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Ryan Reynolds will have to content himself with being co-owner of a soccer team for now. The Deadpool star was embroiled in a serious bidding war over the Ottawa Senators, and yes, Snoop Dogg is still one one of the top contenders to purchase the NHL team at the time of this writing.

According to a new report, Reynolds and the Remington Group real estate firm pulled out of the $1 billion deal after being denied an “exclusive 30-day window” to lock down a deal for a new downtown stadium before finalizing their offer. That window was denied by the firm overseeing the sale who did not want to give “preferential treatment” to any of the bidders.

Via The Athletic:

Reynolds and the Remington Group opted for this route because they were leery of getting into a pricey bidding war for the hockey club without some assurance of an amenable downtown arena deal. They did not want to get into a situation in which they spent over $1 billion (U.S.) for the hockey team, only to have the future of the downtown arena in jeopardy. They wanted assurance and clarity on the arena issue before proceeding with the purchase of the team and felt like asking for an exclusive negotiating window was the best route to achieve that goal.

According to The Athletic, Reynolds and his partners were looking at a different (and much larger) piece of land than the parcel that was already set aside for the NHL by the National Capital Commission. The plan was to “play the city and the NCC against each other” and get the best possible deal on a new stadium for the Senators.

Without the exclusive window, the purchase seemed too risky, and so went Reynolds’ dream of being a NHL owner for the time being.

(Via The Athletic)

It took less than 24 hours for questions to pop up about Deandre Ayton’s future with the Phoenix Suns after the team was eliminated from the playoffs. Ayton, who was unable to play in the team’s Game 6 loss to the Denver Nuggets due to an injury, would apparently “be excited about a fresh start” if one came about this offseason, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.

The good news for Ayton is that the Suns are planning on gauging his market. Per MacMahon, Phoenix is going to do its due diligence in trying to find a potential trade partner for the soon-to-be 25-year-old big man.

Sources told ESPN that Ayton’s teammates have shared their coach’s frustration with what they perceive to be inconsistent effort and aggression from the 7-footer.

Ayton would be excited about a fresh start with another franchise, sources told ESPN. The Suns are expected to aggressively explore the trade market for him this summer, league sources said.

A former No. 1 overall pick, Ayton signed a 4-year, $133 million offer sheet with the Indiana Pacers as a restricted free agent last summer, which the Suns quickly matched. This came on the heels of a wave of rumors of discontent between the player and the team, as Ayton was famously benched in Phoenix’s Game 7 drubbing at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Semifinals last year — Ayton claimed that he and Monty Williams did not speak in the four and a half months between that game and the start of training camp this past year.

Even before he got hurt against Denver, Ayton struggled during the 2023 postseason, as he averaged 13.4 points on 55 percent shooting and 9.7 rebounds in 31.9 minutes per game.

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 – It’s not the point but it’s still worth noting that “Barry Timejump” would be a good fake name

Sometimes I like to think about the path Barry has taken so far. It started out as a fun little premise: Bill Hader plays a hitman who catches the acting bug and decides to go straight with the help of his classmates and teacher. “How silly!” I thought. “How goofy!” I continued thinking. “The SNL guy is making a goofy comedy for HBO! Even the mobsters are adorable! Hey, Stephen Root and Henry Winkler are in there! Cool!”

And it was that, mostly, for a while. But then, maybe sometime in the middle of last season but definitely here in the final season, things started taking a turn. There were still jokes, to be sure, and please stop here to remember Henry Winkler giving an interview about murders to a journalist via a one-man show in an empty theater. But everything also got… kind of bleak. Sad. Really just very heavy for a show that — while it had serious moments in the past — had leaned more toward comedy than, say, Breaking Bad-style personal destruction. I don’t wanna go too deep into the specifics on the off-chance some of you haven’t watched the show yet and are teetering with diving into it. (DO THAT.) But there have been multiple deaths in this final season that gutted me more than a little in the moment, and some that continue to gut me right now, as I type this paragraph.

And guess what: it’s kind of incredible! I’m a little in shock that a show can do all of this as successfully as Barry has, this change of tone and style as the series progresses, with the comedy-drama ratio almost flipping on itself. The only other show I remember doing it this well is Better Call Saul, which is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, and not entirely a surprise given the thing where Hader shadowed Vince Gilligan and the writers of that show for a while. Turns out he’s a good student, in addition to being a good actor, writer, and director. Settle down, Bill Hader. You’re making the rest of us look bad.

The most recent episode cranked the stakes up even higher, too, rocketing the series eight years into the future out of nowhere. Again, tricky to pull off. Lots of loose threads out there. Lots of things to explain away. Or, you know, uh, not, based on this answer Bill Hader have to a question about it all in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

The show didn’t address how Barry and Sally got past Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom). There also wasn’t a Robert Forster-type character to set them up with new identities and a new place to live. Did you still come up with those explanations for yourselves at least?

No, I didn’t care. (Laughs.) For me, once I get into that, it turns into this kind of a genre thing, and as the show progressed, I became more, like, “Well, where are they at?” So, I’m just not interested in that, and maybe that’s not good. With the Moss thing, I remember [the writers] went, “Well, how’d they get past Moss?” And I was like, “They waited a couple of days before they left.” (Laughs.)

God, I love this answer. Television shows and the people who watch them can get a little too wrapped up in the details sometimes. There are tons of shows that lose the plot trying to connect dots that don’t need connecting and lots of viewers who tie themselves into pretzels trying to theorize what every little thing means or could mean. This can be fine and fun and I would never take it away from you if you enjoy doing it, but it can also veer you into dicey territory. Sometimes you just need to sit back and enjoy and accept the simplest explanation for things. Sometimes that’s the best way to enjoy a very good show.

Which brings me to the question I posed in the headline up there: Do we think Barry is the best show on television right now? Some of this is subjective, I know. Maybe you don’t like the dark turn the show has taken this season. That’s fine. But also… god, it’s so good. I did not ever expect to be sitting here during the final season of Succession and wondering if it’s not even the best show that runs on HBO on Sunday night. Here we are, though. And it’s not an unreasonable question to ask. I really do like that Stephen Root is on both of these shows. Good for him.

There’s a lot that can and needs to happen before this all gets wrapped up in a few weeks. I have no idea how any of it is going to play out. Again, we just zipped into the future last week. Almost anything and everything is on the table right now. It’s thrilling, actually, in a way. I get legitimately excited whenever I get ready to smash the play button on each new episode. And sad, because I know I only have a few left. That’s a pretty good sign that you’re doing something good from a show-making standpoint. I’m still a little bit in awe of the journey this sucker has gone on. I’m kind of expecting/dreading the worst before it all wraps up. But, like, in a good way.

Is Barry the best show on television right now? I don’t know. Maybe. It’s definitely on the shortlist. I know I’m spending a lot of time thinking about it. And I can’t wait to see what happens next. All I ask is that, when this whole endeavor comes to a close, Bill Hader takes a break from being this good at so many things. I’m starting to get a complex about it.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – Meanwhile, on 9-1-1…

A weird thing happened online this week. The internet — Twitter, mostly, but elsewhere, too — kind of “discovered” The Good Doctor, a network drama that gets like double or triple the viewers that a show like Succession gets. And people went nuts. Turns out a lot of wild stuff happens on that show, not all of it great, some of it kind of unintentionally hilarious. Which is fine. There’s a roundup of it all over at Vulture if you want more information, which you will not get here, because I — a connoisseur of bonkers-ass television — would like to talk about what happened in the first 10 minutes of this week’s episode of 9-1-1 instead.

I’ve talked about the 9-1-1 shows before. Kind of a lot, actually. Too much, maybe. But, I’m sorry, if you do an episode where a portable toilet flies away with a person inside it during a storm at a town fair, I am going to need to discuss it. This week didn’t reach those heights, but it was still… something.

Here’s the background:

• A man — the guy up there in the screencap — is parachuting off the roof of a building
• To deliver a surprise marriage proposal to his girlfriend

Already a perfect premise. He lands, safely, against staggering odds given what this show is and does, and drops to one knee, at which point…

Already a perfect scene. And it gets better.

Because…

The truck…

Is being driven by a bank robber…

Who is fleeing a crime scene.

Look at this.

It’s beautiful. I love the guy shouting “HEY” at the skydiver being dragged around the street by his parachute, as though it was a purposeful attempt to destroy his hot dog cart via shenanigans.

And it gets better. Again. Because the robber was captured by Angela Bassett. Who said… this… upon capturing him.

So, good news here, once again via bullet point:

• The bad guy was captured
• The parachute man survived, although he was mangled pretty good, with exposed bones and other gross stuff
• He held onto the ring the whole time and gave it to his girlfriend, who said yes

And that is lovely.

BUT

The first responders asked her about it all after the boyfriend was hauled away in the ambulance, and…

To recap:

• A man tried to skydive from a tall building to propose
• He ended up getting dragged around Los Angeles by a bank robber when his parachute got tangled in the speeding getaway truck
• His girlfriend only said yes out of guilt and plans to break it off once he heals up in a few months

My point here is twofold: One, network television is wild; two, The Good Doctor could never pull off something this incredible. Please have some respect. Thank you.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – I am very happy that Edi Patterson gets to drive a monster truck

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming third season of The Righteous Gemstones, which premieres in June, right after Succession and Barry end. HBO is really just very good at this. And the trailer looks great. It’s wild that HBO has two shows about a powerful aging patriarch and his three dipshit children getting into little messes and Succession, which I enjoy very much, might be my second favorite.

I mean…

Succession is great but it has never — unless I’m blanking on it, which is possible – featured Edi Patterson in character as the spoiled daughter of a televangelist who has, for some reason, commandeered a monster truck and started laying waste to personal property that gets in her way. It’s a complaint I’ve had about television in general for a while now. Any show could have asked Edi Patterson to show up and drive a monster truck. I think it could really add a neat touch to, like, season two of The Bear. It’s nice that Danny McBride and company addressed this issue.

It’s also nice that they’re bringing back Walton Goggins and having him do… whatever exactly he’s doing here.

It’s a good show. It looks like it’s going to continue being a good show. I haven’t even mentioned the thing where Steve Zahn and Stephen Dorff are in this trailer, too. I’m really very excited. About all of that.

But mostly about the monster trucks.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – I would pay $1000 for an unedited audio file of this conversation

Welllllll here’s a picture of Tom Cruise standing with Vin Diesel and Ludacris at an F1 race last weekend. It’s… it’s kind of wondrous. I need to know everything about it. I need to know every word they said to each other. What I’m picturing right now is Vin going on a long soliloquy about how the Fast & Furious movies are a story about family on par with the greatest films ever made and Tom listening very intensely — like, powerfully, aggressively listening — and then breaking into a huge smile and clapping his hands and saying “That’s fantastic!” without a single drop of sarcasm in his voice. I bet I’m pretty close.

Vin and Ludacris weren’t the only celebrities Tom hung out with this weekend. He also spent time with Shakira. And it looks like they — or at least their PR people — might have hit it off. From a New York Post article titled “Tom Cruise Is ‘Extremely’ Interested In Pursuing Shakira”:

“Shakira needs a soft pillow to fall on, and that could be Tom,” says our source — adding that Cruise has the benefit of being, “a nice-looking guy, and he is talented.”

A couple of things worth noting here…

ONE: lol

TWO: Shakira, if you are reading this (hello, Shakira, by the way), please consider setting the bar higher than “a nice-looking guy who is talented.” You are Shakira! There are lots of nice-looking guys who are talented! I know a few and I do not ever sit around thinking, like, “Dang, I bet my buddy Roger would be a great match for Shakira.” (Sorry, Roger.) (But you get it, right?) Go talk to one of those F1 drivers over there. They seem fun.

In conclusion:

• I am now thinking about Tom Cruise asking Vin Diesel for advice about hitting on Shakira
• Good for Ludacris, man

Great chat here.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Actually, ignore everything I said in the first section

I know I just wrote about how good Inside the NBA is last week and I know I burned off a lot of my favorite clips (Shaq discussing the moon remains undefeated) but, in my defense, it still is so good and I want to write about it some more. And I did not know my coworker Robby Kalland was going to publish this killer look at the inner workings of the show this week. This second thing is on me. I should have asked. Or maybe Robby should have told me. Or maybe I should have just, like, sensed it. But mostly I’m just happy it exists at all. Look at this quote from host Ernie Johnson — seen above pranking Charles Barkley with a pocket square, which is adorable — about his role in the show.

“I’m the rogue traffic cop, the guy who does want some collisions at his intersection,” Johnson says with a laugh. “I think after working with these guys for so long, I know that in my prep if I bring up this point, Charles is going to jump on it. And I also know that Shaq is probably going to broadside Charles when he says something. It’s that familiarity with each other and knowing how we all think, that’s what makes it work. And that’s what makes it possible to do that show without rehearsing at all. We never do that. We never sit down and run through a segment. It’s just whatever you see right there is genuine gut level reaction. And I think that’s been the key to the show for years.”

“A traffic cop who likes to see car crashes” is both a tremendous description of what Ernie does — don’t let the bow tie fool you, the man is a rascal — and a good idea for an opening segment on 9-1-1. I swear to God I am going to put this show on my Top 10 Shows of 2023 list. And not as a bit, either. This show and Barry might be my two favorite things on television right now. I feel fine about it.

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 Andrew:

Do you ever sit around and think about how lucky we are to be living in a time where Hollywood lets Jason Statham have a whole movie franchise about a really big shark? That was my main thought after seeing the trailer for the new Meg movie. There’s a part in there where the shark starts tearing up an entire pier and Jason Statham stops it by putting his foot out and on its nose. There’s another part where a lady gets eaten in the middle of a speech when a shark busts through the glass in her underwater laboratory. These are real movies, in the theater and everything! I was thinking about that a lot this week and figured you were the right person to email about it.

Andrew, I am honored. And I agree. It is a little incredible that we will now have two Statham v. Dino Shark movies and both of them will receive wide theatrical releases. I mean, look at this trailer, which contains all of the things in this email but also a massive prehistoric shark busting out of the surf to chomp straight through a T-Rex.

I am very proud of and happy for everyone involved here, starting with the people who somehow turned this into a multi-movie franchise and extending all the way to me, a person who had nothing to do with the making of either Meg movie but sure is happy they exist. I hope the third one features a time machine and Statham goes back to the age of the dinosaurs to learn important science things. I want to see him choke out a velociraptor. I consider this a reasonable request.

Thank you.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To North Carolina!

A group of cows helped Boone police officers find a suspect who fled a traffic stop.

Okay. Sure. I’ll bite.

“Due to the suspect’s fast and reckless driving our officers were not close enough to see exactly where the suspect ran,” police said.

That’s when cows joined the search.

Just a beautiful little one-two-sentence combo here. I’m not being sarcastic at all. It’s a really well-done piece of business. There should be awards for writing fun little articles about goofy stuff like this. Poo-litzers Prizes.

Sorry.

“Apparently cows do not want suspected criminals loitering in their pasture and quickly assisted our officers by leading them directly to where the suspect was hiding,” police wrote. “The cows communicated with the officers as best they could and finally just had the officers follow them to the suspect’s location.”

Please take a second today and think about the dude who got caught here, sitting in prison in a cell, attempting to explain “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those damn chatty cows” to his cellmate. I hope they call one of the cows to testify.

Boone police said they will consider using cows in the future just as the department uses K9s.

I’m sure this is a joke but if you think I’m not going to spend a significant part of this weekend thinking about a loose cannon cow cop named T-Bone who plays by his own rules but gets results… buddy, you do not know me at all.

In 2021, The Boys submitted what was, at the time, probably the most-outrageous Emmy “For Your Consideration” clip in history. That would be the scene where Billy Butcher plows into a beached whale, sending blood and guts flying everywhere. It was a perfect summation of The Boys‘ “devil may care” spirit, which the show has somehow miraculously sustained for three seasons and counting.

Season Three’s Emmys submission clip is now live, and it is a profane masterpiece. Truly, it must have been difficult to splice these moments down into less than two minutes. In fact, the show’s social media team tweeted, “First edit of this was 7 minutes long, on account of there being too much good sh*t to include.” For real, this season began with Homelander in a more sadistic form than ever (even after that airplane scene from the first season) by forcing a girl to commit suicide on his birthday. Other terrible acts included making The Deep eat one of his still-alive best friends, Timothy the Octopus.

Behold the supervillainy. It’s a lot!

Lead Production VFX Supervisor Stephan Fleet (who has warned that Season 4 contains something that he wishes that he could unsee) is very proud and feeling “hot and heavy” about this compilation, and it’s no wonder why.

Emmy nomination votes will begin on June 15, but as you can see, the campaigns are already in full force for the September ceremony.

Alyssa Farah Griffin knows what it’s like to work for Donald Trump. The View host served as special assistant and adviser to Trump when he was president, and it’s not something she would recommend — especially for women.

“The man’s the former commander-in-chief, he’s currently far and away the Republican frontrunner for president, and I think the American public needs to know who Donald Trump is,” Griffin said on the Daily Beast‘s The New Abnormal podcast. “I saw behavior and engagement with very young junior female staffers from the former president that made me uncomfortable.”

The way Trump would act around younger women was an “open secret” in the White House, Griffin claimed. “The way I was brought up, the way that I’ve behaved professionally is it is my duty to report that. So I took it to my direct report, which was the then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows,” she continued. “He seemed very aware of the issue and said he was going to handle it.” Griffin (who Trump wanted fired from The View) isn’t sure if there any follow up, “but this is a man who does not respect women. It’s a man who objectified women… If I could help protect any woman who might think about working around him, think about being around him, I just wanted to share that.”

You can listen to the podcast below.

(Via the Daily Beast)

Everybody’s got family problems, but perhaps no one has the same kind of problems as an entertainer. For example, Logic recently recounted how his fame and wealth figured into an awkward reunion with his father. Appearing on comedian Andrew Santino‘s podcast, Whiskey Ginger, Logic said his dad asked him for $1 million the first time they met after a long estrangement.

“Last time when I was talking to my dad, he asked me for a million dollars,” the Maryland rapper recalled. “F*ck no, I didn’t give it to him. He said, ‘I want a million dollars.’ I said, ‘For what?’ He said, ‘For my band so that we can buy a house and make music in it.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ So I ask him once we get back together: ‘Please don’t ask me for money. Can we just f*cking throw catch or some shit?’ And he’s like, ‘Alright! Alright.’ This MF flies in, he’s not there for six hours and he’s like, ‘I need you to buy me a truck.’ Immediately! And then that goes into, ‘I need you to pay all my bills.’ And then I’m like, ‘Dad, no.’”

Fortunately for Logic, he’s got enough money that he seems to be living his best life. Lately, he’s been doing covers of classic rap songs like “It Was A Good Day” and “The Weed Song” while hanging around his impressive homestead making videos about Kanye being a moron and making music with his rapper friends.

Dolly Parton is living out her inner rockstar these days to help embody the spirit of her upcoming album. As one of the hosts of the Academy Of Country Music Awards yesterday (May 11), her new single “World On Fire” wasn’t the only steamy moment the music legend had onstage. Joined by fellow host, country music icon Garth Brooks, Parton didn’t shy away from one racy topic.

On a night all about music, Parton was more interested in discussing a different type of collaboration. In the past, Brooks spoke about receiving a “hall pass” from his wife, Trisha Yearwood, and wanting to cash it in with the legendary singer. After gaining wind of the news, while on stage, Parton joked about it, saying, “I just had a thought. I know why you’re doing that GOAT thing!” continuing, “I think it stands for ‘Garth Organized A Threesome!’”

Brooks quickly responded as he blushed, replying, “And I thought I couldn’t love you anymore!”

Before the ceremony, Brooks spoke about his nervousness about serving as a host, telling ET, “I never hosted in my life — I’m just trying to survive, OK.”

Meanwhile, Parton was over the moon to take to the ACM stage with her longtime friend, saying, “I am thrilled to return to host the ACM Awards, this time with my friend Garth. While I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with him throughout the years, I can’t believe we’ve never had the chance to work together.”

The 2023 Academy for Country Music is exclusively available for streaming via Prime Video. Find more information here.

Rumors of Taylor Swift and Matty Healy‘s unexpected romance are snowballing. It was reported last month that the “Anti-Hero” singer split from her longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn. On May 3, a source told The Sun that Swift and Healy are dating and that “the pair are ready to go public with their romance in Nashville, Tennessee.” He was then seen at her show.

The possible couple broke social media last night (May 11) when photos surfaced of them together. They were reportedly on a double date with their frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff and his fiancée Margaret Qualley. The pictures are not great quality, but one shows them holding hands.

Earlier this week, a source divulged to Entertainment Tonight: “Taylor and Matty like each other. Taylor ha a crush on Matty, and they are having a good time hanging out. Matty also thinks Taylor is awesome and incredibly talented, too. They dated briefly in the past.” Another source added: “Taylor and Matty have been hanging out recently, and Jack Antonoff reconnected them.”

While some fans are happy for the pop singer, many are bewildered considering Healy’s history of controversial behavior, which includes his comment in 2016 that dating Swift would be “emasculating.”

Chris Paul sat on the bench and watched as the Denver Nuggets beat the Phoenix Suns, 125-100, to earn a spot in the Western Conference Finals. Paul suffered a groin injury in Game 2 and was unable to take the floor again in the series, which ended up going six games before Denver ended things in Phoenix’s building on Thursday night.

It was a frustrating end to a frustrating year for Paul, as the 38-year-old point guard showed his age by putting up some of the worst numbers in his career during the regular season and the playoffs. His future with the team is now in question, as he’s only guaranteed about half of his $30.8 million deal before June 28 — Tim MacMahon of ESPN reported that “the Suns are expected to explore what they might get if they traded Paul before making a decision on his contract.”

If Dwight Howard has his way, a decision will be made that ends up with Paul heading to Taiwan. A fake quote went around social media a few weeks back that claimed Paul said “if I don’t win the ring with [Kevin Durant], I’m going to Taiwan with Dwight Howard.” After Denver won on Thursday, Howard decided to have some fun with this, as he posted efforts to recruit Paul to the place where he’s playing his professional ball on Instagram and Twitter.

Howard joined the Taoyuan Leopards this season, and while he’s made clear that he thinks he can still give an NBA team good minutes, it sure seems like he’d enjoy Paul’s company. Anyway, our bet is this is not going to happen.

Phoebe Bridgers is currently on the road opening for Taylor Swift at The Eras Tour. From entering the stage every night to Disturbed’s ruthless “Down With The Sickness” to being joined by Matty Healy for a performance, she’s having a good time.

Today, the “Kyoto” singer is featured on a track from Rob Moose’s forthcoming EP Inflorescence. Aside from Bridgers, the EP also has Bon Iver, Brittany Howard, and more. The song is a sprawling, visceral ballad that sounds like it could be off Punisher. “Standing in a parking lot / In the glow of a Rite Aid sign / Everyone I know is staying in tonight,” she sings.

About the collaboration, Bridgers said in a statement, “Rob is my son. That’s an inside joke but there is a deeper connection we share musically which resembles being blood related.”

Moose said:

“‘Wasted’ came my way in 2019. I first started to tinker with it on a retreat to Orcas Island, with snow out the window and no helpful instruments nearby. Progress came slowly, but I managed to arrange and record what felt like a rough demo of the first verse and chorus before flying home. When I opened up the song again in New York, I felt like the song was ready for a major shift. I kept working on it in bursts and stepping away, a process that was new for me. Hundreds of hours and several hiatuses later, Phoebe resang the vocal, and ‘Wasted’ began its new life.”

Listen to “Wasted” above.

Inflorescence is out 8/11 via Sony Masterworks. Find more information here.