Few foods can beat the cheeseburger. Juicy ground beef patties sitting atop a tomato and some lettuce with melted cheese dripping down from all sides, plus a little sauce to pull all those umami flavors together? It’s almost perfect.
Almost.
You know what makes a cheeseburger even better? Throwing a grip of bacon on it. Just piles of bacon. It adds crunch, making each bite an audible delight. It also bumps up the salt levels into that dangerous-but-still-delicious range and offers a nice hit of smokiness.
The only time you’ll opt for a bacon-less cheeseburger over one with bacon is when you’re trying to mind your health. That’s fair, we’re not saying bacon is more delicious than life itself, but… sometimes it is. In those times, you’re going to want to eat the best. So we rounded up all the best fast food bacon cheeseburgers and ranked them.
We opted for bacon cheeseburgers that are menu staples at their respective fast food restaurants, so you won’t find any limited time Wendy’s Pretzel Bacon Pub or Travis Scott burgers here. Meaning these rankings will remain in perpetuity! No one can question them, EVER!
8. Jack in the Box Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger
Jack in the Box has had a fall from grace unlike any other fast-food restaurant. JiB use to be the place that didn’t “make it until you order it” but anyone who has been in the last… I want to say ten years, knows full well that Jack in the Box is the type of food you don’t eat unless you’re drunk and everything else is closed. The Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger has two beef patties, a mix of American and Swiss cheeses (admittedly a nice touch) mayo, mustard, ketchup, and four strips of bacon on a buttery bun.
The ingredients here should work, but the flavor just isn’t there. The cheese is less melted than it is sweaty, and the mix of mayo, mustard, ketchup, Swiss and American cheese is just too much. What you’re left with is a messy burger that tastes equally messy as flavors collide into a way that’ll make your digestive system hate you for days.
Skip this one.
The Bottom Line: The worst fast food bacon cheeseburger.
7. McDonald’s Bacon Quarter Pounder With Cheese
Remember when we said there wouldn’t be any trendy promotional burgers on this list? Well, we lied. Kind of. The Travis Scott Burger is the same thing as a McDonald’s Bacon Quarter Pounder with Cheese, only the Cactus Jack has lettuce. Does that make it better than McDonald’s menu mainstay? A little.
This burger claims freshly cooked beef, two slices of American cheese, onions, pickles, mustard, and ketchup on a sesame seed bun with applewood smoked bacon. As far as McDonald’s burgers go, it’s probably the best tasting on the menu. The mustard/ketchup combo is a signature flavor from McDonald’s, the pickles all bring a nice tangy-sweet balance that simmers down the bright bite of fresh onion. The meat is noticeably peppered, which works harmoniously with the applewood bacon.
The Bottom Line: Probably the best burger on the whole McDonald’s menu.
6. Burger King Bacon King
The Bacon King is a fairly new bacon cheeseburger on the scene, debuting a few years back along with the Crispy Chicken sandwich when BK revamped much of their menu. It’s clearly inspired by Wendy’s Baconator and if that far superior sandwich didn’t exist, the Bacon King might’ve been reason alone to venture out to Burger King.
The Bacon King features two charred flame-grilled quarter-pound patties, two slices of American cheese, ketchup and mayo, and thick-cut bacon. It’s bigger than the Baconator, but much much flatter, which doesn’t give it the grandeur that its name suggests. This comes down to the way the Bacon King is layered — it’s a mess. Globs of sauce, thin overly-dry meat patties, and a haphazard assemblage of bacon. It shouldn’t taste good, but somehow it does. The charbroiled meat compliments the smokey flavors of the bacon and the buttery bun introduces some sweetness that gives the burger a dangerously addictive quality.
We just wish there was more care in the presentation.
Bottom Line: A delicious bacon cheeseburger option if there isn’t a Wendy’s nearby.
5. Rally’s/Checkers BaconZilla
Like the Bacon King, the BaconZilla is also inspired by the monstrous presentation of the Baconator. Unlike the Bacon King, Rally’s BaconZilla actually has its own thing going on. Yes, the two beef-two cheese construction is there, but Rally’s kicks things up a notch by adding an extra layer of melted cheddar cheese, which adds a sharpness to the cheese and brings a gooey mouthfeel that the other burgers on this list just don’t have.
If you love a messy, cheesy burger, this is the bacon cheeseburger for you. It’s also the burger of choice for those who like fattier, thick pieces of bacon. Bacon cheeseburgers tend to feature flat, extra crispy pieces of bacon, but the BaconZilla’s pieces have a homemade quality that feels fresh off the griddle.
The Bottom Line: Lovers of cheese and fatty bacon look no further, this is the bacon cheeseburger for you.
4. Carl’s Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger
If you think the Western Bacon Cheeseburger is way too high on this list, I can understand that, but most of the good bacon cheeseburgers out there are clearly influenced by the standards set by Wendy’s Baconator. The Western Bacon Cheeseburger is very much its own thing, and that’s cool. One charbroiled beef patty, two strips of crispy bacon, American cheese, onion rings, and BBQ sauce. It’s got an insane level of crunch — making it the best bacon burger for ASMR fanatics — and the savory BBQ sauce elevates the smoked flavors of the bacon, which is why it gets away with just two measly strips.
Somehow the whole thing tastes more bacon-y than the competition and come on, crispy onion rings? Why don’t more burgers on this list have crispy onion rings?
The Bottom Line: Different than every bacon cheeseburger on this list. If you want something heavy on the umami, this is the burger for you.
3. Shake Shack SmokeShack
The SmokeShack is your choice of a single or double cheeseburger with delicious Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry peppers, and ShackSauce — which is basically a thousand island-type sauce — on a spongey potato bun.
Everything about this burger is delicious. The soft and squishy bun, the Angus beef patties, the perfectly rendered bacon, and those delicious slightly tangy cherry peppers — it truly feels gourmet.
And yet… it isn’t our favorite. There’s just something that isn’t memorable about this burger, it’s a great option when rolling through Shake Shack but it’s not the type of bacon cheeseburger you spend any time craving. It doesn’t feel dangerously decadent, it’s the bacon cheeseburger your parents want you to marry. And who needs that?
The Bottom Line: One of the highest quality, gourmet-style bacon cheeseburgers you’ll find in the fast-food space. Delicious ingredients that sadly don’t live up to the sum of their parts. It’s like the Traveling Wilburys of cheeseburgers. Full of big names that are somehow better enjoyed on their own.
2. Wendy’s Baconator
The Baconator is probably the first cheeseburger that comes to mind when someone says the words “bacon cheeseburger.” It has set the standard for the modern fast-food bacon cheeseburger — two quarter-pound beef patties, two pieces of melted American, and no lettuce. Why no lettuce? Because this is the Baconator baby! They’re not f*cking around — this is an absolute meat bomb, the type of bacon cheeseburger that puts you in an immediate food coma and makes you swear off bacon cheeseburgers for at least a week.
Wendy’s fresh overly-salty beef is teeming with delicious burger juices that meld perfectly with the melted cheese and double layer of bacon. The key here is the construction: a soft and spongey bun topped with a beef patty, then cheese, then bacon, then beef, then cheese, then bacon, ketchup, mayo, bun. It’s crafted in such a consistent and harmonious fashion that every bite of your burger matches the last, giving you a consistent experience from first to last bite.
What other fast food burgers can you say that about?
The Bottom Line: Clearly an icon and a staple of modern American fast food. The Baconator will probably be the best bacon fast-food cheeseburger you’ve ever had. Having said that, it’s not the best we’ve ever had.
1. Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger
The Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger is the greatest hits package of fast food bacon cheeseburgers. Do you like the smokey flavor of Carl’s Jr’s Western Bacon Cheeseburger? Load up your bacon cheeseburger with BBQ sauce! Enjoy the high-quality flavors of the fresh meat burgers from Wendy’s and Shack Shack? Five Guys has got you there. Think all of the other burgers on this list are missing a key ingredient? You can make it your way at Five Guys.
Five Guys makes the best bacon cheeseburger because you can have it any way you want. Throw grilled onions, mushrooms, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, or tomatoes on there. They’ve got relish, hot sauce, A1, you could even sprinkle cajun seasoning on the beef and eat the whole thing with a side of peanuts.
Five Guys’ build-it-yourself menu style puts the power in your hands and we’ve got to give them the top spot for that. Anyone can have their favorite fast food bacon cheeseburger at Five Guys. That makes them the champ.
The Bottome Line: The bacon cheeseburger for bacon cheeseburger experts. The Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger is whatever you want it to be and that’s a beautiful thing that virtually no other fast food restaurant offers.
Blacc Zacc is affirming his place in his region throughout his latest project 803 Legend. It feels like southern trap rappers are prolific by nature, and Zacc is true to form on his second project of the year. He puts in pain over 13-tracks, talking about the pitfalls of the grind on songs like “Broke My Heart” with Kevin Gates.
Calboy — “Gang Gang””
Chicago rapper Calboy is on his grind on “Gang Gang,” where he rhymes, “Everyday I wake up, gotta get this paper” over 808-driven production. The track is from the deluxe version of his Long Live The Kings album.
Dave East — Karma 3
Dave East just fed his cult fanbase Karma 3. Coming in at a whopping 23 songs, the project shows East getting in his reflective, lyrically sharp zone, including delving into “high-level rap” with Benny The Butcher on the filthy “Stone Killer.”
Joyner Lucas — Evolution
Joyner Lucas is back with Evolution, his fourth album and second project of 2020. The 13-track album features Game, Ashanti, and Rick Ross, who struts on the affirmatory “Legend.”
Junglepussy — JP4
Brooklyn MC Junglepussy has said that JP4, which released today, “really sounds like and feels like I got” to her desired sound as an artist. She explores a variety of means to get to that point on the eclectic, rambunctious 10-track project.
Lil Gotit — “Tellin Ya” Feat. Lil PJ
Lil Gotit is “trappin’ just like Belly” on “Tellin Ya,” the Atlanta artist’s latest loosie. He and his frequent collaborator Lil PJ take turns unleashing braggadocious, melodic verses over spooky, 808-based production.
Marlon Craft — “Hoodie Weather”
Marlon Craft spoke to the moment in two fashions on “Hoodie Weather,” the second single from his upcoming album. Yes, it’s almost November, but Marlon’s also referencing a hoodie as an ode to Trayvon Martin while noting, “Still word to Trayvon, our hoodies gon’ stay on.”
NoCap — “I Can’t”
Changing for the better is easier said than done for Alabama rapper NoCap on “I Can’t,” a track where he’s partially remorseful over evocative production but also laments being in an environment where “n***s around me, trappin’ for some Jordans.”
Q Da Fool — Dope On A Spoon
PG Country rapper Q Da Fool is back with his Dope On A Spoon album. The 13-track project focuses on exactly what the title suggests. Q gives his growing fanbase another glimpse of flashy, fiery rhymes over thumping production, The project boasts features from Peewee Longway and Mulatto, who shows up on the frenetic “Gotta Go Get It.”
Rahli — “Do Dirt Alone” Feat. Kevin Gates
Kevin Gates offered a gritty verse to the remix of St. Louis rapper Rahii’s “Do Dirt Alone” project. He offsets Rahii’s steely whisper with his gruff Baton Rouge baritone, telling enemies “I can see your heartbeat, where your game face at?”
Rucci & ALLBLACK — “Okay Doeee”
Rucci and ALLBLACK are “bout a bank roll” on “Okay Doeee,” a bouncy single from Rucci’s recently released Midget album. They paired the track with a video that intersperses scenes of them being interrogated and in jail (no fun) with them rapping around wads of money, some drinks, and beautiful women (a lot more fun).
WhoHeem Feat. Tyga & Lil Mosey
WhoHeem’s “Let’s Link” has been a viral TikTok hit for some time. He just released a remix to the in-demand track with Lil Mosey and Tyga, who offered a pair of flirty verses to match WhoHeem’s desire to “treat you like you monarchy.”
YFN Lucci — “Sept. 7th”
Apparently, September 7th is a day of infamy in YFN Lucci’s life, as he explores on his latest single. He pours his heart out over a sullen instrumental, bemoaning a fall out with a fake friend, and letting us know “if you thug how we thug then I know what you been through.”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
With momentum building for the NBA to move the calendar up and bypass the chance to host fans for a full 82 games, the league’s Board of Governors will reportedly meet on Friday to discuss beginning the 2020-21 season as soon as Christmas Day.
The report comes from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Zach Lowe and Brian Windhorst, who indicate many team governors are growing impatient with the idea of waiting all the way until the spring, when it might be more feasible to make money on ticket sales and other gameday revenue, rather than starting sooner and getting back on track for the traditional July-June league year.
The push for a Christmas Day start to the 2020-21 NBA season, which would naturally please the league’s TV partners, is gaining momentum, league sources say
Returning by either Christmas or a few weeks later for Martin Luther King Jr. weekend would give the league its marquee television broadcast days and catch fans during a time of year when they are likely more used to tuning into the NBA. As a result, ESPN reports, the league could also consider playing a shortened season that would also help put them on a path toward playing the postseason and Finals in the late spring and early summer.
Though the team governors will meet this week and have done so several times since the Lakers were crowned champions, ESPN reports that Oct. 30 is shaping up to be a “key date.” That is the latest deadline the league and the players’ association put in place to strike a deal to amend the Collective Bargaining Agreement and create rules for next season.
It appears the two sides are making progress on a salary cap and other logistics, but Oct. 30 would also likely be the latest the league could wait before giving teams the green light for training camps if Christmas Day were indeed to become tip-off day. Putting everything in motion to start in just over two months seems like an aggressive timeline, but it’s clear the league is more seriously considering starting sooner than later.
Kawhi Leonard and Paul George certainly aren’t the first superstar pairing to come up short during their first season together. Heck, LeBron himself can tell them a thing or two about that given the Heat’s infamous collapse in the 2011 Finals against Dirk and the Mavs.
Of course, they went on to put up one of the more dominant single-season runs in NBA history the following year, winning 27 straight at one point and eventually bringing home two more championships to Miami before the dissolution of the Big 3 Heat. Now, PG and Kawhi are hoping they can follow a similar tract.
However, that would require them to stick around beyond next season, depending on how things pan out, as both can opt out of their current contracts in 2021. If you ask new head coach Tyronn Lue, he’s not worried about it. Lue, who was a Clippers assistant under Doc Rivers last season, believes that a lot of their chemistry issues were due to injuries and missed time, and he’s positive they can rectify that moving forward and, moreover, that his two stars will be in L.A. for the duration.
Here’s what Lue told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols on Thursday:
A fireside chat with new Clippers Coach Ty Lue – on his couple weeks as the NBA’s most wanted man, his plans to address team chemistry, how long he thinks Kawhi & PG are sticking around, and whether he regrets not taking the Lakers job. Also: he & I fight over Chauncey Billups pic.twitter.com/1KxL7OH8Mk
“I think Kawhi and PG are here to stay for a long time,” Lue said. “It’s just, I think in their situation and where they want to be is here with the Clippers. We’ve just got to make it a great environment, and we have to win.”
Lue also talked about being in the hot seat, given the enormous pressure they face to win a championship. It’s a situation he’s faced before when took over for David Blatt in Cleveland, so Lue says he welcomes the pressure. But plenty of questions remain about chemistry on the roster, despite the wealth of talent, combined with the fact that several players are set to enter free agency.
Regardless, the Clippers will once again be one of the favorites in the West, although they’ve learned the hard way that it’s never something you can take for granted.
Over the summer, John Boyega started telling fans on social media that he’s “moved on” from Star Wars, which later evolved into the actor getting brutally honest as he put Disney and Lucasfilm on blast for failing POC characters like Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose. After that one-two punch, you’d just assume that Boyega has washed his hands of the galaxy far, far away, but in a new interview, he surprisingly revealed that the door is still open for him to return as Finn, but under very specific circumstances.
While discussing Colin Trevorrow’s abandoned Episode IX plans for a much more fleshed out stormtrooper revolution than the one shown in The Rise of Skywalker, Boyega expressed interest in still bringing that original story to life. “The concept art in the ‘Star Wars’ book has that image of Finn with the blue flag, and you have the AT-ATs lined up with tribal marks, and the stormtroopers take off their helmets. That would have been sick,” he told Yahoo. “That would have been dope, hands down.”
Boyega then said he’d love to watch the Finn’s story conclude on Disney+ where he says Lucasfilm is killing it with The Mandalorian. But when asked if this means he’d return to finish Finn’s arc, Boyega switched gears just a little bit and revealed that there’s one specific way he’d return to Star Wars. “Animated? Yeah that would be cool,” Boyega said. “You could do it all from home.”
Considering Lucasfilm has been very successful with its animated Clone Wars and Rebels series, which have been well received by Star Wars fans and, more importantly, have avoided the more heated online flame wars that plague the films, we don’t blame Boyega for making animation the medium of choice for Finn’s return. Way less drama.
Shawn Kemp is one of those NBA legends that been nearly lost to time. But not only is he one of the greatest dunkers in NBA history, he was also part of one of its dominant duos during the ’90s as a member of the Seattle Supersonics alongside Gary Payton. To this day, he remains a hero in the Seattle area, despite the organization having relocated to Oklahoma City more than a decade ago.
Kemp and Payton were among the many players whose accomplishments were somewhat overshadowed by Michael Jordan during that NBA era, having the unfortunate luck of running into perhaps the greatest team ever during what was their best opportunity for a championship run in 1996.
Now, Kemp has turned his efforts to one of the country’s fastest growing industries. On October 30, he’ll open Seattle’s first Black-owned cannabis dispensary, in an event that will feature Payton.
Joined by his former teammate, Hall of Famer Gary Payton, Kemp will commence the celebration with a green ribbon cutting ceremony at 12:45 p.m., followed by an official opening to the public at 1 p.m. “I’m looking forward to welcoming Sonics fans on a regular basis, starting with opening day,” said Kemp, who calls Seattle home and has invested in the city through several business ventures.
“My name is on this company and I have worked hard to bring Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis to fruition,” said Kemp. “I want to provide nothing short of the best selection, customer experience and prices in Seattle. I have incredible partners in Matt Schoenlein and Ramsey Hamide to make sure we deliver on that promise to our customers, who are our top priority.”
The grand opening will also feature the unveiling of a new mural from local artist Jeff Jacobson, and the store itself will offer express kiosks, online ordering, and curbside pickup in line with COVID-19 safety measures. Kemp hopes the store will act as inspiration for other Black business owners to get their ideas off the ground via Washington state’s new social equity program.
Even though Ryan Reynolds usually keeps things light, he’s still got moments when he gets really real. That includes his admission this year that getting married at a plantation was a “giant f*cking mistake” and explaining, among other things, how it’s “impossible to reconcile” that he hadn’t realized the gravity of the venue. And in 2018, the Deadpool jester opened up about how he really wanted to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, “but I didn’t get to have a voice,” since he wasn’t a U.S. citizen at the time.
He apparently satisfied that requirement for 2020. Reynolds set out (with Blake Lively by his side) to cast his first U.S. presidential choice during early voting. Naturally, he joked about this “super scary” moment and praised Blake “for making my first time so gentle and loving.” That rascal. Also, Blake was strangely shoeless in his Instagram post.
That wasn’t all. Note that in Blake’s below photo of the moment, it appears that she’s wearing shoes. She added that things went “REALLY fast” (zing!) and that “He wept. I pretended to weep.” Very funny, but really, look at her feet here.
Reynolds and Lively were, of course, messing with us. The detectives at InStyle noticed that Blake’s shoes are, uh, photoshopped onto her feet. Why? No one knows, other than maybe the pandemic is driving everyone a little nutty, and two of Hollywood’s most beautiful people are finding weird ways to keep themselves amused. Blake also added different shoes to her feet in an Instagram story. Really, go look. These two can’t keep their chaos constrained, and it’s a delight to see.
A few days ago, local Florida media reported that the Orange County Health Department’s Strike Team had begun investigating 17 business locations that are suspected of contributing to the spread of COVID-19. The primary focus was on bars, but there were other kinds of businesses listed as well, including three locations that wrestling fans will recognize:
WWE Full Sail
WWE Performance Center on Forsyth Commerce Road
WWE Amway Arena
For those keeping track, that’s the venue where NXT runs shows, the place where NXT and WWE talent train, and the venue known as the WWE Thunderdome, where all of WWE’s Main Roster shows are currently being run. This can’t be too surprising, since WWE has had multiple reported outbreaks of the virus, and you have to think local authorities are paying attention to that sort of thing.
For their part, WWE released a statement on the subject:
WWE is not open to the public, but rather operating on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance. As part of on-going weekly testing protocols, Aventus Labs have administered more than 10,000 PCR tests to WWE performers, employees, production staff and crew resulting in only 1.5 percent positive cases as compared to the current national average of more than 5%. Additionally, extensive contact tracing takes place and impacted individuals are placed in 14-day quarantine and then only cleared after they test negative.
It’s worth noting that when WWE cites their 1.5 percent of positive cases, they’re calculating that against the 10,000 tests performed, not the number of people tested. They have far fewer than 10,000 employs and have tested everyone more than once, so if it was a percentage of the people tested, the number would be higher than 1.5.
Yesterday, Wrestling Inc. reported that sources within WWE believe that multiple Performance Center trainees, some of whom may be active NXT talent, made formal complaints to the authorities that safety protocols were not being followed. At a recent NXT taping, complaints arose about so-called “anti-maskers” who are not following guidelines and may be putting others at risk. It’s unknown if those complaints are related to the ones made to the local authorities, but it all sure sounds like one big mess in multiple parts.
There’s certainly no shortage of people in his country who are ideologically committed to downplaying the dangers of COVID-19 and discouraging the use of masks, and it’s not surprising that some wrestlers would fall into that trap, considering how rampant conspiracy theories are within the wrestling community. We don’t know who the “anti-maskers” at NXT might be, or the complainers for that matter. What we do know is that the pandemic continues to be an obstacle for Pro Wrestling, as it is for so many other businesses and hobbies, and people are going to need to do a better job of coming together on making things safer for the future.
It is at least one person’s job to run the Wendy’s Twitter account and give the fast food chain a vibrant online personality. Whoever has that job does it pretty well, and they recently brought up Eminem to deliver a stunning jab to Machine Gun Kelly.
It began was a social media feud between Dunkin’ and the burger slingers. Dunkin shared a photo of somebody holding up a giant print-out of a tweet criticizing Wendy’s spicy chicken nuggets, adding, “Here’s some advice about spice: It’s always better on a donut (like the Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut).” Wendy’s fired back, “Stick to pushing the food that’s so ‘good’ you took it out of your name. My grandma has more heat in her roasts.”
Stick to pushing the food that’s so “good”you took it out of your name.
Somebody else replied, “Top 5 Things Eminem’s afraid to Diss.” That’s when Wendy’s cracked their knuckles and took the opportunity to roast Machine Gun Kelly, responding, “please don’t make him do it, my pop punk album to recover after his diss isn’t ready.”
The chain then decided to play nice, though, as they followed-up with some praise for the new MGK album, which pivots from hip-hop to a more pop-punk-influenced sound, tweeting, “honestly the new MGK is full of bangers. #1 album being a pop punk album is gonna do great things for the scene. Meet Me @ The Altar, Stand Atlantic, Hot Mulligan, Grayscale, Knuckle Puck, Nothing Nowhere, If I Die First is a great throwback sound. Tons more.”
honestly the new MGK is full of bangers. #1 album being a pop punk album is gonna do great things for the scene. Meet Me @ The Altar, Stand Atlantic, Hot Mulligan, Grayscale, Knuckle Puck, Nothing Nowhere, If I Die First is a great throwback sound. Tons more.
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 — The Number One Boy
Most people — most of you, especially, I imagine — know Jeremy Strong best as Kendall Roy from Succession, the narcotics-riddled Number One Boy who can’t get out of his own way long enough to let a single good thing happen to him. That’s fine. It’s good, even. It’s a meaty role, and Strong does a nice job with it, wearing Kendall’s torment and desperation all across his face like a handlebar mustache of despair. But the tricky part of the performance is, to put a fine point on it all, that Kendall kind of looks and talks like Jeremy Strong looks and talks. There are degrees here, sure, and this is zero percent a knock on his performance. But it’s true. And it’s a shame, in a way, because if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Jeremy Strong over the years, it’s that he loves making Choices, capital C not a typo.
Start with The Trial of the Chicago 7, the Aaron Sorkin movie about the real-life fallout from the riots in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Strong plays Jerry Rubin, a famous counterculture figure who was at the center of the whole thing, and an associate of Abbie Hoffman, played by Sacha Baron Cohen. If you knew nothing about Strong other than his role as Kendall going in, you’d think Cohen was the wild man on set, the prankster who got so deep into his character that it drove his co-stars a little nutso. You would have been wildly, galactically incorrect, for a few reasons I’ll get to momentarily, right after I show you this screencap of Strong in action, which will, I think, add some necessary color to the presentation.
Netflix
Okay. That helped. The next issue we need to cover is that Jeremy Strong is Method, also capitalized, from the Daniel Day-Lewis school of acting, which leads to all sorts of fun quotes about the filming from people involved. Like, for example, this one, from Sorkin.
The most die-hard Method actor was Jeremy Strong, who once worked as Daniel Day-Lewis’s assistant and seems to have inherited his role model’s relish for total immersion. Filming the riot scenes on location in Grant Park, he insisted, before the cameras rolled, that a former Chicago cop playing one of the storm troopers hurl him to the ground before every take. “Jeremy begged me to spray him with real tear gas,” adds Sorkin. He declined.
“Jeremy begged me to spray him with real tear gas.” It’s perfect. And beautiful. Beautiful and perfect. And still not as good as this next thing, from an interview at Vulture. It turns out Strong got so deep into the role that he brought the prankster, rascal spirit to the set, to a very real degree. How real? Hmm. Is “secretly installed a fart machine into the bench of the judge, who was played by 82-year-old Frank Langella, a man who has the second-most Tolerates No Hooey face in Hollywood behind Tommy Lee Jones” real enough for you? Because…
So I planted a fart machine in the judge’s dais where he couldn’t find it. I would set it off sometimes before a close-up, and it would really piss him off. His face turned red. Those are the takes we used in the film. It was great — there was real, palpable tension in the room when that happened. I got in trouble sometimes with Aaron and the producers, but I kind of felt like … if I’m Jerry Rubin, and I’m not in contempt of some court, then I’m not doing my job.
God, poor Frank Langella. I mean, I adore almost everything about this, and please do stop here to picture Jeremy Strong in like a Spencer’s Gifts at a mall comparing four different fart machines to find the specific sound he’s looking for, but poor Frank Langella. I hope they at least let him keep the fart machine.
It’s not just The Trial of the Chicago 7, either. Strong showed up in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen recently as Matthew McConaughey’s main drug-dealing rival, Matthew Berger, a Jewish American gangster in England who looked like this…
Miramax
… and was absolutely bursting with can only be described as Stanley Tucci energy. And when I pointed out on Twitter how these two roles exhibited a fantastic degree of Choice-making, something like five people immediately yelled at me about his role in Serenity, which I have not seen but appears to fall into the same category based only on that reaction. And when I sat around thinking about it all this week, it led me to a very important question.
In the second season of Succession, a few episodes before performing the cringe-inducing rap song cooked up by his boy Squiggle, Kendall Roy pooped in his bed after a night of cocaine-fueled debauchery. We know this because he woke up naked with poop in his bed and a very irritated maid nearby. Which is about par for the Kendall Roy course. But here’s where my head is at now: Given what we know about Jeremy Strong as an actor, that he begged to be tear-gassed and drove Frank Langella mad with a fart machine and loves adding layers and layers to the characters he plays, do you think… do you think he really pooped in that bed? You know, for the realism? To drive home the shame and humiliation of it all? Do you?
I mean, it’s a fair question.
ITEM NUMBER TWO — It is very upsetting to me that it took us this long to create a John Wick roller coaster
Lionsgate
Can you believe it? I mean, honestly, can you? Can you believe that we’re here in 2020, a full three films into the John Wick franchise, with a fourth and a fifth on the way, and there is still no fully operational John Wick-themed roller coaster at any theme park anywhere on this big stupid marble of a planet? It’s crazy. There are roller coasters for every movie. There are even, as we learned just last week, movies based on roller coasters now, and yes, I’m talking about the Space Mountain movie, again, partially because I’m still just flabbergasted that it is a real thing that is happening, and partially because it gets me back to the point I intended to make before this meandering sentence started: Finally, at long last, society and has stepped up and righted this historical wrong. The time has come for the John Wick roller coaster.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the roller coaster will not be here in America. It will be in Motiongate theme park in Dubai. Although I guess that’s good news too if you live in Dubai. Lots to consider here. Anyway, from Variety:
The “John Wick: Open Contract” coaster will offer riders a choice as they board: They can help John Wick — the assassin played by Keanu Reeves in the 2014 movie and its two (so far) sequels — or they can hunt him.
The funniest thing would be if, when you choose the “hunt John Wick” option, you just get lit up with paintballs the whole time you’re on the ride. Possibly by the people in line for the “be John Wick” option. I don’t know. I suspect there are liability options here. We’ll get the lawyers on the phone later. Let’s get some more information first.
“I think what’s going to be amazing for fans is to have the opportunity to walk through the lobby of the Continental and experience different key moments in the settings that took place in the films,” Brown said. “This attraction in particular is really about setting the story by putting people in this very immersive environment, and then you really get the action as you get on the coaster. It’s 10 stories high, so there’s definitely a level of intensity that’s befitting of the ‘John Wick franchise that guests will experience.”
You want to know the crazy thing? I’m reading this last paragraph and I’m thinking, really cranking away on the lumpy parts of my brain, and the more I do it the more I think maybe the real moneymaker here is a full-on John Wick fantasy camp where you stay in a fake Continental and do paintball skirmishes and maybe someone kills your dog. Wait. No. Not that last part. That’s too real. And the lawyers definitely won’t like it.
Yeah, let’s just stick with this roller coaster. Probably the safer option.
ITEM NUMBER THREE — Sigourney Weaver rules
Sony
Sigourney Weaver is a legend for about a hundred reasons. She was in the Alien movies. She was in Ghostbusters. She was in Galaxy Quest, which is not as big a deal culturally as those first two, but still, Galaxy Quest whoops ass. She does not need to continue proving herself. She does not need to do physically risky stunts in sequels to action movies that came out over a decade ago. She does not need to hold her breath underwater for six minutes so some ocean-obsessed director can get his shots more quickly. She could very well just chill and relax and make money by showing up at fan conventions and stuff.
In “Avatar 2,” which is largely finished but not scheduled for release until December 2022 — to be followed by several planned sequels — she shot many of her scenes underwater. Never mind that she was closing in on 70. (She’s now 71.) Or that the preparation included dives in Key West, Fla., and in Hawaii, where she reclined on the ocean floor while manta rays glided over her. Or that she needed to train with an expert who had coached elite military divers so that she could hold her breath, after a big gulp of supplemental oxygen, for more than six minutes. That made the part more attractive to her. “My hope is that what I receive from the universe is even more outrageous than anything I can think of,” she told me. “I don’t really say to myself, ‘Well, you can’t do this.’ Or, ‘You can’t do that.’ Let me at it! And we’ll see.”
Okay, do me a favor. Right now. You have a few minutes. I know you do. Open up the stopwatch feature on your phone, take a huge deep breath, as deep as you can, and then start the clock and see you long you can hold that breath. Push yourself. Don’t, like, pass out or anything. I don’t want that on my conscience heading into the weekend. But don’t be a wimp, either. Be a champion. Stop the clock when you have to take another breath. Record your findings mentally.
Then go back and read that blockquote. Six minutes! Sigourney Weaver held her breath for six minutes! And don’t you dare point to the phrase “supplemental oxygen” in there. Don’t even think about it. Sigourney Weaver is 71 years old. Some 71-year-olds need supplemental oxygen to go food shopping. Sigourney Weaver was using it to sit on the damn floor of the ocean and chill out with manta rays. Come on.
My point here is twofold, I suppose: One, Sigourney Weaver is and apparently always will be a badass; two, you could never.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR — A brief note about what not to say
Hanlon’s Razor is a philosophical device that states, if I can paraphrase a bit, that you should try not to assume a person has bad intentions in a situation when simple ignorance can explain it, too. Less eloquently, it means “don’t assume evil when stupid will do.” I like this a lot and use it too much. Some of that is because, again, I like it a lot, as I generally like to believe people are doing the best they can most of the time. Some of it is because I like to be that insufferable guy who throws around terms like “Hanlon’s Razor” in conversation to sound smart.
I bring it up now for both of those reasons, but also because Back to the Future screenwriter Bob Gale gave an interview to Collider recently, and when the concept of a fourth movie in the franchise came up, he had this to say:
We told a complete story with the trilogy. If we went back and made another one, we’d have Michael J. Fox, who will be sixty next year, and he has Parkinson’s Disease. Do we want to see Marty McFly at age sixty with Parkinson’s Disease? Did we want to see him at age fifty with Parkinson’s Disease? I would say ‘No, you don’t want to see that.’ And you don’t want to see Back to the Future without Michael J. Fox. People say, ‘Well, do it with somebody else.’ Really? Who are you going to get? All you’re gonna do is beg comparisons to the originals, and you’re not going to match up.
Most of that is good and sensible. I do not want a fourth Back to the Future movie. Making one would be a transparent cash grab and would run the risk of diminishing the earlier films, kind of like how no one needed the Crystal Skull Indiana Jones movie, or the additional Star Wars movies that Gale went on to reference later. And I don’t want to see a movie that replaces Michael J. Fox or reboots the franchise with a new young actor. I’m with him on a lot of it.
The bummer part is how he lumped in Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s with the reasons “you don’t want to see” a new movie. I have a horse in this race, admittedly, as frequent readers of this column know, because I have a disability, too (spinal cord injury, wheelchair, the whole deal). I wrote a whole thing not that long ago about disability representation in television and movies, and why it stinks right now, and potential steps in the right direction toward fixing it. One of those steps is an attempt to normalize it in the eyes of the audience, to get them used to seeing characters with disabilities on their screens. Michael J. Fox did some of this himself since his diagnosis, my favorite being his guest spots on The Good Wife as a scummy lawyer who would use his disability to manipulate judges and juries, which was cool because it punctured the stupid “people with disabilities are inspirational angels” balloon.
There are a million reasons not to make a new Back to the Future movies. “Because no one wants to see the guy have a disability now” should not be one of them. I don’t think Bob Gale is, like, a bad person for saying that. I just think maybe he didn’t think about all the angles of it, maybe because he didn’t know. That’s all I’m doing here — educating, trying to help. But seriously, don’t make another Back to the Future. That much we can agree on.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Finally, a show for me
Merlin Films
I have tremendous news. There’s no time to explain. I need to get straight to the blockquote, via Variety:
Amazon has announced a new Italian original series titled “Everybody Loves Diamonds” during Rome’s MIA market.
The heist series with comedic overtones is inspired by the 2003 “Heist of Antwerp,” dubbed by international media as “the biggest diamond theft in the world.”
Okay, first of all, hell yes. Hell yes to all of it. Hell yes to the title, Everybody Loves Diamonds, which is true and hilarious. Hell yes to the thing where it’s an Italian original series, because now I desperately want to watch this show in Italian with English subtitles. But most of all, hell yes to a show about the Antwerp diamond heist.
If you are not familiar with the Antwerp diamond heist, please familiarize yourself with it at once. Here’s a great longread about it from Wired. Here’s the Wikipedia page. Read the second one first and the first one second. It’s incredible. These dudes stole $100 million worth of diamonds at the end of an 18-month operation that involved fake identities and life-size recreations of the facility’s vault that they practiced on and a slew of other Ocean’s Eleven-ass tactics that will blow you away. This was an extremely sophisticated heist pulled off by a crew of meticulous professionals, which makes how they got caught powerfully funny in about four different ways.
From the Wikipedia:
The group was caught after [Leonardo] Notarbartolo and Speedy went to dispose of the evidence of their plans, planning to burn it in France. Speedy was overcome with panic at the prospect of transporting such incriminating evidence and insisted they dispose of it in a nearby forest. However, Speedy suffered a panic-attack and disposed of the evidence poorly, hurling it into the bushes and mud rather than burning it. Notarbartolo was busy burning his own evidence and when he discovered what Speedy had done, he decided it would take too long to gather everything up and they needed to leave, confident that nobody would find their rubbish. However, a local hunter owned the land and called the police when he found the rubbish the next day (believing it to be caused by local teenagers he had previously had disputes with). When he mentioned that some of the rubbish consisted of envelopes from the Antwerp Diamond Centre, the police immediately investigated. The evidence from the rubbish was enough to allow the police to gain a lead and they were eventually able to identify Notarbartolo from security footage from a nearby grocery store where he had purchased a sandwich (a receipt for the sandwich was amongst the rubbish)
A sandwich! They did all that work, for over a year and a half, crossing every T and dotting every I, spraying cameras with chemical concoctions to disable them and all of it, and they got caught because of a sandwich! That’s why I want to see this show. Because the real-life result is so bizarre that it almost exceeds anything even the most creative Italian writer’s rooms could concoct. I hope they keep everything the same but replace the sandwich with something more Italian. A plate of lasagna, maybe. Yes. That will work. And have them escape in a gondola. Otherwise, exactly the same. For me.
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 Tyler:
I started re-watching Happy Endings on Hulu. I noticed a few odd storyline inconsistencies during the first season that suddenly became jarringly weird in episode 10. Turns out episodes 10 and 11 were supposed to be episodes 2 and 3, and the season aired mostly out of the intended broadcast order to make the initial episodes more “stand alone” in an effort to get more people invested in the show. I had a hard time focusing on the funny when characters were moving into places I’d already seen them living and characters were struggling to get over issues I’ve already seen them come to grips with.
1. Should Hulu take it upon itself to air tv shows in the order they were intended?
2. Should the people at ABC responsible for this decision be sent to prison?
Tyler, thank you for this email. Kind of. Thank you, kind of. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s a good email. And it gives me an excuse to mention Happy Endings again, which was a delightful television program that I miss terribly. My only issue here is that now I’m angry again, both about its cancellation and the specific thing you mentioned. It happened nine years ago! I should have let it go by now! But here we are!
The most important takeaway here is that you are correct. Hulu should just go ahead and put them in the correct order. There’s no reason not to. Hulu, if you are reading this, please get on that. You don’t have to do it today. I’ll give you a week. But if it’s not fixed by next weekend… I don’t know what I’ll do, actually. Something, though. Unless I forget. Which I probably will. Just do it anyway.
The other takeaway is how silly this all seems now in the era of streaming and binge-watching. Netflix straight-up encourages shows to use an entire first season to establish a premise. Things can burn slower because we consume them faster, and we don’t need to cater to people who might check in at random on like the sixth episode of the first season to see if they like a show. Granted, we have other problems, like those shows that got a full season to explore themselves then getting the hook before they have a chance to grow from there. Nothing is perfect anywhere. I guess that’s the lesson here. That and that Happy Endings was a good show.
This morning, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced charges for seven individuals it says were involved in an international wildlife trafficking operation involving thousands of native flying squirrels getting illegally shipped overseas.
Excuse me.
Hold on.
Is this…
Do we have…
Do we have an international flying squirrel smuggling operation on our hands?
The FWC opened the investigation in back January of 2019 after being tipped off that people were illegally trapping protected flying squirrels in Marion County, and other Central Florida areas, and then selling the animals to a licensed wildlife dealer in Bushnell, who then claimed they were captive bred, not wildlife, says the agency.
WE HAVE AN INTERNATIONAL FLYING SQUIRREL SMUGGLING OPERATION.
SCREW THE ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST.
MAKE AN ITALIAN SHOW ABOUT THIS, NETFLIX.
The 19-month investigation discovered that the suspects used over 10,000 traps and captured over 3,600 flying squirrels, which equalled over an estimated $1 million in retail value.
A few notes in conclusion:
I know this is bad and we should not be smuggling innocent little winged rodents halfway around the world
It’s just so crazy
Please do not ruin it for me
If my math is correct, this means the retail value of a single flying squirrel is about $300, which feels… I don’t know, reasonable?
Now I want to know the wholesale rate
Imagine opening a mysterious shipping container and suddenly 250 flying squirrels come screaming out of it and into the night sky
I would go straight to bed
Wait a second
I just realized something
This isn’t just an international flying squirrel smuggling operation
This was…
A
MILLION-DOLLAR
INTERNATIONAL
FLYING SQUIRREL
SMUGGLING OPERATION
I demand this television show. By next year, if possible. Thank you.
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