Hello! This episode's How Was Your Week is wonderful.

First of all, PATTON OSWALT, one of our favorite guests and friends, is back! This is always a treat. This week, Patton is here to discuss his Webbys hosting gig and how Internet Commenters have evolved from standard trolldom into conversational tangent-bringers, the importance of being comfortable with silences, and then--BAM! BOOM!--discusses two great Robin Williams movies at length: THE BIRDCAGE and WORLD'S GREATEST DAD.

Then, RETTA, who plays Donna on Parks & Recreation and is a hilarious standup, is here to talk to Julie about sexting, GIRLS, 9/11, French Guys, and why we are both worried about Ellis not returning to SMASH.

Also! Julie takes a trip to the Genius Bar and survives to tell the tale, her cat explores the "Say it with Urine" style of communication that is so very popular in that particular community, Anthony Bourdain says some crazy shit, Becky Ann Baker is awarded a well-deserved honor, and library water fountains are reconsidered in the bottled water age.

Hooray for this show!

Oh, hello! On this week's episode of How Was Your Week, Choire Sicha is here! He is one of the editors of The Awl and the author of an upcoming book you must read, plus a very good-looking person with stunning eyes who also happens to loves cats. Choire joins Julie to talk about his life story and how he ended up a gay married person after working and living in different places and doing different things and generally living an interesting life!

Then, comedian, actor, writer and DEAR FRIEND Curtis Gwinn joins Julie to talk extensively about Carl Jung, ventriloquists, horror movies, and what lessons we can learn from The Purple Rose of Cairo. It is a good talk that contains many tributaries that flow into the darker corners.

Also, Julie has a triumphant proclamation to make about Jimmy Jazz, Marilu Henner tweets the ultimate Marilu Henner thing on Mothers' Day, Michael Caine does or does not get trapped in an attic, Dark Shadows is appreciated as a modern-day Touchtone joint, and what not to say to a redhead when she tries something on at your store.

Plus: How not to be mean on the internet! Why to be concerned when Julie resorts to bed for a turkey burger and Kubrick movie marathon! Anne Heche's fillers are explored! And what would happen if Johnny Depp and Daniel Tosh played strip poker together.

A meeting of the minds and souls. And a fine show to boot!

***Please note: In this week's show, Julie mis-attributes Shipoopi as being from The Pajama Game. She is incorrect and regrets saying so: it is from The Music Man.

Fade in on a show...with a focus on Smash...

HEY GUYS! It's the first episode ever of How Was Your Smash!

On this special Extra-Sode (it's not a minisode because, bitch, it's LONG), Julie talks at length to three guests about the best television of all time, Smash! First up it's Nate Harris, and he shares his five and a half favorite moments from the show after chatting before and after the season finale about whether the show is too straight, why the term and the concept of hate-watching must be destroyed, and what the best thing to say is when somebody gives you a massive sum of money.

Then, Smash season one writer Jason Grote is here to discuss the show alongside with Vulture Smash recapper Rachel Shukert! Learn what Julia was meant to be eating in bed instead of peanut butter! How the show could have made more sense if Katherine McPhee had played Katherine McPhee instead of Karen Cartwright! And why Derek will never not be likeable.

Also! Julie asks some How Was Your Week friends/ Smash fans what their favorite moments from season one were and therefore, there are cameos in this episode from Morgan Murphy! Jackée Harry! Retta! Scott Brown! Holly Schlesinger! My Gentleman friend, Jack! And Billy Eichner.

Finally, the Smash Twitter accounts are finally discussed. An easter egg! To say nothing of the Joan Didion anecdote that takes place at Anjelica Huston's house. I know! Yikes.

Let this podcast be your star.

Oh boy, oh boy! This episode of How Was Your Week is so good, it will curl your pretty lashes.

First and foremost, Julie went with Billy Eichner to see Rita Wilson perform at Joe's Pub last night, and there is an extensive recap at the top of the show of that blessed and sacred evening of song and magic. Nora Ephron and Wendi Deng were both in the audience? I mean. I can't.

And then, there are the guests. The guests! And what guests! In time for Mothers' Day, the charming and attractive SARA SCHAEFER (You Had To Be There) is here to tell a touching, funny and insane story about the time her mom invited a homeless man to live with her family for 6 months. Learn about chicken strips, Christmas Eve and Rwanda through the prism of a man named Harold.

Then, wonderful gentleman writer WILL LEITCH (New York Magazine, Gawker, Deadspin) joins Julie for the latest installation of How Was Your Week Movie Club. This week, we discuss the sublime Fargo. Subtopics of our fun, fascinating chat include:

>Whether Tarantino's '90s blood legacy holds up with the woodchipper gag (and it IS a gag, right?)
>If Harve Presnell was indeed Fargo's high-status stand-in for the "bellowing heavy" in the Coen Bros' cabinet of archetypes
>What Lt. Columbo and Marge Gunderson have in common
>A theory about how Walter White, Carl Showalter and Jerry Lundegaard are the trinity of failed virility
>Mike Yanagita, Mike Yanagita, Mike Yanagita

Also, more details are revealed about Jimmy Jazz, including some extremely intimate details about his intimacy parts! Julie accepts her Comedy Awards defeat graciously, then goes on to renew her vow to crush absolutely everybody on her way to where she--and we--need to be! Sean Bean is discovered and considered for who he is and not who he could be! And Julie watches, then recaps, Duck Dynasty and Tanked, because there is nothing better than never leaving the house.

A show that is so wonderful, even Rita Wilson would stop singing "Angel in the Morning" to complement it!

Ahoy! The new episode of How Was Your Week is a bonanza of learning, laughter, folks & fun.

First, Broadway composer (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), songwriter and musician DAVID YAZBEK is here to discuss his stint as a writer on Late Night with David Letterman, how the scores of films influence his musical adaptations, and why he doesn't think of Patti LuPone as a diva. She's just Patti!

Then, standup comic and general delight DAMIEN LEMON (The Guy Code, Hip Hop Squares) is here to talk about his worst-ever job and the degrading hat he had to wear whist working it, the whitest event he ever got to spy on, and why he refuses to acknowledge that Kim and Kanye are a thing.

Also: Julie is very excited to share a hot new R&B track with you in its sublime and insane entirety! Donny Deutsch weighs in on the Octomom's upcoming masturbation tape and some ancient blackface history because he was asked to weigh in by the Today Show, who should be ashamed! Details about the mysterious foster cat are gradually revealed! Mario Lopez's latest shame spiral is predicted, and actualizes! And a final plea for Comedy Award votes before Sunday's ceremony.

This is a show for the ages! Not for the aging. Sorry, grandma!