I’ve never been a fan of a tragically terrible New York City sports team. But I am aware of what it’s like to put your heart and soul into an NYC-based institution that you know has the potential to be great. And also how it is to feel entitled to that greatness, which makes its failure to materialize seem like a personal injury. After all this time, you deserve this, don’t you? It’s a delusion that drives normal, sane people to expect a different result from the same flawed characters, who in reality are doomed to perpetually confound, confuse, and disappoint those who care about them most.

I don’t love the Mets or the Knicks. But I will always adore The Strokes. They are my Mets and Knicks rolled into one.

I suspect that The Strokes are aware that they are perceived as underachievers. Their forthcoming, Rick Rubin-produced album, The New Abnormal, ends with a song called “Ode To The Mets.” Should they ever tour behind this LP, perhaps they will hire James Dolan’s misbegotten blues band, JD and the Straight Shot, to open. Though that might be one meta bridge too far.

I’ll have more to say about The New Abnormal — and whether it succeeds as the comeback that people like me want it to be — when I review it next week. For now, I want to focus on The Strokes’ career up until this point.

Everyone thinks they have this band pegged: Peak early with Is This It, repeat themselves with Room On Fire, slip and fall with First Impression Of Earth, and then descend further on Angles and Comedown Machine. And that … is broadly true. But even things that are “broadly true” can also be wrong in countless small ways. The fact is that The Strokes have never made a boring record. Even their failures are interesting, and contain at least two or three songs that most rock bands couldn’t touch on their best albums.

Let’s go back and explore this band’s inarguable triumphs as well as the misfires that secretly contain largely undiscovered goodness. Here are the best 25 songs by The Strokes.

25. “Bad Decisions” (2020)

A core attribute of Strokes’ songs is the ability to conjure the feel of a song you already love without (in most cases) directly ripping it off. This single from the forthcoming The New Abnormal shows that they are still very adept at this trick. The guitar tone of “Bad Decisions” instantly evokes Modern English’s heart-exploding ’80s oldie “I Melt You,” albeit with a fresh coat of urban grime. (It also veers so close to “Dancing With Myself” that Billy Idol was awarded a co-writing credit.) Of course, “Bad Decisions” also recalls The Strokes’ own pitch-perfect way with spiky power pop. It sounds like the music of the aughts summoning the music of the ’80s, a profound double-exposure of mixtape melancholy.

24. “Welcome To Japan” (2013)

Comedown Machine truly is a departure point in The Strokes’ discography, separating the casual fans who are merely nostalgic for Is This It, and the hardcore believers who have followed Julian Casablancas into the deepest recesses of The Voidz wilderness. I tend to lean toward the latter camp, which is why I regard Comedown Machine as the band’s great “bad” record, a work loaded with straight-up goofy experiments and fascinating misfires that reveal deeper truths about how this band operates. Were tTe Strokes trying to stretch themselves, or did they actually not care at all about making a new Strokes album? I’ll never tire of speculating on either scenario. One of the most successful tracks is this sort-of travelogue, which includes one of Casablancas’ greatest non-sequiturs: “What kind of asshole drives a Lotus?”

23. “You Only Live Once” (2006)

The Strokes might not be the most reliable band, but you can always count on them to deliver a killer Side 1, Track 1. This album opener from First Impressions of the Earth is so sturdy and confident that it belies what is in fact one of the shakiest and least consistent Strokes LPs of all. It’s an early peak that the rest of the record will usually fail to hit. (This track was later repurposed by Casablancas in dramatically stripped-back form for the beloved solo track, “I’ll Try Anything Once.”)

22. “Trying Your Luck” (2001)

The amount of hype that greeted Is This It in the fall of 2001 instantly divided rock fans into acolytes and skeptics. To be fair, the skeptics had reason to feel like The Strokes were being sold a little too hard. The opening sentence of Rolling Stone‘s review of Is This It was typical of the tenor of NYC-based music publications: “This is the stuff of which legends are made.” (The magazine also dubbed them America’s best young rock band, practically from the moment they arrived on the national scene.) What made The Strokes so seductive — even more than the scores of great songs larded into Is This It — was mystique. They put it on like the rest of us try on a too-tight T. Rex T-shirt. This is easier to appreciate two decades after the fact. Just play the clip above of them playing the wistful Is This It deep cut “Trying Your Luck.” This is the last band that really knew how to smoke and play guitars simultaneously.

21. “The End Has No End” (2003)

Upon the release of Is This It, eager music critics quickly compared them to the greats of gritty NYC rock: The Velvet Underground, Television, the Ramones. But in reality, they often lifted ideas from the giants of late-’70s and early-’80s FM rock, like Tom Petty, Blondie, and especially The Cars. They really get their Candy-O on this vaguely political Room On Fire track, where Casablancas postulates that “It’s not the secrets of the government that’s keeping you dumb / Oh, it’s the other way around.” Coming after Is This It, which was rock’s signature escapist post-9/11 rock album, it was as if The Strokes were subtly acknowledging that there was no hiding from a nation about to wage two wars.

20. “Machu Picchu” (2011)

Angles is the most unfairly maligned Strokes album, and that’s mostly the fault of The Strokes themselves. The album cycle, frankly, was a disaster, with Casablancas openly expressing disinterest in Angles, while the rest of the band complained that their frontman was mostly out-of-pocket during the sessions. (Apparently he communicated song ideas with his bandmates strictly via email.) This inevitably created an impression about arrival that Angles should be treated as an afterthought. This is unfortunate, as Angles includes some of the best pop songs The Strokes have ever committed to tape, starting with the album’s opener, which showcases the band’s underappreciated funky side, cross-breeding Rio-era Duran Duran with Men At Work’s “Down Under.”

19. “Between Love & Hate” (2003)

A secretly popular contrarian opinion among Strokes boosters is that Room On Fire is actually better than Is This It. I happen to hold that particular opinion, and allow me to briefly explain why: On Room On Fire, The Strokes became a great groove band. While Is This It might ultimately boast superior songwriting — though I’m not fully prepared to concede this — the band plays together much better on Room On Fire. “Between Love & Hate” is a good example of how The Strokes became a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm machine in the vein of the early-’70s Stones, with Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi’s interweaving guitars providing a powerful, ska-infused counter-groove to the simple yet potent foundation provided by drummer Fab Moretti and bassist Nikolai Fraiture.

18. “One Way Trigger” (2013)

Does any phrase sum up the batty charms of Comedown Machine than “The Strokes go klezmer”? That’s precisely what they did on the album’s initially annoying but ultimately endearing curveball single, which also manages to sneak in a subliminal musical allusion to A-Ha’s “Take On Me.” Factor in Casablancas’ affecting falsetto, and this actually sounds more like a Voidz track than classic Strokes. Though given how lost the band seemed at this point, the manic sorrow of “One Way Trigger” feels like an accurate internal barometer of deep discontent.

17. “Razorblade”

During the press cycle for First Impressions Of Earth, The Strokes were already being treated as interesting disappointments. By then, a micro-generation of bands plainly influenced and inspired by Is This It and Room On Fire had come along and lapped The Strokes commercially, including Franz Ferdinand and especially The Killers. “There were many conversations along the lines of, ‘I think our songs are better than Mr. Brightside by The Killers, but how come that’s the one everybody’s listening to?’” Valensi told Spin in 2006. Ultimately, Valensi conceded “Mr. Brightside” sounded more like a pop hit than any Strokes single, and The Killers weren’t nearly as self-destructive. For The Strokes, engaging with pop always always had to have a subversive edge. Take “Razorblade,” the catchiest could-have-been hit from First Impressions, which just so happens to sound a lot like Barry Manilow’s schlock 1973 smash “Mandy.” Even at their poppiest, The Strokes still had to subtly mock the machine.

16. “The Adults Are Talking” (2020)

Bringing in Rick Rubin to produce The New Abnormal seemed like a uniquely self-aware career move. After all, Rubin is the leading guru for aging rock bands looking for a fresh start. I’ll have more to say on whether Rubin successfully helped The Strokes rediscover their inner, indelible Strokes-y selves in my album review next week. But for now, a tip of the cap to The New Abnormal‘s opening track, a minor-key new wave beauty with gorgeous guitar arpeggios that stands as the very best song to come out of this band in some time.

15. “New York City Cops” (2001)

The one famously left off of Is This It, because insisting that NYC police officers “ain’t too smart” in the snottiest voice imaginable was suddenly uncouth after 9/11. Though for me “New York City Cops” also stands as the first great rock moment of 2020, when it was performed at a Bernie Sanders rally in February as actual cops tried to hustle them off the stage. Yes, these guys are in their 40s now. And Julian Casablancas has ditched the leather jackets in order to dress like the Riddler. But there’s no other band that could pull off this display of insolent insouciance on such a grand scale.

14. “12:51” (2003)

Another brilliant example of The Strokes not only ripping off The Cars but actually improving upon them. The Strokes sounded so much wearier and more grown-up on Room On Fire that it was easy to overlook that Casablancas had only turned 25 upon the album’s release. But you can tell when you read the lyrics to “12:51,” which could have been taken from a Blink-182 song: “We could go and get 40’s / Fuck goin’ to that party / Oh really, you’re folks are away now? / Alright, lets go, you convinced me.”

13. “Under Cover Of Darkness” (2011)

For many years I insisted that Angles was my favorite Strokes album. I think I was overcompensating for how poorly the fourth Strokes LP was treated by the rest of the world, including the band themselves. But while my love of Angles is now a little more proportional to the actual quality of the record, I remain dumbfounded that “Under Cover Of Darkness” didn’t automatically become one of the most beloved tracks in the Strokes-iverse. It’s as rousing as anything from Is This It, it has the chops of Room On Fire, and it adds an extra layer of Thin Lizzy-style muscle. One of this band’s most perfect straight-ahead rock songs.

12. “Hard To Explain” (2001)

The first single from Is This It, and the first Strokes song us normies who couldn’t get a hold of The Modern Age EP heard. Upon revisiting, “Hard To Explain” hardly seems like the opening salvo of a revolution. It’s a little too unassuming for that. However, “Hard To Explain” does demonstrate that The Strokes had their act down cold from the beginning. Mathematically placed guitars, mechanical rhythm section, a vocal that somehow sounds both bored and agitated — it was all there at the start. Which is why, unlike most revolutionary songs removed from their moment, “Hard To Explain” still sounds as good now as it did then.

11. “Is This It” (2001)

One of the great opening tracks on a debut album ever. It also showed that The Strokes had a sense of humor about being declared rock saviors before their first LP even dropped. Instead of kicking down the door “Welcome To The Jungle”-style, The Strokes instead hobbled groggily out of bed in the early afternoon, lit a cigarette, and sardonically wondered whether they were really worth all of the trouble. Turns out the answer to that question was more complicated than anyone realized at the time.

10. “What Ever Happened” (2003)

In the bruising, competitive battle for the distinction of best Strokes album opener, I give the slight nod to “What Ever Happened” from Room On Fire. Like “Is This It,” there is an unmissable meta element to this song that serves the ultimate purpose of minimizing expectations with a well-timed shrug. (Though this time, The Strokes do take the “kick down the door” approach.) If you were writing about Room On Fire, you were required to accept the opening lines as thinkpiece fodder: “I wanna be forgotten / And I don’t want to be reminded / You say, ‘Please don’t make this harder’ / No, I won’t yet.”

9. “Soma” (2001)

The Strokes were not the first band to reference the recreational drug used by citizens to distract themselves from a contemporary dystopia in Aldous Huxley’s landmark 1932 novel Brand New World. (Billy Corgan wrote a song called “Soma” for Smashing Pumpkins’ second album, 1993’s Siamese Dream, which these guys undoubtedly heard at some point in high school.) But in the context of Is This It, “Soma” has an interesting double-meaning, given that The Strokes themselves were an immediate distraction from the horrors of post-9/11 America. An old-school rock band that arrived at the outset of a new century in which old-school rock bands were increasingly anachronistic, The Strokes symbolized a classic version of NYC cool right at the time when NYC was most imperiled. Looking at the lyrics of “Soma,” it’s as if this significance was baked in from conception, especially the opening line: “Soma is what they would take when hard times opened their eyes.”

8. “Taken For A Fool” (2011)

Just as The Strokes thrived on expertly pilfering the most delectable sounds and melodies of our collective new wave and post-punk past, The Strokes themselves became a popular reference point for the bands that arrived in their wake. None more so than Phoenix, whose best work from the late aughts coincided with The Strokes’ extended hiatus from the rock world. By the time they returned after a five-year absence with Angles, The Strokes showed that were not above lifting from the people who lifted from them. Enter “Taken For A Fool,” Angles’ best pure pop song, which distills Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix back down to its component Room On Fire parts without losing the French band’s impeccable gleam.

7. “Automatic Stop” (2003)

The peak of The Strokes’ under-appreciated ska period, “Automatic Stop” was actually inspired by Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” Albert Hammond once claimed in an interview. I’d like to think that these boys wanted to have fun by listening to Operation Ivy while smoking enough weed to make the rhythms feel half as slow. Beyond that baseless speculation, “Automatic Stop” is an alluring portrait of post-Is This It decadence, a kind of PG-rated “Walk On The Wild Side” in which Casablancas drones about how there’s “so many fish there in the sea / she wanted him, he wanted me.”

6. “Someday” (2001)

The Strokes were able to deflect accusations that they were mere rock revivalists because nostalgia was one of their great subjects. Even when they were young and about to embark on a great adventure of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, The Strokes were already pining for something vital they felt they had lost. One of their greatest songs about this topic, “Someday,” has the ache of a young adult who wishes he was still a kid, even if he’s still living like a kid. One thing you lose as you age is closeness with your boyhood bros, and Casablancas could already feel that. “I say alone we stand, together we fall apart,” he hollers. Of course, The Strokes did manage to stick together, though they also often fell apart together in the process.

5. “Life Is Simple In The Moonlight” (2011)

The saddest Strokes song, and also the only one that references Cornel West. It just sounds like a sonic manifestation of regret over squandered potential. When they performed it on Saturday Night Live, I thought they might break up the next day. A decade on from Is This It, they looked wasted and exhausted, with Casablancas seemingly struggling to remember his own lyrics. It wasn’t good in the conventional sense, and yet I’m always riveted whenever I revisit the clip. The tension in this performance is watching Casablancas decide in real time whether he wants this to be the best TV performance ever, or the worst, and wavering between the two like an impaired driver struggling to keep his car on the road.

4. “The Modern Age” (2001)

Is This It was an in-joke of an album title. The Modern Age EP meanwhile was a provocation, a look-at-us-in-our-f*cking-cool-ass-leather-jackets move designed to send the press into hysterics. Ingeniously, it was available in the UK first, because the press there is famously more excitable about cool-ass-leather-jacketed Americans who declare that they are harbingers of a new movement. There are those who will insist that The Strokes peaked with opening title track from the EP, which is faster and rawer than the version that ended up on Is This It. I prefer the Is This It track, which makes up in swagger what it lacks in frantic immediacy. Though maybe I’m just being defensive over not being there when The Strokes first exploded. If you value The Strokes first and foremost as a paragon of rock coolness — a totally defensible position — they never got any cooler than “The Modern Age.”

3. “Reptilia” (2003)

On the other hand, if you value The Strokes for their ability to rock, then this has to be your go-to track. Because of their inherent economical nature, this band never gets the credit they deserve as shredders. Albert Hammond and Nick Valensi aren’t virtuosos, but they are a virtuoso guitar tandem, effortlessly interlocking lines like Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd slumming it on side 1 of Sticky Fingers. When Casablancas screams that the room is on fire, you know exactly where the fuel is coming from.

2. “Under Control” (2003)

One songwriting trope The Strokes have almost entirely avoided is the love ballad. The great exception is “Under Control,” their homage to Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, and all the other makers of epic, sexy ’60s soul. Only this song is directed by Casablancas to his bandmates, and it’s about how fame is slowly but surely destroying their friendship. “We worked hard, darling,” he concedes. “We were young, darling,” he sighs. But this won’t be true for long. So why not enjoy one more round for the road, while we still can?

1. “Last Nite” (2001)

For The Strokes, “the goal was to be really cool and non-mainstream, and be really popular,” Julian Casablancas declared in 2003. In that respect, their career is a failure. The Strokes were maybe 10 percent as popular as Linkin Park in the early aughts, at least in terms of album sales. But if The Strokes were never hugely popular, they did become famous, in that people really loved to look at them, maybe even more than listen to them. And that all started with the video for “Last Nite.” While people can debate over who was the best band of this era, there was no band that was better at looking like a rock band than The Strokes. If that sounds like I’m selling the music short, I’m really not. “Last Nite” is one of the most purely enjoyable and fun rock songs of the last 20 years. But what ultimately has made me a Strokes fan for life is that, like all iconic rock bands, the music is only part of it. Maybe only about 60 to 65 percent, in fact. The rest comes from your own imagination. How fun is this band to think about? How excited do they make you to care about rock ‘n’ roll? Who else can give you the feeling you get when, at the 51-second mark, the camera pans across the band to reveal all of the cast members: The Stoic Bass Player, The Guitarist Who Rocks, The Cute Drummer, The Isolent Singer, and The Guitarist Who Rolls. This is The Strokes. But it’s also every other band, both real and imagined, that has ever been and will ever be. Just as “Last Nite” is also “American Girl” and “Mr. Brightside.” If you think that’s just hype or folly, well, some people they don’t understand.

This is how Adam Sandler wins. On Thursday, the Uncut Gems star (and Oscar snub) virtually dropped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he debuted a new song. No, it’s not a sequel to “Dip Doodle” (although, not the worst idea) — it’s about the healthcare workers who are going to “save us from this mess.”

The anthem of our time, currently untitled, pays tribute to the heroic doctors and nurses in America and around the world who are risking their lives in the fight against coronavirus. It’s sweet, but not lacking in Sandler’s endearingly silly humor. Lyrics include, “Doctors brought us into this world as babies/Doctors take good care of your grandma / Doctors always give you an old lollipop after hitting your knee with a hamma,” and, “Nurses give you ice packs and pain medication while your doctor is smoking on the roof / Doctors and nurses will save us from this mess if we get them the supplies that they need / And I hope they save us soon ‘cause I’m really, really sick of my family.”

Sandler also thanked the “Italian doctors in Italy and all the Spanish doctors in Spain / And God bless Chinese doctors in China and also Chinese doctors in America,” while issuing a dire warning for the future of the country: “I’m teaching math to my kids, and that can’t be good for America.” You can watch the whole performance above.

Alex Garland‘s ‘Devs,’ starring Nick Offerman and Sonoya Mizuno, has launched as FX on Hulu’s first original series. The sci-fi show oozes futuristic paranoia and pairs a beautifully frightening aesthetic with charismatic performances, all of which bring a disturbing parable to life. Here, we’ll break down the show’s many mysteries as the season unfolds around the works of a tech CEO with a possible messianic complex.

The sixth episode of Devs finally got down to doling out answers about what Amaya’s mysterious Devs program does and what Forest (and his right-hand, Katie) believe. The answers are not entirely comforting ones, neither for Lily nor the audience, but this week, writer-director Alex Garland gives everyone tons to think about while staring down the two remaining episodes. It’s particularly nice to receive these answers after last week’s agony-filled turn from Nick Offerman after we saw the accident that killed his family and forever changed his outlook on life.

Now, we’ve got an exposition-filled installment that doesn’t answer every question, but it sure gives us some hefty clues. As far as recapping goes, the structure of this episode is startlingly simple: a fed-up Lily (and an accompanying, doting Jamie) decides to visit Forest and Katie at his home. No one is surprised to see them show up because this probably popped up as a vision in the Devs machine. What does it all mean, though?

Is Forest good or evil?

Throughout this season, and even more so during this episode, I kept thinking about that quote that’s frequently misattributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The actual quote comes from John Stuart Mill and goes like this: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Same effect, and both condemn Forest.

Basically, we’ve watched Kenton do bad sh*t all season long while Forest stands there, looking haunted but doing nothing. He watched Sergei’s murder happen, and the Devs group accepted the death as predetermined. Forest truly believes that he cannot interfere in such things (even after he orders them to happen) because whatever happens was meant to happen. It sure looks like Forest is attempting to justify his own bad behavior (at best, he’s an accessory to murder!) by claiming that nothing happens without a reason. It’s all in the cards. In the machine. Don’t blame him, man.

The infuriating aspect of Forest’s belief system is that he genuinely appears to think he’s inherently “good.” As in, he’s doing nothing wrong, and he actually extends this claim to Jamie while reasoning that he had no idea that his “attack dog” broke Jamie’s hand. Sure, Forest knew that someone was terrorized, but damn, he’s so sorry this happened. And he paints himself as free from culpability because of predetermination. On one hand, that’s convenient for Forest, but do we really want someone insane running an incredibly powerful machine that can predict the future? The answer seems obvious, and let’s make things very clear: Forest might not be straight-up evil, but he’s definitely not a benevolent entity. He’s only in this whole thing to resurrect his daughter, and anything else is an obstacle or gravy to him.

What is Lily’s role in this hot mess, and what is Devs?

Quite understandably after Sergei’s death, Lily has wanted to know what Amaya’s mysterious “Devs” group was really all about. Katie, surprisingly, does not hold back, and she gives Lily almost the full run-down about how the machine can revisit all past moments and, to a degree, see into the future. Katie acknowledges that she’s the chief engineer of this thing, and it’s only bolstered her belief in determinism. However, and as she explains to Lily, there’s a point in the future where the Devs machine sputters. It can no longer see the future, and that is why Lily is a target. She apparently does something according to the machine, that breaks the very fabric of the universe.

That turns into quite the argument between Lily and Katie, understandably so. Lily, like much of the audience, believes in free will and actions having consequences. Whereas Katie argues that “nothing ever happens without a reason,” and “everything was determined by something prior.” Katie insists that Lily will do this mysterious thing (some unknown event), and that creates a chicken-and-egg type of dilemma. Will Lily show up at Devs (like the machine shows) because she wants to show up, or will she do this thing because Katie convinces her that she’ll show up and do something? Katie conceded that reading the future is a problematic thing, but she still went there. Still watched the future. Still told Lily what she would do.

Well, Katie admitted later to Forest that she didn’t tell Lily 100% of the story. Also, there’s this: either Katie’s telling the truth, and the Devs machine cuts out in the midst of Lily’s actions — triggering “a total breakdown of cause and effect, a breakdown of determinism, a breakdown of the literal laws of the universe” — or Katie’s masterminding what she wants to happen. Lily comes away from the conversation thinking that Katie’s delusional, but we’ll see what happens next week.

In the meantime…

Is frisbee a sport? As all of this enlightenment (and confusion) is going down, here’s what Forest was doing.

I dunno, man. This is like when Forest was stuffing salad in his face, all granola-like, when his motivations for Devs had nothing to do with environmentalism. He’s projecting himself through a facade, and as someone who simply stands by and lets evil happen because “everything happens for a reason.” Like Lily, said, this sounds like “bullsh*t.” It’s scary, and here he is, forcing Jamie to play frisbee in the street while claiming that it’s a “sport.” (I’m no sports expert, obviously, but this ain’t Ultimate Frisbee.) All the while, Forest damn well realizes that Lily’s getting the lowdown on some disturbing sh*t, but he’s just being casual. Like I said, not a good dude.

What of the fixer? All night long, Kenton has been watching everything. He’s already warned Forest that he’s gonna watch out for himself and won’t take the fall for all that murder business, so watch out, everyone.

FX on Hulu’s ‘Devs’ airs new episodes on Thursdays.

The former Dr. Harleen Quinzel may not have received the right movie (one that brings in droves of comic book fans) with Birds Of Prey, but the Harley Quinn animated series is an entirely different creature. Notably, the DC Universe streaming service has shown that they’re willing to cut bait with shows that don’t work, like James Wan’s Swamp Thing, which received an immediate axe without ceremony. So, it says a lot that DC Universe is running hard and fast with more Harley, four months after her first season celebrated her free-wheeling, feminist romp on the way to finally ditch the ultimate bad (and abusive) boyfriend, the Joker. He’s gone, after attempting during last season’s finale to erase Harley by tossing her back into the transformative Ace Chemicals vat and ending up there himself. And the show’s now even better for his omission.

When Mr. J laughed his last laugh, though, he also found a way to leave Gotham City (and the Legion of Doom) in shambles, which gives this sophomore season a marvelous jumping-off point. Basically, we’re looking at the apocalyptic version of Gotham right now. The U.S. has disavowed the city, and the police force can’t cope with the increasing pandemonium. Harley’s just fine with all of this — actually, she’s thrilled — and the season launches with more inappropriate humor, along with rampant profanity and violence, but it all feels more amplified. The F-bombs are strategically placed, with none going to waste, and the rip-roaring ride feels even faster than last time.

Granted, DC Universe has not released almost the whole second season to critics, like they did last year, so I can’t assure you that the whole season is consistent, but it’s off to a bang-up start. Harley has achieved her own sense of self, and she’s pumped. She’s no longer weighed down by a clown, but the enormous Gotham power void that he’s left must be filled by someone, and as the season premiere reveals, is now filled by about 1000 a-holes. It’s up to Harley and her gang (all guys, and that’s kind-of marvelous with her as the leader) to narrow down that field of a*holes. Can she rise to that challenge? Fortunately, this version of Harley (voiced by Kaley Cuoco) has her head in the game (unlike Margot Robbie’s hollow character, who’s in the DCEU wind), and the series keeps pretending that Suicide Squad doesn’t exist.

Where does this Harley go after her emancipation has been established?

A new principal challenge awaits, but also, this Harley is a tough-as-nails lady with heart. I mean, she actually saves a sushi chef from becoming a meal for King Shark. This shouldn’t come as a surprise for existing viewers of this series, which sees her as less of a supervillain than an antihero. However, there’s still a hell of a lot of guys behaving badly in Gotham, and even though she’s the one who took out the Joker, Harley’s now also a target of a new male power structure that wafts into view. She’s keen to charge in like a bull in a china shop at them, for better or worse, but there are lessons to be learned for impulsive choices. Harley initially encourages every Gotham henchman (and she counts herself among that crowd) to rise up for themselves — she doesn’t want this anarchy to die — but reality (at least, a comic book version) rears its head.

The terrible state that Gotham finds itself in is no joke with no Batman around to do the vigilante thing. The rising power players (including Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Riddler, Two-Face, and a ridiculously muffled Bane) call themselves the Injustice League and claim “New Gotham,” as it’s now called, whether Harley endorses them or not. Yes, evil will always attempt to take root, and it’s up to Harley to make sure that the updated Gotham doesn’t end up being more dangerous — and sh*tty for women — than the old one.

Not that this means the series has grown serious. Not even close, for this TV show has already proven itself capable of balancing deep, soul-searching moments on Harley’s behalf with uproariously wicked humor. The challenges for the title character have simply shifted, and become less intermittently heavy because Harley’s no longer acting codependent within an abusive relationship. She does, however, still need tough love from Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), who seems to be the only one who can talk sense into her friend. It’s not a spoiler to say this, really, since the trailer already revealed as much: Harley and Ivy’s friendship starts to edge toward the type of relationship that the fans have really wanted to see. On an unrelated note, the season also promises to feature an ice vagina, folks. We are pushing into bold new frontiers, alright.

Underneath it all, though, the sophomore Harley Quinn season is still the same show, only more chaotic as new obstacles unfurl. It’s as unapologetically profane and absurdly violent as always, and breezy, 23-minute episodes are still the name of the game with the pink-and-blue ball gleefully bouncing down the street into the absolute pandemonium of where Gotham once stood. This is also a show that also values connection, and friendship, and furthering one’s own development without being obnoxiously preachy about it. New Gotham can’t survive without a leader, and thankfully, Harley’s gathering of henchmen — including Doctor Psycho (Tony Hale), Clayface (Tudyk), and King Shark (Ron Funches) — think she’s the gal for the job. So hang on tight while Harley fights for her right to anarchy and, along the way, enjoys the parrrty.

DC Universe’s ‘Harley Quinn’ returns (on the DC Universe streaming service) on April 3.

Phoebe Bridgers confirmed in February that she worked with The 1975 on their upcoming album Notes On A Conditional Form. It turns out her contributions come on The 1975’s new single, “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America,” which is a folk-leaning duet between Bridgers and Matty Healy.

The song sounds more like a Sufjan Stevens than anything The 1975 have put out lately, and on it, Healy and Bridgers address forbidden loves. Healy sings near the start of the song, “I’m in love, but I’m feeling low / For I am just a footprint in the snow / I’m in love with a boy I know / But that’s a feeling I can never show.” Bridgers later echoes that sentiment, singing, “I’m in love with the girl next door / Her name’s Claire / Nice when she comes ’round to call / Then masturbate the second she’s not there.”

Bridgers previously told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about the origins of her relationship with Healy, saying, “We started DMing. Matty told me he was a fan and then it turned very quickly from talking a tiny bit to then completely no talking and just memes back and forth for months. He has very good taste in very obscure nerdy memes. And then I met all of them and they’re the sweetest and I can’t wait.”

Listen to “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America” above.

Notes On A Conditional Form is out 5/22 via Dirty Hit. Pre-order it here.

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Love y’all with all six feet of my heart.

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“We’re doing much better now because we’re laughing about it.”

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It’s only April, but it’s been a looooong year already.

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This morning, I expected the worst.

“Venom” was the number-one trending topic on Twitter in America, with “symbiote” in the number-three slot. “Oh no,” I worried, “has the unthinkable happened: has Venom 2 been delayed?” The sequel to 2018’s Venom — which not be the greatest movie ever, but it’s the only movie where Tom Hardy climbs into a tank and feeds on a live lobster in front of Michelle Williams, so I take it back, it is the greatest movie ever — is supposed to come out on October 2, and thankfully, the release date hasn’t changed (for now).

No, the reason “Venom” and “symbiote” were trending is because of this:

Should we be worried about whatever that is? Maybe! Dunno about you, but I, personally, am not a fan of withering, slimy black spaghetti. But at least we still get Venom 2 in October! Assuming that thing doesn’t kill us before then. But what is “that thing”? It’s apparently a bootlace worm, which “can grow up to 55m long. When provoked, it releases a high concentration of venomous mucus which would paralyze potential predators, giving it enough time to retreat to safety,” according to one explanation. It’s the longest animal on Earth, but not as long as the wait until Ve2om.

Where’s Spider-Man, you might be asking? He’s daring Jake Gyllenhaal to do shirtless handstands. Honestly, that’s way more important than stopping this venomous goo. Continue on.