Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2070

Laura Moon’s Journey in AMERICAN GODS, Explained

Spoilers for episode 4 of American Gods follow! You have been warned.

American Gods has only aired three episodes so far, but that doesn’t mean the show can’t already start breaking its own formula in new and interesting ways. “Git Gone” does exactly that by focusing not on Shadow’s perspective but that of his dead wife, Laura, which the book never quite got the chance to do.

However, while this episode is a fascinating, complicated portrait of a woman who lacks belief in anything, there’s not quite as much in the way of God-related shenanigans as we’ve encountered up to this point, so hopefully it’s a little bit less confusing. Still, if you need some explaining, you’ve come to the right place:

[Content warning for discussion of suicide]

Laura and Shadow

From the very beginning of the episode, it’s clear that Laura is fundamentally unhappy, which would explain why she goes into her hot tub with a can of Git Gone insecticide and tries to asphyxiate herself. I suppose she might just have been trying to get high off the spray, but the close-up of the label (“Kills Bugs On Contact!”) and the hot tub’s appearance later in the episode (we’ll get to that) leads me to believe that this is a suicide attempt. And even after she and Shadow have fallen in love, Laura is listless, unfocused, has trouble emotionally connecting with others, and knowingly makes very poor decisions—all classic signs of clinical depression.

While Laura and Shadow’s relationship is pretty devoid of any supernatural intrigue, there are lots of interesting little details to pick up here and there from what little we see of the casino where she works. For example, it’s called 26th Dynasty, presumably named for the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquests. The cards she’s shuffling are from a limited edition luxury set called the Anubis Deck, which was designed by Steve Minty in 2016 and is still available on his website. So, probably not something you’d find at a chintzy casino near Eagle Point, Indiana, but props to the set design team for keeping in with the aesthetic. But speaking of Egypt…

Visiting The Afterlife

Laura’s encounter with Anubis seems to lend further proof to the idea that religious piety doesn’t much play a role in how the Gods interact with belief; after all, she doesn’t believe in Gods and yet here one is ushering her to the land of the dead. Perhaps it’s possible that maybe all the Egyptian paraphernalia she was surrounded by every day was enough to secure his presence at her death? In any case, Laura now has confirmation that all the stories she stopped believing in as a child did hold some power after all—so when Anubis tells Laura that her afterlife is nothingness, using the symbol of her attempt to attain that nothingness, she rebels.

Lucky for her, she gets to return to the land of the living, because Shadow dropped that magic coin on her grave and somehow pulled her back into her body. The bad news is, she has to claw her way out of her ground and spends an uncomfortable amount of time violently expelling all the formaldehyde and other burial fluids from her.

Again we see the lynching scene from the first episode, but now we know why all of the Technical Boy’s henchmen basically exploded like Mortal Kombat characters before they could finish the job—it’s because Laura Moon laid into them with her newfound superhuman strength. Somehow she knows where Shadow is at all times because she can see light radiating off of him, although even in the book it’s unclear exactly why that happens. Did throwing the coin link them together somehow? Is it his dormant belief in her that she senses?

Road Trip!

The encounter with the Technical Boy’s goons leaves Laura covered in blood with one arm missing, which, despite how it matches her zombified personality, is not really a great look. Although, it’s interesting that she seems no longer quite as hollowed out as she was when she was alive—being dead has made her a little more energetic, and a lot more appreciative of Shadow.

After enlisting her ex-friend Audrey’s help in reattaching her arm and driving her in Shadow’s direction, Laura runs into her old pal Anubis (briefly in the form of a big black dog), and Mr. Ibis, who if you haven’t figured it out this point, is Thoth, the Egyptian scribe of the underworld. Now that they’re officially together, I want to point out here how interesting it is that both these characters are depicted as much darker skinned than they were in the books (Shadow literally says that he’s known white guys and black guys who look like them). I suspect that this was done as a deliberate reaction to the constant whitewashing of Egyptian culture in Hollywood—and it certainly is nice to see some Gods of Egypt who aren’t played by Jaime Lannister, that’s for dang sure.

Anyway, big surprise: Ibis and Jacquel, as he’s known on Earth, run a funeral parlor! Together they stitch Laura up properly and give her a new paint job so she doesn’t look so… you know, dead. And Jacquel tells her, just before she gets gussied up to go see Shadow, that one day he will come back to take her to the darkness where she’s supposed to end up. Guess he and Czernobog can start a club for people who have unfinished business with the Moons; the list just keeps getting longer every episode.

What did you make of Laura’s story? Any other burning questions that need answers? Drop ‘em down here in the comments below.

Images: Starz

Marvel at Mac Lethal’s Incredibly Fast Pizza Ordering Skills

It’s safe to say that we’ve all had to order pizza over the phone at some point in our lives. When we do, we get the list ready and hope to the pizza gods that we can convey everything we need in a timely manner and worry we’ll either miss something or be rushed off the phone by the pizza place. Rapper Mac Lethal wasn’t going to let that happen, and made sure to get his entire order across as quickly as possible in what can only be considered as the greatest pizza order of all time.



For the uninitiated, Mac Lethal is an accomplished musician from Kansas City, Missouri who has made a name for himself with his ability to rap at amazingly fast pace. In recent years, he’s been most recognizable from his YouTube channel chock full of interesting raps where he gives himself a particular challenge. He’s rapped for 90 seconds on one breath, rapped alphabetically, and even did his best trying to rap after eating a Carolina Reaper pepper.

His delivery order is roughly two minutes of pure pizza perfection that you’ll likely have to listen to a couple of times to really grasp everything he says. His rhymes range from real pizza items to needing a “Game of Thrones pizza covered in fried dragon meat.” With a grand total of $423,019.97, it seems the market price for dragon meat must have been pretty reasonable that day.

Oddly enough, what we love most about the video isn’t even the rap itself, but the pizza place employee doing his best to interject a few times. We know how tough food service jobs can be, and give the guy on the phone so much credit for trying to do his job during the call. And we can’t help but smile ear to ear knowing that employee finally has this video to show people who didn’t believe him about his weird rap-filled day at work.

What’s your favorite Mac Lethal song/YouTube video? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Image: Mac Lethal

Google Lens Brings Us Closer Than Ever to IRL Video Game HUDs

We live in a world where not a day goes by that some company announces a new and improved thing that hopes to revolutionize the world. A lot of these products tend to fall by the wayside as either novelty or just plain gimmicks–but sometimes a tech advancement comes along that seems really promising. Google’s new “Google Lens” feels like it’s going to be one that sticks around.

Google announced the new feature during their annual developer conference, Google I/O. The video explains that Google Lens is a set of vision-based computing capabilities that allows your phone to see the world and help you recognize the things in it. Basically, it’s the video game heads-up display we’ve always wanted!

At this time, the technical specs of how it works haven’t been made public, but we can assume it’s at least similar to Samsung’s Bixby assistant introduced on the Galaxy S8. We’re guessing a major factor of the Google Lens’ recognition software has to do with the years of data Google has compiled in terms of their reverse image searches and has probably got some of the bones of their previous foray into image recognition, Google Goggles. This means that–with the bevy of information Google has at its fingertips–you point your camera at something and Google Lens will do its best to identify what you’re looking at.

With Google Lens, your smartphone camera won’t just see what you see, but will also understand what you see to help you take action. #io17 pic.twitter.com/viOmWFjqk1

— Google (@Google) May 17, 2017

Google Lens will also be able to recognize the facade of businesses (probably aided by dipping into your phone’s GPS info) in order to return search results. The demo also showed the system recognizing and reading text on buildings regardless of the signage font. We wouldn’t be surprised if this has something to do with all those CAPTCHA things we’ve filled out over the years.

What do you think of Google Lens? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Image: Google

Spoiler Returns in DETECTIVE COMICS #957 (Exclusive Preview)

If you haven’t been reading Detective Comics during DC Rebirth, you’ve been missing out on some of the best Batman Family stories in decades. Over the past year, Batman and Batwoman have been putting the younger crime fighters like Red Robin, Spoiler and Orphan through a “Bat Boot Camp” to better prepare them for a harsh future, and it hasn’t been easy. In just a year, writer James Tynion IV has put Bruce Wayne and his surrogate family of costumed vigilantes through the wringer.

Batwoman/Kate Kane had to choose between her father and her loyalty to the Bat, Cassandra Cain/Orphan had to fight her birth mother (the assassin Lady Shiva), and Red Robin/Tim Drake died (well, not really, but Batman thinks he’s dead). Because of Red Robin’s death, his girlfriend Stephanie Brown, a.k.a. Spoiler, decided the vigilante life wasn’t for her, and that Batman and his sidekicks actually make Gotham City worse, not better. But regardless of her feelings on Batman and his soldiers, Steph has to put the Spoiler costume on once more to take on a deadly villain–and do it without Batman’s help.

You can check out our exclusive preview of the first five pages from Detective Comics #957, together with both variant covers down below in our gallery.

Publisher: DC Comics

Writers: James Tynion IV, Genevieve Valentine

Artist: Carmen Carnero

Cover Artists: Alvaro Martinez (Variant) Rafael Albuquerque

Here’s the official synopsis:

““The Wrath Of Spoiler”! Stephanie Brown wants nothing more than to save Gotham City from the epidemic of costumed vigilantes and madmen that regularly tear the city apart. But before she can try to stop them, she must face the challenge of one in particular: the insane idealogue the Wrath is back, and Stephanie knows what he has planned—but she refuses to let Batman risk more lives to stop him. That means it’s all on her…and a very unlikely ally! ”

Detective Comics #957  is due to hit stores on Wednesday, May 24.

Are you looking forward to the return of Stephanie Brown? Let us know what you think down below in the comments.

Images: DC Comics

CatNani Robot Guards Your Countertops Against Your Cats

If your cat’s been copping an attitude around the house, cruising all over your countertops with that Simba strut, then you may have to choose the nuclear option, and call in a RoboCop CatNani: a little robot that patrols your countertops, and shoos your cat off onto the floor, where the bot can, presumably, mock its foe endlessly.

Slash Pets picked up on the story of the CatNani, after its creators made an Indiegogo page for the product. In the pitch video, it’s claimed that the CatNani will prevent CSP, or Counter Surfing Pets, which certainly plagues any home containing cats with too much pride. To defend the granite high ground against the great feline enemy, the CatNani utilizes essentially two tactics: an ultrasonic warning, and a harmless citronella spray.

The robot’s tactics are a bit more sophisticated than simply spraying and wailing at your cat like an angry Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park numero uno, however. It also has sensors that allow it to sense the edges of the countertop, as well as any objects that may be in its way. It seems that you’d need one for each of your countertops, however, and putting money on cats figuring out a way to knock something off a countertop seems like a smart bet.

CatNani mocking your cat after it has been defeated.

The team behind the CatNani contains some good minds, including a former research scientist at Amazon, and a datacenter developer. One of the team’s members mentioned another product he’s worked on, dubbed The Beerbelly. Here’s a CNN video of the product:

If you want a robo-patrol to keep bad little kitties off your countertops, the good news is, you can donate to the Indiegogo campaign. The bad news is the campaign is, as of this writing, only zero dollars toward its—flexible—$500,000 goal. (With 18 days left.)

What do you think about this little cat nanny? Is this the kind of kitty counterterrorism you need in your home? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: YouTube / CatNani

Mere Months After THE FINAL CHAPTER, the RESIDENT EVIL Movies Will Reboot

Well, that didn’t last long. Beware any film that tells you it’s the final anything–Friday the 13th infamously pulled that stunt twice, and both times were made lies by subsequent events. While the Resident Evil film series as shepherded by Paul W.S. Anderson and focusing on the character of Alice (Milla Jovovich) may be done, we have not seen the last of Resident Evil movies, as Constantin Films chairman Martin Moszkowicz confirmed to Variety that a reboot is in development already.

There’s plenty of room to play in the Resident Evil universe, obviously, with 20-some games in the series set in multiple locations across the globe with varying threats. Longtime fans would undoubtedly be amenable to a movie that follows Chris Redfield or Leon Kennedy, but considering how well the movie series does in China, we can’t help thinking an Asian setting is likely next time around.

Or, you know, maybe a crossover battle between the two major female-fronted horror-action franchises distributed by Screen Gems can happen: Underworld vs. Resident Evil is a death-dealing divas match-up even casual fans might return to theaters to see, though Capcom‘s well-known penchant for tightly controlling their properties makes it unlikely in real life. And sure, the story logic in both would have to convolute quite a bit, but not much more so than it already has in the natural progression of each series.

The only request I have is that there be a fast food tie-in, because we are long overdue for an actual, licensed Jill sandwich. What would you like to see in a Resident Evil reboot? Sow your thoughts in comments below.

Images: Screen Gems

Tituss Burgess Channels Ursula From THE LITTLE MERMAID, in Song

Disney’s animated classic The Little Mermaid is getting the live-action treatment soon, in two very different ways. First, coming this fall, ABC is doing The Little Mermaid Live! as their entry in the live musicals phenomenon. After that, the House of Mouse is making a live-action Little Mermaid film with new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. But one thing any good adaptation of The Little Mermaid needs is a perfect person to play Ursula the Sea Witch. And those are some pretty big tentacles to fill.

But who to play Ursula? In our recent fan casting of The Little Mermaid, we suggested none other than Bette Midler. Interestingly, as Sebastian the crab, we put down Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Broadway star Tituss Burgess for that part, seeing as he originated the role on Broadway back in 2007. But it seems if Titus had his way, it’s not Sebastian he’d be playing, but Ursula herself.

At the recent Vulture Festival, the crowd was treated to Tituss Burgess’ rendition of Ursula’s signature song “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” As Burgess explains to the audience, back when he was playing Sebastian on Broadway, he auditioned for the part of Ursula, but the producers wouldn’t go for it, sadly. You can check out his rendition of the classic Disney tune in the video down below.

I don’t know about you guys, but I think I’ve switched my vote from Bette Midler as Ursula and am now on team Tituss. But would Disney ever have the cojones to cast a gay man in drag as Ursula? It would actually be fitting. After all, the original visual inspiration for Ursula was none other than legendary drag queen Divine, who was an old Baltimore buddy of Little Mermaid composer Howard Ashman. So in a way, Ursula has been a drag queen from the word  go.

What do you think of a Tituss Burgess Ursula? Let us know what you think down below in the comments.

Images: Walt Disney Company / New Line Cinema 

Dwayne Johnson Picked Tom Hanks as a Presidential Running Mate on ‘SNL’

With our current president having made a name for himself completely outside of politics before running for office, there has been a lot of talk lately about what other celebrities we might like to see in the White House, and much of it has centered on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It’s easy to see why: he’s strong, likable, can work an insanely difficult schedule (as when he was still in both WWE and movies), has appeared at both Republican and Democratic conventions, never takes divisive political stands, and looks like he could maybe defeat all our enemies by punching them in the face.

And since the Rock will probably never die, this may be a silly question, but: who could possibly be the running mate for such a man? Saturday Night Live answered the question, from their pool of five-timer hosts.

So far, there’s nothing in that platform that anyone can argue much with, except maybe pizza-haters. The downside is that if the Johnson/Hanks ticket actually did run, they’d have to take more difficult stands at some point, and risk alienating half their fans. For the sake of viewers who thought Alec Baldwin‘s portrayal of Donald Trump as an obnoxious bully was hypocritical, there was even a shot thrown the actor’s way tonight.

But judging by the surprise ending of another sketch later in the evening, Hanks knows a thing or two about giving the people what they want (wait for it, and watch all the way through):

Any questions? Let us know if you’d vote Johnson/Hanks 2020 in comments below.

Image: NBC

NECA Reveals Previously Secret ALIEN: COVENANT Action Figures (SPOILERS)

Warning: If you have not yet seen Alien: Covenant, be advised that there are spoilers in these toys!

Now that Alien: Covenant is out, licensees are finally spilling its secrets in merchandise form, although you won’t be getting any pesky humans from NECA–not yet, at least. On April 26th, we got a good look at the new and improved xenomorph action figure, but they’ve been keeping a lid on the other offerings that’ll be hitting stores soon, beyond the fact that one was a “New Creature” and the other a “Creature Accessory Pack.” Well, now that some have had the chance to see the new movie, we know what those must be.

First up, the Neomorph:

The mid-stage between Prometheus‘ end-credits “Deacon” and the more familiar xenomorph alien, the Neomorph is more humanoid and therefore in some ways creepier than the familiar acid-bleeding tube monster we’ve followed through the franchise. Like other Alien figures, it has over 30 points of articulation, an alternate head with closed mouth for attempts at bonding with deranged androids, and a posable, bloody body-burster, because Neomorphs don’t care how they exit the host.

We’ve seen the xenomorph before, but here’s a size comparison:

“But,” you might be asking if you’ve seen the movie, “That’s just the final Neomorph, and we don’t see it onscreen very much. What about the version we see more often?” That’s where the accessory pack comes in.

Two xenomorph eggs–one open, one closed–two facehuggers, one nu-chestburster (they have arms and legs now), and a posable “Toddler Neomorph” (i.e. the one we see the most in the movie) make up this pack, which should retail for the same price as the figures (around $22).

Unfortunately we have no Danny McBride figure as yet for them to attempt to snack on. But who knows? If the fan base makes him a cult hero, maybe he’ll come later. He needs his spacesuit, hat, and bottle of Jack Daniel’s for full authenticity.

Check out more images in our gallery below. Is your collection ready for a Neo-fight? Let us know in comments.

Images: NECA

DOCTOR WHO’s “Extremis” Goes Full Moffat, in a Great Way

This article contains SPOILERS for Doctor Who S10 E6, “Extremis.” If you do not wish to be spoiled, please make sure you have watched the episode on BBC America first, then come back and lets talk.

For the first five weeks of Doctor Who Series 10, we’ve gotten what a lot of fans and critics have been calling “Meat and Potatoes Doctor Who“: solid storytelling in episodes that don’t really break any mold or bend minds. This is not really what we’ve come to expect from showrunner Steven Moffat, who routinely during his tenure has given us heady, perception-warping adventures in time and space. I figured a return to this was forthcoming, given it’s Moffat’s final year at the helm, and episode six, “Extremis,” gave us the Moffat-y twists we’ve come to expect, in a whole new way.

“Extremis” is the beginning of a loose three-parter featuring the new alien threat called “the Monks,” so they needed to make a good (and properly threatening) first appearance, and we got that, largely. Not necessarily through their look, but what they represent, and what their plan ends up being. It’s also the episode where Moffat gave us the promised revelation as to who or what was in the vault, and while I think we all pretty much called that one a million years ago, the way it was revealed and the backstory behind it–and, indeed, how Nardole came to be the Doctor’s rule-loving sidekick–were interesting in and of themselves.

The Doctor being tasked with executing Missy isn’t the biggest stretch in the universe, nor was her pleading with him not to do it, given their friendship. The phrase “without hope, without witness, without reward” got used a lot in this episode as a poetic way of talking about the absolute truth–the veritas, if you will. In the case of Missy, it means that we’re led to believe she really is sincere when she tearfully says the Doctor is her friend, even if he has to kill her, but in my heart of hearts I feel like she had hope, witness, and the promise of reward. Because it worked–the Doctor didn’t actually kill her and only swore an oath to guard her in the vault for 1,000 years. This kind of thing is Moffat all over…there’s always a big reset button, and a way out of a sticky situation. Still, it does explain the vault thing, so at least we don’t have to keep guessing.

But that’s all the arc stuff; let’s get to the meat of the episode, and by “meat” I mean the “holy crap, the world is totally and utterly a lie” storyline. The Doctor, still blinded from his ordeal in the last episode, has now been tasked by the Vatican to read the forbidden text known as The Veritas, a hard-to-decipher pamphlet that is said to have driven everyone who has read it to suicide. Except, someone has deciphered it and is disseminating across the world, causing everyone from members of the clergy to physicists at CERN to kill themselves, and the Pope would like the Doctor to find out why.

That’s an excellent set-up to a mystery, and one that Moffat has used some version of many times before. The vault itself feels like this kind of plot device, as did the Pandorica, the Impossible Astronaut, the prophecy about Trenzalore…etc. etc. But, unlike all of those, this is a single episode device. It’s a Moffat season-mystery in microcosm. Because “the truth” is much more of a gut-punch than we possibly could have gathered: that the Monks had created the entirety of what we’re seeing (from the opening titles forward, sans the flashbacks to the execution) in a construct used to perfectly simulate the Earth for when (not if, WHEN) they invade.

I loved this idea to bits. First, it gives us the devastation of watching Nardole–and his newly revealed utter badassdom–and Bill get de-constructed into the string of numbers they are, and second it allows the Doctor we’ve been watching–who also isn’t real–the opportunity to still be the hero and give a complete account of what’s happened to the real Doctor in the real world. Sending an email might be a bit of a stretch, but the idea that the Monks were too good when creating the simulation and hence the Doctor is just as Doctory is a brilliant move.

If Moffat can be remembered for doing anything, it’s putting the Doctor in situations where he rises up to become the greatest fictional hero possibly ever. The theme of this episode is “virtue is only virtue in extremis,” but we’ve already known that about the Doctor, and particularly the Twelfth. This is the Doctor who punched a wall for billions of years in an effort to save his friend; I’m pretty sure even if he were a computer program, he’d find a way to win.

“Extremis” also works nicely as a prologue to the real showdown with the Monks, giving us an idea about what the world is up against, without actually telling us any of their plans. The fake Doctor merely sent the real Doctor knowledge that the Monks are coming, but we never actually see in the episode any of the actual plans they’re implementing. Great! Now we won’t be bored when it happens. Bill can go on a real date with Penny (loved those brief scenes) and the story can progress from there.

And next week, we get “The Pyramid at the End of the World,” by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat, which looks to be the kind of present-day, world-in-crisis story that Harness gave us last series with the Zygon two-parter. I’m most intrigued. Let me know if you’re intrigued in the comments below!

Watch Doctor Who every Saturday night at 9/8c on BBC America

Images: BBC

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor and the resident Whovian for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!