‘Stop! Stop! Stop! I’m doing something!’: 'I Think You Should Leave' is almost back

For this Friday edition of Popculturology, rejoice that I Think You Should Leave is less than a week away from returning.

The trailer for the upcoming season was one of many new trailers that hit the Internet over the past few days. There’s a new one for the brilliant Barbie movie. The upcoming Spider-Man video game also got a new trailer, sending me back to my scheming to get a PS5.

We’ll have two major series finales to go over in the next edition, with both Succession and Barry wrapping up their runs on Sunday.

• Feature Presentation: ‘We’re gonna go nuts’
• Bonus Features: Rough rollout for Max
• The News: Who might return as Force Ghosts, Elizabeth Olsen talks Multiverse and getting Iced
• Trailer Watch: Barbie, The Flash, No Hard Feelings, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
• Playlist: Ted Lasso, The Other Two
• What to Watch: Happy Endings
• Odds and Ends: Has it really been fifteen years since Iron Man opened?

‘We’re gonna go nuts!’

When you think of the most influential shows of the past few years, one show should be at the top of your list: I Think You Should Leave.

Crafted by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, the sketch series has left an indelible mark on pop culture over just a dozen short episodes.

Think of some of the iconic moments from the show.

“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.”

“Now you have to marry your mother-in-law!”

“I don’t even want to be around anymore.”

“Fuck you, Harley Jarvis!”

Vulture’s Anne Victoria Clark even did a full deep-dive on how Coffin Flops came together.

I Think You Should Leave has been gone since its second season dropped on Netflix in July 2021. The drought ends next week, though, with the third season premiering on May 30.

Netflix released the first trailer for I Think You Should Leave’s new season on Wednesday.

I told Caitlin the other day that I’m going to watch all of Season 3 next Tuesday night. I don’t care how long it takes or how late I need to stay up.

It needs to be in my brain.

Rough rollout for Maps, er, Max

Warner Bros. Discovery’s rebranding of HBO Max to just “Max” should’ve been a simple one. Update the app with the new name, make sure everyone’s login info still works — and don’t anger multiple creative guilds including the one currently on strike because you won’t meet their pretty fair demands.

Whoops.

Max, which I cannot stop calling “Maps” in my head, did not have the smoothest rollout. The app didn’t automatically update on any of my devices, which meant people had to download a new app and delete the old app. (And if you’re my nephew, you were “very concerned about the missing purple app and replaced by the light blue app.”)

The Max transition was worse for directors, producers and writers, with the new app now lumping them all together as “creators” in the credits for TV shows and movies, as if they were YouTube talent. The guilds were not pleased.

“Warner Bros. Discovery’s unilateral move, without notice or consultation, to collapse directors, writers, producers and others into a generic category of ‘creators’ in their new Max rollout while we are in negotiations with them is a grave insult to our members and our union,” Directors Guild of America President Lesli Linka Glatter said (via The Hollywood Reporter). “This devaluation of the individual contributions of artists is a disturbing trend and the DGA will not stand for it. We intend on taking the strongest possible actions, in solidarity with the WGA, to ensure every artist receives the individual credit they deserve.”

“Warner Bros. has lumped writers, directors and producers into an invented, diminishing category they call Creators,” Writers Guild of America West President Meredith Stiehm said. “This is a credits violation for starters. But worse, it is disrespectful and insulting to the artists that make the films and TV shows that make their corporation billions. This attempt to diminish writers’ contributions and importance echoes the message we heard in our negotiations with AMPTP — that writers are marginal, inessential, and should simply accept being paid less and less, while our employers’ profits go higher and higher. This tone-deaf disregard for writers’ importance is what brought us to where we are today — Day 22 of our strike.”

WBD later tried to claim that this update was a “mistake.”

“We agree that the talent behind the content on Max deserve their work to be properly recognized,” a statement from WBD said. “We will correct the credits, which were altered due to an oversight in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max and we apologize for this mistake.”

Ah, yes, this happens all the time with apps. They just randomly consolidate credits into generic categories like “creators.”

Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen as Force Ghosts in Daisy Ridley’s movie?

I’m not going to pretend the sourcing on this one is reliable, but there’s a report out there that Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen will return as Force Ghosts of Luke and Anakin Skywalker for Daisy Ridley’s Star Wars movie.

The Giant Freakin Robot report from this week does have its merits. Christensen has already returned to the franchise for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series and is expected to appear in Ahsoka. (Not sure if he’ll be in flashbacks or as a Force Ghost in that one.) Hamill has already played Luke Skywalker as a Force Ghost in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The bigger thing here, for me, is that this all should’ve been done in Episode IX. I’m excited to see Ridley return to Star Wars, but Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order? That should’ve been what The Rise of Skywalker was. Rey’s “all the Jedi” moment against Palpatine? That’s when we should’ve seen Luke, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jinn and countless other Jedi as Force Ghosts at her side.

Elizabeth Olsen talks shooting Multiverse of Madness, John Krasinski, Star Wars and getting Iced

It seems that with the exception of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, it’s not uncommon for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film to undergo a ton of changes — even working with incomplete scripts — as shooting commences. The transition from WandaVision to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a rocky process, with Elizabeth Olsen previously addressing the disconnect between the two projects.

In a chat with Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Olsen elaborated on what it was like working on Multiverse of Madness.

“The way I managed it, is I shot what they told me to do and I did it. … Then I did my voiceover work to make everything that I’d already done make sense. That’s how we did Doctor Strange,” Olsen told Horowitz. “There is a point in making the movie where I just stopped reading drafts.”

Olsen also clarified some confusion that arose after appeared to say in a Vanity Fair video that she didn’t know who John Krasinski was. Turns out Olsen didn’t make the connection between Krasinski playing Reed Richards and Reed Richards being the “smartest man alive.”

“I didn’t shoot with him,” Olsen told Horowitz. “I knew he was going to be in it, but he wasn’t here when I was there.”

Olsen later confirmed the rumors that Daniel Craig was supposed to have a cameo during the scene with Reed Richards and the other Illuminati, saying, “I saw the art. They had a costume.”

The actress also debunked a rumor that she had to pass on Star Wars: The Force Awakens due to her MCU commitments, telling Horowitz that she never had an audition for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars film.

And finally, Olsen mocked the concept of getting Iced — the thing where you have to chug a Smirnoff Ice if you’re surprised with one.

“Who said? And why would I have to?” she laughed. “In what world would I have to do anything?”

My thoughts exactly.

Jackie Daytona joins Minecraft movie

Oh wait. That’s not Jackie Daytona. It’s Matt Berry. Deadline reported on Tuesday that the What We Do in the Shadows actor has signed onto the Minecraft movie that’s apparently in the works. He joins Jason Momoa and director Jared Hess.

Berry needs to be in more things, but I’m not sure if Minecraft is the right direction to accomplish that …

Quick hits

• Deadpool 3 begins filming. But Ryan Reynolds isn’t allowed to improvise. The WGA is still on strike, but that isn’t stopping Marvel Studios from rolling cameras on the next Deadpool movie. One tiny problem … Reynolds (and the rest of the cast) is allowed to only say what’s in the script, according to Collider. No adlibbing or improvising.
• Captain Rex making the jump to live action? Another Star Wars scoop with a dubious source here, but One Take News is reporting that Temuera Morrison will play Captain Rex in the Ahsoka series.
• MoviePass is back! 🙄🙄🙄 Just gonna paste a bunch of eyeroll emojis here. Good luck to anyone giving their money to the latest version of the service.

Barbie

“You guys ever think about dying?”

Greta Gerwig is a genius and appears to have created the movie of the year with Barbie.

Barbie opens on July 21.

The Flash

The closer we get to The Flash hitting theaters, the more it seems like Warner Bros. is doing everything it can to convince us that this one is a must-see movie. Michael Keaton! The director talking about a certain actor cameoing as a certain role! Gunn repeatedly tweeting about how great this movie is!

The Flash opens on June 16.

No Hard Feelings

Is this movie trying too hard? I’m all for a Jennifer Lawrence renaissance, but No Hard Feelings seems like something a script from a decade ago that was updated with a few Uber references.

No Hard Feelings opens on June 23.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

I need a PS5 to play Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. But I NEED a PS5 to play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The original was the reason a ton of people, myself included, bought a PS4. The sequel is going to be the reason we all upgrade.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 releases later this year.

Ted Lasso

Episode: “Mom City”

Quick thoughts

It took almost the full, final season of Ted Lasso to hit an emotional note with me. Ted’s talk with his mother about his son finally got me. What a shame we’ve spent so much time on nonsense this season. Keeley’s business. Shandy. Rebecca’s psychic.

For a show that was known for its kindness, for its heart, Ted Lasso forgot all of that this season. Jamie’s moment in Manchester City was touching.

Ted is going home. And whether Ted Lasso ends with Jason Sudeikis leaving or if it continues on to tell the further stories of Beard, Roy or Nathan, Ted returning to his son is the only place this season and this show was ever going to end.

Quotable

“That doesn’t make any sense. Babies can’t talk and nor do they understand empathy.” — Ted

The Other Two

Episode: “Brooke Gets Her Hands Dirty”

Quick thoughts

The Other Two has gotten much more experimental during its third season. After a previous episode gave us a world where people in the entertainment industry could no longer see those outside the industry, “Brooke Gets Her Hands Dirty” gave us a full Pleasantville treatment with Cary’s storyline. (Yahoo published a good piece looking at how The Other Two pulled off the Pleasantville tribute.)

I’m pretty sure this makes it back-to-back episodes with an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reference. Brooke’s dress in the previous episode was subtle, but the show fully embraced the congresswoman’s look with this episode.

Quotable

“It felt sort of braggy to still have blond hair.” — Brooke

• The Widening Web of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter)
• Elon Musk is dying to be funny. These eight comedians have some notes (Brian Contreras, Los Angeles Times)
• The V Files: The Shocking Legacy of an ’80s Sci-Fi Cult Classic (Anthony Breznican, Vanity Fair)
• Jay Baruchel on His ‘Stupid’ Attempt to Become a Movie Star (Matt Wilstein, The Daily Beast)
• Hank Azaria Answers Every Question We Have About Godzilla (James, Grebey, Vulture)
• The QR-Code Menu Is Being Shown the Door (Amelia Nierenberg, The New York Times)

Happy Endings

Hulu

Since I know you’re already watching Succession and Barry this weekend, here’s how to fill the rest of your time: Watch Happy Endings on Hulu if you’ve never seen it. You’re welcome.

Iron Man: 15 Years Later with Kevin Feige and Jon Favreau

How has it been fifteen years since Iron Man came out? In a summer with The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, who would’ve guessed that some tiny movie from Marvel Studios would change everything.