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SZA’s long-awaited sophomore album, S.O.S., is (finally) out now via RCA and Top Dawg Entertainment, and fans have been celebrating all day. They’ve marveled at her reimagining of Radiohead’s signature hit “Creep” on “Special,” fallen in love with the lush songwriting on her Phoebe Bridgers collaboration, “Ghost In The Machine,” and relived their emo glory days thanks to the pop-punk vibes of “F2F.” But, as it turns out, Ms. SZA wasn’t finished yet.

12 hours after the album’s release, SZA has shared the music video for her latest single, “Nobody Gets Me.” It’s a soul-searching breakup anthem on which she relatably questions the wisdom of walking away from the only person she feels truly understands her, and the video reflects that vibe. Shot in moody grayscale, the video sees SZA standing on a rooftop overlooking the city in one of her trademark, baggy, sports paraphernalia looks as she sings, “How am I supposed to let you go? / Only like myself when I’m with you.”

“Nobody Gets Me” builds on the momentum of her previously released singles, “Shirt” and “I Hate U,” but fans are already picking their favorite songs from the album, which already looks like like a worthy successor to her debut CTRL and a smash hit in its own right.

Watch SZA’s “Nobody Gets Me” video above.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – Be honest

The end of the year is a great time to take stock of things. Things that happened, things that didn’t happen, things you want to happen before the end of the next year so you’re not beating yourself up about the same junk next December. It’s a time for looking back and looking forward at once, which is kind of impossible but we all try to do it anyway. It’s one of the stupid things about having a brain. We should be thankful it just does its job of keeping us alive, but then here we are, every year, just as it starts getting cold and dark and miserable outside, cranking away on all of our successes and failures. Again, stupid.

But if we can’t change it, we might as well make the best of it. And with that said, I’d like to look back and forward at two things I think are pretty important:

• Better Call Saul ended this year and we should really all be so thankful that show was as good as it was, mostly because a prequel of another good show based on a character who was there for comic relief has a degree of difficulty about **thisclose** to “impossible”
• We should all probably focus more of our energy going forward on making Rhea Seehorn as big of a star as she wants to be

How good was that lady in that show? I mean, honestly. Everyone was good in that show, to be fair, and I promise this is not me preparing to launch into another 1000-word rant about my beloved Lalo Salamanca, but still. It is both fair and a little wild to say that Seehorn, as Kim Wexler, was the best part of the whole thing. The show was about Bob Odenkirk’s character journey from Slippin’ Jimmy to the devious Saul Goodman, but none of it would have worked at all without Kim’s journey next to him. Look at these two.

But you knew that. Or you should have known it. Or you know it now. Either way, not the main point I’m getting at. The main point I am getting at is that we all — you, me, everyone — need to focus on continuing this momentum for Rhea Seehorn going forward. I am doing my part by writing these paragraphs. Vince Gilligan, the mastermind of the whole Breaking Bad universe, is doing his part, too, with the mysterious new series he sold to Apple TV earlier this year that will star her and occupy a little beachfront condo in my mind until I learn more about it.

“After fifteen years, I figured it was time to take a break from writing antiheroes… and who’s more heroic than the brilliant Rhea Seehorn?” Gilligan said in a statement. “It’s long past time she had her own show, and I feel lucky to get to work on it with her.”

So he and I are good here. We’re checking our own individual boxes. That leaves… well, you, the person reading this. What are you doing to help Rhea Seehorn continue to thrive? Have you even started doing anything? I say this with only minimal judgment, I swear, seeing as I just wrote this thing up last night to get myself on the board with Vince, but it is something to think about as we head into 2023. Maybe you think there’s not much you can do, at least not without big-time Hollywood connections or a WordPress login and a very patient editor. But this is where you need to think outside the box. Think big. And think small. And medium, too, just to cover all your bases.

I’ll give you some ideas to get started:

• Pool some money together with friends and rent space on a billboard near the highway and have it say “RHEA SEEHORN IS PRETTY GOOD”
• Start a little appreciation group that meets at the library every other Tuesday to talk about ways to get the word out
• Make t-shirts
• Hold a bake sale and put little notes that say “HEY DON’T FORGET ABOUT RHEA SEEHORN” inside the aluminum tins so people see them when they finish their pie
• Share this article with everyone you know
• Skywriting
• Take a hostage and wait for the news cameras to get there and then read a manifesto about it

Hmm. Maybe not that last one. That’s too far. But some of the others could work. Something to think about over the holidays, I guess.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – [GRUNTS, SNIFFS]

This one is great for a few reasons, which we can cover quickly both for efficiency and to avoid over-explaining an objectively good thing.

REASON NUMBER ONE: It is a screencap of Jennifer Coolidge doing cocaine in Palermo on the most recent episode of The White Lotus. That’s a fun sentence to type and then read back to yourself, maybe out loud. It’s not quite as much fun as “Judith Light doing cocaine at the rodeo in the short-lived basic cable reboot of Dallas,” but it’s close, which, given the competition, is its own small achievement in a way. The silver medal ain’t so bad when you’re swimming against Michael Phelps.

REASON NUMBER TWO: The caption on this sucker is “[GRUNTS, SNIFFS]” and that’s… I mean, it’s beautiful. It’s the GRUNTS that really does it for me. Reasonable arguments can be made that it’s my favorite caption since The Righteous Gemstones gave us “[ALL SOBBING AND RETCHING]” last season, which I will use to link to this and remind you to always watch television with the captions turned on.

REASON NUMBER THREE: It allows me to remind you about all the slurping this season. I did not think they could ever top that in the caption department. But then, blammo, “[GRUNTS, SNIFFS]” right there in all caps. It will take me weeks to get over this. Maybe months.

It’s a good show.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – Inside the NBA is one of our finest television shows

The important thing here is that Kenny Smith shoved Shaq into a Christmas tree. He really did. Watch the video up there one or 800 times if you don’t believe me or want to experience joy in your life for a while. It’s so good. He catches him mid-stride and sends about 375 pounds of NBA Hall of Famer flying into a physical representation of Christmas cheer. I could watch it every day. I kind of have watched it every day since it happened earlier this week. I suspect I’ll keep watching it every day until Christmas. I might just keep going until spring. It’s good to keep the holiday spirit in your heart throughout the year.

The other thing worth noting is that the show this happened on, TNT’s Inside the NBA, is one of our finest and funniest television programs and has been for a long time. I should put it on my Top 10 list every year. It’s as reliable as SNL for laughs and it does it with zero career sketch comedians, just Charles, Kenny, Shaq, and Ernie pontificating about basketball or whatever the hell else is on their minds between or after the game they’re allegedly covering. I watch a lot of television for this job and still, to this day, after watching probably thousands of hours of scripted comedy in my life, I do not think I’ve seen anything funnier than Shaquille O’Neal explaining that the moon can’t be that far away because he can see it from the ground in Georgia, unlike California. Please watch this clip. Watch everyone’s face as he keeps talking. Tell me any episode of The Office has ever been better than this.

It’s not just me, either. Bill Hader — a pretty funny guy! — appeared on a recent episode of The Steam Room and said that comedians routinely share clips from the show with each other even if they don’t watch basketball.

So there you go. Confirmed. And I don’t want to hear anyone coming to me with theories that the tree shove was faked or embellished or that Shaq jumped into the tree himself. Yes, I know he is a very large man and that sending him hurtling through the air would require a significant amount of force. My responses to this line of reasoning are as follows:

Shut up.

Let me have this.

Leave me alone.

Thank you.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Let Brett Goldstein make a damn Muppet movie!

It remains my position that The Muppet Christmas Carol is both the best version of the classic Dickens story and one of the top five Christmas movies of all-time, despite only being the second-best Muppet movie. I don’t really need an excuse to talk about it every year at the holidays, but I have one this time anyway, because this year marks the 30th anniversary of its release. So here we are. Also, here Brett Goldstein is, doing a lengthy interview with the Muppets about it. This is good. I love that Brett Goldstein loves the Muppets, in part because the Muppets rule and in part because he — as we’ve learned from Ted Lasso — is one of the world’s best cussers, and I like that juxtaposition.

Here’s a little taste from the chat, which I recommend reading and/or watching in full sometime this weekend:

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. Gonzo, you are famously a stunt artist and you put your body through a lot in this film, falling out of windows, smashing into churches, all sorts of things. But actually, Rizzo is put through a lot worse. What was the biggest injury you sustained on set? And what was the hardest stunt to film?

GONZO: You know, as an actor, I use the Stanislavski method. He always told us, “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not acting, and if it does hurt, you don’t have to act.”

KERMIT: Wait a second, Gonzo. You’re saying that you learned that from Stanislavski?

GONZO: Yep, good old Crash Stanislavski.

KERMIT: Different Stanislavski. Okay, got it. I’m sorry, Brett. Next question.

Three things are important to note here, and I’m going to knock them out via bullet point as well:

• It has been too long since we had a new Muppet movie
• We should let Brett Goldstein make one where he is allowed to cuss a little
• I don’t think we as a society spend enough time praising the people who do the Muppet voices for being brilliant improvisers who manage to whip out funny lines on the spot in character despite crouching on the floor under a table

I will say it again: The third Knives Out movie should take place at a ski lodge filled with Muppets and Daniel Craig should show up to investigate a murder that was committed by either Walton Goggins or maybe Christoph Waltz. I am not joking. It would be so good. Someone call Rian Johnson and yell at him about this.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Quinta Brunson rules

Everyone knows that Abbott Elementary and Quinta Brunson are great. I don’t need to hammer that point home. Especially not after an episode that featured appearances by both Vince Staples and NBA champion (and former Sixer) Andre Iguodala. We can file all of that away as previously known information and move along. To… well, to this. GQ honored Brunson in one of their big year-end award things and interviewed her a little bit and she said this, which I want to highlight quick.

“I am more interested in stories like Abbott that are about a neighborhood of a certain socioeconomic class that are more realistic for most Black Americans, I think,” she continues. “I think most Black Americans, they’re not fish out of water. Most of them live in neighborhoods with other Black people. And I loved my Black-ass neighborhood and where I’m from and my Black-ass upbringing. It wasn’t a sob story. It’s much like Abbott—these people who get by and love each other and that’s that. I know we put a lot of emphasis in American society on winning and big triumphant shit. But for a lot of people, just getting up out of the bed is the biggest task they could have completed that day—and it means something. It means that they made a choice to keep going. And to me that is where the real inspiration for Abbott comes from.”

This is… cool. It’s cool and true and a good philosophy and perspective to have about life, just generally. It’s also, in a way, something I’ve tried to hammer home about my own stuff, the thing where I have a spinal cord injury and use a wheelchair etc etc etc. So much of the scripted programming that focuses on people with disabilities is about overcoming obstacles and this big triumphant feel-good hooey where it all ends with the town throwing a parade. And that’s… I guess it’s fine. But there are so many other stories worth telling about cool and smaller things that are just as good, if not better, and it would be cool if we could all work on telling those, too. I’ve gone on this rant before. I’ll probably go on it again.

But the point here is that Quinta Brunson gets it. One of the best.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Rebecca:

Back when you and Alan Sepinwall were doing your TV Avalanche podcast, you mentioned that you always sing the wordless Brooklyn Nine-Nine theme song as “Brooklyn Nine Dash Niiiine” and ever since, that’s all I hear when the theme song plays (which is often, since the show is on a constant repeat in my home). You’re not the only one who has further broken my already quite broken brain in this way- the same thing happens with the South Park “flopping weiners” version of the “Game of Thrones” theme, and with Demi Adejuyigbe’s rejected lyrics to the Succession theme. I’ve even done it to myself by singing my own lyrics to the Stranger Things theme song (it goes “stranger things and stranger things and stranger things and stranger things.” I am not a complicated person.) I will watch these shows, and then these fake silly versions of the theme songs will get stuck in my head for hours or days at a time if I’m not careful. Just walking around singing nonsense while my boyfriend exhausts every synonym for the word “lunatic” he can think of. As previously mentioned, my brain is very broken.

My question is, what other wordless theme songs can you ruin for me with silly lyrics that reside in your own broken brain?

Well, this is a lovely email. I suppose it requires a little backstory, maybe, although Rebecca did a good job of hitting the main points. I did, in fact, used to do a podcast with Alan Sepinwall, and I did, at some point, torture that poor man — one of the nation’s most respected television critics — with the lyrics I created in my head for the lyric-free theme song to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The lessons here are twofold: I am an idiot and I should not have a podcast.

But anyway, to answer the question… I do not actually have another good one right now. Which stinks! I’m going to place most of the blame on the Skip Intro button and some of the blame on lots of shows just straight-up bypassing theme music recently. But I will say these two things:

• I will once again be on the lookout for these now because they are fun to uncover and they ruin people’s lives once they get lodged into a brain, and I kind of love to do that
• If you have a good one, please tell me, because it makes me very happy

Thank you and I’m sorry.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Germany!

Authorities say about 60 containers of bull sperm were stolen from a farm in the town of Olfen, 90 kilometers (56 miles) northeast of Cologne, late Monday or early Tuesday.

Happens.

Police said in a statement Wednesday that while it’s unclear how the rustle happened, the precious cargo needs to be supercooled with liquid nitrogen at –196 Celsius degrees (–320 Fahrenheit) so it isn’t spoiled.

I have been thinking about this for days now and I can’t get over the mental image of a team of thieves wearing tuxedos with thermal vests underneath executing a multi-stage plan to steal dozens of containers of bull sperm and make off with it in refrigerated trucks like they’re stealing nuclear material from a facility in the polar ice caps in the first act of a James Bond movie.

That sentence was way too long but I was too excited for punctuation. This happens, too.

They are seeking tips from the public that might lead to the recovery of the sperm, which was intended for artificial insemination.

I like that they included the last phrase here. Just for clarity. Like there was some other reason a facility in Germany was storing 60 canisters of nitrogen-cooled bull semen. You never know, you know?

Bam Margera is reportedly battling a “very serious case of pneumonia.” The former Jackass star was hospitalized in San Diego earlier in the week and also reportedly tested positive for COVID. According to TMZ, doctors put him on a ventilator, and he’s currently in the ICU. However, his condition is stable as of this writing.

Possibly complicating matters is Margera’s history of drug abuse. He reportedly fled court-ordered rehab on multiple occasions and has been spotted partying for months now. Via TMZ:

Our sources say during one of his stints in rehab, he befriended an attorney who convinced him he could get him out of the court-ordered treatment and “free Bam.”

Since then, we’ve seen him partying it up in Atlanta in September, and hitting Las Vegas the following month. We’re told Bam never completed his court order and many people close to him were concerned for the former ‘Jackass’ star.

Margera’s struggles with substance abuse led to a significant falling out with his Jackass co-stars. He was cut from Jackass 4, which sparked a series of lawsuits, and at one point, death threats against director Jeff Tremaine. Margera likened the conditions he experienced to Britney Spears’ conservatorship, but Paramount’s lawyers stepped in and called his accusations “outright lies.” Specifically, this refers to Margera’s claim that he was fired from Jackass 4 because he tested positive for Adderall. According to the studio, Margera reportedly admitted that he “bought it off the street.”

(Via TMZ)

There are a lot of reasons to be frustrated with the characters in this season of The White Lotus. For one, they are all too good-looking, which is just unfair to the rest of us. Another reason is the fact that these Americans don’t seem interested in exploring the world-famous Italian cuisine, which is fine because there is a lot of other stuff going on, but now everyone is mad that they haven’t seen Aubrey Plaza Eat, Pray, Love herself yet.

But for some reason, the worst offense has nothing to do with drugs or infidelity, instead, fans are loudly critical of Portia’s fashion choices. And that criticism made its way to the actress herself, Haley Lu Richardson. To be fair, some of the Tweets were very spot on:

“Here’s the thing that I don’t understand,” Richardson recently told TMZ. “I wear that bucket hat in the show, and I think it’s so cute. And I thought everyone liked bucket hats. But then everyone’s been s***ing on my bucket hat on Twitter. And I actually crocheted it, so I’m a little bit sad!” The actress confessed. Bucket hats were a thing for a while! Everyone had an ugly Ikea bucket hat at one point or another, so Richardson was right about that.

Unfortunately, Richardson saw all of the hate on the hat, which she just so happened to make. “There’s like tweets with thousands of likes being like ‘f*ck her and her bucket hat.’ And I made it!” She said.

Later, while speaking on The Today Show, Richardson admitted that she had to stop reading what people were saying online. “People were so opinionated about Portia’s style. A lot of people were repulsed but it. I got kinda sucked into that for a little, but then I just had to cool it,” she said. The bright side is that while Richardson might have made a cheesy-looking bucket hat, she was able to wear it on one of the most-watched shows this year, and her Hat Haters can’t say the same for themselves.

(Via TMZ)

International musical act Stormzy (real name Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr.) isn’t allowing mandatory album promotion efforts to push his charitable efforts to the wayside. Instead, the grime rapper will shelve press for his new album, This Is What I Mean, at least on December 15 and 16 as he hosts the second annual “A Very #Merky Xmas” event.

The holiday party extravaganza presented by his charity, The #Merky Foundation, will be held in Stormzy’s hometown of Croydon at the Fairfield Concert Hall in South London. Across the two-day event, attendees can see live gospel performances, interactive games, and other traditional holiday activities.

Although the rapper’s friends Adele and Bree Runway won’t be making an appearance, attendees will have the chance to see musicians Guvna B, Tab Worship, Becca Folks, Called Out Music, Volney Morgan, and New Ye live on December 15 hosted by Cassandra Maria and Muyiwa Olarewaju from Premier Gospel Radio.

The second day’s (December 16) activities include a Santa’s workshop tour, face painting, competitive tombola playing, and more. Despite Stormzy’s explicit lyrics, the event is described as children-friendly, welcoming kids aged 6 and above when accompanied by an adult. On December 16, the venue will welcome festive activities, including Santa’s grotto, face painting, tombola, and more.

If you are a Croydon resident, click here to request a ticket to this year’s event. There is a four-ticket limit per household. To learn more about the #Merky Foundation, click here.

Following an explosive report that claimed Wonder Woman 3 is no longer moving forward as James Gunn prepares to essentially reboot the DC Cinematic Universe, Gunn took to Twitter to do his best to explain the seemingly fluid situation.

“As for the story yesterday in the Hollywood Reporter, some of it is true, some of it is half-true, some of it is not true, & some of it we haven’t decided yet whether it’s true or not,” Gunn wrote on Thursday afternoon while attempting to calm fears and prepare fans for the inevitably that he and co-chief Peter Safran will “build upon what has worked in DC so far & to help rectify what has not.”

Later that same day, a new report supported Gunn’s claim that not everything is as it seems. According to The Wrap, Warner Bros. did not cancel Wonder Woman 3. Instead, director Patty Jenkins reportedly “walked off the project” after rejecting studio notes from Warner Bros. Film Group Co-Chairpersons and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. The two didn’t think the latest treatment from Jenkins “worked,” and that’s when the situation went south.

De Luca and Abdy spoke to Jenkins first and communicated that they didn’t get the treatment, didn’t think it was the right direction for the franchise and asked Jenkins if she would consider pitching something else for the IP in another direction.

According to one insider, Jenkins refused and let De Luca and Abdy “know that they were wrong, that they didn’t understand her, didn’t understand the character, didn’t understand character arcs and didn’t understand what Jenkins was trying to do.”

To underscore her point, according to the first insider, Jenkins sent an email to De Luca that ended with a link to the Wikipedia definition of “character arc.”

Jenkins was offered the opportunity to “pitch a different direction for Wonder Woman,” but she opted to move on to her next film. As for Gunn’s involvement, he was not behind the decision, but Jenkins reportedly wasn’t interested in hearing more about how to keep moving forward with the threequel.

In the meantime, Gal Gadot is reportedly still attached to the iconic DC Comics character. While it does appear that Gunn is moving away from the Snyderverse, the first Wonder Woman film is one of the few successes from that time period, and Gunn has already clarified that he and Safran are still figuring out what to do with the “fractious environment” that they’ve inherited.

(Via The Wrap)

Cam Newton’s last stint in the NFL came as a member of the Carolina Panthers last season. Currently a free agent, Newton appeared at a recent I Am Athlete live tour event, where he expressed his belief that all four starting signal callers in the NFC South — Tom Brady, Andy Dalton, Sam Darnold, and Desmond Ridder — are not as good as he is.

“So, 18 months ago, 24 months ago, we had this conversation and you said there ain’t 32,” Brandon Marshall asked around the 13:30 mark of the above video. “So what’s the number right now?”

“Man, one thing about it, bro, God has blessed me,” Newton responded. Marshall jumped out of his seat over Newton’s answer, with Newton saying “college graduate Cam” answered that.

“I mean, sh*t, we can say the whole NFC South,” Newton then said.

A former NFL MVP and No. 1 overall Draft pick who spent 133 of the 148 games he has played in his career as a member of the Panthers, Newton, who is 33, spent the 2020 season with the New England Patriots before getting cut last offseason. He signed a 1-year deal to return to Carolina in November of 2021 and struggled as the starting signal caller for a team that finished the season 5-12.

SZA’s long-awaited album SOS is finally out, following lots of delays and a little bit of drama. Fans can’t believe it’s finally here, and they’re reacting to everything at once on Twitter through hot takes, threads, and, mostly, memes. They’re loving the Phoebe Bridgers collaboration on “Ghost In The Machine“; they’re heartbroken by the powerful “Nobody Gets Me.”

There is one specific moment on the record that surprised many listeners — and that’s the unexpected pop-punk track “F2F.” Falling near the middle of the LP, the song starts off sounding nostalgic of early-2000s pop, which one user pointed out, writing, “sza recreating that feeling at the end of every early 2000s films when school is over and its time for summer break on f2f.”

It picks up toward the chorus and catapults into a pop-punk direction with brave, infectious guitars and self-deprecating lyrics: “I hate me enough for the two of us / Hate that I can’t let go of you enough,” she sings. This has led to viral tweets involving pictures of scene kids with piercings, colorful hair, eyeliner, and band t-shirts from the Myspace era. Of course, this isn’t all that surprising, considering the past couple of years have consisted of lots of mainstream artists switching to pop punk, like Willow and MGK.

Listen to “F2F” above.

Piers Morgan may not have devoted the entirety of his Thursday to thinking about Meghan Markle, but let’s get real because this is a royal fanboy who stormed off a TV set while arguing about her Oprah interview. It’s safe to assume that Piers devoted a hefty chunk of his Thursday waking moments to trouncing Meghan and raining a barrage of complaints upon Harry & Meghan on Netflix.

The Fox Nation host live-tweeted his responses to the first three episodes of the Netflix docuseries. He was somehow riveted yet still tweet-shouting, “God, they’re so boring! #HarryandMeghanNetflix.” He then whipped up a review (published for The Sun) of what he called a “WHINE-A-THON.” He also breathlessly bashes Meghan’s every move, years after he freely admitted that she “ghosted” him after a date.

Well, Thursday also happened to be the birthday of his wife, Celia Waldon. They tied the knot back in 2010, and Piers kinda-sorta did not mention anything about the special day. Sure, not everyone cares too much about birthdays, but Piers was so laser-sharp focused on Meghan all day that, yes, it’s funny as hell. And apparently, Piers finally had enough of seeing people remind him of his omission and addressed the subject.

“All the trolls raging that I only criticise Meghan Markle because I ‘fancied’ her & then got upset when she ghosted me,” Piers tweeted. “[H]ave reminded me that I forgot to publicly wish my wife Celia a happy birthday yesterday.” He then added (along with an emoji), “And yes, she knows she lucked out…”

Oh boy. Don’t be too surprised if we see photos of Piers ducking out of a jewelry store or clutching flowers over this one.

There’s a lot of rent-free time in Piers’ head when it comes to not only Meghan but Prince Harry, who Piers recently branded a “d*ckhead” because he dared to write a memoir that will publish in 2023. That also happens to be King Charles’ coronation ceremony year, and Piers seems to believe that Harry scheduled the book to upstage his dad. Yet Spare will publish in January, and the coronation is scheduled for… May.

Piers is not only a disliker of Meghan but a staunch defender of most things royal, so he really had a field day on Thursday. Hopefully, Celia still managed to have a nice birthday (at a spa or something).

Jackson Wang has done it again.

Continuing his Magic Man agenda, the Chinese pop singer steps into a new persona in the music video “Come Alive.” Jackson has officially entered his zombie era. And it’s kind of giving Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” but more modern and sexier.

First releasing its lyric video three months ago, the official music video dropped today at midnight (December 9). Creating what seems to be a postapocalyptic version of the circus where zombies run the carnival, Jackson Wang’s zombie character has the power to resurrect people and make them come alive as zombies. The video thrives with captivating visuals and tantalizing choreography starring the MAGIC MAN himself with a female lead and a small group of dancers. (To be frank, some of the scenes can be compared to Jackson Wang’s post-apocalyptic “Cruel” music video, released months ago.)

According to the credits, the music video features creative direction by Jackson Wang, with direction by Rich Lee who has worked with acts like Billie Eilish, Eminem, and Lana del Rey.

“Come Alive” is the sixth track off of Jackson Wang’s sophomore album, MAGIC MAN. According to a press release, the album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Top Current Sales and Top Album Sales charts the week of its release and at No. 15 on Billboard 200, making it Jackson’s highest-charting album.

Jackson Wang is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.