We got 'Beef' 🥩

Brian Truitt, USA TODAYFri, April 17, 2026 at 1:55 PM UTC

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In a more ideal world, I'd be writing this missive to the Watch Party faithful from a Las Vegas hotel room after having seen a few sweet popcorn buckets and a bunch of cool movie footage at CinemaCon. Alas, a precipitous fall has instead plunked me on the couch elevating my broken ankle.

It's these kinds of times, though, when I'm glad we've got so much to watch at home, like Season 2 of the buzzy Netflix drama "Beef" or Noah Wyle and Co. wrapping up another round of "The Pitt" for HBO Max. Or fresh films like the college comedy "Roommates" and horror mystery "Shelby Oaks" just a remote button away. Thankfully, my fingers still work and can recommend the best stuff to watch. If you're lucky enough to be upwardly mobile, movie theaters are offering the neo-Western action flick "Normal" – with Bob Odenkirk and a villainous Henry Winkler – as well as a new version of "The Mummy." (No, Brendan Fraser isn't in it. We'll get to that in a minute.)

Now on to the good stuff:

Stream 'Beef' Season 2 with Carey Mulligan vs. Oscar Isaac

Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac play a couple on the outs in Season 2 of "Beef."

The first season of Netflix's "Beef" was a binge-worthy hit with fans plus racked up a bunch of Emmy Awards pitting Ali Wong against Steven Yeun as strangers feuding after a road-rage incident. The new season stars Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny as a young couple who gets entangled with their boss (Oscar Isaac) and his wife (Carey Mulligan) after witnessing a nasty fight between the two. In her ★★★★ review, TV critic Kelly Lawler confirms the fresh "Beef" is "every bit the excruciating masterpiece the first season was."

But wait. There's more. Kelly also has a look at who's who in the new season and where you've seen them from, while my LA colleague Bryan Alexander chatted with Isaac and Mulligan about their big throwdown – "It's a blowout," Mulligan teases – as well as with Melton, who explains how he recruited his mom for an unlikely "Beef" role.

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See Henry 'The Fonz' Winkler break bad in neo-Western movie 'Normal'

Henry Winkler (center) plays the villainous mayor of a small Minnesota town with dark secrets in the action thriller "Normal."

For generations of movie and TV fans, Henry Winkler will always be the Fonz from "Happy Days." So it's odd, though still satisfying, seeing him play morally questionable characters. The neo-Western action movie "Normal" casts Bob Odenkirk as a small-town Minnesota sheriff who finds a pile of secret Japanese mafia riches and Henry Winkler is the antagonistic mayor who doesn't want things being fouled up by the lawman. "I always think, you scratch the front door of any door in America, and there is chaos just behind it," Winkler says.

We had a wide-ranging convo about his "Normal" baddie, another season of hosting "Hazardous History" and his favorite "Happy Days" stuff. "I have the lunch box that is now in the Smithsonian with a leather jacket," Winkler says. "The Fonz, he changed my life. He was fun to play."

Find out what that new 'Mummy' horror movie is all about

Katie (Natalie Grace) begins exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after her return in "Lee Cronin's The Mummy."

Back in the day, there used to be just "The Mummy," the 1932 Universal horror classic starring Boris Karloff. Then there was the 1999 Brendan Fraser outing that kicked off a whole action-adventure franchise. Then there was the 2017 Tom Cruise "Mummy" that was the beginning (and pretty much end) of the short-lived Dark Universe. And now there's "Lee Cronin's The Mummy."

So is this one connected to any of the others? My fellow horror fiend Brendan Morrow put together an explainer that digs into who exactly Lee Cronin is, if this "Mummy" ties into anything previously, and how it's more "Evil Dead" and "The Exorcist" than the OG Karloff movie. And because it's a horror film, which is cinematic catnip for teens, Brendan also wrote up a guide for what parents about the latest "Mummy."

Even more goodness to check out! -

My talented colleagues stepped up to cover CinemaCon this year: Melissa Ruggieri saw footage from the new "Spider-Man" movie and the next "Jumanji" installment, while James Powel was on hand to hear about Tom Cruise's new "Digger" look, Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," Steven Spielberg's "Disclosure Day" and another "Spaceballs."

"The Pitt" season finale is here! So after you see it, read about where all the characters wind up at the end of Season 2 plus that C-section scene.

LL Cool J returns to the "NCIS"-verse with new "New York" spinoff series.

Spoiler alert! Did you see that death on this week's episode of "Daredevil: Born Again"? It was "intensely emotional" for one Marvel star.

And if you thought politics wasn't crazy enough, somebody from "Summer House" is running for Congress.

Got thoughts, questions, ideas, concerns, compliments or maybe even some recs for me? Email [email protected] and follow me on the socials: I'm @briantruitt on Bluesky, Instagram and Threads.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What to watch this weekend – 'Beef,' 'Normal,' 'The Mummy'

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