Sam Brooks watched today’s NFL Super Bowl and recaps the moments that mattered.

12:30 NZ Time: Demi Lovato sings ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, seemingly live! Did you know that a lot of people lip-sync this specific gig? Including Whitney Houston, singing objectively the most famous rendition of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’! Sorry to ruin your day, everybody.

12:31–2:15: Some rehearsed field work! Have some notes on the blocking, but everybody seems to be having a good time. Good on them.

2:15:20: Okay, we’re getting right into the half-time show here – one half Shakira, one half Jennifer Lopez, one whole popstar realness. No build-up, no pregnant pauses. We’re putting Shakira onstage on a lit-up platform with 26 (twenty-six!) dancers going into ‘She Wolf’. I respect this in an athlete. Don’t lead with your best song, but with one of your top-three. (‘She Wolf’ remains the best song to include the lyric “I’m feeling a little abused like a coffee machine in a office”).

2:15:41: Just your average Latinx back-bend. Real talk: How hard did they have to work to find 26 dancers who were shorter than Shakira, who is famously 5’2? The things that the people who arrange the Super Bowl have to think about. True martyrs.

2:16:01: I’m not going to lie, there’s about a verse and chorus more of ‘She Wolf’ than I thought there would be in this half time show. Anyway, here’s Shakira, doing maybe the only dance move that your aunt could also do at a wedding.

2:16:27: Just your average Super Bowl string octet! Nothing else to see here.

2:16:40: Shakira makes this face, which is a solid A+ face, before…

2:16:51: Shakira busts out an electric guitar! Did you know that before she was a global superstar with a hit that compared her breasts to mountains, Shakira was a rockstar akin to Alanis Morissette? Go listen to her MTV Unplugged! It’s excellent. Also, small observation: It’s neat to see her include ‘Empire’ here, given that it was the fourth single off an album that wasn’t very big, but is still a great little slice of pop. I’m sure this is the kind of expert Superbowl commentary everybody expected when they clicked on this piece, huh?

2:17:24: Whoever had “Shakira will display entry-level aptitude at rope-based dance” on their Super Bowl bingo card can check it off. And congratulations to you!

2:17:36: She looks like she’s having fun!!!

2:17:59: You have to work pretty hard to get an unflattering screenshot of Shakira, but by god I did it! Anyway, this is her singing ‘Wherever, Whenever’ which, scientifically speaking, Goes Hard.

2:18:30: My god! Someone help those women up! They’ve fallen over!

Just kidding: This is what people in show business call ‘choreography’. Shakira and Jennifer Lopez are very good at it. This has been your show business education for the day.

2:18:54: They let this bespectacled, beglittered man onstage with Shakira! I wasn’t aware men were allowed at the Super Bowl. I, too, have learned something today.

2:19:25: More men! This time pretending to play trumpets! The Fraudulent Brass Section.

2:20:25: There’s a whole minute missing here, but all you missed was some men pretending to trumpet, one man rapping quite poorly, and Shakira proving that she needs her own Vegas Residency. Really, I implore you to watch the whole clip. Anyway, here’s Shakira trusting a crowd of (surely paid and vetted) strangers more than I’ve trusted anybody in my life.

https://twitter.com/NotScTop10plays/status/1224139614082031616

2:20:39: Presented without comment. On a related note: I am unavailable for comment on this, or anything else, for the rest of my life.

2:21:18: These are the faces your friends make at you when they found out you texted your ex at 3am last night.

2:21:34: Hmmm. Who’s that?

2:21:36: Why! It’s Jennifer from The Blockather!

2:22:01: Fair enough.

2:22:02: Fairer enough.

2:22:03: Fairest enough.

2:22:20: Although she may be using a walking stick here, you may be surprised to discover that Jennifer Lopez is only 50 years old! Just kidding! Not kidding about her age. She is 50 years old, but she will outlive us all, and I guarantee that she is fitter than you, the person reading this on their phone who complains that their back hurt because they woke up wrong.

2:22:38: This is what happens when I try to catch a nice shot of Jennifer Lopez, one of the world’s most beautiful women. This is basically a hate crime, and I apologize to Mrs. Lopez sincerely.

2:23:20: In which about a hundred people (I didn’t count, I already counted Shakira’s dancing and Jennifer Lopez’s years on this earth, what do you expect from a sports commentator?) assemble a strip club in about ten seconds flat.

2:23:37: Presented without comment.

2:24:24: Presented with one comment: TOUCHDOWN!!!!!

Also, if you ever needed an example of the standards that men are held to compared to women, let me illustrate with a side-by-side example. This man, whose name is not known and will never be known to me…

… is sharing a stage with this woman…

2:25:00: Anyway, they do a mash-up of ‘Booty’, J. Lo’s duet (what a use of that word!) with Iggy Azalea, her own ‘Love Don’t Cost A Thing’, and ‘Mi Gente’.

2:25:55: What Is Expected Of Men Vs. What Is Expected of Women, Exhibit Infinity.

2:26:10: On a list of my marketable skills, I include ‘Can Capture Slightly Unflattering Screenshots of the Most Beautiful Women In The World’. Anyway, J. Lo is performing ‘On The Floor’ here which, at one point, was the third most watched video ever on YouTube. Fun facts!

2:27:00: A child’s choir, including J. Lo’s daughter Emme Maribel Muñiz, sing a slowed-down version of ‘Let’s Get Loud’! I have nothing at all to say about this. Except…

2:27:15: Shakky on the drums!!!

2:27:25: Jennifer, thy name is Subtlety.

2:27:53: Earnest moment: It’s pretty cool that this year the Super Bowl showcased two of the most famous Latina women in the world coming together, backed by Latinx dancers, demonstrating that they’re some of the best performers in the world right now. That’s all! It’s nice!

2:28:03: Shakira returns to sing ‘Waka Waka’, a song you’ll have heard if you’ve ever seen a game of football on TV for the past ten years.

2:28:40: Jennifer returns to sing ‘Let’s Get Loud’ old school style. Here’s a tip if you ever need to get a party on their feet: Play this song. People will go nuts.

2:28:60: She also goes upside down, because if you could go upside down, you would too!

2:29:54: “Mucho gracias!” And to you too!

2:29:55-????: At some point, the Kansas City Chiefs score the winning goal! Good for them.