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These days, it seems like rappers are always in some sort of legal trouble, much of it pertaining to their lyrics if not accusations of legitimate criminal activity. But Pras Michael, 1/3 of ’90s icons Fugees, is currently facing trial for charges that might very well be completely unprecedented in the rap business. A new report from Puck.News via Consequence detailing the case seems to also suggest that Michel’s indictment was actually one of the key reasons behind the cancelation of the trio’s 2021 reunion tour — which they’d originally attributed to logistical issues caused by COVID-19.

As reported in 2019, Pras was indicted on charges of conspiracy, making a false statement, and two counts of falsifying records after making contributions to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign on behalf of Malaysian businessman, Jho Low. Low — who is currently a fugitive from his own home government — is notorious for stealing $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad sovereign wealth fund, using the money to fund a lavish lifestyle that included partying with celebrities like Michel, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Paris Hilton and financing Hollywood films such as The Wolf Of Street.

Authorities allege that Pras set up bank accounts to help Low move money into the States in order to influence officials overseeing the criminal investigation into Low’s misuse of 1MDB funds. According to Puck.News, the Justice Department told Pras not to leave the country, which effectively put the kibosh on the Fugees’ plans for a world tour. Pras’ trial is set for November 4 in Washington, DC, and his defense — led by David Kenner, who successfully defended Snoop Dogg from a murder charge in 1996 — will argue that the rapper has been unfairly singled out while others are being let off the hook.

He also maintains that his old entertainment lawyer, whom he’d consulted on the involved business dealings, was also working for the Department of Justice at the time. That old lawyer, George Higginbotham, is now a witness in the trial after being indicted himself, pleading guilty to a lesser charge, and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. Pras’ defense now argues that because Higginbotham did not advise Pras to register as a foreign agent, despite consulting on these dealings, the case should be dismissed.

If the government can prove that Pras really did work for Low to influence the 1MDB investigation, and the jury doesn’t eat his excuse that his DOJ-employed legal counsel should have advised him to register as a foreign agent, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

If you’re a fan of ogre phone cases and/or bagged lunches, you’re probably aware that Chris Farley was the original voice of Shrek. But sadly, the Tommy Boy actor died before being able to finish recording his dialogue, so the part was re-cast and given to another Saturday Night Live legend, Mike Myers. A reel featuring Farley’s voice as Shrek was leaked back in 2015, but as documented by Meghan Boilard in “Uncovering the Hidden History of Shrek,” a treasure trove of footage from the Oscar-winning, meme-inspiring animated film has recently unearthed by lost media enthusiasts.

In the mid-2010s, “a YouTuber known by the handle unclesporkums happened upon an expired eBay listing for a Farley-era storyboard,” Boilard writes. It showed a toothy Shrek encountering a human mugger in an alley and singing and dancing to “I Got You (I Feel Good)” by James Brown. There was another eBay listing with “early animation tests recorded on an unmarked VHS,” Boilard continued, but “by the time this listing was unearthed by lost media enthusiasts, it had already been sold, likely to a private collector unwilling to leak the animation online. The promising lead culminated in a dead end.”

But the mystery was slowly being peeled away, layer by layer, like an onion.

Lost Media Wiki user DingleManBoy discovered 31 previously unseen “I Feel Good” frames on the Vimeo demo reel of an animator associated with Shrek’s pre-production. The dry spell was over, and the new crumbs of information rekindled widespread interest in the obscure proto-Shrek. Midway through August, in the dead of night, two Redditors (using the handles Hotter_Cooler and AccomplishedWorld823) made a breakthrough after five years of rooting around. After an exhaustive search through every individual name credited under the movie’s Los Angeles pre-production phase, another animation reel was found on Vimeo. And against all odds, there it was – seven uninterrupted seconds of the “I Feel Good” footage in all its original glory.

You can watch it here, or with “I Feel Good” below.

In recent weeks, hundreds of sketches and videos have been “uncovered,” according to Boilard, including crude test animation of Shrek that’s paired with Farley’s voice. Shrek is naked in the clip — which you can watch here — but that’s the least remarkable thing about it. The internet is 75 percent naked Shreks. The other 25 percent? Naked minions.

You can read “Uncovering the Hidden History of Shrek” over on Off-Topic.

(Via Substack)

The first Knives Out movie was a blast. Chris Evans in the most comfortable sweaterS you’ve ever seen, Ana de Armas running around in a compact car trying to clear her name, Daniel Craig attempting a Southern accent so thick you could float a brick on it, the whole thing. Go watch it again tonight, or next week, or anytime you want really. It’s one of those movies that holds up to multiple rewatches, less because it reveals new secrets each time than because, I mean, again, it’s really just a blast.

The second one is shaping up to be a lot of fun, too. The action moves from the foggy Northeast to the Greek islands, with Daniel Craig lugging that accent of his — too heavy to be a carry-on, must be checked at the counter — across the Atlantic to dive into another mystery. The cast is loaded again, as one would expect: we’ve got Edward Norton as a billionaire named Miles Bron and Dave Bautista as a YouTube star named Duke Cody and Kate Hudson as a fashionista named Birdie Jay and Kathryn Hahn as a Connecticut governor named Claire Debella. This is great. It’s all great. I like that everyone appears to be having a good time with it. This is how movie franchises should work. You would have to be a maniac to suggest potential improvements to any of it.

But…

With that said…

I do have a thought.

What if the third movie in this franchise stars Daniel Craig and the Muppets?

It’s important to note that I am serious here. This isn’t me being a goofus online for the sake of starting an argument. I mean it. What if there is a murder at… oh, let’s say some luxurious ski chalet in Colorado or the French Alps and Daniel Craig shows up to get to the bottom of it and he gets there and the primary suspects and witnesses are the Muppets? Think about it for a while. Think about Kermit gulping when he realizes he’s been framed. Think about Miss Piggy doing her whole thing and maybe trying to seduce Benoit Blanc a little. Think, specifically, about Daniel Craig saying this exact line of dialogue to, like, Gonzo and Rizzo and Fozzie Bear.

It’s not unreasonable, honestly. It would work for a million reasons, some of them having to do with Daniel Craig kind of playing a cartoon character already with his theatrical sleuthing, some of them having to do with the Swedish chef in the kitchen of the ski chalet whipping up five-star meals, and some of them having to do with precedent for this kind of thing already existing. Way back in 1981, over 40 years ago, the Muppets starred in — this is a thrilling collection of words I’m about to type — a musical heist mystery comedy called The Great Muppet Caper, in which they themselves investigated the theft of a priceless jewel known as “the Baseball Diamond.”

It was, and still is, a perfect film. It’s on Disney Plus right now if you need evidence or a reminder. It was chaotic and silly and featured cameos from a slew of stars of the time and it starred Charles Grodin as a notorious playboy and jewel thief named Nicky Holiday. You have never in your entire life seen a person have as much fun as Charles Grodin had hamming it up with the Muppets. Look at this guy.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Let Daniel Craig do this. Let Daniel Craig ham it up with the Muppets, but in the opposite way as Grodin, with him as the investigator and the Muppets as the suspects. Everything else remains the same. The Agatha Christie vibes remain in place, the tone and style are unchanged, we keep the formula from the first movie. We just add in Muppets. And maybe a song or two. This all worked again in 1992 in A Muppet Christmas Carol, with Michael Caine as the human playing it reasonably straight against a series of opinionated fuzzy puppets. I’m starting to get angry that we haven’t already made this movie.

There can be other humans, too. There should be. One of the humans has to be the murderer because I do not especially want to live in a world where one of the Muppets killed a person in cold blood. And the victim should be a human, too, for similar reasons, unless we want to kill off, like… no. Never mind. I almost suggested a scenario where Statler and Waldorf get killed and we see a long compilation of them mocking people as a potential motive, but we need them around to chime in on the investigation. We definitely have to kill off a human. Let’s go with “an Olympic snowboarder and heir to a shipping fortune played by Danny McBride.” That could be fun. We could have lots of flashbacks to get him into the action, too. This is coming together nicely.

We can have a few other humans, too, if we want. Jason Momoa would be incredible in a Muppet movie. I would like to see Rihanna in a scene with Gonzo at some point, in this movie or any other one, in part because I feel like they would have fun energy and in part because the idea of Rihanna making sexual advances at an increasingly shy and uncomfortable blue monster is deeply funny to me. Danny Trejo could work, too, which I thought and believed with all of my heart before I did some research and stumbled across this wonderful little piece of business.

So let’s go ahead and call this one confirmed. I don’t know if any of those three is the murderer, though. Maybe the murderer is Walton Goggins. Walton Goggins would be an incredible ski chalet murderer in a Muppets / Knives Out crossover movie. He already has history with Danny McBride from working together on Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones. And Edi Patterson, who also stars in The Righteous Gemstones, was in the first Knives Out movie. The pieces are all locking into place. And this is before we even get Animal on a set of skis and send him careening down a mountain. We have barely scratched the surface and we are already hitting gold.

In summation, I think the Muppets should appear in the third — I will settle for the fourth, if necessary — Knives Out movie for three primary reasons:

• It would be fun
• I think Daniel Craig would enjoy acting with the Muppets
• I would like it a lot

Thank you. Please begin working on this as soon as possible.

As Yahya Abdul-Mateen II‘s star continues to rise following standout performances in HBO’s Watchmen, The Matrix Resurrections, and more recently, the Michael Bay actioner, Ambulance, the actor had some, uh, interesting words for his work in the Aquaman films.

In the original movie, Abdul-Mateen played the classic comic book Aquaman villain, Black Manta, who will reportedly have a much larger role in the heavily anticipated sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. However, the actor is under no delusions that his performance in the superhero realm is on par with his upcoming work in the Broadway play Topdog/Underdog. Via Vulture:

“Everything should be about getting to the truth. But sometimes you got to know which movie or genre you’re in,” Abdul-Mateen says. “Something like Aquaman, that’s clown work. Aquaman is not The Trial of the Chicago 7. You gotta get over yourself.” He puts the clown designation a different way: “In order to survive and to do it well, you have to play that game and then be crafty about when you want to surprise the audience, the director, or yourself with a little bit of ‘Wow, I didn’t expect to see a Chekhovian thing or August Wilson and Aquaman, but I did.’ ”

While it might seem like Adbul-Mateen is dogging his work as Black Manta, he also appears to be saying that starring in Aquaman requires setting aside your ego and proving that you can tackle any role as an actor. Considering how passionate DC Comics fans can get, it’ll be interesting to see how Abdul-Mateen’s words are received. Particularly at a time when Warner Bros. Discovery is going through some things and trying to figure out what to heck to do with its DC Films.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom clowns it way into theaters on December 25, 2023, unless it’s delayed for a third time, which could happen. Who knows at this point?

(Via Vulture)

The global pet accessories market is in the midst of some major growth: Globally, the market was estimated at $29.4 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to $42.3 billion by 2026. So, now is a good time to get into that space and that’s just what Dolly Parton is doing with her newly announced line of pet products, which is of course called Doggy Parton.

A dedicated Doggy Parton webstore is set to arrive soon, but in the meantime, Parton’s products are available on Amazon. A statement from Parton on the Amazon storefront reads, “‘Puppy Love’ was my very first record and 6 decades later, my love for pets is stronger than ever. This inspired me to start my own line of Doggy Parton apparel, accessories, toys and more with a little ‘Dolly’ flair. Part of the proceeds will support Willa B Farms, a rescue where animals in need find never-ending love. Don’t we all need that?”

As for what’s in the collection, most notably, pet owners who cough up a mere $12.99 can deck their dog (or any other creature you want to try this on, I suppose) in a curly blonde wig, complete with a pink bow. Beyond that, there’s more typical fare like costumes, clothes, scarves, chew toys, and so on.

Learn more about Doggy Parton here.

This article originally appeared on 03.11.22

If we looked 60 years into the past, there are a lot of things that were accepted as “normal” that today most people find abhorrent. For example, people used to smoke cigarettes everywhere. They’d light up in hospitals, schools and even churches.

People also used to litter like crazy. It’s socially unacceptable now, but if you lived in the ’70s and finished your meal at McDonald’s, you’d chuck your empty styrofoam container (remember those?) and soda cup right out of the window of your car and onto the street.

It’s hard to imagine that just 60 years ago spousal abuse was considered family business and wasn’t the concern of law enforcement.

It makes me wonder when people in the future look back on the year 2022, which things will they see as barbaric? Almost certainly, the way we treat the animals we use for food will be seen as cruel. The racial divides in the criminal justice system will be seen as a moral abomination. And I’m sure that people will also look at our continued reliance on fossil fuels as a major mistake.

A Reddit user by the name u/MEMELORD_JESUS asked the AskReddit subforum “What’s the weirdest thing society accepts as normal?” and the responses exposed a lot of today’s practices that are worth questioning.

A lot of the responses revolved around American work ethic and how we are taught to live to work and not to work to live. We seem to always be chasing some magical reward that’s just around the corner instead of enjoying our everyday lives. “I’ll get to that when I retire,” we say and then don’t have the energy or the inclination to do so when the time comes.

There are also a lot of people who think that our healthcare system will be looked at with utter confusion by people in the future.

Here are 17 of the best responses to the question, “What’s the weirdest thing society accepts as normal?”

1. Work-life balance

“Working until you’re old, greying, and broken then using whatever time you have left for all the things you wish you could have done when you were younger.” — Excited_Avocado_8492

2. Rest in comfort

“That dead people need pillows in caskets.” — Qfn4g02016

3. I.R.S. mystery

“Guessing how much you owe the IRS in taxes.” — SheWentThruMyPhone

4. You get the leaders you deserve

“Politicians blatantly lying to the people. We accept it so readily, it’s as though it’s supposed to be that way.” — BlackLetyterLies

5. The booze-drugs separation

“Alcohol is so normalized but drugs are not. It’s so weird. I say this as an alcohol loving Belgian, beer is half of our culture and I’m proud of it too but like… that’s fucking weird man.” — onions_cutting_ninja

6. Stage-parent syndrome

“People having kids and trying to live their lives again through them, vicariously, forcing the kids to do things that the parents never got to do, even when the kids show no inclination, and even have an active dislike, for those things.” — macaronsforeveryone

7. Priorities

“Living to work vs working to live.” — Food-at-last

8. ‘The Man’ is everywhere

“Being on camera or recorded any time you are in public.” — Existing-barely

9. Tragic positivity 

“‘Feel-good’ news stories about how a kid makes a lemonade stand or something to pay for her mom’s cancer treatment because no one can afford healthcare in America.” — GotaLuvit35

10. Credit score

“As a non-American, I am amazed at their credit score system. As a third-world citizen, credit cards are usually for rich (and slightly less rich) people who have more disposable money than the rest of us and could pay off their debt.

The way I see people on Reddit talk about it is strange and somewhat scary. Everyone should have a card of his own as soon as he becomes an adult, you should always buy things with it and pay back to actively build your score. You’re basically doomed if you don’t have a good score, and living your life peacefully without a card is not an option, and lastly, you’ll be seen as an idiot if you know nothing about it.” — BizarroCullen

11. The retirement trap

“Spending 5/7ths of your life waiting for 2/7ths of it to come. We hate like 70% of our life, how is that considered fine?” — Deltext3rity

12. Yes, yes and yes

“Child beauty pageants.” — throwa_way682

13. That’s not justice

“The rape of male prisoners. It’s almost considered a part of the sentence. People love to joke about it all the time.” — visicircle

14. Customers aren’t employers

“Tipping culture in the US. Everyone thinks that it’s totally OK for employers not to pay the employees, and the customers are expected to pay extra to pay the employees wages. I don’t understand it.” — Lysdexiic

15. Staring at your phone

“Having smartphones in our faces all day. This shit isn’t normal…imma do it anyway…but it is not normal.” — Off_Brand_Barbie_OBB

16. Homework on weekends

“Students being assigned homework over weekends and only having a two-day weekend. The whole point of a weekend is to take a break from life, and then you have one day to recover from sleep deprivation then one day to relax which you can’t because of thinking about the next day being Monday. And the two days still having work to do anyways.” — MrPers0n3O

17. Kids on social media

“Children/young teens posting on social media sites. I’m not necessarily talking about posting on a private Instagram followed by friends, I’m talking about when kids post on tiktok publicly without parental consent.” — thottxy

This article originally appeared on 06.08.22

Parents, do you think your child would be able to survive if they were transported back to the ’70s or ’80s? Could they live at a time before the digital revolution put a huge chunk of our lives online?

These days, everyone has a phone in their pocket, but before then, if you were in public and needed to call someone, you used a pay phone. Can you remember the last time you stuck 50 cents into one and grabbed the grubby handset?

According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, roughly 100,000 pay phones remain in the U.S., down from 2 million in 1999.

Do you think a 10-year-old kid would have any idea how to use a payphone in 2022? Would they be able to use a Thomas Guide map to find out how to get somewhere? If they stepped into a time warp and wound up in 1975, could they throw a Led Zeppelin album on the record player at a party?

Another big difference between now and life in the ’70s and ’80s has been public attitudes toward smoking cigarettes. In 1965, 42.4% of Americans smoked and now, it’s just 12.5%. This sea change in public opinion about smoking means there are fewer places where smoking is deemed acceptable.

But in the early ’80s, you could smoke on a bus, on a plane, in a movie theater, in restaurants, in the classroom and even in hospitals. How would a child of today react if their third grade teacher lit up a heater in the middle of math class?

Dan Wuori, senior director of early learning at the Hunt Institute, tweeted that his high school had a smoking area “for the kids.” He then asked his followers to share “something you experienced as a kid that would blow your children’s minds.”

A lot of folks responded with stories of how ubiquitous smoking was when they were in school. While others explained that life was perilous for a kid, whether it was the school playground equipment or questionable car seats.

Here are a few responses that’ll show today’s kids just how crazy life used to be in the ’70s and ’80s.

First of all, let’s talk about smoking.

u201cMy high school had a smoking area. For the kids. Whatu2019s something you experienced as a kid that would blow your childrenu2019s minds?u201d

— Dan Wuori (@Dan Wuori)
1650809267

Mine too. Up until my senior year. Also, my biology teacher smoked in the classroom. We used to tell time by how many cigarettes she had in her ashtray.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) April 24, 2022

We made clay ashtrays as gifts for Mother’s Day…whether moms smoked or not!😂

— Mark (@coach_mark1) April 24, 2022

We had a smoking room IN our high school. We also had cadet training and a shooting range in the basement of the school. We had Latin as an option and could drop math in Grade 10! Also in the « good old days »: we could smoke in class at Carleton, at the movies and on airplanes.

— 🇨🇦Jacques Leger🇺🇸 (@jacquesleger17) April 24, 2022

I grew up in a rural area. It wasn’t unheard of for guys to have a shotgun in a gun rack in their trucks, parked at school. Could also carry large knives and openly chew tobacco in school. They don’t allow any of this now, which is good.

— High Plains Grifter (@Too_Grizzled) April 24, 2022

Want to call someone? Need to get picked up from baseball practice? You can’t text mom or dad, you’ll have to grab a quarter and use a pay phone.

My high school had pay phones.

— Mark Angres (@AngresMark) April 24, 2022

Using a pay phone that was outside the school gym to call my parents for a ride home from practice. But calling collect and saying “pick me up” and hanging up before getting charged. 😂

— Stacy Kratochvil 💟 (@StacyKratochvil) April 24, 2022

People had little regard for their kids’ safety or health.

I slept in the back window of the car when the family went on vacation!

— CJFuemmeler (@fuemmelercj) April 24, 2022

We stared Death in the eye every day. pic.twitter.com/zWHh5bvUym

— Ed Lettis 🌻 (@edbobgreen) April 24, 2022

Car seats that just hung over the front seat. Hang on, kid! pic.twitter.com/2DdCoXhqmf

— Bluenoser Forever (@long17_de) April 24, 2022

I have heard stories of country schools in the 50s (which are now urban schools) having boys swim naked in PE (that’s just how they did it in the country). Van Horn High School in Independence MO.

I use this example any time people lament the changes from the “good ole days”.

— Matt Parker (@DrMattParker) April 24, 2022

Also, in Driver’s Ed. We warched this film, “Blood on the Highways.” 45 minutes of unedited film of fatal highway accidents. This was mostly before mandatory seatbelts. 45 years later, I remember the rear view mirror that split a guy’s skull, imbedded in his brain.

— some call me Tim 🇺🇦 🌻 MAT Elem. Educ. (@realtimaier) April 24, 2022

Large fry as your entire meal in middle school. It was the most popular item too. Literally as it sounds. Just a large basket of French fries for lunch.

— Monique (@LivAnotherDay) April 24, 2022

Truck with gun racks/rifles in the HS parking lot.
(DFW too not a small town) pic.twitter.com/RnWiKQwKB7

— FortWorthPlayboy (@FWPlayboy) April 24, 2022

You could buy a soda in school.

Vending machine in the cafeteria to buy sodaaaaa 🥤

— Anna Sutter (@AnnaMSutter) April 24, 2022

Things were a lot different before the internet.

If you wanted to listen to a particular song, you had to call the radio station (and hope you got through) and ask them to play it for you.

— Sarah (@sarahbschaefer) April 25, 2022

Remember pen pals?

I wrote letters regularly to a penpal from a different country and then saved them all in a shoebox. Then in college I flew to “meet” her for the 1st time to participate in her wedding ❤️ But now we connect on FB 😂

— Ms.Teach (@MidwestTeach14) April 24, 2022

A lot of people bemoan the fact that the children of today aren’t as tough as they were a few decades back. But that’s probably because the parents of today are better attuned to their kids’ needs so they don’t have to cheat death to make it through the day.

But just imagine how easy parenting would be if all you had to do was throw your kids a bag of Doritos and a Coke for lunch and you never worried about strapping them into a car seat?

Upon releasing his 13th album, God Did, DJ Khaled has released several music videos throughout the week. His latest visual is for the album cut, “Beautiful,” which features Future and SZA.

In the song’s video, directed by Collin Tilley, Khaled is seen charming a woman on a boat. As the song begins, Khaled is joined by Future and SZA as they vibe out on a mirrored platform on the sand. Also in the video, they are seen driving large vehicles and enjoying cozy time by the fireside.

To put out 13 albums is a rare feat, but with more than two decades in the game, the radio personality, producer, and motivational speaker still maintains his momentum.

“To get to a 13th album is, like, beyond incredible for me,” said Khaled in an interview with Billboard. “The greats that I look up to, when I see how many albums they put out, I’m on the right track. And I know how hard it is to be in this game — some people can’t make it past their first single or their first album.”

Check out the video for “Beautiful” above.

God Did is out now via We The Best/Epic Records. Stream it here.

The 2020 NFL Draft featured a few future stars at the wide receiver position, with the likes of Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb, Tee Higgins, and Chase Claypool all coming into the league in the first two rounds.

However, there were also some misses at the receiver position, with the Eagles selection of Jalen Reagor at No. 21 overall looking particularly painful in hindsight considering the Vikings nabbed Jefferson with the 22nd overall selection. Reagor has struggled in his first two seasons in the league, catching just 64 passes for 695 yards and three touchdowns in his 28 game appearances in Philadelphia. After the Eagles traded for AJ Brown to give Jalen Hurts a reliable, bonafide No. 1, Reagor became expendable and none other than those same Vikings that swooped in to take Jefferson after Regaor came calling about adding the former TCU star to their receiver room.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Reagor was being sent to Minnesota for a pair of picks, a seventh and a fourth (that could drop to a fifth if Reagor fails to meet statistical requirements).

For the Vikings, they buy low on a guy with speed and talent who never put it together in Philly, but also can put him in a lesser role where he will be a third option to Jefferson and Adam Thielen that might be better suited to his skillset. For the Eagles, they get some real draft compensation in return, as a fourth rounder isn’t a bad return on a receiver who has done little to help them so far and was no longer needed on the roster.

We tried to tell you (back on July 9, 2022) that The White Lotus is a very good show. Fast forward a few months, and people were shaking their heads in disbelief after Murray Bartlett’s Armond dropped a revenge “present” in the suitcase of Jake Lacy’s horrible honeymooning bro. The show’s a brilliant satire on wealth and malaise and features the delightful Jennifer Coolidge as perpetually tipsy socialite Tanya McQuoid.

The sleeper hit initially appeared to be a limited series, but by popular demand, The White Lotus got a Season 2 renewal and a new label of anthology series. What should we expect from the next round of episodes? For starters, Tanya will head to Italy, where she’ll spend time at another one of The White Lotus resorts. One can (hopefully) expect plenty of passive-aggressive exchanges between characters, and while speaking to Vulture, creator/writer/director Mike White revealed that he was the drive behind the push to Italy, rather than another tropical locale. There will be the customary assortment of vacationers, including romance seekers and “three generations of Italian American men traveling back to their ancestral country.” Yet the focus this time won’t be so much on simmering conflict between guests and hosts but in exploring “jealousy” and all of its inherent byproducts. Here’s more from Vulture:

The first season focused on the way the rich perpetuate the structures of colonialism with casual cruelty, all while deluding themselves into thinking they’re good people. In season two, White has pulled back from writing about the power dynamics between guests and employees; here in Sicily, he was drawn to the myths of masculinity and femininity and to one of his recurring fascinations: the particularities of jealousy, especially of the sexual kind. White loves the types of feelings that involve wishing you were someone else or somewhere else. He chooses to describe this season as “a bedroom farce with teeth.”

In addition, White’s thrilled that he managed to funnel all of his creative energy into near creative control of this franchise. He’s excited after hoping that he’s “cracked the code,” but “I really don’t want to f*ck it up.” From there, we can expect (other than Coolidge) a brand new cast of insufferable yet fascinating characters portrayed by Aubrey Plaza, Theo James, F. Murray, Abraham, Michael Imperioli, and Haley Lu Richardson. Get your Mai Tai’s ready, y’all.

(Via Vulture)