Margo’s Got Money Troubles Trailer Is an Antidote to Our Wealth Obsession
Look, we all love to hate the rich. It’s fun to see the emptiness of the lives of the guests on The White Lotus, the cruelty of the Roy family on Succession, and Benoit Blanc speaks for us all when he chews out the privileged killers in Knives Out. But where are the movies and shows that reflect our lives?
Anyone tired of watching rich people on screen will feel relief while watching the trailer for Margo’s Got Money Troubles, at the same moment when things get stressful for the protagonist. After rifling through multiple pregnancy tests, the titular character, played by Elle Fanning, watches the total of her grocery bill get larger and larger, only to hear her debit card get declined. Even the non-pregnant among us can relate with Margo when she collapses on a store floor midway through the teaser.
The Apple TV series comes from legendary television producer David E. Kelley, who previously chronicled the lives of people under pressure by creating Ally McBeal, Boston Common, and Big Little Lies. But where many of his previous shows rarely dipped below the lower middle classes, Margo’s Got Money Troubles looks at those living gig to gig.
Based on the 2024 novel by Rufi Thorpe, Margo’s Got Money Troubles stars Fanning as a would-be writer and currently-is college student who becomes pregnant by her English professor. While her mother, a former Hooter’s waitress portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer, has her own thoughts about what her daughter should do, Margo chooses instead to reconnect with her estranged father, an ex-professional wrestler played by Nick Offerman. Thanks to her father’s advice, Margo finds success on OnlyFans, which comes with its own set of pressures.
Even 15 years ago, the premise of Margo’s Got Money Troubles would sound like a twee indie movie trying to ape Wes Anderson’s style. Only the rich could afford to let so many members of the family have idiosyncratic dreams like becoming a wrestling hero or a social media star. Most people would have to work in a factory or sling burgers at a McDonalds. But as even entry-level jobs demand several years of experience and none of them pay a living wage, regular careers are just as unrealistic as the weird ones.
If the show can capture this economic trend, then Margo’s Got Money Troubles could restore a once-important television tradition. While the first TV shows focused on upper-middle class suburbanites who could afford a television set, some of the great series of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s were all about people living modestly; shows like Sanford and Son, Roseanne, and All in the Family. Even The Simpsons and King of the Hill started out as more working-class shows, even if the world around them turned Homer and Hank into top earners.
Even better, if Margo’s Got Money Troubles can make us laugh at the character’s plight, it helps us viewers make sense of our own situation. Not only can we enjoy the relief of someone else getting denied in the checkout line, but we can start to see each other on screen, instead of just always watching the rich.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles premieres on Apple TV on April 15, 2026.
Netflix CEO Swears Under Oath That WB Movies Will Go to Theaters
Look, we here at Den of Geek know that there’s a lot going on in the world. We know that there are far more pressing things for the United States government to be dealing with than Netflix‘s plan to purchase Warner Bros. Heck, we know that the reason that Congress called co-CEO Ted Sarandos to testify has more to do with concern about the streamer becoming a monopoly if it buys Warner Bros. than it does anything to do with the future of cinemas.
But, man, are we relieved to hear Sarandos assure lawmakers that Netflix wouldn’t relegate Warner movies to phones and TVs. In fact, Sarandos invoked the weight of the situation when a congressperson asked if Netflix would commit to adhering to a 45-day theatrical window for new releases, holding them in the theater before sending them straight to streaming. “I just said I would do that under oath,” Sarandos responded (via Deadline).
Reportedly, Sarandos expressed frustration at Congress’ questions, as he has been saying for some time that Netflix would honor theatrical agreements. However, it’s also true that Sarandos has been strangely hostile towards the whole idea of going to the theater. Last year, he repeatedly described going to the theater as a type of elitist act, positioning an expensive streaming subscription, a high-quality television, and a high-speed internet connection as a more democratic option.
However, Sarandos’ comments here seem to finally put to rest our concerns. By adhering to a 45-day window, Sarandos promises that at least Warner Bros. movies will go to the theaters first. Even if they don’t play in those theaters for a full six weeks, it will take at least that long before Warner movies appear on Netflix. That wait encourages people who want to watch the newest movies to go to the theaters.
Those concerns became even more pressing in 2025. Last year, Warner Bros released some of the most celebrated movies of the year, from critical favorites such as One Battle After Another and Weapons to the DCU blockbuster Superman to Sinners, the record-breaking Oscar player that has thrilled fans and critics alike.
Each of these movies received praise from observers (including Den of Geek), but it’s the theatrical reception that many use to gauge the success of films. Superman and Sinners were undeniable hits because they pulled big box office numbers; One Battle After Another and Weapons, both great movies, have been scrutinized in part because they did not do as well in the theaters.
Even those who do not consider cinemas sacrosanct can see that movie theater attendance still matters. For that reason alone, it’s good that Netflix is committing to continuing the practice. And with Sarandos’ comments, that’s one less thing for us to worry about. Now if Congress would just start dealing with all that other stuff…
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Trailer – What Is Titan X?
The latest look at season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters gives fans of the Apple TV series everything they want. There are glimpses at all the characters introduced in the first season, including Kurt and Wyatt Russell as the older and younger versions of military man Lee Shaw, Anna Sawai as kaiju survivor Cate Randa, and Kiersey Clemons as Apex defector May Olowe-Hewitt. But the big draw for everything in Legendary Pictures‘s MonsterVerse is, of course, the monsters, and that’s where things get interesting.
Throughout the trailer, we get glimpses of the new big bad of the show, a monster previously identified as Titan X. The trailer still doesn’t fully reveal this new monster, which means we viewers can’t really identify him. We know that Titan X is even larger than King Kong and Godzilla and at least spends significant time in the sea. We also see that it has tentacles and horns, including a pair of horns on its snout.
That’s not enough to tell us for sure who Titan X might be, but it is enough to let us speculate wildly… at least until Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 arrives and secures the creature’s identity.
King Ghidorah
Titan X, of course, makes us think of Monster X aka King Ghidorah. King Ghidorah is one of the major enemy monsters across several eras of Godzilla, and has already made its presence known in the MonsterVerse, having appeared in Godzilla: King of the Monsters and played a part in the construction of Mechagodzilla in Godzilla vs. Kong. In Godzilla Final Wars, Ghidorah becomes Keizer Ghidorah, a bigger monster with horns and a bifurcated tail, all of which tracks with what we’ve seen for Titan X.
Titanus Na Kika
The shot of Titan X’s silhouette swimming through the water brings to mind another mythological monster, the mighty Kraken. Although it hasn’t had a lot of attention, a Kraken does exist in the MonsterVerse, in the form of Titanus Na Kika. Na Kika has never appeared on screen, but it was mentioned in the King of the Monsters official novelization and showed up in the prequel comic Godzilla Dominion. While those depictions mostly track with what we see in the Monarch trailers, they do describe Na Kika as one of the less aggressive Titans, making a clash with Kong unlikely.
Titanus Leviathan
As you might pick up from the description of Na Kika, MonsterVerse tends to take existing monsters from regional mythologies and work them into the universe. Such is the case with Titanus Leviathan, a variation of the creature mentioned in the Biblical book of Job. While a photo of Leviathan shows up in Kong: Skull Island, the image is just a riff on the famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster. King of the Monsters shows Leviathan’s name on a military map, and the novelization of the movie gives a little more information. But basically, all we know about Leviathan is that it’s some sort of sea monster which, you know, is exactly what we see in the trailer.
Dagahra
Godzilla is a long-running franchise that has reinvented itself time and time again, and has given the world tons of fan-favorite monsters that only true nerds know about. Case in point, Dagahra, the water-based dragon kaiju from 1997’s Rebirth of Mothra 2. Dagahra comes from the sea, has a plenty of horns, and has a large tail that could work like a tendril. That said, we don’t really see any giant wings on Titan X, and that is kind of an important part of Dagahra… Still, until we hear otherwise, we can still hope that Dagahra will show up.
Biollante
We see a lot of tentacles coming off of Titan X in that trailer, and when it comes to tentacles, nobody beats Biollante. A plant monster created by splicing Godzilla’s cells with those of flowers (and also the mad scientist’s dead daughter, because of course it is) Biollante first appeared in 1989’s Godzilla vs. Biollante and has been a favorite among fans. Biollante’s glowing center and sharp jaws do match what we see of Titan X, and the water environment would suit a giant plant monster. But it still feels like a stretch to say that Biollante is Titan X.
Sharktopus
I mean, it looks like Sharktopus, doesn’t it? And since you don’t know what Titan X is either, you can’t tell me I’m wrong. So I’m saying Sharktopus.
Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday Marketing Continues to Baffle
In the pages of Marvel Comics, Doctor Victor von Doom is a haughty villain who believes he deserves to rule the world, and he may be right. A master of both magic and science, Doom has conquered the Earth more than once, has become a god multiple times, and each time found it beneath him. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that Doom would also consider the Super Bowl, that celebration of crass Americanism, to be also beneath him.
Marvel Studios, however, doesn’t have the luxury of such selectivity. So the news that Marvel reportedly won’t be showing any trailers for Avengers: Doomsday during the Super Bowl has us all scratching our heads. The Super Bowl is easily the most watched television event of the year, and many Americans watch specifically for the commercials. Yet, Marvel has decided that they don’t need those eyeballs, which is just the latest in utterly bizarre decisions the House of Ideas has made when advertising Doomsday.
Doom Comes to Marvel
It all started with chairs. When Marvel announced the major cast members of Doomsday on March 26, 2025, we had already known that the company’s original plans had gone awry. While Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige always intended to end Phase Six with Avengers: Secret Wars, he initially planned for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty to precede it. That movie, which was to be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, was to pit Marvel’s heroes against Kang the Conqueror, the new big bad who was introduced in the first season of Loki and in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
However, between news of horrible behavior by Kang actor Jonathan Majors going public and the generally tepid response to Marvel’s offerings in Phases Four and Five, the studio drastically changed course. Not only would it bring in Marvel’s most beloved villain from the comics, replacing Kang with Doctor Doom and The Kang Dynasty with Doomsday, but it would bring back all the old favorites to do it. Infinity War and Endgame helmers Joe and Anthony Russo would direct both Doomsday and Secret Wars, and Robert Downey Jr., who seemed to leave the MCU forever when Tony Stark died, would play Victor Von Doom.
It sure seemed like Marvel was going to play it safe, fall back on all the ‘member berries from when they were the biggest thing in pop culture just a few years ago, and give the people what they want.
Marvel Takes a Seat
But the studio’s marketing for Doomsday has been anything but safe. Again, look back at the way they announced the cast: a video lasting one minute and forty-seven seconds, featuring nothing but actors’ names on the back of chairs (plus an appearance by Downey Jr.), stretched out over several hours.
Just as strange have been the actual trailers that have been released for Doomsday. Three trailers, each attached to a Thursday showing of Avatar: Fire and Ash, none of which dealt explicitly with the plot of the movie. The first revealed that Chris Evans was back as Steve Rogers, and that he had a son. The second reminded everyone that Thor adopted a daughter in Love and Thunder. The third promised that Professor X and Magneto would die on screen… again. And the fourth showed the Thing from the Fantastic Four paling around with Black Panther and M’Baku.
Muddying the waters even further are all of the reports coming from the set, official or otherwise. The leaks from Doomsday have been particularly egregious, as all these insiders rush to YouTube and Reddit to share something they’ve heard about Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man fighting Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and plenty of AI-created photos get disseminated, leading to confusion among fans. Further, we’re hearing credible reports that the script for the movie hasn’t even been finished, and comments from actors involved with the project suggest that they don’t know the overall story, but you’ve got the Russos themselves being cryptic. It’s not just them posting a blurry “A” to Instagram; it’s also saying that the teasers are “clues” and urging fans to “pay attention.”
“Pay attention to what?,” you might ask. And you won’t get an answer.
Thus far, the ramp-up to Doomsday has been a lot of bluster with very little pay off. Marvel is acting like it did during the height of its popularity, when it could put out a middling project like Doctor Strange and people would still rush to the theaters to watch it. As the lukewarm response to even really good entries like Loki season two and Thunderbolts* has demonstrated, the general audience doesn’t have Marvel fever anymore, and they aren’t going to show up just because it has a red logo on it.
A Bad Idea from the House of Ideas
Marvel’s hubris with Doomsday is particularly disheartening because they actually do have a really good entry out right now. Wonder Man has surprised critics and fans alike, and not just because it keeps its superheroics to the side. Wonder Man reminds us that we really like to watch compelling characters hanging out in a fantastic world, even if they’re just going on movie auditions, even if they’re eating shawarma.
With a cast that includes faves like Thor and Steve Rogers and big names like Doctor Doom, Avengers: Doomsday certainly could put characters back at the center of the MCU. But everything about the lead-up to Doomsday feels like Marvel’s not even bothering. It’s acting like we’re going to show up for a movie just because it’s Marvel and just because RDJ and Chris Evans are in it.
Hopefully, this is all just mishandled marketing and Doomsday will actually be a worthwhile movie. Because if the movie is trash, and they’ve refused to market it well, then Doomsday will be more dangerous to the Marvel Universe than anything that Doctor Doom could imagine.
Avengers: Doomsday releases on December 18, 2026.
New MST3K and RiffTrax Crossover Is Great News for Mike Enjoyers
When Joel Hodgson left as the host of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1993, it was a sad day for fans of the delightful comedy series he’d created, but Hodgson was quickly replaced by one of the show’s writers, Michael J. Nelson, and things moved on. Though Nelson had a different hosting style from Hodgson’s, he soon settled into the role and continued to front the show for the rest of its run, earning the respect of audiences who were initially unsure whether MST3K could continue without its original host.
Post-MST3K, Nelson has been creating audio commentary tracks for B-movies with RiffTrax, along with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, who voiced Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot in later seasons of MST3K. It’s been a successful endeavor that has been happily trucking along for 20 years, but this week Nelson announced that RiffTrax will boldly cross over with MST3K for four new, as-yet-untitled episodes called The RiffTrax Experiments.
“Getting a chance to revisit MST3K after all this time has really energized all of us at RiffTrax,” Nelson said (via Variety). “And for my part, hey, I truly did miss standing next to plastic puppets. It’s been too long.”
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments is being backed by a new Kickstarter campaign that will help RiffTrax riffers Nelson, Murphy and Corbett return to their MST3K roles, with Mary Jo Pehl also confirmed to return as Pearl Forrester. The campaign aims to raise $20,000 to fund the new episodes, but it has been emphasized that they’ll proceed regardless of whether that goal is met.
For Mike enjoyers everywhere, this upcoming MST3K–RiffTrax crossover is terrific news, but it follows a more bittersweet announcement elsewhere. Just a couple of weeks ago, it was revealed that Hodgson had sold his joint interest in MST3K to Radial Entertainment and planned to move on from his enduring creation once more.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky to spend my adult life making a living as an entertainer, and MST3K has been a big part of it,” Hodgson said in a statement. “Creating your own comedic art form like MST3K is deeply fulfilling and fun — but that doesn’t mean I’m required to work on it every day for the rest of my life. This move feels like the best way to encourage MST3K to find its future, while I find mine, including the chance to focus on some new and different projects with fewer moving parts.”
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments will be released later this year.
Wonder Man’s Doorman Gets New Solo Marvel Adventure
This article contains Wonder Man spoilers.
Marvel has decided to immediately bring back one of its most popular characters from Wonder Man: DeMarr Davis, a.k.a. Doorman. After making his first live-action appearance in the latest Disney+ series, the Great Lakes Avengers’ portal-creating hero is now starring in his own digital comic.
Doorman is one of Marvel’s more offbeat heroes, so it wasn’t too surprising to see him pop up in Wonder Man. Created in 1989 by John Byrne, he debuted in West Coast Avengers #46 as a mutant whose body could become a living portal, allowing people and objects to pass through solid matter into the Darkforce Dimension. But over time, his story evolved into something stranger: after sacrificing himself in battle, he was resurrected by Oblivion as an Angel of Death, gaining enhanced abilities.
The character’s recent leap into the MCU came through Wonder Man, where Doorman (Byron Bowers) is introduced as a struggling club doorman named DeMarr Davis, who gains his abilities through a bizarre accident involving mysterious black goo, courtesy of everyone’s favorite evil Marvel corporation, Roxxon.
In the show’s standout black-and-white episode, Doorman’s powers make him a media sensation after he rescues a group of people, including real-life actor Josh Gad, from a fire. This leads to a movie deal featuring his portal powers, but a botched stunt causes Gad to vanish into Doorman’s portal, sparking enough controversy that Hollywood institutes the “Doorman Clause,” a rule that prevents anyone with superpowers from working in film and TV.
Following his MCU debut, Doorman Infinity Comic (2026) #1 was created by Cody Ziglar and Julian Shaw (Miles Morales: Spider-Man). It’s a one-shot in which Davis tries to get a new job in tech security. Unfortunately, his portal demonstration ends up taking his potential employer on a wild tour across the Marvel Universe instead.
Doorman Infinity Comic (2026) #1 is available now exclusively on Marvel Unlimited.
New A24 Trailer Dares You to Imagine the Worst Thing Zendaya Has Ever Done
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? No one entering into a serious relationship really wants to ask that question, but it’s a necessary bit of pre-wedding honesty—and in theory fun. Furthermore, most people expect fairly banal answers, like the little annoyances that Robert Pattinson and Zendaya‘s characters admit throughout the first half of the trailer for A24’s new intentionally aloof The Drama.
But midway through the teaser footage, things take a change. The answer given by Emma Harwood, the bride-to-be played by Zendaya, is enough to shock her friends (Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim) and terrify betrothed Charlie Thompson (Pattinson), leading to a cavalcade of calamities throughout the second half of the trailer.
So what is the terrible thing that Emma did? The trailer doesn’t give us any answers, but with Kristoffer Borgli directing and Ari Aster producing, it’s bound to be something nasty., right? Right?!
After all, Aster built his reputation on documenting the most unpleasant aspects of the human psyche, whether it be the shocking deaths and ravages of grief in Hereditary and Midsommar to… that happening in “The Strange Thing About the Johnsons.” Meanwhile Norwegian-born writer/director Borgli is less well-known to American viewers than Aster, but he already has established a reputation for getting weird. His debut film, the pseudo-documentary DRIB (2017), starred Amir Asgharnejad as a comedian who almost becomes a spokesperson for an energy drink, creating all sorts of chaos in the process. Sick of Myself (2022) follows a couple in Norway who come into possession of an experimental Russian anxiety medication with horrific side effects. Most Americans first learned of Borgli though with 2023’s Dream Scenario, in which Nicolas Cage played a boring middle-aged man who starts showing up in the dreams of strangers.
In each of these films, Borgli thrusts his characters into unlikely situations and invites us to watch the unexpected turns that follow. From that information alone, we can probably guess that Emma’s confession is going to take some dark turns.
However, it’s the absence of the confession that makes the trailer for The Drama so interesting. Much of the trailer features elements that anyone would find stressful in the most banal situations. Everyone experiences anxiety over big relationship decisions, and those feelings only compound with the high stakes—and high price tags—involved in a wedding. Even if the worst thing she ever did was swipe a packet of baseball cards from a Walmart when she was 11, Emma’s confession would create tension.
The fact that The Drama looks so thrilling and funny without knowing the central plot point makes the setup incredibly compelling. We don’t know what Emma did, but we know it’s going to be bad, and we know it’s going to create a mess. So what is the worst thing you ever did? And what do you think Zendaya did to make RPatz react like that?!
The Drama hits theaters on April 3, 2026.
World’s First BioVault for Wildlife Preservation a Good Sign for What’s Turning Into a Dire Future
Is it better to hope for the best and plan for the worst, or to simply be practical… and still plan for the worst? It might be a glass all-empty sutation, but the announcement of the world’s first BioVault in Dubai that will preserve the biodiversity of endangered species from across the globe certainly appears realistic about the direction things are headed in.
Revealed by the UAE government and Colossal Biosciences out of the World Governments Summit—the 13-year-old international event held in Dubai every February—the Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab will be housed permanently at Dubai’s Museum of the Future, beginning this year. The revelation is the culmination of a nine-figure-investment into the first of its kind BioVault, which will be devoted specifically to protecting the biodiversity of species potentially on the brink of collapse.
The directive is of major important to the UAE government, with Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum reportedly directing the investment into both the BioVault and accompanying educational opportunities the lab will facilitate. Located in the Museum of the Future—a kind of permanent world’s fair installation where researchers, scientists, technologists, and otherwise self-described futurists put up exhibits each February—the laboratory will be both a research center and presumable tourist attraction in which children will be encouraged to make field trips.
The bottom line, though, is that the BioVault will preserve living cell lines and genetic data from endangered species with the aim of preventing the type of genetic hegemony that is threatening animals on the cusp of vanishing like the red wolf or the white rhinoceros. It will also be part of a larger Colossal BioVault network for the Texas-based company.
Last year, Colossal got much internet attention (including right here) for announcing that it had essentially genetically engineered the return of the dire wolf of legend (or an exact genome-replica of it), but this is arguably part of its greater scientific mission which is to help living species on the edge, as well as store millions of samples from over 10,000 species in BioVaults all over the world. The first one located in Dubai will apparently be targeting what Colossal describes as the 100 most imperiled species globally and in the UAE. The facility will furthermore take advantage of advanced robotics, AI monitoring, and cryopreservation technologies.
“I believe the future belongs to those who harness technology and innovation to address our greatest challenges,” said Majed Al Mansoor, the executive director of the Museum of the Future. “By working with Colossal Biosciences, leaders in synthetic biology and conservation, we are taking a bold step to advance science that safeguards our planet, restores ecosystems, and builds a sustainable legacy for future generations. In its first year, the initiative will prioritize fieldwork and DNA research across species, laying the scientific groundwork for future biodiversity protection and conservation.”
The aims of the initiative seem undeniably prudent and even vital with some studies showing projections where nearly half of the Earth’s species going extinct by 2050 due to climate change, deforestation, overpopulation, and a litany of other manmade woes which are pushing ecosystems to their breaking point. That the technology Colossal is developing will be open-sourced is a positive sign of an attempt to prevent worst case scenarios.
Nonetheless, the fact that this seems more apropos for preserving wildlife on the brink than actually substantially addressing the above issues belies what feels like a global crisis of dithering and an inability to do big things in the 21st century on a macro scale. But maybe we can stop everything else going exactly the way of the dodo…
Arco: The Most Wondrous Animated Movie of the Year Is Finally in Theaters
If you’re not paying close attention, you might mistake Arco , the NEON-backed animated movie that keeps being nominated for awards, including at the Oscars, for any other animated movie at the multiplex. The film features a pair of misfit kids who go on an adventure that teaches them a lesson, a couple of adults voiced by famous Marvel actors, and it even has a trio of bumbling villains voiced by famous comedians.
But outside those superficial similarities, the film has nothing in common with the usual fare that Disney and DreamWorks pump out each year. Arco is a rich, beautiful family movie, one that challenges young viewers and excites the imagination in a way that films for kids rarely do anymore… so it’s kind of a relief audiences outside of the major cities and critics groups are finally seeing it.
Flying Beyond the Ordinary
A French production being distributed in North America by NEON, Arco follows two children who meet one another across time and space. Living in the fantastical world of 2932, young Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi in the English dub) wants nothing more than to fly through time like the rest of his family, but government regulations force him to wait until he’s older.
And with good reason, as demonstrated by what happens when Arco defies the rules and goes out for a test flight in his incredible rainbow suit. He tumbles through time and space to arrive in 2075, where he befriends Iris (Romy Fay). As they hide out and look for the diamond that allows him to time travel again, Iris and Arco find themselves pursued by three odd men (voiced by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, and Flea), who seem to have a scientific interest in the boy.
Director Ugo Bienvenu, who developed the script from his original drawings with Félix de Givry, animates Arco in a style that most recalls Studio Ghibli anime. The fluid flying sequences and focus on wide-eyed children brings to mind classics such as My Neighbor Totoro. There’s a sketchiness to the line work and a use of shimmering landscapes that would be familiar to anyone interested in Asian animation.
But in place of the European steampunk that works its way into Hayao Miyazaki‘s stories, Arco has the retro-future aesthetics of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. The flight costumes donned by Arco and his family recall the hoods and frocks worn by the humans in Beneath the Planet of the Apes or participants in the Carousel in Logan’s Run. The pointed glasses donned by the men pursuing Arco and Iris look like the futuristic eye wear devised by the creators of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Back to the Future Part II.
Animating Our Current Time
Yet when at its best, Arco feels of the moment, as opposed to either the future or the past. Iris’ neighborhood seems idyllic. She passes plenty of trees on her way to school, and it’s safe enough that she’s allowed to go out without parental supervision. When she starts feeling queasy in the middle of a lesson, the teacher does grumble for a bit, but allows her to go. Bath time for Iris and her brother is playful, as their guardian does impressions of cowboys and pirates to entertain them.
However, instead of being bathed by a parent or taught by an older person, Iris spends her time surrounded by robots. We learn later that most adults work in the city, and only come home to be with their children on the weekend. In the meantime, they either speak to the kids via virtual reality holograms, beaming blue, flickering versions of themselves into the living room, or through their blank-faced robots.
Iris’ primary robot, Mikki, looks like a smaller version of K-2SO from the Star Wars movie Rogue Oneand his voice often sounds like the low, machine-like rumble of most movie bots. However, when the parents (Natalie Portman, who also produces, and Mark Ruffalo) need to interact with the kids, they speak through Mikki. The result is at once uncanny and familiar to anyone who has shared intimate moments via Zoom screens and FaceTime.
Arco reflects our current reality, at once close and safe and mediated by technology. The movie makes it clear that Iris’ parents, just like the others in this reality, do care for their kids. They are involved in the lives of Iris and her brother the best they can, and they try to use what’s available to give their kids a good life. And yet, that good life requires them to submit their children to robots and to lock them behind giant glass towers, which cover each of the neighborhood houses when a threat arises in the third act.
A Different Type of Family Film
To its credit, Arco doesn’t attempt to teach the parents a lesson, ending on a false note about how grown-ups can simply drop everything and become perfect caretakers, without having to worry about jobs or their own feelings. The time-travel story does allow for Iris and Arco to have their own lessons, as the latter’s decision to fly leads to massive changes in the lives of both children. Arco‘s final act has real stakes in a way one rarely finds in modern family entertainment, bringing to mind upsetting moments from The NeverEnding Story or Time Bandits.
But that doesn’t mean that Bienvenu is interested only in traumatizing a whole new generation of kids. Even though the final part of Arco takes a surprisingly upsetting turn, there’s genuine humanity to it, one that inspires empathy among young viewers. Furthermore, it leads to a hopeful ending about struggling to make things better for later generations. That’s a theme important to any moviegoer, young or old, and one that you’ll only find in a film as rich and wonderful as Arco.
Arco is now playing in theaters across the U.S.
Ranking Every Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Most rankings are subjective, and so is this one! Ask a handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans to rank the show’s seasons, and you’ll probably get wildly different answers. Some people think the show peaked with Buffy and Angel’s tragic story arc in season 2; others find that whole thing extremely problematic. Some people love the Dawn era; others would tell you it makes them want to throw something. Everyone hates Xander – except all the times they didn’t.
So, here’s the official (but subjective) Den of Geek ranking for all of Buffy’s seven seasons. Hear us out, then feel free to head to the comments and sound off…
7. Season 7
The final season of Buffy gave us a touching ending that wrapped up the series well and promised a better future for most of the show’s characters. After battling The First Evil in its many guises, Buffy and the Scoobies turn Sunnydale into a crater and many of the Potential Slayers into real ones. For the first time in years, life also looks to be full of possibilities for Buffy, who has carried the weight of the world on her shoulders since she was originally chosen to battle dark forces. She has shifted from reactive hero to full-on general, and her actions have felt earned, even when they were uncomfortable to watch.
But unfortunately, the final season dragged at the time, and drags on rewatch. The First is underused in practice as a villain, playing with Spike, the Turok-Hans, and later Caleb as its minions, but proving no real threat beyond psychological manipulation. The Potentials also overload the show with new characters who aren’t fully fleshed out and become quickly annoying. Our faves start acting out of character, ganging up against Buffy and, in Giles’ case, making moves against Spike behind her back. There was certainly precedence for this – killing Ben, his reluctant dirty work for the Watchers Council – but it feels like retreading old ground.
There was a lot of retreading in season 7. Back to Sunnydale High, back to the beginning, looping everything full circle, but it regularly seemed like we’d been here before. The show was running out of ideas and steam, and it was almost a relief when it ended with its uplifting yet occasionally tragic finale. Certain moments are infuriating, though. Spike’s heroic death was immediately undone in Angel, and the killing of the show’s neurodivergent-coded character, Anya, in the final minutes still feels unnecessary and mean-spirited.
6. Season 1
Important elements of the show first came together in season 1, introducing our main characters and showing how they respond to wild situations that no 16-year-old should have to navigate. The “high school is hell” theme and the rubbery “monster of the week” approach landed immediately, and the Whedon-speak dialogue (now largely considered Millennial cringe) was a delight at the time.
Some of the episodes do feel quite quaint now, occasionally laughably so, especially Willow falling in love with a demon online when the technology was still in its infancy. Others have fared better. “Welcome to the Hellmouth” is still one of the best pilots ever created, and “Prophecy Girl” is one of the best finales, delivering an air-punching evolution for the show’s central character as she begins to resist expectations from those with her and against her.
Still, season 1 ultimately feels really rough around the edges because the show hadn’t hit its stride yet. The character of Xander, played by newcomer Nicholas Brendon after Ryan Reynolds turned down the role, remains particularly hard to watch as he refuses to take the hint that Buffy isn’t interested in him and ends up coming off as disturbingly possessive, which fades into the background somewhat in season 2 as the dynamics of the main characters deepen. Persistently bad editing and lighting choices also don’t help – the budget was low, and the crew was likely doing the best they could, but future seasons benefited from learning the lessons of the first, both practically and in characterization.
5. Season 5
Season 5 is a mixed bag, with an equal number of solid and utterly underwhelming episodes.
Glory is a great villain – a God who can’t be killed and who feels like a genuine threat – but the episodes where she has an impact on our gang are interspersed with some real stinkers, usually where Buffy’s little sister Dawn is in danger and screeching about how unfair everything is, but also anything with Buffy’s pathetic ex-army boyfriend Riley, who seems entirely focused on his own selfish needs even as things get worse and worse for Buffy. The Knights of Byzantium are relentlessly silly and easily dispatched in the end, so the episodes leading up to the terrific finale, where Buffy sacrifices herself to save Dawn, also prove a bit annoying to get through.
There’s some really good stuff here, though. The Spike-centric episode “Fool for Love” builds to a surprisingly touching conclusion, and his Buffybot era is truly wild, even today. The fallout from Joyce’s death in “The Body” is heartbreaking. Glory’s attack on Tara is truly upsetting. “Buffy vs. Dracula” remains an incredible monster-of-the-week episode, and the show even manages to create one of its creepiest moments ever when Joyce is resurrected and comes knocking at the door in “Forever.”
4. Season 6
“This is too high on the ranking,” I can sense some of you thinking, and that’s fair! But hear me out: I feel like Buffy season 6 got a rough deal when it first aired and has since become better regarded.
In season 6, the characters were growing up along with the show’s audience. At the time, many fans thought that Buffy’s depression after being brought back to life, and the way she had to cope with joining the adult world, was simply too glum. Much of the humor that propped up earlier seasons had lessened and was replaced by the reality of living. There were bills to pay, and Buffy had to get a humiliating minimum wage job. With no parents around, she didn’t know how to cope with things going wrong. She started sleeping with someone who wasn’t good for her, but briefly lightened the load on her emotional state. These are relatable things that come up for many people at that age. Buffy couldn’t just bounce back from being sucked out of heaven. She was forced to cope with real life, and that meant something to many viewers dealing with their own monsters. Willow’s villain arc may have also divided people, but at least the show attempted to explore addiction issues in a somewhat meaningful way, which was more than many were doing at that point.
After bringing us a “silent” episode in season 4, Buffy also delivered an incredible musical episode here, featuring catchy songs that became enduring earworms, but it’s the season’s central theme – that sometimes life will plunge you into darkness and you have to battle your own demons – that has truly lasted the test of time.
3. Season 4
Season 4 may be slightly uneven, but it’s definitely ambitious. From the groundbreaking “Hush” to the surreal “Restless,” this season is stuffed with memorable episodes that push the show beyond its comfort zone as Buffy goes to college and discovers that independence brings even greater danger. At the same time, the Scooby gang is forced into situations that lead them to bolder character arcs. Willow loses Oz but finds a new love in Tara. Xander realizes he’s going nowhere and begins a serious relationship with someone he’s not even sure he likes. With his steady librarian job over, Giles spirals into a midlife crisis fueled by boredom and the sense that he’s no longer needed.
The season also makes the U.S. military into a joke, which is either hilarious or annoying, depending on how much you love the U.S. military, I suppose. As part of the military influx, Riley’s introduction is sweet to begin with. It’s nice to couple Buffy with someone normal but not totally boring (your mileage may vary), and seeing him slowly get to grips with what’s really going on in Sunnydale and the gray areas that Buffy has to deal with is mostly compelling. The season falls flat with its big bad Adam, but there are so many highlights elsewhere that it’s hard to be too mad about it.
“Living Conditions,” where Buffy decides that her annoying roommate is evil, is hilariously relatable. The twist of “Fear, Itself” – that the demonic Gachnar is only a couple of inches tall when it finally manifests – hits every time. Jonathan’s world-altering installment “Superstar” is so stacked with fun that it’s unexpectedly hard to leave behind. Willow’s spell going awry in “Something Blue” also leads to some fantastic scenes between the cast. But it’s not all breezy stuff. In “The Harsh Light of Day,” the show tackles the possibility that not everyone you’re seduced by will treat you right, and Faith’s return in a phenomenal double bill toward the end leads to an understanding between her and Buffy that finally leaves the door open for Faith to be redeemed, a solid storyline that continues in season 7, Angel, and the comics that followed.
2. Season 2
It’s an understatement to say that season 2 was a huge step up from season 1. Darker and more emotional, season 2’s main arc is planned and executed magnificently as Buffy and Angel’s romance deepens, then implodes spectacularly when she sleeps with him and he turns evil. The Angelus arc presents Buffy with her first real moral challenge: whether to kill the man she loves and break her own heart, or find a way to save him that could lead to more and more carnage in the meantime.
The Buffy-Angel storyline never loses its momentum because season 2 mixes classic monster-of-the-week episodes with that arc exceptionally well. There are some duds for sure (stuff like “Inca Mummy Girl” and “Bad Eggs”), but we also get “Halloween,” “Ted,” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” There are also a couple of double-episode story arcs in “What’s My Line” and “Becoming” that are, quite simply, some of the best TV we’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.
Season 2 also introduces Spike and Drusilla, a fresh and massively chaotic couple whose relationship is upended when Angelus is pulled back into their orbit, where he cucks Spike into the stratosphere. Growing the cast of vampire characters was key at this point, increasing the audience’s patience for a little bloodsucking fun in one area, even while Angelus became the worst of the worst in another (the murder of Jenny Calendar is still a tough watch). Spike would go on to become one of the series’ main characters, surprising the show’s writers, and James Marsters’ performance as the Billy Idol-lookalike was so dedicated that a later storyline would even send him to therapy in real life.
1. Season 3
A tonal high point for the series, season 3 of Buffy found the perfect balance of humor, romance, and drama. It also had a great villain, a dark side of the Slayer in Faith, and a thrilling final battle that could have easily ended the whole show right there.
In Mayor Richard Wilkins III, Buffy had something new. Right up until the last episode, he was a subtle but menacing villain who played up his quirky moments as an endearing father figure to two young girls whose fathers were no longer in the picture. His urge to reinforce good in the community and his silly giggles at the most mundane things were deftly offset by the sense that nothing would stop him from ascending into a staggering demonic force. His evil plan had been coming to fruition for so long that Buffy ended up “killing” Faith just to get his attention. Though Faith’s soul seemed unsalvageable at the time, Buffy wrestled with how to deal with her until the penultimate episode. Thus, season 3 had created the perfect storm for its two Slayers, whose lawful and neutral-good tendencies shifted as they were affected by their own choices and actions, each holding a mirror up to the other until discomfort set in time and again.
Meanwhile, every Scooby got a standout episode in season 3. “The Zeppo” proved that Xander could get into trouble all by himself; “The Wish” introduced Cordelia to an even more violent alternate reality; “Doppelgangland” further forced Willow out of her shell; and Giles got his teenage kicks back in “Band Candy.” The school suicide episode “Earshot” was too close to the bone for the network following the Columbine massacre, but its upsetting storyline also remains eternally relevant.
Yes, we can all admit that the CGI on the Mayor Snake Monster has aged very poorly (and it wasn’t great at the time), but season 3 still remains the high point of the series for many Buffy fans.
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 Trailer Brings the Franchise Back to Basics
We’re all sick of Stranger Things, right? After a finale that cost more, ran longer, and disappointed far worse than several Hollywood blockbusters, we’re all a bit over the Upside Down, Vecna, and whatever the heck the Russians were doing. How did a story about weird things happening to four kids from Indiana get so out of control?
Yet, just when we thought we were out returning our Hawkins High T-shirts and WSQK mugs back to Target, Netflix pulls us back in with the trailer to Stranger Things: Tales from ’85. Set, appropriately enough, to the Naked Eyes hit “Always Something There to Remind Me,” the trailer features the main four boys, along with Eleven and Max, riding their bikes, having snowball fights, and getting into trouble, all while dealing with spooky stuff. In short, it has all the stuff we loved about Stranger Things back when it premiered in 2016.
Set between seasons 2 and 3, during the winter of its titular year, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 has plenty of familiar sights. In addition to the kids, we get bits with Hopper and Steve Harrington, the latter with immaculately rendered hair, and sights such as the Hawkins National Laboratory. Further, we get both old monsters, such as a puppy version of the Demodog, and some sort of cool-looking pumpkin creature.
Although we’re glad to see the characters, especially back when they weren’t burdened with so much lore, it’s things like the pumpkin monster that really excites us. According to Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, Tales from ’85 seeks to replicate the feel of the era’s Saturday morning cartoon shows. The smooth animation on display in the trailer certainly doesn’t match that description, but the pumpkin monster does. That creature feels like the sort of one-off beastie you’d see for a single episode of Scooby-Doo or The Real Ghostbusters (or Ghostbusters, for that matter) and never see again.
Even the show’s decision to use sound-alike voice actors instead of the original cast recalls the cartoons of 40 years ago. The fact that Lorenzo Music and Arsenio Hall were playing Venkman and Winston helped The Real Ghostbusters feel like its own thing from the movie, and that can only help Stranger Things. The cast received quite a bit of criticism toward the final seasons, as the kids clearly aged to young adulthood by the time of season 5 and some lost the natural performance abilities they showed early on.
If Tales from ’85 can distance itself from the mainline show’s later seasons and recover some of the charm of the first two seasons, then the franchise could be saved. We all fell in love with the series when it was about ’80s kids fighting monsters, not because of a dense mythology about one psychic boy who became an evil monster. Shots in the Tales from ’85 trailer showing Lucas holding Max’s hand and the kids hitting each other with snowballs are just enough to remind us that maybe we still love Stranger Things after all.
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 streams on Netflix on April 23, 2026.
Ian McKellen Hints at Massive Magneto Destruction in Avengers: Doomsday
Sir Ian McKellen will be back on the big screen in one of his most popular roles this December, as he’s set to reprise X-Men baddie Magneto once more in Avengers: Doomsday, but there’s been a veil of secrecy over the production to date, with even a teaser trailer released by Marvel and featuring McKellen as the iconic character described as a clue by the film’s directors.
Now, we may have a better idea of what Magneto will be up to when the film finally arrives, and apparently, sitting around playing chess with Patrick Stewart’s Professor X might be on the quieter side of things.
In a conversation with Jake Hamilton for Jake’s Takes, McKellen first discussed making the original X-Men movie in 2000 and recalled how many of the effects were practical compared to those in today’s movies.
“In the first film, I remember the camera behind me, my hands raised up, and as they did that, two motorcars, police cars in front of me, were raised up by cranes, and when [a signal] dropped my hands, the cars dropped,” he explained. “These were not special effects.”
It was then that McKellen added, “Nowadays, I think things will become a little bit easier. Though I did destroy New Jersey the other day. Oh, I perhaps shouldn’t have said that.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t, but the idea of Magneto taking out New Jersey in Avengers: Doomsday seems too delicious not to share. We don’t know what series of events would set that level of destruction in motion, and we also can’t confirm the safety of Dante Hicks and Randal Graves at this time. They may not have made it out alive. The Quick Stop is still open, though.
In the same interview, McKellen also discussed early X-Men conversations he had with late Marvel maestro Stan Lee, who had explained to him that the mutants were Marvel’s favorite property and appealed to readers who felt like outcasts from society.
“The demographic is young blacks, young Jews, and young gays. What an audience!” he said, agreeing that it was an audience who had to fight for civil rights. “The story becomes: how do you fight for civil rights? Do you do it Malcolm X’s way, like Magneto? Do you fight literally? Or do you try and assimilate and guide society to come round to your point of view, which is Professor X’s view – Martin Luther King’s view, perhaps.”
Following this, McKellen was asked if there was anything he learned about Magneto working on Avengers: Doomsday that hadn’t occurred to him before. “I didn’t realize how popular he was. I thought [Magneto] was the villain. But no, I think people rather like his attitude.”
Make of that what you will!
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Just Teased a Major Event in Westeros History
The following article contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 3 as well as details from the larger Targaryen family history in George R.R. Marin’sA Song of Ice and Fire canon.
The third episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is full of revelations. We learn that Aerion Targaryen is definitely the monster everyone says he is and that Ser Duncan the Tall is every inch the hero we all hoped. Most importantly, however, we learn the true identity of Dunk’s squire, Egg, who isn’t exactly the runaway stable boy he’s led everyone to believe.
No, he’s actually a Targaryen prince, the fifth child (and fourth son) of Prince Maekar, who will one day sit the Iron Throne as King Aegon V. And while his experiences with Dunk among the smallfolk help shape the ruler he’ll one day turn into, it appears that even the young Egg can’t escape the dark fortune that seems to haunt most of his family — or the hereditary madness that so often goes hand in hand with the Targaryen name. “The Squire” openly hints at the fairly tragic end awaiting young Aegon, though you likely won’t catch it if you’re not already fairly well versed in the horrors of his future.
On a walk through the jousting village, Dunk and Egg run into a fortune teller. She promises Ser Duncan the sort of generally bright fate you expect to hear from someone working the tournament grounds and hoping for tips — great success and more riches than a Lannister! But Egg’s fortune is something altogether different. “You shall be king and die in a hot fire, and worms shall feed upon your ashes,” she says. “And all who know you shall rejoice in your dying.”
Look, let’s just start by saying this is a whole lot to put on a ten-year-old kid, even for a fortune teller out to make a quick buck. But the unfortunate thing is… she’s also not wrong. At least where Egg is concerned. (You can argue about whether Dunk technically ends up being more wealthy than a Lannister, financially speaking, or just richer in terms of prestige.) Because Egg will die horribly, alongside many of the people he cares about most.
To compound the tragedy of his death further, King Aegon V actually turns out to be a pretty great ruler, as Targaryens go. Benevolent and approachable, he devotes a huge part of his reign to trying to improve the lives of the smallfolk he comes to know through squiring for Dunk, granting them new rights and protections they’ve never had before. (He spends the other half of his reign dealing with continued rebellions and his stubborn, intransigent children. Even Targaryens can’t have it all.)
But no matter how unconventional Aegon’s approach to the idea of kingship might be, he turns out to be very much like the rest of his family in one specific and very unfortunate way. Like so many Targaryens before (and after) him, he is obsessed with dragons. Aegon’s fascination with the creatures that once defined his family’s legacy doesn’t go so far as his brother Aerion’s — who literally believes he is a dragon in human form — but it’s still enough to ultimately bring about the end of his life.
The fortune teller’s prophecy in “The Squire” refers to an event that will come to be known as the Tragedy at Summerhall. The former seat of Aegon’s father, Summerhall is a castle in the Stormlands that the Targaryens often use as a vacation retreat. But in 259 AC, a catastrophic fire breaks out during a celebration to mark the birth of the king’s first great grandchild (Rhaegar, future father of Jon Snow according to the Game of Thrones TV series), leading to the deaths of, among others, King Aegon, his eldest son Prince Duncan Targaryen, and Ser Duncan the Tall, who is by this point Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
The cause of the blaze remains unknown, though it is generally accepted that it was related to Aegon’s quest to restore dragons to the Seven Kingdoms and likely involved an attempt to hatch the last of the family’s dragon eggs by sorcery, wildfire, or a combination of both. (Some say blood sacrifice was also involved.) The tragedy drastically weakens the Targaryen line and marks the beginning of the final downward spiral for the family, leaving Viserys and Daenerys as essentially the only members of their House just a few short decades later.
No one knows for sure how many people died at Summerhall, and the survivors all refuse to speak of what happened, meaning the circumstances surrounding the blaze and its aftermath are a particularly intriguing mystery that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms could provide some answers to, should the show continue long enough to include information about the horrific end of its leads’ lives. Of course, everything to do with this tragedy and Dunk and Egg’s ultimate fates is a real downer for a show that seems to be priding itself on its light touch and low-stakes plots, but this is Westeros, after all. No one gets a happy ending.
Finn Bennett’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Villain Is Just Vibing
This article contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 3 and contains details from Aerion Targaryen’s history in the larger A Song of Ice and Fire canon.
Every story in the Game of Thronesuniverse needs a good villain, and in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, that figure is Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen. The latest in a long line of Westeros bad guys we’ve met onscreen that includes everyone from Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsay Bolton to Aerion’s own distant relation, Aemond Targaryen, he may not get as much screentime as some of those who’ve come before him, but there’s no arguing that he’s pretty darn awful — and an uncomfortably prescient example of the Targaryen madness that so frequently defines various members of his family. (Including his great-grand-niece Daenerys.)
The second son of Prince Maekar, Aerion is a poster boy for the worst excesses of Targaryen power. He’s entitled, vain, unstable, and cruel for no reason other than he’s allowed to be, and has almost certainly never faced a consequence for any action in his life. Like many others in his family with no clear line to the Iron Throne, he spends most of his time being a dick for fun, whether that means purposefully injuring a jousting opponent by killing his horse or physically torturing a young woman he believes has disrespected him…by staging a puppet show with a dragon in it. And these are hardly the worst crimes committed. (Just ask his brothers, who actively hate him, and whom he seems to have regularly threatened and abused.)
Like several other notable members of his family (see also Daenerys’s brother Viserys), Aerion also happens to believe he’s not just a member of the House of the Dragon, but an actual dragon in human form. (The Targaryens may be struggling through a down period for the family brand, but at least they’ve still got the hereditary madness thing going for them.) His nickname “Brightflame” stems from this belief, bolstered by his personal preference for super dramatic heraldry and clothing, often done up in fiery colors of red and gold.
In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, we’re not given much to go on in terms of Aerion’s motivations. The reason why he’s so monstrous isn’t important as the simple fact that he is, something that presented a challenge for Finn Bennett, who plays the Targaryen prince, to convey onscreen.
“He’s kind of mentioned in Game of Thrones, the original series, as being the man who drank wildfire and thought it would turn him into a dragon, which is obviously completely insane,” Bennett tells Den of Geek. “And there are various bits online, and it’s mentioned in the books and in the novellas that he thinks he’s like a dragon in human form. I had no idea how to kind of reconcile that with something tangible onscreen. So instead of research, I just kind of wanted to curate more of a vibe, I guess.”
According to Bennett, his Aerion is the product of many hands who helped him ultimately fully realize the character.
“He’s a character who’s been built by so many people,” he says. “George Martin, obviously, for writing it. Ira [Parker, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner] for adapting it. Owen [Harris] and Sarah [Adina Smith], for directing me, Pip[pa Woods] and Lucy [McLaughlin] for doing the wig, and the people doing the costume….when you put all those pieces of the puzzle together, you really get a sense of how spiky or volatile or angry Aerion is, and that kind of makes it make sense. It was kind of a collective effort, if you will.”
Part of that effort is clearly evident in Aerion’s appearance. Bennett looks every inch the Targaryen prince onscreen, right down to the infamous armor he wears on the jousting pitch with its black scales and demonic helmet, complete with leaping metal flames. Never let it be said the Targaryens don’t have style.
“It’s very cool, isn’t it? I felt really cool,” Bennett says. “It was amazing for about the first day, and then you realize that it takes you like, 10 minutes to go pee in a suit of armor. You have to get all the belts off and then take all the gauntlets off and everything. So that got a bit old. But it was really cool. Whenever it was on and I didn’t need to pee, it [was] amazing.”
For all that Aerion is the cause of much of the chaos that will unfold through the back half of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the tournament at Ashford Meadow is hardly the most dramatic event of his personal story. He’ll spend several years in the Free Cities, fight with the Second Sons, marry his cousin Daenora Targaryen, and have a son called Maegor, a name Aerion may or may not have chosen just to be a jerk.
But his most infamous moment is almost certainly his death, brought about by drinking a cup of wildfire in the (obviously mistaken) belief it would somehow literally turn him into a dragon. Because these events take place many years from now in the show’s future, it’s unlikely we’ll see them in any detail. Unless, of course, Parker decides to do a season about the relatively tragic ends that await most of the characters we’ve met so far. And Bennett is ready to die horribly onscreen, if necessary.
“I would be lying if I said I haven’t thought about being asked to do that,” he says. “I would like to do that. I’d like to see him come back. Maybe he’s like an old man or something. That’d be fun. [Wildfire tastes like] cider, I reckon.”
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on February 22.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 3 Review — The Squire
The following contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 3.
Halfway through the first season ofA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms feels like about the right time to finally give us some backstory on the second half of the “Dunk and Egg” partnership at the center of George R.R. Martin’s series of novellas. After all, there’s only so many times we can watch this oddball kid twist himself into knots to avoid mentioning anything about his family or reacting to various staples of lower-class life as if he’s never seen them before. What I’m saying is that it’s not like the show’s been subtle about the fact that Egg isn’t precisely who he’s been claiming to be, but the revelation of who he actually is, well. That’s dramatic enough to scramble poor Dunk’s brain entirely. (And maybe everyone else’s too.)
Egg is a Targaryen. And not just any Targaryen, but one of the missing sons Prince Maekar’s been looking for since they arrived at Ashford Meadow. The episode doesn’t spell this out explicitly, but he’s actually his fourth son, Aegon, future ruler of Westeros and great-grandfather to Daenerys Targaryen. It doesn’t feel like too much of a spoiler to mention his name now, not when it’s almost certainly going to come out in the first moments of next week’s episode. Because this is the kind of revelation that changes everything.
Of course, in hindsight, it’s obvious. This twist explains not just Egg’s reticence to talk about his family in any capacity, but the nervous tension that comes over him every time a Targaryen or one of their symbols is near. It’s why he knows almost nothing about basic tasks like cooking or sewing, but plenty about the specifics of various flavors of Westerosi nobles and their family histories. It’s the reason he sometimes can’t quite grasp the social conventions that are behind the way that Dunk moves in the world. (A Targaryen, one must assume, isn’t raised with the idea that anyone is their better.) And, of course, it also explains that exceptionally weird prophecy he gets from a village fortune teller, which claims he will be king, but die horribly. (Suggestion: If you don’t already know the lore about what happens to Egg later in life? Don’t look it up.)
To his credit, however, Egg appears to be a Targaryen who’s growing up to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Baelor rather than his brother Aerion. He’s up at dawn to put himself and Dunk’s horse through their paces in the world’s most adorable training montage, hoping their combined efforts can somehow help drag their master over the victory line at the joust. He’s curious, works hard, and wants to see how the people live outside of the world he was raised in. He loves watching the tournament and seems to think he could be happy living a simple life in the Reach. Show me any other Targ (okay, maybe Rhaegar) who would ever even consider saying or doing the same. And, most importantly, Egg shows up when it matters. He runs to get help when Tanselle is attacked; he blows his cover to protect Dunk from retaliation. Genuinely, he’s a good kid. That family really doesn’t deserve him.
If you need further proof of that fact, just look to Aerion, Aegon’s older brother, who is comprised of pretty much every awful Targaryen trait you can think of, all mixed into a single arrogant and odious package. He’s cruel and vindictive, for no reason other than he’s allowed to be. He purposefully stabs Ser Humfrey Hardyng’s horse through the throat during a joust because he knows he can get away with it. He is a man who lives without fear of consequences for his behavior, whether it’s essentially crippling a fellow knight or torturing a young woman for daring to allow a papier-mache dragon to be killed as part of her puppet show. Everyone knows what kind of man he is, and precisely how he behaves.
It’s interesting, then, that “The Squire” is also the first episode in which we’ve really seen sustained pushback against the Targaryens, both individually and as a larger concept within the world of Westeros. A riot breaks out after Ser Humfrey falls, complete with commoners throwing things at a swiftly retreating Aerion. (Take a second to try to imagine anything like that ever – ever!! — happening to House of the Dragon’s Daemon. How the mighty have fallen, indeed.) Dunk, bless him, doesn’t want to believe that he killed Hardyngs’s horse on purpose, because that’s dishonorable behavior for a knight. But everyone else seems to take it pretty much as read. Apparently, that’s what we expect from a Targaryen these days: Cruelty and dishonor.
The song Egg sings at the beginning of the episode offers a pretty rough rundown of the events of the first Blackfyre Rebellion, complete with the kind of bawdy humor and mockery it’s almost guaranteed King Daeron doesn’t like. But such things are just one of many cracks in the family’s crumbling foundation. Their dragons are long dead. The threat of yet another inter-family civil war is high. And nobody seems nearly as in awe of them as they used to be.
Or, as Raymun Fossoway so colorfully puts it: “They’re incestuous aliens, Duncan. Blood magickers and tyrants who’ve burned our lands, enslaved our people, and dragged us into their wars without a mote of respect for our history or our customs. Every pale-haired brat they’ve saddled on us has been madder than the last, god knows how. The only thing a Targaryen can do for this realm is finish on his wife’s tits.”
Doesn’t sound much like a dynasty for the ages when you look at it that way, does it? Maybe Egg’s right to try to run away.
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on February 22.
A Mighty Wind Was Catherine O’Hara at Her Sweet, Silly Best
The news of Catherine O’Hara’s death at age 71 is sure to prompt fond remembrances of her work. Some will recall the outrageous characters she portrayed on the groundbreaking Canadian sketch series SCTV. Others will mention her playing tacky artist Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice or the formerly rich Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, both women adjusting (poorly) to new, more humble circumstances. And probably most people will remember her as the forgetful but loving and determined mother from Home Alone.
But O’Hara’s best and most complicated performance might also be one of her less remembered ones. In the 2003 mockumentary A Mighty Wind, O’Hara reunited with actor/director Christopher Guest and fellow SCTV/future Schitt’s Creek co-star Eugene Levy to play Mickey Crabbe, one half of a famed folk duo. While A Mighty Wind has plenty of the dry humor and absurdism that made Guest’s comedies such classics, O’Hara also brought pathos to Mickey, showing off the actress’s silly side and her sweet side.
Folk in A
Like Guest’s previous mockumentaries Waiting for Guffman (1996) and Best in Show (2000), both of which featured O’Hara, A Mighty Wind examined the idiosyncrasies of an overlooked subculture, namely the 1960s folk music scene. A Mighty Wind follows the children of a famed record producer as they try to reunite the acts from their father’s heyday for a tribute concert. The bickering Folksmen Trio—consisting of This is Spinal Tap‘s Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer—pose problems for the organizers, as do the sprawling members of the New Main Street Singers, which include an old hand played by Paul Dooley and newcomers portrayed by Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, and John Michael Higgins.
But the greatest hurdle involves Mickey Crabbe and Mitch Cohen (Levy), who recorded under the name Mitch & Mickey. Both romantic and creative partners, Mitch & Mickey were the sweethearts of the folk world, their love memorialized by the song “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.” At the climax of each performance, the two would pause the number to share a tiny kiss before playing the final chords. However, they had an awful break-up and went in radically different ways, Mickey to marriage and a suburban home and Mitch into madness, making a reunion unlikely.
When we first meet Mickey in the movie’s first act, O’Hara plays her much like the other folkie goofballs in the film. The first half of A Mighty Wind pokes fun at the intense sincerity of ’60s folk music, with its sweater-wearing players and its wholesomeness. But then, the film uncovers surprising lasciviousness among the players, such as the insults that the Folksmen shoot at each other or the New Main Street Players’ embrace of pagan rituals.
Mitch & Mickey Revisited
Mickey continues in that vein by sitting in her comfy living room and, in a Minnesotan accent that would be right at home in Fargo, sharing winsome memories about her time with Mitch. O’Hara sneaks panic into Mickey’s calm demeanor when she realizes that she’s agreed to perform the song without securing a commitment from Mitch, and that Mitch is unlikely to join. Stumbling over her words, taking quick sharp breaths to maintain her composure, Mickey starts muttering to herself about dark times around their break-up.
What follows is a series of talking heads describing Mitch’s post-break-up spiral, complete with images of album covers that show Mitch standing in a grave and looking like Charles Manson. Levy plays Mitch as a complete weirdo, who speaks his lines with tense discomfort and who constantly darts his eyes around the room.
Between the two, Levy gets the bigger and more attention-grabbing part. However, his character doesn’t work without O’Hara setting him up, preparing us for a genius and giving room for Levy to get weird. That’s true throughout the film, as when Mitch visits Mickey’s home and the two reunite for the first time in years. These moments let Levy do funny things like stare with confusion at the model trains constructed by Mickey’s husband Leonard (Jim Piddock), or ramble incoherently when trying to recall the duo’s first meeting.
Rather than simply stand aside, O’Hara finds more subtle and equally strange notes to play while portraying the “normal” one. O’Hara goes through a litany of grunts and facial tics when trying to get Leonard to stop talking about his company’s work with spastic bladders over dinner, finally declaring, in a calming mom voice, “Maybe that’s dessert talk.” She gets the punchline at the end of the first meeting story, describing in detail how Mitch stood up and strode across a concert venue to confront a rude heckler, only to end it by saying, “and he got pummeled.”
A Click At the End of the Rainbow
As much as O’Hara shows off her comedy chops with Mickey, she never stops treating the character like a real person. There’s genuine longing in her eyes when she watches Mitch tell stories about their past, and real fear as the tribute concert draws near.
That complexity all comes together during “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,” an Academy Award-nominated number written by McKean and his wife, actress Annette O’Toole. Not only does O’Hara sing the track with Levy, layering warm harmonies over his more simple, almost spoken-word delivery, but she also relays Mickey’s hesitance as they get closer to the kiss during the tribute costume.
While Levy emphasizes Mitch’s fear that Mickey won’t want to do the kiss, O’Hara underscores her character’s sadness. She lets her head fall to the side and wears a forlorn expression when they reach the pause. Right before Mickey leans in to touch Mitch’s lips, she lets out a quiet click of the tongue.
Does the click acknowledge everything that she and Mitch could have had and let slip away? Does it underscore the false premise of the entire performance, recognizing that the two of them were never the Mitch & Mickey that people loved? Does it show a reluctance for even participating in the show, a desire to return to her quiet, normal life with her husband?
The movie doesn’t tell us, and O’Hara provides no answer. She just lets it sit there right before the kiss, adding complexity to what could have been a simple moment of catharsis.
Not Just Joking
When people remember Catherine O’Hara over the next few days, they’re sure to talk about her incredible comic timing and her constant presence on our screens.
But anyone who watches her play Mickey Crabbe in A Mighty Wind will know that O’Hara wasn’t just a hilarious comedian and a proper movie star. She was also an accomplished dramatic actor, someone who could bring layers to characters that others would play as just a joke.
Brandon Sanderson to Have “Unprecedented” Control Over Apple TV Cosmere Adaptations
Apple TV is staking a claim to the entertainment world’s next big fantasy adaptation: Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. (Sometimes, dreams do come true!) The streamer has acquired the rights to Sanderson’s Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive books, two key pillars of his sprawling fictional fantasy universe, as well as some of the most popular genre titles released in recent years.
The megapopular (and wildly prolific) author has sold over 50 million books and, in the process, has built a fandom so dedicated that he managed to raise over $41 million on Kickstarter to launch four books he wrote in secret. (All while still working on his other active series! George R.R. Martin, take notes!) Sanderson has long been resistant to the idea of studios or streamers adapting his works, but clearly, Apple TV has won him over.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Apple TV is planning to turn the Mistborn series into feature films and the Stormlight Archive books into a television series. But what’s perhaps most exciting for fans is how much control Sanderson will reportedly have over the onscreen adaptations of his fictional universe. According to the THR report, the Apple TV deal “gives the author rarefied control over the screen translations, according to sources. Sanderson will be the architect of the universe, will write, produce, and consult, and have approvals.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is certainly one of the more author-friendly adaptation deals in recent memory, and gives Sanderson more ability to direct the shape of his onscreen franchise than most. (Even Martin, whose Game of Thrones books have spawned three successful HBO TV series at this point and pretty much made him a household name, has openly feuded with some of the folks in charge of his shows.)
Sanderson’s interconnected Cosmere universe currently spans more than 20 books, all united by a single creation myth (the murder of a cosmic whose power is subsequently broken into sixteen shards and spread throughout many worlds). But despite its shared foundation, the individual works within this universe are quite varied in terms of story and tone. The first Mistborn trilogy, which kicks off with The Final Empire, is essentially a heist story about a gang of thieves who want to rob an immortal emperor. Stormlight Archive boasts a much more complicated high-fantasy setting, complete with magical superstorms, Knights Radiant, and legendary monsters called Voidbringers. (You probably couldn’t turn Stormlight into a movie, is what I’m saying, and it’s a relief that Apple seems to understand that already.)
There’s no timeline set yet for when we might see any of these projects on our screens, and it will likely take years for them to be done properly. But if you’ve somehow missed out on Sanderson’s works up until this point? Now’s almost certainly the time to dive in.
Can the Rambo Prequel Return Depth to the Franchise?
Ask the average film goer to describe John Rambo, the character that Sylvester Stallone played across five films, and they’ll probably use words like “ripped,” “violent,” or “carrying a very large gun.” They probably won’t use words such as “PTSD” or “quiet,” even though those are the two best descriptors for the character’s first movie appearance, back in 1982’s First Blood. While that film certainly had its share of thrilling adventure sequences, it also had a sympathetic portrait of a man traumatized by the war in Vietnam and unable to reintegrate into society.
Those qualities were abandoned with the sequel Rambo: First Blood Part IIin 1985, giving the franchise its reputation as a jingoistic guilty pleasure. But with the upcoming prequel John Rambo, director Jalmari Helander is trying to recover the character’s more sympathetic roots.
“When I was 11, I saw First Blood for the first time, and it changed my life,” Helander said in a social media post. “Rambo wasn’t just a film to me — it stayed with me growing up and was a defining influence on why I wanted to become a filmmaker. As we begin production on the origin of John Rambo, we’re going back to the beginning. This is Rambo stripped down, raw and real — a survival story about endurance, persistence and lost innocence. It’s an honor to shape this next chapter with deep respect for the character and the legacy, and to bring audiences the start of John Rambo’s journey.”
The two most recent Rambo films, Rambo from 2008 and Rambo: Last Blood from 2019, were both stripped down and raw. But neither of them had any of the depth of the first movie, nor the depth that Helander describes, especially compared to First Blood. The first movie was a relatively small-scale affair, telling the story of how Rambo (Stallone) was simply minding his own business when the local police (lead by Brian Dennehy) decide to harass him. What follows is action set-piece after action set-piece, as Rambo uses his Special Forces skills to decimate the bully cops. But even at its most spectacular, Rambo has a grounded sadness, thanks to Stallone’s quiet, soulful performance and excellent direction by Ted Kotcheff.
John Rambo hopes to bring the title character back to that point. Noah Centineo steps into the title role, presumably to play the character during his days in Vietnam. This version will certainly have plenty of action, showing Rambo at the height of his powers. But it will likely also show the events that left him so mentally scared, leaving him the shell of a man we meet in First Blood.
If Helander and Centineo can handle those events with as much sensitivity as the 1982 film, then the character can once again stand for more than just big-screen action. The name John Rambo can also bring to mind a complex character, somebody who’s more than muscles and mayhem.
John Rambo is now in production.
Send Help Lets Rachel McAdams Go Full Bruce Campbell and it’s Amazing
This post contains light spoilers for Send Help.
Midway through Send Help, Rachel McAdams hunts a wild boar. Her character Linda Liddle lures the beast into a clearing and pounces from above, stabbing the creature with her spear. The boar bucks and charges as it fights back, continuing to drive toward Linda even after being impaled. As it rages forward, the boar spews blood and bile and foam, dousing Linda with viscera. The baptism only elates, and she greets the gore with wide, wild eyes and an open-mouthed smile.
If anyone didn’t realize that Sam Raimi-directed Send Help, the boar killing sequence would obliterate all doubt. Only the mad genius behind the Evil Dead franchise could construct a scene at once both so terrifying and so absurd. Raimi’s commitment to dread and disorder transformed his childhood friend Bruce Campbell into a B-movie legend. And with Send Help, he gets the Academy Award-nominated McAdams to unleash her inner chaos demon.
Raimi’s Helping Hand
Send Help has a delicious premise from screenwriting duo Mark Swift and Damian Shannon (Freddy vs Jason). McAdams’s Linda Liddle is the office weirdo, talented enough with numbers to be valuable to the company but too awkward to make friends. When condescending rich kid Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) inherits the company from his father, he callously denies her promised promotion but agrees to bring her on a business trip to China—provided that she can write up a report during the flight. Linda does not finish the report, in part because Bradley decides to mock her very sincere Survivor audition video and in part because the plane crashes, stranding the two of them on a deserted island.
There, Linda gets the upper hand as her much-mocked Survivor skills allow her to not only quickly make camp on the beach, but also nurse Bradley back to health. As they begin to realize that her skills—and his utter lack thereof—reverse the duo’s power dynamics, Linda and Bradley resort to increasingly disturbing tactics to keep control over one another.
While that set-up could make for a tense thriller, psychological never been Raimi’s bailiwick. From his debut The Evil Dead in 1981 through his genre-defining Spider-Man movies in the 2000s to his return to superheroes with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Raimi is all about bombastic, bloody violence—The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by way of The Three Stooges.
Raimi started his career with the ideal leading man for his vision, having grown up with Bruce Campbell in his native Michigan. The tall, handsome Campbell accepted the punishment that Raimi dished out, whether it be smashing plates on his face, spinning around while strapped to a rig, or just laughing maniacally on camera for what must have seemed like hours.
Raimi’s tried to do the same with other actors. His Spider-Man films punished Tobey Maguire more than any other on-screen version of the wall-crawler and Alison Lohman spent all of Drag Me to Hell getting sprayed with rain, saliva, and blood. But no one has come close to matching Campbell’s commitment to the Raimi vision. No one, until Rachel McAdams in Get Help.
McAdams Makes Mayhem
When we first meet Linda in Send Help, she’s a mousy office lady, as oblivious to her co-workers’ cold shoulders as she is to the globs of tuna fish stuck to her face after lunch. McAdams leans into the bit, not just by obscuring her movie star looks with frumpy sweaters and ratty hair, but also by adopting the spindly posture of an old maid and making her million-dollar-smile feel discomfiting. On the island, McAdams gradually plays the character with more confidence and even glamour, showing that Linda has found her element.
Even more impressive than the character’s transformation is the fearlessness that McAdams brings to the part. In Send Help‘s most memorable scene, Linda paralyzes Bradley and threatens to do the unthinkable to him (don’t worry, we won’t spoil it here). As she explains to Bradley the process and her rationale, Linda’s sweet Midwesterner disposition becomes unhinged, her eyes widening after every sentence and her smile holding for a few seconds too long.
Elsewhere in the movie, Linda gets to luxuriate in a waterfall and, by the end of the film, events and elements seem to transform her into one of the Deadites from Evil Dead. McAdams remains completely committed throughout, never once showing restraint or self-consciousness. Whether she’s asked to look silly or scary, beautiful or bedraggled, McAdams gives it her all.
Impressive as her performance in Send Help is, McAdams’s work as Linda is all the more amazing in light of her full filmography. McAdams broke out playing queen bee Regina George in Mean Girls and solidified her star status in The Notebook, both generational films. Since then, she’s delivered incredible performances in thrillers such as Red Eye and romantic comedies like About Time, and she earned an Academy Award nomination for playing a reporter in Spotlight. Despite more than two decades of great work on screen, audiences are still surprised when she nails comedy beats in Game Night and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga or plays the nuances in a light drama such as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Bruce Status
Beyond the gunk and ooze, the pleasure of Send Help comes from watching a perpetual victim come into her own. There’s a power fantasy element that continues throughout the movie, even as Linda goes to extremes that the average viewer would rather avoid.
About the time that Bradley concedes that he’s underestimated Linda, we viewers have the same realization about McAdams. We’ve always known that she’s a good actress, and we’ve liked her almost everything. But when she guts a pig with gooey gusto, we realize that she’s ascended to another level. Sure, McAdams has always been funny and convincing and compelling on screen. But now, she’s put in a Bruce Campbell-worthy performance in a Sam Raimi movie, and that is truly something special.
Send Help is playing in theaters worldwide.
Amazon Will Adapt a Great Crime Comic With a Very Embarrassing Title
Most comic readers prefer to get their issues from a local shop instead of a faceless retailer. But there’s one series with a title so embarrassing, so shocking, that some sheepish fans would prefer the anonymity of Amazon over the discomfort of buying in person. That series is Image Comics‘ Sex Criminals, by writer Matt Fraction and artist Chip Zdarsky.
Soon, however, Amazon is going to spread the discomfort into the world of television. Prime Video plans to adapt Sex Criminals to live action, produced by writers Emily V. Gordon and Tze Chun and actor/comedian Kumail Nanjiani, the last of whom will also appear in the show.
Sex Criminals follows a young woman named Suze, who discovered during adolescence that time stops when she climaxes, literally. As she grew into adulthood and took a quiet job as a librarian, Suze just assumed that her weird trick was hers alone. But during a one-night stand with an actor called Jon, Suze learned that her new partner had the same ability. The couple decides to make money by sneaking into bank bathrooms, getting it on, and taking money during the time-stopping afterglow. However, their actions run afoul of a group of S&M-wearing secret police, who want to punish Suze and Jon for their crimes.
The series was a critical smash, regularly appearing atop best of lists and earning a Hugo Award nomination. Sex Criminals is a true dream team comic, as both Fraction and Zdarsky have done excellent work for the big two publishers in the past. Fraction wrote the classic Iron Fist and Hawkeye series for Marvel, and is currently writing a masterpiece in the making with Batman at DC, and Zdarsky’s Daredevil run may be even better than those by Frank Miller and Brian Michael Bendis.
With Sex Criminals, the duo have something truly special, a series that fully embraces the comedy of its high concept (just check out the special covers Fraction and Zdarsky did) while also keeping focused on character development. Suze and Jon are three-dimensional, emotionally rich figures, who feel like real and compelling people, despite its absurd presence.
That combination of high concept and nuanced character makes the production team behind the Sex Criminals show so compelling. Tze Chun broke out with his 2009 Sundance drama Children of Invention, a small-scale story about immigrants from Boston. From there, he has gone on to Nanjiani on big, wacky television shows such as Gotham and Once Upon a Time…. Likewise, comedian Nanjiani and his wife Gordon made the sweet indie comedy The Big Sick 2017, and they’re both big nerds, and Nanjiani has appeared in high-profile properties such as Eternals and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Together, the trio can bring Fraction and Zdarsky’s weird adventures into the mainstream, so that everyone can learn to love Sex Criminals. And, thanks to Prime Video, they can enjoy it in the privacy of their own homes, without embarrassment.
Sex Criminals is now in pre-production.
TV Premiere Dates: 2026 Calendar
Wondering when your favorite shows are coming back and what new series you can look forward to? We’ve got you covered with the Den of Geek 2026 TV Premiere Dates Calendar, where we keep track of TV series premiere dates, return dates, and more for the year and beyond.
We’ll continue to update this page weekly as networks and streamers announce dates. A lot of these shows we’ll be watching or covering, so be sure to follow along with us!
Please note that all times are ET.
Note: These are U.S. releases. For upcoming British releases, head on over here.
DATE
SHOW
NETWORK
Monday, February 2
Below Deck Down Under Season 4 (8:00 p.m.)
Bravo
Wednesday, February 4
Is It Cake? Valentines
Netflix
Wednesday, February 4
The Muppet Show
Disney+
Thursday, February 5
Cash Queens
Netflix
Thursday, February 5
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4
Netflix
Sunday, February 8
Super Bowl LX (6 p.m.)
NBC
Sunday, February 8
The ‘Burbs
Peacock
Tuesday, February 10
Motorvalley
Netflix
Tuesday, February 10
The Artful Dodger Season 2
Hulu
Wednesday, February 11
Kohrra Season 2
Netflix
Wednesday, February 11
Lead Children
Netflix
Wednesday, February 11
Love Is Blind Season 10
Netflix
Wednesday, February 11
Cross Season 2
Prime Video
Thursday, February 12
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast
Netflix
Thursday, February 12
Millon-Follower Detective
Netflix
Thursday, February 12
FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessett
Hulu
Thursday, February 12
Can You Keep a Secret?
Paramount+
Friday, February 13
The Art of Sarah
Netflix
Friday, February 13
Museum of Innocence
Netflix
Friday, February 13
Neighbors
HBO Max
Sunday, February 15
Like Water for Chocolate Season 2 (8:00 p.m.)
HBO Max
Sunday, February 15
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Season 13 (11:00 p.m.)
HBO Max
Sunday, February 15
Dark Winds Season 4 (9:00 p.m.)
AMC
Wednesday, February 18
Being Gordon Ramsay
Netflix
Wednesday, February 18
56 Days
Prime Video
Wednesday, February 18
Wild Boys: Strangers in Town
Paramount+
Thursday, February 19
The Night Agent Season 3
Netflix
Thursday, February 19
Murder in Glitterball City (8:00 p.m.)
HBO Max
Friday, February 20
The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2
Apple TV
Friday, February 20
Strip Law
Netflix
Friday, February 20
Portobello
HBO Max
Friday, February 20
Dreaming Whilst Black Season 2
Paramount+
Monday, February 23
Paradise Season 2
Hulu
Monday, February 23
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins (8:00 p.m.)
NBC
Monday, February 23
The Voice Season 29 (9:00 p.m.)
NBC
Monday, February 23
CIA (10:00 p.m.)
CBS
Wednesday, February 25
Survivor Season 50 (8:00 p.m.)
CBS
Wednesday, February 25
Scrubs Season 10 (8:00 p.m.)
ABC
Wednesday, February 25
The Greatest Average American (9:00 p.m.)
ABC
Thursday, February 26
Bridgerton Season 4 Part 2
Netflix
Thursday, February 26
Crap Happens
Netflix
Friday, February 27
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2
Apple TV
Friday, February 27
Celebrity Jeopardy! All-Stars Season 4 (8:00 p.m.)
ABC
Sunday, March 1
Actor Awards (8:00 p.m.)
Netflix
Sunday, March 1
Y: Marshals (8:00 p.m.)
CBS
Wednesday, March 4
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2
Disney+
Wednesday, March 4
America’s Culinary Cup (9:30 p.m.)
CBS
Thursday, March 5
Ted Season 2
Peacock
Friday, March 6
Outlander Season 8
Starz
Tuesday, March 10
One Piece Season 2
Netflix
Wednesday, March 11
Scarpetta
Prime Video
Saturday, March 14
The Madisons
Paramount+
Wednesday, March 18
Invincible Season 4
Prime Video
Thursday, March 19
Steel Ball Run JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Netflix
Sunday, March 22
The Bachelorette Season 22 (8:00 p.m.)
ABC
Sunday, March 22
The Faithful (8:00 p.m.)
Fox
Sunday, March 22
The Forsytes (9:00 p.m.)
PBS
Sunday, March 22
The Count of Monte Cristo (10:00 p.m.)
PBS
Thursday, March 26
Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole
Netflix
Friday, March 27
For All Mankind Season 5
Apple TV
Friday, April 3
Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2
Apple TV
Monday, April 6
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord
Disney+
Wednesday, April 8
The Boys Season 5
Prime Video
Wednesday, April 8
The Testaments
Hulu
Sunday, April 12
The Audacity (9:00 p.m.)
AMC
Thursday, April 16
Beef Season 2
Netflix
Thursday, April 23
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85
Netflix
Wednesday, April 29
Widow’s Bay
Apple TV
Tuesday, May 12
Devil May Cry Season 2
Netflix
Friday, May 15
Berlín and the Lady with an Ermine
Netflix
Thursday, June 11
Sweet Magnolias Season 5
Netflix
Friday, June 19
Sugar Season 2
Apple TV
If we’ve forgotten a show, feel free to drop a reminder in the comment section below!
Want to know what big movies are coming out in 2026? We’ve got you covered here.
The Pitt Season 2 Episode 4 Review: First Week in July Syndrome
This article contains spoilers for THE PITT season 2 episode 4.
Near the beginning of The Pitt season 2’s fourth episode “10:00 A.M.,” deaf patient Harlow Graham (Jessica Flores) politely requests some eye contact.
“It’s okay to look at me. I don’t bite,” she says to nurse Donnie (Brandon Mendez Homer) via a hospital-provided American Sign Language interpreter. In trying to get information about Harlow’s condition, Donnie has committed a common social faux pas when communicating with the hard of hearing: he’s exclusively addressed the translator, not Ms. Graham herself.
It’s good that Harlow spoke up because I was ready to snap my fingers in Donnie’s face myself. My recognition of his accidental rudeness was not due to me being more empathetic than an emergency room nurse or having any experience communicating with deaf people but rather because I had just watched an episode of ER dealing with this exact topic.
Perhaps now is the right time to reveal that, concurrent with The Pitt‘s second season, I’ve been watching the show’s spiritual successor for the first time. While I caught a few episodes of ER here or there in my youth, I’d never actually sat down to consume all 15 seasons and 331 episodes of the hospital drama that put Noah Wyle on the map as an iconic fictional healthcare provider.
The experience of watching five seasons and counting of ER has been… a bit of a slog. Following a fresh (for its time) and creative first season, the series settles in to standard network schlock soon after, despite Wyle and company’s undeniable charms and (increasingly occasional) commitment to medical accuracy. But the watch has also produced several moments of incidental assonance with The Pitt season 2. One such moment arrives in ER season 5 episode 6 “Stuck on You” when surgeon Dr. Peter Benton speaks to deaf colleague Dr. Lisa Parks through her interpreter.
“Dr. Parks asks that when you speak to her you look directly at her so she can read your lips,” the woman cheerily tells Dr. Benton, who immediately works to correct his behavior.
“Stuck on You” premiered on November 5, 1998. Now, some 27 years later, ER doctors in Noah Wyle-starring medical dramas still need a helpful reminder now and then. Even in an environment that brings the nurse Donnies of the world into regular contact with a diverse cross-section of human beings and their medical conditions, there’s always something new to learn…even if some of your peers learned it nearly three decades ago.
Learning experiences abound in “10:00 AM” and not every doctor in the Pitt acquits themself capably. Despite his early status as the med student golden boy, Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson) commits the trauma room’s cardinal sin by hastily removing a foreign body from a living person. The foreign body in this case is a shard of glass and the living person is Vince Cole, a 23-year-old parkour artist who fell through the skylight of a floral shop. Turns out that shard of glass was load-bearing and blood immediately begins to rush out form the wound, stopped only by an impossibly cool and somehow-not-science-fiction tool that injects microscopic sponges into the human body. Of course, Ogilvie wouldn’t have even been in that situation if radiology didn’t miss the obvious foreign object in their initial scan. Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) chalks it all up to “first week in July syndrome.”
Elsewhere in the ER, our beloved Pitt-sters continue to take L after L. Santos (Isa Briones), who is already in danger of repeating her R2 year, can’t focus during an examination of a patient alongside Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden). It falls to Mel, herself distracted by her incoming deposition (“Yeah, still counting down the hours. There are five left if you were wondering,” she helpfully notes for the audience), to make the diagnosis of bulimia, which often goes unrecognized in Black female patients.
Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) has to admit defeat with patient Willow Baptiste, whose superglued shut eyelid won’t yield to any known dissolving agents. Langdon submits to further indignity when the TikTok-famous “Dr. J” the patient insists on seeing turns out to be Dr. Javadi (Shabana Azeez). Dr. J fixes the situation but the cost might be too much to bear for poor Willow. Losing one’s left eyelashes hours before hosting a Fourth of July party is one of the season’s grandest tragedies yet.
Then there’s poor med student Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) who just can’t buy a break. Moments after bemoaning her $200,000 in med school debt, Joy accidentally gets poked with one of the shards of glass porcupine-ing out of Vince Cole’s body, drawing blood and making her a patient. New nurse Emma successfully draws Joy’s blood to test for pathogens but then drops the vial, which rolls across the floor and gets shattered by a passing gurney in almost cartoonish fashion. If it weren’t for Ogilvie screwing up just minutes later to lift her spirits, this very well could have been Joy’s final hour in the Pitt.
Many of the patients in this hour languish in a liminal space between diagnosis and solution. The doctors aren’t anywhere closer to figuring out what triggered Jackson Davis’ psychosis, even if Javadi is so eager to get to the bottom of it that she summons psychiatrist Dr. Jefferson (Christopher Thornton) to question Jackson while he’s still asleep. Meanwhile, Mr. Diaz’ diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) has been resolved but his nightmare is only just now beginning due to a lack of health insurance. The poor man all but slaps his loving daughter’s phone out of her hand when she announces she made a GoFundMe page. It’s not all bad news though as the flirtatious Mr. Montrose (Michael Nouri) does get his butt pain resolved courtesy of Dr. McKay’s (Fiona Dourif) bold rectal maneuver.
Truly, the only resident of the Pitt who could be having anything close to resembling a good hour is the increasingly impressive Dr. Whitaker (Gerran Howell). Not content to chalk Mr. Jean Samba’s condition up to simple exhaustion, Whitaker runs a few more tests and gets a result so troubling he immediately starts to tremble.
“ST elevation, V7, V8, V9. It’s a posterior STEMI. Worst kind of heart attack,” Whitaker tells Samba, who immediately confirms the diagnosis by flatlining. Thankfully Whitaker got to it early enough to save the man’s life and receives a well-earned attaboy from Dr. Robby for good measure.
Amid this moment of unambiguous heroism and success, however, The Pitt also begins to lay track for Whitaker’s inevitable downfall. Whitaker’s roomie Santos reveals to Javadi that Whitaker has been hanging out with the widow of a farmer who died in the Pitt last year following injuries from a propane tank explosion. Whitaker is adamant that the woman is just a friend and he’s looking after her, her farm, and her baby.
“Sure, just a friend. With farm benefits,” Santos says. “What are farm benefits?” Javadi asks. “Ever seen a miking machine?”
We don’t need to know what Whitaker is doing on that farm or whether it involves a milking machine to understand that this is not a healthy situation for the young man. Extending one’s emergency room obligations into husbandly duties for every lost patient’s widow is a recipe for burnout at best or exploitation and litigation at worst. But the qualities that drive Whitaker to make questionable house calls are also undoubtedly the same qualities that allow him to identify the worst kind of heart attack before anyone else. Is it worth trying to change Whitaker even if it means creating a less empathetic physician? That’s a question that Dr. Robby himself has been pondering for years.
One thing is for sure on The Pitt and it’s that you just cannot win. Whether you’re a first-year resident trying to do too much or a seasoned nurse not doing enough, some dickhead on the internet is going to critique your approach.
New episodes of The Pitt season 2 premiere Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max.
Lewis Pullman Has Hope That Sentry Will Live On Past Secret Wars
Ol’ Bob Reynolds went on quite a journey in the movie Thunderbolts*. When we first met Bob, played by Lewis Pullman, he was a gangly regular guy stuck in the middle of a firefight between Black Widow, U.S. Agent, and other heroes. Midway through the movie, Bob reveals himself as both the Superman-like Sentry and the evil villain the Void. In Thunderbolts* post-credit scene, he’s hanging out with the New Avengers, but he can’t become the Sentry again without releasing the Void.
That post-credit scene comes directly from the upcoming movie Avengers: Doomsday, which means that Bob will be around in that film and, probably, its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars. But what about beyond Secret Wars? Pullman doesn’t have a strong answer, but he does have optimism.
“If we’re talking hope, I have great hope,” Pullman told Men’s Journal about his character’s future. “Like any good tool and team member, finding your place in the team and finding how you best serve the company within the toolbox is kind of up to the team and up to the team member. And so I have high hopes that [Marvel] can figure that dynamic out. Fingers crossed!”
Pullman’s desire to return as Bob makes a lot of sense. Bob’s story of a regular guy struggling with guilt and depression helped ground the fantastic world of the Thunderbolts in real emotion. Furthermore, his ability to become the Sentry adds a real powerhouse to the current MCU. Even if using his powers runs the risk of unleashing the Void, the heroes of Earth-616 will need all the help they can get to deal with Doctor Doom’s multiversal machinations.
However, those machinations may very well change the MCU forever, raising questions about the status of every hero, not just the Sentry. The 2015 comic book series Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić saw Doctor Doom remake the universe in his own image after saving reality from incursions, incidents in which multiple Earths collide with one another. Given the role Doom plays in Doomsday and the prevalence of incursions, already mentioned in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Captain America: Brave New World, it seems likely that Avengers: Secret Wars will follow that story.
Hickman and Ribić’s Secret Wars ended with a soft reboot of the Marvel Universe, as Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four had to restore reality after Doom’s recreation. Marvel used this plot to smooth out some continuity issues, but made no major changes. Sure, Sam Wilson leveled up to Captain America and Victor Von Doom briefly became Iron Man, but Steve Rogers and Tony Stark were still around and soon took on their familiar mantles once again.
The same may not be true of the MCU Secret Wars. As actors grow unavailable for their roles, Marvel needs a reason to give the world a new version of not just Captain America and Iron Man, but a new Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, getting new performers to take the place of Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.
If Secret Wars is a drastic reboot that takes the MCU back down to ground zero, then we may not see Bob Reynolds again, at least not played by Lewis Pullman. But the Sentry is strong enough to withstand major threats, including the birth of a new universe, so maybe he will be in the refreshed MCU. At least, that’s what Pullman hopes.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18, 2026.
Starfleet Academy’s Karim Diané Breaks Down Star Trek’s Most Unconventional Klingon
The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 4.
Klingons are one of the most iconic species in Star Trek. Over the course of the franchise’s 60-year run, they’ve evolved from deadly enemies to fierce allies and everything in between. ButJay-Den Kragg is not your typical Klingon. This has been obvious since his first appearance on Star Trek: StarfleetAcademy, but the series’ fourth episode is where the character really begins to come into his own. (And, if we’re honest, so does the show he stars in.)
The only Klingon student in the Academy’s first class in over a century, Jay-Den is essentially everything a traditional Klingon is not. He’s a pacifist studying medicine who longs to become a healer and help those in need. He won’t eat meat that hasn’t been killed in a fair fight (which includes replicated food!). He’s even nervous about participating in a debate class, because he views it as a form of conflict, something he has sworn to avoid.
But “Vox in Excelso” is not just an hour that offers a compelling backstory for one of the series’ most appealing young characters. It also redefines what it means to be a Klingon warrior for a new era. Because it is Jay-Den who ultimately finds the strength to speak out on behalf of his culture, who guides the Federation toward a compromise that allows the Klingons to accept the help they need without sacrificing their honor to do so. And it is his outsider status — a life lived with a foot in both the worlds of the Klingons and Starfleet — that helps him see a way forward.
“I’m definitely not a traditional man,” Karim Diané, who plays Jay-Den, told Den of Geek, when asked about crafting such an unconventional take on a familiar kind of character. “I’m not this macho guy who goes to sports games or plays football on the weekend. I am the opposite of that. I like to think that I’m…soft. Gentle in my tone and in the way I carry myself. I think maybe that’s what I just naturally exude. And I’d like to imagine that that’s what brought me to this role. But full credit to Noga and Alex [Kurtzman], who wrote this character this way and left it up to me to find it. To find him. The challenge for me was finding his voice and getting comfortable in the way he looks. But the softness kind of comes naturally to me.”
For Diané, playing Jay-Den has also been about finding a balance between embodying the kind of Klingon Trek fans were familiar with while finding a way to create something new.
“I’m new to all of this, right?” Diané said. “So I really had to look to the people [who were] leading me. I looked to Doug [Aarniokoski], my director, who really, really helped bring out this character. I looked to Michael Dorn [who played Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine], to really know what the standard of a Klingon is. But then I also had to look to myself, and just really trust that my natural sensitivity and softness are okay to bring to this character.”
Jay-Den’s quieter, conflict-avoidant character isn’t the only way that Starfleet Academy is shaking up the story of one of the franchise’s foundational alien species. Klingons have apparently had it rougher than most since the Burn, spending the better part of the last century as a people without a homeland, living on the verge of extinction and shuffled from place to place in the wake of Qo’noS’ destruction.
“It was all very intentional,” showrunner Noga Landau said when asked about reimagining Klingon society in a post-Burn world. “We are big Klingon fans in the Starfleet Academy writers’ room. And we obsessed about every detail with the Klingons, even down to the warrior stew. We just wanted everything to be perfect. And honestly, the question we asked ourselves was, what haven’t we done with the Klingons yet in Star Trek? What is a new story? What thrusts this mighty empire of warriors into a very new situation that sheds light on who they are to their core?”
The Klingon diaspora has caused its people to double down on the sanctity of their remaining culture and traditions, the things that connect them to the home they once knew and the history they still share. These beliefs often draw them into conflict with the Federation — their resistance to admitting weakness or accepting help in any form runs the gamut from rejecting lifesaving Starfleet technology to refusing the gift of a new home planet — and illustrate why Jay-Den has such difficulty feeling as though he belongs in a society that privileges its standalone warrior ethos more than ever. (Though, if you want to get technical about it, Klingon healers aren’t particularly rare, historically speaking.)
“Honestly, our main point in making the episode was to remind the audience of the power of the Klingons,” Landau said. “And in this story, it’s also about the power of these people who are refugees. There are so many people who walk the earth right now who live as refugees, and there are so many people who walk the earth now who are descended from refugees. I would say for most people alive today, if you look back far enough, you will find an ancestor who’s a refugee. The strength it takes to survive being a stranger in a strange land is everything you need to understand who you are, and it’s a universal story that we told with the Klingons. It was important that everyone who watches this episode sees themselves in the story of the Klingons. Because it’s about strength and it’s about never letting go of who you are.”
A big part of Jay-Den’s story in “Vox in Excelso” is about allowing him to find and accept his own strength. For all that he was raised in a warrior culture, he’s learning that there are different ways to be strong than in combat, and more than one way to fight for the things you believe in than throwing a punch or wielding a blade.
“This message is so important to me because, again, I’m not a warrior,” Diané said. “I hate sports. I hate fighting. I’m not into any of those things. And for so long, people have tried to make me that. So it’s really exciting for me to be [part of this episode] because it really shows that you don’t have to be that. You don’t have to pick up a weapon. You don’t have to pick up a spear. But you can still impact and change an entire world with your voice and your energy. That message is really, really important to me.”
“Vox in Excelso” ends with the Klingons safely established on a new homeworld, Jay-Den’s parents safe, and the young cadet seemingly having settled into a much more confident identity. And, according to Diané, that new sense of self-assuredness is only going to get stronger as the season continues.
“He continues to grow in every single way. And I feel like I continue to figure this character out as Jay-Den is figuring himself out,” he said. “Even moving into season 2, I feel like every one or two episodes, you’ll see a shift in him. I’m becoming more comfortable using this deep, deep voice that he speaks in. Stylistically, you might see his hair change in different ways, or that he has new ways of expressing himself physically. His speech becomes quicker and more comfortable. Truly, where we’re at in Episode 4 is just the seed. He continues to blossom moving forward.”
New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere Thursdays on Paramount+, culminating with the finale on March 12.
