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The USFL started up this weekend, with the 8-team league getting underway in Birmingham, where all games are being played for this season despite there being seven other cities represented in the fledgling league.

It is a spring football league, which is to say the question is whether it can gain sustained traction during a portion of the sports calendar where the NBA and NHL are starting the playoffs, the football world is focused on the NFL Draft, and the MLB regular season has just begun. That remains to be seen, but early returns weren’t great for attendance in Birmingham — not aided by playing games on Easter Sunday — and the league’s quest for some name-brand recognition on coaching staffs has created a familiar problem of uninspiring, old school football without the requisite talent to make it palatable.

Part of that old school approach was on full display in a viral video from a league produced documentary that showed Pittsburgh Maulers running back De’Veon Smith getting cut by coach Kirby Wilson for…asking a hotel employee for pizza instead of chicken salad.

Wilson claims Smith violated a rule in his 46-page handbook that calls for a zero-tolerance policy against disrespecting any coaches, teammates, or staffers at the facility or hotel, while Smith insists he wasn’t disrespectful and just responded “yes” when asked if it would be a problem if he couldn’t get some of pizza, before the interaction ended. Teams cut players for all manner of reasons, but requesting an alternative to the chicken salad being served at the team hotel and that being determined as disrespectful behavior is certainly a new one.

Smith responded to the video going viral on Twitter by reasserting that he was not being disrespectful and still can’t believe what happened.

Plenty of others from the world of football have pointed out how ridiculous this is, and while it’s getting the USFL some publicity, I’m not sure it’s the best thing for the league that this many people are mad about the treatment of Smith.

For most of the day so far, the music world was focused on looking back at the first weekend of Coachella. Everything changed this afternoon, though, when Kendrick Lamar came out of nowhere and announced that his next album is called Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and it’s set for release on May 13.

Lamar shared the news via a tweet and almost immediately after doing so, he became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter. While most of the conversation consisted of excited knee-jerk reactions to the news, some fans took a minute to observe how Lamar’s announcement bears a striking resemblance (intentionally, it appears) to an iconic Michael Jordan moment.

Lamar shared the news via a simple letter that plainly states the news of his album, with the formatting of the note seemingly modeled after the famously minimalist fax MJ sent in 1995 to confirm he was ending his retirement and returning to the NBA. Journalist Andreas Hale also observed that Lamar’s announcement comes almost exactly 27 years after Jordan’s: MJ’s note was dated March 18, 1995, while Lamar’s is from today, April 18.

Imitating the Jordan fax has actually become a bit of a trend in hip-hop lately: Migos did the same thing last May and Logic followed suit the next month.

Check out some more Lamar reactions, to both the Jordan similarities and to the album news more broadly, below.

Netflix’s can’t-look-away Victorian drama Bridgerton is known for its steamy romance plotlines and Tumblresque monologues about love and all that good stuff. For the second season, Rupert Young took over as main character Lord Featherington, whose good-guy charm was a bit deceiving. But who cares about that, the fans really wanted to know why he didn’t go shirtless.

While the show is known for its steamy shots, Young’s character was pretty tame and remained clothed for the season. “I was very happy,” the actor told Page Six. “I was slightly disappointed and also hugely relieved.” Sorry Bridgerton fans!

In fact, Young was even frustrated with the complicated buttons on his costume. Even if he wanted to, a shirtless scene would be tough. “There were certain times of the day that it was quite frustrating,” he says. “You can’t just quickly run out [for a bathroom break], it’s a big operation. I know it was easier for men but it was still very tricky.”

Young quickly assured that mag that it was worth it. “The costumes are so phenomenal, you know, we look so great in them and they’re so beautifully made that you couldn’t really complain.”

The second season of Netflix’s hit series dropped last month, with the second season shifting focus from Daphne to her brother Anthony Bridgerton as he fights for love while being the head of the family, all while keeping his clothes on…most of the time!

In light of Dr. Oz‘s Senate run in Pennsylvania, John Oliver not only went to town on the television doctor’s carpet-bagging campaign, but the Last Week Tonight host revealed that he’s been trolling Oz for years. Oliver kicked off the segment by showing Donald Trump’s recent endorsement — which is not going over well in MAGA world — and lamented having to hear the former president’s voice again.

“The first growl in that clip was like hearing the sound of a cranking lawn mower you know is about to sexually harass you,” Oliver quipped before roasting Oz for hilariously pretending to be a Pennsylvania resident. As Oliver went on to reveal, he knows Oz primarily lives in New Jersey and films in New York because they share the same studio. In fact, the Last Week Tonight offices are just across the hall, and that’s where Oliver has been waging a years-long trolling campaign by parking a statue of an alligator flipping the bird where Oz and his staff had to see it every day.

However, with Oz shutting down his show to focus on his campaign, Oliver felt bad about his staff, who he never realized had to work so hard to prevent The Dr. Oz Show from being even worse.

“He had to abandon his show to go run for Senate,” Oliver said. “And if any of his staff are coming back to our office in the coming weeks to clear their stuff out, we’ve actually left a new special message for them on our alligator: ‘I’m sorry, he seems like a f*cking nightmare.’ Because he really does.”

(Via Mediaite)

It’s all good, man, because Better Call Saul finally returns for its final season tonight! Well, the first half of the final season, at least. The midseason finale is on May 23, followed by the part two premiere on July 11. The 50-day gap between new episodes should give you enough to watch (or re-watch, or re-re-watch) Breaking Bad, which writer Peter Gould says will be forever altered by the final season of Saul.

“We’re pulling a lot of threads together — sometimes they’re threads, sometimes they’re ropes,” he told Entertainment Weekly, the “we’re” being himself and Breaking Bad creator and Better Call Saul co-creator Vince Gilligan. “This is the climax — at least for the moment — of all those episodes, 62 episodes of Breaking Bad. We have El Camino. This pulls a lot of the elements from all three projects together and weaves them, but always in the context of the story of Jimmy McGill, Kim Wexler, Mike Ehrmantrout.”

Gould added:

“I don’t think you’re going to look at Breaking Bad the same way again after you’ve seen this whole season.”

I knew it: Skinny Pete was Kim Wexler in a Scooby Doo-style mask all along.

Gould also teased that viewers should pay attention to facial hair in the final season. “Keep your eye on the mustaches,” he said. Way ahead of you.

For our predictions on who will live and die on Saul, click here.

(Via EW)

Rising indie stars Muna announced an eponymous new album last month and unveiled the anthemic lead single “Anything But Me,” which was almost as immediately catchy as their hit “Silk Chiffon.” Today, they’ve made their daytime television debut by bringing that new jaunty song to Ellen in a lively performance with a lot of synchronized swaying and stepping. The sass jumps out with the clever first line: “You’re gonna say that I’m on a high horse / I think that my horse is regular-sized.”

The trio said that their new album watches them explore an array of sounds and genres. “The sound of this record explodes in a ton of different directions,” Gravin said.

They also divulged that fellow indie star Mitski, who just recently released the massive Laurel Hell, helped out by joining their writing sessions. That only adds to their impressive group of supporters, which also included Phoebe Bridgers, who signed them onto her label imprint Saddest Factory Records.

“We look forward to this lifelong partnership and Phoebe raising our first born children, as was included in the contract,” the band joked in their statement about signing to Saddest Factory.

Watch the fantastic performance of “Anything But Me” above.

DeMarcus Cousins was once one of the league’s best big men, a dynamic offensive force who has since had to adapt his game to the realities of life after injuries.

Cousins now finds himself in Denver, reunited with coach Michael Malone and backing up the league’s reigning MVP in Nikola Jokic, and while he insists there’s nothing good for him in wallowing in pity over how his career was derailed by an Achilles injury (and later a quad injury), he does have plenty of thoughts on the place his NBA career started. Cousins was the fifth overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft out of Kentucky, joining a Sacramento Kings team desperate for a franchise centerpiece.

Over seven years in Sacramento, Cousins piled up stats, averaging 21.1 points and 10.8 rebounds per game in his Kings tenure, but their playoff drought persisted and the constant turmoil within the Kings organization wore on the star. In an interview with Marc Spears of Andscape, Cousins was asked about the one thing he’d change in his career if he could go back and do it differently. His answer was matter of fact.

I would’ve skipped my draft workout [in Sacramento].

Why is that?

What did Sac do for me? Besides say my name [draft day]. I did more for them than they did for me. That’s just being honest. Just being 100% honest. I had two owners, three GMs, seven coaches in seven years. I was there seven years. I had three GMs, two owners and seven coaches. Not much more needs to be said.

It’s hard to fault Cousins for wondering what could’ve been had he gone somewhere with some stability and an existing organizational culture, rather than a place that saw constant turnover during his time. How the organization treated Malone in particular soured him on the Kings, and he believes had they kept Malone in place (who has proven his coaching chops in Denver) he would still be there and the Kings would be on a much different trajectory.

Absolutely. We would’ve been winning. We would’ve won. Probably would have finished my career there along with Mike. Simple as that. I don’t reflect on it much anymore. I’ve kind of bounced around and been through so much other things, it’s hard to even harp on that situation. Sitting there focusing on that, I probably wouldn’t be where I’m at now. I had to put a lot of time and focus on just righting my wrongs, correcting my body, trying to get back in shape and all the other rehab. It was just so much other things. It’s hard to even focus on Sacramento, and for what? They sucked before I got there. They sucked when I was there. They sucked after I left.

Given how Malone has made the Nuggets into a perennial contender, it’s hard to fault Cousins or any Kings fans from still being upset with his firing. That doesn’t necessarily account for the fact that a coach needs a good roster and the Kings have not exactly proven they can put one of those together, but it’s hard not to wonder what could’ve been had they given Malone more than a year-plus with Cousins and company.

This past weekend was a long time coming for 100 Gecs: The experimental duo was originally slated to perform at the canceled 2020 Coachella festival, and now, they finally performed at the 2022 fest. That said, their Saturday set ended on a deflating note: In the middle of performing “Money Machine,” their most popular song, festival personnel started removing the band’s equipment from the stage before their sound was cut off completely. After that happened, the duo was seen trying to say something to the crowd, a message that wasn’t audible (at least not on the official Coachella livestream) given that their microphones had been turned off.

Neither Coachella nor 100 Gecs have offered an explanation about what happened. Fans have noted on social media, however, that 100 Gecs’ set started 20 minutes late due to artists performing before them running long with their own sets. 100 Gecs’ set was preceded by performances from Emo Nite and JID.

Speaking of Gecs fans, they were not pleased with how the performance ended. One Twitter summed up the situation well: “so you mean to tell me 100 gecs got invited to coachella 2020, which got cancelled due to covid, then were part of coachella 2022, just to have their set cut short and equipment taken off stage during money machine, their most popular song? i feel so bad for them.”

Check out some more reactions below.

Is Kim Wexler okay? The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul premieres on Monday, April 18 on AMC, considering the brutal final season of Breaking Bad, the final season of Better Call Saul is sure to come with deadly surprises. Or not? Maybe it will be nice and peaceful and everyone will walk hand in hand into the Albuquerque sunset and a title card will reveal that Breaking Bad was all a dream.

The fate of many characters on Better Call Saul has always been in question, considering these characters do not appear on Breaking Bad. What we do know leading up to the final season of Better Call Saul is that Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston will reprise their roles as Jesse Pinkman and Walter White. Gustavo Fring will survive because (spoiler alert) his face gets blown off by Hector Salamanca with the help of Walter White on Breaking Bad. While Mike Ehrmantraut lasts longer than Gus, he’ll also die at the hands of Walter White.

It’s been a long, painful two-year wait, but now that it’s here, I’m kind of mad that the adventures of Slippin’ Jimmy and Kim Wexler, the kinkiest couple on television, are almost over. Here is a guide to who will live and who will die on Better Call Saul season six.

Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman/Gene Takavic

Survival rate: It’s not all good, man

Jimmy McGill will die metaphorically speaking as he gets more absorbed in his criminal lawyer persona Saul Goodman. Saul Goodman’s impact on Jimmy’s personal life is the fate we’re most interested in watching unfold, considering it’s the entire premise of the show. After all these years of seeing Gene, the Omaha shopping mall Cinnabon manager who is paranoid about getting caught, chances are the end of the series won’t be smooth sailing for him. A fairy tale ending for Jimmy and Kim would be personally satisfying to me, but for Jimmy/Saul/Gene survival is not looking good, as Saul Goodman’s past could come to haunt Gene with characters from his past coming to get him. Or, alternatively, the law could find him and lock him up for his many, many crimes. And as a lowly Cinnabon manager on the run, he’s more powerless than ever.

Kim Wexler

Survival rate: Calm but cautious

Kim Wexler’s unknown fate is one of the most compelling mysteries Better Call Saul has always taken advantage of quite cruelly. Kim Wexler is a no-nonsense lawyer but is lured into nonsense when she’s with Jimmy McGill, her bestie, his on-and-off-again girlfriend, literal partner in crime, and eventual wife. While her complete absence from Breaking Bad doesn’t bode well for Kim, if she was going to die, she’d probably be dead already. In season five, the writers treated the audience cruelly by putting Kim face to face with dangerous people like Lalo Salamanca, but she proved she can handle it just as smoothly – perhaps even more smoothly – than her husband. The best argument for Kim’s death in Better Call Saul is her absence from Breaking Bad. The best argument for her survival is that Saul Goodman’s personal life is barely seen on Breaking Bad, so he could be married to Kim and thus, at the end of Breaking Bad, has to abandon her to start over. Personally, my toxic hope for Kim is that we discover she was married to Saul throughout the entire run of Breaking Bad, and that they have some sort of reunion in the future at Cinnabon.

Ignacio “Nacho” Varga

Survival rate: Screaming, crying, throwing up

Oh, sweet, sweet Nacho. There is little hope for the cunning right-hand man to cartel crime lords in the Salamanca family. Everything is always working against Nacho: he longs for a peaceful life free of crime, but just when he gets close to getting out, he’s pulled back in (very Italian of him!). Nacho has been in a vulnerable position for a while as a mole within the Salamanca family on behalf of Gustavo Fring. Nacho left season five in a precarious position: escaping Lalo’s house, where he had let assassins in to kill him. There’s a slim chance Nacho survives the season, let alone makes it back to Albuquerque. I am personally rooting for Nacho to grab the fake IDs in his safe so he and his father can live a peaceful life together far, far, away from all this. Nacho is mentioned on Breaking Bad in passing by Saul in his first episode, but it’s possible Saul is unaware of Nacho’s fate. Unfortunately, Nacho’s survival is about as likely as me marrying Oscar Isaac.

Lalo Salamanca

Survival rate: Looking good

Even in death, Lalo Salamanca – and Tony Dalton’s extraordinary performance – will live in our hearts and minds forever. At this point, things are coming up Lalo, so his fate seems pretty secure: he just escaped an assassination attempt and like Nacho, Lalo is mentioned by Saul on Breaking Bad, who is relieved when he finds out that Walter and Jesse aren’t working for Lalo. This line suggests that Lalo is alive, and it’s unlikely that the writers would rewrite their own history. The biggest question with Lalo is the biggest question with Kim Wexler: why is this character completely absent from Breaking Bad?

Howard Hamlin

Survival rate: 50/50

Howard Hamlin will most likely sail through the final season smoothly, but he could be a goner as a result of collateral damage or getting embroiled in something he doesn’t understand, such as Jimmy’s involvement with the cartel. Howard has always been an antagonist to Jimmy throughout the series, but a death — especially if it’s an indirect result of Jimmy’s involvement with the cartel and the Salamancas — could be the ultimate, unexpected gut punch.

Manuel Varga

Survival rate: Not looking good!

Hate to do this to you, hate to have this thought, but Nacho is not safe. If Nacho is not safe, neither is anyone close to him, including his innocent father Manuel who just wants to run his upholstery store in peace after being terrorized by the likes of Hector and Lalo Salamanca for years.

Following the release of the first Thor: Love and Thunder trailer, Marvel fans have one big question on their minds: Will Tom Hiddleston return as Loki in the film? Thanks to the time traveling events of Avengers: Endgame, and Loki’s own multiverse adventures in his ongoing Disney+ series, the answer to that question is… messy, but we’ll break it down for you.

Love and Thunder takes place after the events of Endgame, which saw the Avengers bring back everyone Thanos snapped out of existence in Avengers: Infinity War. However, that did not include Loki, who was killed by Thanos in the opening scene of Infinity War. So, as far as the MCU timeline is concerned, Loki is dead going into Love and Thunder. That would make the chance of him appearing in the fourth film pretty low, and Hiddleston said in an interview that the first three Thor movies have already explored all that needs to be explored about Loki and Thor’s brotherhood.

That said, these are comic book characters, so here’s where things go bananas.

Before Spider-Man: No Way Home brought the Marvel multiverse to the big screen, the Loki series on Disney+ was already toying with alternate realities by plucking Loki from his timeline and setting him on a reality-bending quest. Loki catches up with the Trickster God after he uses the Cosmic Cube to escape shortly after losing the Battle of New York in the first The Avengers film. Instead of going on to die at the hands of Thanos, this Loki joins the Time Variance Authority where he eventually bears witness to the multiverse breaking loose thanks to a female Loki variant named Sylvie seeking revenge. Long story short, time and space is completely borked now, which leaves things wide open for some version of Loki to appear in Love and Thunder.

Speaking of…

Matt Damon has confirmed that he will, once again, be playing a version of Loki in Love and Thunder. The actor previously appeared in a brief cameo for Thor: Ragnarok where he played Loki in an Asgardian play heralding the Trickster God’s “death” in Thor: The Dark World. Presumably, Damon will be reprising his Asgardian actor role, but with the reality hijinks going down in the Loki series, anything is possible.

As for Tom Hiddleston coming back, Marvel is obviously going to play that one close to their chests until the very last minute, but we would not be surprised to see him pop up either in the film or an end-credits scene where the sky is the limit. Don’t quote us on that because Marvel is all about defying expectations, but we’re feeling pretty good about Hiddleston having at least some sort of cameo.

Thor: Love and Thunder opens in theaters on July 8, 2022.