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Moms are superheroes, no doubt about it. They bring new life into this world, they multitask like no other creatures on the planet, and when it comes to protecting their babies, there is seriously no foe too great.

Moms will even go toe-to-toe with Mother Nature herself if need be. Take for example Nicole Graham, the Texas-based Mom (and undiscovered reptile wrangler) who made headlines after finding a surprise scaly visitor in her daughter Haylie’s car engine.

Yep, it’s not everyday you find a snake nestled up under the hood, but this is Texas, after all. Luckily, Graham handled the situation like a pro.

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The video, captured by Haylie, shows Graham wearing gloves as she fearlessly grabs the snake by its tail and guides it onto a ruler for better handling.

The best part though is hearing Graham use her mom voice on the snake as she coos, “Come heeerrree. Baby, I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Being the owner of a chicken coop and education facility, The Garden Hen, Graham is certainly no stranger to serpents. She told FOX 26 that she immediately recognized the reptile as a non-venomous rat snake (aka chicken snake), known to prey upon chicken coops to feed on small eggs. Perhaps this little fella thought he found a coop with some horsepower.

Graham’s farming experience has taught her how to handle creatures of all kinds not only safely, but with respect.

“Spiders, reptiles, snakes, it doesn’t matter. I view all animals with respect and compassion,” she shared in an interview with Today.com.

All I can say is Graham makes respect look super badass. Watch below:

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The Dark Knight Rises, Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand. The third installments in superhero trilogies tend to be the weakest, but Oscar-snubbed actress Mia Goth thinks MaXXXine will break from that tradition.

“I see MaXXXine as a superhero movie – that’s how I read the script,” she told Total Film about director Ti West’s follow-up to X and Pearl. “Maxine, as a character, has come a long way. She’s a survivor, she’s gone through a lot. When we meet her again, in this new world that she’s in, she’s really fought for everything that she has, and she’s not about to give that up. She’s going to fight for what she has. She’s a badass. There’s a strength to her. And she’s a really proactive, determined, focused woman. She goes after what she wants, and she’s not really going to take no for an answer.”

In that way, Maxine is a lot like Batman, Spider-Man, and Wolverine. Unlike those three, however, she’s a murderer who feeds people to alligators and becomes a porn star. That’s also why she’s cooler than Batman, Spider-Man, and Wolverine. I’m a fan of the MCU: the Maxine Cinematic Universe.

MaXXXine, which also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins, Halsey, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon, does not currently have a release date.

(Via Total Film)

WARNING: Spoilers for Succession Season 4 Episode 4 below.

Following the shocking death of family patriarch Logan Roy on last week’s Succession, the three siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv (Sarah Snook) gathered in their father’s spacious apartment for tense negotiations over who will serve as interim CEO and land the merger deal with Alexander Skarsgård’s Lukas Mattsson. There’s also a fight for Logan’s vast wealth in the background as his estranged wife Marcia (Hiam Abbass) suddenly appeared out of nowhere and claimed to still have intimate contact with the deceased media mogul while already selling off the apartment and icing out Kerry (Zöe Winters).

While the children think one of them is the obvious choice to lead the company, the Waystar Royco board is also squabbling amongst themselves over which exec should take the top spot instead of the kids. In a hilarious moment, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) actually tries to throw his name in the ring, only to get ruthlessly eviscerated by Succession‘s underrated secret weapon, Karl (David Rasche).

The situation takes a turn, however, when a piece of paper is found that seemingly contains Logan’s last wishes. At some time in the past four years, Logan named Kendall as his successor. At a later date, he either crossed out or underlined Kendall’s name, which led to an extremely tense moment with Shiv. Sensing a potential foothold for the interim CEO position, she highlights that the name looks crossed off. Kendall returned her cut-throat move in kind by brutally saying, in front of everyone, that it “sure as sh*t doesn’t say Shiv.”

It was an ice-cold moment by Kendall, who’s already fully channeling his father’s ruthlessness by the end of the episode, and Succession fans were floored by the Shiv jab. You can see some of the reactions below:

New episodes of Succession air Sunday on HBO.

The Weeknd had a good weekend. He teased a potential appearance in the desert for the first weekend of Coachella 2023, but that was buried beneath his tease of The Idol Vol. 1 and news that The Idol will premiere out-of-competition at next month’s 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Surprise, surprise: the teases were interconnected.

Metro Boomin brought out The Weeknd, Future, John Legend, Don Toliver, 21 Savage, and Diddy. The Weeknd’s portion included the live debut of “Creepin’,” the Heroes & Villains collaborative track with Metro Boomin and 21 Savage that peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and what’s believed to be “Double Fantasy” with Mike Dean (as reported by Billboard).

The latter was among last week’s teases:

Per Billboard, “For the live debut, Dean’s saxophone rumbled through the Sahara Tent while the crowd was blinded by The Weeknd’s fluorescent, all-white ensemble, along with the lights he once sang about. ‘Temperature rising, bodies united, now that I tried you in my arms. No need to fight it, no need to hide it, now that I’ve seen what’s in your heart,’ he sang before letting his vocal runs synch up with the electrifying synths.”

The Weeknd will take any good press related to The Idol, even if tangential, after the Rolling Stone‘s damning investigative report about allegedly troubling working conditions on the HBO set. He responded to the criticism, though Jeremy O. Harris didn’t explicitly ask about the March report, for Interview Magazine:

“I’m used to it more than someone like Sam [Levinson], who’s probably a little bit used to it now. And I’m sure Lily[-Rose Depp], definitely — Lily’s stronger than both of us. But I’ve been judged since the beginning. My stuff’s always kind of been provocative. I understand it’s hard for people to separate that sometimes and that some people want to have an opinion about you, even if it’s not true.

As an artist, you have to know that you can’t please everybody, and you have to accept that it comes with the job. You have to remind yourself that everybody that knows you, knows you’re a good person. If you’re going out there trying to prove to people you’re a good person all the time, then it becomes like a dead end. But what I’ve learned is, with time people will learn to understand. But I have thick skin. I’m used to it.”

Read the full interview here.

Frank Ocean’s Coachella headlining set has received a less-than-warm reception from fans. After starting over an hour late, fans were disappointed by what turned out to be a meandering, disjointed set in which he only performed a handful of songs before a DJ played a string of mashups and remixes. While he did tease a new album, after burning fans so badly with his first-weekend set, they might not be looking forward to it as much as they were on Saturday.

Fans left wondering just why Frank’s set turned out the way it did may have gotten an explanation on Twitter, though. The Festive Owl, an independent journalistic outlet that covers festivals around the country, spoke with multiple sources about the disastrous set, reporting their findings in a long tweet that revealed much of the behind-the-scenes finagling that sparked the hour-long delay.

The stage production was supposed to (and did) contain an ice rink that was constructed and ready to go.

Frank decided at the last minute that he no longer wanted it at all. All of the people walking around him at the start of the performance were actually ice skaters, had been practicing for weeks, and were supposed to be skating as part of the production. Coachella had to deconstruct the approved stage (that had been planned and signed off on for months in advance) + melt the entire ice rink and then set it up how Frank decided today with no warning. Which is what you ended up seeing, and caused the hour-long delay. This all happened when doors had already opened for Sunday, and people were securing their spots to see him. If the last-minute changes weren’t made he wouldn’t have performed at all — leaving the festival without a closing headliner.

Frank also personally pulled the plug at the last second on the live stream which left a very sour taste in many inside Coachella’s mouths.

Ultimately, and I quote — “It just didn’t seem like he wanted to be there but was obligated to be. Everything (including him) fell apart last minute.

Don’t expect to see any coverage from the festival about the set. Something that is unprecedented in the history of Coachella. The relationship is not in a good place right now.”

What this means for Weekend Two of Coachella remains to be seen… but don’t be surprised if big changes are announced sometime this week.

The Succession Report Card is a weekly recap feature where we attempt to assign grades to the important people, things, and themes from each episode of Succession. The grades are entirely subjective and the criteria for scoring will change from week to week and occasionally mid-week. Someone might get detention. It’ll probably be Roman.

SEASON 4, EPISODE 4 – “Honeymoon States”

Shiv

Shiv is not doing great, in a handful of ways, all of which are screaming ahead at an alarming rate of speed. She got kind of railroaded by Kendall and Roman into stepping back during the CEO chat, she’s grieving Logan’s death in a weird and self-defeating way — like, weirder and even more self-defeating than the way everyone else is, which is saying something — where she’s wondering if she’s the only one who actually lost something, she’s shouting at people a little bit and storming out of rooms, and all-in-all just taking a series of high-profile losses in front of everyone and herself and that Secret Service dog that showed up to sweep the room. Again, it’s not great.

Also… uh, she’s pregnant. With, one assumes, the child of a man she’s divorcing and hates and would not let comfort her for even five minutes despite all that stuff in the first paragraph happening while a bunch of friends and strangers paraded around in her dead dad’s luxurious home. She fell down, too. Just fully wiped out on the floor, which is always bad but doubly so when you have a baby inside you. Shiv is doing real, real bad.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: It’s understandable given the circumstances but it’s generally a tough look to shout at people to stop smiling

Tom

Not really much I can say here that will sum things up more clearly or eloquently than the little speech my beloved Karl gave about why Tom was unsuited to be CEO and how he’s maybe even on his way to being shoved out of the company completely. It is rarely a great thing when someone looks you dead in the eye and tells you you’re a joke whose career is headed for the toilet, even if that person claims to just be playing devil’s advocate, as a friend

Oh, and there’s that thing we just talked about where the wife who hates him is pregnant with a child he does not yet know about, which is also not super ideal, just as a general life thing.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Interloping

Kerry

Kerry has three problems here, as far as I can tell:

• Logan’s death has stripped away any authority she had within the company, to the degree she ever had any, as we saw with the audition tape debacle
• She is massively outmatched by Marcia when it comes to any of this business
• She’s also, like, sad her boyfriend died

I know I gave Shiv and Tom an F, too, but Kerry is doing so much worse than anyone here. I’d give her an H if that was a thing.

GRADE: F

MUST IMPROVE: Bag holding

Undated addendums written in pencil

It is deeply funny to me that the show titled Succession spent three seasons showing all the ways all these people were angling to take over for Logan when he stepped aside or died and then, when it came time to actually do it, to select the person or persons who would take over after he’s no longer there to captain the ship, the whole thing was thrown into chaos by a previously unknown addendum and a squiggly line that was either an underline or strike-through. Just perfect writing and character development all paying off in a single moment.

What a lovely television program.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: Binding legality

Gerri

GOOD NEWS: Logan’s death saved her job, seeing as she was just about to be fired and now appears to be hanging on by her fingernails.

BAD NEWS: Everyone kind of knows she was a dead lady walking and now she’s stuck working with and for all these bozos for who knows how long. One of her new bosses has sent her pictures of his penis. The other is Kendall. I’m not sure which is worse news here.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: Exit strategies

Cousin Greg

Greg spent most of this episode shuffling into and out of rooms telling anyone who would look at him that he’s sorry for their loss. He hitched his wagon to Logan and Tom, one of whom is dead and the other of whom might as well be, from a business perspective. His career options are cooked and his naked leeching is becoming apparent to everyone and Frank straight-up laughed in his face when he suggested himself as a number two to Kendall because of a handwritten “Greg?” in Logan’s secret paperwork.

I am devastated at what my sweet boy has become.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: I’m sorry I wrote “naked leeching” earlier and put that potentially upsetting visual into your head

Colin

He’s wearing jeans now. It’s not ideal.

GRADE: D

MUST IMPROVE: Knowing what to do with his hands and arms

Connor

Connor:

• Bought his father’s mansion from Marcia in a deal that was formalized with spit and a handshake instead of paperwork, which is hilarious but not legally binding and also the kind of thing that would end up screwing a dope like Connor eventually
• Getting shuffled out of rooms of the house he sort of owns by the younger siblings who hold more sway in the company and every social circle he’s in
• About to go on a honeymoon through various swing states as part of the doomed presidential campaign that is about to wrap up

I should be giving him a much worse grade. I don’t know. I’ve developed a soft spot for this doofus.

GRADE: C

MUST IMPROVE: Negotiations

Stewy

He’s a slick little weasel and not someone I ever want to be in a room with but he might have been the person in that house who showed Kendall the most real compassion about… everything. Very conflicting. I still like him.

GRADE: C

MUST IMPROVE: I feel like it would be fun to see Stewy in a helicopter just once before this all ends, with the sunglasses and helmet and scarf and the whole shebang

Matsson

There are power moves and then there’s “have an extremely Swedish assistant answer the phone call from the children of a recently deceased business partner and then demand that those children fly across an ocean and come to you to settle a multibillion-dollar deal before their father is even buried because you are too busy with your corporate retreat.”

GRADE: C

MUST IMPROVE: I really wish that phone call had been another video chat, if only to see Oskar’s face as he brushed them off

Various Karl, Franks, and Karolinas

ON ONE HAND: I could watch Frank and Karl do their little spineless power dance for hours at a time. I have joked a number of times about how much I would like to see a spinoff about their rise to power but, the more I joke about it, the more I actually want to see it. Same actors. We use makeup or CGI to make them look younger. Or we just leave them as-is and let two old men play young strivers in their early-30s. I do not care. Just make it happen.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Hugo is getting strong-armed by freaking Kendall, of all people, into doing dirty work on Logan’s reputation because his semi-estranged daughter used inside information to cash out of Waystar stock before Logan’s death was announced.

ON A THIRD HAND, WHICH WE ARE JUST GOING TO PRETEND EXISTS: Karl is so close to buying an island with his brother and I very much want that for him.

GRADE: C

MUST IMPROVE: Hugo, if you mess this up for Karl, I swear to God…

Roman

Roman is now, against odds so long you could lasso the moon with them, co-CEO of the family business. That’s… incredible. Picture telling someone that this would happen back in… any of the previous seasons, really. And it’s actually, weirdly, almost deserved? Maybe. No one on this show deserves anything other than a swift kick in the shins, but as we’ve discussed every week this season, Roman has somehow grown into the most human and kind of these reptile people.

I mean, look at him comforting Kerry when no one else lifted a finger. Look at him berating — to the degree Roman berates anyone — Hugo and Karolina for the Bad Dad public relations pitch. To be sure, some of this is a product of being the baby and spending a lifetime spinning plates and making jokes to try to keep all the miserable people in his life happy, but still. Look at this guy.

GRADE: B

MUST IMPROVE: I don’t think pre-grieving is a thing

Kendall

Kendall:

• Catapulted to CEO despite trying to put his father in jail a few times, once in front of Congress
• Correctly identified that blackmailing Hugo into doing freelance dirty work is exactly what Logan would have done in a similar situation, which is… not a great lesson to have learned from a parent and maybe a troubling sign that Kendall is going to start cosplaying as Logan in his “temporary” new role
• Has a great grief guy

I’m only giving him this high of a grade because I can’t believe he finagled his way into the top seat. It’s going to ruin him in new and exciting ways, even for Kendall, but he did it.

GRADE: B

MUST IMPROVE: … not being a hopelessly broken little boy all the time?

Marcia

I missed her so much.

GRADE: B

MUST IMPROVE: I bet she could have squeezed an extra $10 million out of Connor on the house sale

Willa

The ink on her marriage certificate isn’t even dry yet and she’s already mentally knocking down walls in the mansion her dipshit new husband just sort of purchased in a saliva-sealed deal from the terrifying estranged wife of the man who would have been her father-in-law had he not died on an airplane while skipping her wedding.

Also, she stood up to Marcia a tiny bit with that little “we’re not so different” exchange where Marcia tried to put her down as a gold digger. Good for Willa.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: Honeymoon destinations

Will Ferrell

One of the many good things about never skipping the credits is that, right there, every week, I get reminded that Will Ferrell has an executive producer credit on this show. Definitely take a minute this week and make sure more people know that. It’s a fun bit of trivia. I’m so happy for him.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: Let him play the preacher at Logan’s funeral, just for me

Stephen Root, generally

I just want it noted somewhere that Stephen Root popped up in both this show and the season premiere of Barry last night, which is a kind of personal dominance of the primo HBO Sunday night programming block that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before. Good for him, man.

GRADE: A

MUST IMPROVE: Let’s go ahead and digitally insert him into The Sopranos while we’re at it, maybe as a crooked FBI agent named, like, Rodney Orlando

Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery cemented its plans to merge HBO Max and Discovery+ into some sort of super streaming app that it simply named Max. The rebrand did not go over well with subscribers, who were confused over why WB Discovery would ditch HBO, one of the strongest names in television. That sentiment was shared by Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, and he made sure to ding his parent company for the HBO slight.

“Our business daddy took its content purge up a notch and threw the whole HBO out,” Oliver quipped (via Deadline) in the opening moments of Sunday night’s episode.

Ever since Warner Bros. and Discovery merged back in Summer 2022, Oliver has not been quiet about the wild changes happening behind the scenes. Following the Batgirl fiasco, he rolled out the new nickname for Warner Bros. Discovery as he roasted the company for its streaming content purge that started almost as soon as the ink was dry.

“By the way, hi there, new business daddy!” Oliver said during an August 2022 episode. “Seems like you’re doing a really great job. I do get the vague sense that you’re burning down my network for the insurance money, but I’m sure that will all pass.”

It seems that it didn’t pass, since Warner Bros. Discovery is apparently running from the HBO branding instead of embracing it.

(Via Deadline)

House of the Dragon was notorious for its time jumps in season one, but season two will begin where the finale ended. “I’m excited to pick up where we left off,” showrunner Ryan Condal said at a Contenders TV event over the weekend (via Deadline). “Now we get to fall into the more traditional rhythms of storytelling and Game of Thrones.”

If there’s flashbacks so we can get more Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, that would be OK, too. Game of Thrones used them.

Condal said that the House of the Dragon creative team has “always talked about this particular tale, George [R.R. Martin] has too, of being a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy. This series is very much about a house tearing itself apart from within. Now that all those pieces have been set on the board, I’m really excited to tell the next chapter, to see what happens now that Viserys is gone and no longer keeping a lid on things.”

Speaking of Viserys, Paddy Considine was also at the event, and he expressed gratitude for his character’s arc. “The story was told,” he said. “I’m glad they didn’t drag Viserys out. The fact it was put into eight episodes, it just made his arc all that stronger.” Spoken like a true king.

House of the Dragon returns to HBO (and, uh, Max) in 2024.

(via Deadline

Last night (April 16), Frank Ocean took the Coachella stage as the first 2023 weekend’s closer. The consensus is that it did not go well (although there was talk of a new album, so that’s something). So, what did his set look like?

In total, there were 24 songs (as setlist.fm notes), but a significant portion of those came during a DJ Crystall Mess mini DJ set that was primarily Ocean remixes, not songs performed live. Beyond that, the set featured the live debuts of “Come On World, You Can’t Go!,” “Impietas / Deathwish (ASR),” “White Ferrari,” “Florida,” and “Godspeed.”

Check out the setlist below.

1. “Novacane” (new version)
2. “Come On World, You Can’t Go!”
3. “Crack Rock”
4. “Impietas / Deathwish (ASR)”
5. “Bad Religion”
6. “White Ferrari” (new version)
7. “Florida”
8. “Pink + White” (acoustic)
9. “Solo” (new version)
10. “Solo (Reprise)” *
11. “Chanel (Sango Remix)” *
12. “Lost (Jersey Club Remix)” *#
13. “Slide (Jersey Club Remix)” *#
14. “In Ha Mood” (Ice Spice song) *#
15. “Provider (Jersey Club Remix)” *#
16. “In My Room (Jersey Club Remix)” *#
17. “No Church In The Wild/Pyramids” (mashup) *#
18. “Godspeed”
19. “Wise Man” (new version)
20. “Night Life” (Aretha Franklin cover)
21. “Self Control” (acoustic)
22. “Nikes” *
23. “Nights (Mixed with Sango Remix)” *
24. “At Your Best (You Are Love)” (The Isley Brothers cover)

* played from tape, not performed live
# DJ Crystall Mess set

Frank Ocean did not livestream his headlining Coachella set last night, April 16, so you’re forgiven for not knowing what happened — and it was a lot. Ocean took the stage an hour later than expected, and outside of opening with “Novacane,” the shorter-than-expected performance was not one for the books, based on most reactions.

But there is some positive news. Sort of. Maybe.

“It’s been so long. Everybody talks about how long it’s been. It’s like, it’s been so long. It’s been so long. But I have missed you,” Ocean told the crowd. “I wanna talk about why I’m here because it’s not because of the new album. It’s because — not that there’s not a new album. But there’s not right now. Chill, chill, chill. It’s not right now. But, you know, these last couple years, life changed so much.”

Ocean’s last LP, Blonde, arrived in 2016. And by August 2020, Ocean’s 18-year-old brother, Ryan, died in a single car crash in Thousand Oaks, California (as reported by The Los Angeles Times at the time).

An update on Ocean’s productivity felt less importance once he mentioned Ryan in the second half of his speech to the audience.

He continued, “My brother and I, we came to this festival a lot. And I feel like I was dragged out here half the time because I hated the dust out. … I would avoid coming, [but] I would always end up here. One of my fondest memories was watching Rae Sreummurd — I don’t know what that stage is called, but watching Rae Sreummurd with my brother and Travis. We were just dancing in that tent to their music. I know he would have been so excited to be here with all of us, and I want to say thank you for the support and the ears and love over all this time. And I’m gonna get back to you soon.”