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YG and Mozzy’s joint album Kommunity Service has arrived and with it, the video for “Gangsta,” the project’s intro and third single. Borrowing the loop from 50 Cent’s 2002 breakout hit “Wanksta,” the two West Coast native flash their hood passes and talk major cash, taunting phony gangbangers and reiterating their own credentials. YG steals the show with a double-time flow on the back half of his verse, showing off a newly polished flow that shows he’s been on the J. Cole rap writing workout plan.

Speaking of stealing things, the video is a tongue-in-cheek affair, as YG and Mozzy recruit a team of lingerie-clad honeypots to infiltrate a mark’s mansion, tying him down and opening the door for YG, Mozzy, and their goons to enjoy an illicit shopping spree at the rich man’s expense. It shouldn’t be funny, but with veteran actor De’Aundre Bonds (aka Stacey from The Wood and Dope and Skully from Snowfall) playing the victim, there’s plenty of humor imparted to the proceeds thanks to his portrayal as more annoyed than frightened.

“Gangsta” was preceded by videos for “Bompton To Oak Park,” which kicked off the rollout for Kommunity Service, and “Perfect Timing” with Blxst, which showed things wouldn’t be all gangbanging on the duo’s collaboration.

Watch YG & Mozzy’s “Gangsta” video above.

Kommunity Service is out now on Empire. Get it here.

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 — Listen to me

Here’s the problem: there are too many things. Entirely too many, in all shapes and sizes and styles, all available at our fingertips at any given second, only restrained by the speed of the WiFi in our homes. It’s daunting sometimes, causing our brains to freeze and overload and become incapable of making a decision because, like, how can we commit to this thing when there are all those other things we haven’t even discovered yet? And so, we continue to scroll. And scroll. And scroll.

You know this feeling. I’m sure you do. It happens to all of us, especially in the evening when we’re all spelunking through various streaming services looking for something to watch. The worst is when you spend so much time scrolling and hunting that you run out of time to actually watch anything. That is defeating and depressing and bad. It’s no way to live. That’s why I am coming to you with this suggestion: Just open HBO Max and watch the Harley Quinn animated series.

I have mentioned this show before, kind of a lot, at least once in a full-on article about it. There’s a simple reason for that: It is so good. It is so much better than you think it will be when you read “Harley Quinn animated series,” even if you’re the type of person who gets excited about phrases like that already. I don’t even love comics or comics-related projects that much. I was at best generally familiar with the idea of Harley Quinn — associate/lover of Joker, dresses like a clown, carries a bat, etc. — before I started watching the show and yet somehow I have become deeply invested in all of its characters. I did not even know Kite Man existed. Now I worry about him sometimes at 2 a.m. It’s a problem. A good problem, but still a problem.

The show is a perfect binge, too. I know because I’ve binged straight through its two seasons two times already and I just started a third. It is outrageously funny in ways that are both smart and stupid (more on this shortly), and it is sweet in parts that will make you all fuzzy inside, and it features maybe one of the best depictions of a complicated female friendship/relationship on television. Each episode is about 22-25 minutes. You can rip through two before bed, or accidentally stay up past midnight watching half a dozen. I’m not the boss of you.

The voice cast is loaded, too. You’ve got Kaley Cuoco as Harley and Lake Bell as Poison Ivy. You’ve got Alan Tudyk doing a bunch of voices. You’ve got Tony Hale and Jason Alexander and Ron Funches and J.B. Smoove and Andy Daly and Christopher Meloni and Jim Rash and Giancarlo Esposito and Wanda Sykes and whooooops now I’m just listing everyone on the IMDb page. I didn’t even get to Sanaa Latham and Alfred Molina yet. And none of these represent the best voiceover work in the series. That honor goes to James Adomanian as Bane. I mean, look at this.

This is how Bane is all the time on this show. He’s just a big dumb goofus who is always getting bullied by his fellow supervillains and pathetically threatening to blow up things that have wronged him. He has a mug that says “Caffeine Is My Reckoning.” There’s a whole arc at one point about the other supervillains in the Legion of Doom making him sit in a crappy little tiny chair while they all have luxurious ones, just because they find it funny. It is a hilarious take on a character who is best known as the humorless anarchy-loving goon played by Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises. I get excited every time I see him on the screen. I can — and will, if you don’t escape literally any conversation with me fast enough — make an argument that he’s one of the ten best characters on television. Look at this highlight reel. Zero misses detected.

Almost all of the characters are turned about 40 degrees from their usual iterations like this, too. They’re all a bit stupider and more prone to screwing up because that makes for a better comedy, but they’re also a little sweeter. The show treats the Legion of Doom the way Parks and Recreation treated the, well, the Parks and Recreation department. There are moments where it’s more or less a workplace comedy about supervillains. And it’s not just the villains who get this treatment. Jim Gordon is frazzled beyond belief and desperate for Batman to be the friend he can talk to about his marriage. Robin is a little brat voiced by Jacob Trembley. Hell, even Batman gets goofed on pretty good.

It’s all just very good and fun. It is honestly one of my favorite shows of the past few years, one I discovered later than I should have because it started on the DC Universe streaming network before it moved to HBO Max. But it’s there now, on the same platform as The Sopranos, probably at most ten mouse clicks away from where you are right now. (Or even just one.) I apologize for the hard sell here but I promise I am trying to help. You need to stop scrolling. And I think you will like it. There has never been a better time to binge it, too, not because it’s suddenly extra relevant or because the recently greenlit third season in production, just because it is kind of always a good time to watch cool stuff. Get in there.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Rest in peace, Nicky Holiday

Charles Grodin died this week, which stinks, because Charles Grodin was great. He was great in a lot of different things in a lot of different ways, too, which made the stream of tributes to him pretty cool. Some people remembered him for his role opposite Robert De Niro in Midnight Run. Some people remembered him for his performance opposite a deranged Martin Short in Clifford, or for his role in the Beethoven movies, or for his decades of borderline performance art talk show appearances, or for any other number of things he did in his 86 years on Earth. For me, though, he was always Nicky Holiday, the deliciously sleazy jewel thief who seduces Miss Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper.

Forgive me for blockquoting myself here, please, but I don’t think I can put my thoughts about his performance in that movie much better than I did in my piece on it last year. I stand by all of this, to the letter.

Speaking of things that no one does better, I promise all of you that you have never seen anyone enjoy playing a lecherous sleaze more than Charles Grodin does in this movie. As much as? Maybe. Possibly. But not more. He looks like he’s having so much fun. It reminds me a lot of Hugh Grant’s performance in Paddington 2, just the acknowledgment that this — playing a human villain opposite stuffed/animated beacons of light and joy — is all very silly and therefore there’s no reason to do one iota less than the absolute most in every single scene. Here is a GIF of him dancing away from a table before scurrying off. I promise you he brings this exact energy to every scene. It’s delightful.

The GIF I am referring to in there is at the top of this section. It’s beautiful. It somehow tells you everything you need to know about the character without a single decibel of sound, from the sleazy shimmying at the beginning to the duplicitous hustle at the end. Acting across from Muppets can’t be easy. There’s got to be a voice in your head that screams “YOU ARE TALKING TO A PUPPET, SOMEONE IS ON THE FLOOR HOLDING IT, THIS IS WEIRD” as you try to look them in the eye, and it has to be hard not to let some of that trickle out into your face while the camera is pointed at you. Grodin sold it so hard anyway. He really made me believe he wanted to run away with Miss Piggy. There was passion in his eyes when he spoke to her. Real fire. He looked like he was about to be overwhelmed with lust and kiss her at any moment. It was great. Almost a little disturbing if you think about it too much, which you should not, in large part because this is also a movie where Kermit and Fozzie play “identical” twin brothers even though one is a frog and the other is a bear. Just roll with it.

Speaking of things that are great: Look at this, which I now share with you while providing zero additional context or analysis.

The man lived a full and rich life and worked with the Muppets on multiple occasions. We should all be so lucky.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Oh hell yes, it is, once again, Soderbergh time

This is the first teaser for Steven Soderbergh’s next movie, No Sudden Move. It looks very cool and features an absolutely stacked cast. This should not be a surprise. Most of Soderbergh’s projects look very cool and feature an absolutely stacked cast. He made Out of Sight. He made the Ocean’s trilogy. He made The Knick and Magic Mike and The Informant and Erin Brockovich and The Limey. The dude has a style and that style can be summed up as “cool shit Brian likes.” Or a better way. With… better… words.

Point being: I was probably going to watch this movie when it drops on HBO Max in July no matter what. But after reading this description, I super want to watch it.

Set in 1954 Detroit, No Sudden Move stars Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro and David Harbour, with Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Noah Jupe, Craig muMs Grant, Julia Fox, Frankie Shaw and Bill Duke. The plot centers on a group of small-time criminals who are hired to steal what they think is a simple document. When their plan goes horribly wrong, their search for who hired them – and for what ultimate purpose – weaves them through all echelons of the race-torn, rapidly changing city.

So there’s all of that. But there’s also this: Have you seen Logan Lucky, the NASCAR heist movie he made with Channing Tatum and Adam Driver? You might not have. Not a lot of people did. It had a weird release and never got a great jump start and it’s just kind of been lingering on various streaming services ever since. But it is so good. It is so good. One day I am going to write 2500 words about it.

But, for now, I’ll just leave this clip here as a reminder that Knives Out was not the first major Hollywood project in which Daniel Craig did a cartoonish Southern accent. Watch a king do work.

Please watch Logan Lucky if you have not already watched Logan Lucky. Watch it tonight. Logan Lucky is an extremely good Friday night movie. I just said all of these things a few weeks ago in this very column. I do not care. I am saying them again. This is important.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Martha is fed up

Well, let’s check in with noted billionaire lifestyle icon and Snoop Dogg confidant Martha Stewart. What do you have going on, Martha?

Perfect. Everything about it. From the thing where Martha Stewart was upset that the Post shortchanged her peacock count to the thing where she bragged about the house they live in. I can’t decide what my favorite part is. Right now it’s a toss-up between “Martha Stewart got so angry about an incorrect article about her peacocks that she logged into Twitter to defend them” and “the thing where this is enough of an excuse to post her tweets about drones again.”

I’m very happy about this development.

I’ve been trying to speak this existence since she first tweeted the phrase almost seven years ago, but just once I’d like someone to say I am controversial but fabulous and do a good job. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted, really. Hits all the quadrants of the person I want to be.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — More like, in my opinion, Jack(ed) Lasso

Ted Lasso is a good show about a handsome and charming American who is hired to coach a soccer team in England despite knowing very little about the sport. I bring this up partly to say it again just so no one forgets, but mostly because Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, also handsome and charming Americans who know very little about soccer, recently purchased a soccer team in England. This is… cool. It’s cool. And now the whole endeavor is going to be a reality show on FX. It might make me break my extended reality show hiatus. I… think I need this. Here, look.

In 2020, Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) teamed up to purchase the team in the hopes of turning the club into an underdog story the whole world could root for. The worry? Rob and Ryan have no experience in football or working with each other. That said, they are serious about their investment in Wrexham, improving the club and doing right by the townspeople.

This kind of rules. I love it. I hope it starts a trend where Americans and people from England start buying each other’s sports teams for entertainment purposes. I hope Helen Mirren buys a semi-professional baseball team and makes a show about it. I hope Guy Fieri buys a cricket team and makes a show about it. I hope they air all the shows on the same channel on the same night. You can come over and watch them with me. It’ll be a party. We can get pizza and make umbrella drinks.

Anyway, look at these two charming bastards.

I like this. I like when people I enjoy become friends with each other. I like that they’re kind of doing a real-life Ted Lasso. I can’t decide if it will be funnier if they win a championship or suck tremendously forever. I mean that last thing with no disrespect at all. I want nothing but the best for them. But it would make for a magnificent reality show if two handsome millionaires from Hollywood just get the hell kicked out of them by the English soccer establishment for 10 seasons. Don’t act like you wouldn’t enjoy this a little bit. But again, I wish them the best.

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 Justin:

I spent a week between graduating law school and starting bar prep by rewatching the Fast and Furious movies in anticipation of FF9, and I need to talk about Furious 7 with someone who gets it. Dom and the gang devise a detailed plan to sneak into this swanky birthday party and steal the God’s Eye hard drive out of a supercar, and a key component of the plan is that Dom just casually deadlifts a CAR while in a tux. This after Mr. Nobody praises Dom’s managerial prowess. I NEED to know what the conversation entailed that led Dom to just deadlift this car as a key step in the plan. I’ve been thinking about how hilarious that conversation must have been all week.

Well, first of all, this seems like an excellent use of your time. I’m not joking or being sarcastic. Sometimes your brain just needs a power washing to clear out the goop that builds up in there, and I can think of no better time for that than “between law school finals and bar exam prep” and no better way to do it than “watch all the Fast & Furious movies.” Terrific work here, buddy.

But yes, this is a wonderful scene from beginning to end, one that ends with Jason Statham shooting a bazooka out the window of an Abu Dhabi skyscraper at the million-dollar sports car Dom has just launched into the air toward a second Abu Dhabi skyscraper. It remains my position that you could make a pretty solid half-hour sitcom about a 24-hour news network that exists inside the Fast & Furious universe. Just a regular news day and people minding their business and then, like, this happens in the streets of Los Angeles.

I would watch this show. And if it makes you feel any better, Justin, I passed the bar exam a while back and I am, basically, an idiot. I suspect you will be fine.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Canada!

Nova Scotia RCMP is investigating an alleged lobster theft from a fishing boat in Eastern Passage.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating a lobster heist.

Police say three crates of lobster, which had been attached to a fishing boat on Government Wharf Road, were removed from the water.

Wow, if these lobster thieves ever caught…

According to police, the three crates were removed sometime between 4:30 p.m. on May 17 and 11:30 a.m. on May 18.

… then I guess they’ll really be…

Anyone with information is asked to contact Halifax District RCMP or Crime Stoppers.

… in hot water.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) must have slept through the entirety of the failed MAGA insurrection on January 6, or he’s simply making things up in an attempt to rewrite recent history. The latter possibility is probably the correct one, since it’s unlikely that Johnson could doze through the mayhem at the U.S. Capitol, but he’s acting like everyone’s making a big deal about nothing. It’s, uh, not good, but Fox News’ Laura Ingraham was here for it. Here’s Johnson telling her that there was no insurrection to speak of, and “by and large it was a peaceful protest.”

Yep, he’s really going there, although Johnson did prefaced his conclusion by saying, “You know, I condemned the breach. I condemned the violence, but to say there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol intent on overthrowing the government is just simply false narrative.” He conceded that “there were a number of people, basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol.” And he doesn’t seem to understand that no one has claimed that “thousands” of insurrectionists were armed, but some were, and many of the rest contributed to the dangerous physical momentum that crushed a police officer in a doorway.

In the end, five people died as a result of the January 6 violence, and Johnson’s silly “by and large” description got dragged, hard, with jokes that would have been too soon, had they not referenced events that are several decades old, like the John F. Kennedy assassination and the “cruise” known as the Titanic disaster. Oh, but the Fyre Festival got some airplay, too. That one might be too soon?

Some of the other replies did arguably get out of hand, but the point stands: Ron Johnson’s probably fooling someone, but he’s not fooling everyone.

Although J. Cole’s new album The Off-Season has now officially been out for over a week, the unusual rollout for the long-awaited album continues — and keeps to the established theme of “rap as basketball.” With a cover featuring a burning basketball hoop, a documentary detailing his “training” for the new album, a cover story in Slam magazine, and a professional basketball career in Rwanda, Cole’s been using The Off-Season to reinforce the long-held parallels between basketball and hip-hop.

Today, he and his Dreamville crew revealed the latest version of his Puma basketball sneaker, the RS-Dreamer 2, in a new colorway, fittingly titled the “Off-Season Reds.” The shoes are modeled in the campaign shots by the NBA’s Kyle Kuzma of the Los Angeles Lakers and the WNBA’s Skylar Diggins-Smith of the Phoenix Mercury.

In his debut game for the Rwanda Patriots of the Basketball Africa League against the Nigeria Rivers Hoopers, J. Cole put up a respectable rookie box score (3 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists) and played admirable defense, earning plenty of accolades from other pro hoopers who were simply impressed to see the 36-year-old pursue his hoop dreams and keep up with the best players the continent has to offer.

You can pick up the “Off-Season” red RS-Dreamer 2 here.

Ahead of the release of Olivia Rodrigo’s new album Sour, one of the biggest stories about it was Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff receiving a writing credit on “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” While it may seem like Rodrigo sampled Swift’s “New Year’s Day” on the track, that has turned out to not be the case, and some fans think Rodrigo had a specific reason for not sampling Swift.

Uproxx previously confirmed that Rodrigo does not sample Swift’s studio recording of “New Year’s Day” on the song. Rather, she interpolated it, meaning she (or a collaborator) freshly recorded the notes that Swift and Jack Antonoff wrote. If Rodrigo had sampled the song, the owners of the master recording (Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records) would have profited via royalty payments. Since Swift is famously not on good terms with Braun and her former label, some fans see this move as Rodrigo supporting Swift and intentionally making sure those parties do not make any money off her work.

One fan summed up the situation well: “a sample is a song that has been copied and pasted into a new song. an interpolation means you recreate the song with your own musicians. so Olivia interpolating the song means Taylor and jack gave her permission to reproduce the notes that they wrote. this means [scooter] GETS NO MONEY. in other words: hiring someone to record the piano line from new year’s day: some number of dollars idk how much session musicians make. cutting [scooter] and whoever else out of the loop: PRICELESS. (if it were a sample they would have to pay whoever owned the masters).”

Fans of both Rodrigo and Swift (a Venn diagram that seems to be essentially just a circle) were excited to make this discovery, so check out some reactions below.

Sour is out now via Geffen Records. Get it here.

Over the past year, Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs have developed an indelible sort of chemistry, appearing on each other’s projects and demonstrating the smooth interplay between their unique lyrical styles, bonded together by the throughline of surviving the drug game and taking nearly ten years to blow up in rap. They lend this alchemic balance to newcomer Bobby Sessions on his new single, “Gold Rolex.”

Featuring a glittering, soulful beat with plenty of the throwback energy that flows through both the Butcher and Gibbs’ own music, “Gold Rolex” finds Sessions taking a step away from his Dallas-bred style to adopt a more traditionalist flow that fits better alongside the Buffalo, New York native Benny and Freddie’s midwestern twang. While longtime fans of Sessions’ more bookish style might be surprised to hear him fitting in alongside the more street-centric, elder rappers, they shouldn’t; Bobby’s always been quite versatile as he illustrates with each new track.

From his work on RVTLN 3: The Price Of Freedom to helping craft “I’m A King,” the theme song from Coming 2 America, with Megan Thee Stallion, Bobby’s always been able to transform to suit the needs of his tracks above all.

Listen to “Gold Rolex” above.

Freddie Gibbs is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

If you’re ever having trouble locating Tucker Carlson, just check the wrong side of any argument and there he’ll be—pontificating in that puffed-up, I-know-I’m-right-and-that’s-all-that-matters way that (thankfully) only he can. The Fox News host’s latest bad take? That the Capitol Police have no business sending a letter to the United States Congress expressing their desire to see an official investigation into the deadly insurrection of January 6th, in which one of their own officers was among the six people killed. Carlson kicked off his Thursday night program talking about this letter, which he for some reason deemed “mysterious,” then compared to a ransom note:

A mysterious letter appeared on Capitol Hill this week. It was addressed to every member of the United States Congress. The letter arrived on the official letterhead of the U.S. Capitol Police. But it wasn’t from the chief, or from any individual officer.

Instead, the letter was signed: ‘Proud Members of the United States Capitol Police.’ So, it was anonymous. That was the first tip this wasn’t your average security bulletin. And in fact it wasn’t. It was instead a political demand. The letter instructed members of Congress to vote ‘yes’ to establish a ‘January 6th insurrection commission.’ Police officers anonymously demanding that the people they protect vote a certain way on a specific piece of legislation? Haven’t seen that before.

Most people assumed the Capitol Hill police department was a law enforcement agency. Members of Congress certainly believe that. They trust their lives to Capitol Hill police. That’s why Capitol Hill police officers don’t lobby congress. That would be a dangerous conflict of interest, backed by an implied threat: do what we say, or watch your back. In this case, that’s exactly what they were saying to Republicans.

First off, there’s nothing “mysterious” about this letter. Members of a law enforcement agency that recently witnessed a violent attack on its officers that left one dead would like to get to the truth of exactly what happened and determine how such an egregious breach of safety can be avoided in the future. As would the American people.

Tucker Carlson on the letter from US Capitol Police members criticizing Republicans: That’s a ransom note. Imagine getting it from one of your own bodyguards… The Capitol Hill police are now effectively an armed political action committee.” pic.twitter.com/3cnyool22o

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 21, 2021

Second: To cite a letter as a “political demand”—one with an implied threat—is ridiculous. As Carlson said, the letter was “addressed to every member of the United States Congress.” In the same way that any American citizen can call or write a lawmaker to express an opinion on a certain matter, so too can members of the Capitol Police. Of course, Tuck didn’t see it that way. He went on to quote the letter:

“We members of the United States Capitol Police write this letter to express our profound disappointment with the recent comments from both chambers’ minority leaders [Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell] expressing no need for a January 6 commission.”

“We are expected to remain neutral and do our jobs with honor and integrity,” the letter continued. “It’s unfortunate that our ‘bosses’ [Congress] are not held to the same standard that we, the USCP are.” Well, that’s a ransom note. Imagine getting it from one of your own bodyguards. It might be enough to make you rethink your position, which was, of course, the point of it.

As if the ransom note comment wasn’t bad enough, Carlson then took his rhetoric about five steps further—and somehow found a way to make these same police officers responsible for “taxpayer-funded abortions.” No, seriously…

The Capitol Hill police are now effectively an armed political action committee, so you have to ask, what other partisan demands will they make in the future? Do Capitol Hill cops have strong views on voter ID laws? How about taxpayer-funded abortions, or our next trade deal with China? If so, they’ve got the muscle to make their voices heard. You can see why this is setting a very bad precedent. But it didn’t bother Democrats. It helped them in the short term. So they immediately put that letter to use.

The end of the story, of course, is that despite most Republicans not wanting to uncover the details behind a murderous riot on their own doorstep, they were ultimately outnumbered. The House voted to establish an investigatory commission, though how it will fare in the Senate remains to be seen. Whatever the case, we’re sure it’s not the last word Carlson will have on the topic.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has often been accused of having a villain problem. Those watered-down bad boys weren’t compelling (Ultron), or they ended up being under mind control, as Marvel actually revealed about Loki following his Chitauri-aided attack on NYC, which wasn’t really up to him but, rather, his scepter. The same goes antagonists like Winter Soldier, who was programmed by HYDRA, and Crossbones, who bit the dust too soon, and so on. MCU villains started to improve in Phase 3 with Erik Killmonger, and Thanos could have been the ultimate villain but still failed to totally hit the sweet spot. And although WandaVision‘s Agatha did rock, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s Flag Smashers confused everyone going into Phase 4. [Big sigh.] Marvel’s villainy is one area where it trails D.C./Warner Bros., but there’s hope on the horizon.

What I’m saying, quite wildly, is this: Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. brings us a supervillain who’s not technically part of the MCU, but he really should be (even if he’d be hard to render, live-action). He’s actually my favorite Marvel onscreen villain now, too.

Funny how that works, because M.O.D.O.K. is essentially a giant freaking head. Well, Patton Oswalt, who co-wrote this series’ first season on Hulu alongside Jordan Blum, has been relishing voice work lately. He recently managed to shock The Boys audience (that’s what happens when you “cameo” as a set of gills for the lead pervert character), and now, he’s the leading man in a very adult-oriented animated series. What is fantastic about that final detail is that M.O.D.O.K. is very adult-oriented, but it doesn’t bury itself in d*ck jokes and gore simply because it can make the whole show about d*ck jokes and gore. As sad as it is to say, that’s something that still happens, as evidenced by another Hulu series, but with M.O.D.O.K., the crude jokes are mere icing.

What’s marvelous about M.O.D.O.K., as well, is that the show moves further than the source material for the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. He’s not only a megalomaniacal genius (with a massive, unwieldy noggin), but he’s struggling to balance his day job (as a bad dude) with family life. That conflict is where the show shines the most, even if it sure is fun to see him smart-off while going up against a certain billionaire playboy philanthropist named Tony Stark, who’s voiced by Jon Hamm. Nathan Fillion also plays another hero-enemy, and all of those interactions are fine. What’s more real, though, as well as different for current audiences, is to see a Marvel supervillain whose entire arc isn’t confined to taking down the world powers that be.

That is to say, M.O.D.O.K. would absolutely love to exercise world dominion and defeat every superhero out there, but situations like this…

… end up taking a backseat to dilemmas like this.

Oh, and this is surprisingly funny stuff and not at all where M.O.D.O.K. finds himself within the comics. I like what Oswalt and Blum decided to do here while branching off, rather than defer to all-too-familiar ground by, say, writing about a son fretting over how best to be like dad. Instead, this is a series that happens to be about a supervillain but really beats the stuffing out of him and family-sitcoms, too. He’s is basically the Kevin James-type husband here, and his wife, Jodie (Amy Gardia), has had enough. She’s divorcing his narcissistic, work-obsessed butt, and M.O.D.O.K. can’t cope. His daughter and son are caught in the middle, and that includes the voices of Melissa Fumero and Ben Schwartz (he threatens to walk away with his scenes). M.O.D.O.K. is scrambling to keep all the pieces of his life together, and it’s simply not flying.

M.O.D.O.K. is an altogether different breed of show than people are expecting, even if there are hefty shades of Robot Chicken happening. One would expect rude humor and a lot of Marvel easter eggs here, and they exist in abundance, but that’s not the hook. Rather, M.O.D.O.K.‘s got layers and doesn’t underestimate its audience. Patton and Blum both recognize that anyone who’s watching this show already knows all the ins and outs of the MCU, and all the easter eggs involved with time travel, an arguably obscure female wrestler-character called Poundcakes (Whoopi Goldberg), Tony Stark being mildly insufferable at times, and so on. Such jokes mostly land in the right place, but the focus in this series is telling a proper original story.

That’s a rarity on TV and in film these days and especially when it comes to comic book adaptations. Everything’s all franchised up, for better or worse, and we could use a re-upped approach, which we receive in ten breezy, half-hour episodes. Further, this version of M.O.D.O.K. is surprisingly affecting with the villain careening to a very bad personal place, not only at home but at work (his company, A.I.M., is going belly up because it’s awfully expensive to launch assaults on The Avengers), and everyone on this show seems to want to push a bad man down. He doesn’t exactly strive for redemption (that would be insincere), but Oswalt’s character does strive toward re-earning some reverence. What results is a show that genuinely funny and heartfelt and complex and filled with sharp writing.

Respect the giant head.

‘Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.’ streams on Hulu on May 21.f

Steven Cannon, a Lil Xan-affiliated rapper from Cincinnati, Ohio, is this week’s guest on UPROXX Sessions, delivering a breezy, breathless performance of his high-velocity single, “Mach 10.” Cannon, who’s a fixture of the SoundCloud rap scene, has been active for the past few years as the co-founder of Lil Xan’s “Xanarchy” movement after moving to Los Angeles at 18 and featuring on tracks like “The Man” and “Pills.” Xan (aka “Diego“) counts him as his number one influence after Cannon coached him on rapping after hiring him as a cameraman.

Cannon’s performance here displays all the hallmarks of the style that endeared him to followers and fans on SoundCloud and social media. He’s laid-back, confident, and fills the space around him with his outsized swagger. His flow glides along over the booming bass drum that dominates the “Mach 10” beat, filling his verses with quirky boasts about his money, status, and sex appeal.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

This has been an unfortunate year for the Boston Celtics. Jayson Tatum, after having COVID-19, took some time to get back to himself and was using an inhaler before games. Just before the end of the season, Jaylen Brown had wrist surgery and was lost for the year. Kemba Walker hasn’t been quite right for chunks of the year, and a year after coming up a game short of the NBA Finals, Boston found itself in the play-in tournament. The good news is that in that play-in game, Tatum dropped 50 points in Boston’s win to earn a first round series against the Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving-led Brooklyn Nets.

For Brooklyn, this is expected to be the warmup to what could be a run to the NBA Finals. From here, it goes to the winner of Milwaukee-Miami and then (barring an upset along the way) Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference Finals. If all goes to plan, this is the series they get their feet wet as a team and move onto bigger challenges. Whether the Celtics can take this warmup and make it something much more nervy is the biggest question facing this series, and that will come down to a few different variables.

Matchup To Watch

How Boston deploys Marcus Smart will be telling. As Boston’s best healthy defender, it would seem likely he ends up on one of two players: Harden or Irving.

There’s a case for him to defend either. When Harden has played, he’s been more of a table settler than Rockets-era Harden who dominated the ball in isolation. Put Smart — who has the strength and motor to battle Harden all over the floor, even if he won’t always be successful — and you’re going to bet making Harden work impacts the rest of the Nets’ offense. It also would seemingly make more sense than trying to put someone like Evan Fournier, who isn’t as bulky, on him.

Irving, meanwhile, would be the choice if Celtics coach Brad Stevens wants to try and limit Irving’s scoring ability and secondary creation that can grow in potency working off of Durant and Harden. It would also seem possible that Smart spends time on Durant if only to throw a different look that way in certain lineups. A speculative guess: Smart starts on Harden, Walker on Irving, Fournier on Durant with Tatum on Blake Griffin. If the Nets go with a shooter or Bruce Brown instead of Griffin in the starting five, that could alter the matchups.

There are no good options here. With no Brown, Boston’s defense just isn’t isn’t as equipped to handle a team like Brooklyn with multiple high, high level creators. Smart remains and he’s awesome, so how he’s utilized probably shapes what the Celtics’ strategy is.

Series X-Factor

If Boston has any hope of making this a series — much less pull an upset — it needs the absolute best version of Kemba Walker. With no Brown, there’s no one else on the Celtics’ roster who can create shots the way Tatum and Walker can. Tatum is bonafide. He’s going to get his and just showed up when his team needed him most in the play-in tournament.

Walker was also good in that game. He moved well and had 29 points on 10-24 shooting to go along with 2 assists and 7 rebounds. Notably, he was 6-14 on three-pointers and may need to keep that volume up if the games turn into shootouts.

Walker’s ability to drive into the lane and dish and make the defense react to him is going to be key. If he can do that with regularity and generate good looks for others — be it Robert Williams and Tristan Thompson at the rim or Marcus Smart and Evan Fournier from three — it would help the Celtics’ chances immensely. Any pressure he can take off of Tatum matters.

For the Nets: Let’s just see what Harden looks like. There’s no reason to think he’s going not be himself, but he’s coming off of injury right into the playoffs. Brooklyn’s margin of error is large because it has three stars, but Harden not at his best cuts into that margin. It should also be interesting to see how Steve Nash does in his first playoff series and how in handles in-game and in-series adjustments when adversity hits, but we may not learn about that in this series.

One Stat To Know

414. That’s the number of possessions that Durant, Harden and Irving have played together this year, per Cleaning The Glass. There are teams in recent history — think the second-era LeBron James Cavaliers — that have not fully meshed until the playoffs and then made a real run to the title. This, though, is the absolute extreme of that and, unfortunately, it’s because of injuries.

Ultimately, does this really matter? Maybe not in round one against a Celtics team that is down its second-best player (Brown) and almost certainly cannot match the offense Brooklyn possesses. (In those 414 possessions where Durant, Harden and Irving were all on the floor, Brooklyn scored an absurd 123.2 points per 100 possessions.) But as the time fully finds itself and racks up court time together, maybe the lack of true cohesion entering the playoffs is a crack Boston can exploit enough to steal a game. Or maybe Brooklyn just goes full supernova and sweeps the series. Both feel possible.

What is most important for the Nets is that, however long this series goes, every minute those players get to play together is a much needed brick added to the foundation of what they hope is a championship run.