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Is it weird that I’m more concerned about the fate of Lalo Salamanca heading into the final few episodes of Better Call Saul than I am about the fate of Kim Wexler?

I’m starting to think it is, based on two factors: One, Lalo is a violent cartel boss who has murdered something like a half dozen people on the show and does not appear to feel remorse for any of it, even a little, while Kim, even while breaking bad a bit herself to ruin her old boss, is still working as a lawyer for the poor and underprivileged; two, when I posed this exact question to Tony Dalton (who plays Lalo) and Michael Mando (who played Nacho until… you know) in a chat over Zoom before the season, they both kind of yelled at me. Mostly in good fun, to be sure, but still. Here is the unedited chunk of the transcript to drive it home.

Tony: Yeah. That’s very weird.
Michael: It’s very weird. We have a problem, Brian.
Tony: I’m worried…
Michael: We have a problem.
Tony: What are you talking about?

In hindsight, this was a fair reaction. Also in hindsight, this was not an ideal way to start an interview. There’s a lot of reflecting that needs to be done here. By me, mostly. Maybe by the rest of us. But definitely by me.

The problem is that Lalo Salamanca is basically a perfect television character, a walking charisma bomb in a floral-patterned shirt who would just as easily slap you on the back as he would slit your throat with a broken soda bottle. Dalton described Lalo later in our chat — once we got the train back on the tracks — as “having this sort of carefree way about life, where he just doesn’t really care if he lives or dies, because that’s kind of what I think would be to live in that world,” adding that, because Lalo accepted his life could end at any minute “maybe he takes life a little less serious.” I think this sums things up pretty well. As does this GIF of him pulling up to a compound filled with armed cartel operatives.

This gets us to the dilemma I’m facing now. I know Lalo is a bad dude. I know he deserves whatever exactly is coming to him. I know that “whatever is coming to him” probably includes a death at the hands of Gus Fring, mostly because if you are a newly introduced character in a prequel who is at war with a character who exists in the original show, things are probably not going to work out for you, but also because Gus literally says the sentence “All of the Salamancas are dead” in season four of Breaking Bad. These are all true statements. But here’s another true statement that I think we all need to consider: I love him very much and want him to live forever.

A big part of this is Tony Dalton. He plays Lalo with this puffed-out gregarious machismo that makes the character endlessly watchable. Everything he does, even just having a pleasant conversation with a housewife, is soaked in menace. He can turn it on or off at any moment, with the smile below his glorious mustache turning into a thin flat line and the charm fleeing his eyes. It is my position that you could drop this character into almost any television show and it would improve the show by a factor of five, at minimum. Lalo Salamanca showing up on Ted Lasso when the cartel buys a rival soccer team as a money-laundering ploy. Lalo Salamanca showing up on Barry to start a turf war with NoHo Hank. Lalo Salamanca showing up on Succession at some all-inclusive resort and just scaring the hell out of Cousin Greg for 10 minutes next to the pool. These are all good ideas that are free for anyone to use.

It’s also part of why the character is so fascinating to me right now. To date, he’s been portrayed as something one or maybe two steps short of a comic book supervillain. (Not to be confused with the actual comic book supervillain Dalton played in Hawkeye, which was also a delight.) Lalo is hyper-proficient at everything. He can show up in Germany at a fancy martini bar and woo a sad widow. He can hop over fences and disappear out of second-story windows like an Olympic gymnast. He can tell a crew of heartless human traffickers to be nice and then kill all of them off-screen in about 90 seconds. It’s kind of like if you crossed John Wick with Danny Ocean.

And, like… once you’ve created someone who is almost indestructible, how do you go about destroying him? This is sort of what I was getting at with the question I asked at the beginning of this whole thing. You can see how this goes sideways for Kim Wexler and Howard Hamlin and most of the other characters on this show who do not make it to Breaking Bad. I still don’t think either of those two characters dies, but wheels are spinning fast on both fronts and there are many potential non-lethal outcomes in play. Kim could get disbarred and flee back to the Midwest, another example of Saul’s actions harming only those surrounding him. Howard’s plot could wrap itself up cleanly and he could fade back into the background and just not be a part of Breaking Bad at all without Kim around. They could both go to jail for all we know. You can see the potential escape hatches here. But Lalo, just because of the way he fills the screen and the minds of so many different characters, pretty much has to die.

And he almost certainly has to die at the hands of Gus Fring, too, which is also fascinating. Gus and Lalo are two sides of the same coin, in a way. They’re both masking ice-cold killers behind pleasant exteriors, Gus using the uber-polite restaurant manager and Lalo grinning and kissing babies across the southwest. I asked Dalton about this aspect of the show, too, about how Gus and Lalo are actually, in a way, not so different, and his answer hit on a couple interesting points. “I think that there’s a little bit of this peeking through, of just this evil on both sides,” he said. “I think it’s just that maybe they’re a little bit the same in that area, where they can be polite and they can be sort of nonchalant about something. But when you have to get down to business, you know that both of them are not going to think twice about pulling the trigger.”

This is, to put a point on it finer than the tips of Lalo’s mustache, the thing. We’ve already started to see how this can play out, with Lalo hunting for clues in Europe and Gus setting booby traps in New Mexico. We know how it has to end. We know Gus, barring a truly wild left turn like Lalo deciding to fake his death a second time and escaping to Japan and becoming a high-ranking Yakuza boss (MAKE THIS SHOW VINCE GILLIGAN I AM BEGGING YOU), is going to win here. We know this because we’ve all seen or at least Googled Breaking Bad. Lalo Salamanca is not long for this world. He can’t be.

Which, again, at the risk of becoming a broken record, is fascinating. Because as much as I want Lalo to live forever and plop into my other favorite shows and maybe become a major figure in the Tokyo underworld, I also want to see how this plays out. How do you kill a borderline invincible man? What does that look like? Even though we probably know the destination, the journey itself could be a wild ride.

Or, to quote Dalton one last time from the chat that started with him thinking — fairly — that I was a crazy person: “What I can tell you is that Lalo is on a warpath. He’s got vengeance in his eyes and he’s mad. He wasn’t mad in the last season and he’s mad in this one. So, I think that a lot of stuff is going to go down.”

I don’t know if I’m ready for all of this but I do know I am very, very excited. And scared. But mostly excited.

The only thing worse than a highly-publicized trial is the unwelcome commentary that comes from internet users who don’t know anything about basic laws or human decency.

As the world follows Amber Heard and Johnny Depps’ defamation trial, photos of the trial have been making the rounds, including emotionally-charged photos of Heard very visibly upset. Snapchat also just so happened to release a filter with a crying face that looked eerily similar to Heard’s expressions, and of course, it made the rounds on social media.

Many social media users compared the filter to Heard, calling it the “Amber Filter,” which is all levels of weird. As with all trends, they take off, and even huge accounts have been following the trend, posting it to TikTok and Instagram as well as Snapchat, since the only people who still use Snapchat is anyone below Gen Z.

After becoming a trend, many fans reacted to the filter, poking fun at Heard. Snapchat has officially responded, saying that the lens had been in development for months and that the company would never poke fun at a trial. Despite the disclaimer, the filter is inspiring videos made by Depp supporters causing Heard of lying.

Overall, the whole thing is a mess, and a perfect example of why trials should not be shown on social media, ever.

It’s usually hard to feel bad for celebrities. Most of them are rich, lots of people love them, etc. But one downside to being a celebrity — especially the kind who played an icon on an iconic sitcom— is that strangers will ask you to perform something you did for work thirty years ago.

On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton Banks on the 90s sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opposite Will Smith (who is now known for another thing that people won’t shut up about), said that fans keep asking him to do the Carlton dance for them. In the famous scene, Carlton dances to Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” when he is home alone. He swings his hips in an instantly recognizable way, uses a candle as a fake microphone, and incorporates some parkour into the choreography by bouncing on the couch.

Kimmel started the interview by saying, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to do the dance or any of that stuff. You must want to kill people when they ask you to do that, right?” That’s a little dramatic, Mr. Kimmel, but fair.

“I won’t say kill, but I don’t have a love for it like they do,”Ribeiro said. “I’m a black guy — I’m just not dancing for you. It’s not gonna happen. What makes you think that you just gonna ask a random person to dance for you, and they’re gonna be like ‘Oh my God, I’ve been waiting for you to ask! Hold on a second, let me get into character.’ It’s not — I don’t get it. It’s not gonna happen.”

Ribiero says that he is asked to do the Carlton dance “every day of my life if I go outside” and he does not feel bad for saying no to the strangers who command it, as is his right.

Steph Curry talked a little trash before the Golden State Warriors traveled to Memphis to take on the Ja Morant-less Grizzlies with a chance to secure a series win in five games. Curry said the Warriors planned to go and “whoop that trick,” a reference to the Al Kapone song that is played during Grizzlies home games.

Instead, Memphis obliterated Golden State, leading by more than 50 points and ultimately picking up a 39-point win to send the series back to the west coast for Game 6. “Whoop That Trick” blared over the speakers at FedExForum during a timeout, which led to Curry smiling and laughing while Draymond Green danced and swung a towel around.

After the game, Green was asked why he celebrated despite things going poorly for the Warriors, and essentially said that he hates when people are “frontrunners” and only “embrace crowds when you’re winning.”

“They not gonna whoop that trick alone,” said Green, who hasn’t exactly gotten along with Grizzlies fans over the course of this series. “We gonna whoop that trick together if we’re gonna whoop that trick. One thing I don’t respect is people who only bring it when they’re winning, embrace crowds when you’re winning. We call those frontrunners, we’re not frontrunners. We got our ass kicked, that’s alright, it happens. But, you don’t be a frontrunner — when you spew it out, you gotta be willing to take it and not hide from it, not duck from it, not run from it. Embrace it.”

Surprise, surprise. Gwyneth Paltrow did it again by angering the world with a line of gemstone-encrusted diapers “known for their ancient emotional-cleansing properties. Infused with a scent of jasmine and bergamot for a revitalized baby.” Known as The Diapér, the purported product cost $120 for a pack of 12, which would last less than two days, and an entire year’s worth of luxury poop catchers would approach the cost of annual public university tuition. Call it another silly take on the motherlode, if you will, but considering that Paltrow’s goop brand sells luxury vibrators and vagina-scented candles, it seemed wholly believable that Gwyneth would want to sell “aspirational” diapers while parents sweat through a formula shortage that could last for months.

Well, Gwyneth is now claiming that the The Diapér was only a joke. Let’s take a look at this thing again.

A Goop press release sent to Vice’s Motherboard revealed that the product was only intended as “satire,” and “goop CEO Gwyneth Paltrow will reveal on Instagram that The Diapér is designed to expose the ridiculousness of taxing diapers like a luxury product.” The whole concoction was meant as a joint PR move by goop and the Baby2Baby organization, which is quoted by Motherboard as stating, “The overwhelming cost of diapers for a family living in poverty forces parents to make impossible choices between diapers and food. Without a sufficient supply, parents are also unable to drop their kids off at daycare, creating a barrier for re-entering the workforce and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.”

From there, Gwyneth appeared in a Baby2Baby-tweeted video, in which she exclaims of The Diapér outrage, “Good.” She added, “It was designed to piss us off.”

Mission accomplished? Meanwhile, the formula shortage has led to some actual mom-shaming on Twitter, even though not all women can produce breast milk, nor do they have the time or luxury of pumping milk at work. And Roe v. Wade is on the brink of being overturned, so all of these issues will soon be compounded. Hmm, it might be time to move to Aruba.

Following the reveal of a Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness poster back in February, Marvel fans were thoroughly convinced that Deadpool was tucked away in the broken pieces of glass surrounding the promotional image. That theory only intensified when Ryan Reynolds denied that he was appearing in the Doctor Strange sequel barely two months after Andrew Garfield appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home after swearing he wasn’t in it. It had all the telltale signs of a classic Marvel fake out.

Except, this time, Reynolds was actually telling the truth.

Much like the Tom Cruise as Superior Iron Man theories bouncing around the internet, Deadpool did not appear in Multiverse of Madness. However, unlike the Cruise cameo, which the filmmaking team did try to make happen, Deadpool was nixed early on in the creative process, according to screenwriter Michael Waldron.

“Yeah, we talked about it,” Waldron told Comic Book. “I think we talked about everything in this movie. So, [it] would’ve been crazy to not raise that, but it ultimately didn’t feel like… It just didn’t feel the right place. But yeah, of course we talked about it.”

While Deadpool and Tom Cruise doing his best Tony Stark impression stayed on the bench for Multiverse of Madness, the film did manage to deliver some surprising cameos. We won’t spoil them for you here, but if you want to read all about them, Uproxx Senior Pop Culture Editor Josh Kurp has you covered.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing in theaters.

(Via Comic Book)

After offering a brief teaser of his Roddy Ricch collaboration “Cooped Up” in April, Post Malone released the track today. As for the circumstances behind how “Cooped Up” came to be, it’s possible a toilet may have been involved.

While telling Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about how the song came together, Malone said, “The lyrics just came so quickly. We knew what we wanted to say and we knew what we wanted to express, not only in the song but in that particular moment on the album. And yeah, it just came super naturally. I couldn’t even tell you. I was probably on the sh*tter when I wrote it [laughs].”

He also spoke about his upcoming album Twelve Carat Toothache, saying, “That’s what the whole record is about: It’s the bipolar aspect and the duality of everything. And so, there’s a lot of things very much so on this record that are tongue in cheek. And I think this whole record is the most honest record I’ve made, and I’m so pumped for people to hear it. But every song in there tells a story, so this is kind of like, ‘Here’s the life that we live, but there’s always something going on in the background.’”

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

Rosamund Pike is owed an Oscar. Deadline reports that Pike, who earned an Oscar nomination for her staggering, charming, and chilling performance in 2014’s Gone Girl is starring in a new film from Oscar-nominated director and Oscar-winning screenwriter Emerald Fennell, who wrote and directed 2020’s Promising Young Woman.

Promising Young Woman earned its star Carey Mulligan an Oscar nominee for best actress, and the film was also nominated for best picture. Not much is known about Fennell’s new film, titled Saltburn, but Pike will star and it is set to be filmed over the summer in the UK, per Deadline. The outlet also reports that the film is about an aristocratic English family. That’s also what Downton Abbey is about, but Fennell’s take will very likely be very different.

Rosamund Pike is coming for her Oscar, so hopefully, Euphoria and The Kissing Booth trilogy star and very tall person Jacob Elordi, who has also been cast in Saltburn according to Deadline, won’t ruin it for her. Irish actor Barry Keoghan who most recently portrayed an “Unseen Arkham Prisoner” in Matt Reeves’ The Batman has also joined the cast. Will this finally be the role where Elordi proves he can act? If his performance in Deep Water is any indication, then the answer is a solid no.

What better time to celebrate a classic album than when it becomes old enough to legally drink? OK, stay with me now, because The Shins’ 2001 album Oh, Inverted World is turning 21, and for this momentous occasion, the band is taking the album on a two-month tour of North America.

Led by singer James Mercer, The Shins helped shape the new millennium of indie-rock love songs with the 2001 release of Oh, Inverted World. Standout songs like “New Slang” and “Caring Is Creepy” seeped deeper into pop culture consciousness when they were featured in the 2004 film Garden State, because who can resist Natalie Portman telling Zach Braff that The Shins will “change your life?”

“Everything was so tongue-in-cheek in the indie world of the ’90s,” Mercer said in a statement. “I remember feeling a longing for some sort of romance in music again, something earnest, like a real attempt at some emotional language.”

You can relive the nostalgia starting July 12th in San Francisco, before The Shins cross the continent back and forth with these shows that promise a front-to-back performance of the album. Portland’s Joseph are the main support on the tour.

Tickets for The Shins’ Oh, Inverted World — The 21st Birthday Tour go on-sale Friday, May 20th, but you can register for a pre-sale here.

07/12 — San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
07/15 — Sacramento, CA@ Memorial Auditorium
07/16 — Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery*
07/22 — Las Vegas, NV @ The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
07/23 — San Diego, CA –@San Diego Civic Theatre
07/24 — Phoenix, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
07/26 — Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
07/27 — Kansas City, MO @ Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland
07/29 — Austin, TX @ ACL Live at The Moody Theater
08/01 — Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
08/02 — Dallas, TX @ The Factory in Deep Ellum
08/04 — Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium
08/06 — Ogden, UT @ Ogden Twilight at the Ogden Amphitheater
08/16 — Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
08/17 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
08/19 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
08/20 — Richmond, VA @ The National
08/23 — New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
08/26 — Philadelphia, PA @ Skyline Stage at the Mann
08/27 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
08/29 — Montreal, QC @ L’Olympia
08/30 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
08/31 — Detroit, MI @ Masonic Cathedral Theatre
09/02 — Cleveland, OH @ The Agora
09/03 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
09/04 — Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live!
09/06 — Saint Louis, MO @ The Factory
09/08 — Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
09/10 — Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theatre
09/13 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
09/14 — Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
09/16 — Portland, OR @ Pioneer Courthouse Square

If you thought Kanye West retrieving Kim Kardashian’s alleged second sex tape was the most notable thing that would happen on Keeping Up with the Kardashians this season, folks, have I got an update for you. On Wednesday’s episode of the Hulu series, Kendall Jenner was having a conversation with her mother Kris when she decided she wanted something to eat. “Do you want the chef to make you a snack?” Kris asked Kendall, who replied, “I’m making it myself. I’m just gonna chop up some cucumber. It’s pretty easy.”

That’s a bold claim for someone who’s apparently never held a knife before.

Kendall cuts a cucumber like Lucille Bluth telling Michael that a banana only costs 10 dollars. As E! Online describes the scene, “After she attempts to slice the cucumber without holding onto it, Kendall decides to awkwardly hold onto the end of it with one hand and chop with the other in a terrifying crisscross motion.” Clearly someone has never made a cucumber lime cocktail with her tequila.

The “give peace and/or Pepsi a chance” model’s knife skills caught the attention of Twitter. “Kendall Jenner trying to cut a fcking cucumber is the most tragic thing I’ve ever witnessed,” @SophieScribbles tweeted, while @megmeyer added, “Not gonna be able to sleep tonight. Gonna be too busy thinking about the way Kendall Jenner tried to cut a cucumber.” Here’s more:

(Via E! Online)