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Seconds into Kaash Paige’s debut album Teenage Fever, the Dallas native introduces herself to listeners on “London” with a bold question to an unnamed love interest: “Did you miss me enough to drink? Or did you drink enough to miss me?” While the idea of being missed is enough for some, Kaash peels back the action with a very Instagram caption-esque question to investigate its motive. Is the encounter a failed attempt to escape the saddened thoughts rooted in a failed stab at love that just barely slipped away or a drunken moment due for an “I’m sorry about last night. I was drunk” text the following morning? The question is a mere defense mechanism to protect the heart, one that desperately seeks a pure and undeniable love.

As all teenagers do, Kaash seeks love and direction in a world that expects so much from children, who know so little about it. Teenage Fever is the various anecdotes that result from these endeavors. It’s the lightbulb moments that give her an additional droplet of wisdom to figure out love or know where to turn in life but said droplet is not always enough. Backed by a verse from 42 Dugg, she vents about the lack of support in her life on “Fake Love.” “Even my family don’t understand me,” she sings. “Even my homies still don’t got a plan B.” The line is quite honestly the battle cry of the young teens who simply want to be understood and guided in the right direction towards the goals they hold within or seek to discover.

Unaccustomed to the true pains and frustrations of love, Kaash experiences this first hand throughout the album. After detailing the beauty of an intimate bond that holds two lovers together on “Soul Ties,” she sees the pains of when a connection like this is only desired on one side of the relationship on “Friends.” She pushes the envelope towards her love interest to no avail as they show no desire to read the words that lie within it. “Look who I’m f*ckin’ again / We can be more than just friends,” she suggests on the somber track. “Friends, what after this? / I don’t even know what that is.” After several intimate encounters, Kaash’s naivety towards the complexities of love is uncovered and sting like the burn of a fresh wound. It’s here that she learns the hard way that repeated intimate encounters do not always equate to settling down in the realm of exclusivity.

Teenage Fever closes with a supportive message on “Karma” that defines exactly what the album’s title is. “You are now entering Teenage Fever / which is where all the teenagers go through a stage of life / Bein’ unnatural and not knowin’ what’s really goin’ on.” It arrives like a pilot’s in-flight announcement minutes before landing. Despite its placement at the end of the album, this announcement is what all of Teenage Fever looked to bring to listeners. Kaash sings for the adolescent seeking love and self-expression. She sings for the ones who stress life’s “Problems” and solutions to them, for those who “play games” and “never pursue” love as she confesses on “Break Up Song.” The album sings for the youth and their ignorance to the world, one they can’t be blamed for. Rather than reprimand them for this ignorance, Kaash delivers the understanding she wished for while young.

Kaash Paige’s debut album proves she’s a product of Drake’s R&B catalog that often found teenagers like herself teary-eyed after their high-school crush lived up to their title and smashed their heart into pieces. Aside from a title that comes from his More Life track, other references to The Boy’s work are found on “Jaded,” “Fake Love,” “Friends,” and “Problems,” which interpolates Drake’s Take Care cut “Good Ones Go (Interlude).” Say what you want about Drake’s R&B bona fides, its quality, and how it stands against the rest of his work, but one thing is for sure: its relatable content gave direction to young listeners like Kaash herself. While it helped some navigate the usually guide-less trail of adolescence and love, it helped the Dallas native find her voice to create her version of these often relatable songs.

Kaash Paige isn’t the best at what she does, not yet at least. However, her efforts are promising. Teenage Fever is her wide-eyed entrance to a world that thrives off self-expression, and in it, she brings her preconceived notions on life and all that comes with it. This isn’t a coming of age story for her youth is still apparent on Teenage Fever. However, the album proves that despite being misunderstood and even misguided at times, Kaash found her way and continues to do just that day in and day out.

Teenage Fever is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

Ja Morant is the heavy favorite to take home the Rookie of the Year award after averaging 17.8 points, 7.3 assists, and 3.9 rebounds per game for the surprising Memphis Grizzlies, who fell just short of a stunning postseason appearance.

Morant is now back at home after a month in the Disney Bubble, and while the frustration of being so close to a playoff appearance is very real, the young point guard has a perspective on the season that illustrates what makes him unique among young players. He understands this season was just the beginning for the young Grizzlies, who he’s quick to note were projected to be a bottom five team in the league prior to the season. He also gets that the franchise now has a foundation to build upon for what they hope will be a contender for much more than just an 8-seed in the future.

Like the team as a whole, Morant used this season as a chance to take a major step forward on and off the court as he finds his place in the NBA. He sees plenty of opportunities to get better this offseason to build off his rookie campaign, with a focus both on developing his basketball skill and continuing to develop his body. On Tuesday, Morant spoke with DIME by phone on behalf of BODYARMOR — he’stheir latest athlete partner — about his rookie year, the difference in his focus on training and nutrition in the NBA compared to college, his takeaways from this season, what makes the Grizzlies mesh so well, and the work he does off the court to be a better point guard and know where his teammates are at their best.

To start, how is your thumb doing and how are you feeling?

The thing with my thumb, you know, it’s fine. Still in the healing process, but all good. You know, enjoying the fam, watching the games. So, I’m all good.

Good. Something I’ve talked with a lot of guys about is how much they learn as young players in the NBA about taking care of their bodies, nutrition, and training. What are the things that you learned this year as a rookie that you can build upon as you build your own personal routine for all of that going forward in your career?

Really just eating good, like you said, putting the right stuff in your body is something … after I begin to learn that, my body started feeling way better. I wasn’t as fatigued or sore or anything, and I feel like that’s really the main thing. Just knowing exactly what you’re putting in your body and making sure it’s the right thing.

Was that something you focused on at all in college or was that more of a learning process this year in the league?

I can say before and after college I was big on it, but during college it’s kind of hard. You have to, you know, eat whatever you’ve got out there. College was kind of tough, but my dad, he’s a chef, so he cooks a lot so I rarely eat a lot of junk food or anything like that.

And how did that lead you to this partnership with BODYARMOR?

You know, like I said, just making sure you put the right stuff in your body, staying hydrated. BODYARMOR has a lot of potassium and electrolytes in it, so it definitely is a plus for me.

Obviously things didn’t end as you’d hoped for, but what are your takeaways from your rookie season, both personally and as a team?

For me personally, I always feel like there’s room for improvement. I’m gonna just continue to work this offseason and get ready for next season. As for the team, I feel like we’re in a good position. We were projected to be 27th and ended up being games away from the playoffs. I feel like we love that underdog role and we all have that underdog mentality, but we also know we are a good team when we’re playing together and playing our style of basketball. Now we know what it takes to make the playoffs, so we just gotta build on this past season and continue to get better, and push for the playoffs next season.

You mention the work you’re getting ready to put in this offseason. Is there anything specifically — and I know you want to get better in all facets of your game — but is there anything particularly in your game that you really want to make sure you improve upon for next season?

I would just say, like you said, all areas for me. I don’t just work on one thing. I’m going to continue to get in the weight room and continue to put on weight and be able to absorb contact and finish through contact.

What was the Bubble experience like for you? There’s not a lot of times where the whole league is in one place like that. As a rookie, did that give you an opportunity to get to know some more guys in the league off the court — I don’t know how much time you spent with folks outside of your team — but it is such a unique situation.

I mean it was different. Nobody expected us to be there and finishing the season there. The Bubble was definitely different. It’s just the guys out there, the teams, you know, missing fans, so it definitely was some tough areas, but it also allowed you to focus on what you had to do: Be locked in on the game. I really don’t hang around too many people, so I was just around my teammates.

I know you and Jaren and Dillon and the rest of those guys are all really close. What would you say about how quickly this team really came together for a group of young guys, and how the pieces seemed to fit so well together?

I feel like when we have new people come in or whatever, we try to make them feel as comfortable as possible. When we not on the court, we all be together. Continue to get to know each other outside of basketball, continue to build our bond, and I feel like that is kinda what helps us on the court because we know what to expect from certain players. We know where certain players like to have the ball at and shoot from, and I feel like that kinda helps us.

That’s such a big job of yours as a point guard. What did you learn about being a leader this year and what do you do to learn where those guys want to be and learn your teammates because as the point guard it’s your job to put them in those positions to succeed?

I just watch a lot of my teammates film, watching them in they workouts when I’m not even working out, like after my workouts. Just staying ’round, obviously you can tell where people seem more comfortable at with how they’re playing. So I’m just watching it, studying the stats, and it’s just, you know, me just trying to put them in comfortable positions, the spots they like to be in. So, it’s just easier for them. If I know somebody likes to shoot on that right wing, then I’m going to have them on that right wing [laughs]. I feel like it’s my job as the point guard to be a leader and be vocal, but I took that challenge of learning each one of my teammates spots to be a better player and to help my team.

Lil Uzi Vert finally released his highly anticipated new album Eternal Atake on March 6 this year, three years after Luv Is Rage 2. As far as promoting the album, though, the timing was unfortunate. It came out right around the time when the coronavirus pandemic started shutting down many sectors of business and life around the world, so Uzi hasn’t been able to tour behind the record.

Now, though, he is taking the route many artists have taken during the pandemic and has found a way to give his first live performance in support of the album: He will be putting on a livestream concert. The performance is set to take place on August 27 at 6 p.m. ET, and it will be a ticketed event, with access to the show costing $15 via Universe. It’s not clear where in the world Uzi will be performing from, but there will be no audience in attendance wherever it is.

Between Eternal Atake and now, Uzi has shared some new material that could find its way into his setlist. He was rumored to be dropping a mixtape with Future, and while that hasn’t come to be yet, the two did drop a pair of new songs at the end of July.

Get tickets for the livestream performance here.

The Houston Rockets cruised to a Game 1 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder and, as often, it was the team’s offense that carried the day for James Harden and company. While Harden and Russell Westbrook (when healthy) deserve all kinds of recognition for the heliocentric performance they exhibit in leading Houston’s offense, the Rockets do need quality supporting pieces to make the operation work. In addition to Eric Gordon and P.J. Tucker, Mike D’Antoni’s system calls for rotation players that can space the floor and bomb away from beyond the arc and, in 2019-20, that means Ben McLemore.

McLemore, who was once considered a leading candidate to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, was floundering in the NBA wilderness when he agreed to a partially guaranteed two-year deal with the Rockets in late July last summer. The former Kings and Grizzlies guard signed for a bargain-basement price, not only to be a part of a title contending team but, presumably, because McLemore’s asking price was limited.

While McLemore does have the pedigree of a top-tier high school recruit and lottery pick, the 27-year-old was something of a punchline in previous stops. As a member of the Kings, McLemore did appear in 293 games in his first four seasons, contributing a bit as a scorer and staying on the floor due to Sacramento’s sizable investment in his development. However, McLemore wasn’t what anyone would describe as a “winning player” during his rookie contract and, with a perilous situation in an unstable organization, it was not a match made in heaven.

From there, McLemore spent a year in Memphis as a “buy low” candidate and, after that experiment didn’t click, he appeared in 19 games during the 2018-19 season for the Grizzlies. In short, it appeared that his days as a well-paid NBA contributor could be numbered and, while talent was never an overarching question for McLemore, his profile never fit snugly with what his previous teams asked him to accomplish on the floor.

Enter the Rockets, with Houston playing a highly specific style and building their roster with undeniable intention. At the time of the signing, plugged-in observers opined that a limited, targeted role could be good for McLemore but, in the same breath, few could have envisioned the success that the former Kansas guard enjoyed in his first season with the Rockets.

McLemore appeared in 71 regular season games, making 23 starts, and he averaged 10.1 points while shooting 40.0 percent from three-point range. At first glance, his box-score statistics don’t look markedly different from previous seasons but, after a bit of closer inspection, McLemore’s performance in Houston really shines with regard to his role and deployment.

First, McLemore’s three-point attempt rate soared with the Rockets and, as part of the NBA’s analytical revolution, that is usually in line with increased efficiency. McLemore attempted a career-high 12.9 three-point attempts per 100 possessions and, with an elite clip of 40 percent, that shooting is exceedingly valuable. In addition, McLemore’s usage rate declined to a career-low 16 percent, mitigating some of his weaknesses with regard to playmaking and turnover avoidance.

In addition, not all three-point attempts are created equal and McLemore serves a very specific purpose within Houston’s system. McLemore attempted 545 shot attempts this season and a whopping 452 of them (82.9 percent) came from beyond the three-point arc. That is already a marked difference from the past, but 388 of the 452 three-point attempts were classified, by Synergy, as “catch-and-shoot” attempts.

That is a sky-high percentage and, with Harden and Westbrook doing the lion’s share of the creation, McLemore was plugged in to perhaps the perfect role for his current skill set. To be fair, McLemore did shoot a quality percentage (38 percent) on pull-up three-point attempts but, on the whole, the Rockets simply asked him to be ready and willing to shoot from long distance whenever the opportunity arose.

It is fair to wonder whether McLemore’s current brand of offense would work in other stops. After all, he is still a soundly below-average playmaker and finisher for his size, and not every team can create the kind of opportunities for three-point shooters that the current Rockets provide. However, there is nothing wrong with a player simply finding the perfect spot to showcase his abilities and McLemore is doing just that in Houston.

As the playoffs continue, McLemore will be under pressure to defend at an adequate level. At this stage, he still grades as a below-average defender according to catch-all metrics, and playoff-level intensity is something different entirely. Still, the Rockets defense didn’t suffer with him on the floor this season and, in fact, Houston was 4.0 points per 100 possessions better with McLemore on the floor this season, including a lights-out 114.2 offensive rating.

McLemore’s 2019-20 renaissance is truly a reminder that, while a player must reach a certain baseline of skill development, it matters greatly how skill sets are developed, nurtured and developed. It is possible that, without Houston as a landing spot, McLemore’s career may still be dormant but, at this stage, it appears as if he has found a niche and, in just one season, a former lottery pick has reinvented himself as a shooting specialist that could be extremely valuable at the highest levels of the sport.

It’s interesting to note the television comedy’s long-standing goal of mimicking reality, and the ever-shifting conventions for doing so. In the early days of the television comedy, we needed live audiences and piped in laughter to put viewers — probably weaned on stage shows and vaudeville — at ease. A silent show? That’d just be weird.

Later generations came along and fairly rightly wondered what was up with all that disembodied laughter. Who is doing that? How weird! Thus the single-cam comedy came into vogue, alongside reality television that ditched the actors and scripts entirely (allegedly), which now occupy an uneasy space alongside YouTubers and influencers whose second-person address style (“What’s up, guys…”) makes even the God’s eye format of “reality television” seem quaint.

What, then, to make of DeMarcus Family Rules on Netflix?

The surprise release follows Jay DeMarcus, one of the three members of Rascal Flatts — who appear to be a kind of middle-aged boy band for pageant moms complete with frosted tips — and his ex-beauty queen wife, Allison, as they… well, mostly as they unconvincingly play the role of “people with a reality show.” Later we meet the kids, an archetypal Bart and Lisa (mischievous boy, brainy girl) for people who weren’t allowed to watch the Simpsons (with the son’s ‘Bama bangs replacing spikes). The show attempts to squeeze every dumb TV trope into just a few minutes of over-edited docucomedy. The effect is like staring into fame’s uncanny valley. I think if you make it more than ten minutes into this show, you wake up in the hellish place between universes from Event Horizon.

I spent the first few minutes of this new show wondering if I was watching a “reality” show, something scripted, or something else. The theatrically pudgy, tall-haired DeMarcus spends the show’s cold open doing a vacuous impression of his wife. Which, unless you were extremely into Rascal Flatts, you probably wouldn’t know, because without knowing Jay DeMarcus we’re left to assume that this is just his regular personality. That he’s doing a “bit” is also unclear, since everything about the situation already feels bitty, complete with sitcom wife, fake therapist, and everyone sort of half sneaking looks at the crew to see if anyone is actually buying this. The tone lands somewhere between Disney Channel sitcom and TLC reality show, intent on selling us this shitty sitcom of a life where dad is a lovable screw-up breadwinner and mom dutifully keeps the house from falling apart while opining about make-up and hair. Oh, and they’re rich!

The question here isn’t just “is this reality,” but rather, is this supposed to look like reality? Is this a reality show mimicking a sitcom, a sitcom mimicking a reality show, or are these peoples’ brains so atrophied from YouTube pranks and Disney sitcoms that this is how they really act? Jay and Allison DeMarcus are so transparently play-acting their expected roles (a kind of barely-updated fifties sitcom milieu spiced with early aughts wealth porn) that it’s hard to tell whether this is all for the camera or for their whole lives. Jay DeMarcus speaks with an exaggerated Nashville drawl (is there a better word for this accent? Tennessee accents sound much less languid, more buttoned-up than deep south drawls, like Alabaman with its t-shirt tucked into its shorts) despite subsequent research revealing that he was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio.

It occurs to me that this kind of unceasing performativeness may actually be what characterizes life in certain affluent suburbs; that DeMarcus Family Rules is just Real Housewives for people with Disneyland annual passholder car magnets. Yet the obvious draw of Real Housewives is to watch rich people behaving terribly. The draw of DeMarcus Family Rules, and by extension the draw of both pop country and Disney shows (a parallel made explicit in the case of Rascal Flatts, who spent much of their career on a Disney record label) is presumably to watch rich people behaving… wholesomely. It feels less like a show than a sales pitch for a lifestyle; at any moment you expect to be asked to buy a timeshare or join a multi-level marketing scheme. It’s not only nauseating but vaguely reactionary. See, y’all? Everything’s fine!

The result is an inescapable and overwhelming smarm. Just watching the DeMarcus family be (I mean, not really, it’s all fake as shit) feels like being smugly chided. In the course of researching this I kept looking up pictures of Rascal Flatts and getting angrier and angrier.

Would you believe this picture was taken in 2019? It looks like someone replaced the kids in a Mervyn’s ad with their dads as a joke. It looks like a convention of cool pastors. These men are walking pooka shell necklaces. DeMarcus Family Rules is like an animatic of this picture.

Applying the same styling the Disney Channel does to its tween stars to grown men makes explicit what’s so disturbing about it. What becomes plain is the sheer amount of artifice it takes to make people look this sexless; an army of stage children selling abstinence through bleached teeth and 10 pounds of makeup. The irony is that Disney’s studiously sex-free stars always end up looking a lot like porn actors. How far can you take fantasy before it becomes fetish?

But hey, maybe I’m reading too much into it?

Perhaps being incredibly skeeved out by well-coiffed youth pastors is more of a “me” thing. In any case, they say good art disturbs, and watching just half an episode of DeMarcus Family Rules sent me to a dark, dark emotional place from whence I still haven’t fully returned. In conclusion, solid B+.

‘DeMarcus Family Rules’ is available to stream on Netflix starting Wednesday, August 19th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Arcade Fire’s Will Butler is readying a new solo album, Generations, which comes out next month. He previewed it in July with “Surrender,” and now he has returned with a video for “Close My Eyes.”

Merge Records describes the track as “a song that searches for comfort and almost finds it.” The label also notes that Butler shot the video himself in a rowboat that his grandfather built, and that the visual “highlights the song’s longing for escape.”

Butler says of the song, “I tried to make the lyrics a straightforward and honest description of an emotion I feel often–a drive for change coupled with despair: ‘I’m tired of waiting for a better day. But I’m scared and I’m lazy and nothing’s gonna change.’ Kind of a sad song. Trying to tap into some Smokey Robinson/Motown feeling — ‘I’ve got to dance to keep from crying.’”

He also previously spoke about Generations more broadly, saying, “My first record, Policy, was a book of short stories. Generations is more of a novel — despairing, funny, a little bit epic… A big chunk of this record is asking: What’s my place in American history? What’s my place in America’s present? Both in general — as a participant, as we all are, in the sh*t that’s going down — but, also extremely particularly: me as Will Butler, rich person, white person, Mormon, Yankee, parent, musician of some sort, I guess. What do I do? What can I do? The record asks that question over and over, even if it’s not much for answers.”

Watch the “Close My Eyes” video above.

Generations is out 9/25 via Merge. Pre-order it here.

With more and more rappers joining the Apple Music radio show trend, it’s likely to become harder and harder to truly stand out. Fortunately, Young MA, the latest to jump on the bandwagon, doesn’t have that problem. Her first guest pretty much ensures that plenty of rap fans will tune in to her debut episode as she interviews mutual admirer and fellow show host, Eminem. Em’s made no secret of his respect for Young MA’s bars, even admitting to missing the double meanings behind a few, so having him on was likely an easy call for her to make.

MA kicked off the first episode of her new show, Me Always Radio, by calling Em and reminiscing about the instance mentioned above as well as discussing MA’s new EP, Red Flu, released in May this year. Em gushes that he’s on his third listen through and “I’m still catching [bars]… When you get your punchlines or however your writing process is, you can always tell somebody who has studied the game and who is a student of it… Your punchlines don’t sound like setups. They sound like punchline after punchline after punchline. That requires a lot of skill and a lot of thought.”

Em signs off by telling MA, “Anything you need, I’m here.” MA also interviews Odell Beckham and Fivio Foreign in the first episode of Me Always Radio. Listen to the full episode above.

Perhaps the most notable speaker on day two of the 2020 Democratic National Convention was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (sorry Bill Clinton), but her speech was limited to 60 seconds, and its purpose was merely to carry out one of the many arcane procedural processes that take place at a political convention. Essentially, AOC was tasked with seconding the nomination of Bernie Sanders as president. Sanders obviously ended his presidential bid last year and enthusiastically endorsed Biden, but he was in line for a formal nomination as part of the process of transferring his delegates to Biden.

Not surprisingly, with only 60 seconds to speak and tasked with delivering a very specific message, AOC did not mention Biden in her brief remarks, something a lot of folks found confusing. But you’d think one of America’s leading news organizations would have known better. Instead, NBC News stoked controversy by tweeting, “In one of the shortest speeches of the DNC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden.” The tweet remained live and uncorrected for a while into the night, something AOC was understandably livid about and took to Twitter to express her frustration over.

“This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “The DNC shared the procedural purpose of my remarks to media WELL in advance. @NBC knew what was going to happen & that it was routine.” She added, “You waited several hours to correct your obvious and blatantly misleading tweet. It sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, & now the misinfo you created is circulating on other networks. All to generate hate-clicks from a pre-recorded, routine procedural motion. This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling.”

In further evidence that 2020 is one of the weirdest years in world history, having a beef with NBC means that AOC and Trump might finally have something in common. And you know you’ve messed up when you’re getting shade tossed at you by frozen sliced meat companies.

Wonder Woman 1984 is one of the more high-profile films to have its release date pushed back due to the ongoing pandemic, but fear not, if you need your Gal Gadot fix, October is going to be a great month. The Wonder Woman sequel comes out on October 2, followed three weeks later, on October 23, by Death on the Nile. The follow-up to 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express finds Kenneth Branagh returning as world-famous detective Hercule Poirot and Tom Bateman as Bouc, as well as newcomers Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Annette Bening, Ali Fazal, Sophie Okonedo, Emma Mackey, Dawn French, Rose Leslie, Jennifer Saunders, and Russell Brand.

If the mystery Poirot has to solve is, “Where are the world’s most attractive people and also “feminist” “scholar” Russell Brand, for some reason?” I know the answer. (It’s Death on the Nile. Gadot, Hammer, Wright, Branagh’s mustache, etc. are very attractive.)

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot’s Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple’s idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short. Set against an epic landscape of sweeping desert vistas and the majestic Giza pyramids, this tale of unbridled passion and incapacitating jealousy features a cosmopolitan group of impeccably dressed travelers, and enough wicked twists and turns to leave audiences guessing until the final, shocking denouement.

Death on the Nile opens on October 23.

Ozark will throw down with a super-sized season to launder all of the Byrde family’s messes and, most importantly, to allow Marty enough time to keep losing his sh*t on multiple occasions before the series concludes. Fortunately for viewers of this enormously popular show, Season 4 will begin filming this fall as planned, and there’s even better news: the show does not actually film at Lake of the Ozarks, where all sorts of pandemic foolishness has been going down, but rather, in Georgia near Lake Allatoona and Lake Lanier.

Sticking to the schedule is important for obvious reasons, including cost-effectiveness, which means that shutting down production when a Covid-19 case pops up is something to be avoided if possible. For that reason, star Jason Bateman has chosen to break an important tradition — he usually directs the first two episodes of each season — in order to keep himself in some semblance of a bubble. It’s a wise move, even if it’s “breaking his heart,” as he recently told Indiewire.

“[A]s we were looking through the protocols, the guidelines, all the complications with COVID, [and] the producer side of me made me think it’s just not responsible to have one of the actors direct the first two,” he reasoned. “Given that we’re still going to be getting our perimeter safe. Because if one of the actors gets sick, we all have to go home for weeks.”

Whereas if a crew member falls ill, Bateman points out, he can “[make] sure their salary is protected” while they stay home until the all clear is called. It remains to be seen whether he can pick up a few episodes to helm toward the end of the season, but that’s probably not in the cards. It’s definitely not the ideal way for him to end the Ozark run, but he knows exactly how much it matters to get things done as safely as possible, and he wants everyone to know that “I love directing the show.”

(Via IndieWire)