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The Alien franchise, but particularly the first two films, Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens, are about a lot of things: sex; gender; the danger of bringing a cat to space. But to Noah Hawley, it’s largely about capitalism.

The Fargo creator is working on an Alien show for FX that won’t feature Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, but will tell “a story about inequality,” as he explained to Vanity Fair. “You know, one of the things that I love about the first movie is how ’70s a movie it is, and how it’s really this blue collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically Waiting for Godot. They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation. The second movie is such an ’80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work.” Hawley continued:

In mine, you’re also going to see the people who are sending them. So you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved. If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us? There’s that great Sigourney Weaver line to Paul Reiser where she says, “I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t fuck each other over for a percentage.”

The Alien films, like 95 percent of science fiction, is heavily political, but this is apparently news to Dave Rubin. After Hawley’s interview was published, the host of The Rubin Report, “the largest talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube,” tweeted, “I’ve been saying for years that Wokeism is a parasite that fully infects the host and then eventually bursts forth like in the movie Alien. The circle is now complete…”

In space, no one can hear you scream. But on Twitter, everyone can make fun of your bad take.

At least RoboCop is about a cop who is also a robot, and NOTHING MORE.

The Lynchburg Lemonade is inextricably tied to Jack Daniel’s. It’s their official cocktail, even though it was invented in Florida by a bartender who was looking for something new and refreshing to serve his clientele back in 1980. History aside, this drink is made for hot and humid days that only an ice-cold boozy lemonade can cure.

We’re adhering to the official Jack Daniel’s recipe for this one. The gist of this cocktail is in the highball arena — it hems very close to drinks like a Tom Collins. The base is a mix of Jack Daniel’s, triple sec, and sour mix. That’s topped up with a lemon-lime soda (Sprite or 7-Up) and… that’s about it. It’s very easy to make over and over again, or in batches for a 4th of July bruhaha.

Since this is a build-in-the-glass mixer, we don’t really need any more preamble. Let’s get mixing!

Lynchburg Lemonade

Ingredients:

• 1-oz. Gentleman Jack
• 1-oz. triple sec
• 1-oz. sour mix*
• 4-oz. Sprite or 7-Up
• Ice
• Lemon wedge

For this recipe, I’m using Gentleman Jack. That’s mostly because I have that open at the moment. It’s also a perfectly fine version of the Tennessee whiskey with a creamy texture that sort of converts the lemon into a lemon cream pie in the finished drink.

The rest is pretty straightforward. I’m using Sprite, again, simply because that’s what I have around.

Lastly, if you want to make this in batches, the recipe is 1:1:1 mix. Add one cup of the Jack, triple sec, and sour mix to a pitcher over ice and top with Sprite or 7-Up. Chop up some lemon wedges and drop them in. Give it a good stir. Done.

*SOUR MIX: Add 1/2 cup simple syrup, 1/2 cup fresh and strained lemon juice (three to four lemons), and 1/4 cup fresh and strained lime juice (two to three limes) to a jar or bottle with a lid. Affix the lid and shake vigorously until fully emulsified (no more than ten seconds). It’s ready!

What You’ll Need:

• Highball glass or jar mug
• Jigger
• Paring knife
• Cutting board
• Straw

Method:

• Prechill your glass overnight.
• Fill the glass with ice.
• Add the whiskey, triple sec, and sour mix to the glass. Stir with the straw.
• Top up with the 7-Up or Sprite and stir again.
• Cut a lemon wedge and garnish the glass.
• Serve.

Bottom Line:

Thinks takes me right back to Tennessee in the summer. It’s basically creamy lemon candy with a very slight echo of woody and vanilla-forward whiskey lurking in the background.

On a hot day, this is so crushable. It’s hard not to just down the first and make a secon within five minutes. It sounds like it’s thin or light but there is heft to drink. That creamy lemon pie, almost lemon meringue, comes through and helps this feel like more than a simple whiskey and soda.

That being said, these are on the sweeter side of the highball spectrum. Luckily, there’s enough orange, lemon, and lime citrus there to balance all that sweetness out.

While discussing the “very sad goss” that Meghan McCain is leaving The View at the end of July, the eponymous hosts of Desus & Mero offered up some suggestions for McCain’s next career move, and they’re definitely playing with fire one of them. As the two warmed up, Desus floated the idea that McCain “should get a cop show” or stick to her talk show roots with “a court show in the middle of the day, that could work.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a segment on McCain if the hosts didn’t mention her wild hairstyles that have been a staple on The View ever since she returned from maternity leave, and that’s when Desus trotted out his admittedly “controversial” idea for McCain’s next project. “She should host a show where she judges Black hairstyles,” Desus joked. “BET, I know you’re thinking about it!”

But the hair jokes didn’t stop there. The two hosts then dared McCain to show up during her final episode wearing Bantu knots:

DESUS: Has she come out with Bantu knots yet? For her last episode she has to. She’s really gonna rock the boat and be like, “And what?”

MERO: Whoopi’s going to be like, “girl.” And [Meghan’s] like, “You can’t cancel me. You know why you can’t cancel me? ‘Cause my father was John McCain!”

Despite vowing back in January that she’s “not going anywhere,” McCain announced that she’s leaving The View on Thursday morning after tabloid reports leaked that she was going to resign. According to McCain, the pandemic had shifted her priorities and made her want to change the way she’s living her life. She revealed that she’ll be staying on The View until the current season ends in late July, and joked with her co-hosts that “if you guys want to fight a little bit more, we have four more weeks.”

(Via Desus & Mero on Showtime)

Cardi B has a distinct look: When you see her, there’s no mistaking that it’s Cardi. If she had made one different decision as a teenager, though, her appearance would be even more idiosyncratic today. On Twitter last night, she revealed that when she was younger, she wanted a face tattoo.

Cardi tweeted, “Everyday I’m thankful at the fact that ain’t get this face tatt I wanted when I was 16.” She then followed up by describing her previous ink plans, sharing a GIF of Mel B facepalming on America’s Got Talent and writing, “Little stars from the top of my eyebrow swirling down to my jaw.”

Cardi actually has a tattoo that’s somewhat similar to that proposed one, though, as behind her right ear, she has a tattoo of a star next to the American Sign Language symbol for “I love you.”

Meanwhile, Cardi has been busy lately. She stole the show at the 2021 BET Awards by revealing that she is pregnant. She also has a role in the new movie Fast & Furious 9 and she loves her character, saying in a behind-the-scenes clip, “I like the fact that I’m representing such a powerful, strong woman. She’s just that bitch [laughs]. […] I remember when I saw Ludacris in Fast & The Furious, […] then to see Don Omar, it makes the hood have hope. Being around Vin [Diesel], he’s just so nice, so dope. He makes you feel so comfortable. I’m just so excited.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Seriously, please check it again

I know we are all busy. It’s the middle of summer, and we’re coming out of a hellish year of quarantine and isolation, and we’re all understandably itching a bit to get outside and away from the various screens we’ve been parked in front of the whole time. You can certainly be forgiven if you let a few things slide as you make up for lost time. Maybe the laundry is piling up, or the cupboards are going a little bare as you put off chores in favor of soaking up some sun and dining al fresco with friends. I get that. But please, at some point this weekend, remember to check your email to see if you have been cast in Knives Out 2.

I know, I know. I hear you. “But Brian, I didn’t even audition for a role in Knives Out 2. And I’m not an actor. This feels like a long shot.” Sure. Of course. But how will you know until you check? Look how big the cast is already? We’ve got Daniel Craig reprising his role from the first one, and it builds out from there: Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom, Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, and more. It seems like new names are getting added every day. Who knows, maybe the next one could be you?

Ah, but I hear you, again. “I mean, yeah, fine, maybe. But didn’t they already start filming? Don’t you think I would know by now if I’ve been cast in Knives Out 2?” This is fair. I get your point. Director Rian Johnson did just post this tweet earlier in the week.

But consider this: A few days later, after filming had started, European paparazzi types snapped pictures that seem to imply Ethan Hawke and Jada Pinkett Smith are in this movie, too, despite the fact that their casting had not been announced previously. I see two possibilities that could explain this:

• The roles were intended to be a surprise but the paparazzi spoiled it by poking around with their big zoom lenses
• Ethan Hawke and Jada Pinkett Smith were cast weeks ago but just saw the emails and had to book last-minute flights to Greece to get to the set in time

Both equally likely. And a good reason why you should check your email right away. There’s still time. You can probably get a flight this weekend. It’ll be expensive and you might have to add a few connecting flights to make it work, but that’s better than the embarrassment of blowing your big break because you forgot to check your email, you know?

Check it again. Check the spam folder, too, just to be safe. Maybe the casting agency has some weird email address your inbox didn’t recognize. Check your old college email address, too. Maybe they have that one from all those credit cards you signed up for. Maybe turn on all your alerts. It could end up being nothing, and maybe all the dinging will drive you a little crazy for a while, but it’ll be worth it if you stumble across an email from a few weeks ago about you getting cast in Knives Out 2.

Maybe you’ll get to play the murderer! Check your email!

ITEM NUMBER TWO — It is time, once again, to talk about the darts scene

Lots of Ted Lasso chatter out there this week. That’s fine, always, because there’s never really a bad time for Ted Lasso chatter. But it was still a little weird, this time, because the Ted Lasso chatter kind of came out of nowhere. It wasn’t tied to another new trailer, or the fact that the show drops its second season in about three weeks, or any Apple-generated publicity push. It all started because some random lady watched it and tweeted about it and her thread of tweets went crazy-viral out of nowhere. The internet is relentlessly strange. I guess that’s the takeaway here. And that Ted Lasso is a good show. So, two takeaways, really. You can follow her journey through the show by clicking here and scrolling a lot. It’s a fun little ride.

More importantly, for our purposes at least, it gives me a semi-legitimate excuse to discuss the darts scene again. This is terrific news, in part because the darts scene is awesome and in part because — unrelated to this thread, and predating it by about a week — I started watching the darts scene a lot. Like, multiple times. Almost every day. I’m not sure how it started or why but here we are. I feel okay about it.

Watch it again yourself. Right now. Click the link up there. It works in context — Ted is helping Rebecca by getting her dipshit billionaire ex to buzz off with his tail between his legs — and it works without context, too, mostly because any scene that includes a line like “I forgot I’m left-handed” will probably work. I love a good hustling scene. “Geoffrey, break out Lucille,” and so on and so forth.

But the reason I’ve been rewatching it so much lately is the speech. The one Ted gives as he’s tossing laser-guided bullets. This one.

You know, Rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day, I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman, and it was painted on the wall there. It said, “Be curious, not judgmental.” I like that.

So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work, and all of a sudden it hits me. All them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them were curious. You know, they thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything, and they judged everyone. And I realized that their underestimating me… who I was had nothing to do with it. ‘Cause if they were curious, they would’ve asked questions. You know? Like, “Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?”

To which I would’ve answered, “Yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father, from age 10 until I was 16 when he passed away.”

God, that’s good. From the setup at the beginning to the killer “Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?” payoff to the sneaky devastating end. It’s basically the entire essence of the show wrapped up in a tight little ball, the sweet and touching and funny and all of it. I’ve watched it twice since I started writing this section. I’m about to go back in for number three. I feel great about that, too. Barbecue sauce.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Terrific news about Europe’s finest television program

As far as ideas for television shows go, you could do a lot worse than “take charming British actors and have them travel to the most beautiful places in Europe to drink and learn about wine,” which is probably why The Wine Show works as well as it does. It’s a blast, just a kicked-open fire hydrant of good vibes. I wrote about the first season — featuring Matthews Goode and Rhys, the latter of whom revealed himself to be a huge silly goofball in contrast to his perpetually frowny character on The Americans — a few years ago, and I stand by every word of it today.

The show aired a second season that mostly replaced Rhys with James Purefoy, which was fine if not ideal, and now it is back for a third season on the Sundance Now streaming network. And it looks magnificent. I’m just going to go ahead and blockquote the entire damn press release.

Matthew Goode, Matthew Rhys and James Purefoy are joined this lively season by a new member of the team – Dominic West (The Hour, The Wire), who presides with James at the season’s headquarters: the Quinta do Noval in the stunning Douro Valley in Portugal. Goode and Purefoy trek across Portugal to discover the country’s best wines, while star sommelier Charlotte Wilde travels to The Azores and answers the question: who really invented sparkling wine, including champagne? Resident wine experts hit the road as Amelia Singer heads across the US (including a look at how urban winemaking and hip hop have found a voice in wine in California and New York) and Fattorini visits Thailand and Germany. In one segment, Fattorini stops in Hungary, a country rich with stories about the health-giving properties of its wines, covering everything from beauty cream to body building. Finally, Rhys and Fattorini lunch at restaurants throughout NYC, to pair wine with varied international cuisines which together represent the city’s ethnic diversity.

This is great. Just keep adding a new charming actor from the United Kingdom every season. Do Hugh Grant next. And Helen Mirren. And Phoebe Waller-Bridge. And Jason Statham. And maybe Liam Gallagher. But not Noel Gallagher. We can get a committee together and figure it out.

But none of that is the point here. The point here is LOOK AT THIS SCREENCAP OF DOMINIC WEST IN THE TRAILER.

My new goal in life, replacing “do not throw up again, ever,” is to achieve at least 60 percent of the vibes pictured here, just once, just for a second. I won’t get there. None of us will. Unless we’re Dominic West in sunglasses on a boat that is cruising around beautiful waterfront towns in search of wine. Which most of us aren’t. But you know, shoot for the moon, land among the stars, etc. etc. etc.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Well, here’s some perfect casting

An uncomfortable truth I’ve been coming to terms with lately is that I’m a huge pathetic sucker. I talk a big game but then I roll over and show the world my soft underbelly in the hopes of some soothing tummy scratches. It happened again this week. I had been holding strong against the idea of the A League of Their Own television show, even after I knew it was being created by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobsen. “This is a crass attempt at exploiting memorable intellectual property,” I mumbled to myself like a real crank.

And then the show went ahead and cast Nick Offerman as the coach, in a kind of Tom Hanks adjacent role that sounds awesome, starting with name — Casey “Dove” Porter — and moving to, well, this.

Dove is described as a former Cubs pitcher who is brought in to coach the Rockford Peaches. The character is most famous because his forkball killed a dove in mid-air in the middle of a game. Inspiring and charismatic, Dove was thought to be the next big Major League Baseball star, but blew his arm out after three years. Now he’s looking to make his comeback by making the Peaches into champions.

Yup, it turns out “Nick Offerman as a version of Tom Hanks crossed with Randy Johnson” is all it takes to make me roll right over. I’m in now. I don’t know. If they cast, like, Anna Kendrick as a foul-mouthed second baseman next I might just declare it my favorite show before it even airs. I have a feeling all over this surprises me more than any of you.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — What an incredible week for Ray Liotta

The trailer for the Sopranos prequel movie, The Many Saints of Newark, dropped this week. It’s a big deal for a bunch of reasons — James Gandolfini’s son playing young Tony, the music at the end, other Sopranos-y things — that you are welcome to talk about at your leisure, because we are, instead, going to talk about Ray Liotta. Look at Ray Liotta in this sucker.

The biggest surprise here is that Ray Liotta was not already in The Sopranos. How did that not happen? It seems like it could have happened even by accident, like if he showed up on set one day under the assumption he had been cast and everyone just rolled with it because, like, he’s Ray Liotta. Why wouldn’t he be in The Sopranos? This is all, in a way, a historical wrong being righted.

And it’s not the only big Ray Liotta news this week. He’s also in No Sudden Move, the new Soderbergh heist movie that drops on HBO Max this weekend. And, in the biggest news of all, to me, which is what’s important here, he’s also been cast in Cocaine Bear. We have talked about Cocaine Bear before. We will assuredly talk about it again later. But we are definitely going to talk about it now. Or at least blockquote it. Like this.

Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson and Jesse Tyler Ferguson are set to star in the Universal project, which is inspired by events that took place in Kentucky during 1985.

The true story, as reported in 1985 by The New York Times, was that a 175-pound black bear consumed the contents of a duffle bag filled with more than 70 pounds of cocaine that was dropped from an airplane by a local drug smuggler, Andrew Thornton. The bear was later found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

Every time anyone posts a summary of this movie, it says the bear died of an “apparent” overdose, and every time it cracks me up. What was your first clue, doc? The bear consuming 40 percent of its body weight in cocaine? Excellent work. Let’s all go out for quesadillas.

Anyway, the only movies I am officially excited about now are as follows: Knives Out 2 (check your email again), Fast 10, John Wick 4, and Cocaine Bear. I hope it’s a huge hit and gets as many sequels as the others. I will absolutely see Cocaine Bear 6: Tootin’ In The Woods in stunning IMAX on opening weekend. I hope they cast Judith Light next, if only so I have many more excuses to post my favorite GIF ever.

Good for Ray Liotta. Good for the Cocaine Bear. But most importantly, good for Brian.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Derek:

I do not know how I’m supposed to get anything done this week after reading that quote about James Cameron writing T2 while high on ecstasy and listening to Sting. Because now I’m thinking about what drugs he was on and what music he was listening to when he came up with Avatar. Peyote and Enya?

This is a wonderful email but it will require some context. Earlier this week, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of T2, the great Alan Siegel at The Ringer put together an oral history of the film. It’s all quite good and worth a read over the weekend, but you’ll need to prepare yourself, because at one point James Cameron says, well, this.

Cameron: I remember sitting there once, high on E, writing notes for Terminator, and I was struck by Sting’s song, that “I hope the Russians love their children too.” And I thought, “You know what? The idea of a nuclear war is just so antithetical to life itself.” That’s where the kid came from.

I’m with you, Derek. I can’t get over it either. I have this image in my head of James Cameron sweating profusely and grinding his teeth into dust and bursting out of his office to shout like, “HELEN, WRITE THIS DOWN: WAR IS BAD,” and this poor sweet secretary being like, “Yes, of course, sir,” while handing him a sleeve of freeze pops without looking up from her typing.

We have fun. Not as much as James Cameron, apparently, but still.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Greece!

A painting by Pablo Picasso that was stolen nine years ago during a heist at a Greek gallery has been recovered.

GREEK PICASSO HEIST.

We can skate over some of the details here. A 49-year-old builder was arrested for stealing a painting called Head of a Woman and another painting by a Dutch artist. The heist took place about a decade ago and was highly organized, taking about seven minutes to complete. It’s all very Thomas Crown Affair.

Until, of course, we get to the toilet part.

A third work in pen and ink by Italian artist Guglielmo Caccia, from the 16th Century, was also seized but police said the suspect told them it had been damaged and he had flushed it down the toilet.

I love that this guy thought of everything and planned it out to the second and then one thing went sideways and he was like “FLUSH IT DOWN THE TOILET.” A nice little touch on this one. Almost like he did it specifically for me.

And he did really plan it out meticulously. Look at the work this dude put into it all

During the Tuesday press conference, police alleged that the 49-year-old suspect had confessed to the theft and explained how he planned the raid for six months in advance.

Almost every day he would monitor the movements of security guards and other staff, they said, noting the times the guards took cigarette breaks. On 9 January 2012, the suspect set off a false alarm in another part of the building and broke into the ground floor of the museum, police explained.

Which makes this next part so confusing.

Police said the builder, described as a decorator, had hidden the paintings at his home for years and had no intention of selling them. Recently, however, he had moved them, wrapped in plastic sheets, to a dried up riverbed in Keratea, outside Athens, where they were eventually found in good condition.

Imagine you’re out fishing and you’re walking back after an unsuccessful run of it and you trip and fall and whooooops there’s a priceless stolen Picasso buried in the mud. That’s a story you can dine out on for years. And it’s a real good hammer to drop if one of your dumb friends starts bragging about a huge fish he caught.

YOUR STUPID FRIEND LARRY: … and I swear to God, this thing was as big as your leg. Swear to God.

YOU: Oh, wow. How much was it worth?

YOUR STUPID FRIEND LARRY: Ah, come on. No one wants to hear the Picasso story aga-

YOU: BECAUSE ONE TIME I CAUGHT A PRICELESS PICASSO PAINTING.

Insufferable. Everyone will hate you so much. But it’ll be worth it.

While the rest of the world continues battling the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and attempts to establish a new normal after being locked away in our homes for more than a year, Virgin Group founder/business magnate caricature Richard Branson is plotting out how to beat that dastardly Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in becoming the first billionaire to go to space. Yes, while you’re spending 10 minutes agonizing over whether or not you should spring for the extra $2.50 to add pepperoni to your pizza, billionaires are… doing this.

On Tuesday, Virgin Galactic announced that the window for the next test flight of its SpaceShipTwo Unity opens on July 11, and that Branson will be onboard as one of the flight’s Mission Specialists. Though it will be the vessel’s twenty-second test flight, hence the mission being dubbed “Unity 22,” it will only be its fourth manned spaceflight and the very first to be fully crewed.

So just what will Branson be doing onboard? We have to imagine he’s had somebody craft some sort of space-safe champagne flute, so that he’s not splashing it all over his designer space suit. But his real role is to play the role of “private astronaut” so that he can get a better idea of the kind of experience the Lance Basses of the world might be in for once space tourism becomes a reality. But Branson might have an ulterior motive: Beating Bezos to becoming the first billionaire to visit the great unknown.

Bezos, who has also dropped mad cash to make space travel a reality, previously announced that he’ll be headed into space on July 20. So if all goes well for Branson, he’ll beat him to it by more than a week. Bezos may have $190 billion more than Branson, but at least Branson has more private islands. And possibly soon, the title of First Rich Dude to Spend a Ton of Money to Travel to Space. Of course, Branson’s official announcement of the meaningfulness of this journey was much more magnanimous:

“I truly believe that space belongs to all of us. After more than 16 years of research, engineering, and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good. It’s one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it’s another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality. As part of a remarkable crew of mission specialists, I’m honored to help validate the journey our future astronauts will undertake and ensure we deliver the unique customer experience people expect from Virgin.”

And this, ladies and gentlefolk, is what people with too much time and money on their hands do. Wait until Elon Musk hears about this!

(Via BBC)

Late last year, Steve and Ian created the Indiecasties, a special, highly sought-after distinction honoring the best, worst, and downright strangest releases of the year. This week, they’re bringing back the segment for a mid-year review to award titles like Most Valuable Album Cycle (MVAC), Memory-Holed Album Of The Year So Far, and Most “Festival Band” Festival Band to the best and brightest of the first six months of 2021. Artists recognized in this year’s installment include St. Vincent, Japanese Breakfast, Kings Of Leon, Iceage, and many more.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is plugging South Carolina outfit Adjy, who released The Idyll Opus (I-IV) earlier this week. Steve, on the other hand, is taking a break from plugging new albums to shout out Summer Of Soul, the new Questlove-directed documentary focused on the Harlem Cultural Festival during the summer of 1969.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 46 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. 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.

During his Thursday night monologue, Stephen Colbert did his best to contain his enthusiasm for the recent Trump Organization indictments. The Late Show host really wants to be onboard with this latest development, “but I’ve been hurt too many times,” he jokingly said. As Colbert notes, the recent indictments do not specifically target Trump, but instead, his Trump Organization CFO Allen H. Weisselberg. Although, Weisselberg is being hit with a number of chargers in the hopes that he’ll flip on Trump, but Colbert can’t help but feel like he’s been down this road before.

“First, I fell in love with the Mueller Report, and then, I bounced back with the first impeachment. Then, I gave love one more chance with the other impeachment, and I just hurt, you know,” Colbert said with mock tears in his eyes. Citing legal experts, Colbert joked, “these charges, unlike the former president, seem kind of thin.”

Via The Week:

“Nothing sticks to this guy. I’d call him ‘Teflon Don’ but I’m pretty sure that coating is deck sealant.” Still, he added, “this is a moment of reckoning. It’s like the end of the Avengers, when Tony Stark snaps his fingers and destroys Thanos’ … accountant. You gotta work your way up to Thanos — they’ll get there.”

Despite the Trump Organization indictments not being the earth-shaking charges that people have been hoping for, Colbert promised that The Late Show will “continue to stay on this story as it continues to disappoint us.”

(Via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert)

Ever since Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner worked together on Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums, the two have basically been praising each other non-stop. They clearly love making music together, and yet another fruit of their collaborative labor was shared last night, a new Big Red Machine Song called “Renegade.” In light of that, Swift found yet another chance to show love for Dessner, saying she “can’t believe” she gets to work with him.

Sharing a teaser for the song on Instagram, Swift wrote,

“I can’t believe I get to work with Aaron Dessner. When Aaron came into my life, I was ushered into his world of free-flowing creativity where you don’t overthink, you just make music. His generosity of spirit and humility bleeds into every part of his life, and that’s why so many artists have jumped at the chance to be a part of his collaborative project, Big Red Machine. A song we wrote (which also features Justin Vernon) is out today! It’s called Renegade. Thanks Aaron for asking me to show up at your party.”

In response to the truncated version of the message that Swift shared on Twitter, Dessner responded, “[heart emojis] still hard to believe I get to pass the ball to one of the best ever.”

This follows a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in which Dessner said of Swift, “Every time we write a song together, we both sort of are a little bit dumbfounded by it, or sort of like how is this possible because it feels like the shoe fits so well somehow. And I think something about the way that I think, or the way that I relate to music emotionally, and then her incredible acumen or her way of tracing music and her storytelling and her sense of melody, there’s something that really clicks.”

How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? is out 8/27 via Jagjaguwar/37d03d. Pre-order it here.

Chris Pratt was a wrestler in high school, but there’s a big difference between wrestling your brother in your parents’ basement and challenging WrestleMania headliner Dave Bautista to a wrestling match. He learned that the hard way.

“There was a moment in my life where I would take sleep aids to help me sleep. And I don’t anymore because of things like this,” Pratt told host James Corden on Thursday’s The Late Late Show. After taking Ambien and blacking out, he once texted Bautista, his Guardians of the Galaxy co-star who wrestled under the name Batista. “The next day, he goes, ‘Hey man, that text you sent last night,’ and I go, ‘What text?’ He goes, ‘You don’t remember?’” before launching into Big Dave’s iconic laugh. Pratt looked at his phone and saw the lengthy text. It read, “Dave, I wanna wrestle you. I wanna wrestle you. No one needs to know, but I just want to know. I think I could take you. I think I could wrestle you, bro. Like, collegiate rules, no elbows, no knees. I just want to feel the power.”

Pratt was “mortified” by what he sent, accurately noting that Bautista “would kill me so fast. He is by far the toughest dude in all of Hollywood.” The moral of the story: never challenge a big man to a wrestling match — especially a big man wearing tiny glasses.

You can watch Pratt’s Corden interview above (and The Tomorrow War on Amazon).