, like we said, “Hey, listen, if you’re telling a story with four people in the scene. If it’s a road trip with mom, dad, brother, sister, that’s great. The audience is going to be able to follow who’s who. If you are writing a story that’s four Wall Street bros, all in their twenties or thirties, talking over lunch, no one’s going to know what the hell is going on.”

There’s little lessons like that, that we learned along the way. You know, while we love traditional horror stories, we love Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft — dark, adult stories — we try to push our writers to really embrace the technology that’s at our fingertips to tell exciting stories that work best for the audio format. So for example, the episode that just came out this week for Bad Vibes is this episode called “BugBugBug.” And the main character has a beetle inside their brain and using binaural audio and what our brilliant sound designers were able to do is that if you’re listening on headphones or Air Pods, there’s audio tracking so that it literally sounds like the bug is crawling around your brain. You can go make it go left to right, up and down. We’re really excited about utilizing that sort of technology in the story when we can.

So many pods tend to rely on passive listening. It’s like you’re in traffic, you might be on the couch texting, you might be texting and in traffic. But Bad Vibes — I’ve found to be a much more active listening show.

Jake Emanuel: These are not two and a half hour Joe Rogan interviews. We love long form podcasts, but we’re trying to tackle it from a very traditional way where it’s like, “Listen, we’re just going to try our hardest to grip the hell out of you for 20 minutes and make sure you’re focusing on what’s going on in your ears.” And whether we’re successful or not is up to the audience. But that’s what we’re trying to do, every time. Every time, we’re trying to tell a very engaging story that takes up as much of the listeners’ attention as possible.

Willie Block: And also at the same time, as you said earlier “it’s a very crowded space,” right? So it’s like when we think about it, we’re like, “Okay, what aren’t people doing?” I feel like there’s always a space to run into when it comes to storytelling…

That’s nicely worded.

Willie Block: Yeah, when it comes to storytelling… There’s also a lot of visual TV shows that are anthologies, especially with Bad Vibes. But we felt like we were really situated; a place where we could really compete with those guys in terms of the scope of the story we were telling, because we’re not really bound by the budgetary restrictions of a physical show.

Jake Emanuel: Exactly. Even a show like Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone is going to give some people headaches. If you’re going to World War I or to outer space.

Willie Block: Or inside your brain.

Jake Emanuel: Exactly. We are definitely running into some of those headaches on the TV show The Edge of Sleep, which is going to be amazing, but we just saw a way of using podcasts to be able to hopefully stand out in the podcast space and in the movie and TV space.

The first episode I listened to of Bad Vibes was the nightwatchman episode.

Jake Emanuel: “Shifter.”

Which I loved and it gives off those really cool, as you said, Twilight Zone vibes and just asks for 20 minutes of active time. You could be running or driving but not like… parenting or texting or working. Is there going to be a season two?

Jake Emanuel: What’s funny is that the fans of The Edge of Sleep are champing at the bit for seasons two and three, but the damn problem with that is it’s just to me and Willie’s writing. So it takes us…

Willie Block: It is very complex.

Jake Emanuel: And so it takes us a very long time to write those. We conceptualized Bad Vibes, partially because we went, “Man, is there a way to keep doing podcasts because we love them, but at a little bit of a faster pace?” And so we said, “Oh, we know all these incredibly talented writers that could write amazingly in this space.” So the idea for Bad Vibes is to have bi-annual seasons where we do eight to 10 episodes, every six months.

We have been picked up for season two. And so we are hoping to release in spooky season, Halloween time.

I think part of what you guys are doing is becoming the producers who can go, “Wow, we want to highlight a wide range of talent.” Part of that might be people who are in the second or third waves of their career who we’ve admired for some time where like a lot of the costs of entry are a lot lower. The barriers are a lot lower because the stuff doesn’t cost that much to produce. Has that been a kind of a creatively rewarding part of the whole process for both of you?

Willie Block: Very. It’s been one of my favorite things.

Jake Emanuel: It’s like creating a great album or mix tape.

If you want to look at why our IMDB list is so short, it’s just that classic screenwriter trajectory where you get stuck in 10 years of developing and you’re spending all this time writing stuff, that you either got paid for or not paid for, but 99% of the time just does not get made. So we know many writers who have a similar experience, and we’re just really proud and happy that our little, our small, tiny corner of the industry, we can say, “Listen friends, we can’t pay you that much money but if you write one of these, we 100% guarantee we will make it. We’ll have the most excellent actors and we’ll have the most excellent music and sound design, and we’ll get it out to lots and lots of people.” That is something that we’re really proud of that we’re able to curate.

Rebecca Mix’s 58-year-old dad, Jeff, lost his job at a hospital a year ago due to COVID-19-related cutbacks. For the past year, he’s spent his time hunting, fishing, and doing countless DIY projects around the house.

With the pandemic receding into the rearview, Jeff, like many of us, was ready to get back to his regular life and that meant finding a new job.

Late-in-life career changes aren’t easy, but Jeff thought that he’d do well working at Costco. He wanted a job where he could work with people face-to-face and he heard the company was good to its employees.

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Costco has a people-first culture, pays better than most big-box retail stores, and consistently ranks among the country’s top large companies for employees.

“I want to work on my feet,” Jeff said, according to an article Rebecca wrote for The Guardian. “I want to work somewhere that appreciates me until I can retire. Can you help me apply?”

Rebecca thought that her dad’s career choice was amusing. She made light of it with a tweet and then logged out.

While Rebecca and her boyfriend got to work updating his resume, the tweet went viral. She updated the thread by noting that he was qualified for the job because of his amazing attitude and nacho-cooking abilities.

he is but a constantly cheerful man, extremely good at making nachos, who merely dreams of working for costco.

co… https://t.co/3P13CAvVvF

— rebecca mix would die for ted lasso (@mixbecca)
1620340272.0

The tweet made its way to the desk of Costco’s CEO Craig Jelinek. He reached out to a manager at a Costco location 40 minutes away from Jeff’s house and they contacted Rebecca through Facebook.

via Rebecca Mix / Twitter

“I called my dad, who didn’t answer, texted him a screenshot, and called him again. As someone who only FaceTimes by accident, he didn’t really understand why I was freaking out,” Rebecca recalled. “The sheer ridiculousness of a random tweet making it to the desk of the Costco chief executive mostly escaped him.”

Soon after, Jeff had an interview at Costco and the tweet was never mentioned. They called him for a follow-up interview but Jeff didn’t hear anything for a few weeks.

Then, Rebecca received the most amazing text from her father. A simple “thank you” with a picture of his new work badge.

GUYS. https://t.co/uLpo5av5QF

— rebecca mix would die for ted lasso (@mixbecca)
1623188146.0

Jeff was hired as a part-time employee and things appear to be going well. He told Rebecca he liked his new co-workers and was excited to have a new job working on his feet. One of his coworkers joked, “I wonder when they’re going to hire the Twitter guy?” to which he replied, “I am the Twitter guy.”

For Rebecca and Jeff, the new job is about a lot more than a stable source of income. It’s a jolt of positivity after a difficult time for the family. It was also a welcome break from the usual outrage that happens on Twitter.

“Mostly, after a nightmare year of record unemployment rates and unprecedented grief, it seemed people were just happy to share in a moment of weird, collective joy on a website often aptly described as a cesspool,” Rebecca wrote.

The Eastern Conference Finals now have the full focus of the NBA world with the Phoenix Suns punching their ticket to the Finals, where they will await the winner of the currently tied Hawks-Bucks series. Game 5 on Thursday night will be pivotal, everyone’s favorite word to use in a 2-2 series, and both teams will be without their top star.

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s hyperextended knee he suffered in Game 4 didn’t have any structural damage, happily, but it was announced early on Thursday that it would keep him out for at least Game 5. Trae Young, who missed the Hawks’ Game 4 win, was listed as questionable with the bone bruise in his right foot and a bit before tip-off word arrived that he too would be sitting out.

That is obviously a significant blow for the Hawks, even considering their Game 4 performance in which they blew out the Bucks even with Young sidelined. Lou Williams took the start in that game and figures to again for Game 5, as he was spectacular for the Hawks in the win. Bogdan Bogdanovic looked to be getting back to his old self as well in Game 4, while Cam Reddish gave them a two-way boost that was very welcome in his first real action of the postseason.

Without Young, the Hawks can deploy better defensive lineups and that was evident in Game 4. What will determine this game is how the Bucks counter that without Giannis and also how they change their defensive approach against a less explosive, but still good, offense.

Top Chef is still basically the only cooking competition show that I can reliably watch without feeling dumber for having done so. Even in the midst of a “cooking competition,” even after 18 seasons, there’s an authenticity to Top Chef that the imitators can’t match.

A lot of that, I think, comes down to the judges and the contestants. They seem to understand on a basic level that a cooking competition is a trifling concern in the grand scheme of things, but they love cooking so much that they can’t help but care intensely nonetheless. Other shows feel like they’re trying to sell you on the concept of food. Top Chef doesn’t have to pander in that way or try to whip up a studio audience into a phony frenzy. The passion of the contestants and judges speaks for itself.

Tom Colicchio is a case in point. I love to rag on his jaunty hats and hyper-specific nitpicking in my weekly power rankings, but every time I talk to him I come away impressed at just how damn good he is at his job. That steely competence he projects isn’t just an illusion created by his sled dog eyes. His occasionally esoteric critiques wouldn’t be compelling if he was full of shit, but talk to him for more than a few seconds and you get the impression of someone who’s practically allergic to putting on airs. Nor does he do it, Simon Cowell-like, because he knows that’s his shtick and he’s performing for an audience. Colicchio will bring up, unprompted, a contestant from past seasons, and rattle off all the reasons that contestant was eliminated in an episode filmed four years ago.

All of which is to say: Colicchio is voluble and food-crazy in a way I find endlessly entertaining. A five-time James Beard award winner, owner of a restaurant empire, and a Top Chef judge since 2006 (he’s now an executive producer), I spoke to Colicchio this week in advance of the season 18 finale.

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How has this season been as a judge?

Well, we shot back in September and the challenges, obviously, were COVID and keeping our production safe. Which we did. We have about 150 people on our crew and no one got sick. We also shot during the fires in the Northwest, which was really challenging at times, because there were five days where there was really thick smoke in the air, so that was somewhat disruptive. But it was a good season. A lot of the chefs were out of work because of COVID, and, you saw this season, the chefs really came together. They’re very supportive of each other. I think COVID had a lot to do with that.

It was also great to get out of the house and do something that sort of took my mind off my restaurants being closed and all that stuff.

To me, this season seems like it’s been one of the more entertaining ones that I can remember. Do you think any of the COVID challenges of shooting forced you guys to do things that ended up working?

Sure. Obviously, the one big change was bringing back all of the ex-contestants as judges, and having them with us pretty much every meal. That was kind of neat. Restaurant Wars is clearly very different, and very successful, I thought. One issue that’s come up the last couple of episodes was Dawn leaving food off of plates, and why she was allowed to go through. This typically happens, only we don’t see it, and the audience really doesn’t see it, because a lot of times they’re not left off the judges’ plates. But because you’re actually getting comments from every diner, I think it showed up a little more.

In the last episode, I think they had to shell Dungeness crabs two ways, for 12 people. That struck me as one of the harder things that you’ve ever asked them to do. Where do you rate that, in terms of difficulty?

The crab, obviously you have to pick through it, but often what happens on the show is, number one, the clock is always running. And so you have to figure out what you can do considering the clock and considering that you’re plating everything yourself. It’s very different than if you were in a restaurant, where you have a team of cooks and sous chefs and there really is no time limit — with the exception of, people want their food on time. But there are systems set up to expedite food. And so, part of the process of putting together dishes, it all comes down to execution. If you make everything you’re doing too complicated, you can’t execute it.

Right.

And so it’s really a matter of what the chefs choose to do. That’s what makes it difficult, not necessarily the challenge. Part the reason I think why the show works so well is because there are chefs who think they can do a lot more than they can. Not in terms of talent, but in terms of time and what they think they can do, and all of a sudden they run out. I think all these challenges are difficult. Quite frankly, I thought the challenge where they had to make food for the frontline workers was hard because, it’s food that had to be delivered, there was a very low price point on it. And they did okay.

The crab challenge, you say it’s hard, but that was probably the best food we had all season.

That frontline worker challenge, I think it was Chris who did a chicken breast. I was surprised you guys didn’t penalize him more harshly for doing, what in my mind is the most stereotypical…

No, you don’t get penalized for doing that. You get penalized for doing it wrong. We judge on what they did, and how they executed it, not, they made a decision to use chicken breasts. That’s okay. It’s fine and a lot of people like chicken breasts for lunch. Did you overcook the chicken breast? Was it seasoned properly, was it cooked properly? That’s what’s more important.

Obviously, judging the show, you guys are forced to sort of nitpick a lot, just to separate the chefs. Out in the real world, what do you think your most frequent criticism, or your most frequent food rant is?

I don’t criticize when I eat out myself. I don’t rant, I don’t criticize. I go out and eat dinner, and that’s it.

Even internally?

I’m just the opposite because I don’t want to be “that guy.” So I just eat my food, and that’s it. I’m just happy when someone else is cooking for me. For me… and this is sometimes not anyone’s fault except for the press, and I’m not ragging on the press here, but I think often new restaurants get hyped up. And you buy into that hype. Even knowing that I shouldn’t buy into the hype, I do anyway. You go there with a set of expectations that are so high that there’s no way that a restaurant is going to meet that. So, for me, I try to go in and not read stuff about it.

I don’t go out to nitpick food. A long time ago, when I was in my early twenties, with my first serious girlfriend, I would go out and I would start nitpicking food. And she just told me, you know “This isn’t fun. I just want to enjoy my food now, I don’t need to hear it.” Ever since then, I don’t do that. I just eat, I don’t make opinions. I mean, I have my opinion. I don’t make them known. If it’s good, I go back.

Because of who you are, do you ever sense people expecting feedback from you, or being hyper-aware of what your experience of their food is?

I think they’re hyper-aware, but I think that happened before the show. Chefs are always aware when other chefs are in a restaurant, and we kind of go out of our way to make sure that those tables are great. When we’re cooking for our peers, we pay attention to it.

Finale excluded, what do you think was the single best dish that you had this season?

My favorite was the hotpot rice dish that Shota made, with the help of everybody, for the Restaurant Wars episode. That was so good. In fact, I remember my 12-year-old asking me, “Which dish was your favorite, Dad?” And I was like, “I can’t tell you, but if we watch it, I’ll let you know,” because I don’t tell my family anything when I come home. This was the first year that my kids watched the show. And when they were watching Restaurant Wars, I told them, “That’s my favorite dish.”

That was stunning.

Were you shocked that that turned out so well? Because they had so many people involved, and so many different things going into that?

No, listen, that could be a disaster. But we’re not privy to all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. The only time I spend with the chefs is on camera. And so, after watching the episode, I wasn’t surprised at all because they all worked together really well. There were fewer egos on that team, I think. And the other team, on paper, probably looked like they had a better team. But you saw what they did. [Shota’s team] said, “Listen, here’s the concept.” And the concept is a mashup of Latino food and Japanese food, and I think every dish had that in mind. As opposed to the other team, where they just said, “Hey, we’re all doing seafood dishes. I have my dish.” You went through that whole menu, there was not one piece of cooked fish. It’s crazy when you think about it. So these were just a bunch of chefs saying, “Hey, I’m going to do a dish, and I think it’s going to be good, and I’ll be okay.” And this other team, they really took it to heart and said, “We want to create something new, something that’s exciting.” And they all contributed to it, and no one tried to steal anybody’s thunder. And it was just extraordinary, to tell you the truth.

I think you guys did one challenge where you tasted the dishes blind, not knowing which chef was which.

First episode, yeah.

Is there a reason you don’t do that on every challenge? Just to sort of take whatever your bias might be out of it, or whatever?

Well, there’s no bias in it, that’s just it. I eat food, and for me it’s, “Was it cooked properly, was it seasoned properly?” Those are the first two things, and quite frankly, you can stop there and that’s how people get eliminated. From there you can go into, “What was the challenge? Did they adhere to the actual challenge?” And then if it’s close, then you could dig into it. But I think we did it just to do it, but the other reason why tasting blind is hard to do is because then we can’t connect a person to the dish. And therefore, the viewer can’t connect the person to the dish. So when we talk about it, often we say, “Gabe’s tacos are like, Shota’s sushi dish was…” Without that, what we’re saying is, “The taco dish, or the sushi…” And then it’s just hard to follow.

Right.

But none of us really care who wins. And again, the stuff that goes on behind the scenes where people tend to like someone for whatever reason? We don’t see that. So we don’t care. How can I say it? I don’t have a horse in this race.

And in terms of, not understanding, culturally, someone’s food? I can go back to Eric getting thrown off, it had nothing to do with culturally what he was doing. It had to do with he used a thickener in his tartare that was disgusting. You didn’t hear this on the show, but it had nothing to do with African food. It was like lecithin or something because he wanted it to have this mouthfeel, that was nasty. And we didn’t play that, because it would have been so obvious from the start that he was going home. So often, in the editing, we try to make it a horse race and people are left to be confused.

So no, I’ll say it to the end, there’s no bias in judging.

Right. I mean–

And then, if you go to the makeup of casting. Every season, we cast equal amounts of men and women. Our industry is not made up equally, of men and women. But we cast that way. If you look at how we cast for diversity, our industry is not as diverse as the makeup of the diversity of our contestants. So there’s that. Anyway, but people say, “You should just do the whole season blindfolded, because of bias.” Nah, whatever. You’d end up with no difference at all, I think.

Is another reason that’s hard — at least for me, when I’m drinking a cocktail or eating anything, I feel like the story is part of what I’m tasting. Do you think that the chef’s story through the food is part of the experience?

It’s part of the experience, it’s not part of the judging. Meaning, you have to separate the two. “It’s a great story you just told, but it’s not going to come into the equation when it comes to judging the dish.”

Now, unless it’s part of the challenge, then it could make sense. But no, again, it’s about, was it cooked properly, was it seasoned properly? I like to know what the intention is, I like to know what the chef was trying to do, because then it’s a question of whether or not they were able to accomplish that comes into play. So that’s important, intention. Composition, in terms of balance. You look at technique. You look at if someone’s protein wasn’t seared properly, if they wanted it seared properly. If something was fried, was it fried properly? If something is roasted, was it roasted properly? Is it properly rested?

So there’s a lot of technical things that go into it. You don’t hear us talk so much about it because, again, the editors would think that’s boring.

How much of a role do you take during the editing process? Do you have a say–

Zero. None, no.

But you think it’s mostly, pretty fair representation of what you’ve critiqued when you watch it?

Yeah, sure. I think so, but a lot is left out. For the most part, we’re almost always in agreement without discussing it. But we can’t just go there and go, “Yeah, this is the worst dish,” and they go home. That’d be boring. And so, nothing’s manipulated, but we have to discuss it. And you’re going to hear parts of that discussion, not the whole thing because that whole discussion would take two hours.

What do you think was the least successful dish that you had, this season?

I have no idea.

Is that just the nature of the good ones being more memorable than the bad ones?

Yeah. I just don’t remember. Some of the early chefs that went home were clunkers, but just because someone goes home doesn’t mean they’re a bad chef. Sasha, she did really great in Last Chance Kitchen, she was the second chef to go home. She messed up, it happens. It happens to all of us. Especially with the way this works, where you’ve got to think fast and commit.

So a few years back, I don’t know, three or four seasons ago, you had Wolfgang Puck as a guest judge. He stands out in my mind as one of the funnier guest judges. Do you have favorites that you’re looking to bring back?

I would love to bring back the same crew that we had this season. I thought it was really great, having them all there, plus having them passing [COVID] tests, they really can relate to what the chefs are going through. So, yeah. I would like to do that. But I don’t know if I have favorites.

Aside from Charlize Theron. Yeah, and Natalie Portman.

You brought up having to shut down some of your restaurants, for COVID this past year. How are your restaurants doing now? Are they coming back? What capacity are you at, since indoor dining has been allowed again?

Let’s just say, we’re coming back. We’re still not near a hundred percent of the business that we were doing pre-COVID. Capacity, we aren’t at a hundred percent capacity, but… restaurants are busy. People are still leery. Some people are still reluctant to go out into spaces with a lot of people. There are plenty of people that are not vaccinated. There are variants that are going around, are more contagious, so people are still concerned. And staffing has been an issue. So, no. We’re not at a hundred percent, at all. Our restaurant in LA is only open for dinner right now, five days a week. We’re not open for lunch. When we open for lunch, I think next week, we’re only opening two days. It’s difficult staffing the restaurants, and demand is not a hundred percent there yet.

The season finale of ‘Top Chef’ airs July 1st. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

One of the best horror games ever made, Dead Space, is reportedly getting a remake. Jeff Grubb of Venture Beat reported that Motive Studios, the developers of Star Wars: Squadrons is currently working on a remake of the first Dead Space game. He also hinted at a new game, but most of his report was in relation to the remake.

Electronic Arts has Star Wars: Battlefront II co-developer Motive working on a new Dead Space game. Eurogamer and Gematsu first reported the existence of the game, and GamesBeat can confirm parts of what each outlet has heard. While a new Dead Space is coming, Motive is rebooting the franchise with a full-fledged remake.

What this sounds like is EA is testing the waters on interest in Dead Space. Game companies will occasionally remake a game from a franchise that has been dormant to test the waters and see if further expansion could be lucrative. This could also be an excuse to get a new engine to build off of by remaking a game with familiar material on the new engine and then re-use that engine for new games.

Whatever the reason, a new Dead Space would be welcome news for fans of horror games, especially big budget horror titles. Resident Evil is currently the dominant force in that category, but with rumors of a new Silent Hill, and a reboot of Dead Space we could be witnessing a return of the AAA horror game.

The game would recreate the terrifying story of Isaac Clarke responding to a distress signal to a space station that has gone dark. Not only that, but Clarke’s girlfriend Nicole Brennan was among one of the many people on that space station. The last message Clarke received from Brennan was a distress signal of her own. Clarke’s motivations are clear, figure out why the space station has gone dark (spoiler: it’s monsters) and find Brennan.

Dead Space was new and innovative at the time. Horror stories had been told in space before, but everything about Dead Space was refreshing thanks to a cool weapon, some fun physics, and a silent protagonist making everything feel even more eerie. The game was popular enough to get two sequels, but after that it was never heard from again. After the development studio, Visceral Games, was closed in 2017 it was assumed that the franchise would not be returning. Maybe that assumption, however, was a bit premature.