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Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies were one of the best stories of the regular season, making the leap from the play-in last year to the No. 2 seed in the West. Now that it’s playoff time they hope to show they are more than just a good story, facing another young team on the rise, the Minnesota Timberwolves, in their first round series.

After dropping Game 1, Morant and the Grizzlies will look to even things up in Game 2 on Tuesday night, as they try to settle down and settle in to what looks to be a highly competitive and entertaining series. Adapting to new challenges is something Morant and the Grizzlies have done as well as anyone this season. For Morant, he made the leap into being an All-Star this season and has a case for All-NBA, despite missing some time with injuries, and maybe more importantly for the Grizzlies, he continues to grow into a leadership role on a young team that as a whole has adopted his cool confidence on and off the court.

Last week, prior to the Grizzlies’ matchup with the Timberwolves being set, we got a chance to talk with Morant over Zoom on behalf of BODYARMOR about his season, leadership, and his teammates, who he always ensures share the spotlight with him.

What are the lessons that you think you guys can take from from last year’s experience in the postseason and carry with you into this year?

Just how playoff basketball works, pretty much. That’s, you know, the main thing we can take from last year’s playoffs.

For you personally, you’re partnered with BODYARMOR on the Edge vs. Everybody campaign. How cool was it to be part of this ad campaign that’s going to start during the playoffs while you’re playing?

It’s definitely big time. Something to definitely be proud about. Definitely blessed and thrilled to be able to partner with BodyArmor in order to do this campaign and launch it during playoffs where I’m preparing to make a deep run.

How would you describe the vibe of the Grizzlies locker room to somebody like me who’s on the outside?

Pretty much just some fun, exciting guys who all have that similar mindset of going and proving ourselves each and every night. But also having fun while doing it.

And within that, what’s the level of competition like internally, because it seems you guys push each other to be better. We can all see the improvement that you guys as a collective have but also individually, it’s kind of remarkable the development each of you guys has shown. What is it like day to day that helps push you guys internally on the practice court?

Like no matter what’s going on, pretty much anytime we step on that floor we’re competing at a very high level. And as far as making each other better I feel like that’s what it is. If we play-in against each other or doing anything, you know, we’re competing and want to beat whoever’s on the other side. And that’s just pushing everybody to be better and helping us out in the long run.

Where do you think you personally have grown the most as a leader now that you’re in your third year?

Pretty much just leading by example. Showing guys how hard I play when I’m out there but as well as, you know, how much time I put into my game to also make me a better player.

You’ve had some time, most recently with with a knee injury, being out. Do you learn stuff about your teammates when you watch from the bench and watch them play without you that can help you when you get back out with them? To know some spots where maybe they have to take on a different role without you and you can see how they can they can thrive in different situations?

Of course, you know, just watching it and also being the point guard, you always have to know that where my teammates spots are at. And while I was out, I got to see a lot of guys take on bigger roles and go excel in whatever that was for them. And obviously that gives me confidence, but I know it gives them confidence as well and know when I came back to play you know, my mindset was just to keep those guys playing at that level that they were playing at.

I saw today that you finish the season averaging the most paint points per game of anybody in the NBA. What do you think that says about you that you are able to do that as a point guard?

Nobody can keep me in front of them.

Also, I think the question that people had coming into the draft was your size. Does it bring you some joy to show that is far from a weak point in your game and continue to show that you’re going to be able to get downhill and play with the trees and finish down there?

I’m glad they send me down there thinkin’ I couldn’t. So I don’t pay it too much mind, but I know exactly what people were saying when I was coming in. And, you know, for a guy with a small frame who they thought wouldn’t finish over bigs to lead the league in paint points tells you something.

To finish I want you to give me one word to describe some of your teammates, and we’ll start with Jaren Jackson Jr.

One word I’ll just say, Special. For him, just at his size, 7’1, to be able to you know, handle the basketball pretty much like a guard, he can shoot the three, can play in the post and then just how he anchors our defense, you know, on the other end of the floor is just big time.

Desmond Bane.

Professional Bucket. If you need one word, a bucket. He can score with the best of ’em. He can score from all over the floor, three-level scorer. So, bucket is my one word for him.

Dillon Brooks.

Menace. Like, no matter what he’s doing, he’s going hard. He’s engaged, playing very aggressive. So my one word for him would be menace.

De’Anthony Melton.

Ooh. Important. For him, not just talking like we have to talk but, you know, Melt is an important piece for us. Coming off the bench, being able to knock down the three-ball also, being able to handle the ball to release pressure off the point guard, and then him guarding the best players, being all over the court you know, in passing lanes, blocking shots. Just, he’s a very important piece for us.

Lastly, Steven Adams.

A bruiser. Steve-O does all the dirty work for us. With holding down the paint, you know, whether it’s getting the rebound, blocked shots or on the other end finishing drop offs, put backs and just giving us extra possessions to allow us to score the ball.

SNL is approaching 1,000 episodes, and while there’s no consensus on the best episode among the 927 (as of this weekend), there is a universal agreement for the worst.

On April 20, 1991, Steven Seagal hosted (with musical guest Michael Bolton!) with a performance so “listless and riddled with mistakes,” as Rolling Stone described it, that some wondered “if he might just quit, mid-episode.” Then-SNL writer Bob Odenkirk called it a “nightmare” working with the Putin-loving actor, who cast member David Space said “didn’t want to go along with what the plan was that week… I think that was the first week that I heard talk about replacing the host and just doing a cast show.”

Seagal, whose flat delivery and inability to make himself the butt of the joke polarized everyone from Norm MacDonald (“Just not a nice guy,” Norm said about Seagal) to Tim Meadows (“He just wasn’t funny, and he was very critical of the cast and writing staff”), is now banned from returning. He’ll never wear his kimono in Studio 8H again.

Seagal’s episode quickly became infamous. SNL producer Lorne Michaels quickly removed it from rerun rotation and banned the actor from returning. But, by the start of season 18 in the fall of 1992) Michaels was at least willing to make fun of it.

Nicolas Cage was the host for SNL’s Sept. 26, 1992, episode. In one sketch, the actor lamented to Michaels that fans will probably think he’s “the biggest jerk who’s ever been on the show.” The producer’s response? “No, no. That would be Steven Seagal.”

If you’ve never seen Seagal’s episode, Podcast the Ride (one of the best podcasts around) co-host Scott Gairdner compiled the worst moments into a 60-second video. Future generations will study his pronunciation of “Michael Bolton.”

Enjoy (?).

After weeks of online murmurs that a drop was coming any day now, Marvel finally released the first Thor: Love and Thunder trailer the Monday after Easter and fans are already freaking out about a long-awaited hero revival. In the final moments of the trailer, a completely gobsmacked Thor lays eyes on a powerful woman somehow wielding his mythical hammer Mjolnir. While all of this is very confusing to the God of Thunder, especially considering his sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) shattered Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel fans know that this wicked buff hero is none other than Natalie Portman‘s Jane Foster as the Mighty Thor.

Introduced in 2014 by Thor comics writer Jason Aaron, the Mighty Thor instantly became a fan-favorite and a force to be reckoned with across the Nine Realms. Much like the film, Mighty Thor was mysteriously able to wield Mjolnir and her identity was a secret to Thor, who was no longer worthy of the magical weapon and simply calling himself Odinson now. Obviously, Thor: Love and Thunder will take some creative liberties with the character, as Marvel movies do because comics are confusing. However, that hasn’t stopped fans from going absolutely wild on social media after getting their first look at Portman as the returning Jane Foster.

You can see some of the reactions below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

The film finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor’s surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late.

Thor: Love and Thunder rocks into theaters on July 8, 2022.

“You don’t save me, I save me.” – Kim Wexler

Like many (or even most) of you, I have spent an inordinate amount of time feeling anxiety about Kim Wexler ahead of Better Call Saul‘s final season. She’s the moral center of the spinoff, obviously, but I also (strangely) take note of how she’s voluntarily a “Kim” (and as the show emphasized when she took her rather restrained wedding vows, she’s legally a Kimberly). That makes her a no-nonsense kind of gal in my mind already. Even if she actually prefers Kimberly, she’s fine with the Kim, although all Kims know that everyone will shorten your name (unlike with, say, a Patrick) no matter what. Kims get on with it. They don’t wish to quibble over unimportant details, and such is the case with Kim Wexler. Names aside, she’s one of the best damn TV characters in recent memory. She’s a complex character and impossible to 100% pin down, but she’s a reliable and steady presence. Also, there’s every likelihood that she’ll be ripped away from followers of the Breaking Bad universe.

Yes, it’s going to hurt if that happens, but the timelines are going to collide soon, and you know the drill. There’s no mention of Kim in Breaking Bad. If she’s not dead, then, where would she be — working as a silent partner or becoming the Cinnabon in-house counsel? Ehhh probably not. Alright, so there’s plenty of cause to worry, but I’m letting it go. (And I’ll save that worry for Ozark‘s Ruth.) Let’s talk this out.

“This is why this works. I go too far, and you pull me back.” – Jimmy McGill

Throughout the show, Kim’s been the perfect complement (and vice versa, although notably, they do not “complete” each other in some codependent way) to Jimmy, both professionally and personally, but they also (quite importantly) stand as separate entities, doing their own thing but also really coming together in their kinship. No matter what, though, Kim has always been underestimated, not only by those in her professional sphere, but also her mother, and eventually, by the Saul audience. Hell, even Jimmy thought that he really knew her, and then she whipped out those finger guns, which only appeared to come out of nowhere, but the Saul Goodmanification of Kim Wexler is definitely in the works. There’s still plenty to question about how her darker side will further darken, but one thing that I do feel in my bones is this: Kim Wexler would not want any of us to worry about her. She’d most likely even find the idea to be ridiculous. Remember this little gem of dialogue, back from Season 2?

This utterance arrived when Kim was working off some professional punishment (being banished to document review) that, for all practical purposes, was Jimmy’s fault. Still, she didn’t want help from him. That’s a firm line in the sand, and Kim’s never deviated. She doesn’t want anyone to save her. No one who walks three miles in the icy dark with a cello wants you to worry about her. And no one who worked herself into a car wreck and simply responds, “I know,” when Jimmy shows concern, well, you catch the drift.

What we could do (instead of worrying) is savor the last drops of this magnificent character before she disappears on us, alive or dead. After all, there’s also little debate about how — given that we already knew what Jimmy’s capable of doing before Better Call Saul began to air — Kim is essentially the Heisenberg of this prequel series. She is breaking bad, and it would be astounding to see her stay alive. The only way that I can envision Kim not dying is if she went into hiding, never to be heard of again except to make some annual phone-booth call (*cough*) from an undisclosed location.

Yes, I’m being silly with speculation as a coping method. I’m trying to get into Kim’s head to see how she, like Walt, is pouncing upon the possibility of being a friend (by marriage here) of the cartel, in order to serve what she sees as a greater good. Kim sure did quit the law-firm life in a flash after Jimmy got paid by Lalo. And Jimmy wasn’t thrilled, either, to see Kim decide to practice pro bono from here on out. It’s hard to fathom her speedy decision, and it’s easy to theorize how she has some master plan to win the whole game. It’s difficult to imagine that she didn’t have some kind of income back-up plan (because Kim is meticulous regarding every detail in life), and I’m tempted to scrutinize how (in the Season 5 finale) she begged the public defender’s office for twenty felony cases and emphasized how “I’m looking for something specific.”

Was “something specific” code for “a secret weapon for the future?” I probably sound conspiratorial at this point (go back and watch it — it is an unusually phrased request), but Kim is such an atypically wily character who plays so many cards close to her sleeve. She is almost always in control (witness that impeccably curled ponytail 95% of the time) of situations, long after what she went through with such a sh*tty, alcoholic mother who uprooted her at the drop of a hat. Even back then, choosing to walk home in freezing temperatures was rooted in a need to exert control over her environment. Oddly enough, though, she is somewhat vulnerable with Jimmy. They’re much more alike than anyone could’ve imagined, and when their foreplay turns to business talk, this actually isn’t too surprising.

That’s why I feel like Kim Wexler, even if she’s gunned down by Lalo’s goons, will never be a victim. Hell, she’s begun to (if this is the right term) get off on the idea of cons. She quite nearly fetishized the idea of taking Howard Hamlin down. And any other bride would have headed straight to annulment city if her husband had begun confessing cartel business as they’re about to do the thing. It’s amazing, the bullsh*t that she’s put up with from Jimmy, but in the end, she was more like him than he ever realized. And boy, she was angry as hell that he wasn’t thrilled about her pro-bono life after all she stood through all of his shenanigans. She had even pretended to believe that his trauma in the desert was simply down to “I had to drink my pee.”

Kim knows better. Get it together, Jimmy.

Kim is in the game now, for better or worse. Maybe it’s all “bad choice road,” as Jimmy phrased things, but she went into all of this with eyes wide open. True, Kim shouldn’t have decided to go visit a drug dealer in prison and identify herself as Saul Goodman’s wife. Arguably, she also shouldn’t have told Lalo to go pound sand. These are acts that could seal her fate. She may very well die, but she’ll go out having essentially controlled her own fate. To her, that’s winning. Don’t worry about Kim Wexler.

Again, the timelines are about to collide. Kim apparently doesn’t exist in the flagship series, and we’ve seen that Jimmy is (also apparently) later on his own as Cinnabon Gene. He’s miserable in that life, and no clues on that end have been forthcoming. Wouldn’t it be quite something, though, if Kim turned up in that timeline, and everything turned to color? Below, the season’s poster suggests something, although what exactly that something is, well, that’s anyone’s guess. We’ll soon find out.

‘Better Call Saul’s final season begins (the first half, anyway) on April 18. The second half will arrive on July 11.

Megan Thee Stallion was a definite highlight of Coachella 2022’s first weekend. She was also a notable presence for at least one Chinese censor, who had a hard time properly obscuring Meg’s performance of “WAP.”

As The Hollywood Reporter notes, users on Chinese social media and messaging app WeChat were illegally livestreaming the festival this past weekend, all while censors tried their best to obscure moments that violated, as the publication put it, “China’s increasingly moralistic censorship rules.” A video that surfaced on social media showed a WeChat censor having a particularly hard time with Meg performing “WAP.” In the clip, a small black rectangle flies around the screen trying to cover the butts of Megan and her dancers, which were mostly exposed by their revealing outfits.

Uproxx’s Aaron Williams was at Coachella and in his recap of the festival’s second day, he noted of Meg’s performance, “Another huge crowd that focused more on having fun than pushing forward was the one for Megan Thee Stallion, who preceded day two’s closer, Billie Eilish. Like 21 [Savage], her set was a briskly-paced showcase for some of her bigger hits. Unlike his, hers incorporated a wardrobe change to a mini-DJ set of some of her mixtape favorites. Her set also included a confrontational new track that seemed to take some verbal jabs at a male antagonist — something that’s sure to have fans buzzing for the next few days.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Italian band Måneskin brought more people into their already massive fan base this weekend at Coachella with a fiery performance, including some covers. During their set, leader Damiano David prefaced a song by explaining, “As you know, we really like doing covers. More than how much we love doing covers, we love Britney Spears.” The nearly-naked quartet then launched into a heavy, electrifying version of “Womanizer.”

The Eurovision winners clearly had a fun time playing this cover; they wore bondage-like outfits, including lots of fishnets, claiming that the temperature on the stage was getting hot and “Britney Spears makes us hot.”

They also covered The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” another salacious anthem that balances rock and roll with seduction, and they dedicated it to Iggy Pop who was featured on their hit “I Wanna Be Your Slave.”

After indulging in these playful performances, the band took some time to discuss the situation in Ukraine: “Are you having fun? I’m happy to hear it. But sometimes we’ve gotta understand how big our privilege is, to have the chance to just attend a gig and have fun and be careless and have nothing to think about. And none of us have to think of, (when) you wake up, how many bombs have been launched on the city.”

Watch a clip of the Spears cover above.

Rootin’ tootin Lauren Boebert couldn’t help herself on Easter. She had to stir the pot, but shockingly enough, she didn’t post a photo of her family posing with guns. That previous bit led the owner of Shooter’s Grill to act all kinds of triggered when SNL responded with a parody sketch of Boebert’s Rifle Republican ways, and cast member Chloe Fineman subsequently described Lauren’s freakout as belonging to an “actual clown.”

So, Boebert kind-of played it safe for this holiday, but she did decide to throw a grenade into Twitter before walking away. Yet she did, as is customary for her, show off that she (as with the constitution) hasn’t studied up on the source material. And of course, Boebert used this to rail against Covid lockdowns, which are, uh, completely nonexistent at this point in the U.S.

“Jesus did not comply with lockdowns,” Boebert merrily tweeted. “Happy Easter!”

Alright, so this might have been some kind of play on Jesus rising and busting out of the cave, but at the same time, Boebert attributed her own beliefs without (again) studying what she’s tweeting about. Twitter had the receipts for her (along with a “Read your Bible”) while pointing toward a plague reference and how some kind of lockdown/plague practice was a biblical thing. As one user pointed out (with a translation that varies), Leviticus 13:46 sure as heck had a process in place for plague mitigation.

From there, people piled on to point out Boebert’s inconsistencies, including how Jesus didn’t bear arms, which would probably sting if Boebert had been reading her replies. Does she do so? She’ll never tell.

And this “Jesus was about the resurrection, not the insurrection” tweet is here for wordplay.

For the past few weeks, “Thor: Love and Thunder” has trended on Twitter every morning, with thousands of Marvel, Chris Hemsworth, Taika Waititi, Natalie Portman, and Tessa Thompson fans unifying their efforts towards a single goal: a teaser trailer. Their wish was finally granted: the Love and Thunder teaser trailer is here, and it looks fantastic.

Set to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses, the teaser finds Thor retiring from his “superhero-ing days” for a life of becoming a romance novel-looking pirate, hanging with everyone’s good friend Korg, and looking into the eyes of the person that he loves (Star-Lord). There’s no Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher and only a quick shot of Jane Foster wielding Mjölnir, but Love and Thunder looks just as colorful and fun as MCU highlight Thor: Ragnarok.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

The film finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor’s surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late.

Here’s the poster.

As Nicolas Cage continues to make the promotional round for his latest film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the actor has been an open book, which has made for some pretty entertaining interviews. In his latest sitdown, Cage fielded a question about DC Comics fans hoping to finally see his live-action version of Superman come to live. Now, that the DC films are embracing the multiverse at the same time as Marvel (the two comic book companies have famously copied each other for decades) fans have concocted a theory that Cage’s Superman exists in the same universe as Michael Keaton’s Batman.

With Keaton set to return in The Flash — if that film ever sees the light of day — Cage was asked if it’s possible that his Superman could also make a cameo. The actor seemed to be very careful about his response, which he attributed to realizing how quickly these things make headlines, but there’s always the possibility that there are some NDAs involved.

“I have to be careful what I say about this stuff. What is it about comic books that [everything] just goes everywhere exponentially within split seconds?” Cage told Rolling Stone before adding later. “It certainly would be interesting. It certainly would be interesting.”

For now, the actor is still of the mind that it’s actually a good thing that his Superman film never got made. “It’s a positive in that it left the character, and what Tim and I might have gotten up to, in the realm of imagination — which is always more powerful than that is concrete.” That said, Cage also considers it a negative that no one got to see the finished product. “I think it would have been special.”

(Via Rolling Stone)

What we have on our hands here is a classic Good News, Bad News situation.

The good news is that Barry is back, finally, almost three full years after the end of season two, with enough real-world events packed between the dates to make the gap feel somehow both shorter and massively longer than it was. It’s good when good shows are back. Barry is a good show. It was good in its first two seasons and, I am pleased to report, it is still really good in its upcoming third season. Maybe even better than ever. There’s always been a balancing of dark and light at play here, which can be tricky to nail, with one building and building like a balloon filling with air until the other comes along and punctures it. It appears that the show’s solution to that is “just commit fully to both.” Bold, brave, and deeply silly. I respect it.

This, however, brings us to the bad news: No one on the show is doing too great right now. Everyone has a lot going on, much of it murder-related, all thanks to two seasons of the show and its characters trying to keep the light and dark separated to whatever degree they can as long as they can, and then… I mean, just failing pretty hard at it. Worlds are colliding now, fast and hard, with those light and dark aspects along for the ride. It’s pretty impressive, honestly. I realize as I’m typing this that what I identified as bad news is actually just more good news. This is a decent problem to have.

A refresher will help, though, probably. Again, three years and various global calamities will fuzzy things up pretty good. A season two rewatch is ideal, and doable considering it is just eight 30-ish-minutes episodes, but let’s hit the highlights, quickly:

• Barry (Bill Hader) just took out most of the Burmese and Bolivian mob in a monastery shootout during a hunt for Fuches (Stephen Root), who a) had just negotiated a truce between the gangs, and b) revealed to Gene (Henry Winkler) that Barry was responsible for the death of Detective Moss, Gene’s girlfriend
• Sally (Sarah Goldberg) just delivered a career-making performance in a play she wrote about her abusive relationship, although she altered the story at the last minute, on the stage, to make herself a hero instead of a victim, facts and truth be damned
• My beloved NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) was left as the last man standing in the mob war, thanks to Barry’s monastery massacre, which the higher-ups think Hank pulled off alone
• Barry may or may not have framed Hank for Moss’s murder

It was a lot. And it explains the thing I said earlier about no one doing too great. Because of the murders. I cannot stress this last part enough.

Season three picks up pretty much in the aftermath of season two. Barry is depressed about, well, all of it, with one mentor (Fuches) betraying him and another (Gene) about to confront him about the Moss thing. It is generally not a great sign for a character when there are pre-air promotional images of him standing alone in a desert with days of stubble on his face. This is where I would direct you to the top of the screen again. I would not describe anything in that image as an inaccurate portrayal of Barry’s headspace.

What’s interesting, though, and something I’m enjoying about the third season so far, is that the show is finally showing Barry at his worst. Even when things got weird in the first two seasons, even when he shot a woman in the head for the crime of… solving the crimes he committed, Barry was mostly trying to do right. Or at least he was trying to stop doing bad, occasionally through one or more additional bad acts. (“Riiiiiiight… now.”) Now, he’s just spiraling, flailing, breaking things without knowing how to fix them, yelling at people he loves, kidnapping people he loves, still allegedly in the name of fixing things but mostly just because he never learned how to solve problems without violence. It’s not ideal.

It’s also kind of important for the show to acknowledge, this thing where Barry isn’t a great dude, no matter how likable Bill Hader is. He has trauma, sure, and there is blame on a system that failed him and a series of bozo Svengalis who manipulated him, but Barry is a dude who kills people for money and to get himself out of trouble. None of this is going to end well for him. It can’t. It shouldn’t. This is the ride we’ve signed up for, whether we realized it at the time or not.

(That said, if anything bad happens to NoHo Hank, I will not get out of bed for a week. Yes, I know he is a monster, too, technically. I know he has ordered killings and profited off crime and the suffering of others. I’m aware I’m not being completely consistent here. I do not care. I love him very much.)

But also, and I cannot stress this enough, it’s all still very, very funny. Borderline goofy in parts. There’s a bit in the second episode involving Henry Winkler and dogs that made me full-on shout-laugh at my computer with my headphones in, to the degree someone asked if I was okay. NoHo Hank is back and teaming up with Cristobal in more ways than one and I can’t wait for you to see what he is up to. D’Arcy Carden pops up every once in a while to steal scenes so flawlessly that you could consider it a heist. The show is pulling off one of the cooler high-wire acts on television with this tone-hopping. Please do not take it for granted.

So this is where we are. For now. Barry’s past is chasing him, always, and he’s not going to be able to lose it. Most of what he’s doing is making it all worse, really. But that’s what makes Barry such a special show. You should not be able to have this much fun watching Bill Hader ruin his life and terrorize the people who try to help him. It’s a dark show, and it gets even darker in the early parts of this new season. And yet, again, the shout-laughing. It’s… cool. It’s cool. That is maybe not the most professional or articulate way to end a review of one of the best shows on television, but I stand by it. It’s cool that the show is taking chances. It’s cool that the show isn’t afraid to tell you who the characters really are. It’s cool that there’s a show on television in 2022 that stars both Henry Winkler and Stephen Root. It’s all just really, really cool. We are blessed to have this show back in our lives, even if things get a little weird.

The third season of Barry debuts on HBO on Sunday, April 24