Latest news with #BetterCallSaul
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Last of Us: Season 2 Episode 6 Review
Episode 6 of season 2 of The Last of Us is directed by Neil Druckmann, and when viewed through that lens, its intentions become clearer. It contains some of the scenes that fans of The Last of Us Part 2, and presumably its creator, hold dearest. This allows Druckmann to tightly control the sacred bond between Joel and Ellie, as well as giving space to further explore characters barely present in the game – the final moments of Eugene's life strains the connection between the protagonists in new ways. Joe Pantoliano imbues the doomed Eugene with a dash of class, Bella Ramsey slots nicely back into the role of a younger Ellie, and Druckmann steadily steers the whole ship, but this chapter is undeniably Pedro Pascal's. His pitch-perfect portrayal of Joel reminds us of what both Ellie and the show have lost. Framed around each of Ellie's birthdays following their return to Jackson, episode 6 delicately displays Joel's urge to fulfil his role as a father. It's rooted in the very first scene, in which we see him as a teenage boy: The conversation between Joel and his father, played with warmth yet underlying hardness by Better Call Saul's Tony Dalton, presents the poisoned chalice passed down from Miller to Miller. That struggle of generational fatherhood is what has driven Joel ever since. Sarah was his world before the outbreak. Then he grieved her, holding onto her memories until Ellie arrived. By the end of this episode, she's 17, and he's on the brink of losing another daughter. It's a crossroads he's contending with, and one brilliantly displayed by Pascal throughout, as he battles to do the right thing by her. It's perhaps best conveyed in the final moment between them – and the very last conversation between Ellie and Joel before his death. Their porchside chat is perhaps the most affecting in all of the game, so it's a huge relief to see it recreated so well here. The vulnerability in Pascal's face is all-consuming, as he barely utters a word but lets his eyes speak for him. He's terrified of losing Ellie, but he's expressing it in a way that he can't really control, and a way that will infect her, too – his tears filling that cursed cup once more, ready for Ellie to sip from and make the same selfish mistakes he did. It adds extra heartbreaking context to her 'I'm gonna be a dad' quip from earlier in the season. She'll aim to break this cycle, but little in her present-day actions suggests this. Though that's giving more thought to the present day than episode 6 can muster, which is my major reservation about this episode. The series of flashbacks is heartfelt and works excellently when it comes to building out the protagonists of The Last of Us' past and future, but I can't help but feel like momentum has stalled here. It feels off to spend a whole episode exploring Ellie's history when we've just ratcheted the tension on who she's become. And with only one episode left to go in the season, it feels like the only road to a satisfying finale will involve covering a lot of ground in a short period of time. It's not so much a criticism of what this episode does, but more of its place within season Ramsey feels much more at home as a younger Ellie, portraying a wide-eyed, excitable version of the character with a far greater verve than the more fearsome evolution we got last week. It's best shown in her and Joel's visit to a nearby museum, where Ellie takes a heartstring-tugging trip into orbit, thanks to a tape recording and a long-forgotten space capsule. The smile that dances across her face is a rare moment of levity in a show, that, up until this moment, has been irrepressibly bleak. As we watch the pair enjoy their respite, it feels like some of that season 1 magic has been rebottled. But, as ever, what The Last of Us giveth with one hand, it taketh with the other, not letting us sit with this flash of joy for long. Episode 6 finally answers a question posed in the season premiere: What did Joel do to Eugene to make Gail resent him so much? Pantoliano is given his time to shine as Eugene, a member of the Jackson community whose time is ticking away thanks to an infected's bite. His introduction enables Joel and Ellie's dynamic from season 1 to resurface, and echoes of their experience in Salt Lake City can be felt. Joel has lived long enough in this world to be wary of Eugene – any sense of optimism (or hope that Eugene can be healed) is long gone. Not Ellie, though: She still carries an element of naivety and wants to help Eugene. The mercy killing carried out by Joel only sows more seeds of distrust between him and his surrogate daughter. In his lie to Gail about it, Ellie realises just how easy it is for Joel to hide the truth. It's in this moment that the fissures in their relationship really start to crack wide open. What Joel did isn't necessarily wrong, but it runs counter to Ellie's moral code and how she would've dealt with Eugene. It effectively means that she now knows that Joel has been lying about what happened in that Firefly hospital, and the revelation of him lying about Eugene is a great choice by Druckmann. It's an example of adaptation for the better – which this season largely hasn't landed for me – and a much more impactful, and logical, option than having Joel and Ellie traipse all the way back to Salt Lake City as they do in The Last of Us Part 2. It's something the episode as a whole does to great effect as it further explores the intervening years and Joel and Ellie's dynamic, offering new glimpses into previously unseen moments. Joel catching Ellie doing things she maybe shouldn't be doing at 17 and his built-in resentment for Seth (due to his former life as a policeman, like Joel's dad) add more shades to the character, even though he's long gone in the present day. These little touches and grandstand speeches combine to great effect to help us fully understand why Joel made every decision that led to his death, all the way up to rescuing his eventual killer from a horde of infected. Above all else, it's the desire to be a protector that forged the Millers' poisoned chalice – and eventually led to his downfall.
Newsweek
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Little Girl Gets Haircut, 10 Years Later She Learned Truth of What Mom Did
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Katie Beth Hall was just 10 years old when she cut her waist-length hair with the plan to donate it, but now a decade later, she has made a discovery that left the internet in stitches. While going through her family home, she discovered her packaged blonde tresses, still in a desk drawer waiting to be donated. "I just found out my mom never donated my hair from when I was 10 years old???" said the text overlay on a TikTok video with over 1.9 million views since being shared at the end of May. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Hall has been an actor since she was young and originally cut the hair on the suggestion of her manager, who advised a shorter length would help her to book more roles—something that clearly worked as she has since been in shows including Grey's Anatomy, Better Call Saul and Head of the Class. The plan was to donate the hair to Pantene's program for children experiencing hair loss, but as Hall recently uncovered, the donation never happened. Pictures of Hall from the now-viral video about the hair donation mistake. Pictures of Hall from the now-viral video about the hair donation mistake. @katiebethhall/TikTok "I discovered the hair on our desk after my mom found it tucked away in our family office area. I asked my mom, and we had a laugh about her realizing she totally forgot to send it off to the Pantene company," Hall, now aged 20, told Newsweek. Hair donation is the process of cutting usually large amounts of hair to donate and support various causes, from charities that make real-hair wigs for people going through cancer treatment or other hair loss to creating tools that can help clear oil spills after environmental disasters. Instead of sending the hair to Pantene, Hall now plans to donate it to an organization that repurposes unwanted hair into eco-friendly mats designed to absorb oil. "I'm going to be donating it to an organization that takes unwanted hair to make eco-friendly mats that absorb spilled oil from water," Hall said. In the comments on the viral video, people shared reactions and sympathy for Hall's mom, while others said that her mom should have donated the hair in the first place. "I shared on TikTok because I knew we weren't the only family that shared this experience, and the reaction was mostly the same. "Although, a few people have called me selfish for 'outing' my mother for forgetting, or calling my mother selfish for forgetting to donate the hair, even though she was a mother who had a husband deployed in Afghanistan and two children at the time," Hall explained.
Los Angeles Times
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Experts break down the worst Emmy snubs of all time
After every Emmys, it's de rigueur to write about shows that were 'snubbed.' But let's put it in perspective: If 'The Bob Newhart Show' never won an Emmy, why should you? Then again, why didn't CBS' 1970s sitcom ever win an Emmy? Or 'The Wire,' for that matter? Or 'Better Call Saul,' 'New Girl,' 'Parks and Recreation,' 'My So-Called Life,' 'Better Things,' 'The Good Place,' 'BoJack Horseman' and numerous other beloved shows? In many cases, shows shut out at the Emmys have stood the test of time, if not the test of voters at the time. So why do some series — including still-eligible titles like 'NCIS,' 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' and 'Yellowstone' — fall through the cracks? It happens at the Academy Awards too, of course. 'But with the Oscars, you only have one crack at it — if something else got the momentum, there's nothing you can do,' says Jason Lynch, curator at New York's Paley Center for Media. 'For TV, theoretically, if something goes for several seasons, you get multiple cracks at it, so if a series still hasn't received any Emmys, that discrepancy is more glaring and apparent. You can't just say that was a crazy year.' 'Better Call Saul' is a vivid example. 'It went 0 for 53 nominations,' Lynch says. 'There was this drumbeat, the final season, where journalists are reminding Emmy voters, 'This is your last chance, please'' — to no avail. That's another way the Emmys differ from the Oscars, notes Irving Belateche, professor of the practice of cinematic arts at USC. 'With the Oscars, you can point to times when people finally get a kind of career award, even if it's not for that role or that film. In the Emmys, they don't do that, where they say, 'Let's finally give 'Better Call Saul' a win.' That, I don't understand.' Then again, Belateche adds, the series was up against stiff competition: ''Game of Thrones' four times and 'Succession' twice. There are so many good, popular shows you're competing against, it's not so cut and dried.' Similarly, 'The Bob Newhart Show' faced off against 'All in the Family,' 'MASH' and 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show.' Still, even strong fields can't explain away the Emmys' treatment of 'The Wire' — often listed among the greatest TV shows of all time — which not only never won in five seasons but was only nominated twice. 'And 'Parks and Recreation' is absolutely one of the top three comedies of the 21st century,' Lynch says. 'To never win a single Emmy is unfathomable.' Genre bias is another concern, Belateche says. 'That worked against some of the shows that were overlooked, like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'' Although 'Buffy' did win two Creative Arts Emmys, for makeup and music composition, it was up against episodes of 'The Sopranos' and 'The West Wing' — the sort of prestige dramas that traditionally do well with voters — when it was nominated in 2000 for writing. 'Sometimes the format and the tone work against it,' says Belateche. 'Obviously that's true of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.'' Set to premiere its 17th season in July, 'Sunny' has received only three nods for stunt coordination. 'It's super quirky and really popular among the younger crowd, like my students.' 'BoJack Horseman's' six surreal seasons likewise yielded just three nods. The nomination process itself can present a challenge. 'You're only submitting one episode,' Lynch points out. 'When we're thinking about award-worthy performances, we're thinking about entire seasons, or multiple seasons, but a voter is only watching whatever episode is submitted, which could be a great showcase for a scene or two but is not giving you all the context you need to appreciate that show. And I don't know how to fix that. To their credit, the Television Academy has tried. Every couple of years they do change the voting procedures, and sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't.' Plus, voters may lack much time to focus on anything but their own work: 'If you ask showrunners and producers what they're watching, they say, 'I'm so busy I don't have time to watch anything.' That's a problem as well,' says Lynch. 'The other thing that we've seen, even more so the past couple of years, is that Emmy voters are often reflexively voting for whatever they voted for the previous years,' he adds. 'Something like a 'Modern Family' was winning every year. And now we're getting a lot of sweeps, which became most apparent in 2020 when 'Schitt's Creek' ran the board. It's harder for other shows to get in there when you have only a small handful of shows hoovering up all of the awards.' And if shows don't score wins early in their run, it's all the harder for them to break through later. Lynch would love to see a way for TV Academy members to vote for shows once they're clearly seen as part of the pantheon. 'It's only time that's going to give you that sense of a show's legacy. But this is a TV business; nobody's going to watch an Emmy show in 2025 that's giving away trophies to shows from 2015.' Then again, the Emmys' Governors Award has occasionally been given to shows, and the entire 'Star Trek' franchise won a Governors Award in 2018 in recognition of its lasting impact, finally celebrating that first Emmy-less series (along with six others). There may be hope for 'The Wire' yet.
Boston Globe
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Photos: See all the stars on the 2025 Tony Awards red carpet
A number of other big stars are first-time nominees as well, including Oscar-winning actor George Clooney, who is nominated in the best actor in a play category for his performance as famed journalist Edward R. Murrow in the stage adaptation of Advertisement In the best featured actor in a play category, 'Better Call Saul' star Bob Odenkirk scored his first Tony nomination for the revival of 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' which he Advertisement Check out below for photos of all the stars and top fashion looks from the 2025 Tony Awards red carpet. Eli Rallo attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Anania attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York City. Michael Loccisano/Getty Corey Brunish attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Haley Kalil attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Gary Edwin Robinson attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Sora Lee attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Jonathan Spector attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Fabiola Baglieri attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Mirta Miller attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Shalom Blac attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Marg Horwell attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York City. Michael Loccisano/Getty Jacob Rott attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Leilani Green attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions From left: Mike Isaacson and Kiwofe Coleman attend The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Rachel Smith attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Jason Weinberg attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions Keltie Knight attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions From left: Frank DiLella and Jessica Vosk attend The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday in New York Tony Awards Productions .image { margin-top: 100px; } .image figcaption { display: block; max-width: 750px; margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; font-size: 18px; caption-side: bottom; line-height: 1.5; } Matt Juul can be reached at
Tom's Guide
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
5 shows like 'Big Mouth' on Netflix to stream now that the animated show is over
Netflix recently released the final season of the hit animated show 'Big Mouth," serving up one last crudely hilarious deluge of puberty jokes and high school drama. Nick, Andrew, Jessi, Missy, Jay, and Matthew are all growing up — both inside and out — and the series continues to embrace the messy, awkward and deeply weird process of adolescence. And now that the last episode has dropped, 'Big Mouth' fans might find themselves itching to fill the hormone-fueled void with another favorite adult animated binge. Here are five shows like "Big Mouth," all of which you can stream on Netflix. The creators of 'Big Mouth' (comedian Nick Kroll and showrunner Andrew Goldberg) saw how successful their first series had become and launched a spin-off in 2022 featuring a new cast of emotional 'monsters.' This time, the setting is an HR department, which brings some refreshing office humour to what could've been a staid backdrop. SNL alum Aidy Bryant personifies Emmy the Lovebug, the key character driving the story of 'Human Resources." She struggles to identify with her first client, Becca, a pregnant lawyer with various shades of depression. Randall Park voices Pete the Logic Rock, who is as stoic as his name and often acts awkward in any interaction, but he begins to open up as the seasons progress. And comedian Maria Bamford brings her unique voice to Tito the Anxiety Mosquito, who often chills with Depression Kitties, as you would expect. Segueing from 'Big Mouth' to 'Human Resources' is as easy as diving into 'Better Call Saul' after 'Breaking Bad,' and the tight writing and complex themes around self-actualization will be familiar ground for B'ig Mouth' veterans — especially those who would love a cameo or two from Maury the Hormone Monster. Watch on Netflix Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The five-season show, which ended in 2021, is the brainchild of stand-up star Bill Burr, and it's one of the more realistic animated shows on the list. Set in the 1970s and inspired by Burr's own family experiences, the show gives viewers a raw portrayal of a dysfunctional family navigating generational clashes and financial quagmires. With the father being a perpetually angry guy, Bill Burr afficionados will see many themes cropping up from the comedian's popular stand-up bits. But 'F is for Family' allows Burr to explore deeper probes into the, say, father-son dynamic that he rarely discusses on stage. You'll also notice an A-list cast of actors lending their voices to the series, from Laura Dern to Sam Rockwell to Justin Long. Watch on Netflix The biggest criticism this show gets is that Coach Ben (voiced by Jack Johnson, also the creator) is an unlikable character, but to each their own, right? If you can get past this issue, you'll likely enjoy this fun show about a high school basketball coach overwhelmed by his own ego. Believing he's destined for coaching greatness, Ben is obsessed with recruiting a seven-foot student with no interest in basketball, which is the main arc of the show, except for bits about his thorny relationship with his wife and battling Principal Opal. 'Hoops' only lasted one season (did the vulgarity turn off Netflix in the end?), but it's still an engaging watch whether or not you've come across a disillusioned coach like Ben. Watch on Netflix Lasting five seasons before Netflix axed it, 'Disenchantment' has the same animation style as 'Futurama' and 'The Simpsons' thanks to creator Matt Groening, who brought us Homer, Marge and Bart eons ago. Set in a fictional Medieval country, the series stars Princess Tiabeanie (Abbi Jacobson) revolting against her parents' plans to marry Prince Merkime (Matt Berry), but she only has eyes for Elfo (Nat Faxon), a naïve and lovesick elf. It doesn't always hit the same comedic notes as Groening's other popular shows, but it's fair to call 'Disenchantment' charming and digestible. It's also a great watch for family viewing if your children are pre-teens or older, as this series doesn't boast the same crude jokes as 'Human Resources' and 'Hoops.' Another strong anchor of the show is Luci (Eric Andre) who is a demon acting as the princess's lovable but scheming companion. He also often has the best lines: 'Being evil is a lot of work. You gotta tempt, you gotta corrupt, you gotta convince people to do bad stuff. It's exhausting.' Watch on Netflix Without a doubt, 'BoJack Horseman' is one of the more popular animated shows on Netflix for being a mature and smart look at mental health, intergenerational trauma and addiction. All this from a cast of characters with names like Mr. Peanutbutter and Pinky Penguin. As the titular character falls into a depression after realizing his career as a professor is a far cry from his early days as an actor on the show "Horsin' Around," we see a range of storylines about BoJack finding validation in one-night stands, recovering from his traumatic upbringing, and reconnecting with someone from his past he never thought was alive (don't worry, we won't spoil it here). Starring Will Arnett, Paul F. Tompkins, Amy Sedaris and Aaron Paul, the show is punchy and confident, and the writing is tight and at turns beautiful. It truly should've won more Emmy Awards. Rest assured, you won't look at how we view fame and self-worth the same when 'BoJack' is done with you. Watch on Netflix
