When he’s not too distracted by all that “star of stage and screen” bullshit, A.V. Club favorite Adam Scott periodically embraces his true calling in life: serving as a comedy/music podcaster, originally on Earwolf’s U Talkin’ U2 To Me, and now on its sequel series, R U Talkin’ R.E.M. RE: ME? In both shows, Scott…

The first season of Big Little Lies wrapped up so perfectly that it was hard to imagine why HBO would want to gamble with the good will (and critical acclaim) by ordering a second. But at least the cable network’s doing its best to recapture the magic by bringing back the core cast—even a certain tall Swede, despite…

And dos, tres, catorce: Adam Scott and Scott Aukerman are back with a new podcast. In the spiritual tradition of their previous, centuries-old podcast, U Talkin’ U2 2 Me?, the pair have found a new muse: Adam Scott’s favorite band of all time, R.E.M. It is a foregone conclusion that we will not listen to this band.

In Podmass, The A.V. Club sifts through the ever-expanding world of podcasts and recommends the previous week’s best episodes. Have your own favorite? Let us know in the comments or at podmass@avclub.com.

Sometimes a pilot is enough. That’s the message CBS sent earlier this week when the network ordered a full season of its Big Bang Theory prequel, Young Sheldon, two days after its primetime debut. The announcement followed strong ratings for just that one episode, but the confidence of the CBS brass is probably based…

The hard part of processing the final act of Ten Years Later is figuring out what exactly happened to the Camp Firewood crew. It’s also the fun part. A lot of stuff happens between “Dance” and “End Summer Night’s Dream,” and for the vast majority of the Wet Hot characters, the conclusion of Ten Years Later is about as…

Wet Hot American Summer has expanded from a relatively small, esoteric comedy film about a weird summer camp into a massive, highly populated action series that also just happens to be set at a weird summer camp. Sequels always demand a raising of the stakes, even if those stakes were already comically hyperbolic and…

The Wet Hot American Summer Cinematic Universe is crammed tightly with goofy gags and absurd premises, many of which could be spun off into their own series. (I, for one, would enjoy a dark origin story chronicling the genesis of Coop’s superhero alter-ego, Miss Patty Pancakes.) Michael Showalter and David Wain chose…

Michael Showalter and David Wain have an ear for dialogue. It’s one of the things that makes them such sharp film parodists, the type who don’t settle for re-staging a famous scene or putting a popular film’s words in a new context. They pick up on the bigger picture—how that scene looks, or how those words sound—and…

Pretty much everybody you knew and loved from the original Wet Hot American Summer and its Netflix prequel were there in the first trailer for Netflix’s sequel series Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later, but Bradley Cooper’s Ben—Amy Poehler’s theatrical partner and Michael Ian Black’s husband—was strangely…

The late, lamented Parks And Recreation never lacked for running jokes, but one of our favorites centered on the culinary habits of hapless public servant Ben Wyatt. As played by Adam Scott, Ben was relentlessly teased by the people of Pawnee for his love of the calzone, the delicious baked treat that’s basically a…

According to Deadline, Fox has just given series orders to two of the network’s hottest comedy pilots: Ghosted and LA To Vegas. The former is billed as a comedic spin on The X-Files, with Craig Robinson playing a cynical skeptic and Adam Scott as a “true believer” who are enlisted by a secret organization to…

Another Friday, another opportunity to look back on another rotten week. At least Star Wars Day provided us with some much needed joy, assuming you were among the millions who observed May the 4th. But Adam Scott’s celebration probably has yours beat by a light year—he got to hang out with Mark Hamill and Kristen Bell…

The possessors of beauty are reticent about their privileges or act as though it was luck that the cop didn’t give them a ticket, that it was just a ‘nice man’ who let them through customs without having to wait in line. Beauty, unlike money, seems unable to focus on the source of the power.” -Eve Babitz, Eve’s…

From the start of the series, the murder framing Big Little Lies—the intended draw—somehow became its least compelling element, in favor of exposing the intimate lives of this group of first-grade moms. Some of the things they turned out to be hiding were psychological, like Renata’s abject fear of failure. Some were…

The beautiful homes on display in Big Little Lies aren’t there by accident: Their perfect facades bely the varying levels of tempestuousness that reside in each. This week, as BLL deftly maneuvers all of its pieces in place for next week’s finale, the facades finally begin to crack, as Madeline, Celeste, and Renata…

With this astonishing fifth episode of Big Little Lies, I keep thinking about all the reviews when it came out that called it trash: high-quality trash, but trash nonetheless. By this episode, this series is so far beyond that moniker it’s hard to believe it was ever associated with it in the first place. This week we…

When I had my twins, I really struggled with the decision whether to stay home with them or not, knowing full well how fortunate I was to even be able to make that decision. I knew they were the only kids I would ever have, and their infancy was flying by at an alarming rate. On the other hand, could I really give up…