It’s been more than 60 years since both the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild have gone on strike at the same time. Sam chats with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw about what the actors want and what the walkout will mean for Hollywood in the coming weeks and months.

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That recent scene in The Idol, the one where the intimacy coordinator gets locked in a bathroom, was fully unrealistic. So what does an intimacy coordinator do? They choreograph intimacy scenes and help filmmakers not get canceled. What do they work on besides sex? Well anything involving nudity, including bodily functions and medical procedures. What do they bring to a set? Mints, strapless underwear, and a lot of tape. Sam chats with Intimacy Coordinator Adelaide Waldrop about the misconceptions that directors, producers and the public still have about this Hollywood role, even after it first gained attention following #MeToo.

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We're about halfway into 2023... but are we into it? Sam and Jay Jurden, comedian and writer on The Problem with Jon Stewart, take stock of the year thus far in pop culture: messy celebrity breakups, songs of the summer, the expanding cinematic universe of Mattel toys and dolls, the fall of Twitter, and more.

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What better way to celebrate our nation's independence than with an episode about Miss Americana herself? We revisit our episode about Taylor Swift from the eve of her Midnights album release.

What is the meaning of Taylor Swift? She's performed damsel in distress, but represents women's empowerment. She's a confessional artist, but is careful about how much she reveals. She's an adult, but is often still viewed as the teenager she used to be. Sam dives into the mythos and craft of Taylor Swift with NPR music critic Ann Powers about her place in history among the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Adele, and Beyoncé.

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What led podcaster and Spotify executive Bill Simmons to call Prince Harry and Meghan Markle "grifters" following the news that Spotify wouldn't continue its reportedly $20 million deal with the couple? Sam asks Vulture critics Kathryn VanArendonk and Nicholas Quah whether the era of huge celebrity content deals is over.

We also get into the improbably good second season of FX's The Bear and why it's so hard to make a beloved show even better.

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Content creator and head of the Beyhive Kalen Allen is more than OK spending four thousand dollars on one ticket for Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour. 2023 feels like a big year for huge stadium tours for artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Ed Sheeran and more. But why are tickets so expensive, and how much are fans willing to put up with in order to go? Sam talks with music journalist Nate Rogers about why the touring industry might just be broken and what lawmakers and some artists are trying to do to fix it.

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Samantha Irby knows what you think about the newer characters on ‘And Just Like That.’ She writes for the ‘Sex and the City’ reboot, which addressed critiques of the original series’ whiteness by introducing new, non-white friends. Reactions were mixed over how well they pulled it off the first season, and people especially hated the over-the-top character of Che Diaz. Sam Irby insists the writers were in on the joke. In time for the show’s season 2 premiere on Max, Sam and Sam talk about whether it’s possible to pull off “DEI-ification” without it being awkward and if ‘And Just Like That’ faces special scrutiny.

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Sometimes before we have the language to describe ourselves, we have the culture in front of us to help — the movies, TV shows, and music we listened to and watched that's had a lasting impact. In honor of Pride Month, we ask three creatives about the culture that made them queer: writer, actor, and producer Lena Waithe; Tony Award-winning actor and singer Alex Newell; and writer and comedian Guy Branum. Plus, Sam shares his own story.

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The Flash is giving DC Comics its own multiverse, but its star is giving... controversy. Ezra Miller was once considered The Next Big Thing in Hollywood, but after a string of arrests and destructive behavior... where does that leave us? More importantly: Do we really need more superhero multiverses? And we chat about whether the best approach to HBO's The Idol is hate-watching it, and the mess of Netflix's The Ultimatum: Queer Love. Sam is joined by Vox senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos to get into all of it.

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Netflix broke the TV mold in 2013 with ‘House of Cards.’ Now, the streaming wars may have broken TV altogether. There’s so much stuff, a lot isn’t good, it’s confusing to find, sometimes disappears entirely, and, as the writers on strike will tell you, people making it aren’t getting paid the same as they once were. Vulture’s Josef Adalian tells Sam about how the race to compete with Netflix destroyed TV as we knew it, twisted viewers' expectations, and may lead us back to the cable bundles we thought we left behind.

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