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HBO’s Lovecraft Country is ambitious and astounding and will undoubtedly blow your expectations away. Created by Misha Green, who’s working with Matt Ruff’s 1950s-set dark-fantasy novel as source material, the show counts horror visionary Jordan Peele and sci-fi maestro J.J. Abrams as executive producers. The show is full of literary and musical references, along with monsters, both in-your-face and and figurative; we’ll discuss the resulting symbolism on a weekly basis.

Last week’s Lovecraft Country episode shone light on “sundown towns,” which still aren’t entirely a thing of the past in the U.S. in our current times. In the 1950s, though, they were raging. Atticus, Leti, and George found these towns and counties full of figurative horrors (tied to racism) and, in the forests nearby, literal horrors (in the form of the monstrous Shaggoths). The episode introduced us to a variety of literary references (in particular, the appallingly racist legacy of H.P. Lovecraft) and kicked off one of the show’s major themes: Black history and horror are often interchangeable terms.

This week in “Whitey’s On The Moon,” the traveling trio wakes up in the manor in Ardham. Leti and George are oblivious to the trauma of the prior evening, Atticus gets forced into a cult ceremony, and we’ve got some musical/spoken-word references that form the backbone of the episode. We probably need to address this matter first.

– No one wants to see a snake, especially like this

Amid more Shaggoths in the woods and Braithwaite consciously enduring surgery to sacrifice an organ for his cult’s dinner party, we see this slithering out of Atticus 2.0’s pants. What madness. I keep chuckling to myself while thinking of Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett acting out this scene while pretending that a cartoonish phallic symbol is darting across the bed, but oh yes, symbolism. This moment echoes the Garden of Eden painting on the wall with a snake about to invade a vagina. We hear Atticus and Leti talk about how the Bible is full of demons, but these stories aren’t as horrifying as human-inflicted atrocities. Or are they? We talked last week about how Atticus’ beloved pulp novels are meant as escapism but inevitably mirror his reality. Here, instead of art mirroring life, we witness the opposite coming out of his pants.

Of course, this isn’t the real Atticus in Leti’s room. Both of them, along with George, are all enduring different planes of demonic reality. Atticus relives a bad memory from the Korean War, and George dances with a ghost from the past before discovering a hidden room and a book about the “Order of the Ancient” group. On the way, he pulled a copy of House on the Borderland (by William Hope Hodgson and, notably, the edition from the Arkham House, which also published Lovecraft) out of the wall. Yep, another literary reference: the book holds plenty of parallels to the trio’s situation, including a weird remote house and otherworldly dimensions that induce hallucinations. Also, there are scary humanoid creatures, and the house collapses, much like during this episode.

Damn, this show has layers.

– “Whitey On The Moon” and (attempting to be) in the Garden Of Eden

Lovecraft Country sure doesn’t shy away from climactic scenes that deal comeuppance to racists. Of course, Braithwaite is refusing to heed history’s lessons, long after the manor burned down during a similar ceremony. This doesn’t end up going well for him.

All of it’s set to the radical 1970 Gil Scott-Heron poem, “Whitey On The Moon,” playing during the ceremony. (You might remember hearing it in 2018’s First Man movie — the Neil Armstrong biopic starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Damien Chazelle). The poem is a scathing indictment of the space race as an attempt to stir up patriotism during the Vietnam War and urban unrest at home. It also eviscerated the U.S. government for funneling money into the space program while economic inequality flourished. Today, the poem feels far too relevant after U.S. lawmakers pushed to include $1.75 billion in the stimulus bill to build new FBI headquarters while declining to extend a lifeline of federal unemployment for millions. (Yup, history repeating itself again.)

The poem’s place in this episode couldn’t be more appropriate, given that a whiter-than-white cult (which, as Christina tells Atticus, “would never fraternize with the Klan… they’re too poor”) makes a Black man (who served his country in war yet still suffers indignities while walking down a street or through a forest) endure a ritual and fuel their own space-y race. It’s a flat-out crazy scene, and in the end, Braithwaite gets what he deserves. In a fine twist, we see Atticus led to safety by his maternal ancestor, Hanna, who was the only survivor of the 1833 fire.

Atticus, as we learn during this episode, was in fact the last surviving ancestor of Titus Braithwaite (he’d impregnated Hanna), which apparently made Atticus the key to opening the Garden of Eden for the cult to achieve immortality. When the lodge crumbles to the ground again, Leti survives, but George does not (that one hurts!), although Montrose seems to be physically alright. Did Christina make it out alive, and what of William? As the rule goes, no bodies, no certain death.

– The Jeffersons and… Marilyn Manson

Like I wrote ahead of this season, this show’s soundtrack plays an important role in this show’s splatter-on-the-wall form of painting the story. None of this happens randomly or without careful consideration, and in this episode, two songs stand out. The first one, “Movin’ On Up,” holds a special place in pop culture as The Jeffersons theme song. Watching Leti and George dance to this song, completely unaware of what they saw the night before, is both a striking sight and a side-eye to how they’ve “finally got a piece of the pie.” Here, the dessert has been specifically tailored to keep both of them docile while the cult preys upon Atticus.

Then there’s a much less obvious piece of social commentary coming from “Killing Strangers.” Yes, that’d be the Marilyn Manson song featured in John Wick, where it simply sounded, you know, cool. Here, it’s both cool and terrifying when another invisible wall pops up, leading to Braithwhite shooting Leti and George. The song was inspired by the Vietnam War-acquired PTSD of Manson’s father, Hugh, and the lyrics speak to his struggle to readjust to civilian (and domestic) life after spraying the deadly Agent Orange poison and killing an untold number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. The residual trauma of Manson’s dad parallels the shell shock that Leti suspects is plaguing Atticus when she wonders if he’s lost it while rambling about monsters in the woods.

A few loose ends:

– The women of Lovecraft Country

Without getting into too much nuance here, it’s clear that Christina’s got a major beef against her dad, which is perfectly understandable, given that the cult’s as misogynist as they are racist. She’s angered that Atticus can wear one of the Order’s rings, simply because he was born male, which might tell us a lot about her motives. Christina is the one who apparently believed that Atticus would be useful during the ceremony, but was she actually setting up the cult to fail? We can’t rule out that possibility.

As far as the German Shepard-owning village meanie goes, I wonder how she ties into a possible scheme, since she was holding Montrose prisoner. Atticus also believed that her dog whistle sounded like the one that stopped the Shaggoth last week. We did see Christina stop those monsters outside the village this week with a whistle (in the process, she erased Leti and George’s memories), and there’s gotta be a connection between the two women that we haven’t heard about yet.

This seems like a good place to recall that Leti’s a badass. George didn’t forget.

– Finally, another nod to Tulsa’s place in Black history

Damon Lindelof’s reimagining of Alan Moore’s Watchmen put the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre on the map for a lot of viewers, and the city’s getting a Lovecraft Country shoutout for what appears to be less nefarious happenings. As George dances with the ghost of Dora, she muses about the good old days with Montrose and George near the home of Black Wall Street. It’s at that point in the episode when George really begins to suspect that the cult’s gotten into his head, but it also leads to the revelation that Dora is Tic’s mother, meaning that Montrose might not actually be his father. Montrose, of course, doesn’t take kindly to that conversation later, but there’s a slight hint that Montrose, despite being a d*ck to Atticus, does care about him like a son. Well, Montrose must now step into George’s shoes, so we’ll see how that goes in the future.

HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country’ airs Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

Anybody who keeps tabs on the music world knows that BTS has a fervent fan base that helps them reach towering heights. The group’s new video for “Dynamite,” their first English-language single, unsurprisingly broke records. Now, some confirmed figures are in, and it turns out the group became the first to ever achieve a significant YouTube milestone: The “Dynamite” video had 101.1 million views in its first 24 hours in the site, which makes it the first video to eclipse 100 million in that time frame.

The previous record holder for most views in 24 hours was Blackpink’s “How You Like That” visual, which racked up 86.3 million views during that period. For further reference, the latest video from PewDiePie, the second most-subscribed-to YouTube user with 106 million subscribers, uploaded a new video 21 hours ago, and it currently has 3.2 million views (as of press time).

This is just the latest record the group achieved with their new video. It was previously reported that the visual got 10 million views in its first 21 minutes, the fastest time for a YouTube video to ever reach that height. Furthermore, during the video’s premiere, there were also between 3 to 4 million concurrent viewers, which of course was also another YouTube record broken.

Watch the “Dynamite” video here.

Succession was nominated this year for a whopping 18 Emmy awards, including Best Dramatic series and nine nominations for acting performances. Nicholas Braun, Kieran Culkin, Matthew Macfadyen, Sarah Snook, Brian Cox, and Jeremy Strong were all nominated, although all of the male nominees will have to face off against at least one other Succession actor in their category. (There were three other nominations in the guest actor categories for Harriet Walter, James Cromwell, and Cherry Jones).

While all the nominees are obviously wildly deserving, only one of those actors has gained a reputation for being a hardcore method actor. There are rumors that on the set, Jeremy Strong introduces himself as Kendall, the name of his character. There’s even some more absurd speculation that Strong, like his character, did meth, or at the very least, got wasted when his character was having substance abuse problems.

On this week’s episode of WTF with Marc Maron, Jeremy Strong’s Succession co-star, Kieran Culkin, talked about Jeremy Strong’s approach to acting, and how challenging it can sometimes be to work opposite him.

“With Jeremy, it’s complex. A lot of people immediately say he’s method, and he would say that he is not. But for all intents and purposes, I feel like he kind of is,” Culkin told Maron on the podcast. “The things is, he doesn’t want to know if the actor [opposite him] is going to do [blank], because that would mess him up. Sometimes, he doesn’t want you to say certain words. Like, don’t call it a ‘scene’ or things like that. It can be pretty particular sometimes.”

“Usually,” Culkin continues, “my job is to sort of poke fun at him and try to break down that little wall. Like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, this SCENE? In this SCENE that we’re going to rehearse because it’s a F**KING TV SHOW?’ I like to do that to him, sometimes.”

“If ‘Kendall’ is in a really good place, then Jeremy is in a much better mood. If ‘Kendall’ is in a dark place, then it’s very much don’t talk to him. So, that has its own challenges, too.”

Culkin added, however, that he’s been acting for 30 years at this point, so he’s very good at navigating other people’s processes. He also added that Brian Cox and Sarah Snook are the least like their characters, and that Cox, in fact, is a “teddy bear.” However, though the extreme rumors about Jeremy Strong’s acting are obviously untrue, it’s clear that he does adopt some fairly hardcore method acting practices. On the other hand, at least he doesn’t give away live rats and dead pigs to his co-stars, as Jared Leto does, although gifting a “boar on the floor” to one of his castmates would have been a tremendously good prank.

Source: WTF with Marc Maron

Justin Townes Earle, the son of country music legend Steve Earle and a respected and beloved musician in his own right, has died at 38 years old. The cause of death has not yet been shared publicly.

The news was confirmed in a post on Earle’s Facebook page, which reads, “It is with tremendous sadness that we inform you of the passing of our son, husband, father and friend Justin. So many of you have relied on his music and lyrics over the years and we hope that his music will continue to guide you on your journeys. You will be missed dearly Justin.” The post then quotes Earle’s lyrics from “Looking For A Place To Land,” which appears on his 2015 album Absent Fathers: “I’ve crossed oceans / Fought freezing rain and blowing sand / I’ve crossed lines and roads and wondering rivers / Just looking for a place to land.”

Earle’s debut album was 2007’s Yuma, and he went on to find success from there. Between 2009 and 2017, he released a number of albums that approached the top of Billboard‘s indie, rock, and folk charts. That includes No. 3 peaks on the Folk Albums chart for 2010’s Harlem River Blues and 2014’s Single Mothers, as well as another No. 3 summit on the Independent Albums chart for 2017’s Kids In The Street. The final album Earle released during his lifetime (and eighth overall) was 2019’s The Saint Of Lost Causes.

In a 2019 interview, Earle reflected on his shortcomings and strengths, saying, “I’ve been committed to music since I was 15 years old. I’m a good father. I taught my daughter to cuss when the Cubs lose — she’s an Earle, so she’ll be fine. I’m a good father, but I’m a sh*tty husband. I’m built for the road; I don’t know what the hell to do at home. But you know what? I never said I’d be good at any of that. Nobody can ever ask me to stop doing what I do. If you want to do what I do — like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark — you’re committed to it. Everybody else around you has to understand that.”

Revisit our 2017 interview with Earle here.

The Democratic National Convention was held last week, and during Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver pointed out a few issues with the multi-day celebration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The DNC “spent the week steering hard toward middle of the road,” Oliver said, noting that instead of highlighting party stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “a lot of time was given to Republicans,” including Meg Whitman and Colin Powell (leading to the resurgence of this photo). “It’s hard to convince progressive voters that you’re a forward-looking party when your convention feels like a Zoom cast reunion except the show is the 2008 RNC,” he noted.

Oliver also observed that Biden’s warmly received speech played it safe, and “while he name-checked broad goals like expanding child care or ending racism, the speech was light on detail… Normally, I’d point out that compassion and decency are not concrete policy agendas, but considering open authoritarianism is also on the ballot, sure what the fuck? Adequate vs. evil, let’s go,” as photos of Biden and Trump appeared onscreen:

“I’m honestly not saying it’s a mistake for the DNC to spend four days pointing out that Joe Biden’s not Donald Trump. It’s a very attractive quality. But, spending so much of their convention underscoring Trump’s unfitness for office may have been redundant given that Trump spent the entire week basically making that case for them, by continuing to sow distrust of voting by mail, calling for a boycott of an American company that employs over 60,000 workers, and refusing to disavow the QAnon conspiracy theory.”

Oliver ended the segment by saying that he hopes “the DNC’s strategy this week of wooing undecided voters with the star power of John Kasich and Meg Whitman pays off. Because if the Democrats just spent a week trying to appear to conservatives who ultimately end up voting Republican, then this will actually turn out to be a depressingly conventional convention.” You can watch the full episode here.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Nas recently found himself in a fued with Doja Cat due to his new song “Ultra Black,” on which he raps, “We going ultra black, unapologetically black / The opposite of Doja Cat, Michael Blackson black.” While it may seem evident that he was attacking Doja with his words, Nas says that actually wasn’t the case at all.

He recently spoke with Hit-Boy on Power 106, and the rapper insisted his line about Doja was just lyrical wordplay, saying, “I just really was saying a rhyme that rhymed with ‘Ultra Black.’ I rhymed that word with ‘ultra black,’ I didn’t even think of it. It’s all love, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s all love. […] It’s bars, it’s just lines. We play with words.”

Doja previously offered a reaction to the controversy, and she didn’t let on that she was bothered by it. She said in her response, with the song playing in the background, “I am so offended and upset about this song. Have you guys heard ‘Fruit Salad’ by The Wiggles?” She later made a Nas-related observation about her upcoming music, saying, “The song that I have coming out is called ‘Nas,’ but only if you abbreviate it. It’s three words. It’s funny, because that was before the fact. If you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about.”

After blowing out the Nuggets in Game 3 on Friday, the Utah Jazz entered Sunday night’s Game 4 with a chance to take a commanding 3-1 series lead over 3-seeded Denver.

The Nuggets, backs against the wall, weren’t going to roll over and came out with a new starting five, moving Monte Morris and Jerami Grant in for Torrey Craig and Michael Porter Jr, and followed the lead of their two stars to make things very difficult for Utah. Murray had 50 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists in a virtuoso performance, but in a reversal of Game 1, this time it was Donovan Mitchell who got to hand someone a loss in a career-night. Mitchell, for the second time this series, dropped 51 on the Jazz and continues to assert himself as one of the playoff’s most dominant offensive forces, and this time his Herculean effort went towards a 129-127 victory.

The Jazz took a 3-1 series lead with the victory, but Denver showed great fight and proved they won’t just hand Utah the series. Here are our three takeaways from Sunday night’s thriller.

1. The shot-making in the Bubble is absurd

It’s been a theme throughout the playoffs, but this game really highlighted just how amazing the shot-making has been in Orlando. Murray and Mitchell weren’t walking into wide open looks all night and while there’s something to be said for some defensive woes for both teams (we’ll get to that in a moment), a lot of what we saw on Sunday was just great offense. Murray was making seemingly everything he tossed up from deep, no matter which direction he came off the bounce, and was simply willing his team into the game.

For Mitchell, it was the same story on the other side as he carved up the Denver defense and even when they got a solid closeout and contest, he buried shots between their eyes.

Those two young star guards exemplified the shot-making we’ve seen in the Bubble — see also: Luka Doncic v. Kawhi Leonard and Lou Williams from earlier today. There are shooters gyms in Orlando and we’re reaping the rewards in the form of some all-time performances, and it’s just a blast to soak it all in.

2. The Nuggets defense is a problem (and not in the good, snorting emojis way)

There’s certainly a point where you just have to tip your cap to Mitchell and company, but it’s just way too easy for a Jazz offense that no one would’ve confused with an elite group prior to the playoffs. Mitchell has stepped his game up in a massive way, but it’s too easy for him to get into a rhythm. The Nuggets have tried everything against him, but simply don’t have the personnel to bother him for 48 minutes. They miss Gary Harris desperately as they don’t have anyone that can apply consistent pressure to Mitchell on the ball without fouling and also without giving up a lot on offense (both of which are problems for Torrey Craig).

There’s almost no one capable of protecting the rim, as no one confuses Jokic with a strong defender, and those issues shone brightly down the stretch as they didn’t get a single stop in the final three minutes of the game. It doesn’t matter how great your offense is, if you can’t get one (1) stop when you need it, you stand no chance long-term. Denver might be able to shoot their way into another win, but it’s hard to see how this series goes much further than six with the Nuggets defense the way it is.

3. The Jazz might have a path to the conference finals

It was almost unfathomable to think of a week ago given what this offense looked like without Bojan Bogdanovic, but with Mike Conley coming to life in the Bubble, some great play from Jordan Clarkson, and the leap forward taken by Donovan Mitchell, this is suddenly a team that looks extremely formidable. They’ll face either the Clippers or the Mavs in the second round as that series is tied at 2-2, and neither of those defenses has looked especially formidable. Luka Doncic is torching the Clippers vaunted perimeter defense on a nightly basis, and while it’s taking spectacular efforts from him to gut out wins, Mitchell is showing he’s capable of similar brilliance. Depth remains a question, but Quin Snyder has pressed all the right buttons in this series, finding a defensive gem in Juwan Morgan, and their starters have been blistering the Nuggets all series. A lot of this comes down to Mitchell continuing to play like a top 10 player in the NBA, but so far he’s looked the part through four games of this series and he will enter the second round with immense confidence he can continue on this pace.

While the NBA’s schedule for the restarted playoffs has room for every series to go a full seven games, that won’t be a necessity in every instance, as evidenced by the Raptors and Celtics both sweeping their first round opponents this week.

With both teams finishing off their opening series on Sunday evening in Orlando, the league was not going to make them both wait a full week to begin Round 2. Instead, the two teams will meet beginning Thursday, even as some first round series (like Mavs-Clippers) continue. The league announced the full schedule for their highly anticipated second round series on Sunday night, with times and TV network designations still to come.

It will be interesting to see when the league puts those second round tip times if Clippers-Mavs and Nuggets-Jazz continue to six or seven games. One would expect a series involving the Celtics and the defending champs to earn relative top billing even if the other series are hotly contested still. It also sets up the winner of that series to, potentially, earn a bit of a rest advantage over whomever makes it to the conference finals, as the Bucks still must play a Game 5 against the Magic before all-but assuredly squaring off with the Miami Heat in Round 2.

As expected, the Toronto Raptors sent the Brooklyn Nets packing on Sunday night in Orlando, finishing off a dominant four-game sweep with a thorough 150-122 win in Game 4.

Norm Powell and Serge Ibaka led the way for the Raptors with 29 points and 27 points respectively off the bench, as the starters got much of the night off once Toronto took control of the game — Pascal Siakam, who finished with 20 points and 10 assists, was the only player who logged over 30 minutes. Powell was tremendous and the Raptors were able to flaunt their depth in the win, scoring 100 bench points and seeing six players in double figures (and three more with nine points) en route to the highest scoring game in Raptors postseason history.

There is some reason for concern for the Raptors despite the impressive showing, as Kyle Lowry left the game in the first quarter after rolling his left ankle and was taken to the Bubble’s MRI machine off-site. The hope, of course, is that he’ll avoid a serious ankle injury and will be able to be at full strength when they tip-off their second round series with Boston, who likewise finished off a sweep on Sunday afternoon.

The Lowry injury put a damper on an otherwise spectacular performance from a Raptors team that continues to roll right along, looking as cohesive a team as there is in the Bubble. Now they’ll face a stern test in a Celtics team that is likewise playing excellent ball and will throw a perimeter trio at them that is arguably as good as any three-man unit in the league with Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum. The Raptors boast their own triumverate on the outside with Lowry, Fred VanVleet, and Siakam, and the battle of those stars figures to play heavily into the series outcome.

However, even if those six players wash each other out, Toronto is banking on the fact that their role players can get the job done and keep the train rolling along on both ends to be the big difference in a series with Boston. On Sunday we got a reminder of just how deep their bench goes and what those guys are capable of when called upon, and this second round matchup figures to be a must-watch battle between two terrific teams.

Game 4 of the Nets-Raptors first round series didn’t have much in the way of intrigue with Toronto holding a 3-0 series lead and having dispatched of Brooklyn with relative ease in the first three games.

The main task at hand for the Raptors was putting away the Nets while staying sharp for their upcoming second round series with Boston. Unfortunately, things took a wrong turn in the first quarter for Toronto when Kyle Lowry rolled his left ankle stepping on the foot of a Brooklyn defender and, after trying to continue playing, almost immediately had to ask out and headed to the locker room for evaluation.

The initial update from the Raptors didn’t provide much in the way of information on the severity of the injury, noting his availability for the rest of Game 4 was still to be determined — but it was later announced he would not return.

One expected, given the Raptors 3-0 series lead and the talent discrepancy even without Lowry, they would err on the side of caution here and so his day being done isn’t necessarily an indication of something too severe. With a second round matchup against the Celtics looming after Boston capped off a sweep of the Sixers earlier in the day, Toronto will need Lowry as healthy as possible given Boston’s strength in the backcourt, and keeping him from aggravating his injury further is the prudent move.

Later in the second quarter, the team confirmed Lowry had left the arena to go get an MRI on his ankle.