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AMC recently revealed their extended plans for The Walking Dead universe, and let’s just say that the zombie-fueled franchise won’t be ending anytime soon. That’s the case despite the O.G. series ending in November 2022 and AMC announcing that Fear The Walking Dead would end with an eighth season.

As such, The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman’s comic book characters will continue with several spinoffs. One of those will be Daryl In Paris, which is my very bad twist on Emily In Paris but maybe not so far fetched? The series is actually entitled The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, but he does (perhaps inconceivably) end up in France. No explanation has been provided for how he commandeered his way across the Atlantic Ocean, but presumably, an answer will surface. Let’s talk about the timing of when this could take place.

First, FTWD will return on May 14 with the first of two blocks. Expect that final season to overlap with the Negan and Maggie spinoff (The Walking Dead: Dead City), which debuts in June 2023. Daryl is up next, and as Comic Book notes, the series really did film in France back in fall 2022. With any luck, we’ll see the younger Dixon brother in Fall 2023.

Next up, AMC will finally pick up with the Rick Grimes show, in which Andrew Lincoln will co-star alongside Danai Gurira as Michonne. Perhaps the ghost of Jesus will interrupt them at some point, but whatever the case, this will happen in 2024. And that will be over five years since Rick Grimes picked up with the helicopter people to launch reports of Rick Grimes movies, which got all hung up by the pandemic, but something better happened: a spinoff series materialized instead. In other words, the undead will keep entertaining for years to come.

(Via Variety & Comic Book)

Over the weekend, Britney Spears was described by TMZ as having had a “‘manic’ episode” in a Los Angeles restaurant (Joey in Woodland Hills), a scene that included her “yelling and talking gibberish” and husband Sam Asghari getting “visibly upset” before storming out. Now, Spears has responded.

In an Instagram post shared last night (January 15), Spears wrote in part:

“I watched ‘NATURAL BORN KILLERS’ this morning and damn I got ENLIGHTENED … and HOLY SMOKES SH*T BALLS I’m sure I brought a billion SMILES to me LOOKING LIKE SHREK at a restaurant. Even my best friend couldn’t WAIT TO SEND IT TO ME, THEY DON’T THINK TWICE because we are all natural born killers … I know the news is all hyped about me being a little drunk at a restaurant … it’s like they’ll be WATCHING MY EVERY MOVE [eyes emoji] !!! I’m so flattered they talk about me like a maniac THEN have the balls to talk about all the negative things that happened in my past !!!”

In a now-deleted post from earlier, she also wrote, “It’s funny somebody said I acted manic at a restaurant. Geez … all I can say is I was flattered the waiter brought me a sophisticated champagne glass for my red bull. I am so fancy yall [shrugging emojis].”

Meanwhile, Twitter account #FreeBritney Live claims to have spoken with the Joey waiter who served Spears and Asghari, and they refuted TMZ’s version of events. The waiter said Spears didn’t have a “manic” episode but was frustrated by other patrons filming her, and that Asghari just went to the restroom and didn’t “storm off.” The waiter apparently offered to move Spears and Asghari to a more private part of the restaurant, but at that point, they had finished their meal. The patron who filmed Spears is apparently now banned from the restaurant.

Find Spears’ post below.

“I watched ‘NATURAL BORN KILLERS’ this morning and damn I got ENLIGHTENED … and HOLY SMOKES SH*T BALLS I’m sure I brought a billion SMILES to me LOOKING LIKE SHREK at a restaurant. Even my best friend couldn’t WAIT TO SEND IT TO ME, THEY DON’T THINK TWICE because we are all natural born killers … I know the news is all hyped about me being a little drunk at a restaurant … it’s like they’ll be WATCHING MY EVERY MOVE [eyes emoji] !!! I’m so flattered they talk about me like a maniac THEN have the balls to talk about all the negative things that happened in my past !!! Honestly it would be safer for me to compliment this world and f*ck up because if I become a prophet and don’t create history, we might have something y’all… I’m just KIDDING, but it’s a good thought [thought bubble emoji] I know y’all are rooting for me and all and make sure you check out the shocking Shrek picture of me … I was like damn that’s horrific yet there were two pics where I was normal [thinking emoji] … either way honestly I know nobody gives a flying f*ck what I do !!! I’m just bored writing this paragraph like a damn idiot [yawning emoji]”

The Baltimore Ravens came literal inches away from beating the Cincinnati Bengals as heavy underdogs in the NFL Wild Card round on Sunday, as a fourth quarter Tyler Huntley QB sneak at the 1-yard line became a 98-yard fumble return TD for Sam Hubbard and the Bengals.

That was the only scoring play of the final period, breaking a 17-17 tie and ultimately giving Cincinnati a 7-point win. It was a brutal moment for the Ravens, who played an otherwise incredible game, as Huntley tried to reach the ball over the line and got it punched out.

What made the play all the more painful is how well Baltimore ran the ball overall, particularly J.K. Dobbins who has 13 carries for 62 yards, adding 4 catches for 43 yards and a touchdowns. After the game, Dobbins didn’t hold back with his frustration in his lack of touches, especially in the red zone and that he was not given a carry over Huntley’s sneak attempt, as he touched the Ravens in his post game scrum with the media.

Nothing Dobbins said was particularly wrong, as he was certainly the most effective back Baltimore had but had the same number of carries as Gus Edwards, who only had 39 yards. However, it’s not often a player offers this kind of direct commentary from players on coaching decisions.

His frustration doesn’t even seem to lie with Huntley, although the “we would’ve won with Lamar” quote (while likely true) will stand out for many. Instead, he’s mad the coaching staff didn’t let him have more chances (or any chances) to carry the ball inside the 5 after he’d produced a TD catching the ball out of the backfield earlier.

The issue, really, is the execution, as going over the top with a shorter QB like Huntley doesn’t make a ton of sense and opened them up for catastrophe.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Ravens respond to this, because that’s not usually something that goes over well. That said, Dobbins is an important player for the run-heavy Ravens and many fans at least will have his back.

The Baltimore Ravens were more than a touchdown underdog on Sunday night on the road against the Bengals, in large part due to the absence of Lamar Jackson. In his place was Tyler Huntley, who for more than three quarters played a spectacular game and had the Ravens tied going to the fourth quarter with the football.

After orchestrating a gorgeous drive, including a long run to get them down inside the 5, the Ravens tried a QB sneak to finish it off from the 1. Huntley tried to pull off what Trevor Lawrence did in Jacksonville’s comeback over the Chargers, reaching over the line for the goal line and a touchdown. Unfortunately, Huntley is not 6’6 like Lawrence and his effort to go over the top got stoned by the Bengals, with Logan Wilson punching the ball out where it bounced right into the hands of Sam Hubbard, and the big fella rumbled 98 yards for the go-ahead touchdown.

Mark Andrews made quite an effort to try and prevent Hubbard from getting all the way to the end zone, but just couldn’t get there. Cris Collinsworth made the point on the broadcast that if Huntley is going to go over the top, the Ravens can’t all be pushing from behind leaving no one there for that scenario — it’s possible going up and over wasn’t planned and was just a decision Huntley made.

In a game where Cincinnati’s offense found itself stuck in the mud for the second and third quarters, the defense came up with the play of the game and Hubbard stamps his name in the NFL record books with the longest fumble return in NFL Playoffs history (among other records).

The first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation kickstarted a different kind of zombie apocalypse, setting the stage for an epic and terrifying cross-country adventure and leaving fans with plenty of questions to mull over before next week’s installment airs.

“When You’re Lost In the Darkness” introduced fans to Pedro Pascal’s Joel, a hardened smuggler living in a Boston Quarantine Zone (known as the QZ) in the year 2023. Joel – and really all of mankind – has been put through the wringer thanks to a fungal pandemic that threw the world into chaos 20 years earlier. The infected – humans whose minds and bodies have been hijacked by a strain of fungi from the Cordyceps genus — roam the country unchecked while the living herd themselves into city pockets run by dictator-like governments.

And while the main conflict is between humanity and serial killing fungi, there’s another war brewing between those in power – known as FEDRA – and those willing to stand against them. Here’s everything we know about The Fireflies.

Who Are The Fireflies?

When the Cordyceps Brain Infection, or CBI, first breaks out, the government declares martial law to restore a sense of order and protect the uninfected. This sounds like a reasonable plan of action until we witness soldiers carrying out orders to kill innocent civilians at the end of the show’s first episode. It appears that, whatever this new world order is, it’s harsh and unforgiving and more than a bit tyrannical. The military runs the QZs unchecked while the uninfected work odd jobs for ration cards and live in squalor.

It’s unclear at the moment how the Fireflies first formed, but they seem to be a band of rebels that have been working for decades to put an organization known as FEDRA in check. They have their own network of spies and militia that extend beyond the Boston QZ (and likely all the way to the West Coast) and they’re run by a woman named Marlene (Merle Dandridge), dubbed by Tess (Anna Torv) as the “Che Guevara” of the Boston QZ.

What Do They Want?

One obvious demand of the rebel group is for the military to have less might and for citizens to have more say in how the QZ is run. We know that penalties for breaking laws are fairly unjust after witnessing a hanging in the town square in episode one. That kind of unchecked power has made life untenable in the QZ so, naturally, the Fireflies want people to rise up and form a true democracy in which everyone has a say in how things are run.

But more freedom is just a part of the group’s overall plan.

After Marlene discovers Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) immunity to CBI, the Fireflies focus on their main mission, which is to find a cure for the fungal pandemic. In the games, it’s been something the group has been working on for years with no progress. In the show, we’re not sure how long Marlene and company have been waiting for a break like Ellie, but she quickly becomes priority number one which is why they’re so eager to smuggle her out of Boston.

Whether the group can actually be trusted is still up in the air – although Joel would probably say no.

It’s clear the Fireflies want to create a better world, despite this fungal apocalypse reducing everyone to their baser instincts, but Marlene seems gung-ho to sacrifice any and everything to hold onto Ellie and the hope for a cure. When someone with power has that kind of tunnel vision, it’s rarely a good thing.

The Last of Us airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a great zombie apocalypse show must be in want of a military dictatorship to serve as its main villain. (We’re pretty sure Jane Austen wrote that about HBO’s The Last of Us.)

In the first episode of the Neil Druckmann-penned video game adaptation, a fungal pandemic turns most of the world’s population into undead spore generators capable of decomposing human flesh, hijacking our brains, and spreading at a dizzying pace. In other words, zombies. The fungus turns people into zombies.

But, as terrifying and nauseating as that visual is, the Infected aren’t the only enemy the show’s main characters – Joel, Ellie, Marlene, Tess, etc. – are facing. In fact, when we pick up some 20 years after the initial outbreak in episode one’s “When You’re Lost In the Darkness,” these fungi avatars are low on the threat level watchlist. With most of the living residing in Quarantine Zones run by the firm and ominous hand of a shadowy government, it’s the United States military – or, what’s left of it – that might be the real big bad of this season.

Here’s what we know about FEDRA on HBO’s The Last of Us.

What Does FEDRA Stand For?

FEDRA stands for the Federal Disaster Response Agency and yes, the similarities that can be drawn between it and another, real-life government disaster organization are completely intentional. Though the agency is more of a background villain in the games – an excuse for rebel alliances to forge and cause problems for main characters – they feature a bit more heavily in the first episode of HBO’s show.

When Did FEDRA Form?

The timelines between the video game and the TV series are a bit skewed so it’s hard to tell when the FEDRA of HBO’s The Last Of Us formed. We do know that when the outbreak wreaked havoc in Texas in 2003, forcing Joel and company to flee their home, the Army was responsible for rounding up the Infected and disposing of them. In the show’s first episode, the military blocked off roads and cordoned zones and even killed innocent civilians in an effort to curb the fungi’s spread.

By 2023, when we check in with Joel at the Boston QZ after a 20-year time jump, FEDRA has established a stronghold, replacing elected officials with military leaders that run other quarantine sights and use violent force to ensure the uninfected stay in line.

What Does FEDRA Want?

When FEDRA formed soon after the outbreak, the agency likely wanted what we’d all want when faced with a parasitic fungus that could invade our brains and use our bodies like a beat-up Chevy – they wanted order, a safe space for the living, and a way to beat back the infected hordes. But, as they rose to power, their obsession with keeping it might have influenced some of their more questionable and downright barbaric practices.

Without spoiling too much, it’s clear from how FEDRA runs the Boston QZ that they’ve devolved into a full dictatorship with the military enforcing punishments that range from unlawful detention centers to public executions. While most citizens work for ration cards and try to scrape out some kind of existence, soldiers can be seen dealing on the Black Market and wielding their authority unchecked.

If FEDRA is looking for a cure for the Cordyceps Brain Infection, the Fireflies and citizens of the QZ aren’t aware of it. In all likelihood, considering FEDRA takes orphans like Ellie and trains them to be soldiers from a young age, the group is probably content to keep to the new status quo, ruling a defeated remainder of mankind rather than waging any real war against the virus.

The Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. ET.

[This post contains spoilers for The Last of Us]

The trailer for HBO’s The Last of Us was set to “Take on Me” by a-ha. That song will eventually factor into the TV show’s plot, as it did in the video games, but it was another 1980s classic that had major implications on tonight’s series premiere.

After Joel (played by Pedro Pascal) gets tasked with smuggling Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of a quarantine zone, they take refuge in an apartment, where she discovers author Fred Bronson’s book, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. It’s an essential read for any pop culture fanatic, but in the universe of The Last of Us, it’s important for a different reason. Inside the book is a sheet of paper with a code scribbled on it below the initials “B/F,” standing for Bill and Frank: a 1960s song means “Nothing In,” a 1970s song equals “New Stock,” and a 1980s song, well, a 1980s song has a red “X” on the note.

“So, who is Bill and Frank?” Ellie asks when Joel returns to the apartment. He doesn’t respond, but she figures out the significance of an 1980s song by claiming that Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” played while he was napping. “Shit,” Joel mutters. It was a trick. “Gotcha,” Ellie says while cracking a smile. “’80s means trouble.”

The next time a song comes on the radio, no one’s in the apartment; Joel, Ellie, and Tess (Anna Torv) are on the other side of the quarantine zone wall. That song, which plays over the credits of the episode, is “Never Let Me Down Again” by Depeche Mode, which came out in… 1987. Uh oh. There’s trouble coming. That’s bad news for Joel and Ellie but good news for us. We get to enjoy some Depeche Mode!

The first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us introduced us to a new kind of zombie apocalypse and the people trying their best to survive in it. Like its video game counterpart, the Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann-created series focuses more on its characters than its creatures – though those fungi-infected bodies are terrifying in their own right. One such character is Ellie, a teenager living in the Boston Quarantine Zone (or QZ) and played by Game of Thrones standout Bella Ramsey.

Ellie’s important enough that the Fireflies — the rebel group opposing the military dictatorship currently running things in the QZ – are willing to sacrifice their whole militia to smuggle her to safety. But who is she and why does she matter so much?

Here’s everything we know about Ramsey’s character on The Last of Us.

Who Is Ellie Williams?

The show only introduces Ramsey’s smart-mouthed teenager as Ellie, but thanks to the game, we know her last name is Williams. She’s an orphan, having grown up in the QZ which means she doesn’t know much about the world before the Cordyceps outbreak. Like in the game, Ellie has spent her life being trained to be a soldier for FEDRA – the government organization responsible for keeping QZ citizens in line. Apparently, that’s the fate of most orphans in this post-apocalyptic world. But we know that Ellie has some kind of connection with the Fireflies leader, Marlene after the group holds her hostage on Marlene’s orders.

What is Ellie’s Relationship To The Fireflies?

In episode one’s “When You’re Lost In the Darkness,” Marlene tells Ellie she not only knew her birth mother but promised to keep her safe. That’s why she dropped her on FEDRA’s doorstep as a baby and it’s why she made sure her soldiers didn’t shoot her when they discovered she’d been “bitten” by an Infected. We don’t know much about Ellie’s mom at the moment, but it’s likely she knew Marlene and her plan of rebellion since the early days of the pandemic.

Marlene also mentions the name “Riley” to Ellie, implying they share another tie in the character that is played by Euphoria’s Storm Reid – though, she hasn’t made an appearance as of yet. It sounds like Riley was a close friend of Ellie’s and possibly a member of the Fireflies, which is another reason Marlene had Ellie on her radar.

Why Is Ellie Important?

Members of the Fireflies begin to ask questions when Marlene decides to abandon the Boston QZ for good to smuggle Ellie out of the city. She’s not only risking the lives of all of the soldiers under her command for a teenager, but she’s also throwing away 20 years of hard work resisting FEDRA’s rule. Why? Because Ellie might hold the answer to creating a cure for the Cordyceps Brain Infection, or CBI outbreak.

Though we don’t witness it, we soon learn that Ellie has been infected thanks to a mostly healed bite shown on her arm. When we meet her, she’s being tested to make sure she isn’t showing any of the normal symptoms associated with the Infected. Those signs should’ve presented in a matter of days, but it sounds like Ellie has had the bite for weeks at this point, which means she’s immune to the fungus. According to Marlene, the Fireflies have an outpost out West where doctors might be able to reverse engineer a cure – or at least a preventative measure like a vaccine – using Ellie’s immunity. Naturally, being the potential savior of mankind makes Ellie a valuable asset, which is why Marlene sacrifices much of her group, eventually turning to Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Tess (Anna Torv) to get Ellie out of the city.

Whether the trio will make it to their destination alive, and whether Ellie’s immunity can actually be replicated is still anyone’s guess.

The Last of Us airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

Each week, we’ll recap the biggest moments of HBO’s The Last of Us before placing bets on the odds of survival for our favorite characters – like the sick, twisted, soulless monsters we are.

The end of the world has been imagined so many times, in so many different ways on TV that the word “apocalypse” feels more like an aesthetic than an existential threat. We’ve seen zombies and killer robots, extraterrestrials with hypersensitive hearing, and Lovecraftian entities that drive people to madness, and yet, we’ve never seen something quite like HBO’s The Last of Us. It’s a show that makes the apocalypse feel both terrifying and viscerally possible again.

Most of that is thanks to the storytelling from Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin. And maybe a small part of that is because, for a while now, genre fans have longed to experience that feeling of dread and excitement at the prospect of a show that not only understands the appeal of these kinds of stories but wants to push the boundaries of them. It’s what Robert Kirkman was able to do with the first season of The Walking Dead, and if we linger on that comparison a bit too long, it’s only because Mazin and Druckmann’s entry elicits the same kind of awe and expectation of that AMC pilot. Watching the first episode of The Last of Us feels like watching the first episode of the next great television show. This is how pop culture phenomenons are born, how epic adventures get started.

With a lesson on the reproduction methods of potentially-killer fungi.

On a 60s-era ABC talk show.

Before The Outbreak

How do you prep fans for fungal Armageddon? If you’re The Last Of Us, it’s with a fun little game of “guess the extinction event” that feels a bit too close to our current reality for comfort. Viral pandemics are still the girl boss of world killers, but if the planet got a bit warmer, if fungi had to evolve, what then?

The answer comes slowly and then all at once as we jump from the 60s to the early aughts where Joel (Pedro Pascal), his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker), and his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) live in a small Texas neighborhood. Pascal’s proven to have a knack for playing the wearied and weathered single-dad type. And here, well, he’s the physical embodiment of a Reba McEntire song. He spends his birthday working a double shift while his daughter buses into town to fix his bum watch with cash she stole from his top drawer – an “it’s the thought that counts” kind of gift that puts their relationship into perspective. Sarah takes care of Joel just as much if not more than he looks after her, a dynamic that feels foreshadowing in a way.

But it’s the way Mazin weaves in the mundane with the extraordinarily creepy that disturbs the peacefulness of this buildup just enough to put your neck hairs on guard. Sirens and SWAT tanks flying down city streets, twitchy shop owners hustling customers out early, an elderly woman eerily spasming just out of focus, a family dog behaving strangely. Those odd, explainable occurrences eventually add up when Sarah wakes alone in her house to the sound of explosions and TV announcers warning residents to stay indoors. Joel has gone to spring Tommy from the local lock-up, leaving her to check in on their neighbors. It’s here we get the first glimpse of the monster that will soon end our existence, a strain of fungus that – just like the TV doctor warned so many years ago – has inhabited the brain of a catatonic grandma and bent her body to its will. It’s unsettling, terrifying, and a bit nauseating to witness fungal tendrils slithering from the old woman’s mouth before latching onto another human victim. In fact, it makes one miss the good ol days when zombies just used teeth to munch on human flesh.

Everything moves quickly after Sarah escapes the crime scene. Joel and Tommy rescue her, they get the hell out of dodge, they try to make sense of this new threat – Is it terrorists? Are they already infected? – while houses burn and planes fall from the sky and the sick flood the streets looking for their next meal. They’re eventually separated as Joel carries an injured Sarah to safety only to face off against a soldier charged by the Army with clearing the town of anyone exhibiting symptoms — which Sarah is not — but a bum ankle is enough to cause to let bullets fly. Damn HBO for making Pedro Pascal cry in the first episode of this show and damn us for hoping Sarah and Joel might make it out of this mess unharmed. Now she’s dead and Joel, well, we imagine he needs therapy but isn’t getting it.

In The QZ

Another time jump drops us off in the year 2023, in a place known as QZ (or Quarantine Zone). Protected by steel walls and barbed fences, guarded by armed militia, this seems to be one of the few safe spaces for the uninfected to muddle out a meager existence. Joel is more weathered, hardened, like mud that sets in the sun for too long, and he’s forced to take day jobs working in sewers and tossing the bodies of dead infected into the city’s burn pit for ration cards. He’s also got a side hustle, smuggling pills and other black market valuables in and out of the QZ – apparently, a dangerous job since we get a glimpse of a hanging in the town square for the benefit of anyone thinking of leaving this rundown hellhole.

While Joel swigs whiskey and knocks back opiates like he’s the star of some sad country song we meet Tess (Anna Torv), another smuggler and Joel’s kind-of girlfriend. (Do labels really matter post-apocalypse?) They’re in search of a car battery so they can drive West and find Tommy, Joel’s brother who’s gone missing on a run, but they’ve bartered with the wrong guy. So have the Fireflies – a rebel group fighting for democracy and freedom against Fedra, the government in charge of the QZ at the moment. The Fireflies need to smuggle a young girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of the QZ. Why? Because she was infected weeks ago and has yet to show symptoms, meaning she just might hold the cure for mankind’s survival. She’s a pain in the rebel’s ass at the moment – all quick-witted comebacks and brash no-fucks-given attitude and you can practically taste the angst and aggravation in the air when Joel encounters her. It’s all so delicious.

Their meet-cute happens after the Fireflies are double-crossed and gunned down, leaving Joel and Tess to reluctantly agree to the job of smuggling Ellie to safety. Apparently, they’re capable of the sorts of things both Bella Ramsey and the rest of us are naturally curious about but their escape doesn’t go as smoothly as they’d hoped.

Smuggling Human Cargo

Before the group gets out of dodge they take a rest break at Tess and Joel’s flat where the show gives us some quiet moments between Pascal and Ramsey that set up the tense push-and-pull between the two characters going forward. Ellie is smart and scrappy, an orphan handed over to Fedra to train as a soldier who has too much sass and not enough self-preservation instincts to guarantee she’ll make it on her own. Joel, weary of watching another young girl under his care die, is distant and visibly bothered by every move she makes, something that seems to delight the young girl and gives the episode a few precious moments of comedic relief. When the group eventually makes it out of the QZ after Joel brutally beats an officer to death and Ellie’s secret immunity comes to light, whatever tentative truce was declared is buried under Joel’s fear and suspicion of who this girl is, and Ellie’s mistrust of this grown man’s intentions.

We have a feeling this road trip isn’t going to be of the buddy comedy variety.

Survival Odds

Ellie (10 to 1 odds)
Our numbers are essentially meaningless but the message is pretty clear: Ellie’s not going anywhere. She’s been infected twice now and lived to tell the tale without letting a murderous fungus invade her mind. Is she reckless, cocky, and too rebellious to survive this harsh world by herself? Sure, but that just means someone else is going to die in her place.

Joel (9 to 2 odds)
You don’t hire the internet’s reigning zaddy and kill him off early in the season. (This show might be the next Game of Thrones, but it’s not actually Game of Thrones.) The hair and makeup department worked too hard to give us that salt-and-pepper mop to throw in the towel now, plus Joel seems adept at surviving, even if he doesn’t want to. Will he risk his neck for Ellie in the future? Likely, but at the moment he’d be just as happy to throw her to the proverbial wolves (can animals be infected?) than lose a wink of sleep over her wellbeing.

Tess (7 to 5 odds)
Tess feels like the more rational, level-headed member of this motley band of musketeers so, naturally, her clock is ticking the loudest. She readily takes Ellie under her wing and is constantly pulling Joel back from the metaphorical cliff. She’s pragmatic. She’s tough. She’s the kind of character you don’t let yourself care about on a show like this. Nice try, HBO.

The Last of Us airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

Francis Ngannou is no longer UFC heavyweight champion, and Jon Jones will fight Ciryl Gane for the vacant belt, the UFC announced.

The news comes after months of tense negotiations between UFC President Dana White and Ngannou. White acknowledged the organization could not come to terms on a new deal, so he’ll be released from his contract, the UFC will waive its opportunity to match his next contract, and they’ll move on to Jones-Gane.

Ngannou has previously spoken about the UFC’s contracts, the restrictions in those deals, and the want to be “free” from the UFC following his UFC 270 win over Gane in January last year:

The statement from Ngannou in his interview with Ariel Helwani contradicts White’s comments on the champion’s exit, who acknowledged that the UFC offered him the a deal that would make him the highest-paid heavyweight ever, but then sharing his opinion that Ngannou doesn’t want to take a risk and wants to fight lesser opponents and make more money.

Ngannou immediately becomes combat sports’ most coveted free agent. On the open market, a boxing tilt with any of the big heavyweights makes a great deal of sense, but he could also choose to head somewhere like the PFL and take advantage of the promotion’s newly-formed Super Fight division, where fighters will earn at least 50 percent of the pay-per-view revenue, with bouts distributed by ESPN and the streaming service DAZN.