GoneTrending

Welcome to the Crumbl Cookie report, our weekly roundup and ranking of every cookie dropping at Crumbl. In our time covering Crumbl, we haven’t had a week quite like this one. Generally, going in, I have a pretty good idea of which cookies are most likely to win the top spot, but this week, it’s a real toss-up. All five of these (excluding Chocolate Chip) have us pretty damn psyched, and if I didn’t cover Crumbl as part of my job, I don’t know how I’d pick between them. We sincerely believe one Crumbl cookie per week is the sweet spot.

Picking up one cookie per week is not prohibitively expensive, and it won’t cause your family to stage an intervention because you have a Crumbl problem. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything… Anyway, our point is that there are a lot of great cookies dropping this week, and luckily for you, you don’t have to pull your hair out trying to decide which one to buy. We’re here to break it down for you.

What has us most excited are the Pink Velvet Cookie, Sticky Bun, Confetti Milkshake, and Banana Upside Down Cake — will one of these take our top spot this week? Place your bets now!

Without further ado, here is our weekly ranking of every Crumbl cookie out right now. Let’s snack!

6. Confetti Milkshake

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

Something always has to come in last, and this week, that something is the Confetti Milkshake cookie. It’s not that it’s not good, it’s just incredibly boring. Unlike a slice of moist confetti cake (which Crumbl dropped a few weeks back), this cookie comes across as incredibly dry, and that dryness combined with the intense sweetness results in a cookie with a throat-burning quality to it.

Rounding out the cookie is a smear of cake-flavored buttercream, and some whipped cream, which helps counteract that dryness, but not nearly enough.

The Bottom Line:

Confetti is best as a cake, this cookie is too dry to be enjoyable.

5. Banana Upside Down Cake

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

I had high hopes for this one because when banana bread hits, it f*cking crushes. Moist, sweet, floral, savory, decadent — this upside down cake is none of that. The cake I had was dry, with a flat, lifeless flavor. Now granted, this might be a quality control issue, I could’ve gotten a cake that was left in the oven a bit too long, but in the months that I’ve been covering Crumbl, the pastries have been remarkably consistent. So I think this one is just a swing and a miss.

The banana cake is joined by a sweet toffee glaze and whipped cream, which are nice, complementary flavors, but I had higher hopes for this one and it has let me down.

The Bottom Line:

Save your money and wait until Crumbl brings back the Banana Bread Loaf. A pastry we once described as “ecstasy for the senses.” This Upside Down Cake is not that.

4. Milk Chocolate Chip

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

A classic! Crumbl’s Milk Chocolate Chip cookie is a near-perfect cookie. It’s sweet with a brown sugar and butter base with a heavy dose of chunky milk chocolate chips throughout.

It’s also at Crumbl every other week, so unless this is a personal favorite, there isn’t really a reason to purchase this.

The Bottom Line:

A great chocolate chip cookie. But if you’ve had it before, you should probably just spend your Crumbl in-app points on this one so you can get it for free.

3. Pink Velvet Cake Cookie

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

It was incredibly hard to rank these last three cookies because at one point, each of them was my top pick. I’ve gone back and forth a lot on these three, but I have to put my foot down and make some hard decisions. We’re giving The Pink Velvet Cake Cookie third place.

This cookie features the mild cocoa-forward flavor of red velvet, with a stronger emphasis on the sweet sugary notes. It tastes like a richer take on a plain sugar cookie. Over the base, the cookie has a sweet and delicate vanilla cream cheese frosting, with purely decorative crumbles of pink velvet cookies on top.

If this cookie had just one more ingredient, I think it would have snagged the number one spot easily. Just imagine some shaved almonds here, or chocolate chips? Give it to us Crumbl!

The Bottom Line:

Wonderfully sweet and delicate. It tastes like a richer, more decadent version of a sugar cookie.

2. Kentucky Butter Cake

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

This cookie may look incredibly boring, but it’s anything but. Imagine the best shortbread cookie you’ve ever tasted, further elevated by a savory buttery glaze, and you’ve got the Kentucky Butter Cake cookie.

This cookie melts in your mouth as strong buttery tones dominate your taste buds. The powdered sugar acts as a nice sweet counterbalance to the rich butter tones.

This is a near-perfect cookie, I just think there is something about it that leaves me a bit dissatisfied. It wants for a third ingredient, something else for your tastebuds to lock onto. Because of that, we didn’t give it the top spot, but you should definitely add this to whatever you order this week at Crumbl.

The Bottom Line:

A perfect rich and buttery cookie. If you like shortbread cookies, this offers a lot of the same experience but adds even more butter to the equation. A must order.

1. Sticky Bun

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

I don’t get why they called this cookie “Sticky Bun” when it’s, you know, a cookie, and not a bun, but I could look past the false promise of the name because this cookie is absolute perfection.

The Sticky Bun features a butter cookie base loaded up with sweet and mildly spicy cinnamon sugar, topped with a thick and sticky butterscotch caramel frosting and sweet pecan streusel. The way the nutty and floral pecan complement the rich earthy flavor of the butterscotch and the light spice of the cinnamon is dessert perfection.

This tastes better than the best slice of pecan pie you’ve ever eaten.

The Bottom Line:

The Sticky Bun is an all-time great, worthy of going down as one of the best cookies ever released by Crumbl. It’s a must-buy this week.

Find your nearest Crumbl here.

Monday was a big day for contract extensions in the NBA. The deadline for rookie scale contract extensions was 6 p.m. ET, and we saw Jalen Green, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Suggs, Corey Kispert, and Moses Moody all lock in with new deals. But that wasn’t the only extension that got announced on Monday, as the NBA and Nike agreed to a 12-year extension to keep Nike on board as the league’s exclusive supplier of uniforms and apparel — as well as the WNBA and G League.

Nike took over the league’s uniform manufacturing in 2017 and instituted the new system that gives teams four (and sometimes five) uniform sets each season. The City Edition and Statement Edition uniforms have been hit and miss, and it’s felt as though the need to come up with one or two new uniforms each season for each team has stretched things thin at times. That said, there have been some major successes, as some of their unique concepts have become certain teams most beloved uniforms. While I doubt it’ll happen, my hope for the new Nike and NBA contract is a little more flexibility for teams to keep uniforms that are hugely popular in the rotation rather than having to come up with new designs each season.

The Suns’ Valley unis and the Heat’s Vice sets are two of the best examples of designs that should be permanently in the rotation. Hopefully now that the deal is going to run for 20 years, total, Nike and the NBA will pump the brakes a bit on trying to create something new for each team every year when something pops. That seems unlikely, as new uniforms mean fans buying more jerseys, and fans will likely have another 12 years of different looks that are varying degrees of successes and failures.

House of the Dragon delivered a muted season finale that, sadly, was in line with the overall second season inertia involving more chess pieces moving around the board while pushing flashier dragon battles to the third season. At least we received plenty of Aemond in Daemon-mode while Daemon was stuck in an endless hallucination loop at Harrenhaal. Westeros creator and author George R.R. Martin made no secret of his disappointment in how certain pivotal sequences were handled, but he has revealed himself to be thrilled with how the next Game of Thrones prequel series is going.

That would be A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a dragon-free show formerly called The Hedge Knight and that might not have an official name yet, although we’ll see the series on HBO next year. Hopefully, there is a title by then, but fortunately, there are set-in-stone things to expect, too:

Plot

Before we get to GRRM’s palpable excitement, let’s get his sense of humor over the show’s title out of the way, from his Not-A-Blog site:

“Yes, I am talking about the newest GAME OF THRONES spinoff show. It’s an adaptation of ‘The Hedge Knight,’ the first of my Dunk & Egg stories. There were two more after that, ‘The Sworn Sword’ and ‘The Mystery Knight.’ They have all been collected in a book called A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS. That’s probably going to be the title of the show as well… unless we go with THE HEDGE KNIGHT. That’s still under discussion.”

Martin also raved about his set experience, which arrived with “a much smaller budget” (dragons are expensive, yo), and “[n]inety per cent of the story is set in a field, surrounded by tents, we would not need the huge sets the other shows had featured, but it couldn’t look fake or cheap either, and the costumes and the heraldry and the fights all had to be splendid, and… I was so so happy when I got there, and saw what Ira and his team had built.”

It’s a hearty endorsement with photos as well from GRRM’s set visit. As for actual plot details, this prequel takes place about 100 years before A Song of Fire and Ice books (whereas HotD takes place 300 years before) that formed the backbone of Game of Thrones. The Targaryens are still kind-of around, and a handful of them will be featured in pivotal roles. However, they are barely hanging onto some power after Aegon III’s rule saw dragons essentially go extinct (until Daenerys performed the blood ritual at Drogo’s funeral).

The protagonist of this new show shall be Ser Duncan the Tall, who will inadvertently pick up a sidekick who is far more important to Westeros than one could imagine by looking at him. From HBO’s official series description:

A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros … a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.

GRRM is executive producing this one for HBO, which might explain why his stressed-out rants about HotD began to disappear from his website. Here’s to hoping that he, and the Westeros-loving audience, will be more content with this next series’ pacing, which is probably what is weighing HotD down (three seasons would have worked better than a dragged-out four).

In any event, Egg looks pretty adorable as shown on Instagram.

Cast

No flying reptiles will be seen, but I honestly don’t think anybody would mind seeing a cardboard dragon sliding through the background as a Starbucks cup-like Easter egg.

On a more serious note, Ser Duncan the Tall will be portrayed by the 6’5″-tall Peter Claffey (Vikings: Valhalla), who is as towering as Reacher in his books but not quite as lofty as the seven feet in GRRM’s source material. Surely, people can suspend belief for a few inches, but Dexter Sol Ansell authentically (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) will portray Egg and shaved his head to hide his own Targaryen-reminiscent blonde locks.

The cast further includes Sam Spruell as Maekar Targaryen, Finn Bennett as Aerion Targaryen, and Bertie Carvel as Baelor Targaryen, along with Tanzyn Crawford as Tanselle and Daniel Ings as Ser Lyonel Barotheon.

Release Date

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will debut in 2025 (likely in the spring, via GRRM) with HoTD to follow with a second season in 2026.

Trailer

Official teaser footage is no longer available from legit channels on YouTube, but George R.R. Martin has of course spoken at length about the process of writing the Dunk and Egg stories. That includes this interview where he goes into detail on a famous battle scene:

The Houston Rockets had two key personnel decisions to make by Monday’s rookie scale extension deadline, as Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun were both eligible for new deals.

What always complicates extension talks is finding the middle ground between what a player has done and what they could become. With both Green and Sengun, there is star potential, but the production hasn’t quite met the standards most teams want to see before handing out a max or near-max contract. That means the two sides have to agree on what the right number is for what they could become and what they are right now, which is sometimes easier said than done.

However, on the player side, there is a new reality that offer sheers aren’t plentiful in free agency anymore, and sometimes it’s best to lock in on an extension at a good but potentially not great price and give yourself a chance down the road at a bigger payday in unrestricted free agency. That’s what Jalen Green chose to do, as he and the Rockets worked out a 3-year, $106 million deal, per Shams Charania and Bobby Marks, that fell in line with the likes of Trey Murphy III in New Orleans, but gives him a third year player option so he can hit free agency again soon if he takes the All-Star leap.

Green has shown flashes of brilliance, but the question remaining is for him to reach his ceiling on a more consistent basis. If he can do that, this deal is a bargain for Houston over the next few years and he’ll almost assuredly opt out. If that leap doesn’t come, he has guaranteed himself long-term financial security.

We’re deep into autumn, which means we’re no longer in peak music festival season. Instead of warm, summer nights spent camping out in the woods for a three-day rager with the likes of Off The Grid Campout, Lightning In A Bottle, or Texas Eclipse, the colder season welcomes a whole new tier of destination music experiences.

While January brings the longest-running “floating music festival,” Groove Cruise, for partygoers to embark on, November will see the second annual sailing of Insomniac’s EDSea. This four-night oceanic EDC experience will embark November 2nd-6th for a four-night voyage to the island of Bimini, Bahamas, welcoming over 4,000 guests to party across its 15 ship decks. From hitmakers Dillon Francis and Gryffin to UK house music maestros Chris Lorenzo and Eli Brown, EDSea is slated to be one of the biggest parties on the ocean this year.

To prepare for this weekend of ultimate hedonism among a luxury party cruise ship, we tapped some of this year’s artists to give you the rundown of the ultimate essentials guide.

Mary Droppinz

What is one thing everyone should bring to EDSea? What are your essentials you’re bringing?

I bring my supplements like magnesium, vitamin c, b vitamins, glutathione and salt-based electrolytes, gotta keep my immune system rocking while I party rock on the boat

How would you describe EDSea in one sentence?

Festival in the middle of the ocean hits diffy.

What makes EDSea different than a regular music festival?

We are all stuck on this boat together so the bond we create as a festival community is so strong compared to a regular festival

How are you getting ready for the overnight beach party in paradise (off of the ship?)

I’m gonna have a cute island outfit that’s for sure!

Besides your own set, who is someone that is on your must-see list playing EDSea?

The homies: Levity! Also I’ve never been to an emo nite and I’m a big emo head from when I was younger so I’m going to check that out.

Wax Motif

What is one thing everyone should bring to EDSea? What are your essentials you’re bringing?

Dramamine so no one’s getting sick on the dance floor and multiple pairs of sunglasses (in case you lose them). My go-to pair are the Black YSL’s 660s.

How would you describe EDSea in one sentence?

Two words: non-stop party.

What makes EDSea different than a regular music festival?

All of the artists being immersed in the experience is definitely the factor that sets it apart- you eat, drink, and dance together for five days straight and it creates a unique community while you’re at sea.

How are you getting ready for the overnight beach party in paradise (off of the ship?)

I’ve been lining up all of my button-down shirts and making sure I have my comfy slides with me.

Besides your own set, who is someone that is on your must-see list playing EDSea?

Francis Mercier as he sets the perfect vibe. Of course, Chris Lorenzo and Odd Mob are a must. Lastly, catch Matroda as we tease some of our ‘Waxtroda’ IDs.

Walker & Royce

What is one thing everyone should bring to EDSea? What are your essentials you’re bringing?

Sunglasses, a snorkel mask, and dad jokes are absolute essentials for us.

How would you describe EDSea in one sentence?

EDSea is very mindful, very demure, and very wild.

What makes EDSea different than a regular music festival?

For starters, it’s in the middle of the ocean, but it’s also about being on a ship. The immersion is complete — you can’t escape it. This “in the moment” mentality really takes over, and everything just kicks into overdrive.

How are you getting ready for the overnight beach party in paradise (off of the ship?)

We’re trying to rest up now because we know once we get there, there won’t be much time for sleep.

Besides your own set, who is someone that is on your must-see list playing EDSea?

The lineup is seriously insane! It’s so good. We will definitely be at Odd Mob, Max Styler, and Sara Landry, just to name a few. But, like we said, we don’t expect to get much rest with so many great acts.

Emo Nite

What is one thing everyone should bring to EDSea? What are your essentials you’re bringing?

You gotta dress on theme! Lean in, join the party, and have a good time. Can’t forget the Dramamine. Getting seasick last year while listening to hardstyle is certainly an experience I will never forget.

How would you describe EDSea in one sentence?

Floating rave prison.

What makes EDSea different than a regular music festival?

You don’t have to worry about any logistics. There’s no shuttle or Uber you have to take. No walking through dusty fields or hot parking lots. You can literally just wake up and start raving, and you don’t have to worry about anything. Food and everything is all handled for you!

How are you getting ready for the overnight beach party in paradise (off of the ship?)

We are actually joining the party the day after the overnight party so… Everyone might be zombie mode but we will be fresh and ready to party!

Besides your own set, who is someone that is on your must-see list playing EDSea?

Hamdi, 1991, Mary Droppinz, Netsky, Sullivan King – honestly the lineup is great, I’ve gotten more into EDM over the past year and I am super excited to explore and find new things.

J. Worra

What is one thing everyone should bring to EDSea? What are your essentials you’re bringing?

Dramamine is a staple for me, other than that some sunscreen because it’s been a long time since my skin has been in the sun.

How would you describe EDSea in one sentence?

This is my first EDSea but I’ve been on a few other cruise ship festivals. My guess is a nonstop party, with a lot of the Insomniac flavor! I’m expecting to see really cool stage production, fun characters, maybe even a few surprises.

What makes EDSea different than a regular music festival?

If it’s anything like the land festival it will be filled with Insomniac characters, surprise sets, and chances to connect with fans.

How are you getting ready for the overnight beach party in paradise (off of the ship?)

I’m doing all my workouts in the sand.

Besides your own set, who is someone that is on your must-see list playing EDSea?

I’m always excited to catch an Eli Brown set…also feel like Sara Landry is a must-see!

Dillon Francis

What is one thing everyone should bring to EDSea? What are your essentials you’re bringing?

One thing I’m not gonna bring is floaties because I 100% know how to swim.

How would you describe EDSea in one sentence?

The festival where Dillon Francis isn’t afraid because he can swim.

What makes EDSea different than a regular music festival?

It reaffirms the fact that I can swim, which I can.

How are you getting ready for the overnight beach party in paradise (off of the ship?)

Floaties.

Besides your own set, who is someone that is on your must-see list playing EDSea?

My set when I post about it. There will be floaties.

In May, Kamasi Washington released Fearless Movement, which was a long time coming: The project was Washington’s first album since 2018’s Heaven And Earth. Now, with a fresh album to promote, he has taken his talents to NPR’s iconic Tiny Desk Concert series.

His four-song setlist featured “Lesanu,” “Street Fighter Mas,” “The Rhythm Changes,” and “Asha The First.” Of particular note is one of Washington’s band members: Rickey Washington, a flutist, soprano saxophonist, and Kamasi’s father. Kamasi himself was in top form, as he’s fresh off a tour in support of the new album.

Washington previously called Fearless Movement his “dance album,” saying, “It’s not literal. Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music — expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing.” He also said, “Being a father means the horizon of your life all of a sudden shows up. My mortality became more apparent to me, but also my immortality — realizing that my daughter is going to live on and see things that I’m never going to see. I had to become comfortable with this, and that affected the music that I was making.”

Check out Washington’s full Tiny Desk performance above.

By this time next year, the fifth season of Stranger Things will have (hopefully) premiered! And just as quickly ended, since it’s also the final season. It’s the most anticipated batch of episodes (eight of them, all of them “very long”) for a Netflix show in the streamer’s history, so no pressure, the Duffer Brothers!

Here’s everything we know about Stranger Things season 5, including plot details, the cast, and the show’s “best episode” yet.

Plot

Stranger Things season 5 is eight episodes long, and the journey to the series finale will be “heartbreaking,” “bonkers,” and “completely insane.” It also might make you cry. “The end of this episode when we were reading it — just us reading it — about halfway through, people started crying,” star David Harbour said about the finale on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people.” He added that it’s “the best episode they’ve ever done.”

Specific plot details are tough to come by, but there’s almost certainly going to be a time jump in the “biggest, darkest, scariest” season yet.

It’s also going to be a “full-circle” season, as Will, who has been relegated to the sidelines since season 1, is “going to be a big part and focus,” Matt Duffer told Collider. “We’re starting to see his coming of age, really. Which has been challenging for a number of reasons, some of which are supernatural. But you’re starting to see him come into his own.” Ross added, “[It’s] setting up us coming full circle back to season 1. I think you’ll see that with a couple of the character arcs, not just with Will. But also with Steve and Nancy, and her relationship with Jonathan where things are not fully resolved. The characters have maybe made steps, like in the case of Will, but that journey isn’t over yet. All of that is going to play a huge role as we try to wrap this thing up.”

Stranger Things will take a page from another popular genre show’s book (forgive the mixed idiom) by enlisting Frank Darabont to direct an episode. It’s his first time behind the camera in over a decade. “What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show,” The Shawshank Redemption director told The Daily Beast. “Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons but Stranger Things has so much heart. That positivity is something I really responded to.”

And I’m positive that Stranger Things will nail the ending.

Cast

Almost everyone will be back (too many!), albeit three years older than the last time we saw them. The confirmed season 5 cast includes Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Jamie Campbell Bower (Henry Creel / Vecna), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), and Amybeth McNulty (Vickie).

Newcomers to the Stranger Things universe include The Terminator / Terminator 2: Judgment Day legend Linda Hamilton. “I don’t know how to be a fangirl and an actress at the same time,” she said about appearing on the show. “I’m gonna work on that.” As for Joseph Quinn, he has a “feeling” that he’ll return as Eddie Munson. “Or maybe I don’t,” the Gladiator II star teased. “Who knows? I don’t know! Who knows? Maybe I do.”

Release Date

An exact date hasn’t been revealed but Stranger Things season 5 will premiere sometime in 2025. It’s unknown if every episode will be dropped at once, or if the season will be split into two “volumes,” like in season 4.

Trailer

Still no trailer but you can watch a behind-the-scenes video.

A few years ago, Sons Of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter announced his return to TV with Netflix’s The Abandons, which he created and wrote as an epic Western series. Filming appeared to be going swimmingly from an outside perspective with Sutter regularly Instagramming his on-set perspectives, but clearly, something went seriously amiss at the eleventh hour.

As the lore initially went, Netflix had been shopping around for a Western series, and let’s be honest, that quest to do with the Taylor Sheridan Effect over at Paramount+, which was ironic considering that Sheridan portrayed Deputy Hale on SOA and was not thrilled with how that show wrote him off. Are we suggesting, however, that Sutter meant to hop on the Sheridan bandwagon? Hell no. Sutter stepped up to the challenge after being inspired by a Bonanza bingewatch and declaring, “I do love the genre, and over the pandemic, I tried to get a western IP.”

Still, the latest rise of the Western is a trend that Hollywood has been chasing. That Effect even extends to photoshoots to promote an A24 wrestling biopic with Westerns popping up everywhere on streaming services. Fast forward to this month, and things fell apart with Sutter’s involvement in The Abandons. The show is still going to surface on Netflix, so let’s not waste any more time in piecing together what to (and what not to) expect from the troubled series.

Plot/Logistics

First, let’s refresh on the show’s plot synopsis:

As a group of diverse, outlier families pursue their Manifest Destiny in 1850s Oregon, a corrupt force of wealth and power, coveting their land, tries to force them out. These abandoned souls, the kind of lost souls living on the fringe of society, unite their tribes to form a family and fight back. In this bloody process, “justice” is stretched beyond the boundaries of the law. The Abandons will explore that fine line between survival and law, the consequences of violence, and the corrosive power of secrets, as this family fights to keep their land.

Sutter loves a good matriarch story, and with The Abandons, he worked in two overarching examples. Over a year ago, he told Tudum that the show will illustrate “what must transpire to drive the morally sound to become the dangerously corrupt,” and “The Abandons explores those complex compromises through the most powerful human instinct — the love and protection of mothers.”

Filming began earlier this year, and as noted above, Sutter outwardly seemed to be happy with where the production was going, but things presumably got too epic as reported by Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva:

The departure is believed to stem from creative differences over the direction of the big-scale production as it is wrapping filming and headed into post. I hear an alarm went off at Netflix when the initial cut of the dense first episode, which sets the scene and introduces the large group of main characters, came in at 1 hour and 40 minutes. Cutting that down to an hour proved impossible, so a decision was made for the episode, written by Sutter and directed by Bathurst, to be split into two. That required creating a cliffhanger in the middle of the episode with additional scenes on both ends to wrap the premiere and kick off Episode 2.

Given that the season was nearly done filming, “creative differences” feels like pushing the definition of that term in this situation.

Still, Sutter is known to suddenly leave a production, as was the case with SOA spin off Mayans M.C.. With that incident, he admitted to have written an anti-Disney joke into the biker soap opera as a form of protesting the Disney/FX merger. He also called himself “an abrasive dick” after he admittedly “ruffle[ed] a few mouse ears” of incoming Disney overlords. This followed him preemptively pulling the plug on The Bastard Executioner after one season, although that was likely the best move with that medieval-set series but also sits as another example of Sutter making sudden moves, for better or worse.

Still, his departure from The Abandons felt shocking, mainly because Sutter created and wrote this baby, but filming has now entered its final weeks under the oversight of executive producers Rob Askins and Otto Bathurst.

Sutter hasn’t spoken on the subject of his departure at this time.

Cast

The ensemble cast is led by Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey, who will both portray the aforementioned strong matriarchs. Gillian’s character, Constance Van Ness, is a widow of a mining tycoon, although she manage to double that fortune, and Headey portrays Fiona Nolan, an adoptive mother of orphans.

Naturally and fortunately, several faces from Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy universe will be present. Those include Ryan Hurst (RIP Opie), Michael Ornstein, and Mayans M.C.‘s Clayton Cardenas.

From there, almost too many names exist to mention, but we will try: Patton Oswalt, Nick Robinson, Aisling Franciosi, Natalia del Riego, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Lucas Till, Lamar Johnson, Jack Doolan, Jonathan Koensgen, Katelyn Wells, Brían F. O’Byrne, Sarah Grace White, Michael Greyeyes, Marc Menchaca, Michiel Huisman, Toby Hemingway, and Haig Sutherland.

Release Date

The Abandons will somehow debut in 2025 without Kurt Sutter, which remains unbelievable.

Trailer

Netflix hasn’t dropped a teaser yet, but here is a recent clip from Sutter’s Pie podcast episode with Ryan Hurst (who always has to be mentioned with an “RIP Opie”), who explained how his real-life best friend, Jackson, convinced him to be Jax’s best friend on TV, too.

Darkside reunited to drop the album Spiral in 2021, which was their first album in eight years. Now, they have something else in the works that’s a long time coming: Today (October 21), they’ve announced the Psychic Spiral Nothing tour, which will feature their first North American dates in 11 years, over about a month in March and April.

Tickets will be available starting with an artist pre-sale on October 22 at 10 a.m. local time. Following that is a Spotify Fans First pre-sale on October 24 at 10 a.m. local time. Then there’s a general pre-sale starting on the 24th. Find more information here.

On top of that, there’s also a new song, “Graucha Max.” A press release notes the song was completed during 2023 sessions, and that it’s “the first studio composition that the band have released as a trio and a preview of things to come,” the trio consisting of Nicolás Jaar, Dave Harrington, and now, Tlacael Esparza.

Listen to “Graucha Max” above. Find Darkside’s upcoming tour dates, which include their current European run, below.

Darkside’s 2024 Tour Dates: Psychic Spiral Nothing

10/22/2024 — Glasgow, UK @ QMU
10/24/2024 — London, UK @ Alexandra Palace Theatre
10/25/2024 — London, UK @ Alexandra Palace Theatre
10/28/2024 — Istanbul, TR @ Maximum Uniq Openair
10/30/2024 — Thessaloniki, GR @ Principal
11/01/2024 — Torino, IT @ Club to Club
11/03/2024 — Paris, FR @ L’Olympia
11/05/2024 — Luxembourg, LU @ Den Atelier
11/06/2024 — Gent, BE @ De Vooruit
11/07/2024 — Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
11/08/2024 — Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who?
03/13/2025 — Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed
03/14/2025 — Detroit, MI @ Masonic Cathedral Theatre
03/15/2025 — Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
03/16/2025 — Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
03/18/2025 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
03/19/2025 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
03/21/2025 — New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
03/23/2025 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
03/25/2025 — Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
03/26/2025 — Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
04/04/2025 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
04/05/2025 — Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
04/06/2025 — Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
04/15/2025 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center
04/16/2025 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom

We’ve gotten a handful of holiday songs from Jimmy Fallon over the past few years. There was 2021’s “It Was A… (Masked Christmas)” with Megan Thee Stallion and Ariana Grande, “Almost Too Early For Christmas” with Dolly Parton in 2022, and “Wrap Me Up” with Meghan Trainor last year. Now, he’s got some more on the way, as those and others will be included on Fallon’s newly announced album, Holiday Seasoning.

The project is set to drop soon, on November 1, and aside from the aforementioned, it also features Cara Delevingne, Chelsea Handler, the Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, The Roots, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Will Ferrell.

Check out the album’s cover art and tracklist below.

Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Album Cover Artwork

Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Tracklist

1. “Christmas Ding Dong”
2. “Holiday” with Jonas Brothers
3. “Hey Rudy” with The Roots
4. “Wrap Me Up” with Meghan Trainor
5. “You’ll Be There” with Justin Timberlake
6. “It Was A… (Masked Christmas)” with Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion
7. “How You Know It’s Christmastime”
8. “New Year’s Eve Polka (5-4-3-2-1)” with “Weird Al” Yankovic and The Roots
9. “Chipmunks & Chestnuts”
10. “One Glove” with Will Ferrell
11. “Merry Happy Christmas” with Chelsea Handler
12. “Coquito”
13. “Hallmark Movie” with Cara Delevingne
14. “Weird Cousin”
15. “Thanksgiving Eve”
16. “Almost Too Early For Christmas” with Dolly Parton

Holiday Seasoning is out 11/1 via Republic Records. Find more information here.