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The first time we wrote about Breaking Bad stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul potentially making cameos on Better Call Saul was in 2013, nearly two years before the spinoff series premiered. Fifty episodes later, they still haven’t dropped by. Oops!

To be fair, Cranston was spotted on the Saul set and has been teasing an appearance from Walter White for years, so it seemed inevitable. But then came the movie, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, and as co-creator Peter Gould said, “I like to think that we don’t have as much of an obligation to have Walt and Jesse back in Better Call Saul because they’re such a great appearance in El Camino.”

So, about that…

“It would be a damn shame if the show ended without [Cranston and Paul] appearing, would it not?” co-creator Vince Gilligan told Variety ahead of the Saul season six premiere. “You heard it here first.” Tough to misinterpret that, although don’t be surprised if they appear in the background of some scene, like when Abed from Community popped up on Cougar Town. That’s something that rascal Vince Gilligan would do.

Gilligan also told Deadline that his next show is “something really different” from Breaking Bad and Saul. “It’s a remake of [M*A*S*H spinoff] Trapper John, M.D.,” he added. Gilligan was joking, but with his track record, he could find a way to make a gritty reboot of B.J. and the Bear one of the best shows on TV.

(Via Variety and Deadline)

The season one finale of Severance ends abruptly, just as pivotal moments for its main characters are about to unfold. It’s a rude way to end a season, but it is so well choreographed between the writing, performing, and Ben Stiller’s excellent directing that it works. The best season finales in television history confidently strike a balance between satisfaction and the unknown. They wrap up story arcs you spent so much time watching but when everything is fine, they leave you with something incomplete so you’re somewhere in between satisfied and desperate.

AMC’s Mad Men was one of the best at this. In particular, its season four finale “Tomorrowland” wrapped up major plotlines that unfolded throughout the season, only to end with Don Draper proposing to Megan Calvet, the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce receptionist who only had a few lines and accompanied his family on a trip to California. “Tomorrowland” ended at the precise moment: when you’re happy with what you saw but eager to see what comes next.

The season one finale of Severance, called “The We We Are” follows all the beats that make a great season finale but at the same time, it pushes against expectations by ending with a great deception. Despite its antics, the season and its finale are so well done that the painful cliffhanger works because it doesn’t feel cheap. Every moment is earned, making it a modern masterpiece.

Severance follows Mark (Adam Scott), a severed employee at the corporation Luman Industries. Severed employees undergo a procedure that gives them the ability to keep their work and personal lives completely separate: Mark is the same person, but he does not recall his personal life at work, and he does not recall his work life in his personal life. At the beginning of the season, one of Mark’s co-workers, Peter, leaves the company. His replacement, Helly (Britt Lower), is not adjusting well to working at Luman. Helly’s presence at the company jumpstarts Mark and their other colleagues Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro) to investigate Lumon’s practices and discover more about their lives outside of Lumon Industries.

In “The We We Are,” the group of misfit Lumon employees executes the impossible: Dylan activates the work personas of Mark, Helly, and Irving while they are outside of Lumon. Mark activates while he is at a party, Helly activates just before she is about to give a pro-severance speech, and Irving activates while he is at home. The filmmaking is intentionally tense, with the camera tightly following Mark, Helly, and Irving as they try to keep their cool throughout their strange, out-of-body experience. The narrative structure weaves in and out of their perspectives, leaving each character just as things are getting good, which sets a precedent for the episode’s sudden end. Rousing music is playing. Mark just discovered that his wife, who he thought was dead, is an employee at Lumon. Helly starts a speech about how miserable severed employees are. Irving approaches the home of Burt (Christopher Walken), a severed employee he connected with earlier in the season. Meanwhile, Dylan is at Lumon making this all happen, but he’s about to get caught, which will inactive their work personalities. The scenes bounce back and forth quickly with the music building tension that indicates there’s more. After Dylan is forced to flip the switch, all we get is a shot of Mark and an elevator ding before the screen goes black and the credits roll.

“The We We Are” gives its characters a victory, then switches off as abruptly as the memories of severed employees turn on and off in the Lumon Industries elevator. Like the best season finales in television history, the Severance finale will make you mad until you realize how good it was.

Maggie Rogers had a huge debut in 2019 with her album Heard It In A Past Life, which established her as a force and peaked all the way up at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart. That was over three years ago now, though, and Rogers hasn’t really released new music since then (save for her and Phoebe Bridgers’ 2020 cover of Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” and a collection of older recordings, Notes From The Archive: Recordings 2011 — 2016.)

She’s making her way back, though, as she recently announced her sophomore album, Surrender, is set for release on July 29. Today, she has unveiled the lead single from the project, “That’s Where I Am.” The tune blends Rogers’ signature blend of pop with a Tame Impala-esque psych-rock with its prominent drums and prominent guitars and synths.

In terms of where Rogers has been, she’s found herself in a lot of places, as she recorded the new album in her parents’ garage, Electric Lady Studios in New York City, and Peter Gabriel‘s Real World Studios near Bath, England. Rogers also previously noted she took some time to relocate “to the coast of Maine and completely cut herself off from the noise of the outside world.”

Listen to “That’s Where I Am” above.

Surrender is out 7/29 via Capitol. Pre-save it here.

The last we heard from Jack White, he seemed to be midst of the artistic equivalent of a mid-life crisis with his 2018 album Boarding House Reach. But with his new LP Fear Of The Dawn, White has adopted a sense of indifference, resulting in a surprisingly captivating effort. On the latest Indiecast episode, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen review White’s new album and share their thoughts on Father John Misty’s latest LP, Chloë And The Next 20th Century.

In other indie news this week, the Grammys once again proved their waning relevance by awarding Jon Batiste Album Of The Year. Plus, Steven and Ian share their thoughts on Wet Leg‘s much-hyped self-titled debut album, which they both liked and disliked more than expected. They also cast their votes for artists who made their favorite Q1 albums, including Big Thief, Nilüfer Yanya, Black Country New Road, and The Weeknd.

This week’s Recommendation Corner has Ian giving props to Brooklyn band Tree River. Steven gives a shout out to Austin-based band Good Looks, whose debut LP Bummer Year is out now.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 84 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Move over, Ted Cruz and Mike Lindell, Jimmy Kimmel has found a new favorite target. On Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, the host discussed a recent tweet by white nationalist event-speaker Marjorie Taylor Greene in which she accused Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney of being “pro-pedophile” for voting to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. “Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him?” he said. Taylor Greene was, ahem, triggered by the joke and snitched on the late-night host to the Capitol Police. Kimmel first replied to the Georgia congresswoman on Twitter (“Officer? I would like to report a joke”) before dedicating much of his monologue on Thursday to Taylor Greene’s dangerous nuttiness.

“Not only did she call the police, she called the same police she voted against giving a Congressional Gold Medal to for defending our Capitol against the insurrection she helped incite on January 6,” Kimmel said about Taylor Greene, who he dubbed “probably the worst woman in American politics.” He’s impressed by “how quickly you can go from, ‘These liberals, you can’t say anything anymore!’ to ‘What did you say? I’m calling the cops!’ It must be that cancel culture they’re always talking about.”

In response to Taylor Green’s follow-up tweet about “death threats” and “[hiding] your misogyny and your racism behind your ‘jokes’ on @ABC,” Kimmel said, “Not only don’t I condone death or any kind of threats against anyone, especially since I get dozens of them a week myself from the sickos who align with you, I also find it very rich that a person who did this in her campaign ad is suddenly whining about fantasies of violence.”

He continued:

“This woman, remember, she is the one who endorsed fringe conspiracy theories and repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians. Now she’s dialing 911 because she got made fun of. She’s a snowflake and a sociopath at the same time — a ‘snowciopath.’ And nobody does anything. I feel like maybe other Republicans like having her around to make the rest of them seem normal.”

You can watch Kimmel’s monologue above.

For the past three years, Fivio Foreign stayed relevant in the hip-hop community without an album to his name. He always made sure to contribute an impactful record or guest verse to keep his name in the mix. Finally, after all these years, Fivio arrives with his debut album. B.I.B.L.E. touches down with 17 songs to its name including the previously released “City Of Gods” and “Magic City.” Now that the album is out and available for the world to enjoy, Fivio celebrates its release with a brand new video.

Fivio offers a simple visual for “For Nothin.” The track itself finds him questioning the people from his past who have switched up on him while praising those who stuck around to see him shine today. The accompanying visual gives a glimpse into Fivio’s everyday activities as it captures him with fans, hanging with fans, recording music, conducting a photo shoot, and more.

B.I.B.L.E. sports a stacked roster of talent that appears beside Fivio through its 17 songs. KayCyy, Quavo, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Queen Naija, Coi Leray, Chloe, ASAP Rocky, Lil Yachty, Lil Tjay, Yung Bleu, DJ Khaled, Vory, Polo G, Blueface, and Ne-Yo. The album also arrives after Fivio connected with Nicki Minaj and City Girls for “We Go Up” and “Top Notch” respectively.

You can watch the video for “For Nothin” above.

B.I.B.L.E. is out now via Columbia Records. You can stream it here.

This summer will mark one year since DMV rapper IDK dropped off his sophomore album USee4Yourself. The 17-track project flaunted appearances from Young Thug, Offset, Westside Gunn, the late MF DOOM, Lucky Daye, T-Pain, and more. USee4Yourself, which was later extended thanks to nine additional songs, was the companion project to IDK’s 2019 debut Is He Real? One of IDK’s best qualities is his versatility and ability to lay down bars just as well as he can construct a soulful record. A perfect example of that comes on “Taco,” his new collaboration with Kaytranda.

The new track is steered by wavy production that Kaytra does so well, but the song’s beat simply masks the harsh and cut-throat threats that IDK delivers on it. Between dark street tales and IDK’s relentless insults towards the opposition, “Taco” presents quite the juxtaposition that makes the song all that more interesting.

While this is IDK’s first release of 2022, it stands as Kaytranada’s second of the year after he previously teamed up with Joyce Wrice for their “Iced Tea” collaboration. That song arrived after he ended 2021 with his 3-song EP, Intimidated.

You can listen to “Taco” in the video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Lil Baby is certainly one of rap’s biggest artists and it’s something that he’s proven over the past couple of years. In 2020, he released his sophomore album My Turn which was heralded as rap’s album of the year, and the following year, he teamed up with Lil Durk for their joint album, Voice of The Heroes. Both of the aforementioned albums debuted at No. 1 on the album charts and Baby is aiming to extend that streak to three with his upcoming full-length effort. While there’s no timeline for when his next project will arrive, he arrives to give anticipation for it a boost with two new singles: “In A Minute” and “Right On.”

The two tracks mark Baby’s first official releases of the year and they’re both strong efforts. “In A Minute” is a more relaxed record that features a sample of Ellie Goulding’s “Don’t Say a Word” which was most famously used in Drake and Jay-Z’s “Pound Cake.” On the flip side, “Right On” is a bit more lively and vibrant as it presents a quicker tempo thanks to the song’s production. Despite their differences, Baby uses both records to speak confidently about himself and remind listeners about his status and talents ahead of his upcoming third album.

Lil Baby’s new songs arrive after he teased a summer takeover last month. “It’s Gone Be A Nastyyyyy Summer,” he wrote in one tweet. In another, he added, “Drop a video every few weeks until [exploding head emojis],” and it seems like that plan is officially in motion.

You can listen to “In A Minute” and “Right On” in the videos above.

Former 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan has been about as welcome a presence on Fox News over the past several months as Rudy Giuliani. Up until November 2021, Logan was a familiar face to audiences… until she made the unfortunate decision to compare Dr. Anthony Fauci to Josef Mengele—yes, the Nazi “Angel of Death,” who performed monstrous experiments during the Holocaust.

Fox viewers have yet to see the 51-year-old anchor reappear on their screens since. And while Fox has kept relatively mum on Logan’s future with the channel—or even to acknowledge that she is indeed a human being who does exist in this world—Logan has her own ideas about why Fox has shipped her off to news person Siberia.

As Mediaite reports, Logan resurfaced on Wednesday to chat with a conservative radio personality named Eric Metaxas. After gushing over how “wonderful” it was to see her face on Fox News each day, Metaxas got right to the matter at hand and asked the question on everyone’s mind: Has Logan been officially fired by Fox News, or did she make the decision to leave?

“No, I was definitely pushed out,” Logan said. “There is no doubt about that.” But rather than admit that her comments about Dr. Fauci may have been, well, a lot bit heinous, she seems to stand by her previous comments and placed the blame squarely on Fox News.

“They don’t want independent thinkers,” Logan said. “They don’t want people who follow the facts regardless of the politics.”

Believe it or not, there was a time—in the not too distant past, in fact—when was a pretty respected journalist. Yes, the same Logan who recently accused Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky of having ties to Satan and the occult. It’s a bizarre allegation, but not a particularly surprising thing to hear coming out of the mouth of a woman who blocked the Auschwitz Museum on Twitter after they denounced her comments about Dr. Fauci.

(Via Mediaite)

Thanks to a healthy hand from TikTok and other social media platforms, Foushee worked her way into the spotlight in 2021. Her rise tracks back to 2020 thanks to the release of “Deep End Freestyle,” which went viral on TikTok following a remix from Sleepy Hallow. Last year, Foushee went on to release her debut project Time Machine which was propelled by tracks like “Paper Plane” and “My Slime.” Since then, Foushee has worked with the likes of Vince Staples, Ayra Starr, Lil Wayne, Saba, and more. Less than a year after she dropped Time Machine, Foushee’s ready to roll out her next body of work.

It begins with “Double Standard.” Just like the rest of her catalog, the new single is quite the genre-bending record that see Foushee throwing up a middle finger to the societal norms that restrict her desired way of life. In a press release, she said the song addresses “outdated gender roles that I have experienced in past relationships and rebelling against them.” She adds, “The imbalance frustrates me. Don’t expect anything from me that you wouldn’t give me, including respect and loyalty. I match energy.”

Along with the new song, which is the first single from her upcoming project, Foushee also released quite an interesting visualizer for the song. It features her and Steve Lacy enjoying each other’s company and locking lips in the middle of a grassy field. “I wanted to feature Steve Lacy in the visualizer/artwork to mostly to stir up thought,” she said. “It’s kind of a bold move to make out with someone on artwork for the world to analyze, but that’s what the song represents. Breaking the rules.”

You can listen to “Double Standard” in the visual above and stay tuned for more from Foushee.