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Jimmy Kimmel returned to TV screens last night, after being on vacation since the end of June. A lot of strange stories have popped up over the summer—including some people floating a few conspiracy theories about Kimmel’s already-announced summer vacation, including that he had COVID and/or was dead. Alas, Kimmel confirmed that he is alive and well… though he can’t say the same for the rest of the world. “I leave you people alone for two months, you start taking horse worm medicine?,” Kimmel asked his viewers.

When the conversation turned to COVID, Kimmel brought up the ivermectin craze yet again:

“It was not a fun Labor Day weekend, COVID-wise. The number of new cases is up more than 300 percent from a year ago. Dr. Fauci said that if hospitals get any more overcrowded, they’re going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn’t seem so tough to me: Vaccinated person have a heart attack? Yes, come right in, we’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy.

We’ve still got a lot of pandimwits out there. People are still taking this ivermectin. The poison control centers have seen this spike in calls from people taking this livestock medicine to fight the coronavirus, but they won’t take the vaccine, which is crazy. It’s like if you’re a vegan and you’re just like, ‘No, I don’t want a hamburger. Give me that can of Alpo instead.’

One of the reason these Seabiscuits are opting for ivermectin is because they don’t trust big pharma, which is fine I guess. Except for the fact that ivermectin is make by Merck, which is the fourth largest pharmaceutical company in the world. And even Merck is telling people to cut it out. They released a statement saying ivermectin has ‘no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID; there’s no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease; and there’s a concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.’ Listen, if a pharmaceutical company says, ‘Please don’t take the drug we’re selling,’ you should probably listen to them. Or you could just go with a TikTok posted by a disgraced veterinarian instead.”

You can watch the full clip beginning around the 3:00 mark.

The pop culture masses held their collective breaths back in July on the news that Better Call Saul star (and sketch comedy icon, and freshly minted action star, and I Think You Should Leave cameo assassin) Bob Odenkirk had suffered a small heart attack on set. But now, just five weeks later, he’s back, ready to wrap up the home stretch for everyone’s favorite future Cinnabon employee.

While there had been confirmation (via Den Of Geek) that production had continued during Odenkirk’s recovery (with filming on scenes that didn’t require his presence), it was an open question as to how long he’d be out. The phrase “serious as a heart attack” exists for a reason and any kind of cardiac rehab can be timely and arduous. So it’s a great sign that Odenkirk is tweeting out his return with a little self-depreciation thrown into the mix as he compliments show makeup artist Cheri Montesanto for making him “not ugly” before shooting.

The return to Saul isn’t exactly Odenkirk’s first assignment post-episode, though. If you want to call fielding a phone call from Paul F. Tompkins during an episode of The George Lucas Talk Show “work.” He’s also been tweeting out appreciation (in response to the outpouring of love and concern) while signal boosting up and coming comics, his son Nate, and his Mr. Show partner David Cross, who is apparently saving some potato salad for him (is this code!? Let’s get conspiratorial in the comments). By the way, Tweeting is work.

Stay tuned for more updates on the progress of season 6, including a release date, a trailer, and the inevitable Jonathan Banks/Mike scowl NFT collection.

Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade filled in for Tucker Carlson on the COVID beat, and wow, he really went all in with Clay Travis. The segment certainly wasn’t (and this is saying something) too out of the norm for Tucker’s audience (who’s accustomed to his COVID cartoon villainy). Yet to celebrate, Kilmeade hosted Fox Sports commentator Clay Travis to talk about how they both think it’s a great idea to pack football stands during the height (yep, humanity is in this spot again) of a pandemic.

“They never want us to have a normal life,” Kilmeade groused while thinking about those CNN commentators who’ve been declaring that this is a bad idea. Travis had a “solution” for him: “This is how we win! How does covid ever end? My answer is, when people decide to let covid in and live their lives.” He continued:

“There are so many people out there for the last 18 months, they have been asking a question I think is the paramount one: how does COVID ever end? And my answer is when people decide to let COVID end and live their lives. That’s why all over the country I was so ecstatic to see millions of fans finally saying ‘it’s been 18 months. It’s time to take our lives back.’”

So… pandemic over, just because that’s what Clay Travis said? Kilmeade seems to be on board with the idea. And on Wednesday morning, Kilmeade (in the below clip) had slightly less energy while the Fox and Friends gang spoke with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is also a fan of putting lots of people in football stadiums again. To that notion, Kilmeade chimed in, “I don’t want to stay in my closet for the next 20 years.”

Naturally, Jordan replied, “No one does. We want to be Americans and exercise our freedom like we’re supposed to.” Yep, that’s a demographic.

There aren’t many American cities situated as far north as Duluth. Located at the base of the state’s armpit right where Minnesota extends beyond Wisconsin, Duluth sits at the top center of the country, like a star on a Christmas tee. When you visit there, it’s as if you can see from a distant remove the entire vastness of all that lies below. Like the town’s most famous band, the indie-rock institution, Low, Duluth is beautiful and cold, and also resilient. But it’s the feeling of separateness that defines the place. When you’re there, you don’t feel like you’re here.

First emerging in the early ’90s, Low still feels like a band apart. They started out playing crushingly slow and eerily quiet music that was all drone-y ambiance and pregnant pauses. It didn’t sound at all like contemporary rock music, which at the time meant grunge; it was more like a comment on contemporary rock music, a photo negative of the heavy riffs and bellowing melodrama that was in vogue at the time. This was a natural byproduct of the band’s core partnership between Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, a Mormon couple who eventually settled into a typical married Minnesota family life with two kids as they carried on an unlikely indie music career. Their brand was making records that inevitably led listeners inward, with languid grooves and spider-leg guitars leaving enough space to fill in with one’s own thoughts, fears, and existential dread.

As Low progressed into the 21st century, they kept writing quiet songs, but now they played them louder. Robert Plant became a fan and covered two of their songs. A Christmas EP of reverent religious tunes went on to be an enduring seasonal hit. They never found fame or riches, but they were respected and appreciated enough to carve out an admirable career. By the early 2010s, they were known as the kind of band who always makes good albums, an exceptional but numbing consistency that typically sets the stage for the “respectable and slightly dull” era of a legacy band’s existence.

Then, something incredible happened: Low radically reinvented themselves. With 2015’s Ones And Sixes, they commenced a relationship with producer B.J. Burton, who at the time was also in the process of assembling Bon Iver’s shape-shifting third album, 22, A Million. A long-time Low fan, Burton “had this vision of pushing them to make the most beautiful, distorted, post-apocalyptic record,” he later said, “the sort of thing you’d find 2,000 years ago if you dug the earth up.” But Ones And Sixes wasn’t all that different from Low’s previous albums.

On the next Low record, 2018’s Double Negative, the band finally fulfilled their producer’s ambitions. They brought him songs, and Burton then proceeded to digitally deface them, processing the sound of Low’s guitars and vocals the way a washing machine might “produce” a cassette tape mistakenly left in a jacket pocket. The final results sound like the afterbirth of another album that was destroyed in a fire, a haunting echo from an already dead source. These jagged and scrambled sounds exhilarated Sparhawk and Parker. Just as their early records deconstructed rock music, they were now discombobulating technology. “Maybe it’s revenge,” Sparhawk said in a recent interview. “I want to see technology break as much as it has broken me.”

The new Low album out Friday, HEY WHAT, completes a trilogy of Burton-assisted records. It’s also the strongest of the lot, an instant classic that culminates and sharpens their previous experiments for an overwhelming emotional experience. Like fellow upper midwestern legacy rock acts Bon Iver and Wilco, Low have mastered a unique form of “psych” music — as in “psychedelic” and also evoking extreme “psychic tension” — that balances an earthy musical approach with intense digital perversion. It might very well be the best album of a long and storied career.

The initial feeling that HEY WHAT prompts is disorientation. As was the case with Double Negative, it’s difficult to discern what exactly you’re hearing at any given moment. Is that a strangled synth noise gurgling the hook on the astonishing “All Night”? Could that really be a guitar playing an ersatz Black Sabbath riff on the thrillingly abrasive “More,” or is it actually the sound of an android being tortured in a secret S&M dungeon? HEY WHAT is a sonic assault, and yet Low once again achieves so much with relatively few sounds. This is essentially a voice and guitar record, so every added element carries extra weight. When a drum beat expectedly enters midway through the album’s closer, “The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off),” it hits like “When The Levee Breaks.”

What separates HEY WHAT from its predecessor is the prominence of Sparhawk and Parker’s vocals. On Double Negative, the voices are frequently buried amid the glitchy detritus. But on HEY WHAT, Low’s power couple sing out loud and proud with more or less total clarity, often contrasting with the absolutely hellacious soundscapes that surround them. Like on “Days Like These,” in which they sing as they would in church, before distorted guitars violently crash in and torch the pews, leading to an extended, oddly peaceful ambient coda. Or the chilling “I Can’t Wait,” in which they plead “I’m afraid” several times over what sounds like a bloodless computer beeping out binary code after a nuclear blast.

Whereas Double Negative unfolded as a mood piece, expressing the shocked trauma of the Trump years in purely musical terms, HEY WHAT is more dynamic, juxtaposing calm and hysteria throughout. The former comes entirely from Sparhawk and Parker, who sing about their marriage most explicitly on the almost unbearably tender “Don’t Walk Away,” an old-fashioned, ’50s-style ballad in which they jointly croon lines like, “I have slept beside you now for what seems like a million years.” But the whole album feels like a celebration of how having a longtime partner can make living in a confusing, terrifying world a little less confusing and terrifying.

Perhaps that’s why HEY WHAT, in spite of a musical palate that ensures the word “apocalyptic” will appear in every album review, ultimately feels redemptive, and even romantic. Low’s ability to re-think their approach and achieve a genuine artistic breakthrough that caps an already great discography is certainly inspiring; how many bands this good made their greatest LP 27 years after their debut? But — I know this is a mawkish phrase but screw it — it’s the power of love shared between Sparhawk and Parker that resonates most profoundly. Together, they sound strong and indefatigable on HEY WHAT, even as demons descend.

It’s been a few years since FKA Twigs’ latest album, 2019’s Magdalene, but now it appears a new project is on the way.

Speaking with fans on Discord (as noted by a user in the r/popheads subreddit), she noted that her next project is a mixtape. When asked when she expects to release it, Twigs said, “currently thinking about a capri season take over.” Assuming she means “Capricorn season” (as in the zodiac sign), as Reddit commenters speculate, then the project could come out between December 22, 2021 and January 19, 2022, or at some point around that time.

Of the nature of the project, she noted, “it’s really deep emotional and honest but hopefully more golden tears than blue i channelled my melancholy differently this time and it was so amazing. […] i made my next project thinking about all of u and my friends it’s for getting ready and going out to and being with people who make u feel good, turnt litty bronzer in the sink shimmer on the bathroom floor.”

She also revealed some of the people she’s been working with, including Koreless, El Guincho, Cirkut, Mike Dean, Arca, and “lots beautiful others to be revealed soon and some stun and special collabs.”

Back in October 2020, Twigs noted that she made an entire album during quarantine and worked on it extensively with El Guincho, so perhaps that project and this upcoming mixtape are one in the same.

After being on vacation for the past few weeks, Stephen Colbert returned to The Late Show on Tuesday night where he promptly went to town on the latest right-wing fad dominating social media: Ivermectin. The horse drug’s manufacturer, Merck, and medical experts have been clear that the drug does not “cure” or treat COVID-19.

So if doctors aren’t prescribing ivermectin, where are right wingers and Joe Rogan devotees getting it? The livestock store. No, really. Folks have been buying up ivermectin horse paste, and Colbert immediately tackled the subject with a Mister Ed parody called “Doctor Ed.” In the short cold open, Doctor Ed walks into the middle of a surgery being performed and recommends ivermectin for everything. Except a broken leg, where he recommends a shotgun.

More bitingly, the parody video ends with a twist on the Mister Ed theme song: “A horse is a horse, of course, of course/don’t trust it as a medical source/that is of course unless the horse/is the famous Doctor Ed.”

Following the Mister Ed parody, Colbert kept the jabs coming as he mocked people complaining about the taste of the horse drug. “Ivermectin is ineffective against COVID, and when used incorrectly, it can kill you. Worst of all, it tastes yucky,” Colbert quipped. Via HuffPost:

“The terrible taste led one Facebook user to ask, ‘Can I squeeze the paste into my anus instead of my mouth?’” Colbert noted, then answered the question: “Last time I checked, this was America. You bet you can!”

In fact, he added, “It says right on the label: for a horse’s ass.”

Not to beat a dead horse here, but for the record, don’t ingest livestock medicine. It’s not safe, Willllburrr.

After Britney Spears spoke about her conservatorship in court this summer, many of her peers in music came forward with messages of support. That group includes Iggy Azalea, who collaborated with Spears on their 2015 single “Pretty Girls” and performed with her at at 2015 Billboard Music Awards. Now, in a new Instagram post, Spears reminisces about that performance and thanks Azalea for her support.

Sharing photos from the show, Spears wrote, “Me and Iggy on stage!!! It was so much fun working with such a strong, badass woman like her …. I haven’t met her new baby but if she’s reading this God bless you and thank you for all your kind words!!!! Pssss although the name of the song is Pretty Girls I think the concept is more like revenge of the NERDS !!!!”

In the comments, Azalea responded, “I absolutely adore you more than words (and I still have the barbies you gave me). Loving you always you brilliant, too-genius-for this-world-to-understand, kind hearted, gracious & beautifully ethereal being. We are definitely two big ole goofballs in the best way possible.”

Meanwhile, there has been a positive development on the #FreeBritney front: Spears’ father Jamie recently filed a petition to bring the years-long conservatorship to an end.

After a two-week vacation, Stephen Colbert returned to The Late Show stage on Tuesday night. And while much has happened in his absence—“there was continuing plague, war, floods, fires,” according to the host—there was really only one thing on viewers’ minds: What was that fuzzy white thing perched dangerously close to Colbert’s upper lip? Turns out, Colbert grew a mustache… or at least what he claims to be a mustache. He knew his viewers had a lot of questions, and took a proactive move in answering them:

“I’m sure you all have a lot of questions, like: Why? And: Really? And: Really, why? Well, it’s kind of a complicated story. I went on a vacation, and I didn’t shave. And then I shave this part of down here. Now, the reverse Abe Lincoln here has not gone over well with some—or so far, any. For example, my executive producer Chris, who is almost angry at my face right now.”

When Colbert asked Chris whether his fear was that the new facial hair was going to lose them viewers, his response was a confident: “Undoubtedly.”

Meanwhile, Twitter was indeed talking about Colbert’s new facial accouterment—and there were a variety of opinions, none of them a straight-up positive review. Some people just told it like it is: “Colbert’s mustache looks like he ate a powdered doughnut.”

Others simply begged the host to shave. Now: “Here to say I despise Stephen Colbert’s mustache. Well, ALL mustaches, really.”

While one person was truly angry: “Stephen Colbert with a mustache should be illegal and it makes me irrationally angry!! And I simply want to scream and throw a tantrum over this because there is already too much instability in my life rn!! And I just have so many questions. But the most important one is WHY??!!”

Others used memes to express their indifference:

One person, in what might have been a compliment, likened him to a broadcasting icon: “Stephen Colbert looks like Walter Cronkite with his mustache.”

But not all the comments were negative: “Do I only like Stephen Colbert’s mustache because I’m gay?”

Something tells us Colbert’s ‘stache will be a short-lived experiment—especially if his executive producer has anything to say about it.

You’re probably well aware by now that Texas enacted an oppressive new abortion law that not outlaws the (medical) practice at six weeks, and that’s not all. The law also allows any private citizen to sue someone (including doctors or anyone who even gives a patient a ride to a clinic) who assists a woman in getting an abortion. It’s scary stuff and a law that will disproportionally affect those women without the financial resources to head elsewhere to secure an abortion. And if one looks at the room full of white dudes who were present when Gov. Greg Abbott signed this thing into law, hoo boy.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who has revealed herself to be a sexual assault survivor) saw straight through the bullsh*t of Abbott announcing that he planned to quickly round up all the rapists in the state of Texas, as well as his claim that six weeks is plenty of time for a woman to secure an abortion. During a discussion with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, AOC had no patience for Abbott’s clear misunderstanding of how the female anatomy works: “He speaks from such a place of deep ignorance, and it’s not just ignorance. It’s ignorance that’s hurting people.” That was only the beginning.

“I don’t know if he is familiar with a menstruating person’s body,” AOC said while laying the truth bare. “In fact, I do know that he’s not familiar with a female or menstruating person’s body because if he did he would know that you don’t have six weeks… In case no one has informed him before in his life, six weeks pregnant means two weeks late for your period.”

And it’s not even as simple the sheer math of the situation. AOC added that it’s quite normal, actually, for a period to run a few weeks late, which “can happen if you’re stressed, if your diet changes, or for really no reason at all.” So it is definitely not uncommon for a woman to not realize that she’s already six weeks pregnant. Not only that, but one actually cannot get an abortion until at least five weeks of pregnancy, so that only really gives a woman a week to get an abortion, and that’s if she immediately realizes that her late period is due to pregnancy.

AOC wasn’t done yet. She had some harsh truth to deliver about Abbott’s claims that he’ll handily round up rapists. “These aren’t just predators that are walking around the streets at night.” Rather, AOC pointed out that these are often relatives, family friends, teachers, and so on. “And when something like that happens it takes a very long time first of all for any victim to come forward,” let alone before six weeks into a pregnancy.

This Twitter reply to the CNN clip really says it all when it comes to Texas’ love of gun rights and absence of women’s rights.

Credit transcendent guests, luck, or underlying chemistry between guest and host, but sometimes late-night interviews can move from being inoffensive content to being a lot of fun and a great example of the form. This is exactly what happened on the latest Late Night with Seth Meyers when John Mulaney stopped by (for the first time since November 2020) to share the intimate details of his most eventful year. Really, it’s quite remarkable. Look down. See all these remarks?

I’m sure you know this, but for context’s sake: Meyers and Mulaney are long-time friends and colleagues, working together as writers on Saturday Night Live. Mulaney also had a brief stint writing for Meyers’ late-night show prior to going into rehab last year for substance abuse.

As the internet’s comedy boyfriend, the ups and downs of Mulaney’s life have drawn a lot of focus over the last 10 months. Well wishes and high anxiety over his struggles colored the moment when it was announced that he was going to rehab — a rare example of unified human empathy. But then we found out that he was getting divorced and rumors popped up — first that he was dating Olivia Munn and then that they were having a kid together — causing the internet to lose its sh*t because that’s not the narrative we picked out for him and his dog, Petunia.

Mulaney was all smiles on Late Night las… early this morning (I know days end at midnight but doesn’t it feel like it should be conversationally 5AM?), lavishing praise for Munn’s ability to weather his post-rehab self before confirming that he’s about to be a dad. Which is great. Mazel Tov! But that’s not the big takeaway from his appearance on Late Night.

No one owes anyone access into the sh*ttiest moments of their life, but it’s nevertheless interesting to see Mulaney casually converse on the timeline of his relapse and the apparently star-studded intervention that helped spur him to get help. He and Meyers are funny throughout — this isn’t a “very special episode” of Late Night — but the interview’s also unyielding in talking about the jeopardy Mulaney was in. And while it primarily stands as an example of A) the bond and trust between Mulaney and Meyers and B) Mulaney’s intent to keep diving into this part of his life as he gets out on the road as a part of a stand-up tour, it also incidentally helps to destigmatize conversations about falling down and reaching out for help. Which is a nice thing. Way to go, Kid Gorgeous.