This is Twenty One Pilots in its purest form. Opener “City Walls” is a five-minute litmus test, with gigantic “oh-woah” hooks, soaring choruses, fuzzy bass tones, overdriven drums, and yes, rapping. It’s also pure fan service; the deeply ludicrous $1 million music video frequently calls back to past work and the song itself interpolates their single “Holding on to You.” It’s fascinating to hear a Christian-adjacent band reprise the words “entertain my faith” as the video depicts Clancy’s submission to a religious cult, but this isn’t the band to handle those implications.

Having once contributed to the Suicide Squad soundtrack, Pilots now convey the bubbly energy of James Gunn’s Superman reboot. You don’t need to know about the Bishops’ necromancing powers to enjoy the frenetic snowboarding-game breakbeat and maniacal vocal processing of “The Contract.” There are dumb-clever antics throughout: “Garbage” teases an uplifting “Something Just Like This” piano part before Joseph blurts out “I feel like garbage!” The song “Rawfear” speeds up on the line “never slowing down,” then abruptly returns to the original tempo—because he can’t escape the cycle. There’s hardly a breather until “Cottonwood,” a loving tribute to Joseph’s grandfather, and the meditative closer, “Intentions.” There’s also “Downstairs,” a dolled-up demo from their pre-major label days, but the vestigial self-seriousness feels out of place on an album like this.

The most engaging motif in the Pilots catalog remains Joseph’s complex relationship with his fans. On Vessel standout (give or take a reggae break) “Guns for Hands,” he felt responsible for their mental health as his own deteriorated. On Trench ballad “Neon Gravestones,” he cautioned them not to glorify his death should he one day lose his battle with depression. The tension comes to a head on Breach. Earlier this year, somebody briefly stole a kick drum from Dun’s kit at a concert, and throughout “Center Mass,” the band samples another fan’s cautionary “I really don’t think you should take that!” On “Drum Show,” seemingly in response to this fiasco, Joseph pays tribute to his burnt-out bandmate, who’s “stuck between a rock and a home, two places he does not wanna go.” When Joseph says, “This has not been interesting in a while” on “One Way,” a fundamentally earnest band fully admits to disillusionment.

Twenty One Pilots’ pure pop songs—like Scaled and Icy’s “Shy Away”—are often their best, which makes their ongoing attempts at hip-hop all the more frustrating. Joseph once gave Zane Lowe a playlist of his greatest influences, and not only was Ben Gibbard on it twice, the only rapper was Matisyahu. On Breach, they sound like they maybe gave GNX a passing listen (the call-and-response on “Center Mass” is very “Reincarnated”), but their engagement with the genre remains shallow. No one has ever sounded less convincing than Tyler “gangstas don’t cry, therefore I’m Mr. Misty Eyed” Joseph singing about “empty Uzis” on “Rawfear.” But when they get the balance right, they wind up with some of their best material to date: “Mass” starts with a suitably moody verse over a two-chord vamp and ends with a genuinely exciting double-time outro.

Right now it’s hard to imagine a cultural re-evaluation for Twenty One Pilots, the way people who grew up in the ’00s eventually gave My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park (both obvious influences) their flowers. But seeing the likes of MGK attempt a similar style without the same ambition puts the duo’s merit into perspective, and at least Pilots are thoroughly committed to their uncool niche. They’d be more respected if they did away with the rapping entirely, but that would fundamentally change what this band is and why it got this far. As for poor Clancy, he fails to break the cycle and, in a Matrix Reloaded-esque twist, the rebels must find another “Clancy” to continue the fight. It’s a surprisingly sobering ending: No one here truly transcends their limitations, but it’s only a matter of time before they try again.

J.J. McCarthy has played eight quarters in the NFL. Seven of them have been bad.

The Vikings’ fourth-quarter comeback in Week 1 was fun, but it masked the other problems that were evident from McCarthy and the offense. The McCarthy we saw from the first three quarters in the opener against the Bears showed up in Week 2. He struggled to complete passes and keep drives going. This time there was no fantastic fourth quarter rally to save the win.

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The Falcons didn’t play well on offense either but they didn’t have to. A deluge of field goals was enough for a 22-6 win against the Vikings, who had a miserable night on offense. McCarthy completed 11-of-21 passes for 158 yards, two interceptions and a fumble lost. The Vikings didn’t score a touchdown.

What looked like a fun Sunday night matchup between second-year quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and McCarthy was mostly a slog. It was a lesson that playing quarterback can still be a big challenge in a QB’s first few career starts.

The Falcons’ win was far from an instant classic. But at least it was a win for them. The Vikings have to worry that McCarthy is far behind the curve, and one good quarter didn’t erase that.

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Vikings stall in first half

McCarthy apparently isn’t a fast starter.

For the second straight week, the Vikings’ offense was poor in the first half. As he did in the opener, McCarthy threw an interception. However, the one he threw late in the first half against the Falcons wasn’t returned for a touchdown, like his pick last week against the Bears.

McCarthy was not good through three quarters of the Vikings’ Week 1 game. That was forgotten when he came alive in the fourth quarter and led the Vikings to a win, but the first half Sunday night was another troubling sign for McCarthy. He took five sacks in the first half against a team that has in recent seasons had one of the worst pass rushes in the NFL. He also bobbled a snap on a sneak on fourth-and-inches and was stopped short of the first down. McCarthy finally hit one big play, a 50-yard gain to Justin Jefferson with two seconds left to set up a field goal. The Falcons led 9-6 at halftime.

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Minnesota’s defense, as was the case last week, kept the Vikings in the game. The home crowd helped, too, disrupting the Falcons on their first drive and helping them settle for a field goal. The Falcons couldn’t get in the end zone and Drake London lost a fumble that took more points off the board. Even after the Falcons’ interception off McCarthy in Minnesota territory, all Atlanta could get out of it was a field goal.

It wasn’t a pretty first half for Minnesota. The only good news was that Penix didn’t do more for the Falcons to open up a big lead. Minnesota couldn’t take advantage, as NBC probably saw its viewership numbers drop during an uneventful game.

Falcons pull away

The game didn’t pick up much in the third quarter. The Vikings’ offense continued to stall. The Falcons still were settling for field goals. Atlanta led 12-6 after three quarters.

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The Vikings had another turnover to start the fourth quarter, when Atlanta’s Zach Harrison came unblocked on a rush and hit McCarthy, causing a fumble that the Falcons recovered at the Vikings’ 38-yard line. The Falcons settled for yet another field goal, Parker Romo’s fifth of the night.

There were no signs of life from the Vikings’ offense. Minnesota’s run game didn’t do much to take pressure off McCarthy. He didn’t look comfortable all night, either due to the pressure from the Falcons or not finding any receivers for meaningful completions. When Falcons running back Tyler Allgeier scored the game’s first touchdown with 3:22 left in the fourth quarter, it was officially a rout. At that point McCarthy had completed just nine passes and the Vikings had only 164 yards of offense.

The Vikings are 1-1, and still have time for McCarthy to improve as a passer. But it’s apparent a lot of improvement is needed.

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” won the Emmy for outstanding talk series Sunday for the first time — seven months before it goes off the air.

Colbert, accepting the award to rapturous applause and cheers from the audience inside Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater, thanked the roughly 200 “incredible professionals” who work behind the scenes of the late-night show, which CBS is canceling.

He then reflected more broadly on the legacy of “The Late Show,” saying he originally set out to do a late-night comedy series about “love” and then realized it was actually about “loss.”

“Sometimes, you only know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it. … I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America.”

“Stay strong and be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor,” Colbert added, paraphrasing the Prince song “Let’s Go Crazy.”

CBS announced in July that it would end “The Late Show” at the conclusion of its current season, which runs through May. In a statement at the time, network executives said the move was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

The other matters included the pending corporate tie-up between Paramount, CBS’ parent company, and Skydance. The merger required approval from the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission.

In the wake of the cancellation announcement, many of Colbert’s fans cried foul, arguing he was being penalized for his long history of criticizing President Donald Trump.

Colbert had also mocked Paramount for agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit from Trump, who alleged that CBS’ “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited a pre-election interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

CBS denied the president’s claim.

Colbert, in his acceptance speech, did not criticize the network he has called home since 2015.

“I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to being part of late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show,” Colbert said.

The other nominees in the talk show category this year were Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”