In March, Demi Lovato shared “I Love Me,” an anthemic pop single in which she practices self-love. It’s an emotional track, but musically speaking, that iteration of it is the furthest thing from emo. That changes now, though: Lovato has teamed up with legendary drummer Travis Barker for an “emo version” of the song.

On the new rendition of the track, Lovato hearkens back to her Camp Rock days, as the pop instrumentation has been replaced with aggressive guitars and — of course, given Barker’s involvement — prominent drums. The song’s lyric video is a real time capsule of emo’s heyday as well: It opens with a black-haired, lip-pierced gentleman whipping his head to the side to get his hair out of his face before checking Lovato’s Myspace page, on which the song’s lyrics are displayed.

When the original version of the song was released, Lovato wrote of it, “I can’t put into words just yet what this past year for me has been… but this song focuses on a lot of what’s been going on in my head. We have good days, and we have bad days. The best we can do is be the best version of ourselves and celebrate that with those closest to us.”

Watch the “I Love Me (Emo Version)” lyric video above.

The art of the cliffhanger is a tricky thing. A TV show must trust its audience (and vice versa) to embrace these moments rather than recoil like their chain’s being yanked. Netflix‘s Dead To Me accepted that challenge and burst out of the gate with a debut season that reveled in a series of mini-cliffhangers — with pitch-black humor that rivaled Russian Doll and harnessed the melodrama, preventing it from tumbling into Big Little Lies territory — that felt exciting, despite occasionally predictable developments. Huge-reveal-after-huge-reveal reverberated in such a way that not only did viewers quickly come to expect these scenes, but they (or, at least, I) implicitly craved them. They’re not simply part of the show’s formula but part of the integral charm, while the two leading ladies (Christina Applegate as Jen and Linda Cardellini as Judy) cannot stop fueling the fire with increasingly bad life decisions. The major question when it comes to a second season is whether the show can keep toeing that precarious line.

Fortunately, Dead To Me maintains great chaos (even more, this time around, but it’s a tolerable level) and is still a blast. Dare I say, this show even feels “real,” despite all the inconceivable happenings. When I say real, I’m not talking about the show’s very human exploration of grief, or the morbid, darkly comic events that flesh-out that structure. Nope, I’m talking about the realistic portrayal of friendship between these two unlikely best friends, who are like a new-style Thelma and Louise, even though (let’s face it) there’s no possible way that a real-life grieving widow would invite a stranger into her home-family life, repeatedly overlook sketchy behavior, and, somehow, forgive the fact that this person killed her husband. Yet the raging contradiction of this show’s framework finds support in an emotional foundation that feels unshakeable.

This season, that relationship further strengthens and remains the central focus, but plenty of offshoot developments are at work because the grief-theme (although it’s still somewhat unresolved) must also give way to other emotions, like guilt, fury, and romance, and plenty of other “feels” that send both women scrambling to clean up messes — both figurative and literal, for this show is still plenty gruesome — which are handled deftly enough that the series still feels fresh. Again, the key to that objective would be how to keep the show’s favorite gimmick going strong.

On that subject: are the cliffhangers still holding up well this season? If you’re reading this, you know that last year’s finale ended in a bloody way, with James Marsden’s Skeevy Steve maybe dead, or not, with Jen standing over his body; and the show picks up where it left off without missing a beat or an opportunity for sliding into panic mode. Obviously, I won’t spill what Steve’s actual fate ended up being, other than to say that there are flashbacks to satisfy the Marsden lovers among us. And no matter happens to Steve, the audience will expect that Jen and Judy’s situations (together and apart) will become progressively more difficult to manage. That’s where creator Liz Feldman excels with this second batch of episodes. She inherently realizes how to keep raising the cliffhanger stakes without actually sending the show over a cliff. She and the rest of the writers pull that feat off, impressively so.

Another challenge, with such a tightly-written show, is how to add ingredients without everything feeling overstuffed. Dead To Me is one of those series where revealing much can spoil everything, but I will say that people who loved the first season will not be underwhelmed by the followup. The writing (Feldman won a Writer’s Guild award for the pilot) and performances continue to be top-notch — which is amazing, considering the relatively pulpy subject matter — and the supporting performances also deserve nods. Sam McCarthy should go plenty of places after playing “oldest teen son” to Jen, given that Sam’s perhaps the character who’s most genuinely conflicted during this season. He’s lost his father, his mom’s losing her mind, and he’s simply trying to navigate life amid all the fallout. Likewise, Brandon Scott, Diana Maria Riva, and Jere Burns’ eyebrows serve up fine performances on the law enforcement front, and Natalie Morales is irresistible in a role that would best be left as a mystery here.

As always, though, the most compelling dynamic on this show comes down to Applegate (Golden Globe-nominated for her performance as Jen) and Cardellini (robbed without the same), who are marvelous, with the former trying and failing to take a stiff-upper-lip stance and the latter wearing hearts all over her sleeves. A lip-quiver from one leads to an almost immediate softening of the other, and they’re such implausible teammates that one cannot help but enjoy their chemistry. Their solidarity and adherence to always doing right by each other is comforting, despite their world crashing down around them. Dark comedy isn’t easy to sustain, but there’s enough nuance from the actors and the way these ladies are written to (hopefully) keep this show going for a while.

Dead To Me‘s appeal is as undeniable as the relationship that blossomed between Jen and Judy. Their strange bond speaks to the ways that finding one’s “person” cannot be predictable, and once you find that person — whether it’s through bonding over trauma or not — you’d better cherish them. They won’t be easily replaced, and no amount of “orange wine” can delude anyone into believing otherwise. Chaos might follow, as in the case of Judy (with Steve’s voice ever-echoing, “Everywhere Judy goes, chaos follows”), but as Jen finds out, she’s not exactly free of that vibe herself. Whatever set of dire circumstances threw these two women together doesn’t really matter because their friendship is a pleasure to behold. And so, Netflix settled in for a new round of tragicomedy with perhaps the largest cliffhanger yet to finish the season. I gasped and have no clue where the show goes for a third season, but I already can’t wait to watch it.

Netflix’s ‘Dead To Me’ returns on May 8.

Earlier this week, X Æ A-12 Musk, the son of Grimes and Elon Musk, was born. Given the atypical nature of the boy’s name, it quickly took over the internet, even more so after Grimes explained the meaning behind it. What the name may not be able to take over, though, is the kid’s birth certificate, as it might not actually be a legally viable name.

TMZ reports that according to a supervisor at the Department Of Public Health Vital Records Office in Los Angeles (where the child is believed to have been born), legally acceptable names can only use the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Family law attorney David Glass, meanwhile, told People that while the name “isn’t technically illegal,” it “won’t be accepted as valid by the state.”

Glass said:

“In California, you can only use the ’26 characters’ of the English language in your baby name. Thus, you can’t have numbers, Roman numerals, accents, umlauts, or other symbols or emojis. Although an apostrophe, for a name like ‘O’Connor,’ is acceptable. [If the birth certificate is filled out] with the odd numbers, dashes and symbols, it will be submitted and then rejected, and they’ll be asked to submit it again. They have an opportunity to appeal the rejection of the birth certificate application, but it’s unlikely that it will be granted because, again, California […] has been struggling with using symbols. […]

Anything that has to be filed with the state, they have a handbook that includes this particular sentence that says the birth certificate must be filled out ‘using the 26 alphabetical letters of the English language.’ I don’t think you can say it’s illegal — it just won’t be accepted. So your child won’t have an official name and won’t have a birth certificate and you can’t get a social security number until you have a birth certificate and on down the line.”

The name is apparently pronounced “X Ash Archangel,” so something like that could be a legally acceptable alternative to “X Æ A-12” should Grimes and Musk run into issues. The most important news, though, as Musk noted, is that the baby is “happy, healthy & cute as a button.”

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Lasting solutions with small price tags, y’all.

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Well, they tried.

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Since life in quarantine is starting to feel like some sort of surreal science fiction movie, it’s time to let our brains run wild a little. Explore the furthest reaches of our minds. Or maybe just think about what we’d do if we were lucky enough to meet our one celebrity crush. (Let’s keep it PGish by limiting this to things we could do so while observing proper social distancing.)

Would we gush? Quote a favorite movie line or song lyric? Try to act casual and start some small talk? Or would we give a gift? Something to say, “Thanks for the music or TV or films or self-punishing performance art.”

If so, what would the gift be? You can’t go wrong with whiskey, right? But which one? To answer that question, we reached out to a handful of our favorite bartenders to find out their whiskeys of choice for giving hypothetical celebrity crushes who also hypothetically love the brown stuff.

Eagle Rare 17 Year-Old Bourbon

Matt Shields, bartender at The Bay Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

This is a tough one to start out with but, I think Eagle Rare 17 is a whiskey that any enthusiast/ crush of mine would be delighted to receive as a gift. Treat others the way you’d like to be treated. All you need is one bottle, two glasses.

Ardbeg Uigeadail Scotch

Jessi Lorraine, bartender at Elda in San Francisco

Pretty much any whisk(e)y will do. But my go-to would be Ardbeg Uigeadail. Something about the way Uigadail combines peat and sherry makes me nostalgic for campfires, card games, and great times with great people.

Maker’s Mark Cask Strength Bourbon

Amanda Carto, bartender at Nickel City in Austin, Texas

I’ve always been partial to Maker’s Mark Cask Strength bourbon. It’s a wheated bourbon with a high corn ratio in their mash bill, which carries through in its taste and in the smooth finish. It’s a great sipping bourbon neat or on the rocks, and holds up well in a cocktail without being overshadowed.

Wild Turkey Master’s Keep Bourbon

Blake Jones, bartender and director of beverage at The Kennedy in Pensacola, Florida

If I had to pick, I would probably pick something from Wild Turkey. Probably either the Master’s Keep or perhaps a Private Barrel of Russell’s Reserve. Something about this brand just speaks love to me. Seeing the passion the brand has for making whiskey is inspiring and I think it makes a great gift to someone I care about.

Kings County Distillery & Brooklyn Grange Honey Whiskey

Gabriela Dimovska, general manager at V DTLA in Los Angeles

I would gift her (because we all know my Queen B crush surpasses all of my other celebrity crushes in life) a bottle of Kings County Distillery & Brooklyn Grange Honey Whiskey, because we also all know where honey comes from.

Smooth Ambler Contradiction Bourbon

Danielle Becker, bartender at the Aspen Meadows Resort in Aspen, Colorado

Smooth Ambler Contradiction. In addition to one of the coolest labels around, what you get inside the bottle is so different and divine. It’s a blend of multiple bourbons that all age nicely together. The combination of sweet wheat and spicy rye make for something so different and delicious that you don’t get to try all that often.

Oban Distillers Edition Single Malt Scotch

Freddy Concepcion Ucan Tuz, bartender at JW Marriot in Cancun, Mexico

Oban’s Distillers Edition Single Malt. Because it is a whisky that is finished in a Sherry fino cask, which gives it a soft, luscious and full-bodied feel with hints of fresh honey and florals. A spectacular whisky with great price value.

Talisker 10-Year-Old Scotch

Wesley MacDonald, owner of Caña Bar and Kitchen in Curaçao

Talisker 10 Year. It’s an outstanding classic, bold, smoky with a maritime character. If she enjoys this, the crush is justified, if not time to look for another.

Hudson Single Barrel Four Grain Bourbon

David Powell, brand ambassador for Hudson Whiskey

I’d send Jhene Aiko this Single Barrel Hudson Four Grain Bourbon bottle that I’ve been stashing away since I found it upstate a couple of months back. It’s from our 2017 Single Barrel releases, which is the same year that her album ‘Trip’ came out, which happens to be one of my favorite albums of hers. Jhene, if you somehow happen upon this interview, just know my offer stands.