Shameless turned 100 with their latest episode, and they celebrated like only they could, by trying to buy children, engaging in a duel, and having an election somehow wilder than any other before it.

All that makes for an extra shameless Shameless shameless rankings, so grab a beer, bail your sibling out of prison, and find out how shameless your favorite Gallagher was this week.

1. Mo

Last week, it was revealed that the downfall of Mo’s political career was his relationship with a 15-year-old girl, and with his secret out, you’d think he’d be in damage control mode. Nope! Instead, he’s bringing his pedophile behavior into the open, watching school girls wait for the bus, chatting up a few not legal-aged voters, and going to lick his wounds at Chuck E. Cheese’s. And still, he manages to get elected, which isn’t as surprising as it would have been a few years ago.

2. Frank

If you’re a pedophile or trying to get a pedophile elected into office, then you belong at the top of the shameless rankings. Frank is passed running Mo’s campaign just for the money, he’s hoping to win — or at least get to a runoff, so he recruits a fresh out of prison Mr. Milkovich to keep non-white voters away. The extra-shameless move results in an all-out brawl and a White victory.

3. Lip

How badly does Lip want Xan to stay in his life Pt. 2? A week after possibly killing a guy as a distraction to sneak Xan out of the hospital, Lip is offering Xan’s mom $10,000 to sign away her parental rights and grant him custody. She seems ready to take the deal until Xan sees her mom and they share an emotional embrace. This causes Lip to leave the money and Xan behind. He still has $2,000 left from selling his bike; I imagine he could probably buy at least baby for that much.

4. Carl

Carl needs to get his “homicidal mojo back” in time for a scheduled showdown with the kid whose West Point recommendation he stole via V’s S&M skills. The most anticipated duel since Hamilton gets underway, but they both throw away their shot, not firing at each other. This causes the other kid to shoot himself in the leg because he doesn’t even want to go to West Point; he’d rather be a poet. But, unfortunately for him, the bullet is only a flesh wound, so he asks Carl to put another bullet in him. Carl initially refuses, finally going through with it, but mostly so the kid would stop reciting poetry. It worked; he stopped and Carl got his homicidal swagger back.

5. Fiona

On the eve of Election Day, Fiona suddenly decides to get political, backing Ruiz for selfish purposes (he’s against rent control). And Fiona’s idea of campaigning for a candidate means bribing the Patsy customers and employees with free nachos and coming in late for work. After a tough talk from V and throwing a punch in the political brawl, Fiona lets her conscience get the best of her and votes for the female candidate who happens to be pro-rent control.

6. Liam

Liam continues his cheating ways in order to ensure his protection at school, but he might need an older bodyguard soon since he’s being moved up a few grades. Too bad for his sake that he can’t be homeschooled and follow in the illustrious footsteps of Leonardo Da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, and Justin Bieber.

7. Debbie

The honeymoon ends quickly for Debbie and her girlfriend Alex. After briefly moving in together, Alex asks Debbie to leave when it becomes clear that Debbie hates men more than she loves women. It looks like Gay Jesus was right.

8. Kev and V

Kevin’s work to keep the bar a “Vagina Safe Zone” isn’t done. Before he invites the reporter who originally deemed the bar the “most rapey” in Chicago, he questions the regulars on their past sexual behavior. The discussion becomes all too real when Kev and V separate the actions into different categories named for both convicted and alleged celebrity sexual offenders (Harvey Weinstein, Kobe Bryant, Woody Allen, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, John Lasseter, and Bill Cosby). The Alibi’s newfound success as a safe haven for women has caught the eye of other bar owners who want to hire the couple to do the same for their establishments. Look how far they’ve come from their topless maid service.

9. Ian

Ian’s internal conflict over the Gay Jesus movement and his case continue, and that means that his stay at the bottom of the rankings continues. I respect this storyline and his emotional struggle, but I also wouldn’t mind seeing him get a little shameless. I mean, where is Mickey when we need him?!

For more on Shameless, go here to read the cast discuss the show’s origins, wildest scenes, and future without Emmy Rossum.

LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Sunday night in an effort to strike down its new net neutrality law, signed only hours earlier by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

Among 34 bills signed Sunday, Brown approved the nation’s toughest net neutrality protections, setting up a legal fight by bringing back Obama-era internet regulations the federal government repealed about nine months ago.

The Justice Department almost immediately filed its lawsuit, arguing Senate Bill 822 interferes with the federal government’s deregulatory approach to the internet, according to a statement.

“The Justice Department should not have to spend valuable time and resources to file this suit today, but we have a duty to defend the prerogatives of the federal government and protect our Constitutional order,”  Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

More: Net-neutrality is over. Now California, Oregon are stepping in

More: Washington state sticks it to the FCC, passes its own Net-neutrality rules

Three states — Oregon, Washington and Vermont — passed their own net neutrality bills ahead of California, though none of them were as strict. The California law prevents broadband providers from slowing down or blocking websites, as well as charging higher fees for faster speeds. It also limits some zero-rated data plans. 

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, called Sunday a win for an open society.

“While the Trump Administration does everything in its power to undermine our democracy, we in California will continue to do what’s right for our residents,” Wiener said in a statement. “Net neutrality, at its core, is the basic notion that we each get to decide where we go on the internet, as opposed to having that decision made for us by internet service providers. It’s also about ensuring a level playing field for ideas and for businesses trying to compete.”

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai voiced support for the federal lawsuit in a statement. Identifying the internet as a interstate information service, he said only the federal government can set policy for it. 

In January, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra pushed back against the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality, along with 21 other states. The California legislature moved the bill to the governor’s desk on Sept. 11. 

“It’s a beacon of hope for Internet users everywhere who are fighting for the basic right to express themselves and access information without cable and phone companies controlling what they can see and do online,” Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group, said in a statement. 

Other organizations opposed California taking net neutrality into its own hands, including Jonathan Spalter, president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association.

“Rather than 50 states stepping in with their own conflicting open internet solutions, we need Congress to step up with a national framework for the whole internet ecosystem and resolve this issue once and for all,” Spalter said in a statement. 

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A musical spectacular centered around boy-crazy teen Tina Belcher kicks off a new season of Fox’s animated comedy Bob’s Burgers on Sunday, with a smorgasbord of adventures lying in wait for the misfit family.

The Belchers — comprising of long-suffering patriarch Bob, vivacious wife Linda, awkward Tina, eccentric Gene, and precocious, bunny-ears-clad Louise — rarely leave their sleepy hometown and burger bubble, but that doesn’t stop them from getting entangled in an array of colorful situations.

Halloween will mine the tropes of a slasher movie as the Belcher kids try to save their candy from being stolen during a trick-or-treat extravaganza. Thanksgiving will see the Belchers try to save a turkey, and Christmas will find Louise at war once again with Logan and the older kids over sledding turf.

Nestled amongst The Simpsons and Family Guy on Fox’s Sunday night line-up, Bob’s Burgers’ Belcher clan have emerged as a model working-class American family.

“At its core, the show is about a family who accepts each other for who they are despite their differences,” H. Jon Benjamin, who voices Bob, told EW.

Benjamin, who also voices other supporting characters such as Jimmy Jr., said that sometimes he’s been “directed to be less cynical” towards his kids and wife Linda (voiced by John Roberts), but that as Bob, he appreciates being the “rudder of the show.”

“The Belchers move through struggles and interpersonal conflicts very well together … at the end of every show is a positive resolution,” he said.

Unlike other animated shows that often thrust characters into wildly extreme situations such as The Simpsons’ patriarch Homer going into space or Family Guy’s Stewie Griffin time-travelling, Bob’s Burgers keeps its residents grounded and its scope local — “like one year over and over again, like Groundhog Day,” creator Loren Bouchard explained.

“All the yearning and wanting and pain our characters are feeling, we need to leave them right there, and we can’t really advance them,” Bouchard said. “To the extent that some of the other shows can go big, it leaves smaller story-telling for us to fool around with so we can keep exploring the smallest of events.”

Each of the Belcher kids will get their standout episodes this season. The 13-year-old Tina (voiced by Dan Mintz) lives out her fantasies in Sunday’s musical premiere, and later in the season, her permanent (and mostly unrequited) crush Jimmy Jr. will have a chance to redeem himself after breaking her heart in last season’s Valentine’s Day episode.

“Jimmy Jr. was too much of a jerk,” Bouchard said. “What we need from him is to have him occasionally maybe not paying attention and occasionally distracted. He wants to spend time with Zeke, but he can’t be so irredeemably obnoxious as he was in that episode and still be worthy of Tina’s attention.”

Middle child Gene (voiced by Eugene Mirman), often happy to be the quirkily confident pawn in his family’s affairs, will have a mushroom-hunting adventure in the woods with Bob. And in an upcoming November episode, the 11-year-old’s friendship with classmates Alex and Courtney will be examined.

“He doesn’t necessarily get as many stories centered on him as his sisters but that’s ok, I don’t think the audience minds as long as we do take care of Gene and give him those episodes that do celebrate him,” Bouchard said.

Kristen Schaal, who voices everyone’s favorite sassy 9-year-old trickster Louise, says she “continues to find vulnerabilities in Louise that are always really touching because she is so tough.” In the Christmas episode, Schaal says Louise “genuinely gets scared, and we see her get terrified.”

“She’s so smart, and I get to be at the top of my game intelligence-wise, but also get to be child-like at the same time,” Schaal says. “She’s quick to her emotions, and that’s fun for me, to act out a whole well of anger.”

Sunday’s big musical premiere is a stepping-stone to the Bob’s Burgers movie in June 2020, which will be a big screen musical extravaganza that may answer some long-standing questions about the show’s lead characters.

“We need to tell a big story, and we’re very interested in getting to some emotional places,” Bouchard said. “We do want to get to some real feels and some backstory and especially look a little bit at why Louise wears the hat and using that as a way to look at a bunch of things.”

Louise will be reunited with her beloved nightlight toy Kuchi Kopi in another dream sequence, and Bouchard said music will play a big part in the story.

“We want it to be a gorgeous experience for your ears as well as your eyes,” he said.

WASHINGTON – Canada has agreed to join the United States and Mexico in a trade deal that will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. and Canadian officials said Sunday night.

“Today, Canada and the United States reached an agreement, alongside Mexico, on a new, modernized trade agreement for the 21st Century: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).  USMCA will give our workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses a high-standard trade agreement that will result in freer markets, fairer trade and robust economic growth in our region,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in a joint statement.

“We look forward to further deepening our close economic ties when this new agreement enters into force,” they said in crediting Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo “for his close collaboration over the past 13 months.” 

The U.S. had imposed a deadline of midnight Sunday with Canada to reach a new three-country deal.

The U.S. and Mexico announced late last month that they had reached a new trade deal to replace NAFTA. Trump took office promising to rework the 24-year-old trade pact, which he has repeatedly blasted as “the worst deal ever.”

The two nations hope to get a final deal signed before Mexican President Peña Nieto leaves office on Dec. 1. But before the United States can sign the deal, Congress must be given 90 days’ notice. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has said he expects the U.S. to sign the deal by the end of November.

After the deal was struck with Mexico, negotiators for the U.S. and Canada resumed their talks in hopes that a deal could be worked out to bring Canada into the new trade pact. Canada was a key partner in NAFTA, which essentially eliminated tariffs on most goods traded among the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and made it easier for companies in those three countries to move goods and supplies across their borders.

Canada was a part of the discussions to renegotiate NAFTA when the talks started last year. But the negotiations reached an impasse in late May, and Canada stayed on the sidelines while the U.S. and Mexico continued their talks. 

Talks between the U.S. and Canada broke down again over the past few days, partly because of U.S. demands for access to Canada’s dairy market. 

Trump said at a press conference on Wednesday that negotiators for the two countries weren’t getting along, and he threatened to slap tariffs on Canadian-made cars.

Trump also claimed he had refused to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a United Nations General Assembly in New York this week. A spokesman for Trudeau’s government disputed that a meeting had ever been requested.

Negotiations resumed late last week, paving the way for the agreement to be announced Sunday.

Among the provisions in the new agreement with Mexico are changes to the so-called auto rules of origin which dictate that, to avoid tariffs, a certain percentage of an automobile must be built from parts that originated from countries within the NAFTA region.

Under the new rules, cars must be built with at least 75 percent of parts made in North America, up from 62.5 percent under NAFTA. Also, 40 to 45 percent of an auto will have to be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour.

The new trade deal also includes standards designed to protect intellectual property and trade secrets, tougher labor requirements for Mexico and environmental obligations designed to combat trafficking in wildlife, timber and fish.

The agreement will run for 16 years, but will be reviewed after six years and could then be extended for another 16.

More: US, Mexico strike trade deal that could pave the way for an overhaul of NAFTA

More: What is NAFTA? Seven things to know about the North American free trade pact

More: Trump says he rejected a meeting with Canada that Canada says it never requested

 

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ATLANTA — For a variety of reasons, beginning with the market he plays in, Cincinnati Bengals receiver A.J. Green is arguably the NFL’s most understated superstar. You’re not going to see him in a bunch of national commercials like Odell Beckham, Jr. He lacks the Q rating of Julio Jones and the magnetism of Antonio Brown. Generally speaking, Green avoids the off-field drama that often seems inherent to the league’s diva position.

But Green, a seven-time Pro Bowler, is burnishing a résumé that could eventually lead him to the Hall of Fame — a goal he openly craves, a career marker he “guaranteed” in a Bleacher Report interview this summer.

If the 30-year old Green ends up in Canton eventually, what he did Sunday in the Bengals’ 37-36 win over the Atlanta Falcons will surely end up somewhere in the voters’ subconscious, if not his personal highlight reel.

Facing a Cover 2 defense that wasn’t supposed to allow him to get open, Green ran his corner route slipping between the cornerback and the safety, slid to make sure he stayed in bounds and came down with the ball for a 13-yard touchdown that crushed the Falcons and moved the Bengals to 3-1 in an AFC North that looks like it’s there for the taking. 

“That’s why I’m here,” Green said. “They pay me the big bucks to make the big plays. When it comes down to it, that’s where legends are made. Hall of Famers, that’s what they do in big moments, and that’s what I tried to do.”

More: Tampa Bay QB Jameis Winston can’t afford to blow another chance as he returns to the field

More: Titans stun Eagles with comeback win in overtime

By any measure of the Bengals’ tortured history, Green has been part of a lot of success, having been on playoff teams each of his first five seasons. But Cincinnati isn’t a glamorous market, and the Bengals haven’t been much of a championship contender, which means he isn’t often perceived to be part of that elite receiver group. 

And admittedly, he hasn’t had the benefit of many moments like Sunday when it’s one play, win or lose, and he comes up with the ball in the end zone to cap off a 16-play, 75-yard game winning drive.

“It’s a roller-coaster league, man,” Green said. “I’ve never been in a part of a game like that where we came out on top. But it was fun, man. Nobody flinched.”

It was even more fun for Green to do it here in Atlanta, close to where he went to college at Georgia, but a visiting venue he had never been to as an NFL player. He said he even spotted some fans wearing the Bulldogs’ No. 8, the jersey he had in college. 

“I have a lot of fans here,” Green said. “They might be Falcon fans, but they’re A.J. Green fans because Georgia is the biggest thing here. But it’s fun to come here. I had a lot of family here, so it was definitely fun.”

What’s even more fun now, as Green tries to match some of his statistics with a level of playoff success to ensure his future Hall of Fame entry, is that he has an emerging No. 2 receiver alongside him in Tyler Boyd. With so much attention focused on Green, who finished with four catches and 78 yards, quarterback Andy Dalton targeted Boyd 15 times and hit him for 11 receptions, including four on the final drive. 

Boyd, a third-year pro out of Pitt, has already surpassed last year’s total of 22 catches and is a big reason why Cincinnati’s offense has scored 30-plus points in three of its four games this year.

“It keeps the defense honest,” Green said. “If they want to double me, Tyler will eat all day. It’s all about the team first. The way he’s playing, you’ve seen him grow up from a boy to a man these last three years and it’s really amazing to watch.”

With Dalton’s return to form early this season, Cincinnati is looking like a sneaky contender in the AFC – and winning road games like Sunday is a huge part of it. The Bengals may have some defensive concerns after yielding 495 yards to the Falcons, but the grit and patience they showed to methodically march down the field, converting a fourth-and-8 and fourth-and-6 before finally unlocking Green for the game-winner, is a good sign going forward. 

“It’s like a boxing match,” Green said. “You’ve got to jab and move and when the face opens up, you’ve got to take the right knockout punch. That’s what we did.”

One catch in an early-season game isn’t going to change the trajectory of Green’s career or suddenly launch him to a different level of stardom. But a few more like that and his Hall of Fame guarantee won’t look so outlandish. 

 

 

 

 

 

Trade negotiators for the US and Canada are putting the finishing touches on a deal to reshape the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, Sunday evening. The agreement would seal the largest trade-deal rewrite of President Donald Trump’s tenure.

The agreement, which should come just hours before a deadline set by the Trump administration, will pave the way for a vote in Congress to approve the deal after more than a year of negotiations among the US, Canada, and Mexico over the trilateral agreement.

Negotiators for the US and Canada were able to overcome major sticking points between the two countries, including Canada’s protection of its dairy market and a system for settling trade disputes.

The dairy issue was a longtime target for Trump, who insisted that the high protective barriers for US dairy farmers trying to export to Canada were unfair.

On the other hand, Canada wanted to maintain Chapter 19, a key element of NAFTA that allowed countries to bring a grievance against another NAFTA member regarding unfair trade practices or tariffs. The procedure was essentially a fast-track version of the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlements but only applied to the three NAFTA members.

The agreement also comes after the US and Mexico came to a separate handshake deal that strengthened rules around auto production in August. The Trump administration repeatedly threatened to move forward with the bilateral deal, excluding Canada.

(Read more: Here are all the details of the US-Mexico trade agreement»)

The new NAFTA deal also came on the last day before a Trump-imposed deadline to reach an agreement. Trump is renegotiating NAFTA under what is known as Trade Promotion Authority. While TPA gives Trump the ability to send a deal to Congress for a simple majority vote, it also includes a statutory 60 day notification period.

The timeline of the notification period has provided urgency to spearhead a NAFTA deal through Congress and onto the desk of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto before President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes over in December. While López Obrador did have representatives present during the US-Mexico talks, there was concern about possible political upheaval around the changeover that could force more talks.

The deal appears to be a victory for both sides. On the one hand, Trump is able to fulfill a rewrite of a deal he once called the “worst trade deal ever made.” On the other, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau preserves a deal that Trump repeatedly threatened to scarp altogether.

In addition to opening the door for a NAFTA rewrite, the deal could also ease trade tensions between the US and Canada over Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs.

Trump announced that the US would impose a 25% tariff on imports of Canadian steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum in June, which in turn prompted Canada to respond with retaliatory tariffs on a slew of US products in July.

SPOILER ALERT: Read on only if you have already watched Sunday’s “…I Lose”  season 4 finale of Fear the Walking Dead.

There was a sickening feeling about Sunday’s season finale of Fear the Walking Dead, and it came from a bunch of poisoned water bottles courtesy of the Filthy Woman (a.k.a. Martha). That put our group of survivors at the truck depot down, but not out. Morgan raced to the rescue with the only thing that could save them: beer. Lots and lots of beer. That undid the deadly effects of the anti-freeze and brought the group back from the brink.

After going back and putting zombie Martha down, Morgan had yet another change of heart. Instead of taking his group to Alexandria, he brought them to a denim factory to continue Polar Bear’s work. But not just to deliver boxes, but to build something bigger (as Alicia said) and to find people (from Al’s tapes). That sets the stage for season 5 of the show. We spoke to showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg about everything that went down in the finale, and what to expect when the show returns in 2019.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Before we get into some of the heavier stuff, you have this moment early in the episode where Morgan is telling the group about Alexandria and the other places like it, and Al asks about “the king and the pet tiger.” How much fun is it to throw in these little references to the other show from time to time?

IAN GOLDBERG: It’s a blast. Andrew and I are huge fans of The Walking Dead universe and so any opportunity we can get to reference The Walking Dead and the shared universe is pretty exciting.

ANDREW CHAMBLISS: I’d say the other thing that we enjoyed about that moment was it was really a callback to that interview that Morgan gave to Al in the season 4 premiere, and it was really kind of all about showing how this group has come full circle and come together in a way we probably never would’ve expected in that episode.

So much of this episode was the Martha-Morgan stuff and I want to approach this from both sides. Let’s start with the Martha side. Why was she so obsessed with Morgan? What was it that she saw in his video that made her really focus in so much on this guy?

ANDREW CHAMBLISS: I think it boils down to the fact that really Martha and Morgan are two sides of the same coin. Martha is almost the cautionary tale of what could have happened to Morgan. And they need to be honest. Morgan has been in a place very similar to her when he’s been in his “Clear” days. And if it had not been for Eastman pulling him out of that, if it had not been for John Dorie stopping him when he was on his trek across the country, Morgan very well could have ended up like Martha. And I think Martha recognizes that. And I think, deep down, even though she’s always saying, “Helping people makes you weak”, she just wants to be strong in killing, and strong; and walkers are strong because they kill.

I think part of the fascination with Morgan on her part, may be from the fact that Morgan was in a similar place to her and he somehow came out of it. Maybe that scares Martha, because I think she’s in such a dark place she doesn’t think she’s strong enough to get out of it.

IAN GOLDBERG: I think you see from the beginning of the episode that Martha is baiting Morgan to come back. She knows that he will come back to help her. She’s seen how dedicated he and the rest of the group are to helping people. So Martha is essentially setting a trap for Morgan from the beginning. And she’s got one goal, which is to make Morgan strong. The way that she wants to do that is either by making him kill her or letting her turn and turning him into a walker. Those are the only two ways that she believes he can be strong again. And it puts Morgan in a very difficult position.

Why does she finally open up now about what happened to her husband? And why does she pick Morgan as the guy to tell this to?

IAN GOLDBERG: In terms of why she opens up and tells him about her past, I think there is part of Martha that is incredibly damaged and emotionally wounded and there is a part of her when she’s in the back of that police car that is genuinely unburdening herself to Morgan. But I think at the end of the day, it’s all part of her plan to trap Morgan and to keep him from getting back to his friends.

Let’s flip it and let’s take a look at the other side and why Morgan feels this burning need to go and help Martha constantly. And I ask that because the two of them actually kind of argue at one point about his real motivations for coming to find her. He says it’s one thing, she says it’s another.

ANDREW CHAMBLISS: If you were to ask Morgan why he’s going after her, it’s what he says to John Dorie in that scene where he’s leaving the camp, and it’s the fact that he has been in a place like that and he had someone who helped pull him out. But you know, it’s kind of an interesting moment between the two of them because John Dorie calls Morgan out and says, “Are you going to help her because you really want to help her? Or are you just using this as an excuse so you can leave this group that you’ve grown close to because it scares you?” So, you know, I think Dorie’s probably right, Morgan’s probably right.

It’s very much kind of a gray area. But ultimately, I think Morgan’s reason for going to Martha is almost like a test for himself. If he can save Martha, then he may think he can be saved. He won’t go to a dark place again. So yeah, it’s a complicated fascination that he has with her on his end. And ultimately we see, when the two of them get together, it doesn’t really turn out all that well.

You all dropped a clue a few weeks back about the poisoned water. Where did you come up with this idea that this would be the thing that would put the group in such jeopardy?

 IAN GOLDBERG: Well, I think we’ve seen, as we come to know Martha with the back half, that she has a real beef with anyone who’s trying to help other people. Obviously we’ve seen that with Morgan and his group, but the other group that that was very much directed at was Polar Bear and his group of truckers.

We saw in episode 414 how far she was willing to go to kill those truckers. And she was hunting down Polar Bear to kill him too, and she was not successful in doing that. But, any chance that she has to tarnish Polar Bears legacy, to make people realize that helping is weak, she takes it. And we saw her do that in episode 412 when she was putting tainted water in the water bottles that ultimately made Al sick. And that’s what she did here. We saw that she put antifreeze in the bottles of water at one of Polar Bear’s truck stops. It was really her way of making a statement about what happens when you try and help people.

There’s no better way to show that helping people makes you weak than putting antifreeze in the water. It’s a pretty sick thing to do, but in her twisted view of the world, it makes perfect sense to Martha.

What about that last hurrah, where the group makes this big last push to get the ethanol out of the truck? We see their strength, and their resilience, and then you pull the rug out from underneath them, and it doesn’t work. That’s a pretty big high and low you served up there, and you totally had me fooled. I thought that was going to be their big triumphant moment, but it didn’t end that way.

 ANDREW CHAMBLISS: Well, if we got you, then we did our job. Really, our whole desire there was to make it feel like this was the moment in the finale where everyone was going to band together as a group, even though they’re physically in terrible shape, and make things right by having a big fight with walkers. But then, we wanted to bring the audience to a place of feeling that hope and then kind of, as you said, pull the rug out from under the audience.

That was all about what we’ve been doing all season, about contrasting hope and hopelessness. And we wanted to put our characters into what seemed like one of the most hopeless places they’ve been and have Morgan on the other end of that, thinking he’s going to lose everyone. It’s the ultimate test for him to see if he could hike through that and finally conquer his fear about losing people, making him lose himself. It was really all about putting the audience in the same place that Morgan and the rest of our characters were.

Okay, let’s close the book on the Filthy Woman here. We see her walking down the street as a zombie here at the end. She’s left an arm behind. Morgan finishes her off. How’d she get out of those handcuffs?

IAN GOLDBERG: She wanted to get out very badly and she cut her own arm off. And she used the same instrument to do that as she did to carve the word “Strong” into her forehead. It wasn’t enough to have just a marker. She wanted that to be there for all time. I think that’s a pretty tragic moment for Morgan and for Martha because we’ve just seen Morgan at the truck stop wipe the words off his face that Martha put there, “I lose people. I lose myself,” and that’s sort of symbolic of Morgan coming unstuck. He’s moved past that trauma. He’s no longer stuck in that place.

Martha, as we see, she’s carved “Strong” onto her forehead. She’s become a walker. That was what her vision of being strong was. She never became unstuck and I think that’s the tragedy. But it’s ultimately what compels Morgan, we see in the next scene, to make the decision to stay here and to not go back to Alexandria. Because Martha is an example of someone who needed help a long time ago and no one stopped to help her, and as a result, she became stuck in the trauma that got her in that place to begin with. She became violent, dark, and it didn’t have to go that way. And so they’re staying behind and mobilizing behind their new mission of help to make sure they do everything they can not to have anymore Marthas.

Let’s pick up with what Ian was just saying there with what happens at the end. Morgan sells the group on this idea of staying at the denim factory and continuing Polar Bear’s work with the boxes and what have you. But what I want to ask you about is what the others add on to that. Morgan says, “Let’s get these boxes out there”, and Alicia says, “We’ve got to build this into something more like my mom did”, and Al says, “Hey, maybe we can find those people on those tapes.” So, moving forward now, into season 5, what is it that this group is envisioning here? What are they trying to build?

ANDREW GOLDBERG: I think we get a little bit of a taste of what they’re doing at the very end when we see that convoy go out looking for people. That’s very much is going to be what their mission is going forward. It was very important for us that it wasn’t just Morgan’s idea, that the whole entire group was invested in it. And that’s why we did have that moment where Alicia said they need to keep Madison’s philosophy alive and where Al talked about finding people on the tapes. Even where Luciana invoked Polar Bear when she convinced Sarah and Wendell that they should be a part of this.

It was really about bringing all of our characters’ journeys over the course of the season together and making the synthesis of that into the mission going forward. You know, that being said, while the group sets out at the end of this episode bright tailed and bushy eyed, filled with hope, thinking they’re going to help people, what we want to explore in season 5 is just how difficult that might be in this world. Because of external obstacles, but also because of internal obstacles. These are characters who still have a lot of work to do on themselves. We’ve seen everyone change a lot over this season, but that doesn’t mean that they’re past all the trauma that they’ve been through.

Do you see this factory being a home base of operations we’re going to spend a lot of time at in season 5 or are we going to be out on the road a lot like we were in this back half of season 4?

IAN GOLDBERG: It’ll be a little bit of both. What we see at the end of the season here is that their mission is to go out into the world and help people. They will be using Al’s tapes as a guide to find those people. They’ll find some other people along the way, but they’ll also realize that, as Strand said, finding people won’t be easy. They are in short supply. So, they have a strong mission that their rallying behind but who knows what obstacles they’ll hit on the way to do that, and what inhabiting the river mill will look like with the new purpose?

I’ve know that Scott Gimple, who works with you guys on Fear The Walking Dead, likes to think of The Walking Dead in half-season chunks, and it certainly felt like this season of Fear was like that as the two half-seasons were very distinct from each other. Do you see that moving forward again? Or do you see more of a through-line in terms of this whole direction for season 5?

ANDREW CHAMBLISS: That’s a good question and I think the best way to answer it is to say that the group’s mission and their desire to help people as a way to kind of find their own redemption is something that is going to stick with them throughout season 5. But, that being said, this is a show that likes to reinvent itself every eight episodes. So I think the way the characters carry out that drive will change quite a bit over the course of the season.

For more Fear the Walking Dead scoop, follow Dalton on Twitter @DaltonRoss.  

Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story had the wrong name for the Cubs third baseman. He is Kris Bryant. 

CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs have played in much more critical games, with more on the line than a division tiebreaker and the safety net of a wild-card spot, but Monday’s game promises to be be one of the most awkward of their lives. 

They’ve won 95 games, with no team in the National League having won more, and they’re forced to play a tiebreaker against a team they beat with regularity during the season, knowing a defeat could ruin their season. 

Welcome to life with the Cubbies, where their season has taken more twists and turns than a Six Flags roller coaster ride. Now, they are holding on for dear life. 

The Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers, each with lopsided victories Sunday, will play a tiebreaker game Monday (1 p.m., ET) to determine the winner of the NL Central. The winner gets home-field advantage throughout the NL playoffs, and won’t have to play again until Thursday. 

The loser has to play again Tuesday in the wild-card game against the winner of the Los Angeles Dodgers-Colorado Rockies’ tiebreaker. If the Brewers or Cubs win that wild-card game, they’ll see one another Thursday for the 21st time in a best-of-five series. The loser goes home for the winter. 

“To win 95, to do it the way we did,’’ Cubs manager Joe Maddon said, “and it’s still not enough as of today. It’s interesting that baseball is such a perfect game in some ways, but it takes 162 not to decide anything. 

“Pretty crazy stuff, it really is.’’ 

Historic. It was the first time since 1908 the Cubs entered the final game of the regular season tied for first place. That year, they beat the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds, 4-2, and won the NL pennant. 

In those days, there was no wild-card game to fall back on. 

“It’s exciting, and you know that no matter what happens,’’ Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber said, “we’re in the playoffs. It’s just that no one wants to be in that wild-card game. You want to avoid it at all costs.’’ 

The Cubs, who were 11-8 against the Brewers this season, say they’re confident they won’t have to resort to any wild-card business. They’re the ones who are used to these pressure-packed situations. They’re the ones playing in their fourth consecutive postseason, who advanced to the NLCS three years in a row and won the 2016 World Series title. 

More: Game 163! Historic day on tap as Dodgers, Rockies set for tiebreaker to decide NL West

More: Every MLB team’s regular season MVP

More: MLB playoffs schedule, bracket on road to 2018 World Series

The Brewers haven’t been to this stage since 2011, last won the pennant in 1982, and have never won the World Series. 

The Cubs, who have a league-leading 51-30 record at home, also have Brewer-killer Jose Quintana starting on normal rest. He has dominated the Brewers throughout his career, 6-2 with a 1.60 ERA, yielding a stunning .160 batting average, .225 on-base percentage and .280 slugging percentage. 

“We feel really confident playing,’’ said Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who tied his career-high with four hits in the Cubs’ 10-5 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. “We know their team really well. It’s going to be a battle. It’s been a battle all year with them. 

“Home-field advantage will be (big) for us. If we win it, we’ll be ecstatic. If we lose it, we’ve played more games in a row before. We’ll be ready to play.’’ 

The Brewers haven’t announced their starter, but the Cubs fully except their ace, Jhoulys Chacin, 15-8, 3.56 ERA, to take the mound. Chacin also has been a nightmare on Cubs’ hitters, going 2-2 with a 1.59 ERA and .185 batting average this season, with 27 strikeouts in 22 2/3 innings. 

Even more worrisome for the Cubs is the Brewers are coming to town with a fresh bullpen. They didn’t have to use their star-studded relievers in their 11-0 rout over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday, and All-Star reliever Josh Hader hasn’t pitched since last Friday. 

“I feel good about it,’’ Maddon said. “Chacin is good, we’ve done better against him more recently. They got Hader in their back pocket, too. But it’s a different animal tomorrow. Everybody’s going to be more alert than normal. That’s all I want. Go out there, play your game. 

“We need a big start out of Q. That’s really important for us to be successful [Monday]. That’s going to be a big part of it.’’ 

The complicated aspect of Monday’s game is determining how to employ your bullpen. Certainly, each team will do everything possible to win, but must exercise caution. It would be disastrous to burn out the bullpen, and lose, knowing that you still have a game Tuesday. 

“Like today, I’m looking at our game, their game, potentially [Monday’s] game, and then the day after that’s game,’’ Maddon said. “You’re thinking about all of that in one breath. It’s really an awkward moment. It’s a difficult task. You are managing two games [at once.] 

“You really have to consider both games.’’ 

If the Cubs get off to a slow start, and find themselves facing an early deficit, don’t be surprised to see Maddon refrain from using any of his top relievers, keeping them fresh for the potential wild-card game. 

“It’s just how it all presents itself will give you an indication if you want to push the gas pedal down,’’ Maddon said, “or do you want to pump the brakes a little bit and just start thinking about the next day. It’s difficult to come back in those type of games once a team gets a stranglehold. You want to get out the blocks good. 

“If it gets more bleak, you have to consider the next day.’’ 

The way the Cubs figure it, if nothing else this year, they’ve proven to be resilient. They played 29 games in 30 days the final month, lost two closers in September, had disastrous seasons from free-agent starters Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood, Kris Bryant struggled with injuries, shortstop Addison Russell was placed on administrative leave and was not available last week after domestic abuse allegations by his ex-wife. Yet, here they are, refusing to go away. 

“Every year has its own story, its own different journey,” said Rizzo, who drove in his 100th run, becoming the first Cubs’ left-handed hitter with 100 RBI for four seasons. “This year the roller coaster was a little more peaks and valleys than last year, and the year before. It’s not smooth sailing here. 

“You figure out ways to win as a team.” 

The Cubs know they have the inevitability of the postseason, but the anxiety of finality hovers over them, too. 

“We have been in pressure situations,” Bryant said. “We know how to handle it.’’ 

Buckle up. Monday should be an absolute doozy of a joy ride.

Follow Nightengale on Twitter @BNightengale 

 

AP
Published 8:24 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2018 | Updated 9:50 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2018

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Jon Gruden smiled as soon as Matt McCrane’s kick sailed through the uprights.

After nine years in the broadcast booth, three straight weeks of blown second-half leads and a roller-coaster game that featured three lead changes and 38 points after the start of the fourth quarter, Gruden finally won his first game in 3,591 days.

“It feels like my first win in 100 years,” he said. “It’s great to be back.”

Derek Carr threw four TD passes and a game-tying 2-point conversion with 30 seconds left in regulation to set up McCrane’s 29-yard field goal in overtime that gave the Raiders a come-from-behind 45-42 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

McCrane missed a 50-yard field goal on the opening possession of overtime in his NFL debut and a 47-yarder earlier in the game before getting another chance when Carr drove the Raiders (1-3) back down the field again after a defensive stop for the game winner with 1:46 left in the period.

“As soon as I saw it, it was an exciting feeling,” McCrane said. “I’ve been working hard. It’s something that I wanted as a kid, to play in the National Football League.”

The field goal dealt the Browns (1-2-1) another tough loss as they blew a 14-point lead in the second half and then allowed to get the game-tying TD and 2-point conversion in the final seconds of regulation to spoil Baker Mayfield’s NFL starting debut .

Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick, threw for 295 yards and two touchdowns to put Cleveland on position to win but also committed four turnovers, losing two fumbles and throwing two interceptions, including one that Gareon Conley returned 36 yards for a TD .

The Browns were seeking their first back-to-back wins since November 2014 after snapping a 19-game winless streak by beating the Jets last week.

“I’m tired of growing pains,” coach Hue Jackson said. “I think we can do those things better. Those things hadn’t reared their ugly head until now. We can do better. Baker can do better. Our offense can do better. Special teams can do better, defense can do better. So, we’ve got to play better.

Carr threw for 437 yards, Marshawn Lynch ran for 130 yards for his most productive game in four years, and Amari Cooper (128 yards) and Jared Cook (110) each topped the 100-yard mark.

The Browns broke out to a 28-14 lead midway through the third quarter only to fall behind 34-28 early in the fourth thanks in part to Mayfield losing two fumbles deep in his own territory to set up TD passes by Carr.

But the Raiders squandered a fourth-quarter lead for the second straight week, falling behind 42-34 after Mayfield’s 59-yard pass to Antonio Callaway set up Carlos Hyde’s 1-yard run and rookie Nick Chubb ran 41 yards for his second long TD of the game.

It looked as if that would decide the game when the Browns forced Carr into two incompletions from the 9 with under two minutes left to lead to a turnover on downs.

Cleveland appeared to be in position to run out the clock when Hyde converted a first down, but a replay review determined he was down just short of the marker and the Browns punted.

“That was huge,” Hyde said. “That was a chance to put the game away right there. Definitely. That was a game-changer right there.”

Carr then engineered a 53-yard touchdown drive capped by a 7-yard pass to Jared Cook with 30 seconds to play. The Raiders still needed the 2-point conversion to tie it and they got it when Jordy Nelson came down with a fade despite physical coverage by ex-Raider TJ Carrie.

Carr has 14 fourth-quarter comebacks but just two since his breakthrough season in 2016 when he did it seven times.

“It did feel like the old times,” he said. “The way we did that, it helps our team going forward to know what it takes.”

CHUBB’S RUNS

Chubb had just three carries on the day, but the first went for a 63-yard score in the second quarter and the last went for 41 yards and another TD. He finished with three carries for 105 yards.

GO FOR 2

Jackson went for a 2-point conversion twice in the first half. Mayfield’s pass to Callaway was incomplete on the first attempt before Duke Johnson ran in the second try to make it 17-7.

QUICK WHISTLE

The Raiders were upset by a quick whistle that possibly cost Lynch a long TD run. Lynch ran left and linebacker Joe Schobert tried to tackle him but Lynch appeared to spin out of it without going to the ground. He kept running for what could have been a 75-yard TD but the play was blown dead.

The Browns were hurt by a quick whistle in the fourth quarter when Carr was ruled in the grasp, negating a fumble recovery that might have resulted in a TD.

INJURIES

Browns S Terrance Mitchell left the game with a broken arm in the first half. … Raiders RT Donald Penn left in the second half with a leg injury and LF Kelechi Osemele also left with an undisclosed injury.

UP NEXT

Browns: Host Baltimore on Sunday.

Raiders: Visit Chargers on Sunday.

___

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