Year: 2022

(SPOILERS for this week’s Euphoria will be found below.)

In Euphoria’s latest episode, “Stand Still Like The Humming Bird,” Rue Bennett (Zendaya) finally hits rock bottom. No like, for real this time guys.

The teenage addict has somehow been successful in hiding her relapse from her closest friends and family for most of season two but a confession from Elliot leads to a poorly-staged intervention that sets Rue down a dark path in episode five. She’s overdosed, almost died, and dipped her toe in the drug dealing business but this week’s episode pushes Rue to the breaking point, asking her to hurt the people she loves, steal from complete strangers, and shut out everyone trying to help her get clean. It’s as if Euphoria is finally affirming that no, drugs aren’t cool (even on shows filled with beautiful people and stylized melodrama).

Here are some of the biggest questions we had after season two’s fifth episode.

Did Rue Make It Home?

The last we saw Rue, she was escaping Laurie’s apartment after shooting up morphine for the first time. She spent most of the episode spiraling, suffering through multiple interventions, burning bridges with friends, and trying to score a fix. After breaking into a stranger’s house, stealing thousands of dollars in jewelry and cash, and running from the police, Rue’s last resort is to seek sanctuary with Laurie, the eerily calm former-school-teacher-turned-drug-lord who previously lent Rue a suitcase full of narcotics. Rue was supposed to sell them but those plans were flushed down the drain when Jules told Rue’s mom about her relapse, so now, Rue is forced to gravel at Laurie’s feet while going through some pretty gnarly withdrawals. She begs Laurie for drugs who ends up dosing her with morphine intravenously before putting her to bed but Rue has enough sense to get the hell out of dodge before Laurie wakes up and starts demanding payback. She books it down an alley and the next scene we see is the shot that ends the episode — a glimpse of Rue’s mom waiting at the kitchen table as the front door opens. It would make sense for Rue to return home now that she has nowhere else to go, but it could easily be one of Rue’s friends or enemies paying her family a visit. Maybe it’s Fez, who has come to check on her after their blow-out at his place? Or it could be one of Laurie’s thugs looking for her money.

Is Fez Going To Die?

It feels fairly safe to say that Rue has officially gotten on Laurie’s bad side. She hasn’t paid her back, she’s lost her drugs, and she just snuck out of the woman’s home after she bathed her, drugged her, and tucked her in for the night. Laurie puts off this mellow facade but she’s a business woman and, judging by the company she keeps, probably a pretty ruthless one. Laurie knows of Fez’s relationship with Rue from their encounter earlier in the season when Fez had to explain why he murdered one of the men she worked with, Mouse. Fez vouched for Rue to Laurie and her crew in order to get both them and Ashtray out of a sticky situation. If Laurie can’t get what she’s due from a strung-out Rue, will she go knocking on Fez’s door? If she does, that can’t be a good thing, right?

What Happened With Maddy And Cassie?

Witnessing Cassie’s tumultuous love affair with Nate and her attempts to keep their relationship a secret from her best friend Maddy felt like watching a trainwreck happen in slow-motion — you knew it end in flames and maybe even someone’s death, but you never knew when exactly it would veer off the rails. Well, it did this episode and, even more shocking, Rue was the catalyst. In order to distract her mom and friends from staging yet another intervention, Rue targets Cassie, questioning how long she’s been sleeping with Nate in front of Maddy, Kat, Lexi, and their moms. Maddy, predictably, loses her sh*t, threatening to get violent with her friend and chasing her up the stairs as Cassie cries hysterically and Rue makes her escape. We don’t get to see what exactly Maddy does to Cassie after the reveal but it’s likely going to be worse than anything Cassie imagined. As long as Nate gets his too, we’re fine with it.

What’s Behind The Locked Door?

While Rue is going through withdrawals at Laurie’s house, the camera focuses on a padlocked door at the end of the hallway. Rue’s only half-listening to Laurie talk about opioid use and brain death as she stares at the door and we try to figure out what the scratching sound coming from behind it really is. Laurie’s into some bad things, so sure, it could just be a bigger stash of drugs, guns, and cash but could it also be a human? Another exotic pet? Who knows?

How Is Rue Going To Pay Laurie Back?

Again, we cannot overstate how stupid Rue was to go to Laurie of all people during her weakest moment. Was she forced into a corner? Sure, but seeking help from the woman who you conned an entire suitcase filled with drugs out of with absolutely no plan to pay her back — not our girl’s smartest moment. Laurie has already threatened to traffic Rue if she doesn’t get the money back and she doubles down on that threat during this latest episode, hinting that Rue, as a woman, has something of value and ominously telling her she knew she’d be a part of her life for a long time from the moment she first saw her. Laurie has plans for Rue, the scary kind, and honestly, we don’t know how she’s going to get out of this mess.

HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ airs on Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

(SPOILERS for this week’s Euphoria will be found below.)

This week’s episode of Euphoria focused heavily on Rue Bennett’s drug addiction as we watch her battle through withdrawal symptoms after Jules, Elliot, and Rue’s mother and sister conducted an intervention. That resulted in them disposing of her drug collection which led to her painful withdrawal. However, this week’s episode also touches on other things in the world of Euphoria. There’s a new breakdown in the love triangle between Nate, Cassie, and Maddy, and we spend more time with Laurie, Rue’s unorthodox drug dealer. Furthermore, we take a trip back in time to see how Rue grieved shortly after her father died.

How Did Rue’s Dad Die On ‘Euphoria’?

During season one of Euphoria, it was revealed that Rue’s father passed away from cancer before the main events of the show. His death affected Rue greatly and one of the ways she remembers her dad is through that purple hoodie that she wears often in both seasons of the show. We find out towards the end of season one that the hoodie previously belong to her father, which is why she wears it so often. At the end of last week’s episode, we see Rue and her dad share an emotional moment, but it turns out to be a fictional moment she experiences in her had as a result of her drug high.

In this week’s episode, we watch Rue deliver a speech about her father during a memorial service for him. During a flashback, we also see Rue’s youthful experiences with her dad, including being at the hospital shortly after Gia is born.

HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ airs on Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

The Houston Texans are one of two teams still without a head coach for the 2022 season, as the Miami Dolphins hired 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel on Sunday to fill the seventh of nine openings this offseason.

For weeks, the frontrunner in Houston has been considered to be former quarterback Josh McCown, who the Texans interviewed a year ago before hiring David Culley, who was fired after one season. However, on Sunday night word emerged from Adam Schefter and other reporters that the team had shifted focus to associate head coach and defensive coordinator Lovie Smith, who is “in talks” with the team to become the next head coach and the team is moving on from McCown.

Smith isn’t the lone candidate remaining, as Ian Rapoport reports McCown and Brian Flores remain candidates for the job and no decision has been made just yet.

Still, it’s a fairly big shift in the expectation around Houston in the past few week since Flores’ discrimination lawsuit against the NFL was announced, and one can’t help but wonder whether the reconsideration of McCown’s candidacy stems from the dreadful optics of hiring a white coach with no NFL coaching experience over Black candidates like Flores and Smith with head coaching experience and a much more substantial resume.

In any case, we’ll see where the Texans end up landing in the coming days, as it seems they are narrowing in on making a hire relatively soon, and Smith, who most recently was the head coach at Illinois and most famously is the former head coach of the Chicago Bears, appears to be the new frontrunner.

Stormi Webster is officially a big sister. Earlier this afternoon, Kylie Jenner announced the birth of her second child with Travis Scott by sharing a black and white photo of the new baby’s hand. She shared the birth date, 2/2/22, indicating her second child was born last week, and also included a blue heart emoji, leading many people to believe her new baby is a boy. Since TMZ is also reporting the baby is a boy, it seems like that’s probably the case, but Kylie hasn’t officially confirmed the gender yet on her own.

At least this is some positive news for Travis Scott, who has understandably been lying low since the horrific tragedy at Astroworld last year, a festival that left nine attendees dead. Looks like the fans who were convinced Kylie had her baby back in January were just a little premature. Congratulations to the happy couple, and knowing the way the Kardashian content machine rolls, we’ll be getting photos of this little guy some time in the very near future.

Here’s hoping that after witnessing what Kanye and Kim are going through right now with custody of their children, Travis and Kylie are able to keep things cordial as they co-parent. Check out the Instagram post here.

Billie Eilish just recently kicked off the tour behind her new album, Happier Than Ever — as in, three days ago recently — but she is of course already making headlines. The young pop star has already been known to keep things incredibly real with her fans, and the general public, and seems to be hyper aware of her own role when it comes to checking in on the safety and health of her fans at shows.

At a concert in Atlanta on Sunday night, Eilish interrupted her entire set to make sure a fan got the inhaler she needed, instructing her security to bring one from backstage. TMZ has footage of her (above) seemingly addressing last year’s tragedy at Astroworld, saying “I wait for people to be okay before I keep going.” She calmed the rest of the crowded auditorium while that fan recovered, and got huge cheers for her statement.

The issue at Astroworld was that Travis Scott kept performing, allegedly oblivious, while nine fans were trampled to death. Obviously, that’s a nightmarish situation even if Scott was totally unaware of it happening, but it seems very unlikely anything of that nature could happen at an Eilish concert.

Though Billie followed up her debut album incredibly quickly, releasing her second record only two years later, rumor has it she’s already back in the studio again, working on yet another new album. Now that’s dedication.

The Miami Dolphins were one of three NFL teams still with a head coaching vacancy entering the weekend after six hires had been made around the league in recent weeks.

Miami was searching for a coach after firing Brian Flores after three seasons, including back-to-back winning years, with the expectation of taking the leap into the contender tier. The Flores firing set into motion the eventual lawsuit from Flores against the NFL for discriminatory hiring practices, citing texts from Bill Belichick about Brian Daboll getting the Giants job before Flores had his interview in New York, as well as alleging that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross had offered him $100,000 per loss in the 2019 season when Miami was seeking a high draft pick.

With that shadow still hanging over the team, they have moved forward in their hiring process and will reportedly hire Mike McDaniel out of San Francisco, where he was the offensive coordinator for one season after previously being the team’s run game coordinator.

The 38-year-old McDaniel is considered one of the league’s up-and-coming offensive minds, and that has been the trend of late with NFL hiring processes, seeking out the next Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan. For a Dolphins team hoping to see Tua Tagovailoa take the next step as a quarterback, hiring McDaniel sends the clear message that they want to surround him with a staff that will try to take advantage of his unique skillset as a quarterback.

McDaniel’s hire leaves just the Texans and Saints as the last two teams with vacancies.

For the past few days, Kanye West has been airing out his issues with Kim Kardashian, and they mostly relate to their children. In one instance, Kanye criticized Kim for letting North West use TikTok against his will. He also claimed Kim tried to “kidnap” their daughter, and days later, he claimed that she would not let him bring their kids to Chicago for a basketball game. While Kanye has received support from far right pundit Candace Owens, Azealia Banks is not coming to his defense at all. In fact, the singer took a moment to share a lengthy message criticizing his behavior and treatment of Kim Kardashian.

“Y’all are making way too many excuses for Kanye,” she said to began her message which she posted on her Instagram Story. “This is the second time he has publicly bullied North West. First with the abortion sh*t, and now putting her on blast on his Instagram page as if she’s some sort of criminal.” She continued, “Kanye had no problem with that magazine cover where North had on a f*cking belly top and purple eyeliner with her little buds showing thru the shirt, he thought it was fashion. You all said nothing.”

Banks went on to accuse Kanye of trying to “wreck the mental health of the only person around to care for children” while criticizing him for his new relationship with Julia Fox. Banks also suggested that Kanye was going through “rapid opioid/heroin comedown/withdrawal type outbursts.”

“Kanye is an abusive psychopath, it’s beyond mental illness,” she said. “Stop trying to help him and start trying to help the poor child that he keeps on trying to embarrass and abuse publicly to garner sympathy for his ashy ass.”

With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Simu Liu went from an obscure working actor to a big enough star to host SNL. He even holds a major first: He’s the first Asian star of an MCU romp. And it may not have happened had Liu done something any ambitious careerist does to get ahead: embellish one’s qualifications to get a big job.

As caught by Entertainment Weekly, Liu participated in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” showcase, speaking with West Side Story break-out (and fellow SNL Season 47 host) Ariana DeBose. And he confessed that his martial arts skills may not have been as robust as he claimed at the time.

“When I got the part, they asked me about my martial arts background and experience, which of course I exaggerated because I wanted the job really badly,” Liu confessed. “I had done some work as an on-again, off-again stuntman, but if we’re honest, I think I was more of a dancer than I ever was a martial artist.”

When he got the job, Liu realized he had to do some catching up. “Pretty much from the moment I was cast, I started working with trainers and learning how to move. I had such awful flexibility,” he told DeBose. “A big part of that early process was just bending my body and trying to rip those legs apart.”

To make things worse, he was supposed to do martial arts opposite two biggies of the genre: Tony Leung (alum of John Woo movies and the Jet Li starrer Hero) and Michelle Yeoh (whose martial arts CV is legion). Luckily they were very understanding.

“Very different people, but an aura of warmth and friendliness,” Liu explained. He said Leung was “famously shy, and very, very soft spoken. You would never know his stature and his fame just by looking at him.” Yeoh, meanwhile, was a “goofball” on top of a “badass,” and she had a “wonderful way of telling me to relax and just settle in.”

So if you wind up exaggerating your way into a martial arts blockbuster with the stars of the 1993 wuxia classic Butterfly and Sword, they may have your back.

(Via Variety and EW)

With the trade deadline four days away, trade talks are heating up around the NBA and we are finally starting to see some movement and not just reported discussions.

The first big deal of the weekend arrived on Friday when the Clippers traded for Norman Powell and Robert Covington, as the Blazers looked to move out of the luxury tax and officially signaled they are moving towards this season being about the future. While the big dominos remain standing, that move seemed to pop the lid off the trade market a bit, as Sunday brought word of another fairly significant deal.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been wanting to add guard help for months, particularly with the injuries to Collin Sexton and Ricky Rubio, and have found that additional backcourt help for breakout star Darius Garland in Indiana, where the Pacers have been reportedly open for business for more than a month. On Sunday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Caris LeVert was headed to Cleveland for Rubio’s expiring salary, this year’s first round pick, and a pair of seconds.

The Cavs are firmly in the playoff hunt this year and needed to make a move to ensure they weren’t just a regular season darling, but had some additional floor balance for the postseason. LeVert can hopefully provide that, offering quality secondary scoring alongside Garland as the Cavs have loaded up with frontcourt talent but found themselves a bit thin at guard.

For the Pacers, it’s the beginning of the expected selling off to kickstart a rebuild, with Domantas Sabonis and/or Myles Turner both potentially on their way out this week as well. They get a first this year and a pair of seconds, along with some future cap flexibility to begin what they hope will be a relatively quick rebuild.

We’re just a week away from Super Bowl LVI, which means we’re a week from the game’s Halftime Show, which features an eclectic array of performers: Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige. The artists are expected to perform classic songs from their catalogs, with a slim chance of them performing some new and/or unreleased tracks. Another thing viewers will catch during the halftime show is a performance from a pair of deaf rappers.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Eminem has invited Sean Forbes and Warren “WaWa” Snipe to take the stage during the show. Forbes and Warren will perform interpretations of the headliners’ songs in American Sign Language (ASL), which will. mark the first time that the NFL has ever incorporated ASL into their halftime show. It’s described as “an elevated accessibility experience” and the performance will be made available through the NBC Sports website and app.

“The doors to accessibility are busted wide open with something like this,” Forbes told the Detroit Free Press during an interview. While it will be Forbes’ first appearance at a Super Bowl, Snipe previously appeared at last year’s game, where he joined Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church to perform the national anthem.