While NBA Self-Isolation Watch has been primarily concerned with the pastimes and activities of basketball players since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as much as it can start to feel like it as we all live in varying states of lockdown, the things that get covered in this column aren’t happening in a vacuum. You could say, and I hope you do, that the nuance even in what is meant to be a lighthearted break during this very anxious time has always been about experiencing what is going on globally with solidarity, for the sake of comfort, of relief.

There can be neither while people of color are targeted and murdered in broad daylight, on video, without recourse. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis this week, and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in late February, exposed the cruelty and terror experienced by black communities and communities of color regularly and reverberated through the NBA. If you are angry, and I hope you are, you can work to have uncomfortable conversations with friends and family and be an anti-racist advocate when you witness marginalization and racialized violence. If you’re financially able, you can also donate to support local organizations like the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

Thanks and thanks, as always, for being here.

Rudy Gay

Let’s ease into this one. For ourselves, like when you stretch before a prolonged burst of activity but this time for your heart, and for the sake of really taking this photo in. My initial thought is that this is an old photo that Gay shared after he found it doing what we all have, scrolling back through photos on our phones, nostalgic for a few months ago. His caption backs that up. But there is still a freshness and jolting quality to the picture, mostly thanks to Kyle Lowry popping up right in the foreground, grinning in sunglasses. Behind and to either side of him, his friends, DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay, in matching patterns. Gay’s gaz has caught on something in the middle distance and DeRozan looks as if he’s waiting, in no real hurry, for a response to something he’s just said. Lowry is, as always, perfect.

Rating: It’s like waking up from the most wonderful dream you don’t remember having.

Otto Porter Jr.

Porter Jr. took a much needed break this past long weekend from worrying about the deer who frolic in his backyard. The definitive answer to whether he’s transfixed or terrified of them remains unclear, but it was nice to see him relaxing in the pool, reclined on what must be one of the world’s largest unicorn flotation devices.

Rating: My Memorial Day going forward is celebrating the first time I saw this photo.

LeBron James

James went for a bike ride with his family this week and like the enhanced dad he is, filmed the excursion in its entirety. This included all the big sights like that 7-11 coming up on the right and the towering palm trees. He got home and relaxed in the yard, rewarding himself with rose straight from his personal tap.

Rating: Fun fact – “Well guess it’s time! Mid day rose life” is a popular magnet on the refrigerator doors of 78 percent of aunts everywhere.

Jimmy Butler

Jimmy Butler played dominoes outside in the sunshine with the intense concentration only Jimmy Butler could when playing a relaxed, fun game.

Rating: Right after this he stared down an ice cream cone until it melted completely, he didn’t eat it, the pleasure from watching it return to its natural form was enough.

CJ McCollum

McCollum took his growing gigantic puppy to a peaceful Pacific Northwest beach to watch the sunset.

Rating: If we could get a livestream of this going, that’d be great.

Serge Ibaka

Ibaka returned to Toronto this week with a little more than he left with — hair! Even when slacking, the number one truth in Ibaka’s universe is to always grow handsomer.

Rating: Powerful physics, even greater than gravity, at work over here.

Maurice Harkless

Taking social distancing seriously, Harkless went out for a spin on the ocean during the holiday weekend. Keeping your distance on the wide blue yonder is a love shared by pirates, sea turtles and now, Maurice Harkless.

Rating: Also no better way to socially distance your soul, that is realize its tiny impermanence, than spending some time staring out to sea.

Lonnie Walker

Walker met original (steal your) Wife Guy, Tony Parker, and the two talked shop at Parker’s palatial looking place. Walker was very thrilled with the encounter and hopefully Parker shared some solid Spurs secrets, like why the Coyote wears a shirt but no pants.

Rating: Lonnie Walker is so nice.

Kyle Kuzma

Kuzma has entered into an entirely new phase of isolation and that is, one no longer on his own! Is this NBA Self-Isolation Watch breaking news? Kuzma and model Winnie Harlow are dating! It started with pretty cute comments on each other’s IG’s and ended with Harlow taking an extended visit to Kuzma’s L.A. home where they visited some goats and he regaled her with all the things he knows about wine from LeBron James. It’s really cute!

Rating: Does Kuzma need to be disqualified from NBA Self-Isolation Watch MVP candidacy?

Tim Hardaway Jr.

I have to assume Hardaway Jr. was watching the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for artistic research, maybe inspirations for the pop art movement given his coffee table book, because that movie is a glaring terror!

Rating: Wonka is a menace with a god complex at best, a common clown at worst!

Gordon Hayward

Aside from What’s App-ing his wife from the other room, Hayward has been off the grid this ISO. That changed this week when he came swinging (and swinging, and swinging) out of obscurity with a tiny hatchet he was prepared to weld for ever against the toughest defensive opponent he’s ever faced, a section of a dead tree in his driveway. His family looked on first in support, then judgement, as he made slow progress and took a few, huffing breaks. Eventually, he prevailed, and broke that little section off the larger whole, still lying in his driveway.

Rating: The Celtics legacy of greatness lives on.

Jordan Bell

Bell has had a long journey in his career and an even longer journey this week, when he drove from Minnesota, through Iowa, an aptly tagged “Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska”. At the end of his first day on the road he’d reached Denver. He either called it a night there or chugged on a little farther, because the morning of day two saw him hitting the open road around Salt Lake City, a good 8 hours from where the sun had last set on his journey. I hope he slept?

He hit the very north-western tip of Arizona coming down Highway 15, and passed through the perma-mirage of Las Vegas. Please note the dead bug splatter accumulation on Bell’s windshield, that’s over 2,000 miles of insects.

Finally, Bell pulled into his hometown of Long Beach, California. I bet he’d never been so happy to see the ocean! His dog made itself right at home while a road weary Bell looked really happy to see his mom.

Rating: Honestly, the only version of “On The Road” I’d be willing to read again.

Jaren Jackson Jr.

Jackson Jr. has graciously tossed us a few of his ISO looks these last eleven weeks, ranging from “going to the gas station” to this, “standing beside flowering hedge in dreamy, introspective lighting”. Each is a real gift and welcome divergence from “same sad inside clothes everyday”.

Rating: The lens flare, the vest, the range.

JaVale McGee

McGee got into what I’m sure many have since being stuck at home through a season change or just feeling like “well I guess there’s no better time to look through all the dumb junk I live with” and cleaned out his closet. He started with ball caps and it really only got that far which, fair, because there were a ton of hats.

Rating: JaVale McGee labeling his storage container with baseball hats “BASEBALL HATS” for what ails you.

Wayne Ellington

The last few times we’ve checked in on Wayne’s world he’s been tracking the movements of a very large iguana around his backyard. He always kept a respectful distance from it and it, from him. For whatever reason, perhaps because Ellington decided this near mythic creature deserved to live in a real swamp rather than around his pool, he had it removed by professionals this week.

Rating: The lesson? It’s Wayne’s world, you’re just lucky to be an iguana living in it.

Dewayne Dedmon

One of the nicest glimpses ISO has given us is of the new routines players are establishing with their families. Dewayne Dedmon here shows the solemnity of morning bubble hour(s) with his young son on the porch.

Rating: The morning bubbles, they must go up.

Malcolm Miller

Miller’s dog, North, has a message for you.

Rating: And I have a message for Miller — thank you.

Terrence Ross

Ross took his family to a drive-thru wildlife park in Florida called Wild Florida. All the animals looked incredibly overheated and bored, and so did Ross.

Rating: There is something soothingly meta, maybe metaphoric for the way in which we engage with our natural world, captured in the photo of a bison as Ross takes a photo of a photo of the bison.

Marco Belinelli

Beli was gifted this uhh, gorgeous work of art. This and the excruciatingly detailed Jurassic Park Lego scene he put together earlier in ISO make me wonder if his heart has not stayed firmly snagged on the tip of a particularly tall, iconic Canadian tower and the city wherein it resides.

Rating: Toronto, I mean Toronto.

Enes Kanter

It’s getting to the point where there is less and less need to caption these more than weekly — I just spare you the bulk of them — food exploitations from Kanter than to launch a public inquiry into his waffle iron budget.

Rating: It is not clear if he is actually eating these things or what his casual candy cache looks like.

Chris Boucher

The Slim Duck witnessed a pretty scary accident in Toronto when he was out for a walk this week. Two cars appeared to collide and one continued, running into a storefront and catching fire. There was a cyclist who narrowly escaped the trajectory of the runaway car, jumping clear of their bike as it crashed. Boucher and the biker were ok but understandably shook up.

Rating: Just a gentle PSA that if you drive, don’t treat emptier than normal roads as grounds to be a total freak, there are a lot more people walking and biking out there.

Chris Bosh

Because Paul Pierce has been lost, apparently, to time itself, we will check in with Chris Bosh this week to get our retired NBA guy enjoying himself fix, a pastime for which Bosh never disappoints. CB4 took a relaxed stroll along some winding, canyon trails with a complimentary sweater tied around his waist to match his cap. He dropped a “dance like nobody’s watching” quote equivalent from Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and called it a day.

Rating: Another, less attributed Aurelius quote is, “Damn, Bosh is chill as hell.”

Before the tragic and untimely passing of Juice WRLD, the rapper had more material in the tank. His first posthumous release came via a guest spot on Eminem’s “Godzilla,” which topped charts around the world. Last month brought his first posthumous single, “Righteous,” and now the Juice WRLD estate has dropped another new track, “Tell Me U Luv Me.”

This one comes alongside a Cole Bennett-directed video, which includes footage of the two in a studio space, as well as animated clips and live video of Juice on stage. On the track, Trippie and Juice express their admiration for a girl. Trippie sings on the chorus, “Tell me you love me, tell me everything gon’ be okay / Tell me you love me, tell me you love me and you gon’ stay.” Meanwhile, Juice kicks off his first verse, “B*tch, I’m a druggie, so can you hide my drugs from me? / And when I get lonely, can you be my company?”

“Tell Me U Luv Me” could be followed by a wealth of new material from Juice to come: Last month, Chicago rapper Lil Bibby indicated that a posthumous Juice WRLD album is on the way.

Watch the “Tell Me U Luv Me” video above.

For her new HBO Max series Love Life (not to be confused with her other streaming show, Quibi’s Dummy, where she befriends a sex doll), Anna Kendrick declined to participate in any nude scenes. Sex scenes are fine, but the Pitch Perfect star would rather not bare all on camera. Love Life is the opposite of Normal People, in that sense.

“My personal feelings on nudity – that I’m not really interested in nudity for me – stayed the same. I’ve never had a problem with simulated sex scenes – that feels like it’s about the character, whereas I only get one body, so nudity is more about me,” Kendrick told the Sydney Morning Herald. She also explained what it’s like to shoot multiple romantic scenes over a full season (instead of canoodling with Scott McNairy every episode):

“When we started filming, it dawned on me that in every single episode I was going to be doing a kissing scene or a sex scene with someone brand new. It was definitely weird to know that we were going to meet and within a week we were going to be in bed pretending to have sex!”

Love Life, which we called a “promising debut” for HBO Max, is available now.

(Via Sydney Morning Herald)

This week’s protests over the death of George Floyd escalated on Thursday night in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities. The ongoing situation follows the termination of all four officers involved in Floyd’s death after bystander-filmed footage showed one officer pinning Floyd to the ground with a knee restraint (to Floyd’s neck) that’s been condemned by law enforcement as unwarranted in any situation. That footage continues to circulate during a reported federal investigation into what happened.

Amid these ongoing events, week-old video footage of Malcolm X star Denzel Washington in West Hollywood is going viral. TMZ first posted the clip that shows a masked Denzel acting as a Good Samaritan during a confrontation between a distressed homeless man and two police officers. The clip shows Denzel placing himself in between police and the man (as the actor comforted the man). TMZ reports that Denzel had already helped the man to safety after he’d blocked traffic, and although the man was briefly detained and released by the officers, the incident quickly resolved in a peaceful manner.

On social media, the footage is being reposted, including a tweet from retired NBA player Rex Chapman, who has praised Denzel for his selfless actions. “Denzel Washington saw a commotion in West Hollywood with cops and an unarmed distressed homeless man,” Chapman tweeted. “He got out of his car and served as a barrier between the man and the police — helping to diffuse a tense situation. This man was arrested safely.”

On Twitter, users praised Denzel for his decision to help the man. Journalist Ericka Goodman wrote, “Denzel is a gentleman, scholar and a real one. Continue to give him his roses. This is the right way to help.” And user OzzyMerc tweeted, “I’m proud of Denzel for his quick recognition and call to action, but it bothers me completely that we now have to be hyper vigilant when we see our fellow citizens being detained by police.”

(Via TMZ)

Protesters enraged over two unarmed black people killed by police led to a Minneapolis precinct being stormed and the activation of the national guard.

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Over the past decade, Gucci Mane has been phenomenally prolific, releasing what has seemed like a constant and endless stream of mixtapes, albums, and singles. That hasn’t been the case this year, though. He features on Doja Cat’s “Like That,” but he hasn’t released a single of his own in 2020. Rather, he hadn’t until now: Gucci has linked up with Lil Baby for “Both Sides.”

They also shared a video for the track, and it shows snapshots of life in the city, as well as plenty of firearms. That goes along with the hook, “It ain’t my business, it ain’t my beef, I ain’t on no side / Y’all got guns and we got guns but we don’t post ours / Look, you poppin’ like the giant, he just .45 / Told him hit ’em in the leg and make them n****s your size.”

Baby has become a frequent collaborator for Mane in recent years. This is their seventh collaborative effort, and they first came together on the 2017 Quality Control track “The Load.” They went on to swap guest appearances, as Mane appeared on Baby’s “Anyway” and “Realest In It,” then Baby featured on Mane’s “ICE” and “Tootsies.” Between that, they both hopped on Khao’s “Done With Her.”

Watch the “Both Sides” video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Netflix is wrapping up this month with the highly-anticipated streaming landing of another Steve Carell-Greg Daniels comedy series. Space Force sees Carell heading up a wholly different workplace comedy, one complete with territorial disputes on The Moon and congressional hearings gone wrong. After you get your fill of his ridiculously funny back-and-forth with costar John Malkovich, queue up another comedy legend. We’re talking about Adam Sandler, whose buzzed-about Safdie Brother’s project, Uncut Gems, has finally moved to the streaming platform.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of May 29.

Space Force (Netflix series streaming 5/29)

Steve Carell reteams with Office creator Greg Daniels for a different kind of workplace comedy — one that comes with plenty of real-world political ties and outrageously funny mishaps. Carell plays an Air Force general forced to head up the president’s newly-created Space Force, with the aim of getting a military force in space within just a few years. He runs into plenty of problems — think Russian meddling, competition for drilling rights to the moon, and uncooperative space monkeys — but the best thing about this series might be Carell’s comedic chemistry with John Malkovich, who plays a scientist fed up with the idiots he’s surrounded by at work.

Uncut Gems (film streaming 5/25)

This adventurous mindf*ck starring Adam Sandler lands on Netflix this week, and our only advice before watching this criminally-good romp is this: prepare yourself for a wild, over-the-top ride. Sandler gives one of his best performances, and the Safdie Brothers prove they’ve got a knack for crafting thrillers textured with grit and a realness that just can’t be beat.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

Avail. 5/23
Dynasty: Season 3

Avail. 5/25
Uncut Gems

Avail. 5/26
Hannah Gadsby: Douglas

Avail. 5/27
I’m No Longer Here
The Lincoln Lawyer

Avail. 5/28
Dorohedoro

Avail. 5/29
Space Force
Somebody Feed Phil: Season 3

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

Leaving 5/30
Bob Ross: Beauty Is Everywhere: Collection 1

Leaving 5/31
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Dear John
Final Destination
The Final Destination
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 3
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
My Girl
The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Outbreak
Red Dawn
Richie Rich

Leaving 6/1
The King’s Speech

Leaving 6/3
God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

Leaving 6/4
A Perfect Man

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“You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner: karma. That’s when I realized that I had to change. So, I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done, and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes. I’m just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.”

Most people do not remember this, but in the fall of 2005, NBC’s Must See Thursday line-up was in shambles. Cheers and The Cosby Show were long gone, Seinfeld left the air in 1998, and the network was two years removed from the last monster sitcom of the modern era, Friends. In the 2004-2005 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was running on the fumes of Will & Grace in its last two seasons, and Joey, the ill-fated Friends spin-off that was renewed for a second season because NBC didn’t have anything better to put on their schedule.

In that same 2004-2005 season, NBC decided to try an American adaptation of the most beloved UK comedy of all time, The Office. No one in the critical community thought it would work, and most audiences were hugely skeptical of an Americanized version of British sitcom, particularly after the disastrous and short-lived American version of Coupling, which was cancelled after only five episodes the season before, illustrating again how low the Must See Thursday lineup had sunk.

The Office premiered in the Spring of 2004 as a midseason replacement. The first season aired only 6 episodes, and it wasn’t particularly well received. Or, rather, the pilot episode was poorly received. It was seen by 12 million people willing to give it a chance, but after its tepid reception, it lost nearly 50 percent of its audience in its second week. Though The Office continued to shed viewers in that first season, it gained a critical spark that convinced NBC to renew it for a second season. After all, NBC didn’t have anything better to air, so it decided to take a risk on the talent that had been assembled for The Office.

Still, in the 2005-2006 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was in tatters. Joey was kicking off its second season in the Friends old time slot of 8 p.m., although Joey would struggle so badly that it would be cancelled before the season ended. Will & Grace was in its final season, having lost over half of its peak viewership. Meanwhile, The Office — a poorly rated show that was barely renewed — slid into the 9:30 p.m. slot before E.R., huffing fumes itself in its 12th season.

Amid the flopping Joey, the struggling Will & Grace, and upstart The Office, which basically got a second-season pity renewal, came a new comedy from Greg Garcia (Yes, Dear) called My Name Is Earl. Earl starred Jason Lee, a guy at the time probably best known for his work in Kevin Smith’s films, and Ethan Suplee, another Kevin Smith regular who was five years removed from probably the biggest role of his career, a 7th billed actor in Remember the Titans. Beyond those two, Earl starred two little known actresses at the time named Jaime Pressly and Nadine Velazquez.

The premise of My Name is Earl is about as high-concept as they come: It’s about a bad person named Earl (Lee), who wins a $100,000 scratch ticket and immediately loses it after being run over by a car. While in the hospital, Earl sees Carson Daly talking about the concept of karma on his late-night television show. Earl likes the concept of karma so much that he decides to live his life by Carson Daly’s philosophy. He makes a list of 258 wrongs in his life, and he decides to right them all. The decision to do so immediately brings the $100,000 scratch ticket back into his life, validating his decision to live by the rules of karma.

That’s My Name is Earl in a nutshell, except that it barely scratches the surface of how fantastic the main characters were. They can probably best be described as lovable trailer trash, and America fell instantly in love with the comedy. The premiere was seen by 15 million viewers during a time when its lead-in, Will & Grace was getting only half of that. It wasn’t just the highest-rated new show on NBC, it was the highest rated new or returning comedy on any network in the 18-49 demo.

My Name is Earl was an instant smash-hit for NBC in 2005, and no show benefited from that more than the comedy that came on after My Name Is Earl on the NBC lineup: The Office. Viewers who had otherwise tuned out after the first season returned after Earl spiked the audience for The Office in its second season, a crucial time for the Greg Daniels’ series, as now classic episodes like “The Dundies,” Sexual Harassment,” and “Office Olympics” were airing. The combination of Earl and The Office was so successful for NBC that the next season, after Will & Grace exited, NBC moved up Earl and The Office to the 8 p.m. hour to anchor the night (while the reliable Scrubs took the 9 p.m. slot to help launch 30 Rock).

Of course, by the end of the second season, The Office could hold its own, after the ratings on My Name is Earl essentially nurtured The Office into its massive success. By Earl’s third season, it was anchoring the 8 p.m. hour and The Office had moved to 9 p.m. Sadly, that’s also when Earl started to slide creatively. It was the unfortunate nature of the show’s high-concept premise: It could only sustain itself for so long. However, Earl did manage to survive for four seasons, and before it went out, it helped NBC to launch one more successful comedy, Parks and Recreation, which was sandwiched between Earl and The Office in its first season before essentially replacing Earl on the schedule the next year.

Still, My Name is Earl is remembered fondly by most who watched it (and it is currently streaming on Hulu), even if its legacy is that of a show that was eventually overshadowed by the comedy it helped to find an audience.

When Ramy Youssef took home an Emmy for his performance in Hulu’s breakout comedy series last year, he joked that most of the audience hadn’t seen his show. That might’ve been true then, but as the series — appropriately titled Ramy because it follows the sort-of-true exploits of Youssef’s millennial Muslim, a kid trying to navigate the modern world while holding onto his sense of self – gears up for a second season, the vibe’s a bit different. Fans who have witnessed Ramy make pilgrimages to Egypt, hook up with married women, and survive the torture of living with his overbearing immigrant parents might be surprised to see a somewhat more serious version of the show: one that tackles Islamophobia, mental health issues, gender identity, and more.

That last bit is where May Calamawy’s character Dena comes in. As Ramy’s sister, she’s normally on the peripheral edge of the show’s plot, but halfway through season two, she’s recruited to help her mother Maysa (the terrific Hiam Abbass) track down a disgruntled Lyft passenger that might prevent her from gaining citizenship. It’s a wild, cringe-filled ride that touches on everything from mother-daughter bonds to what qualifies as “stalking,” and we chatted with Calamawy about season two expectations and playing a Muslim woman she can finally relate to.

Ramy’s first season did really well. I mean, you guys made it to the Emmys. And won.

Yeah, it felt really surreal. None of us knew what the reception would be. Nothing was expected.

Did that put any pressure on this second season?

I personally didn’t feel any of that pressure. [Laughs] But a couple of days ago, we posted some artwork for season two. That was the first time that I was like, “Oh my God, are people going to like this?” But I think the truth of the matter is we gave so much of ourselves to it, it almost doesn’t matter. I feel validated about our experience. If people’s expectations aren’t met, I almost don’t mind it. I really enjoy Ramy’s vision, and I trust it.

I think we all recognized how differently this show depicts Middle Eastern culture. Was that apparent to you when you first got the scripts?

Yeah, for a year, the only things I was auditioning for were Arab women who were in some sort of a struggle — who were veiled and in a fight for something. This one, she was just a girl. She felt like me. She was just figuring out who she is. It’s funny, there was nothing really to her that was going on, but that was what attracted me, because I was like, “Oh, wow, you can really get to see what someone is going through without all this other stuff on the outside.” I don’t know how to say “normal.” I guess I saw myself in her in a way. And I saw many women that I know in her.

In season one, Dena has one of the worst TV dates I’ve ever seen with a barista played by Jake Lacy. It’s a really uncomfortable interaction for her. Was it uncomfortable for you to shoot, too?

It’s funny because we were still working on that episode up to the last day, which was scary and also fun. I’ve never experienced anything like that before but I feel like, with Dena, she’s examining what she understands about womanhood. She wants to step out of that comfort zone, and redefine her identity. She’s also stuck in the pattern of constantly checking herself because of the system that she’s grown up in. She’s creating that control over her body, and her decisions. And in a way, even though the experience is the opposite of what she hoped it would be, just that act, or the choice, was liberating.

Yeah, she can’t help that the guy was a jerk.

I feel like she doesn’t wallow in that self-pity of it. Do you know what I mean? It’s more just like, “Are you f*cking serious? Okay. All right.” And that’s what makes it funny. And ironic. She finally decides to go do this, and then this is what happened.

That episode also opened up a bigger conversation about what Muslim women face. Do you think the show does a good job of trying to understand that struggle?

I think it’s an ongoing topic because no matter how much we talk about it we still don’t know what is right or wrong on this path, or in life. I mean, I grew up in the Middle East, but I’ve also spent time in America, and I have a mix of these views. I understand for women here, sex is really not a big deal, and it’s just intimacy, it’s beautiful and sacred. In the Middle East, it’s also considered sacred, but there’s so much shame around it and around trying to explore yourself before you’re married. I think the show did a good job of showing she’s stuck. Ramy is stuck, he’s sort of mirroring her in certain ways, but he’s allowed to make mistakes. He gets to be wild and explore whatever instinct he has. On the other hand, she has to think twice about going on a date with someone. I think that it’s so nuanced. I guess because I did it, maybe I’m like, “Yeah, I feel like we showed it.” For her, it’s this rite of passage to just get over with. I think that starts to happen to a lot of people who’ve grown up in conservative households when they start to come into themselves, and their logic doesn’t really match up with the logic that’s been put on them.

This season, we see Dena and her mom go through some things. There’s such a divide between those two. Is it more of a cultural gap or a generational one?

I think it’s both. In the West, you’re more exposed to certain things, so you can adapt really fast. Whereas, someone living in the Middle East will probably be really shocked watching this because some things that are common here aren’t common over there. It’s just the reality.

Right. Even when Maysa’s trying to understand, she ends up misgendering one of her Lyft passengers and makes the whole situation even more awkward.

Maysa sort of lived in her bubble. She wants to expand and wants to learn, but I guess our generation is just, again, it’s exposed faster — there’s more of a curiosity. Whereas, with the older generation, it’s like, “What are you doing? Why are you [a man] in a dress?” I feel like, for them, it’s just a harsher judgment because it doesn’t make sense in their head. I see similarities in my own dad. He’ll make comments, and I’m so shocked sometimes. I know how pure he is, he’s such an amazing human that I’m not mad at him, I’m just like, “Oh wow, that’s really where you’re living still?” Maybe full acceptance is still scary?

That particular episode with Dena and Maysa also exposes how hard women are on each other, and themselves. Do you think that’s another reason why their bond is so strained?

I guess sometimes women can feel alone. We put all these pressures on ourselves because they were put on us at a certain age, and unless we’re conscious of them at a certain point, we end up living with them, and they control us. You can be next to your own mom, and you’re both going through the same thing, and then you’re not able to connect, because you’re both trying so hard to, I don’t know, please. I feel like Dena looks at her mom and can see why she is that way at that moment and it really touches her heart. There’s a bit of an awareness, and a bit of compassion. And then that also opens Maysa’s eyes as well, because she really does want the best for her daughter, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Maysa needs someone to just give her a break. They actually both want the same thing. And if they can at least give it to each other then that’s [a start].

Hulu’s ‘Ramy’ arrives for a second season on May 29.