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Three words to sum up this week’s episode of Killing Eve: “This. Is. Bullsh*t.”

The show’s sixth episode, appropriately titled “End Game” gave us all the angst, but not the sexually-charged kind between Eve and Villanelle … no, this time we’re watching our happy-go-lucky assassin having full-on emotional breakdowns and her ex-government lover Hulking-out on unassuming vending machines. This is a show about spycraft and organized killing, so murder is always on the menu, but this latest episode’s assassination didn’t feel as important as it’s build-up — and aftermath. Let’s dig in.

The Bathroom Breakdown

First, a bit of good news. Niko, despite being pitchforked by Dasha just two episodes earlier, is alive. He’s recuperating in a London hospital because his larynx didn’t fare so well. Still, he’s found a way to destroy Eve emotionally when she comes to visit.

Eve spends the episode hunting Niko’s would-be killer, and while it’s fascinating to see her agonize over the possibility that her ex-girlfriend is responsible before settling on Dasha as the true culprit — and then confronting her during the tensest TV bowling match we’ve ever seen — the biggest drama follows Villanelle, who’s still strung out over that whole “killed-my-mom-and-burned-her-house-down” thing.

She has a meeting with Elena, the woman who’s been threatening Dasha this season, who reveals that Villanelle is finally getting that promotion she’s been gunning for. She’s officially a Keeper, but kids, achieving your dreams isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and the new title doesn’t mean Villanelle won’t still be sent on jobs — like the one in Romania where she’s ordered to kill a high-profile politician.

Fed up with being the psychotic, bloodthirsty lapdog of a secret organization that can’t even spring for top-shelf champagne, Villanelle goes to Konstantin, asking to flee with him once he finally breaks free of the group. He’s reluctant, for obvious reasons, but when he learns Villanelle killed her own mother, he settles with a clear “Not gonna happen.”

So Villanelle bonds with Konstantin’s daughter Irina, suggesting she kill her irksome step-father while learning Konstantin intends to head to Cuba.

She’s got a trip to Romania planned, though, where she poses as a stylist to get close to the politician. You’ll never feel comfortable going to a salon again after watching this scene — even if this pandemic one day ends.

But Villanelle is careless, and the politician manages to put up a bit of a fight before having his brains fried, which leaves Villanelle escaping a bloody crime scene and having a pity-party in her hotel room’s bathroom afterward. She breaks the one rule Konstantin advised her to follow and reveals to Dasha that she wants out of this life of crime. Dasha suggests ordering a pizza.

Same Villanelle, same.

And just like that, we’re left wondering where this show will go next. It’s clear that, despite having said this before, Villanelle is done with working for The Twelve, but we think she also realizes that vanishing, as Konstantin plans to do, just won’t work for her. With Eve also on a warpath, “End Game” felt like the emotionally-draining build-up to their partnership, if only because they’d both be served by getting rid of their mutual enemy. The only problem? Dasha, who’s still around, threatening to kill Eve and wield her influence over her protege.

Oh, and we can’t imagine Konstantin will be too pleased with Villanelle once he discovers it was her hand puppeteering this shocking kill:

Imagine raising not one, but two deranged murderers. Yikes.

When Rich Brian plans a posse cut, he really shoots for the moon. The Indonesian born, LA-based rapper wants to do an all-star quarantine cut, and to do so, he shoots his shot with a plethora of notable names from across the rap game. Posting a video call capture to his Instagram, Brian phoned his pal Denzel Curry to detail the plan, while the latter minute and a half of the video is dedicated to a preview of the song playing on his laptop screen. The caption reveals his wishlist, which includes: Buddy, Childish Gambino, Chris Travis, Danny Towers, Denzel Curry, Earthgang, Higher Brothers, IDK, J. Cole, Jaden Smith, JID, Joji, Jpegmafia, Kevin Abstract, Pouya, and Tyler The Creator. In the video, he mentions that Guapdad 4000 may already be on board, as well.

While that list of names may seem like a heft lift to pull off, there’s no better time for Brian to ask than now, when the vast majority of artists are sheltering at home — many with their own recording setup somewhere in their living space. It probably doesn’t hurt that many of the names are already either good friends or collaborators; most of the artists he named have appeared as guests at Tyler’s annual Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival and some have previously collaborated with Brian in some capacity, like Buddy and Guapdad appearing in his “Bali” video a few weeks ago or Higher Brothers, with whom Brian entered the rap game as part of 88 Rising’s all-Asian roster of artists. Can Brian pull it off? Who knows, but even if he falls short a few names, the end result will still end up being pretty impressive anyway.

Watch Rich Brian’s posse cut preview above.

About half a year ago, The National leader Matt Berninger revealed that he had a solo album in the works. He hasn’t said much about it since then, but now Serpentine Prison has officially been announced: The album will be out on October 2 via Book Records, a new label co-founded by Berninger and Serpentine Prison producer Booker T. Jones.

The announcement comes alongside a video for the album’s title track. The understated song scores a similarly spirited video, a black-and-white clip that shows the process of Berninger, Jones, and their collaborators recording the song.

In a post making the announcement, Berninger thanks a long list of people who helped bring the album to life. It includes Andrew Bird, Walter Martin (of The Walkmen), Gail Ann Dorsey (a longtime David Bowie collaborator), Harrison Whitford (who plays in Phoebe Bridgers’ band), and others.

When Berninger initially teased the album, he wrote, “Kind, patient, visionary genius @bookertjonesmusic produced and arranged my solo record. It’s called Serpentine Prison. More about it soon but basically I’m the luckiest man in the universe with lots of brilliant friends who can play instermints. Not worthy!”

Watch the “Serpentine Prison” video above.

Serpentine Prison is out 10/2 via Book Records.

Terry Crews is a ball of energy, and chatting with him on the phone is every bit the energizing experience that you’d imagine it to be. For over two decades, he’s churned like a tornado through countless films and TV shows, including seven seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (where he can now utter strings of bleeps on NBC) so far. He’s the star of a recent micro-budgeted film called John Henry that’s been sitting atop Netflix’s Most Popular list for weeks. The movie, which also stars Ludacris, is really something, and Terry is as surprised as anyone over its popularity.

Terry is also featured in a new YouTube original series, Celebrity Substitute, which recruits an assortment of famous people (with expertise) to help energize distance learning during the pandemic. So, Ken Jeong, who holds an M.D. degree, is teaching biology, Bill Nye will be doing his Science Guy thing, and Terry’s stepping up to teach visual art and perspective, all to give high-school teachers a break. Terry’s episode premieres on May 21, and he was gracious enough to talk with us about a wide assortment of subjects, including why he adopted his signature “pose,” and how Brooklyn Nine-Nine could approach the pandemic subject when production fires up again.

I feel like I should have had ten cups of coffee before talking with you. How is your quarantine going?

You start to realize that you can get used to anything. It still sucks, definitely. I will not say that this is the best, but it’s something that I’ve gotten used to. What’s gonna be really weird is going back to work. Now that it’s been like two months of this, it’s gonna really strange.

You’ve been posting videos (like a scene from Friday After Next, in which you danced to Tupac Shakur) to boost people’s spirits. You also judged that nacho contest for Guy Fieri and Bill Murray.

That whole event was for the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund. When I think about the devastation of all the restaurants, in Los Angeles alone, where the whole industry runs on restaurants and all the waiters and waitresses and cooks and people who just make their living that way. It’s all gone. A lot of restaurants won’t come back, so I had to do this because I love the industry. A couple of times, I thought I would go to cooking school, way back after football. I thought I could be a chef, and I love the industry and Guy and Bill Murray and Shaq and [chef] Carla Hall, so to be a part of something like that, all of us getting together? To date, Guy Fieri’s fund has raised over $22 million for restaurants and their employees.

He’s stepped up, big time, I think more than anyone else for that industry.

Yes, he’s a man that loves what he does. It’s all about passion, I call him the big tentpole of cooking. He’s the Avengers of Restaurants.

When everything starts back up, you’ll be back to TV and film premieres. You’ve got a trademark pose that you do: the “jump.” Where did that come from?

Oh man, I’ve got a great story for that. Early on — I’ve been acting for 20 years — I used to be very intimidated by the red carpet. I remember going up there, I didn’t think people wanted to see me. I felt like I was in the way, and my wife was like, “You need to stop that. You deserve to be here,” and I thought, “I know, but this is weird.” So, what I decided to do was lean into it because it was [about] my own insecurities, and I was like, “Give them something to see.” Everybody just stands there and does a little pose, but I had to try something else. I decided to just count for the photographers and say, “I’m gonna jump!” I’d do a count of three, and they could take the picture they want, and every time, it would end up in the media. The photographers get paid for what gets published, and I had to learn the game. I’ve been doing that for 12 years now, and what’s really crazy is that [now] I know these guys, and they shout, “Do the jump!” So, I just do it again, and it’s kind-of my thing, and everyone knows to get out of the way. It’s my signature, and it’s just a way of feeling special and embracing it.

Let’s talk Celebrity Substitute, which you filmed in quarantine. How did this get started, and what’s your episode about?

It was wild. It was announced, and YouTube came to me and came to a bunch of different celebrities in their field that they love to do. They knew I was interested in art. I had an art scholarship before I had a football scholarship.

You originally wanted to be an animator, correct?

Exactly. I wanted to be an animator, I wanted to do special effects, I wanted to do anything with movies artistically, and I was the guy who wanted to draw movie posters and all that kind of stuff. I didn’t know I’d be in front of the camera. I had no idea that would happen, but with Celebrity Substitute, all I could think about was my own son, who’s stuck here, with me, at 14 years old. All I could think about was, man, I loved going to school when I was 14, and now these kids are all stuck at home. I wanted to do what I could do to help them learn, to make exciting, to make it fun. And there was a teacher by the name of Rachel at a school in Compton who taught art. I joined her class, and we talked scale, perspective, and proportion to her students, and it was so much fun to see their faces when I popped in. I was happy that they knew who I was. It makes you feel relevant when kids know who you are!

My daughter definitely knows who you are. She wants to know if you love yogurt as much as your Brooklyn Nine-Nine character does.

Oh, I loooooooove yogurt! That’s for real! [Laughs]

On the subject of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, there’s been some talk of whether the show will address the pandemic, since they are obviously in New York City with the show being about first responders. Do you have an opinion on whether realism should happen in that way?

By all means. I think it’d be a real mistake to not touch on the whole pandemic. Especially in the New York area? Oh my goodness. My daughter lives there, and it’s shut down right now, so if we didn’t, that would be whole definition of tone-deaf. But I think that we’ve always done a great job of handling very serious subjects with humor. We’ve dealt with racial profiling before on the show, we’ve dealt with gun violence, all kinds of issues but still in a very funny way. To me, the more serious things can be, actually, the funnier they are. I’ve always looked to find the real comedy inside of very intense subject matter. So I’m with that, and I think that our writers — we’ve been doing it, going on eight years now — are up to the challenge.

Back on the subject of education, do you remember your favorite teacher?

Yes, yes. My favorite teacher was my art teacher. His name was Mr. Dwight Eichelberg. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I remember he was taking my art, photographing it, cataloging it, and filling out all the applications for scholarships, and it turned out that he got me a scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy and Western Michigan University by submitting the work that I did in his class without me knowing. He was telling me that I should, and he did that on his own, and I’ll never forget it. It blew my mind, but that level of care and attention changed my life forever. We actually regrouped five years ago. I went to Flint, Michigan and visited with Mr. Eichelberg, and he was telling me how proud he was. I was in tears, I actually broke down. He didn’t have to do that, and he did it anyway. I think that’s what really makes the difference in a kid’s life: when an adult takes that really caring touch and takes that extra step.

You also have America’s Got Talent, which you host, coming back next week. I screened a scary clip where you’re holding a sledgehammer. Can you tell me what’s going on there, with some guy holding his mouth over a blade?

[Laughs] You know, I love doing America’s Got Talent. My wife tells me not to say this, but I would host the show for free. It’s so amazing, to give a lot of normal, everyday average people who give the show their amazing talent, and it’s incredible. And it gives them the light they deserve, and you’re literally making dreams come true. So I would be a part of that. And that day when that guy asked me to hold a sledgehammer and basically hammer the block on the back of him when he was literally millimeters of cutting his face in half? I was just like, “You sure you know how to do this?” And the producers are ready to pay all my bills if something goes wrong? Oh my god, that was almost a mini-heart attack, it was unreal.

It looked very stressful. The clip that I saw cuts off at a dramatic moment, but can we assume that he survived?

I can give you the spoiler. He’s okay!

Speaking of sledgehammers, are you aware that John Henry (an action-thriller that alludes to the folklore) is currently a Netflix phenomenon right now?

I am very aware, and what’s crazy about that is — to be blunt — the movie was an experiment. It literally was a little bitty, mini-movie. We just decided to do something. I’m never shy of doing something, just going for it and giving your all to something. It was really fun to do, and I thought it might just go to the back of the bin somewhere, whatever, it’ll be there. It hit #1 on Netflix. I never saw that coming. I would have predicted the shutdown/quarantine easier than I would have predicted that John Henry would be #1. Also, The Willoughbys –the animated movie I did — was #1 on Netflix, too. I call myself the most thankful man in Hollywood, period. I don’t take it for granted. I don’t take people’s eyeballs or attention for granted. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been doing better than ever during this pandemic. People have been binging, and it’s been amazing, the comments and social stuff, and when this whole thing is over (and it’s temporary), I’m ready to do more things and keep trying.

There’s something like 500-600 new shows every year, so it’s a challenge to become the thing that people are binging.

It’s incredible. Again, it’s so hard. And I’ve always got people telling me to watch this show and that show, and it’s too much! To have people call what you’re doing “must-see,” and the fans have been rabid — again, I’m humbled because I’m an old football player. I never thought I’d be doing the things I’m doing right now. But the funny thing is that I hosted my high school talent show, and it was a total premonition of what I’d be doing for the rest of my life.

There’s a lot of crazy stuff in John Henry, but there’s a scene that stands out. You’re in the drug store, and you’re buying feminine products for a houseguest. That wasn’t your first rodeo, right?

Yes. Look, I have four daughters and a wife. What happened was that I had to do that when my first daughter turned into a teenager, almost 20 years ago, but now? Shoot, I put it right up there with the eggs and milk, and I’m like, “Yep, feminine products, got ’em!” Whatever I gotta do, I’m doing it, and look, if I need Depends, I’m not shaming that either. Those are for me!

Well, there’s such a variety of feminine products in those aisles. Guys usually stand there, looking confused.

You get to a point in life where you don’t care. You’re like, “I’m human, yes! Guess what? I do need those.”

You mentioned your wife. You recently wrote a Mother’s Day tribute about how she had breast cancer surgery as the pandemic took root. How’s she doing?

The level of gratitude I’ve got: she did not back down. She’s actually got a warrior’s mentality because she got the diagnosis one month before everything shut down. But we didn’t know it would be this way. Back then, the whole COVID-19 was just kind-of rumors. No one really knew what was going to happen. She got a mastectomy, and then she elected to have a double mastectomy, just to make sure she was okay. And it turned out that her second breast did have cancer that had not shown up previously, so she just made all the right calls. And the thing was, she was the strong one, for me. She was like, “Let’s go, let’s get this done,” so it’s kind of romantic, but I almost say it’s like the world shut down so that I could take care of her. I was her nurse, doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning. Two months later, she’s cancer-free, doing her thing. I’m thankful for modern medicine — the doctors, the nurses, everyone is so good. It’s a miracle, modern medicine doing things that we never thought we could do, 20 years ago.

Taking time out for one’s family is something a lot of folks are rediscovering right now, if there’s a silver lining to all of this.

Oh yeah, I’m never home. I’m always on the way out or the way back. And the fact that it’s quarantine, and you are just here… we’ve been closer than ever, it’s almost like a marriage retreat. But also to nurse her back to health, this is what love is all about.

‘Celebrity Substitute,’ a YouTube Original, launches Terry Crews’ episode on May 21.

Comic book fans know that Tom Hardy’s current Venom run for Sony and Marvel isn’t his first (wildly successful) rodeo in the nerd realm. Back in 2012, he also tore through a little Warner Bros/DCEU film called The Dark Knight Rises, in which he portrayed the nearly unstoppable villain, Bane. Of course, that appearance was slightly tragic because Hardy’s face didn’t get any, you know, face time, unlike with Venom, where he at least underwent a transformation from his handsome self. During the ongoing pandemic, though, it seems that Bane is making a comeback.

The Hollywood Reporter reveals how Bane’s signature item of clothing is now flying off online shelves. Perhaps people are engaging in a little bit of wishful thinking, since the comic-book origins of the mask involve protective/pain-killing gas, which is what makes Bane such a force with which to be reckoned. Or maybe nerds simply think it looks cool? Regardless, several costume sites are out of the item, which is seeing demand on Etsy as well, even though this mask doesn’t provide medical-grade protection:

David DeJac, spokesman for Costume.com, told The Hollywood Reporter that Bane masks have been sold out since early this month. “Looking at sales figures, the adult mask had quite a sales spike in April and early May, which is unusual for this time of year,” said DeJac, adding that a few children’s masks are still in stock.

This spokesperson noted that people are really only buying the mask right now (not the whole costume), so it’s not like they’re planning ahead for Halloween. Yet this mask definitely won’t fly for military personnel (yep, there’s been an actual statement, even if it’s a little jokey), and don’t expect this thing to reliably protect against coronavirus. Still, Twitter can’t stop wondering whether the supervillain was onto something back in 1993, when he first surfaced in the Batman: Vengeance of Bane series.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Games that reimagine the hero-villain dynamic are always intriguing, and Wunderling is the latest title to put players in the shoes of the “bad guy” and explore what that really means. It’s a title that — like the song “Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle” — asks what the other bit characters are doing while the player-controlled hero is blasting through a platformer and causing havoc.

In the case of the Retroid release, which hit the Nintendo Switch this spring, the game casts the heroic-looking carrot as clearly evil and the witch he’s chasing down as the real hero. No one of those characters, not even the filmmaking cow, are playable. Instead, it’s the small yellow minion driven into the ground that gets a single ability that changes everything.

Wunderling starts as a game where you can only jump, and you never stop moving. You can’t even change direction until you hit something, but it certainly makes the most of its single ability right from the start. And thankfully there’s a bit of nuance to that single action thanks to the Switch’s pressure-sensitive buttons. Pressing down longer keeps your Wunderling in the air longer, which isn’t always a good thing. It feels intuitive, and after a while you get into the game’s flow and work through the various obstacles put in your way. For an indie title the controls feel solid, and using the pressure sensitivity adds another bit of challenge even before the additional abilities like flying and whatnot start adding up.

The game has some clear Mario inspiration to it, but it’s far sillier than a straight platformer homage. There’s a Fake News element of the game in the witch declaring the carrot an invader not to be trusted, which is clever, but who actually is good and evil doesn’t really matter here. Your task is to get through levels, collecting abilities and completing tasks before you explode or die, the latter of which you’ll do a lot. Thankfully, there are limitless little Wunderlings to control until you get the hang of things. The biggest frustration, in fact, might be long portions of play that get wasted if you hit a spikey ball or overshoot a landing and fly helplessly into water.

As your Wunderling’s controls become a bit more complicated, so does the game itself. It’s a good thing, certainly, and the constant movement is an interesting challenge of planning and some conveniently-placed in-level checkpoints. One interesting mechanic here is the yellow orbs you collect as you run through levels. Run out of orbs to collect due to backtracking or struggling to get past an obstacle and you die. Minions are only special for so long, you see. There’s an economy at play that requires a bit of strategy, which means there isn’t much time for wandering around levels to discover secret tapes and other bonuses ready for your return visits.

The game is light on challenges outside of the bonus items you can customize your Wunderling with. There’s no real incentive to do so other than the challenge of finishing the levels — there are a lot of items to customize with but they don’t add any abilities and some tend to make the Wunderling blend into the background. Unless you really feel the completionist urge there’s little reason to go back and collect everything up other than your love of the game’s catchy soundtrack. That does make for a title that’s fairly quick, but given the low price point it’s not a crazy ask to give the game’s challenges a try. It’s a fun chance to play as a low-level goon, and the end result is something considerably more powerful than the simple character you start with.

For the decades-long history of Gorillaz, Damon Albarn and the character he voices, 2-D, have not really co-existed. More recently, though, the two have started to become their own separate entities in the Gorillaz universe. In the recent “Momentary Bliss” video, for example, the pair appears in the same room while recording the track. Now the pair have taken this even further during a new Jimmy Kimmel Live! performance of “Aries.”

As Kimmel noted while introducing the performance, this is the first time Albarn has ever performed a duet with one of the animated Gorillaz members. The two appeared separately, as though they were doing a socially distanced performance over Zoom, and they sang the song together.

Lyrically, the song is thematically appropriate for these quarantine times: “I’m standing on a beach in the distance / And even though you’re far away, can you see my red light? / It’s waiting to turn green / ‘Cause I feel so isolated without you / I can’t play a happy tune on my own, so stay by my side / High or low tide.”

Watch Gorillaz perform “Aries” on Kimmel above.

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

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Jerry Stiller was known to millions as Frank Costanza on Seinfeld or one-half of the Stiller and Meara comedy team, but to Ben Stiller, he was, simply, Dad. The actor dropped by The Tonight Show on Tuesday, where he talked about his famous father, who died last week from natural causes at the age of 92. “He was a very, very supportive dad,” Stiller said. “I remember the first job I had was a play in New York, The House of Blue Leaves… He would do what they call second acting. He’d come in during the second act… He’d do that all the time, because he just wanted to watch and enjoy it.”

The Night at the Museum star also talked about the first time he did LSD. He was 16 years old at the time, and “I got freaked out, scared, and my first instinct was, ‘I’m going to call my parents.’ Because every kid calls his parents on LSD, right? But maybe that speaks to our relationship too,” Stiller told host Jimmy Fallon. He continued:

“I think his first thought was ‘acid — he drank battery acid.’ And I said, ‘No, LSD,’ and I could hear the silence on the other end of the phone, because I think he [had] that feeling of like, ‘I failed as a parent.’ And the next thing he said was, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ And he started to talk me down, even though he knew nothing about drugs. He said, ‘I know what you’re feeling. When I was 10 years old I smoked a Pall Mall cigarette and I was sick for two days.’”

Slightly different experiences, but it’s the thought that counts. Watch the interview above.