To Announce That They’re No Longer Playing (Relationship) Games, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan Join Forces in the Game Show-Themed Video for “Expectations”

As the You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love universe continues to expand with each new video released in honor of one of the album’s singles, “expectations” marks a unique departure from Olivia Rodrigo’s previous two videos, “drop dead” and “stupid song.” Not just because Chappell Roan has now been added to the (re)mix, but because Rodrigo is getting more elaborate with her concepts. This game show-oriented one brought to life with some help from director Bardia Zeinali (lately best known for his work on Sabrina Carpenter videos like “Please Please Please” and “Tears”).

Taking us back with the “retro” vibe of game shows (which seemed more prevalent and popular when cash was evidently more free-flowing to give away), the opening scene of the video riffs on the TV of yore that used to tease viewers with what was on next. Thus, a preview scene shown on “Channel OR” from the upcoming program, The Big Expectations Show, features a close-up on Rodrigo’s mouth as she self-tauntingly declares, “Ooo, Olivia does remixes now.” And yes, for some, that will seem “gimmicky” since she didn’t feel obliged to do them in a pre-Charli XCX and Lorde on “Girl, so confusing” world. In fact, this particular “remix” is very reminiscent of that in the sense that nothing about the song changes musically, so much as Chappell Roan gets to add in her own verse like Lorde. However, unlike Lorde, Chappell has the chance to “queer-ify” the lyrics, gleefully telling Zane Lowe during her joint interview with Rodrigo, “Obviously, I love making things a little gay.” Though, there’s not a lot that’s gay about the video itself (well, unless one counts the presence of Aquaria as a fellow contestant), which features one of the biggest straight icons of all time, David Byrne (less of an icon, but still a, let’s say, “straight emblem” is Rodrigo and Roan’s mutual producer, Dan Nigro, who cameos toward the end of the video).  

Seeing as how Rodrigo has become rather renowned for getting her “elders” to join her onstage, Byrne has been one of the many (e.g., Robert Smith, Billy Corgan, Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks) to come up and duet with Rodrigo. In his case, it was a rendition of “Burning Down the House,” Talking Heads’ highest-charting single, during Rodrigo’s set at Governors Ball in June of 2025. Clearly, the two have kept up a friendship and rapport since then, with Byrne readily agreeing to appear in “expectations” as game show host Johnny Johnson (since “Johnny” is such a quintessential game show host name, n’est-ce pas?). And his appearance isn’t just a matter of Rodrigo “flexing” about the icons she’s made friends with over the course of her career ascension, but rather, it also speaks to the sonic landscape of “expectations,” awash in the kind of distinctly 80s New Wave sound that Talking Heads helped pioneer and perfect. Which is why, it can be argued, they’ve long been “your favorite band’s favorite band.” And talking of that Sasha Colby-by-way-of-Chappell Roan reference, Johnny Johnson is captioned with the phrase, “Your favorite host’s favorite host.”

And as Johnny asks the first of the three Olivias (for she’s playing a multitude of different contestants, courtesy of a wide array of costumes and props [not least of which is chewing gum and a lollipop]) to “tell me a little bit how you got here,” she begins to spin her tale through lyrics that recount the horrors of dating a guy that she only conceded to being with because of her erstwhile low expectations. Hell, even no expectations (the fatal mistake that so many twenty-something girls fall prey to). This told through the lens of a Wheel of Fortune-like game (minus the wheel) wherein Rodrigo, in her Vanna White role (as alluded to with the “fancy” gown she’s wearing), unveils different letters to give the contestants and audience clues about the full phrase (“A Bar in Silver Lake”). In the next segment, Hollywood X’s is a riff on Hollywood Squares as Rodrigo, now sporting a pink beret and a shirt that reads, “Adored” (another nod to the lyrics) appears in all the different squares to keep asserting that, “These days I’ve got expectations.”

So, too, does Roan, who at last materializes right after the two-minute mark (which features a glitching commercial interruption [giving the effect that someone taped the show on their VCR] with an ad for “Rodrigo & Roan”). As a contestant on Sister Squabble, which riffs on Family Feud, Roan is given her chance to dress in her signature style of “drag,” embracing her inner “80s lady” with a power blazer and short, somewhat severe hairstyle. Following Family Feud, Jeopardy! is among the other classic game shows referenced as Roan recounts her own woes (e.g., “She said she’d call me later/That was three weeks ago/Classic L.A. behavior”) before she learned to have expectations.

Though it would seem she learned how to long before Rodrigo (after all, she’s twenty-eight to Rodrigo’s twenty-three). Which is part of why the latter told Lowe of eventually getting Roan on this remix, “When I made this song, honestly, I was really inspired by kind of Chappell and the attitude and swagger that she had and so… it always felt sort of inspired by [Chappell] and [her] songwriting style.” Apparent on anthemic tracks like “Femininomenon” and “Hot to Go!” that helped Roan ascend to greater prominence after the release of 2023’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

With “expectations” now under her belt thanks to Rodrigo (indeed, this marks Roan’s first song as a “featured” artist, as well as her first and likely only musical release of 2026), she can keep laying claim to being something of a “Queen of Anthem Tracks” designed to neatly package positive messaging about a complex subject into a pop song. Which is, often, whether one likes it or not, the most effective way to make the masses feel anything like a sense of “self-worth” (hear also: Madonna’s “Express Yourself”).