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Jason Isbell is gearing up for the release of his upcoming album, Reunions. Ahead of the record’s release, Isbell virtually sat down with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show to perform a track from the album, discuss the record’s themes, and detail how the coronavirus has affected him.

Performing from a barn in his backyard, Isbell gave a soulful performance of his single “Only Children.” While Isbell reared his signature acoustic guitar, the singer was also accompanied by his wife and frequent collaborator, Amanda Shires, on the violin.

Chatting with Noah after his performance, Isbell further detailed the theme behind Reunions, saying he wrote it as a reflection on the years he was struggling with sobriety:

“I went through this period after I got sober, a little over eight years ago, where the person I used to be, I looked back on him with a lot of judgment and disdain. It took me a good six-and-a-half or seven years before I felt, ‘I could be friends with that guy again.’ Where I felt that was safe. Because I didn’t want to forgive myself too quickly for fear of turning back into the person I used to be. Finally, in the last couple of years, I felt comfortable looking back at the music I made then and the relationships I made then and the person I was then, and revisiting that. Going and sitting down and having a conversation with that person and not just hating his guts. Because it was safer to do that. So, when I started thinking of those things and those people, a lot of memories came back and sometimes in the form of ghosts. They came back to me in a way that I’m more equipped now to write about than I was ten years ago when I was falling down drunk and only had a couple of hours a day where I could be productive. Now, I can use the writing skills and the focus that I have to make music that that guy wanted to make ten years ago but wasn’t capable of.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Noah asked Isbell about his experience living in Tennessee and seeing restaurants begin to reopen amid the pandemic. Isbell responded by detailing his thought-out theory for why people around him were so willing to go back to their pre-pandemic lives. “I think a lot of people, in America and everywhere, a lot of people I grew up with and a lot of people that I still know, they see the same things pretty much every day,” he said. “They go to the same jobs, they see the same people.”

But, because Isbell himself chose to instead hit the road and gain new experiences, he’s used to seeing things he’s never seen before: “I think a lot of folks make the mistake of thinking they’ve seen this before because they don’t have a lot of experience with something they have never seen before. They’re not in the practice of experiencing new things. And that scares me.”

Watch Isbell perform “Only Children” and open up about Reunions on The Daily Show above.

Reunions is out 5/15 via Southeastern Records. Pre-order it here.

It’s been over a month now since the the faux-finale of The Walking Dead, and there’s still no date set for the actual finale. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, however, has suggested that that when it eventually airs, it will feel like a mini-movie, but that it may not arrive for several more months.

While that is upsetting in the short them, the long-term view may actually help the ability of The Walking Dead universe to line all of its ducks up in a row, specifically as it concerns the Rick Grimes’ movie. Before the pandemic hit, AMC had essentially lined up 40 consecutive weeks of The Walking Dead content, between the parent series, Fear the Walking Dead, and the two-season spin-off, The World Beyond. However, the architect of The Walking Dead universe, Scott Gimple, still had not yet totally cracked all the details on how and where the Rick Grimes’ movie would fit in, and last we heard, he was still trying to figure out one of two ways he was going with the script.

The pandemic, however, will give Gimple some necessary time to figure that out and slot it in between seasons at the appropriate time, says executive producer Greg Nicotero in an interview with SyFy:

“From what I understand from Mr. Gimple, the script is well underway,” Nicotero said. “I’ve looked at a couple of early drafts, but I haven’t seen anything lately, but from what I understand they’re digging away at it. One thing about this kind of situation is people that work at home… you know, writers… they’re able to take advantage of this time, and it’s a good time.”

“I have a feeling that when people push the play button again, there’s going to be a lot of material that’s going to be ready to go, because everyone’s getting scripts, and getting stuff just right to the point where they can get it ready before you start shooting. I think there’s going to be a lot of busy people, hopefully… hopefully in a few weeks?”

The interview, published yesterday, was recorded a few weeks ago, so by now, Scott Gimple must have all three Rick Grimes’ movies written, along with a map of the next decade of the universe. Right?

In the meantime, AMC announced that The Walking Dead spin-off, The World Beyond, would air in the fall (probably when the 11th season of The Walking Dead would normally air), as would at least some episodes of Fear the Walking Dead. During an earnings call, AMC also stated the the writers were continuing to work on the 11th season of The Walking Dead (and the final season of Better Call Saul), so when production resumes, both of shows should be poised to shoot their next seasons quickly.

Source: SyFy

Spike Lee is staying busy during quarantine. He’s gearing up for the release of his upcoming Netflix movie, Da 5 Bloods, which arrives on June 12 (and stars Chadwick Boseman, Jean Reno, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, and Paul Walter Hauser). He also dropped a new short film, which he’s often prone to do, on Instagram, and this one’s geared toward a message of survival.

As Lee explained, this movie is titled New York New York because it’s “A Love Lettter To Its People.” The acclaimed filmmaker also appeared on a Thursday night CNN town hall, where he discussed his experience living in the Big Apple during this unprecedented time. “It’s painful when you see there is nobody there,” Lee explained to Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “But at the end of the film, that is when we see New Yorkers.”

Over the course of three whirlwind minutes, Lee’s eyes emotionally tours the deserted streets of Manhattan as people buckle down inside to ride out the virus. By the end of the short film, he moves to first responders and views of people on balconies, and the entire project feels like a shout of solidarity. New York City’s risen through the ashes before, and they’ll do so again. Watch Lee’s short film below.

One of the biggest ongoing feuds in the music industry right now is the one between Taylor Swift and her former label, Big Machine. That relationship isn’t exactly a positive one, and it looks like things have taken a strange turn on that front.

Fans have noticed that Taylor Swift’s artist page on Spotify is in a weird state right now. On the artist page, instead of the regular (or deluxe) versions of Swift’s albums released on Big Machine (everything pre-Lover), the page is populated with “Big Machine Radio Release Special” versions of the albums. These versions of the albums feature all the songs from the original releases, but each track is preceded by a commentary track that spans from about a minute to three minutes in length.

As of this post, the Big Machine editions of the albums appear on Swift’s artist page on the desktop Spotify app, but regular versions of Swift’s albums show up on the mobile app, where the Big Machine editions aren’t present at all. On desktop, the normal deluxe edition of 1989 and the “Platinum Edition” of Fearless are shown. The non-Big Machine versions of the albums are still on Spotify, but can only be found on desktop when searching for them directly.

It appears these “Radio Release Special” versions of Swift’s albums started popping up on Spotify in 2018 before re-emerging to take over Swift’s artist page today. In light of all this, fans have taken to Twitter to share their thoughts about the situation, and the common sentiment seems to be that Big Machine and Scooter Braun are up to no good.

It’s not all bad/weird news for Swifties today, though, as Swift announced this morning that a concert special will be airing on TV soon.

Which fast-food burger tastes the best after it travels all the way to your house? That is the question.

Okay, not the question. There are much bigger questions right now. But it’s the question we’re willing to tackle at the end of another long week, during a rough era, in a scary season of our collective existence. That’ll have to be enough for now.

As we adjust to our new locked down lives, we’re gradually becoming accustomed to eating all of our purchased meals at home in a lukewarm state. Sure, drive-thru’s have always been a thing, but in the old days when we ranked our favorite burgers no one was thinking about what they’d taste like after sitting in your car for 15 minutes while you or a delivery driver raced back to your quarantine pals and performed whatever self-sanitization rituals you put yourself and your food through in order to feel clean enough to eat something that someone else touched during a global pandemic. That’s a whole new ballgame.

In May of 2020, the biggest question to ask when ranking fast-food cheeseburgers is “which one travels the best.” Because it turns out, not all delicious burgers stay delicious once they aren’t hot anymore. How a burger is packaged, the quality of the ingredients, how hot it is when it comes off the grill — if it comes off a grill at all –, and the texture of the meat as it cools are crucial factors on what your burger tastes like when you finally eat it.

It’s a whole new ballgame. The past is prologue. So here’s our ranking of which fast-food burgers taste best after being delivered or driven home during quarantine.

Carl’s Jr.

By far, Carl’s Jr travels worse than any other burger. Something about the way Carl’s cooks or wraps their burger results in a cool-down process so quick that you’d have to live directly next-door to one for that mess to stay hot. By the time you unwrap a Six Dollar Burger the thing is a straight-up mess.

WHY?! Is it the box? Is it a local thing? Because I’ve had Carl’s Jr. up and down the entire state of California and it’s ALWAYS been a lukewarm experience. Is it because the person cooking my burger isn’t a person at all, but a giant yellow star with a face and the reason the burger is so cold is that the star takes its sweet time wrapping the burger because it doesn’t have opposable thumbs, just crispy crunchy nubs? Probably that.

The Verdict: Wait until after quarantine. Or just get the chicken stars.

Burger King

Burger King is a solid “I’m being irresponsible during the quarantine by recklessly ordering a ‘just okay’ burger, not reckless like endangering the lives of others”-pick. It’s mid-level reckless. Like buying with stimulus checks, or accidentally forgetting that you ordered weed from two different dispensaries because your placed both orders while high, and now two delivery drivers are on their way and you only have enough cash on you for one of them so you have to slip on gloves, put on a mask, race to the bank, pull out another $60.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: get high and go to Burger King. They’ll serve up a better-charbroiled experience than Carl’s Jr.

The Verdict: Charbroiled done right… ish! It’s better than Carl’s Jr. Does it taste as piping hot as the burger from your local burger joint? Not even close. In fact, go eat there instead. Burger King is rich fam, they’re owned by a freaking king.

McDonald’s

In a pre-COVID 19 world, if you asked me to rank fast-food cheeseburgers, McDonald’s would be at the bottom of the list. But for whatever reason the few times I’ve had McDonald’s while in quarantine — and trust me, this was only because I missed El Pollo Loco by five minutes in one instance, and couldn’t handle the grueling grind of the 23-times-as-long In-N-Out line in the other — they’ve been killing it.

McNuggets have been piping hot, the fries in particular travel well, their ice cream machine mysteriously works for once and isn’t “out of order,” but the cheeseburgers? They’re so good that you’ll actually turn to the person nearest you — which might just be a houseplant…sorry — and say, “Did McDonald’s change shit up or am I going stir crazy?”

The answer to that question might very well be “you’re going stir crazy,” but, so long as we’re in quarantine, there is nothing wrong with living that truth. A quarter pounder travels excellently, the insulation melts McDonald’s plastic-y American cheese by the time you get home, and the beef patty holds heat decently. Skip the Big Mac though, that middle bread is useless after an 8-minute car ride.

The Verdict: Hey not bad, look at you McDonald’s! Quarantine has made some of us better people, the same applies to the old burger flippin’ clown.

Jack in the Box

Maybe it’s because Jack in the Box is a stoner paradise, or maybe it’s just because I have mad respect for them for choosing a literal faceless corporate stooge as the avatar of their company, instead of a creepy King, a little girl in Pigtails, a totally not mean or threatening clown, and an evil living chicken star, but gotdamn does Jack in the Box travel well. The paper boxes the burgers are packed in is so thicc that I’m convinced it traps the heat inside.

Hitting Jack in the Box can be tricky though, some of the burgers on their line are wrapped in paper instead of boxes, and I can’t attest to the quality of those burgers. From what I can tell it’s the special burgers like the Buttery Jack or the Bacon Triple Cheeseburger that get the box treatment. You could always ask the drive-thru person if your burger comes in a box, you know, in case you want them to KNOW you’re insane rather than just finding out by looking at your unshaven face and unruly quarantine hair.

The Verdict: Better from the drive-thru and very solid when driven home. Don’t even bother ever eating inside a Jack in the Box again. Everything on that menu is better from the bag.

In-N-Out

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Sure, third place isn’t so bad, but this in In-N-Out we’re talking about folks. The burger chain that people argue over, a cheeseburger so delicious that it has inspired a coastal rivalry every bit as intense as Biggie vs. Pac. Having to eat a drive-thru Double-Double from In-N-Out has us looking at the beloved chain the same way the Rebel Alliance looked at Chewbacca at the end of A New Hope. Which is to say, if we were handing out medals to the best burgers on this list, we’d let In-N-Out stand with the other two winners, but we wouldn’t go as far as to give them a medal.

So what’s the problem? Traditionalism. In-N-Out is so obsessed with their own “California in the 50’s” aesthetic that they refuse to advance their packaging beyond simple paper wrappings. I can’t believe I’m saying this but In-N-Out? That’s some boomer-ass shit.

The Verdict: Get it “for the car.” In-N-Out offers two options for take out orders, getting your burger “for the car” will have it boxed up rather than in a bag. You could opt to eat it right there in the parking lot — it’ll be delicious — but having it travel in an open box rather than a steamy bag will help retain the experience of eating it in the restaurant. It’ll be slightly colder, but it’ll still taste like In-N-Out, which is still pretty damn good.

Wendy’s

Wendy’s snagging spot number two on a list where In-N-Out is at three is pretty damn good if I do say so myself, and I know, I made this list. Wendy’s saving grace is their weird paper aluminum hybrid wrapper that they wrap their burgers in. It improves the burger tenfold.

Once wrapped up, the soft and buttery brioche bun soaks up all the burger juices of a Dave’s Single resulting in a juicy and savory flavor bomb in your mouth. The only downside of the experience is that that weird single piece of slippery almost-white iceberg lettuce that pops up in every Wendy’s order is slippier than ever after a five-minute car ride.

The Verdict: For the money? It’s your best bet. Wendy’s may not have claimed the top spot, but at just over $8 for a whole meal? It’s the best your money will buy. Unless…

Five Guys

That aluminum paper that Wendy’s uses? That was inspired by the idea of wrapping a burger in aluminum foil and now I’m convinced that like a burrito, a burger is best wrapped in foil. Five Guys pre-COVID-19 was a three-and-a-half star experience at best, but now? I’m all about those dudes. The burgers emerge from the bag hotter than if you had unwrapped it immediately, the flavors perfectly melded together, working in tandem with Five Guys’ central gimmick of letting you pile an endless amount of ingredients on your burger.

I use to view the gimmick as a hindrance, a powerful suggestion to load up, only for the burger to be a haphazard mess once you open it at your table. Now, the TIF — time in the foil, for you laypeople — pulls your entire creation into a single juicy entity. This week you kept it simple with grilled jalapeños and onions. Next week you can go for a mushroom, bacon, BBQ burger. Five Guys offers enough variety to always feel like a fresh experience, even if you make it a once a week habit.

There is also something insanely appealing about the greasy bag that Five Guys’ food comes in. By the time you arrive at your house, the bag is practically transparent with oil. It makes me feel like I’m at a county fair — which I miss, believe it or not.

The Verdict: Better in quarantine! In summary and summation — Five Guys should be your lockdown burger spot.

Pete Davidson is The King of Staten Island, but he wants people to stop visiting his mom’s house in New York’s forgotten borough. Or at least stop bringing her drugs.

The SNL star, who is spending his quarantine in his mom’s basement (“it’s not just” — bloggers), told a story on Thursday’s The Tonight Show about an unexpected visitor he and his mom received. “Me and Judd released this video to try and get it out there that the movie’s coming out, and I mentioned that I wasn’t doing drugs, that I was trying not to,” Davidson said. “And then, literally three hours later, a lady rang my doorbell with a full bag of weed and gave it to my mom and said, ‘I heard your son needs this.’” It was a nice gesture (and a “couple weeks’ worth” of pot), but Davidson didn’t keep the delivery.

Fellow guest Judd Apatow joked that Davidson, who said he will “sell” any future drop-offs, is a “drug dealer now,” but Jimmy Fallon is taking Davidson’s sobriety seriously. “He’s trying, folks, he’s trying! Do not give him drugs,” the host said, before adding, “Oh, my heavens. I love that. Three hours, that’s not bad, dude.” It will surprise no one from the northeast to learn that the weed lady came from Bayonne, the Staten Island of New Jersey.

Watch the interview above. The King of Staten Island comes out on June 12.

I Know This Much Is True isn’t a TV show that most people would want to bingewatch, especially during our current situation. HBO‘s upcoming drama series starring Mark Ruffalo is rough stuff, the heaviest of the heavy, and based upon Wally Lamb’s 1998, 900+ page novel (an Oprah Book Club title back in the day) of the same name. There’s nothing at all cheery about the lives led by the identical twins portrayed by Ruffalo, and god only knows that he endured a few lifetimes of (pretend) misery to embody these shattering roles. Yet it’s easy to see why he signed onto this project. Ruffalo not only seized the coveted task of playing twins — done in the past with varying degrees of success by Nic Cage, Tom Hardy, Armie Hammer, Christian Bale, Adam Sandler, and Lindsay Lohan (who’s actually done it twice) — but he sends up a pair of award-worthy achievements. Ruffalo also does so within an astonishing example of storytelling.

In adapting Lamb’s tragic book into six episodes, director Derek Cianfrance comes by the challenge honestly. His Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond The Pines are both movies that I admire and appreciate but don’t especially want to watch again. The same goes for I Know This Much Is True, although the grueling plunge did provide the experience of an expansive story and phenomenal performances across the board. Ruffalo’s dual turn obviously takes center stage, and although he’s always been known for possessing true acting chops — far beyond simply Hulking Out for the MCU — he puts himself through the paces here. Part of the challenge was a physical one: after shooting all of his scenes as Dominick, a divorced housepainter, he spent five weeks away from the set and gained 30 pounds before returning to film as Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic whose illness also holds Dominick in its grips as well.

The story’s an epic one that spans multiple generations and, to a significant degree, explores the idea of inherited (or, at least, passed-on) trauma. It’s a theme that has received other treatments in the past year, including HBO’s Watchmen and Apple TV+’s Defending Jacob (starring Ruffalo’s fellow Avenger, Chris Evans) both putting different spins on the subject. Yet I assure you that there’s been no more visceral recent examination of generational scarring than in I Know This Much Is True. Part of the exploration sources through the mystery identity of the twins’ father, which serves to frame the story and enlist a supporting cast that doesn’t contain a weak link.

Beyond Ruffalo’s domination of the screen, five female supporting players bring their own gravity. In particular, Rosie O’Donnell puts in a rare dramatic performance as a social worker on Thomas’ case. She is so outstanding in the role that it makes me truly wonder if that talk-show path of hers (along with the anger-bear years to follow) wasn’t the wrong detour to take. Elsewhere, Kathryn Hahn makes a multidimensional turn as Dominick’s long-suffering ex-wife, Melissa Leo crushes souls as the twins’ mother, Archie Panjabi is reliably good as a therapist, and Juliette Lewis crashes in as (no surprise here) an offbeat character. She’s the closest thing to resemble sunshine on this series, and again: if you desire comfort viewing, this ain’t it.

Still, this is a fascinating story to watch unfold. Clearly, there’s a massive emotional component involved, but how Ruffalo handled the differences in the twins’ physicalities is notable. Gaining (or losing) a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time certainly isn’t healthy, and it also is jarring in terms of learning how to inhabit a changed body. Ruffalo’s so at-home in both incarnations that he’s striking in those moments where we see him “onscreen” as both twins at the same time. His reactions to and chemistry with himself are all so fluid, it’s practically a masterclass in acting. However, there are a number of story components that make this show a hard sell. It’s stuffed to the brim with shattering events, and it’s almost impossible to accept that two twin brothers can endure so many terrible things in their world. Dominick even makes a comment to that effect toward the end of the series.

Yet it’s not as though this series is unaware of being a bit of a grief parade. The story begins with physical trauma, a self-inflicted one on behalf of Thomas, who does so in a very public way. That lands him in a maximum-security mental institution, and Dominick spends a great deal of the runtime attempting to get him outta there. Throughout the course of six episodes, the story touches upon child abuse, cancer, rape, assault, and racism (that’s not all, but you get the picture). There are glimmers of hope amid all the gloom, but yes, it’s overall bleak stuff. Given what the world’s going through right now, I’d suggest putting this show on your list for when the world gets a little brighter. For sure, it will also be best to parcel out on a weekly basis, just like the HBO scheduling gods are releasing it to the world.

HBO’s ‘I Know This Much Is True’ debuts on Sunday, May 10 at 9:00pm EST.

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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 — Listen to me

Are you looking for a show to watch? Maybe a nice show, with drama and heartwarming stories and real emotions in every direction. A show you can dive all the way into and immerse yourself in? A show that aired its finale just a few years ago and has a terrific ending and aired for a reasonable number of seasons, in the neighborhood of four, total? I bet you are, even if you don’t realize it. And I have good news. There is a show like that. It’s called Halt and Catch Fire and it’s on Netflix.

You’re probably at least aware of Halt and Catch Fire. It was one of those shows that lots of people who are paid to write about television yelled at you to watch. I was one of those people. I still am one of those people, apparently. I will not apologize for this. It’s a very good show. And I don’t mean that like I mean “Zoo is a very good show.” I do mean that, always, and it’s on Netflix too if you’re looking for something completely nuts in which a team of scientists heaves a car into a volcano to save the world. But I mean this for real. Halt and Catch Fire is a beautiful show that not many people watched. You can remedy that. Now. It’s so easy.

The basics of the show go like this: It’s the 1980s. Computers are becoming a thing. The internet is about to become a thing. Our four main characters — Joe (Lee Pace), Cameron (Mackenzie Davis), Gordon (Scoot McNairy), and Donna (Kerry Bishé) — are all involved in the industry. They are entrepreneurs and coders and builders and some of them are dating or married to each other. The first season focuses a lot on Joe and his Mad Men-style Difficult But Brilliant Business Guy escapades. It’s fine. Not great, not terrible, but fine. If you’re an impatient person, you can even just read the basics of the plot on Wikipedia. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, but it’s fine.

Where the show really gets special is its second season. That’s where it shifts focus a little bit, spending less time with Joe and more time with Cameron and Donna as they get a new video game company off the ground. It’s like the show realized between seasons that Mad Men’s secret wasn’t being a period drama about a jerk as much as it was telling stories about interesting people’s lives. From this point on it tracks successes and failures, both professional and personal, and lets you start to know the characters in a way that few shows do. There are straight-up conversations on this show that are more riveting than full-on action sequences in others. Words pack punches like bullets. It’s great.

It’s even better in its fourth and final season, one of the honest-to-goodness best final seasons I’ve ever seen. You are going to feel things, man. Lots of things, good and bad and warm and a little heartbreaking. Please do not let that dissuade you. It’s not a stressful watch. It won’t bum you out. You might cry a little here and there (I’m a crier; I cried), but only because you’re so invested. You’re on this ride with them. You will become so attached to Scoot McNairy’s character, even as he does a collection of stupid things. This may or may not become an issue. And just when you think things are getting a little intense, just when the emotions are getting too real, blammo, surprise flailsplash.

I probably should not have shown you that. It’s such a good moment. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. If it helps, I will not give you any of the context or tell you when it happens. The context makes it so much better. Dumb physical comedy in sitcoms is funny. Dumb physical comedy that smashes through a heavy emotional moment will leave you gasping, just because it came out of nowhere. I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder. As hard? Sure. But not harder.

And again, it’s sitting right there on Netflix. All of it. You can get started right now, or at least once you finish reading the rest of this column. Just do it. Stop scrolling through shows and movies like a zombie. Click on it. Do the Wikipedia thing if it makes you feel better. Enjoy things. Feel things. Treat yourself. Make up for your past mistakes. Watch Halt and Catch Fire. It is so good.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — What a terrific week for completely insane announcements

I don’t know what it is, exactly. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe it was coordinated in a way to please me, personally. Maybe it’s because everything is weird right now. Whatever the reason, or lack thereof, this week was packed full of powerfully weird announcements about upcoming television and film projects. The Blacklist is going to be partially animated now. Kevin James is playing a Neo-Nazi who tortures Joel McHale and is apparently thwarted by a flamethrower-wielding teenage girl. And neither of those stories cracked the top three weirdest stories of the week, which I will now rank.

3. Gary Busey is set to star in a judge show titled Pet Justice:

The series stars Judge Gary Busey as he presides over the fates of litigant pet owners. Each half-hour show presents two cases with a veritable menagerie of animals including monkeys, goats, birds, dogs, meerkats, turtles, robot raccoons, and more. Is Gary Busey a real judge? Absolutely not. Does he know anything about pet law? Probably not. Can he look into your soul and suss out your spirit animal while delivering a verdict with a trademark Buseyism? You bet your sweet ass (the donkey kind).

Will I watch this show? Of course. At least a little. My curious nature will not allow me to skip it completely. I hope goes mad with power and tries to sentence a parrot to death by the electric chair.

2. Tom Cruise and Elon Musk are making a movie in outer space:

Tom Cruise and Elon Musk’s Space X are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film – an action adventure – to be shot in outer space. It’s not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage but look for more news as I get it. But this is real, albeit in the early stages of liftoff.

People did not make as big a deal out of this as I expected, partially because Elon Musk made bigger news this week and partially because, I mean, I guess it was always coming to this in a way. It was either going to be “Tom Cruise and Elon Musk make a movie in outer space” or “Tom Cruise and James Cameron make a movie at the bottom of the ocean.” But still, think about this: Deadline posted the story as an “I hear this” scoop and it was confirmed by NASA. And this is still only number two. Because…

1. Cage.

Nicolas Cage is set to star in a scripted series centered on Joe Exotic, the subject of the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” Variety has learned exclusively.

The eight-episode series is being produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. It will be taken to market in the coming days. It is based on the Texas Monthly article “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild,” by Leif Reigstad.

This is one of those things where it’s almost too perfect to be fake, let alone too perfect to be real. Like, if I had called you up and said “Nicolas Cage will play Joe Exotic in a drama based on the article that inspired Tiger King,” you would have told me to get lost. You would have been justified in doing so. And then there’s the thing where the actual real-life story in Tiger King reads like the plot of a straight-to-VOD Nicolas Cage movie. It’s all incredible. We did it. Look at us.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Betty rules

Do you guys know what’s shaping up to be a very fun/chill television show? I’ll tell you. Betty is shaping up to be a very fun/chill television show. This is admittedly more of a co-sign than a breaking development, as Uproxx’s Kimberly Ricci already told you it was good and interviewed some of the stars, who are much cooler than I ever will be. It’s still worth noting here, if only because I’m not allowed to go out and tell people on the street. Let’s note it again: Betty whoops ass.

The show follows a group of female teen skateboarders as they make their way through a sweaty New York summer. It’s funny and relaxed and poignant and entirely its own thing. The premiere aired last week. The only things that happened were, one, someone got their backpack stolen, and two, some people smoked weed in a van. It was still completely captivating. A big reason for that is Kirt, one of the skateboarders, who is kind of like — I am admittedly stealing this from Variety’s Caroline Framke — if The Dude from The Big Lebowski were a teenage girl. She’s the best.

My only complaint about Betty is that it’s a little painful watching people be outside together on beautiful summer days right, eating ice cream cones and slugging iced tea from the jug. Maybe I’ll just live vicariously through them.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Get him, Axl

As I’ve stated a number of times before, this is a politics-free zone. Very rare exceptions will be made very rarely, though. One of those was when Danny Trejo appeared on the official Twitter account for the Governor of California to tell people to stay inside during a pandemic. Another one is Guns N Roses lead singer Axl Rose getting into a Twitter feud with the sitting Treasury Secretary. Which happened. This week. Look.

The interesting thing about this is… well, everything. But especially this thing, via Variety…

According to screen shots posted by White House correspondent Philip Crowther and other eagle-eyed Twitter followers, the treasury secretary’s first tweet included an emblem for the flag of Liberia, not the United States. (Although they look similar in miniature, the Liberian flag has one star where the American has, of course, 50.)

… which led to this.

Just an incredible situation all-around. One I can’t improve on in any substantial way. So I won’t even try. Instead, I’ll just leave you with these three notes:

— My favorite part of the video for “November Rain” — my favorite part of any music video, really — comes just before the seven-minute mark, when the rain starts and wedding guests flee for cover and one madman dives over a table and straight through the wedding cake. Please do picture yourself at a real wedding where this happens. Picture how mad everyone is. Because not only did he ruin the fancy cake, but now no one gets cake. A disaster in every way.

— This is as good an excuse as any to link to John Jeremiah Sullivan’s fantastic GQ story about Axl Rose, so let’s do that.

— Speaking of things Axl Rose has tweeted…

This was a good section. I take very little credit for that, but it’s true. The real heroes here are Axl Rose, Taco Bell, and the maniac who dove through that cake.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — It remains the position of this column that the best interview subjects are aging celebrities who no longer have any interest in sugar-coating things, which brings us to Judi Dench

To be clear, I am cherry-picking here. The source this quote comes from is a lovely profile of Dame Judi Dench that appeared in Vogue UK. You should read the whole thing. Judi is charming and profane and seems like a great time at a party. But cherry-picking is fun. And it can get you important paragraphs like this one, in which Dame Judi Dench describes her outfit in Cats using just about the most colorful imagery you can imagine.

“The cloak I was made to wear!” she cries. “Like five foxes f**king on my back.” Filmed in green screen, and with her eyesight impaired, Dench has yet to see the film in full but was far from pleased at how her Old Deuteronomy turned out looking in the pictures she’s seen. She’d hoped she would look rather elegant. Instead: “A battered, mangy old cat,” she says, appalled. “A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?” I reassure her that irony-loving younger audiences can’t get enough of it, and she nods. “I had a very nice email… no, not an email.” A text? “Yes, a text, from Ben Whishaw [the actor], who just doted on it. So sweet. So lovely.”

Everything about this is great. Please, everyone, gets microphones in front of aging celebrities who no longer give a crap about pulling punches. No more bland, publicist-approved interviews with hot young stars. Fewer of them, at least. And more of these. Let’s shoot for a 1:1 ratio from now on.

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 Amanda:

You’ve been writing a lot about the … interesting behavior of celebrities in quarantine. This got me wondering — is there any celebrity you would like to see do a video in character as someone they’ve played in the past? I ask because my husband once mentioned how much he would love for Hank Azaria to release videos where he calls old baseball games as Jim Brockmire. Once he mentioned it, I wanted it so badly, I became actively angry that these videos didn’t exist.

The only other similar video I wish for is a PSA in which Danny McBride, in character as Kenny Powers, admonished South Carolina residents to “stay f—in’ in!”

What is your dream in-character video?

Oh man. Oh, this is tough. This is almost unfair. Dammit, Amanda. How dare you ask such a good question.

I think…

I think I have two answers. The first answer is Roger Sterling from Mad Men. I would like to see how he deals with a quarantine, both in the 1960s setting of the show and if we transported him to present-day. I have this image in my head of him chain-smoking on a fancy couch, wearing a crisp suit, and guzzling gin. Somehow, his hair is still perfect. As are his one-liners. I really miss Mad Men.

The second is Coach Steve from Big Mouth. On his diaper barge. Trying to figure out how to use a webcam.

I’m sure I’m missing a few. I almost said Lalo Salamanca from Better Call Saul but I realized he’s not as fun if he’s not interacting with people and being his charming/terrifying self. But this feels like a solid start.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Sacramento!

The Modesto CHP arrested [a man] after he allegedly jumped on a moving tanker truck carrying bulk red wine, climbed under its belly to unscrew a valve, and drank the wine as the truck traveled up Highway 99.

Easily the best sentence I’ve ever read. Probably the best I’ll ever read. Definitely better than anything I have written or will ever write. It’s both thrilling and depressing, in a number of ways. I’m so happy for everyone involved.

I don’t see how this can get any better.

The truck driver pulls over, believing he may have a mechanical problem, only to see [the man] get out with only his underwear on. The camera shows [him] running to the passenger side of the truck and out of view.

Ahhhh. Of course. I apologize. This is my fault. I definitely should have seen “with only his underwear on” coming. I promise to do better going forward.

The truck driver allegedly found [him] in an unusual position. [He] had unscrewed a valve underneath the truck, as it was traveling north on Highway 99.

That sent the tanker’s wine gushing, and [the man] gulping as much as he could.

Listen, we’re all a little fried right now. Sometimes things bubble over. I feel like any lawyer worth his cufflinks could get these charges dropped. I’m not even sure this is a crime, to be honest. A reasonable argument could be made that, just from the athletic spectacle of it all, this a sport. NASCAR started out with bootleggers fleeing cops through dusty Southern roads and now it’s a billion-dollar industry. How is that any different than this? The man is not a criminal. He’s an innovator, a groundbreaking pioneer.

I rest my case.