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It’s not just you. Deadpool is everywhere these days, what with the merc’s movie sequel, Deadpool 2, hitting theaters this weekend. He’s in Celine Dion’s new music video, he’s playing video games with U.K. YouTubers, he’s on Korean TV shows, and he crashed Stephen Colbert‘s The Late Show monologue on Tuesday.

“Please, guys, no one stand up. It’s CBS, I know how old your audience is,” Ryan Reynolds, once again channeling his foulmouthed superhero, joked.

Deadpool thought he could stand in for Colbert for The Late Show‘s opener, and he was prepared with the zingers. At various points, he called Colbert “Jimmy,” mistook his guest Jamie Foxx for Back to the Future‘s Michael J. Foxx, and poked fun at the lack of diversity among the late-night circuit and superhero movies.

“In our own way, we late-night hosts are basically superheroes,” Colbert said.

“Because you’re all mostly white men?” he quipped.

Deadpool also had plenty of jokes about President Trump. He called the decision to pull America out of the Iran nuclear deal “Trump’s biggest pulling out blunder since Eric,” and he mocked Trump’s recent Twitter rant on leaks in the White House. “We all know Trump prefers his leaks in Russian hotel rooms,” Deadpool joked.

To finally get rid of him, Colbert took a note from Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and disintegrated him with CG effects. “What the f—?” Deadpool exclaimed. “Thanos?! You don’t have the budget for this, Colbert!” Josh Brolin, Reynolds’ Deadpool 2 costar, also plays Thanos in Infinity War — a connection that doesn’t go unnoticed in his fourth wall-breaking movie.

Watch Deadpool on The Late Show above.

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from the season 5 finale of The Blacklist. Read at your own risk!

Red’s dead — no, seriously.

The Blacklist ended its fifth season with a shocking twist: The fedora-wearing criminal mastermind (James Spader) we’ve been following for the past five seasons has only been posing as Raymond Reddington. The real one is dead, and has been for years — and Liz (Megan Boone) now knows the truth. If Spader’s not playing Red, who is he portraying? EW turned to executive producer Jon Bokenkamp to get the scoop.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you know from the beginning that James Spader was not playing Raymond Reddington?
JON BOKENKAMP: Yeah, this is something that we’ve talked about from the inception of the show. It is part of the underlying mythology that we’ve slowly been unraveling. I think there are a number of episodes that we can go back and sort of map and chart how we got here. Hopefully that is proof of concept to the audience that this is not something we’re just winging, and that we’re on a very specific path, and this is a well-earned reveal.

Did Spader know? Did the cast?
Yes, James has known and it’s something we’ve talked extensively about. The cast did not know, as far as I know. I’m always the last to know, so I have really no idea who else knew. But the thing I want to point out is that it doesn’t change tuning in to watch Spader be Raymond Reddington. He’s lived as Raymond Reddington long enough to be this person, right? He has told great stories, he has had great experiences, he’s become a world-class criminal and probably become a far more interesting person than the real Raymond Reddington ever dreamed of becoming.

I remember talking with James, it was probably right after we shot the pilot, and we were talking about what the show would be, how it would look and feel, and who this character was. The thing that has always stuck with me is that when James read the pilot, he had said that he felt like, at the end of the episode, it’s almost like he knew less about the character than he knew when he started reading the episode. We wanted to somehow hold on to that concept, that Reddington should be somebody who, once you think you understand who he is, you realize you know nothing about him. I think tonight is an example obviously of how we have tried to stay true to that, that he’s a very enigmatic figure that is a bit of a shape-shifter.

If he’s not Red, is there anything you can say as to who he is?
Well, I do think that is primarily the reason to come back in season 6, but you can go online and find all kinds of theories, imposter theories of who he is. There are a great number of them, by the way, many of which could make sense. But one of the things I love best about the show is that I can read some of these and I’d be like, “Well, that actually tracks.” What’s going to be the most fun about next season is watching Liz peel back this onion and get to the truth of why this man entered her life five years ago.

Does this speak to my long-held theory that Spader is not playing her dad, but her mom?
You’re holding on to that, aren’t you? Well, yeah it’s one of the possibilities. That is one of the theories, one of many theories. There’s an uncle theory, there’s a theory that he is an absolute nobody, there is the — and I’m not making this up — alien theory, there is a robot theory. There are many more-grounded theories. Honestly, that’s what’s cool about it is that you can go through, you can pick your camp and map a way in which it makes sense. A number of these really add up. It’s something that we spend a lot of time in the room talking about, making sure that we’re staying true to the mythology and playing fair with the audience.

Liz has vowed to destroy Red. She went pretty dark in this episode. How far will she go?
Yeah, well remember that she knows this truth about Reddington, but he does not know that she knows. I think that piece of information is really compelling. Not only has she learned a great deal from this man that she believed was her father, Raymond Reddington, she’s also learned a great deal from her now-deceased husband, who was a spy. So this is not the first-day-on-the-job FBI agent in the pilot who has just had a bombshell dropped in her lap. This is somebody who is struggling with who she is at the very core, and has not only killed people, has stewed people, has lied to people she’s worked with, so the potential darkness and the way in which she may approach handling this bombshell I think has real possibilities.

Watching Megan perform this year, I think she’s been fantastic. The character has always been fundamentally changing since the day we met her, but I think specifically in season 5, we’ve seen her take some pretty big steps. It’s some of the best stuff that character has had to do this season, because of the inner strength and the anger and everything she’s gone through to really put her in the corner. When she’s in the corner, she becomes a very interesting character.

Can you tease her team-up with Jennifer (Fiona Dourif) next season?Liz should probably compare stories with her sister Jennifer, who has information. The dynamic of the two of them walking off the episode, when I saw it again in playback, I thought it was super-fun. I think it’s, again, something different that we haven’t done on the show and it gives us a real thrust forward.

Can Liz and Jennifer trust each other?
I have no idea. Probably not. But that’s a great question.

Red doesn’t know that Liz knows. How does the power dynamic shift in that regard next season?
When I say this blows up everything we’ve been doing, that is the example to point to. Very rarely does anyone know something that Reddington doesn’t know, right? He’s always ahead of the curve. He’s a very cunning and smart, brilliant mastermind criminal, and yet he didn’t see this one coming. So I think that is a real power shift and something that we haven’t explored in past seasons.

The show has touched on this idea that Liz had some of her memories surgically repressed. Will you revisit that concept next season?
I think it’s certainly on the table. Everything that Reddington has told her is up for re-examination. What’s fun about it is so much of it is true. He told her in season 1, when she said, “Are you my father?” he said, “No.” When Liz said at the end of season 2, “I shot my father that night. I killed my father.” He said, “Yes.” We’ve very clearly been laying out the mythology. She now is in a place where she needs to re-examine all of that, and not only re-examine the truths that have been laid out before her, but his agenda and why he came into her life, why he’s doing this blacklist at all, why he’s going after these criminals, what does it add up to, what does it mean to him? I think all of that is something that she needs to become very suspect of.

The Blacklist will return in 2019.

“Awkward.”

That’s the best way Rainbow Edwards-Barris can describe the first time she watched black-ish, the acclaimed sitcom her husband, Kenya Barris, created. Barris’ conception of the show was autobiographical — a black family navigating upper-middle-class American life — and four full seasons in, he still regularly mines his family’s actual experiences for plot. Watching intimate stories about their marriage and children play out on the screen, as if reflected in a fun-house mirror, often made for uncomfortable family viewing. But over the years, Edwards-Barris has chosen to use that discomfort to her benefit. “I started to say to my family, ‘Let’s make this a little bit more therapeutic for us,’ ” she says. “Now I’m really grateful to have this .”

ABC’s black-ish tends to tackle tough topics, from police brutality to use of the N-word, and that’s provided Edwards-Barris with a starting place to engage in complex conversations with her six children, ages 1 to 18. It’s only natural that her new child-rearing guidebook, Keeping Up With the Johnsons, is written from the perspective of her fictional alter ego, Bow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross), who, like Edwards-Barris, is a doctor. Since so much of black-ish is taken from real life, its plots — even with the sitcom spin — resonate deeply: “When you take these real-life situations where life is happening every day, viewers feel like they know this family — because they can say they are this family.”

One such example: black-ish recently ended its fourth season with a harrowing portrait of Bow and Dre’s (Anthony Anderson) marriage nearly falling apart. Edwards-Barris clarifies that the story line isn’t reflective of her marriage right now but is rather an amalgamation of challenging moments from their past — and a necessary reminder that even the tightest unions can reach a breaking point. She told Barris as the separation plot was being considered, “I think you owe it to your viewers to show this.” It’s not often that Edwards-Barris weighs in on a story line, she assures, but here she felt compelled to maintain the spirit of the show, its essence of truth.

Ross’ Bow has moved increasingly to black-ish’s fore, even as Dre remains its central character. “Because so many of the stories are situations very exact to our life,” Edwards-Barris notes, “Kenya cannot help as a writer but to make the character of Bow more prominent important.” An early season 4 episode explores Bow struggling with postpartum depression after the birth of her fifth child, Devante. Though told from Dre’s perspective, it’s handled with unflinching honesty and sensitivity. It’s also based — exactly — on Edwards-Barris’ experience. “It was a very scary time for all of us,” she reflects, before adding that she found it healing to see it depicted on black-ish. “We all go through so many of the same things, and said, ‘You’re not alone.’ ”

Still, black-ish remains a series observed through the lens of a black family patriarch. It’s why Keeping Up With the Johnsons flips the script, staying within the world of the show while shifting to the mom’s point of view. “Just like Kenya takes and shares these experiences that we’ve had, I really do the exact same thing,” Edwards-Barris explains. The book contains anecdotes you could easily imagine in a black-ish episode, as they comically blend imperfection with good intentions — Bow oblivious to the need for a nursing bra while breastfeeding, for instance — and they’re taken straight from Edwards-Barris’ life: “In writing the book, what I did is tell my story.”

With that simple mission, Edwards-Barris’ book has opened up a whole new world within the black-ish universe to explore. And as the show heads into its fifth season this fall, she expects the expansion to continue: “When you’re sharing your life, you can never run out of material.”

Remember when The Blacklist finally revealed that Raymond Reddington (James Spader) is indeed the father of Liz Keen (Megan Boone)?

Yeah, that twist pales in comparison to the season 5 finale shocker: Spader isn’t actually portraying the infamous criminal mastermind. The man we’ve been following for years has just been posing as Red, who is actually very much dead. He’s, quite literally, the bag of bones that Faux-Red has been trying to get his hands on since last season!

“If you go back and look at The Blacklist again, you will see numerous examples of us working toward this big reveal,” executive producer Jon Bokenkamp tells EW. “It goes all the way back to the very first time Elizabeth Keen met Raymond Reddington. This trail of breadcrumbs has been five years in the making.”

Below, Bokenkamp breaks down the clues that pointed to the ultimate truth — that Raymond Reddington is an imposter. (Read our postmortem with Bokenkamp on what’s coming in season 6 here.)

PILOT (season 1, episode 1)

“The Imposter Theory can be traced all the way back to first time Reddington met Elizabeth Keen and told her: ‘I’m a criminal, criminals are notorious liars. Everything about me is a lie.’”

ANSLO GARRICK: CONCLUSION (season 1, episode 10)

“Before Reddington vanished for a spell in season 1, Liz asked Red point blank: ‘Are you my father?’ He answered with one word: ‘No.’ This was the truth. He is not her father. Raymond Reddington is her real father.”

GENERAL LUDD (season 1, episode 8)

“Reddington and Liz were paying a visit to plastic surgeon Dr. Maltz (Andrew Dice Clay) when Red proclaimed: ‘What other secrets have you just given away? Who knows about the work I’ve had done?’”

DR. JAMES COVINGTON (season 2, episode 3)

“Back in season 2, when Reddington first laid eyes on his ex-wife, Naomi Hylajnd (Mary-Louise Parker), he proclaimed ‘You look so different.’ To this she replied, ‘Not as different as you.’ From this we now know Naomi Hyland was married to the real Raymond Reddington. She knows that this is not the real Reddington. Naomi Hylajnd is one of the very few people in the history of our series who knows the truth — that this man is masquerading as her husband. The lingering question: Why on earth would she let him into her life? Out of love? Obligation? Fear?”

TOM CONNOLLY (season 2, episode 22)

“By the end of season 2, Liz made a horrifying discovery: ‘I know why my father died that night. I shot him. That’s why you blocked my memory. Not to protect yourself. To protect me.’ Red: ‘Yeah.’ Again, Reddington told Liz the truth: She shot and killed her father, the real Raymond Reddington.”

MR. GREGORY DEVRY (season 3, episode 11)

“In season 3, we devoted an entire episode to the Imposter Theory. A man presenting himself as the ‘real’ Raymond Reddington (Jake Weber) surrendered himself to the FBI and proclaimed the man we know as Reddington (James Spader) was a fake. Ressler directly acknowledged this possibility to the audience when he stated: ‘In the five years I hunted Reddington, we had one photo of him. And that only had a passing resemblance to the man we’ve been working with.’ Cooper echoed: ‘He disappeared 25 years ago. He could have had surgery. Truth is, nobody really knows what he might look like today.’”

MR. KAPLAN: CONCLUSION (season 4, episode 22)

“By the end of season 4, a frustrated Harold Cooper stole Raymond Reddington’s bloodstained shirt out of the FBI evidence locker. He told Liz: ‘The blood on this shirt from Raymond Reddington has been sealed in an evidence locker for over three decades. I procured a sample and submitted it for a DNA profile.’ Of course, that blood confirmed that Raymond Reddington is Elizabeth Keen’s father. What the audience didn’t know is that the blood on that shirt belonged to the real Raymond Reddington.”

RALEIGH SINCLAIR (season 5, episode 14)

“Just this season, Liz asked Red: ‘You’ve gone to therapy?’ Red confidently boasted: ‘God, yes. Therapy helped me become an entirely different person.’”

The Blacklist will return in 2019. Read our full postmortem with Bokenkamp here.

Welcome to WHISKEY CAVALIER, a new action dramedy coming to ABC in the 2018-2019 season. SCANDAL’s Scott Foley plays FBI super-agent Will Chase (codename: “Whiskey Cavalier”). THE WALKING DEAD’s Lauren Cohan plays CIA operative Francesca “Frankie” Trowbridge (codename: “Fiery Tribune”). After Chase experiences an emotional breakup, he’s paired with Trowbridge and together they lead “an inter-agency […]

Nathan Fillion is returning to ABC in a new series THE ROOKIE. Fillion plays small-town guy John Nolan who experiences a life-alterting incident, which prompts him to pursue his life-long dream of becoming an LAPD officer. But he’s the force’s oldest rookie cop and there’s a lot of people on the force who thinks he’s […]

The next Arrowverse crossover will feature Batwoman.

Per THR, Arrow star Stephen Amell announced at The CW's upfront presentation Batwoman will be introduced during the annual crossover, which airs in December.

Batwoman, image via THR.

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Biostar has this week released new iMiner systems specifically designed for crypto coin mining. The systems are stuffed with AMD RX 500-series video cards in a "space black" server-like chassis. Biostar positions the iMiner Multi-GPU Mining rigs as "fashionable and easy" along with dapper-looking young gentlemen in the promotional materials who look like they cashed in on the bitcoin bubble already. 

The new devices include an aluminum chassis with a “space black” coating along with all the necessary hardware already inside needed to start mining crypto coins such as ETH, ETC, XMR, and ZEC among others. The iMiner lineup will include Biostar's esoteric mining motherboards - the ones that have 9-12+ PCIe slots for as many GPUs as you can physically fit with riser cables. Also included in the pre-built systems is an Intel CPU with DDR4 RAM, an SSD, a power supply, and exclusive Mining Doctor software. Biostar's intent here is to plug and play these devices to get users up and mining quickly by providing an ecosystem driven off of consumer level parts as opposed to dedicated ASICs. Apparently an expensive suit and a rough shave is part of the culture Biostar is hoping to cultivate.

Biostar has released a total of three iMiners - the A564X12, A578X6, and the A578X8D, each with their own different parts and hash rates. The A564X12 and A578X6, for example, will use the Biostar TB250-BTC Pro motherboard able to support up to 12 video cards through its 12 PCIe slots coming from the chipset. The motherboard is based on the B250 chipset making all the slots from the chipset without additional switches, which Biostar asserts as being more stable for mining.

The slots are arranged in a manner to use PCIe to USB risers and that different arrangement is said to also avoid potential short circuits. The board includes two Molex and two PCIe 12V 4-pin power connectors in order to handle the power draw of multiple GPUs.

 

The A578X8D, on the other hand, uses Biostar’s latest mining board, the TB250-BTC D+. The D+ board doesn’t offer users quite as many PCIe slots (total of 8), but they are full-length slots and forgoes the need for riser cards saving a bit of money and potentially lowering the ROI time. The board has a total of 16 6-pin PCIe power connectors in order to handle the power draw of multiple video cards. 

 

With a board of this length, ensuring tracing integrity is a key factor, so it is likely that these slots will run in PCIe 2.0 mode which affords a longer trace length without repeaters.

All boards include 4GB of DDR4-2400 (D+ board uses a SO-DIMM) and an Intel Celeron 3930 dual-core processor running at 2.9 GHz with a 51W TDP. The A564X12 and A578X6 include a 90GB SSD while the while the A578X8D comes with a 120GB SSD for storage.

The A564X12 comes with 12 AMD Radeon RX560 4G cards with ethOS preinstalled on the drive, good for around 148 MH/s on ETH. This system comes witha 1200W >88% power supply using a single rail design, and five fans for airflow. 

The A578X6 includes six Radeon RX570 8G cards (with the necessary risers cards), with ethOS, and is good for 165 MH/s on ETH. The power supply for this is 1300W, again with five fans for airflow.

The flagship A578X8D includes eight Radeon RX570 8G cards along with a 1600W power supply that Biostar states was designed for crypto mining. This model is able to reach an ETH hash rate of 220 MH/s (±5%). In other words, the A578X8D will get users 'fashion forward' and buying skinny jeans by earning cryptocurrency the quickest of the bunch. Cooling this unit is a total of seven fans with four intake and three on exhaust duty. 

Pricing nor availability was listed, but we do expect to see these on the market soon. 

Biostar iMiner
	A564X12	A578X6	A578XD
Motherboard	TB250-BTC Pro		TB250-BTC D+
CPU	Intel Celeron G3930 Dual Core  2.9 GHz 51W TDP
Memory	4GB DDR4-2400		4GB DDR4-2400
SSD	90GB		120GB
Video Card(s)	12x RX 560 4G	6x RX 570 8G	8x RX 570
Power Supply	1300W, ≥88% efficiency		1600W, ≥88% efficiency
Chassis	Black, 5x 120mm fans		Black, 7x 120mm fans
Hashrate (ETH)	148 MH/s (±5%)	165 MH/s (±5%)	220 MH/s (±5%)
Dimensions (LxWxH)	N/A		19.8" x 13.58" x 5.84"
Cost	FIAT	Only	Sorry

We are planning to ask for samples for comparison.

Related Reading:

• Biostar Goes Mining: New TB250-BTC Pro Motherboard and RX 470D Mining GPU
• Colorful announces a Bay Trial Mining Motherboard with 8+1 PCIe slots
• ASUS Announces B250 Expert Mining Motherboard: 19 Expansion Slots
• Mining Cards Update: Zotac, Manli and Biostar Products Formally Confirmed

A spirited campaign by Democratic lawmakers to save net neutrality has passed the Senate, moving one step closer toward forestalling its scheduled demise on June 11th. The vote was predictably close along party lines: In addition to every Democrat su...

Bellevue hospital is the oldest public hospital in America. Inspired by Bellevue, NEW AMSTERDAM focuses on Dr. Max Goodwin, the institution’s newest medical director. He’s arrived at his new job determined to upset the status quo. Instead of keeping things overly bureaucratic, he wants to tear down barriers to make it easier for the doctors […]

The King in the North and the Mother of Dragons get cozy outside the set of Game of Thrones season 8 in this exclusive new image.

Here’s Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke dressed as Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen in Belfast on the Titanic Studios lot.

The photo is in support of Clarke’s Omaze campaign to support the Royal College of Nursing. The Solo: A Star Wars Story actress and Emmy nominee is offering one lucky donor and their guest a chance to take a behind the scenes with her on the Game of Thrones set. They’ll be flown to Northern Ireland, put up in a four-star hotel, have lunch with Clarke, and tour the studio). Go here for more info. 

And in case you missed it, here’s Clarke’s really funny video introducing the campaign from a few weeks back:

Game of Thrones returns in 2019.

Talk about a moment before. It’s a cold December day in London, and Benedict Cumberbatch is about to shoot a dinner scene with his Patrick Melrose costar Allison Williams. But by the time Cumberbatch’s titular character is ready to sit down for a flirty dinner with his girlfriend’s best friend (yep!), he’s already taken a few doses of heroin, carried his father’s ashes around in a plastic bag, and drunkenly collapsed in a bathroom. He’s a complete mess — exactly what Cumberbatch signed up for.

Based on Edward St. Aubyn’s series of eponymous novels, this five-part Showtime series traces the downward spiral of an upper-class Englishman who is reeling from the sexual abuse he experienced as a child. It’s a role Cumberbatch, 41, chased with ferocity. “You’re asked to empathize with a man doing some pretty awful things because you want him to do better,” the actor explains back in his trailer, comparing Patrick’s “good man goes wrong” journey to Breaking Bad. “It’s a very subtle but profound shift, from self-annihilation and narcissism to a world where he is sincere, loving, and open.”

Cumberbatch is a huge fan of St. Aubyn’s books and spent more than four years developing this adaptation with producer Michael Jackson.(Cumberbatch is credited as an executive producer.) The actor says the team behind Melrose is dedicated to honoring the original material’s brutal takes on family and class — a sort of reverse Downton Abbey, an “upturning of expectations” — and Cumberbatch wants to plumb the same depths as Patrick in order “to do him justice.” But the Academy Award nominee admits playing such a broken, self-destructive character takes a toll. “Containing the core of what drives this character — it’s hard to go there,” he says, adding that playing Patrick could very well require “a few years” of therapy. (Also: “Being on Quaaludes is quite hard.”)

In keeping with Patrick’s unpredictability, Melrose can veer dramatically in tone from scene to scene; between devastating explorations of Patrick’s trauma are bitingly bleak streaks of humor. Intrinsic to Cumberbatch’s portrayal is a dark wit and a palpable empathy. “You see Benedict, and then in a snap of your fingers there’s Patrick,” gushes Allison Williams, who plays the aforementioned flirty friend, Marianne. “And there is a vacancy there — it’s really remarkable to watch. My mental image of Patrick will never not be Benedict.”

Through the series’ five hours, Patrick goes on a journey of self-discovery, searching for his identity as he struggles to heal from immense psychological damage. For now, Cumberbatch is left to play another wrenching, draining scene — well aware that “there’s still a lot to come.” Patrick’s dinner with Marianne goes sour; she leaves, angry, and he chases after her. But she’s gone. The scene ends on Patrick, alone in an alleyway, vomiting, the drugs and booze catching up to him — and his father’s ashes still in hand.

Cumberbatch sums up the scene appropriately — and grimly: “It was never going to end well.”

Patrick Melrose premieres May 12 at 9:00pm, on Showtime.

—
Reporting by Simon Perry

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from the season 11 finale of The Big Bang Theory. Read at your own risk!

The Big Bang Theory closed out its 11th season with the star-studded wedding of Sheldon and Amy — but one guest in particular stole the show.

First off, yes, Mark Hamill surprise-officiated the wedding. And in any other circumstance, we’d be as starstruck as Sheldon (Jim Parsons) was upon realizing that Luke Skywalker would take part in his big day with Amy (Mayim Bialik). However, the finale also provided a shocking moment that many fans never thought they’d see, and it had to do with magician Teller.

As part of the wedding extravaganza, Kathy Bates made her debut as Amy’s overbearing mom, who would steamroll over her father any time he tried to speak — a running joke made all the more hilarious because Amy’s father was portrayed by the famously silent magician.

But The Big Bang Theory did what seemed impossible, getting Teller to actually speak on camera. After his wife tussles with Penny (Kaley Cuoco), Mrs. Fowler encourages him to take action. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she says. “Say something!” Mr. Fowler responds directly to Penny, whispering, “Thank you.”

It’s brief, but momentous. Those two words are more than most have ever heard Teller speak. This wasn’t his first public speaking, mind you — he has briefly spoken on a number of occasions in the past, it’s just a rare occurrence. “He was super-game, and he’s a friend of the show,” executive producer Steve Holland tells EW. “We know he’s a fan, we’ve met him before, he’s come to the set before, and so actually it seems like we wrote the role specifically for him, but we didn’t.

“When we were writing Amy’s mom and dad, it just seemed funny that Amy’s mom kept stepping on Amy’s dad every time he tried to speak,” Holland continues. “About halfway through writing, one of the writers, Jeremy Howe, said, ‘Teller would be really funny for this.’ And it just clicked. You’re like, absolutely. This feels like it was intentional, like we did this just for that, but it seemed like such the perfect fit, so we contacted him and he was super-excited about doing it. He was actually bouncing back and forth. He was directing a play in Chicago and doing his Penn and Teller show in Vegas, but he was like, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll work out the logistics. I really want to be there to do this.’”

And yes, Teller really did speak to Holland. He really does speak! But there was a moment, briefly, when they weren’t going to include his voice — though not due to any objections on Teller’s part. “When we shot it, we did a couple different versions of it, but no, he never pushed back or was reluctant to do the line at all,” Holland says. “We did a bigger, fuller-voiced version, we did the version that you saw , and we did a version where he only mouthed it but didn’t vocalize anything — the whispered version seemed to be the funniest.”

At the close of the finale, Sheldon and Amy got married with nary a cliffhanger in sight — well, save for the fact that the newlyweds discovered the game-changing super-asymmetry. “We don’t know what the future holds, whether next season will be the end or not, but it’s always been a thing that we’ve talked about, giving Sheldon a big win at some point,” Holland says. “We’ve said for 11 years that he’s one of the smartest people in the world, so I think it’s important for us to show that at some point, and to have it be a thing that he and Amy have done together. This breakthrough will certainly play through next season.”

While the episode concluded with Amy and Sheldon officially being hitched, there was a post-nuptials scene that ended up on the cutting room floor. EW was on set for the taping of the finale, and witnessed a scene that pays tribute to the late scientist Stephen Hawking, who had previously appeared on the show on several occasions. As Amy and Sheldon celebrate having Hamill’s signature on their marriage license, Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny bring in more wedding presents, one of which they realize was sent by Hawking before his death. Both cheeky and heartfelt, the gift speaks to Hawking’s importance to the characters of the show. Find out what the gift is when CBS releases the video Friday.

The Big Bang Theory will return this fall on CBS.

Actor and director Jon Favreau has confirmed that Disney’s upcoming live-action Star Wars TV show will be set seven years after Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and will feature new characters. Favreau will be writing for the show and will serve as executive producer.

Favreau revealed the news via a new interview with Nerdist, via comicbook.com, ahead of the premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Favreau features in Solo voicing a four-armed alien pilot called Rio Durant.

.@Jon_Favreau just confirmed to @DanCasey that his #StarWars show will feature new characters set 7 years after Return of the Jedi. #starwars #SoloAStarWarsStory @nerdist pic.twitter.com/mSAFLQjYue

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Nathan Fillion (formerly of CASTLE) is returning to ABC in a new series that the network has officially picked up for the 2018-2019 season: THE ROOKIE. Fillion stars as John Nolan, a man pursuing his dream of becoming an LAPD after after a life-altering incident. But he’s the force’s oldest rookie, which means that others […]

Skimming costs US consumers more than a billion dollars a year. The practice, which sees devices illegally installed on ATMs and gas station pumps to "skim" credit card information from unsuspecting users, can affect everyone. Even cybersecurity expe...

Boston Dynamics is showing off more of the SpotMini robot's skills. In a new video posted today, the company demonstrates how the little quadruped can navigate around an office and lab facility all on its own, avoiding obstacles and even climbing sta...

After three seasons, The Expanse is coming to an end -- at least on Syfy. Deadline reports that the cable network decided not to go forward with a fourth season of the show, however its producer, Alcon Television Group will look for another home. Des...

AI is playing an increasing role in medical care, from spotting diabetes and examining medical scans, to taking the place of doctors altogether. Now, it's able to recognize life-threatening conditions where traditional diagnostic tools can't. AliveCo...

After Fox canceled Brooklyn Nine-Nine, fans hoped a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu might pick up the show to extend its run. Tonight members of the cast and crew announced that NBC has chosen to air a 13-episode long season six of the cop sit...

During Google I/O, head of Android Security, David Kleidermacher, spoke about the changes that are coming to security in Android P. Of course, the talk started by mentioning the ways that Google has made it easier for OEMs to make updates for their Android devices thanks to things like Project Treble. As reported by XDA-Developers Google is taking it a step further by modifying its OEM agreements to include revisions that require regular security patches as part of this agreement. We've also worked on building security patching into our OEM agreements. Now this will really lead to a...

So that whole Turing test metric, wherein we gauge how human-like an AI system appears to be based on its ability to mimic our vocal affectations? At the 2018 I/O developers conference on Tuesday, Google utterly dismantled it. The company did so by h...

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Surgical robots are capable of feats that even the most skilled doctors can't manage, and the University of Pennsylvania just offered a textbook example. The school has confirmed that it performed the first-ever robot-assisted spinal surgery, using D...

Let the bloody comedy continue!

Netflix has ordered a third season of Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant’s Santa Clarita Diet, the streaming service announced Tuesday.

In the original series from Victor Fresco (Better Off Ted), Barrymore and Olyphant star as Sheila and Joel Hammond, married real estate agents whose normal life is turned upside down when Sheila becomes a functional zombie. This begins a dark and hilarious journey to find both human flesh for Sheila to eat and, more importantly, a cure.

Liv Hewson and Skyler Gisondo also star, while the second season featured guest appearances from Nathan Fillion, Joel McHale, Andy Richter, Maggie Lawson, and Natalie Morales.

 

Did someone say Season 3? pic.twitter.com/qBN0quswHW

— Santa Clarita Diet (@SCDiet) May 8, 2018

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The 10-episode third season is set to premiere in 2019.

God of War’s powerful story is sure to impact many people, but at its core it is an emotional and surprisingly-relatable story about a father and a son. As a relatively new dad myself, I found so many lessons, reminders, and choices within this game about who I want to be as a father.

Be forewarned, we’re going to talk about events that take place across the entire story of God of War, so if you’re trying to avoid spoilers, this will be your Helheim.

I’m a 34 year old father of Charlotte, a wonderful little girl with a HUGE amount of personality and a temper to match.

She’s unique, fun, and very smart… and if I’m to be honest, sometimes I fear I may ruin that with my own inadequacies. This self-doubt is something that many dads go through, including Kratos, and that’s both important and deliberate.

Continue reading…

On May 14, the second season finale of Superior Donuts will put Arthur (Judd Hirsch) and his cohorts in peril when a gunman enters the Chicago donut shop. Since the comedy has yet to be renewed for a third year, could this be a series finale or just a promise of even better things to come if and when CBS sees the light? Creator Bob Daily talks about what to expect from the season finale and why he’s bullish about the donut shop’s future.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How do you write a finale for a show that’s on the bubble?
BOB DAILY: I would say denial is the key! We really try not to think about it but ironically it could work. To be honest, we want to deliver them a finale where feels like, “Oh my god, we can’t wait to come back and see what happens next!” There is a little bit of an element of that.

So you’ve got a robber coming into the shop?It’s the final episode. Leading up to that, we are putting all of the characters at a little bit of a crossroads. Judd Hirsch’s character Arthur has spent his entire adult life working in the donut shop and is starting to think, “Is this how I want to spend my golden years?” Jermaine Fowler’s character Franco was dating a woman but he wasn’t sure she is the right woman but he has an opportunity to go to Europe with her and he’s not sure whether he wants to. And then Diane Guerrero‘s character is starting to realize she has feelings for Franco but because he’s in a relationship, she’s not sure she’s ready to declare herself. So given that, we put these characters in a Crucible-like situation where they are forced to realize some harsh truths. Nothing concentrates your mind more quickly and succinctly than a gun in your face. We thought this could be an armed robbery-hostage type of situation. This way, their futures will become crystal clear.

RELATED: Get the lowdown on the Emmys with EW’s new CHASING EMMY podcast

How do you make a robbery funny?We hired a brilliant improviser from Chicago named David Pasquesi. He’s a legend in improv circles. We are in awe of him. He’s able to find ways to make that moment really funny. That was the trick, trying to balance the jeopardy of the situation. Spoiler alert: The gun does go off at some point! But we also try to keep the humor alive.

What’s it’s been like being on the journey with this cast?It’s been so fun to see the relationship develop between Judd and Jermaine. Their real-life relationship mirrors their characters. Jermaine is just in awe of Judd, as are all of us. It’s been fun seeing those two bond.

So you are done with production?Yes, we finished a while ago, actually. We’re waiting to hear . We pitched some ideas for a third season that CBS seems very excited about so it seems positive but it’s beyond my abilities to predict what’s going to happen, unfortunately. I wish I knew. It’s tough these days to launch a network show.

So the finale is a bit cliffhanger-y?Yes, definitely. The finale would launch a whole new arc.

So if you are renewed, the whole cast will come back?Right, there will be no changes to the cast.

So you won’t kill anybody in that robbery?No, that I can promise.

Maybe if this doesn’t work out, you can work on a Taxi reboot with Judd.That would be amazing. We are constantly grilling Judd about episodes. That’s one of the shows that really made me want to be a TV writer.

Superior Donuts airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.

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Ahead of The Big Bang Theory’s season 11 finale, the question remains whether the CBS comedy juggernaut is heading into its final season.

Last year, the comedy scored a two-season renewal, ensuring it would be on the air through season 12, which is slated to bow this fall. But the show’s future beyond that has remained murky, especially since the cast’s contracts will once again be up. CBS could end up announcing season 12 will be the show’s last sometime over the next two weeks, ahead of upfronts, or the network could leave fans (and the show’s writers) to wonder.

“We’ve talked about if next season is the end where we would like to leave these characters, so we have some general plans,” executive producer Steve Holland tells EW. “But we really haven’t sat down and done the nitty-gritty of talking about the specifics of what exactly needs to happen.”

Should next season be the show’s last, the writers do have a general sense of the checklist of moments they’d want to hit before the end — though not all questions will be answered. “There’s certainly moments that we’ve had in this bucket of stories that we want to do, and we’ve checked some of them off as we’ve gone along,” Holland notes. “Some of them, we have next season to get out there, and I think some of them we don’t have plans to ever answer. Some of them, we like the mystery of it.”

“I won’t tell you which ones are which,” Holland continues. “But I think there are a few things that people ask about a lot that I think are going to make great stories next season. There’s a few things that I think, for us, are just part of the mystery of the show that we’ll probably never touch.”

In the meantime, the season finale will feature the long-awaited wedding of Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik), which Holland says was challenging in trying to top the other nuptials they’ve shown over the last 11 seasons. “You have to find ways to do it differently, and I think this one was go big,” Holland says. “This was our chance to top them just in terms of scope. I don’t think we’ve ever had this many characters from this world on screen at the same time.”

Among the big-name guest stars set to show up: Laurie Metcalf will be back as Sheldon’s mom, joined by Jerry O’Connell and Courtney Henggeler as his siblings, and Kathy Bates and Teller will appear as Amy’s parents. “The wedding is a chance for us to bring lots of family together, some of them for the first time,” Holland says. “All the family and friends get to be in the same place at the same time for the big event.”

Also among the surprise appearances in the finale is Mark Hamill in a top-secret role. “He was incredible,” Holland says. “He was the first person we reached out to when we were writing this role. I’ve been a lifelong Star Wars fan, so even to get the chance to talk to him on the phone, even if he had said no, was a thrill. And then to have him on set was great. He was lovely and genuinely funny in the episode. It couldn’t have been a better experience.”

Despite so many people in town, viewers may be surprised by how Amy and Sheldon handle their impending nuptials. “I think you would expect Amy and Sheldon to be sort of nervous about the wedding, and I think what’s fun about this finale is how excited and calm they are about the wedding,” Holland teases. “It’s everything around the wedding that is making them a little crazy.”

The Big Bang Theory finale airs Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.