Dave Nemetz

Related: Get Caught Up With Our ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson’ Recaps

John Travolta describes Shapiro and Cochran’s relationship as “two kings competing,” and Courtney B. Vance says the circus atmosphere surrounding the trial contributed to the clashing: “It’s the biggest trial of the century... there’s so much at stake.” Sarah Paulson says prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden were no match for the media-savvy Dream Team: “They were two people who went into battle without any armor.” And David Schwimmer remembers the intensity of Kardashian’s scenes with a suicidal O.J.: “To have to play those scenes was... just harrowing.”

But at least Cuba Gooding Jr. made a fun discovery about his co-star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who plays O.J.’s Bronco-driving pal Al Cowlings: “This son of a bitch can drive! You could race cars! Backwards or forwards.”  

In the exclusive sneak peek above, former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Hiddleston) is indulging in a nighttime cigarette when arms dealer Richard Roper (Laurie) joins him to look up at the stars — or, as Roper calls it, a “glimpse of the infinite.” He digs around for personal details from Pine — his work history, his love life — before complimenting him on continuing to smoke, even in front of a customer: “Good for you.”  

What Roper doesn’t know is Pine will eventually be recruited by British intelligence to go undercover as a spy and infiltrate Roper’s arms-smuggling operation. So enjoy this polite banter while you can... because these two chaps might not be chummy with each other for much longer.  

Related: Take a Bite Out of Our ‘Walking Dead’ Recaps

You remember Sam: He’s Jessie’s scaredy-cat son who probably had to change his underwear after Carol cornered him with that threatening monologue about “monsters” tearing him limb from limb. Now the poor kid has zombie PTSD — so he’s not a great candidate to stay calm and silent while walking through an enormous sea of walkers.

Still, a good opportunity to get rid of him arises when Father Gabriel volunteers to take Judith to the church to keep her safe. Jessie asks him to take Sam, too, but Sam refuses to leave his mom’s side. And Jessie lets him stay! Look, Jessie, we know you haven’t always been the best mom, what with making out with the guy who killed your kids’ father and all, but this might be a good time to start putting your foot down.

Now of course, sending a kid off under the protection of Father Gabriel is basically like signing his death certificate. But keeping Sam around doesn’t work out great, either: He starts babbling and crying out of fear of the “monsters” — thanks a lot, Carol! — and even the Magical Zombie Gut Poncho he’s wearing can’t keep him invisible anymore.

RIP, Sam. Hope there are plenty of cookies and old-timey records up there in heaven for ya.

Sam’s death, of course, sends Jessie into a hysterical screaming fit, and then she gets chomped by the herd of walkers. Which, forget Carl’s eye, is the real tragedy of this episode for Rick. He was just starting to get in there!

While Jessie’s entire family dies in the span of about thirty seconds, all the important people emerge from this episode unscathed — Carl’s eye aside. (Oh, c’mon, he’ll be fine. He’ll even get to wear a cool Governor-style eye patch.) But lesson learned: If you’re ever walking through a field of zombies with a skittish kid, stuff his mouth full of socks so he can’t scream. Or send him out first as a sacrificial lamb. Either way.

Runners-Up: The Wolf, for going back to save Denise, only to be rewarded by getting his arm chewed off by a walker and then getting shot dead by Carol. That’s what you get for caring about people, Wolfie!… Rick, for entrusting his baby girl Judith to Father Gabriel, a known coward who’s much more likely to toss Judith into a crowd of zombies to distract them than to actually fight them off. Carl’s eye might be the least of your problems soon enough, Rick.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

You just wrapped up Boardwalk Empire about a year ago after five seasons. Did you hesitate at all about jumping into another series so soon? No, what a gift to go from one great thing into another. I didn't have time to mourn the end of Boardwalk. We shot the pilot of this in the summer of 2014, while I was still shooting Boardwalk. So it was actually really happening at the same time. It was really just one right into the other. But it's such a gift to be able to do this at all, let alone at this level with these people. So I'll take a hiatus at some point. But this is great. This is such a playground.

Photos: Check Out More Pics From HBO’s ‘Vinyl’

Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger had been tossing this idea around for a while. How exactly did you come onboard? This originated as a feature. Mick had approached Marty in 1996 and said, "Let's do a movie in the rock 'n' roll world, kind of like how Casino was in the Vegas world." And there were a couple drafts of the feature, but they weren't really clicking. In 2008, right after I wrote the pilot of Boardwalk Empire and I wrote the first draft of Wolf of Wall Street, Marty called me and said, "We have this rock 'n' roll thing. Do you wanna take a crack at it?" I said, "Sure." 

I wrote my feature version; I think I wrote a couple versions. And just when we got it to where we wanted it, the stock market crashed. And suddenly, it was very apparent this was not moving forward as a three-hour epic period piece. So we went back to the drawing board and said, "What about a TV series?" So that required me to go back and say, "Okay, well, it obviously can't span forty years. It's gotta land in one era. What's the most interesting era?" And eventually, we landed on 1973, which is the year that punk, disco, and hip-hop all happened. I had to recreate the story and start from scratch again.

So that was in 2011, I think. And then it took a couple years. Boardwalk was happening, so it was like, "Okay, how are we gonna do both at the same time?" But it all worked out the way it was supposed to work out.

Watch the trailer for HBO’s Vinyl right here:

What's your personal connection to this era? You grew up in New York City, and you're at the right age where you might have been going to some of these concerts. Yeah, I was a teenager in the '70s. I was born in 1960, so in '73, I was a little young. I wasn't quite going into the city yet. By 14, I was sneaking into Manhattan and going to Times Square and doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing. I actually went to CBGB's later in the '70s, when I was 18, 19. It was sort of the tail end of that stuff. But I was aware of all of it.

I was a big music fan. I was the last of five kids, so I had the benefit of having grown up listening to all my siblings' music, and then discovered my own stuff. So I had a really firm grasp of rock 'n' roll history. So by '73, I was reading Creem and Circus magazine and Rolling Stone, and was just really up on what was going on. The first album I ever bought was a Rolling Stones album: Goats Head Soup, which came out in '73. And I bought it with my 13th-birthday money. Which is amazing to think that, years later, here am I working with Mick Jagger.

So is this a mind-trip for you, to see entire blocks of New York getting transformed back into that era? Yeah, it's such a different place. My wife's from L.A., so she only knows the clean, Disneyland version of New York. I always describe it as, "I grew up in Taxi Driver New York." That was what I remember. So it's so trippy for us, because usually you use visual effects to make things look better. We actually have to use it to make things look worse! We have to bring our own garbage. We have to spray our own graffiti. Put dog s--t around. Make this building look dilapidated. It's such a different thing. There was not a single thing that didn't have graffiti on it.

Bobby Cannavale was so great as Gyp Rosetti on Boardwalk. Did you think of him when you were writing the character of Richie? I did not. I knew Bobby as an actor, but I didn't know him when I first wrote the pilot. It's silly now, when we think about it, but Bobby was already working on Boardwalk as Gyp — it was Season 3 — and Marty and I were talking about casting the pilot. The script was already written, and the part called for a very handsome, charismatic 40-year-old Italian-American New Yorker. And we were like, "Who the f--k are we gonna get for this?" And we're batting ideas around, and finally we looked at each other and went, "I think we have him, right?" "Oh my God, of course!" You know, the whole expression about the pheasant landing on the shotgun. It's like, he just was there. So I called Bobby and said, "Can I send you something?" And he was like, "Oh my God, what do I have to do to play this?" And that was it. It was the easiest casting decision we ever made.

Ray Romano was an inspired choice to play Richie’s business partner Zak. He's an underrated dramatic actor. What did you see in him that made you think he'd be great in this role? You know, Richie describes Zak as "a wolf in sheep's clothing." Ray obviously has a persona as a comedian — of being a soft, lovable guy. But he's also very formidable. There's a really strong, calculating aura that he gives off as well. He's a great foil for Bobby, too. 

Marty cast him; our brilliant casting director, Ellen Lewis, brought Ray into Marty. And Marty wasn't aware of Ray as a comedian. He didn't know who he was. He had never seen Everybody Loves Raymond. He just responded to him as an actor, and said, "This guy is really great." And she said, "You know that's Ray Romano." And he said, "Who's that?" She's like, "He's a huge sitcom star." It meant nothing. That's why I like him. But there are so many levels there. Ray can do more with a look than most actors can do with a page of dialogue. He's so deep. There's moments throughout this season that are really incredible, and it's all him.

Mick Jagger's son James is in the cast as well, as the lead singer of the Nasty Bits. But he wasn't even born until this era had already passed, so do you have to fill him in on what it was like back then? No, James is like a punk musician. He fills me in a lot. Things that I thought I knew, he's like, "Well, actually, it happened in this year..." So he's really, really well-versed in the punk scene and the music. He's great. He absolutely inhabits this character, and is so incredibly believable and natural. You know, obviously, it didn't hurt watching the greatest rock star ever growing up. But it's funny; now I can't imagine anybody else having done this role. He's so become that character.

There's a Led Zeppelin cameo in the pilot, with an actor playing Robert Plant. Do you have to run that by their lawyers before you do that? Yeah, I think you can depict famous people as long as you're not being defamatory. But just as a matter of courtesy, every real person we depict has been notified. And in some cases, we've shown them the script pages and just said, "This is what we're doing, and hopefully you're on board." And everybody has been. Everybody's been very complimentary. Actually, my hope is as the series progresses, people will want to be included. It's like, "Well, do us! Put our band in there." We see everybody from Alice Cooper to David Bowie to Lou Reed to Elvis Presley... the list goes on. And of course, they're mixed in with our fictional bands.

Mick Jagger is an executive producer. What's his role on the show? Is he just feeding you great stories from the era? Giving you atmosphere? Yeah, all of that. And he's also a very seasoned producer in his own right. The guy wears a lot of hats. In addition to having that little band of his, he's involved in producing movies. He's very involved in the story, and developing characters. There's a lot of conversations about where the season is going, and Richie, and the interplay. And he's very interested in it. He actually came and sat with us in the writers' room a few times... which was really pretty trippy. For not only me, but for my other writers. He said as we were going in, "What's gonna happen in there?" And I said, "Well, for the first fifteen minutes, people are just gonna be freaking out that you're in the room. And then maybe we'll start to talk."

Vinyl premieres Sunday, Feb. 14 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

Related: ‘Small Wonder’: The Strange True Story Behind the Weirdest Sitcom of the ‘80s 

The Season 4 episode, “Cowboy George,” opens with Face working on a new get-rich-quick scheme for the team: He’s booking a concert with Cowboy George and the Range Rats at an Arizona watering hole, and pocketing the profits. We would ask why a rough-and-tough squad of gun-toting mercenaries is getting into the concert promotion business, but we’re trying not to think too hard about this.

Besides, it opens the door for a totally ‘80s cameo, because when Face goes to pick up Cowboy George at the airport, it’s actually… Boy George! The singer explains that he and Culture Club are owed 60 percent of what they made at their last gig — a cool $1.2 million. And they get that no matter what:

(P.S. We are loving this whole “Goth flamingo” look George has going on here.)

Basically, Face’s friend who set up the concert deal screwed him to get out of paying Culture Club their hefty appearance fee. And now the A-Team is left holding the bag. But wait! Face thinks he can salvage this! He goes to the owner of the local honky-tonk and tries to convince him Boy George and his band of brooding fops would be a great crowd-pleaser. But the grizzled owner has no interest in being associated with, in his words, an…

Which, to be fair, is probably one of the nicest things a guy like that would call Boy George in the ‘80s. (Also, if there isn’t a band called English Glitter Prince playing in a basement in Brooklyn somewhere, there should be.)

George isn’t thrilled with the venue, either; he calls it “a certified toilet,” actually. But Face pleads with him to give it a shot as Hannibal and B.A. arrive. (And awww, Mr. T is so excited to meet Boy George!) Hannibal senses that the bar owner is working a nefarious side business, and wants to snoop around during George’s set. Face still isn’t sure Culture Club can win over the locals, but George is confident, leading to this miraculous exchange:

My God, we miss the ‘80s.

Anyway, it’s the night of the big show, and Boy George and Culture Club have to keep the local hooligans entertained while Hannibal and the boys go off to play with guns. The band takes the stage, and the redneck crowd reacts, well, exactly how you’d expect them to. What, you guys don’t like pale, androgynous British waifs?

Shame they don’t have chicken wire to protect them like the Blues Brothers did.

But then an amazing thing happens: Culture Club’s synth-heavy soft rock starts to win over the rowdy crowd! And who can blame them, with moves like these?

Even more amazingly, Culture Club’s “God Thank You Woman” plays in the background while we watch Hannibal and the A-Team foil an armored car robbery with heavy gunfire and explosions. It’s truly the most bizarre juxtaposition of audio and video we’ve ever witnessed. It should probably be in a museum.

So the A-Team saves the day, right? Well, not quite: The corrupt sheriff throws Hannibal, Face, and B.A. in jail, interrupting Culture Club’s set and forcing Murdock and Boy George to spring them out. The escape plan involves Murdock dressing up as a woman (??) and Boy George kicking down a door (!!). You go, George!

They free their buddies and head for the airport just in time to catch the bad guys before they jet off to freedom. And in typical A-Team fashion, our heroes fire off a bunch of bullets, but never actually manage to hit anyone.

But who cares? The bad guys surrender! And we celebrate with one more Culture Club performance, this time of their mega-hit “Karma Chameleon.” The rednecks love it, Mr. T loves it… even Hannibal loves it! What can we say? We love it when a plan comes together.

The Bronco starts out parked at Robert Kardashian’s house (1) in Encino, where Simpson’s lawyer Robert Shapiro is negotiating for Simpson’s surrender to police. But Simpson fails to report to police at the agreed time, and when police arrive at the house at noon local time, Shapiro informs them that Simpson and Cowlings have left the house.

In the hours that follow, both police and Simpson’s lawyers are looking for the former football great. The LAPD officially announces that Simpson is a fugitive and D.A. Gil Garcetti vows that “we will find Mr. Simpson and bring him to justice.” Later, Shapiro holds his own press conference, where he pleads with Simpson to surrender and Kardashian reads a hand-written letter from Simpson. 

Video: How the ‘People v. O.J. Simpson’ Cast Transformed Into Their Famous Characters

Meanwhile, Simpson reportedly heads for Ascension Cemetery (2) in Lake Forest, where Nicole Brown Simpson is buried. Finally, at 5:51 p.m., Simpson makes a 911 call from his cell phone, allowing authorities to trace his location to the 5 Freeway near the cemetery. Minutes later, the California Highway Patrol (3) begins pursuit.      

After an hour of low-speed pursuit, with TV stations starting to carry the chase live (even interrupting Game 5 of the NBA Finals to do so), Simpson’s Bronco turns onto the 91 Freeway (4) to head west, then takes the 110 (5) to the 405 (6) to head north. By now, the chase has become a media sensation, and crowds of people are gathering at overpasses to cheer Simpson on.  

Related: Get Caught Up With Our ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson’ Recaps  

Simpson and Cowlings finally arrive at Simpson’s home in Brentwood (7) at 7:57 p.m., with Simpson remaining inside the parked Bronco for nearly an hour. After speaking with his mother and waiting for Shapiro to arrive, Simpson surrenders to authorities and is taken downtown to Parker Center (8), the LAPD’s headquarters at the time, where he is formally booked.

And with that, one of the stranger chapters in the history of American justice is closed. But of course, as we all know, this case only gets stranger from here.

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.   

Yes, some variety in the male-dominated late night landscape would be nice, and after a dozen years as a correspondent on The Daily Show, Bee is ready to deliver: Her new late-night news show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (debuting this week on TBS), combines political humor with the kind of ridiculous field pieces Bee has made into an art form. In this sneak peek, Bee reveals how woefully unprepared our nation’s Veterans Affairs department is for the health needs of female soldiers: 

So what sets Full Frontal apart from The Daily Show? Well, to start with, there will be no guests… at least at first. “If some really famous, powerful person wanted to come on our show, that would be great!” Bee says with a laugh. “I'm not gonna say no. But for the first little while, we're just gonna do our own thing.” And that thing is bringing important news stories to light that wouldn’t otherwise get played up in the mainstream press, she says: “We're mostly looking at stories that make us go, ‘Oh Godddddd... why is this real?!?’ We want to get really upsetting.”

Bee earned her seat at the late-night table after logging more than a decade as a Daily Show correspondent, starting back in 2003, where she specialized in field pieces that made good use of her deadpan delivery. And those field pieces will be a big piece of Full Frontal, she promises: “That's the thing I think I liked the most at The Daily Show. I actually just love it. I mean, I hate it, and I love it. You know what I mean? It's good to go out in the world and talk to people. I mean, it's horrendously frustrating. But in the end, it's very rewarding.”

And on Full Frontal, Bee says she’ll be utilizing everything she learned from her years working with former Daily Show host Jon Stewart: “It really was comedy college. His point of view infused the whole show. There was not a thing that went on that show that was not determined and focused through his actual point of view. I think the importance of having a really clear editorial voice is a huge takeaway from that.”

Bee left The Daily Show last April, just a few months before Stewart handed over the reins to new host Trevor Noah. “I think Trevor's doing an admirable job of it,” she says. “But I'm not envious of that part of that experience. I'm really happy to carve out my own space. Because I am a little quirkier than The Daily Show. I do have a different style than that show. And to be able to explore that is a gift.” 

Along with Noah, Bee joins a late-night landscape dotted with Daily Show alums, including Stephen Colbert on CBS and John Oliver on HBO; in fact, Full Frontal tapes in the same New York studio as Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. But Bee insists she doesn’t think of them as her competition. “I'm a woman, so I don't know what goes on in their minds, but I don't feel competitive with them. I feel like there's a lot of room for everybody to carve out their own space. I don't even feel competitive if other women take up that mantel. I'm like, ‘Great!’ We all have a different point of view. We can handle more than... ten.”

Bee is married to fellow Daily Show alum Jason Jones (who has his own TBS sitcom, The Detour, debuting later this year), and the two Canadians recently became U.S. citizens. In fact, they’ll be voting for the first time in this year’s presidential election, and Bee says that’s made her more personally invested in the American political process: “I legitimately want what's best for the nation now. It's not just comedy from a distance. I'm in it. I have American children. At some point, you have to buy into the whole system, and we have done that.”

So does she know who she’s voting for already? “I'm not sure I know enough about many of them! I wish Trump was more outspoken about his goals. Just state your opinions, my friend." Speaking of Donald Trump, Bee is starting to think his meteoric rise in the polls isn’t really a laughing matter anymore: “I think I'm a little more concerned about the actual future of the country now. I think we're all sobering up a bit. I think we're all realizing that something could go terribly wrong. In the very near future. That will affect all of our lives.”

So since she’s a newly christened American voter and the election is nine short months away, we asked Bee to play a round of “Most Likely To” with the 2016 presidential field, speculating on which candidate is “most likely to…” and filling in the blank. Who knows? Maybe we’ll all figure out who we should vote for based on Bee’s answers. Let’s start with…

Ben Carson

“[Most likely to] fall asleep while talking, I think. Just nod off while you're interviewing him.” 

Ted Cruz

“Most likely to be the first person to say no to coming on my show. Unequivocal no.”

Bernie Sanders

“Most likely to get frustrated by my nonsense. He is not interested in hi-jinks. At all. He's a little crusty. And I love him. But he's crusty.”

Marco Rubio

“Most likely to share a blender drink recipe with me, if we ever get together. I feel like he has a specific room in his house, a bar with a special daiquiri maker. Not that he's having daiquiris all the time, but he just has that in his house. Most likely to serve me a daiquiri.”

Jeb Bush

“Most likely to stare forlornly out a window. He might actually be doing that right now. Most likely to be in the middle of a deep sigh.” 

Hillary Clinton

“Hmmm... I want to say, most likely to win the presidency. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I am kind of hoping. [Nervous laughter.] Most likely to slam her laptop shut and throw it across the room. When she reads what's being written about her.”

Donald Trump

“Most likely to be the worst person you ever served if you were a waiter. Terrible tipper. Nasty. I did a lot of waitering in my life, and I kind of have identified him as someone I would never want to serve."

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee premieres Monday, Feb. 8 at 10:30 p.m. on TBS.

Let’s find out! In the video above, we play a round of “Who Said It?” with the cast of Netflix’s hit prison dramedy. We ask cast members Laverne Cox (Sophia), Samira Wiley (Poussey), Dascha Polanco (Daya), Jackie Cruz (Flaca), and newcomer Blair Brown (Judy King) to identify which OITNB character said a line of dialogue, using heads on sticks to indicate their choice.

Related: The ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Cast on Nicky’s Fate, That Cathartic Lake Scene, and More

And despite some hesitation — Brown even announces upfront, “I hate games!” — they all did pretty well. They’re clearly all fans of the show... and each other. Good thing, too, because if they flunked, we’d have to toss them in the SHU. And nobody wants to see that. 

Season 4 of Orange Is the New Black premieres Friday, June 17 on Netflix.

In the video above, we ask the stars of FXX’s surreal relationship comedy — Jay Baruchel (Josh), Eric Andre (Mike), and Britt Lower (Liz) — to read aloud a selection of ads from Craigslist’s “Men Seeking Women” section. Surprisingly, these ads are actually safe for work... but that doesn’t mean they’re not spicy. 

Andre reads one from a younger man looking for “a mature woman!!!” (yes, three exclamation points) who’s “tired of not being cared for by a man.” (”R. Kelly wrote this one,” Andre cracks.) Lower gets one from a guy who insists he will only trade photos — ”which you people are so obsessed with!” — after “six meaningful email exchanges.” And we’ll just give you the headline of the ad Baruchel reads: “You’ve Had All the Nice Guys, Now You Want a Beast!”

We can’t be the only ones feeling romantic right now, right?

UnREAL is the brainchild of veteran TV producer Marti Noxon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men) and Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, who — surprise, surprise — worked as a Bachelor producer for nine seasons. Noxon’s TV drama talents and Shapiro’s experience in the trenches combine to form a smart, unflinching look at how the reality TV sausage is made.

Related: Marti Noxon and Darren Star: A Conversation With the ‘UnREAL’ and ‘Younger’ Creators About Their Unexpected Hits

Shiri Appleby (Roswell) stars as Rachel, a producer on Everlasting, a hit reality show where a handsome suitor chooses a potential wife from a bevy of eager female contestants. (Sound familiar?) But underneath the romantic veneer of horse-drawn carriages and fantasy dates, there’s an ugly reality: The producers pit the women against each other to stir up drama for the cameras. The women are more interested in camera time than a real love connection. And the suitor — Adam (Freddie Stroma), a rich British playboy looking to clean up his image — would rather bed a contestant than put a ring on her finger.    

To anyone familiar with the rhythms and conventions of reality TV, UnREAL is a fascinating peek behind the curtain. Rachel is miserable and ashamed of herself for participating in such a farce — in the pilot, she wears a T-shirt declaring “This is what a feminist looks like” — but she has an undeniable knack for pushing the women’s buttons and manipulating them into fights and breakdowns. And back in the control room, her cold, calculating boss looks to spin every one of those fights and breakdowns into reality TV gold.

Constance Zimmer has been a welcome addition to quite a few TV shows over the years (Entourage, House of Cards), but she may have found a career-best role in UnREAL’s Quinn, the cynical executive producer of Everlasting who gives zero f—ks about romance. Or anyone’s feelings, really. She just wants good TV… and she’s willing to do just about anything to get it.

Quinn and Rachel’s love-hate relationship is at the core of UnREAL, and it’s not as simple as good versus evil. Quinn has a sympathetic side, glimpsed in her on-and-off affair with sleazy Everlasting creator Chet (Craig Bierko). And sometimes Rachel devises an evil plan that surprises even her mentor. We’re not sure if Quinn’s role is small enough to fit Zimmer into the Supporting Actress category at the Emmys, but we do know that both Appleby and Zimmer deserve nominations for their work here — two of the best female performances anywhere on TV last year, no doubt.

Photos: The TV Characters We’re Thankful For This Year

As the season of UnREAL (and Everlasting) rolls on, the stakes get higher. Rachel is still hung up on her ex Jeremy (Josh Kelly), a camera operator who’s engaged to someone else… and she also strikes up a maybe-inappropriate relationship with Adam the suitor. The producers battle to wring every last drop of drama out of the girls, knowing that capturing a scandalous moment could lead to a promotion… and a cash bonus from Quinn. UnREAL does push into clear fiction at times — there’s a shocking twist midway through the season that no reality show has yet had to face — but the unrelenting drive to produce compelling television at absolutely any cost always rings true.

And if you catch up now, you’ll be ready when UnREAL returns for Season 2 this summer on Lifetime. It’s not looking to take its foot off the pedal, either: The new season will tackle the hot-button issue of race, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. alum B.J. Britt playing Everlasting’s first-ever African-American bachelor. In other words, things are about to get really, really real... and you’re not going to want to miss out.

Appropriately enough, Valentine’s Day is coming up next week, and if you’re single and dreading it, we can’t think of a better anti-romance plan than an UnREAL binge-watch session. So grab your friends and a few bottles of wine, and raise a glass to one of TV’s underrated gems. 

Season 1 of UnREAL is streaming now on Hulu; Season 2 premieres this summer on Lifetime.

In the video above, the cast details for Yahoo TV the physical transformations they had to go through to inhabit their characters, from wigs to weight gain. John Travolta, who plays Simpson defense attorney Robert Shapiro, talks about recreating Shapiro’s distinctive eyebrows and receding hairline, and says such transformations are a valuable part of his acting process. 

Photos: The O.J. Simpson Trial: Where Are They Now? 

To play prosecutor Marcia Clark, Sarah Paulson says she had to wear a wig that matched Clark’s trademark curls, along with a lot of makeup to make her look “super tired.” Cuba Gooding Jr., who plays Simpson, remembers adhering to a strict exercise regimen before shooting, and then eating whatever he wanted: “I gained twenty pounds!” 

David Schwimmer, who plays O.J. pal Robert Kardashian, sums it up best: “The hair and makeup people on this show are astonishing.”

Set in contemporary times, The Passion features Telenovela star/musician Jencarlos Canela as Jesus, following him from the Last Supper to his trial, crucifixion, and ultimate resurrection. Country superstar Trisha Yearwood will play Mary, with American Idol alum Chris Daughtry co-starring as Judas, and mega-producer Tyler Perry serving as host and narrator.

And yes, you read that right: They’ll be using modern chart-topping hits as the musical score, arranged by executive producer Adam Anders (Glee, Rock of Ages). No word yet on what songs will be featured — but based on this key art, we’re betting plenty of fans will have their hands in the air, regardless.

In the video above, John Travolta (who plays Simpson defense lawyer Robert Shapiro) recalls he was still basking in the afterglow of Pulp Fiction winning the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival: “I was trying to do two things at once: celebrate my new beginning, and pay attention to something that was actually happening that mattered.” 

Related: Inside TV’s Retrial of O.J. Simpson: A Saga of Race, Redress, and, Yes, Robert Kardashian’s Kids

Cuba Gooding Jr., who plays Simpson on the series, remembers watching the NBA Finals with friends and seeing the broadcast add a live shot of the Bronco in a tiny box in the corner: “At one point, we turned the TV to a full screen, and had the game on the radio.”

But for Sarah Paulson (who plays prosecutor Marcia Clark), the Bronco chase was just one big inconvenience: “I was like, ‘Why is The Naked Gun actor on?’ I wanted to keep watching whatever I was watching. It was probably that show Sisters, or thirtysomething. I was really irritated that I was missing what was happening with Michael and Hope.”

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story premieres Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 10 p.m. on FX.

Congratulations on all the recent awards for Rachel. And you were there with her at the Globes! What was that night like? Well, it's funny, because it's been a long journey for us. It's been two and a half years since we met, and we've been working on the show since the second we met. So it took a lot to get here. It's such an unlikely journey in so many ways. So for us, we were just thrilled and surprised, and over the moon. We want people to watch the show, so an award like that brings visibility to the show, and we hope it makes people think, "Oh, you know what? I should check that out."

McKenna (right) with Rachel Bloom at the Golden Globes (Getty)

Rachel mentioned at the Globes that you found her through her YouTube sketches. Which sketch of hers did you see first, and what did you see in Rachel that made you want to work with her? The first thing that I saw was the Disney princess cartoon video [“Historically Accurate Disney Princess Song”]. So I saw an animated video first — which is interesting, because the thing I was attracted to first was her writing. I think the writing of that piece is extraordinary. And I hadn't even seen her! Nor was I aware that she was the singer, because it never occurred to me that somebody who had written that would be able to sing that way. So I was really drawn to her wit, and her irreverent brand of humor, and the courage of her humor. And then I just proceeded to watch every single video of hers I could find.

A lot of the characters in her videos are delusional. And I had been wanting to do something called "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" for a long time, and I hadn't quite figured out what it was, exactly. And then when she and I met, it struck me that she would be the perfect person to bring a character like that to life.

Related: Get to Know ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Star Rachel Bloom With Her Best YouTube Sketches

So where do we find Rebecca when the season picks back up? She's still pining for Josh, obviously. We find her trying to find her way in the world, and in this new place that she's picked. At a certain point, it's starting to dawn on her that this is her life. These are the choices that she's made. And the second half of the season really deals with the ramifications of those choices, both in her life and in the lives of the characters around her. Because one of the premises of the series is that, here's a person who makes one crazy decision, and it changes not just her life, but the lives of all the people around her. 

So we're going to learn more about Daryl's life, and Paula's life, and where Greg's going. And Josh... Josh is somebody who always thought his life would turn out a certain way, and he came home to a life that he thought he knew and understood. And Rebecca kind of coming out of nowhere hits him like a meteor, and changes the life of this small town guy who was sort of content to be a small town guy until she shows up.

Is Rebecca ever going to come out of her "Josh fog" at some point, or would that fundamentally change the series? Well, I don't give too much story away... but I will say that these long-term romantic obsessions wax and wane. I'll put it that way.

And Josh still seems oblivious to how obsessed Rebecca is with him. In a funny way, even though he is sort of the hometown hero, I think he has patches of low self-esteem. Because he's never really been told he's the brightest guy. And it would never occur to him that somebody would do something this drastic: move all the way across the country for somebody she bumped into on the street. It's not where his mind goes.

The show has all these great musical numbers every week. Is there one in particular that gets stuck in your head the most? Oh God... you know, one of the things about doing a musical show is that they get stuck in your head. You get these earworms. And I think everybody who works on the show, if you stop them and said, "What song is running through your head right now?" they'd have a different one at different times. They get really, hideously stuck in my head. Especially because we work on them a lot. We hear a lot of demos. So they're all embedded in my brain. [Laughs.] There's nothing quite like having "Your balls smell weird, your balls smell so much worse than I feared" stuck in your head. My husband says that one a lot.

A lot of viewers hear the title Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and they get turned off. They think it's a slam on women, when really, it's the opposite...  Did you think that?

You know, yes and no. I wanted to hear more about it, because I thought it was a bold title. But normally, when you hear a title like that, it'd be a story told from Josh's perspective. And that would be called "My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Right? It's funny; we were super naive about that. Because when we were in our bubble of irony... [Laughs.] The bubble didn't extend as far around us as we thought it would. 

But once I saw the trailer, I got it. The title made perfect sense. Yeah. We also wanted people to see the title sequence, because we thought if people saw the opening titles, they would understand right away that we were spoofing it and sending it up. It just would never occur to either her or me that... it was so clear to us that we were doing a deconstruction of it. So we were sort of naively surprised that people took it at face value.

I do think that being on a broadcast network impaired people's ability to detect the sarcasm. Perhaps if we had been on cable or streaming, people would have assumed, "Oh, that can't be a straight-up rendition of that trope." But that's only speculating and hindsight.

Related: Exclusive: ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Books Amber Riley and Ricki Lake to Sing Backup

And the show actually was developed at Showtime first, right? Before it came to The CW. Right. So if you had seen a poster for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend from Showtime, you might've thought right away, "That's gotta be ironic, or sly." We also really embrace the idea of "crazy": what it means to be perceived as crazy. It's not a medically meaningful title. But it's somebody who's dealing with real issues. Somebody who makes the decision this rash and ill-conceived is someone with real issues.

And we don't duck away from her having issues. It's an important part of the show. She doesn't make good decisions, because she has some underlying issues, and also because love makes you crazy. And we're encouraged, as a culture, to behave like complete lunatics when we're in love. And as somebody who's written romantic comedies, if you pick up your DSM [a psychiatric manual of mental disorders] and start watching romantic comedies, people's behavior is often nuts. Everyone who's been in love has done things they look back on and think, "Wow, that was bonkers."

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend returns with new episodes Monday, Jan. 25 at 8 p.m. on The CW. The first eight episodes are streaming now on Hulu and at cwtv.com. 

Riley, of course, knows how to carry a tune: She belted out numbers for six seasons as Glee’s Mercedes Jones, and stole the show as good witch Addaperle in December’s The Wiz Live. And though Lake is best known for her ‘90s talk show, she’s been singing since childhood and recorded a song for the Hairspray soundtrack in 2007. So they’re both more than qualified to lend some backing vocals to Rebecca Bunch’s wild delusions.

Meanwhile, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is on a hot streak right now, coming off big wins at the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Awards for lead actress Rachel Bloom. (The CW ordered five additional episodes back in November.) And with big casting wins like this, we expect the accolades to keep rolling in.   

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend returns with new episodes Monday, Jan. 25 at 8 p.m. on The CW.