Absolute Batman and Wonder Woman Crossover Establishes Diana as the Best Hero in the New Universe

Most superhero crossovers follow a predictable pattern. Two heroes meet, have some sort of misunderstanding, fight, and then become friends. Doesn’t matter if Batman is meeting Superman, the Hulk, or Elmer Fudd—it’s always the same.

The first meeting between Batman and Wonder Woman in the Absolute Universe is almost the same, but there’s one big difference. Like Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, the DC Comics Absolute Universe reboots familiar characters and launches them into a new, darker reality. Here, Batman was raised in poverty by his mother after his public school teacher father was killed in a shooting. Here, Superman arrives on Earth as an adult and is met with suspicion and hostility by almost every human except the Kents. Here, Wonder Woman is raised in Hell by Circe, far from Paradise Island.

These changes have resulted in big numbers at comic book shops, with Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta coming in as the top seller almost every month. That trend will surely continue with Absolute Batman #16, which released yesterday. But it’s that issue’s co-star Wonder Woman, who comes out as the best hero of the Absolute Universe.

Absolute Darkness

The story in Absolute Batman #16 actually begins in December’s Absolute Wonder Woman #15, by writer Kelly Thompson and illustrator Hayden Sherman. “The Mark of Hecate” sends Diana to Gotham City, where she has learned of murders that appear to invoke the goddess Hecate. Although she has not yet met any of the other heroes in the Absolute Universe—which include Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern, in addition to Superman—Diana knows about Batman and, instead of sneaking around his city, forms a gigantic magic bat-signal to call for his help.

As the duo investigate, we readers learn that they were actually staged tby Veronica Cale and Jack Grimm aka the Joker, two members of the powerful rulers of the Absolute Universe—this reality’s Justice League. More importantly, Batman and Wonder Woman form a bond, one cemented by the gift that Diana gives to Bruce. The Hiketeia medallion (named for a classic story by Greg Rucka and JG Jones) allows Bruce to summon Diana to wherever he is, three times.

That medallion returns in Absolute Batman #16, as Batman hopes that his new friend can help his old friend. His childhood pal Waylon Jones has been transformed into the Killer Croc by Grimm, and no science can revert him. Diana has magic that can restore Bruce’s friend, but the two heroes must first journey to the underworld and face off against a centaur.

Both issues are top-level superhero storytelling—and, yes, do feature the heroes fighting one another—and both contain compelling reimagining of the central characters. But even in the Batman book, Absolute Wonder Woman stands out as the best character of the new universe.

Absolute Empathy

During their first conversation in Absolute Wonder Woman, Batman questions Diana’s decision to show herself to the public. Some may learn about Bruce battling a king-sized Bane in the middle of a football field, but Diana was fighting kaiju on live TV, a high-profile battle that went far beyond local news.

Diana rejects Batman’s belief that super-people need to remain hidden. “Love is transformative, and I don’t know how to show that to people without living it,” she explains.

That statement captures everything great about the Absolute Wonder Woman. Like the other Absolute heroes, she looks much darker, far edgier than the standard Wonder Woman. Not only is she more physically imposing, she also has a magic arm covered in rune tattoos, carries a Final Fantasy-sized sword, and rides a skeletal pegasus. Yet, she’s devoted to empathy and respect, something absent from the Absolute Universe.

The Absolute Universe comes from Omega Energy contained in Darkseid, the big bad of the DC Universe. As explained in October’s Absolute Evil one-shot, this is a universe in which goodness is unnatural and evildoers ordinarily have power. That is why the Joker and Cale call their organization the Justice League, because those who do good disrupt the balance and order of their universe.

That evil bent infects the heroes of the Absolute Universe, who want to do good, but do so in an often unsettling way. Absolute Batman still wants to free Gotham City from crime, but must do so by dispensing extreme violence. Absolute Martian Manhunter frees people from Darkseid’s misery by putting them through psychedelic, and often unwanted, experiences. Absolute Green Lantern must undergo a strange testing process that purges her of all fear. Even Absolute Superman slowly learns to care about humanity, and is still isn’t ready to trust them.

Because this world lacks open expressions of goodness, Wonder Woman’s empathy and kindness shine like a beacon through the coldest night. She’s a witch from the depths of Hell, and that suffering only makes her love life more, makes her more determined to help anyone she can.

Absolute Wonder

Wonder Woman’s refusal to go back to the shadows catches Batman off-guard, but he doesn’t mock it. Instead, after pausing to think for a moment, he allows, “We all have our own paths,” which sounds dismissive until he adds, “Though I think my father would have preferred yours.”

“Then I will take that as the compliment it is,” she responds. The statement isn’t just Diana’s way of saying “thank you.” It’s a recognition that Bruce’s father matters, a recognition that the work he did continues, even if Bruce doesn’t think that it continues with him.

In Absolute Batman #16, Diana repays the compliment by using her magic on Bruce. As he sleeps, she sprinkles dust on him, which allows him to visit Thomas Wayne in the afterlife. In the form of a child, Bruce hugs his father, and thanks Thomas for saving him when the gunman attacked the school, but Thomas insists he misunderstands. “For me, ‘saving you’ was what I did every day before that one. Teaching, being your dad.” Thomas explains that his work has found its culmination in Bruce, who helps the city in ways he never could.

Thanks to Diana’s magic, Bruce comes to learn that Thomas likes his way as well, that Batman’s methods matter just as much as Wonder Woman’s. Diana’s act of kindness resonates even stronger with us readers. Even amidst a world dominated by evil, made dark and frightening, Wonder Woman stands for kindness. Her absolute empathy makes her the most wondrous part of the Absolute Universe.

Absolute Wonder Woman #15 and Absolute Batman #16 are now available at your local comic book shop.

Wonder Man Welcomes Back One of Marvel’s Most Dangerous Companies

This article contains Wonder Man spoilers

In the fourth episode of Marvel’s Wonder Man, the world turns black-and-white as we explore events that led to a key incident in Hollywood’s recent past.

“Doorman” introduces us to DeMarr Davis (Byron Bowers), a club doorman who is loyal and trustworthy, but whose career is stagnating. All that is about to change when he takes out the garbage one night and gets more than he bargains for.

When DeMarr heads out to the alley at the back of the club, Wilcox, he discovers that the usual dumpster is full. Noticing one next to it that seems viable, he approaches cautiously and throws his garbage bag in, as the camera pans down to reveal a large “Roxxon” logo on the front. For Marvel geeks, it’s time for the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme, because that’s a company we are very familiar with!

DeMarr looks down and sees some very suspicious dark liquid oozing from a crack in the Roxxon dumpster. It appears to have created a kind of glittery, undulating sinkhole in the ground where it’s landed, and so he does what any normal person would do in such an “oh hell no” scenario – he sticks his damn hand into it.

The “good” news is that the gooey hole gives DeMarr some superpowers and subsequent fame. The bad news is that those superpowers eventually become scary and unpredictable. As a result, Hollywood decides the only safe way for the industry to function going forward is to ban superpowered individuals from working in it.

Roxxon’s Dark Past in the MCU

Anyone familiar with Roxxon’s Marvel Cinematic Universe history would have stayed well clear of whatever ended up in that dumpster. The company first popped up in the original Iron Man film in 2008, where it was established to be in the vicinity of Stark Industries’ headquarters. At that point, Roxxon remained a largely hidden threat, but in several popular Marvel TV shows, the company strayed from the shadows and became a rather more substantial evil corporation.

It was in Agent Carter that Roxxon finally emerged as a major recurring antagonist. In the post-WWII-set series, it competed with Howard Stark, stole Stark technology, and performed dangerous experiments with Isodyne Energy’s extradimensional substance, Zero Matter. We even met Roxxon’s villainous CEO, Hugh Jones (Ray Wise), in the series and saw the effects of the unstable Zero Matter on real people (it wasn’t good!).

Roxxon was back at it in Marvel’s little-seen Freeform show Cloak & Dagger in 2018, where the company was the main corporate antagonist. Roxxon’s dangerous New Orleans drilling operations into an unstable underground energy source caused a catastrophic explosion that killed several people and directly caused Tandy Bowen (Dagger) and Tyrone Johnson (Cloak) to develop powers. Tandy manifested light-based abilities (forming daggers), and Tyrone gained shadowy, portal-like abilities.

The Future of Roxxon in Wonder Man

Roxxon has more consistently embodied the human cost of corporate negligence as the MCU has evolved. It lurked in episodes of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Runaways, but in Wonder Man, it’s clear that Roxxon’s evil presence lives on in the MCU, and the company doesn’t seem to have strayed far from its former dodgy extradimensional matter experiments.

DeMarr Davis found that out the hard way. In the pages of Marvel Comics, DaMarr was a mutant with familiar portal-based powers. He could use Darkforce energy, much like Cloak. But in Wonder Man, Roxxon seems to be behind DeMarr’s brief highs and very low lows. Though the series doesn’t explore the details of the matter that DeMarr is exposed to, it wouldn’t be a huge leap to assume it’s related to Roxxon’s Darkforce dabblings in one way or another.

We suspect it’s not the last time we’ll see Roxxon’s dark dealings show up in the MCU. It’s one of the rare villains that never seems to die. But who will be the superhero that steps up and finally takes Roxxon out of the picture? Perhaps that avenue can be explored in a second season of Wonder Man if we get one, but more likely, Roxxon will pop up like just another Hydra head somewhere else in the future.

Netflix’s Take That Docuseries Makes a Bold but Confusing Choice

A highly anticipated new three-part docuseries from Bros: After the Screaming Stops co-director David Soutar has finally hit Netflix, and it’s turned out to be a decent watch. Cobbled together from 30-odd years of archival footage, Take That charts the rise and fall and rise again of the UK boy band, who first took some of their issues public back in the 1990s when cracks started to appear in their glossy image.

We have been here before. Take That members Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen, and Jason Orange had previously agreed to appear in a 2005 documentary called Take That: For the Record. It proved compelling viewing, with the lads even reacting on camera to an apology video from former bandmate Robbie Williams. After For the Record was released, Take That decided to get the band back together, and they were soon hitting the road (and the charts again) for a sellout tour.

But within a few minutes of watching Netflix’s Take That, something feels off. Admittedly, the archival footage is edited together extremely well. Rare and unseen “home video” clips provide a deeper look into the band’s past and their interactions. We can see what life was like for the boys back then, and it seems genuinely daunting. The endless screaming, the lack of privacy, the feelings of inadequacy, and apparent bullying from their manager – it’s all there.

It’s what’s not there that feels off. There are no new on-camera interviews with the band, and a text epilogue informs us that any new parts of the audio were contributed by only three of the band members. Neither Robbie Williams nor Jason Orange contributed to these new interviews; their audio appears to have been spliced in from older ones. With none of the band telling their sides of the story on-camera, there is a distinct lack of the raw and unguarded responses and recollections we saw in For the Record.

As a result, Take That fails to connect with its audience in the way you’d expect. Netflix documentaries come thick and fast these days, but from Mr. McMahon to The Greatest Night in Pop, their savvy on-camera interviews have largely allowed people to tell their side of the story while also letting viewers see their body language and facial expressions as they do so. Which is not to say that some of the revelations from Gary, Mark, and Howard aren’t deeply personal. Gary’s recollection of the fallout from his first post-Take That era is particularly distressing, but ultimately, many of the band’s recollections lack an edge because they don’t capture the context of nonverbal communication.

While entertaining, Take That chooses to limit its connection and trust with the audience for reasons unknown. Fans of the band are sure to enjoy the new docuseries, but it still feels like a missed opportunity to really, honestly see them open up about the past at this stage of their careers.

Faces of Death Trailer Brings the Infamous ’80s Horror Franchise into 2026

You don’t have to watch Stranger Things to know that the 1980s were a scary time. There was Satanic Panic, rumors about poisoned Halloween candy, and Thatcher and Reagan. But nothing scared kids on the playground more than rumors about a movie that showed real-life images of people dying. That movie was Faces of Death, and it’s coming back in 2026 to traumatize us all over again.

The first teaser for the 2026 update of Faces of Death recalls those primal fears. The teaser has no narrative and instead features random images of horrible things. A bear drags away a limp man. A truck levels a bystander. A hammer slams into a skull. Between the whimpers of pain and cries for help, we hear a voice musing about death, asking, “The end of the beginning? Or the beginning of the end?”

The original Faces of Death from 1978 was written and directed by John Alan Schwartz and starred Michael Carr as Dr. Francis B. Gröss. Although presented as real material, Faces of Death is in fact fictional, the story of Dr. Gröss sharing his collection of footage featuring people and animals dying. Over the video of everything from car accidents to executions to Holocaust scenes, Gröss delivers vaguely philosophical narration about the nature of humanity.

Faces of Death is part of the Mondo (Italian for “world”) horror subgenre, exploitation takes on documentary travelogues. Where mainstream travelogues would introduce the viewers to Scandinavian saunas or Japanese kabuki, the Mondo films purported to reveal some nasty or taboo aspect of a subculture. 1962’s Mondo Cane, considered one of the progenitors of the subgenre, takes audiences around the world, showing them animals being slaughtered for food, Australian women in swimsuits giving CPR to young men, and everything in between. Nasty as the material gets, an authoritarian narrator describes it all in perfect calm, helping the viewers excuse their lust as intellectual pursuits.

Faces of Death and its fellow Mondo movies appealed to audiences in part because such lascivious material was hard to find in the ’60s and ’70s. So hard, in fact, that most of them had to stage the “real” events they documented, a trick made easier by the grainy film stock of the time. But that’s not the case in 2026, when horrible things are both all too real and way too accessible.

If there’s anyone who can deal with that challenge and make Faces of Death relevant in 2026, it’s director Daniel Goldhaber. Goldhaber not only directed the 2018 screenlife movie Cam (written by Isa Mazzei, who co-writes Faces of Death), but he made 2022’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, turning a nonfiction anarchist instructional document into a riveting fictional drama.

Clearly, Daniel Goldhaber is the best person to help ’80s kids to recall the terrors of the playground and make them real for adults in 2026, forcing us to stare into the faces of death once again.

Faces of Death releases in theaters on April 10, 2026.

Why Isn’t There More ’00s Nostalgia for Nip/Tuck?

Back in the ’00s, the likes of Lost, The Sopranos, Arrested Development, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under were making waves, and prestige TV was becoming a real thing. But while those shows were all becoming respected in their own right and gaining forever fans, Ryan Murphy’s medical drama Nip/Tuck was doing something very different over on FX.

An instant cable hit when it debuted back in 2003, the show focused on the McNamara/Troy plastic surgery clinic and its doctors, Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (the late Julian McMahon), as they met patient after patient (and in some cases lover after lover) who wanted to change something about their physical appearance.

It’s hard to overstate how provocative the show felt back then. This was long before Murphy became the uber TV producer he is today, when his graphic, lurid shows are like buses. If you wait around long enough, there’ll be another American Horror Story, Monster, or The Beauty along any minute. In the ’00s, Nip/Tuck was very much pushing the boundaries of television with its chaotic storylines and queasy surgery scenes. It was also hugely influential, not just informing Murphy that there was a hunger for this kind of content – a hunger that has allowed him to feed audiences ever since – but also informing creators just how far they could go on the small screen. Glossy and morally ambiguous, Nip/Tuck paved the way for shows like Dexter and True Blood, while also inspiring a swathe of series that focused on the vanity and excess of the rich and connected. You could probably think of five or more of those that are currently streaming somewhere right now.

So why is Nip/Tuck rarely in the conversation when we’re getting nostalgic about the ’00s? Some would say the show made that bed back when it was airing. It largely blurred the line between satire and sincerity, often making it difficult for the audience to tell whether it was critiquing vanity culture or revelling in it. That ambiguity became part of its appeal, but also one of its most enduringly controversial aspects. Still, it was anchored by strong performances from Walsh and McMahon and was sharply written. It was transgressive and often refused to moralize where other shows might have tried to take sides or even shied away entirely from taboo topics.

The taboo of plastic surgery has arguably faded since the show hit our screens, though. There are more open conversations around body image on social media and in pop culture. Murphy admitted as much in a recent panel at New York Comic Con, where he mused that “people sort of flaunt [surgery] more and are talking about it” since the Nip/Tuck days, adding, “It’s an evolution in some strange way.”

We can also accept that many of Nip/Tuck’s storylines simply have not aged well. Sure, there were nonsensical serial-killer plots and tiresome celebrity cameos. Many of the episodes had obligatory shocks that no one would bat an eye at these days. We’ve come a long way in that respect – a couple of Murphy’s more recent series have featured Ed Gein having sex with a corpse and Bella Hadid snapping necks in a Parisian café. But some of Nip/Tuck’s stories and characterizations have absolutely aged like milk. The indefensible transgender tropes, the sensationalized incest, and the use of sexual assault as a plot device. Awful and gross.

This mixed bag of positives and negatives led to Nip/Tuck being remembered by audiences as a fascinating but deeply flawed artifact of early prestige television. It was definitely entertaining and must-see TV in the moment, but it ended up becoming more of a case study in how TV tested boundaries before it fully understood the responsibility that came with that freedom.

Wonder Man Is the Perfect Set-up for Marvel’s X-Men

This post contains light spoilers for Wonder Man.

In the world of Marvel Comics, Simon Williams is about as high-profile as you can get. He inherits a munitions factory from his rich industrialist father, puts on green and red tights to become Wonder Man and battle the Avengers, and later becomes one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. He fully embraces the attention the Avengers gives him, regularly appearing on late night television (including David Letterman) and eventually becoming a Hollywood stuntman, all while showing off his Wonder Man powers.

The Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) of the MCU is the exact opposite. Over the eight episodes of the Disney+ series Wonder Man, Simon has to keep his powers a secret. It’s not just that using his powers would violate the Doorman Clause that prevents super-people from acting in major productions. It’s that he’s being hunted by Agent Cleary (Arian Moayed) and the Department of Damage Control.

The difference between the two takes may be more than just creative liberties. They may be the perfect way to bring the X-Men properly into the MCU.

Feared and Hated or Praised and Adored?

When Jack Kirby and Stan Lee debuted the X-Men in 1963, they were just another set of costumed heroes in a Marvel Universe already filled with them. The only difference was they were mutants, born with their abilities instead of getting them from a radioactive spider or a gamma bomb. Over time, mutation became a key part of the X-Men franchise, something to set them aside from the Marvel heroes. The X-Men fought to save a world that feared and hated them, following Professor Charles Xavier’s dream of peaceful coexistence between humanity and mutants and opposing Magneto’s vision of mutant supremacy.

That “Mutant Metaphor” allowed the X-Men to become remarkable commentary, with the X-gene serving as a stand in for all sorts of social differences, from race and sexuality to disabilities and citizenship. However, the Mutant Metaphor also posed a problem: why is it that citizens in the Marvel Universe love the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and hate the X-Men?

That problem has only become more pronounced in the MCU. Because the universe began with jet-setting Tony Stark revealing himself as Iron Man, the heroes of the MCU have always been celebrities, with even Spider-Man being viewed neither a threat nor a menace (save for the a couple of scenes in No Way Home) and instead as Stark’s scion. Heck, Ms. Marvel, the first official mutant in the MCU, is a superhero super-fan who attends an Avengers-based convention. How can feared and hated mutants exist in this kind of world?

The Cost of Power

Wonder Man points to an answer.

Even though the fourth episode “Doorman” changes the titular character from a mutant born with teleporting abilties to someone who gets them from interacting with some weird goop, it shows what can happen when a random person has powers they don’t understand. Moreover, series illustrates the government’s interest those types of superpowered people. While someone like Valentina Allegra de Fontaine can use her intelligence resources to use superpeople to her own ends, Damage Control—which basically functions like the Department of Homeland Security in the MCU—sees them as a threat. They’d rather hunt down these potential dangers and lock them away in prisons.

Much of Wonder Man shows how people live in such a reality. Simon’s superpowers have nothing to do with his acting abilities or his day-to-day relationships. Although one gets the sense that maybe the event that gave him his powers, some sort of accident that occurred when was a child, led to his father’s (Béchir Sylvain) death and to tensions with his older brother Eric (Demetrius Grosse), but the show doesn’t really spend time on that part. Instead, the series is about how Simon lives every day terrified that someone will learn what he can do. And when they do, he’ll, at best, lose his job, and, at worst, be thrown in prison.

Wonder Man does a great job showing how someone with powers can be demonized, even while Rogers: The Musical is still a Broadway hit. The depiction of Simon’s struggles makes us believe that Damage Control would go searching for, say, a guy who shoots concussive blasts from his eyes or a girl who can move things with her mind.

Make Way for the Mutants

Speaking of that last point… it’s no accident that Wonder Man is co-created by Destin Daniel Cretton, the man who is directing Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We know that Brand New Day will see Spidey (Tom Holland) team up with the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), possibly against the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), but we also know it will involve Agent Cleary and Damage Control looking for Sadie Sink’s character. We don’t yet know who Sink is playing, and rumors have ranged anywhere from Frank Castle’s acolyte Rachel Cole to the wasp goddess Shathra.

But if Sink is indeed playing Jean Grey of the X-Men, then we understand why Damage Control would be looking for her. We understand the struggle that Jean and other mutants face precisely because of Wonder Man, not because it made Simon Williams a star, but because it made him an outcast.

Every episode of Wonder Man is now streaming on Disney+.

Chris Pratt Still Stands By Star-Lord’s Infuriating Infinity War Scene

One of the most infuriating moments for audiences watching Avengers: Infinity War is when Star-Lord, aka Peter Quill, violently reacts to the news that his girlfriend Gamora has been killed by Thanos.

During the iconic Marvel scene, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are seconds from removing Thanos’ gauntlet and thus preventing the mad Titan from completing his plan to snap half the universe away. However, when Star-Lord finds out that Gamora is gone, he loses it, and Thanos manages to retain the gauntlet.

Star-Lord actor Chris Pratt is more than aware that the scene in question enraged people. In a new interview with Out of Order’s Scene Stealers, he rewatched the key Infinity War moment and told the host he looks at it differently now, but that after the film was released, people would angrily approach him on the street and ask, “Why’d you do that, man?!”

“What’s wild about this scene is that people eviscerate Quill because of his responsibility for essentially getting Iron Man killed for that moment,” he said. “You know that human moment where people hate this character for a while, and I really felt that.”

Pratt went on to defend the scene, explaining that if Star-Lord hadn’t messed up his own plan, the movie would have been 30 minutes long. “We got [Thanos]. That’s not a movie. You know what I mean? So, looking at it now, I kind of feel the weight of and the ramifications of what happened to the character of Quill because of that. I’m still happy that it happened, but I didn’t understand that it would be iconic.”

In the midst of promoting his new sci-fi movie Mercy, which has been shown none by critics and audiences, Pratt also revealed that he’d previously auditioned to play “so many” characters in the MCU, but one meeting with Marvel’s head honcho Kevin Feige appeared to seal the deal when it came to finally being cast as the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

According to a visibly emotional Pratt, he was out of shape when he attended the Marvel meeting, and Feige had eventually cut to the chase, slapping a Zero Dark Thirty-era buff selfie of Pratt down on the table and asking him if he could be that fit again.

“He wanted to talk to me and see me react to the picture and basically ask me if I could be a hero for him.”

How Tim Robinson Made Cringe Palatable for Gen Z

For as long as human beings have communicated with each other, the concept of “cringe” has plagued social interactions. Defined by Oxford Languages as “an inward feeling of acute embarrassment or awkwardness,” cringe is an emotion most commonly felt by those who are gaining social consciousness while learning how to live in changing bodies – in other words, teenagers.

As the first generation to spend those teenage years in the panopticon of social media, Generation Z is even more sensitive to feelings of cringe than preceding generations. Forbes even reported that Gen Z employees perform worse than their older counterparts in the workplace due to a fear that trying too hard or caring too much will make them come off as cringe. So, when a performer emerges whose caricature is eccentric, obnoxious, and has a knack for creating uncomfortable situations, why is it that Gen Z audiences can’t look away?

Tim Robinson began his comedy career while the youngest members of Gen Z were being born, first at The Second City and then working his way up to a performing and writing gig on Saturday Night Live. In these early years, he asserted his mastery of awkward body language and an inability to read the room, as seen in sketches like “Roundball Rock” and “We Present Her To You” in Season 38 of SNL. However, his style of uncomfortable comedy may have been too much for a live studio audience to stomach and resulted in the brevity of his time at SNL.

After his single-season run at Studio 8H, Robinson went on to create the cringey, yet somewhat more standard sitcom Detroiters, co-starring his long-time friend Sam Richardson. Then, he achieved new levels with the apocalyptically cringe sketch series I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson on Netflix. Both shows have found a second life in short-form social media clips due to the brash, high energy impact Robinson leaves within a matter of seconds. Any Gen Zer with an Instagram account has seen a meme of Robinson’s face or heard someone referencing his drive thru order from “Pay It Forward.”

While the sketches have a rich afterlife as online memes, the first watch of sketches like “The Ghost Tour,” in which Robinson’s character ends up in tears after unleashing a load of obscenities during an adults-only tour of a haunted house, can be excruciating.

Robinson’s popularity among Gen Z is certainly due in part to the “memeability” of his comedy style, but it still doesn’t account for how he, alongside his SNL writing partner and co-creator of Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave, Zach Kanin, has managed to make cringe funny for a generation that is intrinsically averse to discomfort and humiliation.

“It’s probably the same reason people enjoy horror movies,” Loren Soeiro, a clinical psychologist based in New York City, said. “People like to receive certain levels of stimulation in a safe way. They’re scared, but they’re actually not going to be murdered. They may identify with somebody being murdered or under threat of murder on the screen, but that feeling is something they can ride and enjoy the highs of in the context of safety, because it’s not fun at all to feel scared if you don’t feel safe. And I think cringe comedy is the same thing.”

In his article for Psychology Today, titled “The Psychology of Cringe,” Soeiro writes that “most of us are programmed – neurologically speaking – to feel bad if we do things that cause pain or embarrassment.” Using anecdotes like calling a teacher “mom” or making a crass joke in front of the wrong crowd, Soerio explains that humans are wired to see these moments as threats to our social health.

“Going through something like that is very unpleasant, but it’s very relatable as well and it’s easy to identify with somebody going through it,” Soeiro said. “In terms of comedy, to see a situation like that, carefully sketched out and then escalated and escalated and escalated until it’s extremely heightened, that sounds entertaining.”

The careful curation and escalation of a “cringey” moment is exactly where Robinson shines as a comedian, although he frequently declines to comment about the nature of his comedy style. Almost all of the bits in I Think You Should Leave are a result of his character intensifying a situation to outlandish levels. His most recent project, The Chair Company, follows a project manager who, after a slightly embarrassing moment at work, finds himself wrapped up in a corporate conspiracy.

All of these jokes and plotlines are carefully designed to make audiences feel better about their own reactivity in uncomfortable situations. Robinson takes relatable moments that could happen to anyone and shows the audience just how much worse it could get. If Gen Z is more self-conscious of being cringe than any other generation, it makes sense that they are most likely to find comfort and solidarity in that kind of comedy on screen.

Seb Laspiur is a fourth-year fine arts student at the University of Cincinnati, a diehard fan of Tim Robinson, and a contributor at Skit Pit, a sketch comedy show created by a group of UC students in 2023. One of Laspiur’s acting credits is in the show’s comedy music video “DE2ROIT,” in which a date is derailed by Laspiur’s counterpart insisting that the date cannot proceed until they watch an episode of Detroiters.

As a real-life fan of Detroiters, Laspiur said the video was “really fun to shoot,” and is not the only one that takes inspiration from Robinson’s comedy. Laspiur’s discovery of Robinson began, as it so often does, with seeing clips on social media that were too jarring to ignore. This led Laspiur to give I Think You Should Leave a try.

“I ended up binge watching it and loving it, just the whole nonsense of it,” Laspiur said. “How do they even come up with this stuff that makes no sense, would never happen in real life, but is so funny?”

Laspiur recognizes that cringe comedy wouldn’t be as effective without other elements for the audience to cling to. For Robinson, that extra angle comes in the form of a ridiculousness that borders on surrealism.

“I think it’s the combination of cringe and the sort of abstract humor that really connected with Gen Z, with all the abstract and surrealist memes that were popular for a while,” Laspiur said. “I think he just encapsulates a lot of Gen Z culture and comedy in a lot of different ways … especially coming from this older, kind of ridiculous looking guy, it just strikes your funny bone real hard.”

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Review: Shock Comedy Makes Fun of AI, Sci-Fi Tropes, and School Shootings

Every generation comes to believe the world will end in their lifetime. But in Gore Verbinski’s long-awaited return to the screen, the sometimes bleak and often mercurial filmmaker behind The Ring and Mouse Hunt muses we are the first era who’s pretty chill about the whole thing. Just don’t block our screens when you pull that curtain down.

Working from such fertile ground for dark satire and “kids these days” screeds about youths glued to their devices, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is dizzily ambitious in its gallows-tinged nihilism about the technology ruling and ruining our lives, even as its humor comes across as more mean than mirthful. From the outset, mileage will vary, but at least through it all is one brilliant bit of subversion: the film’s screenplay by Matthew Robinson dares to ask what if we did another sci-fi riff on Groundhog Day, but told it from the perspective of the other folks in the diner who stare slack-jawed at Bill Murray?

Sam Rockwell’s slouching, wild-eyed antihero calls this out in the first scene when he walks into the restaurant strapped to what looks like a bomb beneath his transparent raincoat. He is here, he claims, for the 117th time. Trapped in a Kyle Reese-style time loop, he’s come to prevent an AI apocalypse by building a pseudo D&D campaign of sad sack losers from some configuration of these disbelieving customers. They will march together into the dark before a new AI supercomputer out there becomes sentient. Rockwell’s last 116 attempts apparently ended with everyone else’s death, and the Future Man being forced to hit reset and travel back in time. Or so he claims.

Our true point-of-view characters, then, whom he recruits, cajoles, or otherwise threatens into this mission are thus the real heroes since they, like the audience, must determine if this madman is also a messiah, and what his mission has to do with odd things they’ve noted in their day-to-day lives.

There’s Mark and Janet (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz), new teachers at the high school overwhelmed by the indifference of their students to literature, lessons, and even survival, as indicated by a school shooting before lunch that’s treated like just another case of the Mondays. Worse still, is the experiences of Susan (Juno Temple), a single mother who lost a son in that morning’s shooting and whose grief is treated as a mild inconvenience by the authorities who come just short of saying, “There’s an app for that.” And then, most mysteriously, remains Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), the diner dressed like a Disney princess and who sports a similarly unlikely allergy toward wi-fi technology. Smartphones give her literal nosebleeds. Curiously this genuine, anti-tech twentysomething is the one person Rockwell doesn’t want on his save-the-world team, but tonight he’s feeling goofy. So is his movie when it takes time to breathe between its bouts of seething.

The thing to most appreciate about Good Luck, Have Fun is that it is as bold as it is clever. Verbinski has seemingly been in director’s jail since A Cure for Wellness, which might explain why he produced this latest effort himself. The newfound independence has also made him defiant. This is a movie that plays as flippantly with taboos as Leslie Nielsen does while taking the piss out of a 1970s Airport flick. Only the comedy fodder here is the increasingly common occurrence of school shootings and the overwhelming ennui of a distracted, zombified society.

It is tonally daring, but if we are being honest, checkered in its success as a comedy or entertainment. While Verbinski is still best known for the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, including what is arguably the best live-action bit of fairy dust released under the Disney banner in this century, the filmmaker’s tastes usually run more toward the cruel and sardonic. Mouse Hunt is Looney Tunes if Elmer Fudd was a self-pitying divorcée trapped on Sisyphus’ hill; The Ring was a curse movie that delighted in a mother corrupted into complicity by a murderous video tape. Thus Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die becomes an anti-tech parable which takes pleasure in the sight of a passive-aggressive Verizon-like salesman pushing the basic “comes with ads” model of a dead kid’s replacement clone on the boy’s grieving mother.

A basic description of this scenario, which Temple’s lost parent finds herself in during a flashback, reveals how slippery Robinson’s screenplay can be. And the way that Verbinski’s misanthropic mise en scène drifts between happy-go-lucky and a malice-choked cackle during these gags can be uncomfortably funny. At times. Often though, one finds themselves in a comedy where only the movie appears to be having a good time.

The audience can be won over quite a bit, especially when Rockwell’s natural rhythm and physicality is given space to guide the ensemble through impossible escape scenes and tightly edited visual gags. For one of the pioneers of blockbuster CGI spectacles in the 2000s, Verbinski also reveals a welcome nostalgia for the old ways, and Rockwell as a disheveled, past his sell-by date John Connor makes for a good anchor of fight scenes that only partake in CGI during moments that seem designed to mock a grim future of AI Slop and Sora overlords.

Some things never change, however, and like every Verbinski movie since 2007, Good Luck’s conclusion overstays its welcome while piling one unwanted twist onto another as the film insists upon, repeats, and exhausts its timey-wimey harangue.

There is something undeniably admirable about such a big swing of a movie that brazenly defies the committee or algorithm influences of modern American cinema. Despite its third act dalliances with CG, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die creates the illusion of feeling analogue, hand-sewn, and even too-cool for its bullet-ridden school. It’s part retro throwback to the kind of original, populist entertainment that Verbinski came up in during the ‘90s, and part pained wheeze about Zoomers needing to brick Siri for good.

There is an audience out there for this cult classic of tomorrow, but having watched it today, I cannot say that includes really me.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die opens on Friday, Feb. 13.

All the Celebrities Who Are Now MCU Canon Thanks to Wonder Man

This article contains Wonder Man spoilers.

No one fires up the first episode of Marvel‘s latest superhero series, Wonder Man, and expects to find that uber TV producer Ryan Murphy has suddenly become MCU canon. But that’s how it goes when we first meet the grown-up version of our main character Simon Williams, who is overthinking his day player role on American Horror Story. That means that Murphy, his long-running, gruesome FX series, and all his other projects (do you think Bucky Barnes ever sat and watched Monster: The Ed Gein Story? Does Ms. Marvel have Glee opinions?!) must now exist in the MCU.

But how do we know that Wonder Man is really MCU canon? Well, early in the series, we see a billboard advertising a cinematic spin on Rogers: The Musical, the Broadway show Clint Barton/Hawkeye endured in his own Disney+ show. We also hear about Trevor Slattery’s past in Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. This meta stuff is indeed happening, albeit perhaps in a Deadpool-esque way.

As the series continues, we’re treated to celebrity cameos and name-dropping aplenty, but if you missed any of the other famous people who now canonically exist in the MCU, we’ve got you covered with our handy list.

Ashley Greene

Twilight franchise star Ashley Greene is the first actor we meet playing herself in Wonder Man. After Simon takes some time to praise his American Horror Story director for her work on Castle Rock and Sons of Anarchy, we’re told Greene is there to play Sarah, a colleague of Simon’s professor character. She’s supposed to turn into a monster and bite his head off (sounds right). However, Greene never gets that far because Simon has overthought his character’s background and motivation, and drags out the scene until he learns he’s been cut from the show. Oof.

Joe Pantoliano

Apparently, Trevor once landed a lead role in the fictional medical TV show Southshaw Hospital, but only made the first three episodes before he was replaced by co-star Joey “The Matrix” Pants. Trevor’s version of events is that Joe betrayed him by convincing the showrunner that he was the better choice, but Joe’s account is very different.

When Trevor and Simon visit Joe’s beachside property, The Sopranos actor name-drops Matthew McConaughey and Arnold Schwarzenegger before reminding Trevor that he was high as a kite filming Southshaw Hospital and barely showed up, admitting to Joe that he couldn’t handle the pressure. The network eventually had no choice but to kill off Trevor’s character and replace him with Mr. Pants, a move that happens again after Trevor exits the Wonder Man remake.

Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, and John Schlesinger

Simon and Trevor discuss Midnight Cowboy trivia after a matinée screening of the classic 1969 drama, with Simon recalling how Dustin Hoffman convinced director John Schlesinger he was right for the part of Ratso. Elsewhere, the theater is advertising screenings of Tora! Tora! Tora! and 20,000 Eyes in the background, as Simon and Trevor make their way outside to discuss the latter’s intriguing upcoming audition.

Mario Lopez

Former Saved by the Bell star Mario Lopez pops up in episode four, anchoring the celebrity news show Hot Goss instead of Access Hollywood, where he’s really been in residence since 2019. Lopez fills us in on all the juicy Hollywood gossip from there on out, most notably covering Tinseltown’s decision to enact The Doorman Clause and prevent superpowered individuals from causing safety issues on set.

Josh Gad

In Wonder Man‘s black-and-white episode “Doorman,” Disney star Josh Gad (“J-Gad”) enters the picture, opening a different kind of door in Hollywood for the humble DeMarr Davis (Byron Bowers).

After offering him a role in his new action movie – the hilariously titled Cash Grab – Gad continues to poke fun at himself throughout the episode, and eventually succumbs to an unknown fate, leading a news reporter to say the never-before-spoken “Where is Josh Gad? The world wants to know.” If Gad has ever annoyed you, onscreen or otherwise, he may just have made up for it by roasting himself a little here.

David Cronenberg

Wonder Man director Von Kovak extols the virtues of David Cronenberg’s spin on The Fly when he’s interviewed about his own upcoming remake, saying that the Canadian body-horror genre maestro grounded his take in science and “discovered new, unthinkable horrors” that ultimately made the movie a worthy redo. And he’s right to say it!

Leonardo DiCaprio & The Manning Brothers

Leonardo DiCaprio might never want to do a superhero movie, Marvel or otherwise, but he’s now definitely been name-checked in a superhero TV series thanks to Simon Williams, whose agent Janelle (X Mayo) tries to dissuade him from auditioning for the lead of Wonder Man because “they’re already talking to Leo.” Simon’s heard they’re looking for someone different, and tries to convince Janelle that he could be the right actor for the role. She’s a bit busy trying to sign football royalty, though, and is stuck playing “hot potato” with Eli Manning.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Glenn Howerton

Hovering New York Times reporter Kathy Friedman (Lauren Weedman) wants to do a profile of Simon, which he doubts will paint him in a good light. Though Trevor thinks it’s a good idea, Simon reads him some negative snippets from Kathy’s previous celebrity profiles. One mentions an ominous “pigeon incident” from Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s childhood, and fearing a similar character assassination to the one Kathy wrote on the (500) Days of Summer actor or It’s Always Sunny… star Glenn Howerton (“one of the most charming dudes out there!”), Simon begins to worry that Kathy will find out a little too much about him.

However, it’s Trevor that ultimately gets the Joseph Gordon-Levitt treatment, and he’s soon storming out on Kathy, yelling “I never murdered any bloody pigeons!” in one of the show’s finest moments.

John Gielgud

Trevor says that legendary English actor and theatre director John Gielgud used to make Trevor whip him across his “bare arse” with a belt every night before curtain up, until “things got weird.” We never find out more. A travesty, but the mind boggles.

Shonda Rhimes

The Hanover Agency wants to capitalize on Simon’s Wonder Man buzz by snagging him the lead in a new series from Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes. Simon has doubts about taking it that are only further compounded by Trevor’s opinion that it sounds “dreadful.” Should we assume that all the negativity expressed here is more of a sideswipe at Disney+’s rival streamer Netflix, which is apparently behind the new show, rather than at Shonda? Perhaps!

Wonder Man also makes sure to mention Robert De Niro, Antonio Banderas, Pierce Brosnan, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Dua Lipa at various points. Have we missed anyone? Let us know in the comments!

Wonder Man: What the Hell Is Marvel Spotlight Again?

If you fired up Disney+ this week to watch Marvel’s new superhero streaming series, Wonder Man, you may have noticed that it’s been released under the “Marvel Spotlight” banner. You may also be forgiven for not knowing what that is or why it’s even a significant move from Marvel Studios, which has released so many other MCU streaming series like Loki, Ms Marvel, and Moon Knight under the standard Marvel fanfare.

The studio officially launched Marvel Spotlight back in January 2023 with its Alaqua Cox-led Hawkeye spinoff series, Echo. Months prior, Marvel’s Head of Streaming Brad Winderbaum had declared Spotlight a platform “to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen,” and stated that Echo focused on “street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity.”

While that was somewhat true, Echo’s story and her ongoing beef with the villainous Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) did immediately follow on from Hawkeye’s series finale, so there was MCU homework available to anyone who wanted to do some. However, Wonder Man features a brand-new MCU character that requires viewers to do zero homework, albeit one paired with a more familiar character who has made several MCU appearances to date: Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, a washed-up actor who has been more of a joke than an essential cog in the MCU machine.

Like most things in the MCU, the idea behind Marvel Spotlight TV has its roots in Marvel Comics, starting off as the name of a comic book anthology series in the early 1970s when Stan Lee had moved from editor to publisher. The idea behind Marvel Spotlight was that they could “try out” characters there and see if they worked before deciding whether to launch their own solo series. Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider, and Spider-Woman were all introduced in Marvel Spotlight and later got their own titles after proving popular.

So, while the idea behind Marvel Spotlight shows is that you don’t need to be as involved in the MCU to understand them (as opposed to something like Loki or What If…?), we could also view them as Marvel “trying out” these characters to see if they’re popular enough to gain any MCU traction.

“Hopefully, people fall in love with Simon Williams, and he can continue to live on,” said Wonder Man showrunner Andrew Guest when asked about the character’s future, while Winderbaum noted that Wonder Man season 2 could be “on the table” but only “if people watch.”

Yep, that sounds like Marvel Spotlight alright.

Boots Riley Skewers the Fashion Industry in First I Love Boosters Trailer

The trailer for I Love Boosters begins with Keke Palmer as a would-be store clerk who gives a very unique, but very honest, answer during her job interview. When asked about the challenges she would face in that position, her character admits, “I feel like I should have it all. I just want to take it all home, eat it up, and shoot it out of my eyes. It’s just feel, like, give it to me. It’s mine anyway.”

Even if Palmer’s declaration wasn’t accompanied by bold pastel images, shots of women breaking into a store, and a hip-hop infused soundtrack, the words alone would be enough to identify I Love Boosters as a Boots Riley project. The mix of Leftist politics, absurd imagery, and genuine sincerity have been the director’s calling card since his debut movie Sorry to Bother You.

In I Love Boosters, Palmer plays Corvette, leader of a shoplifting group calling themselves the Velvet Gang. Along with fellow members played by Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, and Poppy Liu, the Velvet Gang fights to liberate the fashion industry, advocating for what Paige’s character calls “Triple F: Fashion Forward Filanthropy.” The Velvet Gang’s revolutionary activities run afoul of fashion mogul Christie Smith, played by Demi Moore. Somehow getting even more unhinged than her character in The Substance, Moore spits lines such as, “They take my shit, and sell it to their low-class, urban bitches!”

Along the way, Smith and the Velvet Gang run into more outlandish characters played by LaKeith Stanfield, Don Cheadle, and Will Poulter, all with distinctive hairdos.

The incredible cast gathered is a sign of Riley’s status in the film industry. Before releasing Sorry to Bother You in 2018, Riley was most well-known for his music, fronting the rap-punk group The Coup. In The Coup, Riley mixed together pop genres to take on everything from fighting the police (“Pork and Beef”) to the excesses of upper class youths (“Your Parents’ Cocaine”). No matter how strident his messaging became, Riley kept the music ecstatic and fun.

He brought that same aesthetic to the anti-capitalist satire Sorry to Bother You and to the weirdo superhero series I’m a Virgo. With its bright colors and over-the-top performances, I Love Boosters promises to do the same. The Velvet Gang’s approach of clothing theft as community service feels like a direct rejoinder to the hierarchy that Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) describes during her “cerulean” monologue in The Devil Wears Prada.

As played by Palmer, Corvette isn’t going to be just the result of millions of dollars and countless jobs. She’s going to take the fashion industry for herself. It’s hers anyway.

I Love Boosters comes to theaters on May 22, 2026.

Seth Rogen Says New Sundance Hit Is The Kind of Movie That Terrifies His Studio Character

The Sundance Film Festival is, of course, an opportunity for movie lovers to experience the best in independent cinema. It is also a chance, however, for distributors to discover or launch the next low-budget sensation. A few such movies can even trigger a bidding war when it wows enough festivalgoers and acquisition executives. Such is the phenomenon occurring right now around The Invite, a remake of the Spanish film The People Upstairs and a laugher about a married couple who finds themselves invited to the swinger parties held by their neighbors. After a reportedly uproarious world premiere over the weekend, The Invite has drawn offers from A24, Focus Features, NEON, Netflix, and Searchlight Pictures (with Deadline now reporting the final bids coming down to A24 and Focus).

Yet if there’s one studio player who would not be invited to The Invite party, it’s Matt Remick, the head of fictional Continental Studios on the Apple TV series The Studio. Just ask the actor, writer, and showrunner who created him.

“He would probably be too cowardly to make a film like this,” Seth Rogen tells Den of Geek contributors Geri Courtney-Austein and Harley Bronwyn out of Park City. “He’s more IP-oriented, known brands, known things. He would like to think he would make a movie like this, but at the end of the day, he probably would not.”

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Hot off his Emmy win for playing Remick on The Studio, Rogen stars in The Invite as Joe, who begins to rethink his marriage to Angela (Olivia Wilde) when they’re invited to the orgies hosted by neighbors Pina and Hawke (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton).

The idea of Remick passing on The Invite is as humorous as it is emblematic of a Hollywood industry that rarely makes comedies anymore, and which leaves even well vaunted filmmakers like Olivia Wilde, who also directs and co-writes The Invite, to launch their vision at indie-friendly film festivals. Remember that her first film as a director, Booksmart, also broke out as an indie out of SXSW in 2018.

While speaking to Den of Geek, Wilde contends comedies like The Invite couldn’t be more important right now. “Comedy is medicine and it has been for thousands of years,” the director says. “People are dying for a release, and it brings us together and allows us to be vulnerable. It connects us. There is nothing better than that feeling of ‘I thought it was just me.’ That’s the best laugh, to realize ‘On no, that wasn’t just me [who felt that way]!’ So we hope that is what is delivered through the film.”

Writer Will McCormack, who co-wrote the screenplay with Wilde, would seem to agree.

“I’m so happy and proud to be a part of a comedy that’s here at Sundance and hopefully out in the world soon, because I can’t get through life without laughing,” says McCormack. “Even in the hardest and darkest times of my life has been some of the funniest, because we just need to excel and laugh. So I really hope comedies make a return to movie theaters, because we’ve been short on them in the last few years. So maybe The Invite is bringing them back?”

Hopefully, it does. And if it happens, it won’t be because of the Matt Remicks of the world, but we can be sure he’ll be tracing the trend in season 2.

Daredevil Born Again Season 2 Trailer Shows a City Gone to Hell

In 2022’s Daredevil #5 by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto, Daredevil goes toe-to-toe with his sometimes-ally John Walker aka U.S. Agent. Walker is leading a new variation of the Thunderbolts, who have been turned by NYC mayor Wilson Fisk into a strike squad against costumed vigilantes like Daredevil. When Daredevil refuses to surrender, U.S. Agent gets ready to fight, boasting, “I’m right with God.” The observation brings a smile to Daredevil’s face. “If you were,” he answers, cutting out the lights and bathing U.S. Agent in darkness, “He wouldn’t have sent the Devil.”

Judging by the grin worn by Charlie Cox as Daredevil in the first trailer for season two of Daredevil: Born Again, New York City has gone to Hell, and the Devil is loving it. The trailer finds a city in chaos after the events of season one, with Wilson Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force holding citizens in lockdown while Matt Murdock launches a resistance, donning a new black version of his famous costume.

Daredevil’s darker duds come directly from the 2015 comic book run by writer Charles Soule and artists Ron Garney and Phil Noto, the same run that introduced the killer Muse seen Born Again‘s first season. However, much of Born Again adapts the Devil’s Reign storyline by Zdarsky and Checchetto, in which Mayor Fisk’s hatred of Daredevil drives him to wage war against the city’s vigilantes.

As seen throughout the first season of Born Again, the MCU version of Mayor Fisk, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, has a different approach. The MCU Fisk genuinely believes he can do good for the city, despite his past life as the Kingpin of Crime. The first half of the season two trailer reflects that worldview, as we see happy images of safe citizens laughing with police, patrons at an idyllic malt shop, and even Matt Murdock sharing a slow dance with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll).

Yet, as demonstrated by the presence of Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter (Wilson Bethel), the sadistic assassin known as Bullseye, trouble is brewing. Dex was a loose cannon in Born Again‘s first season, killing Matt’s best friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) in the premiere and later trying to assassinate Fisk. The fact that he’s out of prison and able to enjoy a dessert means only trouble for Fisk.

Bullseye is just one headache for Fisk in Born Again‘s second season. The trailer gives us our first look at Mr. Charles, a mysterious new character played by Matthew Lillard, as well as citizens protesting against his policies. And then there are shots of a boxing match pitting Fisk against an unidentified fighter. While this is presumably some sort of promotional event, the fight will surely force Fisk to call upon the brutal ways he keeps trying to leave in the past. At least he can count on help from right-hand man Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan) and the upstart Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini), who are shown in the trailer getting ready to do some of their boss’s dirty work.

For his part, Daredevil has his own allies in the battle against Fisk. While the brief glimpse of Foggy Nelson probably comes from a flashback set before the Born Again premiere (we can still hope for a resurrection), Matt does have Karen Page by his side. Even better, Daredevil gets some super-powered help in the form of Jessica Jones, played again by Krysten Ritter. Jessica’s wry aside to Matt proves she still has the sparky attitude she showed in her own Netflix series, which will serve her well in their fight against Fisk in the Disney+ show.

But the most exciting image in Born Again trailer is that of Daredevil, standing in the middle of a maelstrom and smiling. If New York City has gone to Hell, it’s a good thing we have the Devil on our side.

Daredevil: Born Again season two streams on Disney+ on March 24, 2026.

Jason Biggs Discusses Directorial Debut, Playing Against Type With Untitled Home Invasion Romance

You know who Jason Biggs is. The actor has been a mainstay on our screens since the one-season Fox sitcom Drexell’s Class in 1991. But he really rose to prominence in 1999’s American Pie, when playing the sexually-curious Jim Levenstein made Biggs a household name and launched a career that continued with projects like Orange Is the New Black and Outmatched.

Now he’s back for the action comedy Untitled Home Invasion Romance. But there’s a twist this time, and not just because the movie finds Biggs stepping behind the camera as director. “It felt a little unexpected,” Biggs tells Den of Geek about his decision to make Untitled Home Invasion Romance his directoral debut. “I don’t think that people would necessarily associate me as an actor with this kind of material.”

The film stars Biggs as Kevin, a husband in a rocky marriage who plans both a romantic trip to his wife Suzie’s (Meghan Rath) childhood home upstate and a stunt to show her his worth. Kevin has hired an acting buddy (Arturo Castro) to pose as a home invader, hoping he can fight off the threat and reignite Suzie’s love for him. But when Suzie proves to be perfectly capable of taking care of herself, her complicated past comes to light, forcing both partners in the marriage to rethink their relationship.

“Originally, I was offered this project just to play the role of Kevin and I’ve been looking for something to direct,” says Biggs. “This came across to my agent, who is Meaghan’s as well, and he called me and said, ‘I have this indie you’ve been offered to act in, and I think you’re going to like it, but I think you’re going to want to direct it.’ And he was right.”

A veteran of Being Human and Hawaii Five-0, Meaghan Rath certainly knows how to play a character in high-pressure situations. But as even Kevin’s surprised to learn, there’s a lot more to Suzie than one would assume, and synthesizing those layers presented an irresistible challenge for Rath.

“There was a lot of discussion about the tone for her, especially because there were moments that are very comedic on the page,” Rath explains; “but we decided that we should play it as grounded as we could because of this crazy turn that she takes. You don’t want to seem broad, you want to be able to believe Suzie. Jason and I spent a lot of time going over the moments we wanted to bring out and the colors in the character.”

Part of the challenge comes from the fact that Suzie is at the center of the film’s twists and developments. While Kevin clearly wants to save his marriage at the start of the film, Suzie is more ambivalent. But when Kevin’s home invasion goes sideways, Suzie becomes a very different character, all of which drew Rath to the part.

“She’s confronted with not just this invasion, but she’s also in the house that she grew up in, she’s in a familiar environment, and she’s meeting old friends. All of that brings out different parts of her, and that was exciting for me to play. I strangely related to this character,” Rath says with a smile, before assuring “That’s not to say that I would kill anyone…”

“But it’s not off the table,” points out a laughing Biggs.

It’s a good thing that Rath could relate to her character because she even had to portray some of Suzie’s more action-packed scenes. “That is actually all me doing the stunts, except for a scene where Suzie’s jumping out of the canoe,” she says. “The last week and a half of our shoot, our entire crew was struck by a terrible flu. It took out most of them, including the entire stunt team. And so I had to do almost all of it. It was fine because I have a background in action and I love the rush of it. And, you know, stupidly, I feel very safe and protected on set.”

“You should never get hurt on set. Especially not a Jason Biggs set,” Biggs adds.

It’s not the first time that Rath’s thrown herself into an unexpected role. She portrayed the Legion of Super-Heroes‘ resident genius Brainiac 5, a character usually played by her brother Jesse, in two episodes in the fifth season of the Arrowverse series Supergirl. How did Rath play a beloved superhero who had been defined by her own brother?

“I did what he was doing,” she says. “I didn’t do an impression because what he did was very specific. But he’s a massive comic book nerd and I’ve had my entire life informed by that. All I had to do was ask him literally every question I had and he guided me.”

Biggs also has a nerdy credit on his IMDb, having voiced Leonardo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles between 2012 and 2017, and he also had some feedback from family, but not in quite the same way.

“I didn’t do a whole lot in terms of affectations or anything. I might have gone up a few octaves higher than usual,” he recalls. “But my kids have watched it. They usually don’t care about anything I’m in but that they really, really loved that. The other day, they asked me to do Leonardo. And I said something and they’re like, ‘No, that’s not the voice!’ I didn’t know what they meant because I literally didn’t change much. But they insisted I changed it.”

The story just goes to show that Biggs is committed to upending the expectations people have of him, even if those people are his own children.

Untitled Home Invasion Romance is now available to rent on all major digital platforms.

Ranking Every Season of Stranger Things

Stranger Things amassed a huge fan base after it hit Netflix in 2016, and that fan base only grew as more people joined in on the supernatural fun. Over five seasons, the series evolved from a little mystery about a missing boy and a strange girl with a shaved head into the epic saga of the Upside Down and the monsters who dwell there, but not every season landed equally well with fans and critics.

Now that it’s over, we’re taking a look back at Stranger Things and ranking every season, from the slam dunks to ones that didn’t quite hit the spot.

Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in Stranger Things season 2.

5. Season 2

In the second season of Stranger Things, Will Byers is back home, but clearly, all is not well. He’s having weird episodes and seeing visions of the Mind Flayer that are truly distressing. Meanwhile, Eleven is frustrated hiding out with Chief Hopper and seeks out her “sister” figure, Kali. In an effort to stop the Mind Flayer’s plans to take over the world, the season wraps up with a confrontation where Eleven uses her powers to defeat it (or maybe not). There’s also a lot of wheel-spinning with the military that will become a recurring issue as the series chugs along.

Season 2 had some definite high points. The introduction of Max (Sadie Sink) and Billy (Dacre Montgomery) significantly freshened the story up, as Max was intriguingly imperfect and Billy was a complex antagonist. Whether you loved it or hated it, Eleven did make some progress by exploring her past, and the lore behind her powers expanded. It also really felt like the Mind Flayer raised the stakes in Hawkins – the Lovecraftian beast seemed like a genuine threat that might never be truly beaten.

Ultimately, the negatives outweighed the positives, though. The season was paced poorly, with Will’s visions becoming repetitive. They spent too long teasing out his connection with the Mind Flayer, a villain who often felt quite abstract. Characters like Nancy and Jonathan were also getting sidelined in favor of new blood, while Kali’s introduction distracted us from the main story and only feels more annoying retrospectively, given how long it took her to show up again and how little she had to do when the Duffers finally remembered she existed.

Winona Ryder in Stranger Things 5 finale

4. Season 5

Vecna’s back, and he’s wearing a hat! At least, he is when he’s Henry Creel, the version of Vecna who is capturing children for his evil plan to merge Earth with the Abyss, a dark dimension apparently filled with horrors (though we don’t see any, except the Mind Flayer). Thus goes the endgame of this smash hit series.

Season 5, dragged out on Netflix over several release dates, gave us a Will Byers who was finally able to control the Hive Mind, Max waking up and …not a lot else, when you think about it! However, it did have an ending, and that’s all that really seemed to matter. To be fair, at this point, Stranger Things had done basically everything it’d set out to do. The story had outgrown Hawkins and its gang, who were now being played by actors a lot older than their characters.

This season was heavily criticized by critics and a chunk of the show’s fan base, but it delivered on some levels. There was an epic, cinematic finale with a big battle. Vecna finally got what was coming to him, and we found out what happened to all our faves in the final episode, except for Eleven, whose fate was left a little ambiguous. Were it not for the season being so undercooked and full of repetitive, awkward dialogue, the series may have ultimately stuck the landing without that big old wobble.

Eddie Munson makes devil horns in Stranger Things

3. Season 4

We expanded beyond Hawkins in season 4, as our gang was split between there and California. We also learned that Hopper had survived his apparent death in season 3. This is where all the Vecna stuff started and where we met metalhead Eddie Munson, a character who would become hugely popular thanks in part to endless edits and discussions on social media.

Vecna seemed quite a terrifying new villain, one with a distinctly human element that tied in nicely with Eleven’s past and the military’s experiments. There were also iconic moments aplenty, including Max’s Kate Bush-induced capture at the graveyard and a version of the Upside Down that finally started to feel fleshed out.

The season was dark and ambitious, but sometimes overly so – episodes seemed longer because they were, and it wasn’t always a good thing. Jumping between California, Russia, Hawkins, and the Upside Down led to a sense of overstuffing and occasional disjointedness, and the visual effects sometimes drowned out the story and characters, leaving some episodes lacking substance and straying into music-video territory. Overall, it felt more like a setup for the final season than a standalone story, but it certainly had some good stuff to offer along the way.

Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in Stranger Things season 3.

2. Season 3

Season 3 seemed like a partial reset for the show, which was well reflected in its story. Everything felt colorful and vibrant as the kids hung out in the new Starcourt Mall, worked summer jobs, and the dating drama kicked off in earnest. The story was still grounded in Hawkins, despite the whole “secret Russian base” scenario. There was also a solid monster for the gang to team up against, and its possession and control of Billy dialed up the terror on a very human level.

The mall was a relatable place that brought in genuine 80s nostalgia, while the costume design stepped up with a new vision for the characters’ looks. Those Scoops Ahoy outfits, the jazzy casual wear, and a glowing neon aesthetic really elevated the show to a new level in season 3, while Robin and Steve’s friendship was a solid, thoughtful highlight instead of what could have been a lacklustre subplot.

Though this season was perhaps a little goofier than the others, its lack of seriousness in some areas helped balance the show’s tone after the previous two seasons, when everything tended to get a little too glum.

Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in Stranger Things Season 1

1. Season 1

A boy named Will Byers mysteriously vanishes after riding his bike home from a friend’s house, and a TV sensation is born. Yep, we reckon the first season of Stranger Things is still the best, almost six years after it debuted on Netflix and became a phenomenon that, in the end, perhaps ended up a little too big for its small-town roots.

Everything about Stranger Things felt fresh and interesting back in 2016, despite its rose-tinted nostalgia for the 80s. The Duffers created this new series with tight, compelling storytelling. It was well-paced and culminated in a satisfying finale. It had everything, really! A small-town America with period-accurate visuals, well-rounded characters (kids that weren’t annoying!), and at the heart of the story, the intriguing mystery of Will’s disappearance used classic sci-fi and horror tropes expertly to draw us in. Season 1 was simply a slam dunk.

15 Must-See Book Adaptations Headed to Screens in 2026

Is the book always better than the movie? The eternal question readers must answer rages on in 2026, with a ridiculous number of films and TV shows based on popular novels and short stories headed to screens both large and small.

Some heavy hitters have already arrived, with HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms giving us a look at the world of George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, Netflix revamping lesser known Agatha Christie story The Seven Dials Mystery for a modern audience, and feature film H is for Hawk. But the book to screen pipeline isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. In 2026, we’ll also see multiple adaptations of classics from the literary canon to new contemporary hits, with a hefty dose of horror, sci-fi, and even romance along the way.

Here are some of the biggest books you’ll be able to watch on your screens this year.

An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn

Release Date: January 29 on Netflix as Bridgerton season 4

The third novel in author Julia Quinn’s popular Bridgerton romance series will become the fourth season of the hit Netflix show this winter. After getting bumped down a slot in favor of Colin and Penelope’s romance from Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, An Offer From a Gentleman puts second son Benedict Bridgerton firmly in the spotlight.

Though it’s likely the Netflix series will take a fair amount of liberties with the specifics of the plot, the broad strokes of the story involve a Cinderella-esque meet-cute between Benedict and a woman disguised in silver, a kind but overlooked heroine, and a sweet cross-class love story that helps remind everyone it’s what’s inside that counts. Yerin Ha makes her debut as the racebent Sophie Beckett (here known as Sophie Baek), Luke Thompson is back as Benedict, and most of the major family members are too. (Sorry if you were hoping to see Rege-Jean Page or Phoebe Dynevor, folks. Simon and Daphne are nowhere to be found.)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Release Date: February 13 in theaters

Academy Award-winner Emerald Fennell’s long-awaited Saltburn follow-up is a take on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and if the pre-release discourse is anything to go by, this whole experience is going to be positively unhinged. Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as literature’s most toxic yet strangely compelling romance, the melodrama inherent in Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship is clearly a feature, not a bug.

While Fennell’s interpretation of Brontë’s classic will likely not be for purists, what with its anachronistic costumes and (really) overt sexuality, it certainly looks like a lot of fun, and the trailers thus far have certainly leaned into the story’s obsessive Gothic romance vibes. Whether that means it’s also planning to delve into the original’s abundant themes of cruelty, classism, and revenge remains to be seen.

Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell

Release Date: March 11 on Prime Video

Patricia Cornwell’s massively popular series following the investigations of medical examiner and forensic consultant Kay Scarpetta is so dense and sparwling— the 29th installment was released in 2025 — it’s a shock that it hasn’t gotten a TV adaptatio prior to right now.

Prime Video’s attempt is appropriately buzzy, starring Nicole Kidman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale, Simon Baker, Ariana DeBose, and more. But if you want to start at the beginning, pick up Postmortem, which follows Scarpetta’s hunt for a serial killer in Richmond, Virginia.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Release Date: March 20 in theaters

The last Andy Weir novel to be adapted for the big screen (The Martian) racked up seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor, so one has to assume the expectations are sky high for Project Hail Mary, which is, if anything, a story that’s even nerdier and more grounded in our human ability to solve seemingly impossible problems through things like grit and science.

Ryan Gosling stars as a small-town scientist who is sent on a mysterious space mission to save humanity. A sort of scientific hail mary, if you will. (Yes, that’s purposefully vague, but if you don’t know the twist going into this movie before you see it — or before you read the book — try not to find out.)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Release Date: March 22 on PBS

PBS Masterpiece’s new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ most underrated work stars The Hunger Games’s Sam Claflin as Edmond Dantès, a well-liked young sailor who is betrayed by his friends and falsely imprisoned for treason. After many years of captivity, he manages to escape and sets an elaborate plan to get revenge on all those who have wronged him into motion. (With a little help from a fellow prisoner, a hidden treasure, and an extremely flexible moral compass.)

A tale grounded in the real-life injustices suffered by Dumas’s own father, it’s a revenge story with a deeply personal twist. Jeremy Irons, Blake Ritson, Ana Girardot, Mikkel Følsgaard, Harry Taurasi, and Karla-Simone Spence also star.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

Release Date: April 15 from Apple TV

Apple TV’s eight- episode series adaptation is based on Rufi Thorpe’s offbeat (and bestselling) novel of the same name. It follows the story of a young woman struggling to make ends meet after an affair with one of her professors leaves her pregnant, and she decides to keep the baby. With some help from her estranged father, she hatches a plan to secure her future by launching an OnlyFans account — and crafting a narrative using rules from the world of wrestling.

Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer star, alongside Nick Offerman, Thaddea Graham, and Nicole Kidman.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Release Date: May 8 on Netflix

A charming and heartfelt story of the unlikely friendship between a widow who works at a local aquarium and a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus, Remarkably Bright Creatures is a meditation on grief, found family, and love that spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list.

Oscar winner Sally Field is set to play widow Tova Sullivan, joined by a cast that includes Lewis Pullman, Colm Meany, Joan Chen, Cathay Baker, Beth Grant, and Sofia Black-D’Elia.

The Odyssey by Homer

Release Date: July 17 in theaters

Christopher Nolan takes on one of the foundational epics of Western literature this summer with the help of a star-studded cast and a vast network of IMAX theaters ready to project Scylla and Charybdis on a 70-foot IMAX screen. Matt Damon stars as the Greek hero Odysseus, who spends a decade trying to get home from the Trojan War and encounters everything from cyclops and sentient whirlpools to angry gods and cannibals along the way.

A predictably all-star cast supporting cast is involved, including Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, and Mia Goth.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Release Date: September 11 in theaters

A new adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic Sense and Sensibility is coming to a multiplex near you for the first time in nearly 30 years. The 1996 Ang Lee version racked up awards season hardware, including seven Oscar nominations, so the bar for director Georgia Oakley’s new take is already incredibly high. Particularly when the original’s story of love, heartbreak, and duty has been such a favorite for so long.

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles star as Dashwood sisters Elinor and Marianne, joined by an ensemble that includes Caitriona Balfe as Mrs. Dashwood, George MacKay as Edward Ferrars, Herbert Nordrum as Colonel Brandon, Frank Dillane as John Willoughby, Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Jennings, and Bodhi Rae Breathnach as the youngest Dashwood, Marianne.

Verity by Colleen Hoover

Release Date: October 2 in theaters

One of two Colleen Hoover adaptations hitting theaters this year — the other is the more emotional romance Reminders of Him — Verity is a star-studded domestic thriller starring Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett. The story follows a writer (Johnson) who is hired to become a ghostwriter for a bestselling novelist named Verity Crawford (Hathaway) after she’s unable to finish her latest book following an accident. But when Lowen moves into her clients’ home to work on the book, she realizes that everything is not what it seems. What secrets is Verity really hiding?

If you’re at all familiar with Colleen Hoover’s addictive works, you already know that anything’s possible.

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Release Date: October 9 in theaters, titled Other Mommy

Josh Malerman’s creepy postapocalyptic thriller Bird Box was adapted into a massive hit for Netflix back in 2018, and now his 2024 horror novel Incidents Around the House is headed to theaters later this year. Produced by James Wan and retitled Other Mommy after the sinister entity at the story’s center, it follows the story of a young girl and her troubled family who are haunted by a dark creature determined to take up residence inside her. It’s as creepy as it sounds.

The film stars Jessica Chastain alongside Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, and Dichen Lachman (Severance).

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Release Date: November 20 in theaters, as The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping

An origin story for District 12 Hunger Games victor Haymitch Abernathy, Suzanne Collins’ second Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, is an emotional character study, a dense piece of lore, and a shrewd exploration of the power of propaganda all rolled into one.

The story of Haymitch’s victory in the Second Quarter Quell, the narrative deftly threads the needle between what we already know about Katniss’ alcoholic mentor — the specifics of how he won his Games, the sickening tragedy that awaited him after he was a victor — and the person he was before he became a victim. Joseph Zada plays the young Haymitch, alongside Mckenna Grace, Ben Wang, Molly McCann, and Percy Daggs IV as an assortment of (largely doomed) supporting characters. Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons, and Ralph Fiennes are all on board as younger versions of familiar faces like Cesar Flickerman, Effie Trinket, Plutarch Heavensbee, and Coriolanus Snow.

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Release date: November 26 in theaters, followed by a Netflix release

On the surface, C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia may be a strange choice for blockbuster director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie follow-up, but given her lifelong love of the source material, religious upbringing, and feminist bona fides make for an intriguing mix as a storyteller. (Look, few characters in children’s literature deserve the reinvention of Gerwig’s Amy March treatment as much as poor Susan Pevensie.)

Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that Gerwig’s striking out on her own path, eschewing the obvious choice of adapting The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe et again and starting her franchise with The Magician’s Nephew. Though the book is technically the sixth in Lewis’s Narnia series, it’s actually the first story chronologically, providing a crucial origin story for many of the world’s most familiar and powerful elements.

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

Release Date: TBD 2026 on BritBox

Everyone knows who Elizabeth Bennet is, even if your only real exposure to Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is video edits featuring Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy doing that infamous hand flex. Most who’ve read the book or seen an adaptation probably remember Lizzie’s older sister Jane, who marries Mr. Bingley. Wild younger sister Lydia and her closest confidante, Kitty, are memorable for the trouble the former gets into. But what you might not remember is the fact that there’s actually a fifth Bennet child. And the BBC and BritBox are aiming to finally give this often-ignored character her due in their adaptation of Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister, which allows middle sister Mary to finally step into the spotlight on her own terms.

The 10-episode series will follow the story of the least well-known member of the Bennet clan as she steps out of her sisters’ shadows in search of her own identity. (And of course finds herself in the middle of a love story of her own.) Ella Bruccoleri stars as Mary, alongside Maddie Close, Poppy Gilbert, Grace Hogg-Robinson, and Molly Wright as her sisters Jane, Lizzie, Lydia, and Kitty, respectively. Other familiar faces in the cast include Ruth Jones, Richard E. Grant, Indira Varma, Richard Coyle, Laurie Davidson, and Dónal Finn.

Carrie by Stephen King

Release Date: TBD 2026 on Prime Video

Prime Video’s forthcoming series adaptation of Stephen King’s horror classic Carrie hails from the mind of Mike Flanagan, the man behind such successful (and emotionally devastating) recent horror series as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Haunting of Hill House. The general gist of its story of high school bullying and deadly consequences is probably familiar to many who’ve never even picked up King’s novel, but Flanagan intends to put a modern spin on its continually relevant themes.

The eight-part series stars Summer H. Howell as Carrie White, joined by Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, and Joel Oulette as Tommy Ros. Other notable faces include Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Alison Thornton, and horror veteran Matthew Lillard, who’ll be playing Carrie’s principal, Henry Grayle.

Gus Van Sant Sees Unlikely Precedent for Cinema’s Future in a Post-Streaming World

Gus Van Sant has always been drawn to stories seeped in truth and reality, even when he’s making fiction. One of the defining voices of independent cinema over the last 40 years, beginning with breakout work in movies like Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, the filmmaker has essayed everyone from gay rights activist Harvey Milk in the Oscar-winning Milk to, perhaps more daringly, a thinly fictionalized account of the then novel phenomenon of school shooters via the 2003 Palme d’Or winner, Elephant. Yet whether true stories or ostensible Cinderella yarns about a couple of buddies from Southie ready to show the world these apples, it is an underlying authenticity which Van Sant insists makes his films sing.

“You want to stick to the original realities, because usually they are more intense and more dramatic than fiction,” Van Sant tells us over a Zoom call from his West Coast home. “I’ve done a lot of stories that are coming from reality, like almost all of them. Maybe Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was completely devoid of reality, but almost every other script had real characters that were being drawn from, including Good Will Hunting.”

Van Sant points to his first major awards-winner that partnered him with a then couple of unknown wunderkind actors/writers named Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as a sharp example of finding truth in stories as sensational as that of an MIT janitor who winds up solving the unsolvable equation at his school.

“There were experiences and characters that existed for Matt and Ben when they wrote it,” Van Sant says. “It wasn’t a documentary, but it had origin stories.”

The origin story of Van Sant’s latest film, however, is a bit unusual even for him. Coming to the filmmaker largely through the prism of a finished script by Austin Kolodney, Dead Man’s Wire approaches a breathless verisimilitude while telling the story of either the best day or worst in the life of Tony Kiritsis. Tony was a real, self-styled Midwest entrepreneur who, after feeling he was manipulated and preyed upon by a family of mortgage brokers, decided to kidnap the son on a February morning in 1977 by wiring the muzzle of a 12-gauge shotgun to the back of the man’s head.

In the ensuing aftermath of a two-day hostage situation, Kiritsis became a folk hero to some quarters of Indianapolis… including a jury.

“It was all new to me,” Van Sant says of the story that first came across his desk as a screenplay. “And as I was reading the script, I was learning that the scriptwriter had put hyperlinks within it, so that you could go to a YouTube page and it would bring you to a site that would play recordings or footage from the actual event. I realized it was super real.”

As a consequence, Van Sant found himself eager to stay relatively close to the historical record, including drawing from the 2018 documentary about the same event, Dead Man’s Line. In Van Sant’s version, Tony is played by Bill Skarsgård while the man he takes hostage, Richard Hall, is portrayed by an unrecognizable Dacre Montgomery; there are even tips of the hat to its 1970s cinematic inspirations with Al Pacino portraying Richard’s mortgage tycoon father as heartless and unforgiving—so the opposite of Pacino’s Nixon era antihero in Dog Day Afternoon (1975)—but the reality of the situation was paramount on Van Sant’s mind… even when he was taking liberties.

“Bill was quite a different physiological person, so we thought that going in a different direction was good,” Van Sant says about the central characterization. “I wanted him to be a sort of antic, changeable, moody, and funny character.” Van Sant left the voice and other acute physical choices to Skarsgård, perhaps feeling comfortable since it is the Swedish actor’s range in movies as varied as Barbarian and Nosferatu that convinced the director he could play one viewer’s madman as another’s Robin Hood.

The parallels between the anger in the culture of 50 years ago documented by Dead Man’s Wire and today are unmistakable, yet Van Sant would seem to caution reading too much into it.

“Right now, because of [Luigi] Mangione, yes, there are some similar things,” Van Sant acknowledges. “But I think just like Dog Day Afternoon is based on a real story, there are hostage-taking stories that have similar processes to them that just go back in history.”

Nonetheless, the way other processes are changing weighs as strongly on Van Sant’s mind as it does old collaborators like Damon and Affleck. When we catch up with Van Sant, it is shortly after comments were shared by Affleck and Damon about the ways Netflix has changed storytelling, including on their very own Rip. In effect, they seemed to suggest, we might be seeing the language of cinema shift.

“There’s a lot of observations to be made because of the streaming business and technology affecting cinema,” Van Sant considers. “I’m a big fan of a book called A Million and One Nights [by Terry Ramsaye], which was written in the 1920s. It’s kind of explaining the birth of cinema and the advent of sound, and how that affected the form. There was then an addendum to the book when sound came along, and it was about the change that happened between silent and sound films. We’re sort of going through that again with this technology change.”

Van Sant makes special note of how the format of film exhibition was always dictated, for better or worse, by commercial interests.

Says the director, “The reason I think that films were projected in the first place was that they were like originally on [kinetoscopes] or nickelodeons, which was a small screen that you would see in like an arcade or a shopping area. People would look at little passion plays on a small screen, and it was on a small screen because they didn’t really know how to project film without burning it. It would melt. So when they figured out how to [exhibit it in a larger format], it made sense business-wise that every time you showed it, to fit in as many people as you could. It made sense to have a crowd and to make it like a play, and now it makes a different sense to be able to send it to everyone’s personal computers. It’s a different technology.”

He continues, “We’re living in a different age where we don’t necessarily gather in the same place. So I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I don’t think that people knew if it was good or bad when it was created. It was a business, and the businesses are usurping how we are used to cinema.”

Ultimately Van Sant compares the current transition to a bit like listening to music. One will have a very different experience when listening to a piece of music performed live by an orchestra versus listening to a recording of that same orchestra on their headphones. It’s still the same piece of music, however. For now though, Van Sant seems happy that by remaining a dedicated fixture of the indie landscape, he has avoided some of the same constraints and pressures that Damon described as being placed on other filmmakers.

“I feel like I’ve sort of [spent] my whole career outside of the commercial demands of, say, a movie that you might be spending $100 million on. With that movie, there’s a financial need to make the money back. Usually if my films are low-budget enough, the demands are less. So I haven’t been pushed into any decisions that I couldn’t accept.”

At the moment, the only sawed-off shotguns against the predations of capitalism in Van Sant’s world remain elements of Dead Man’s Wire. It is playing in cinemas now.

Alexander Skarsgård Reveals Role as a Sexy Wicker Man ‘Intimidated’ Him at Sundance

Alexander Skarsgård can do anything on screen. The Swedish actor, son of Stellan and brother to Bill, has portrayed everything from a thousand-year-old vampire on True Blood to a tech mogul in Succession, to the dominant half of an BDSM relationship in the new A24 film Pillion. But there’s one challenge that Skarsgård has yet to take on. And it’s a challenge posed by his latest movie, the romantic, fairy-tale like fantasy of Wicker.

At a panel that followed Wicker’s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, which Den of Geek contributors and Horrored Girl hosts Geri Courtney-Austein and Harley Bronwyn attended, Skarsgård admitted that the story scared him.

“I was quite intimidated when I read it,” Skarsgård said of his role as the Wicker Husband in the film, which is exactly as it’s described: a husband made out of pliably weaved wicker. Although, the reasons it scared him might surprise: “I tend to be drawn towards more conflicted characters with more internal turmoil and darkness, and to play this good-hearted, good-natured, sweet, morally righteous character was scary to me. I’m not really comfortable doing that.”

The admission got a chuckle out of Skarsgård’s co-stars, Olivia Colman and Peter Dinklage. Written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, Wicker draws from Ursula Wills-Jones’ 2008 short story, “The Wicker Husband,” which very much involves the magical creation of a made-to-order spouse of high quality weaving. In the film, Colman plays an outcast in a fishing village who commissions the lover to be created by a basket maker (Dinklage) in order to escape the judgment of her neighbors. Meanwhile Elizabeth Debicki and Richard E. Grant play said neighbors, who are baffled by Colman’s Fisherwoman and the devoted husband who suddenly appears beside her.

Skarsgård is hardly the only person forced to stretch their acting muscles for Wicker. “The Wicker Husband” has already been turned into a musical with music and lyrics by Darren Clark and a book by Rhys Jennings. The stage production has been mounted across the U.S. and the UK, often with impressive effects to bring the titular spouse to life.

That aspect isn’t what worries Skarsgård. The actor has certainly been part of big productions in the past, even beyond the false fangs and fake blood he used in True Blood. In addition to acting besides CGI creations of the King of the Monsters and the Eighth Wonder of the World for 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, Skarsgård was in lavish productions such as Brandon Cronenberg’s stomach-churning Infinity Pool and Robert Eggers’ Viking epic The Northman. More recently, Skarsgård got a warm-up for Wicker by portraying a different inanimate object that gains sentience. On the Apple TV series Murderbot, Skarsgård portrays the titular android, who begins to develop a sense of self that puts him in conflict with the creators who designed him as a security apparatus.

Based on his comments at Sundance, the Wicker Husband may have a similar personal journey as Murderbot, but starts in a very different place than someone called, well, Murderbot. Wicker appealed to him because “it wasn’t heavy-handed or didactic or preachy. It was so funny and sweet and obviously a very interesting character to play,” he revealed. “It was a stretch, as an actor,” he added.

Those last words, Skarsgård delivered with a big smile, proving that his practice playing the Wicker Husband is paying off already. And indeed, it will be an interesting departure from a blood-soaked Viking (The Northman), a vain author full of self-delusion (Infinity Pool), or a BDSM dom (Pillion).

Wicker premiered Jan. 24, 2026, at the Sundance Film Festival.

Sam Raimi Explains Why He Won’t Make Spider-Man 4

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies are still considered highlights of the superhero genre (well, maybe not the third one), and fans of his Tobey Maguire-led web-slinger flicks have often cheered for his return to the franchise. Both Raimi and his star have made Marvel returns in recent years – Raimi as director of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Maguire reprising the role of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home – but a fourth movie from the duo has long seemed out of reach.

Raimi argues that this is the way it should be. In a new interview with ScreenRant while out promoting his new movie Send Help, which has Raimi reteaming with his Multiverse of Madness star Rachel McAdams, the director claims that Marvel Studios is “better than ever,” but it wouldn’t “be right for me to go back and try and resurrect my version of this story.”

“[Stan Lee] created the character, but so many people contributed, so many artists, that for a brief time, I was handed the torch to carry on after 40 years of Spider-Man comics,” Raimi explained. “And then after my three movies, I handed the torch off to someone else. And I think they’ve got to keep running with the storyline and the audience that is now following the torchbearer.”

Though Raimi’s work on the Spider-Man franchise seems to be over, Maguire is more than up for returning as everyone’s friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, which has only added fuel to the rumor fire about an appearance in the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars.

“I love these films and I love all of the different series,” he said on the record with Marvel. “If these guys called me and said, ‘Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?’ or ‘Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?’, it would be a ‘yes!’ Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”

In the meantime, a new MCU Spidey movie will be along this summer. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Spider-Man: Brand New Day will see Tom Holland don the red and blue suit again. He’ll be joined by Jon Bernthal as the Punisher and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, as well as Stranger Things star Sadie Sink, who plays a mysterious new character in Peter Parker’s world.

Taika Waititi Says His Work on Thor Was for the Greater Good

Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder may have tipped the scales for Marvel fans who thought it leaned too far into comedy, but the director doesn’t seem to have any hard feelings about it.

During press for the Sundance premiere of Fing!, which is unfortunately a David Walliams adaptation co-written by and co-starring Walliams, Waititi was on hand to chat about Star Wars and Marvel, describing his work on the franchise as “for the greater good”.

“Thor was around before me,” Waititi said (via Variety). “The stuff that Chris and I did and how we shaped him into that new version… that was for the greater good of the franchise as a whole. I can’t wait to see these Avengers movies. I was just watching Infinity War and Endgame two weeks ago. They’re so good. I’m good friends with the Russos and will love to see what they’re doing.”

Like the sport at the heart of his 2023 movie Next Goal Wins, Waititi’s Marvel experience ultimately seemed to be a game of two halves. After the release of Thor: Ragnarok, the cheeky Kiwi was riding high as franchise fans responded well to his more comedic take on the God of Thunder, but a follow-up movie that saw the character bickering with his old hammer, being stripped naked in front of Zeus, and coping with a midlife crisis fared less well with critics and fans alike, although the movie made a profit at the box office (personally, I enjoyed Love and Thunder, but appreciate I’m in the minority).

Post-mortem, Thor star Chris Hemsworth has also shared some thoughts on the divisive Marvel fourquel, telling Yahoo that he and the rest of the Love and Thunder gang were “having so much fun” making the movie, and “that’s sometimes too much of a good thing.”

“I still love the film,” Hemsworth stressed. “You have to critique and look at what worked in case you do it again on a different film. The lesson I took was have fun with the comedy and so on, but what’s the emotional drive and component here? Is this something relatable? Then you can add on all the jokes and the fantastical special effects and the elements. But if there’s not a strong enough throughline, sometimes you’re just having too much fun.”

Hemsworth’s Thor will return in Avengers: Doomsday later this year, while Waititi’s next directorial project, the Jenna Ortega-led sci-fi movie Klara and the Sun, is still without a release date after wrapping production back in April 2024.

Does A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Explain Brienne of Tarth’s Ancestry?

The following contains spoilers for the A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS episode 2 and details from the larger A Song of Ice and Fire canon.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ser Duncan the Tall is pretty tall.

Described as an inch shy of seven feet in George R.R. Martin‘s “Tales of Dunk and Egg” novellas and played by 6’5″ actor Peter Claffey, the hedge knight known as “Dunk” tends to tower over most in Westeros. Through the first two episodes of Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Dunk’s height has become a bit of a running joke with the lovable galoot having not yet met a door frame he didn’t want to accidentally crash his head into.

Longtime readers of Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books, however, will know that Dunk is far from the only preternaturally prominent individual in the Seven Kingdoms. In addition to the literal giants that populate the far north beyond the Wall, the continent is home to altitudinous folks like the 6’6″ King Robert I, the 7’1″ Hodor, and even the titanic 8’0″ Gregor “The Mountain That Rides” Clegane.

Westeros being home to so many unusually tall people naturally raises questions like “What’s in the water over there?” “Why aren’t the doorways bigger?” “And are any of these tall people related?” While answers to those first two questions remain elusive, we might actually be able to address the third. That’s because Martin has left some breadcrumbs suggesting that Ser Duncan the Tall does have an equally tall descendent. You might know her as Brienne of Tarth.

Born on the island of Tarth some 70 years after A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place, Brienne has many unambiguously heroic traits that made her a Game of Thrones favorite. Like a certain Ser Duncan before her, Brienne takes chivalry and her obligation as a warrior far more seriously than her contemporaries. In fact, one might argue that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is named after the Thrones episode “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” in which Brienne takes her knightly vows. She’s also unusually statuesque for a woman of Westeros (or really for anyone on a Medieval diet), coming in at well over six feet tall and played by the 6’3″ actress Gwendoline Christie. For Dunk actor Peter Claffey, Dunk and Brienne’s shared height and values alone is compelling enough to confirm some sort of familial connection.

“[Martin] hasn’t confirmed it to me, but yeah I think there’s probably some lineage, for sure,” Claffey tells Den of Geek. “There are a lot of commonalities between Brienne and Dunk. They have a very similar sort of moral compass, similar sort of demeanor, similar sort of almost vulnerability and gullibility with speaking and interacting with people. I absolutely loved Brienne and Gwendoline Christie in the show. I hope I get to meet her some time, it would be so cool.”

The evidence for Brienne being a descendent of Ser Duncan the Tall goes beyond the cosmetic. In one of Brienne’s chapters in the book A Feast for Crows, she recalls coming across a shield adorned with a sigil depicting an elm tree and a falling star in her father’s armory. That should sound familiar to those who just watched A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 2. In that installment, Dunk must choose a new sigil for himself since he is not a blood relation to the man who knighted him, Ser Arlan of Pennytree.

With his squire Egg’s help, Dunk requests that a Dornish painter named Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford) craft him a sigil featuring “an elm tree, a big one like the one by the river. Brown trunk and green branches. But with a shooting star above.” The similarities between Dunk’s sigil and the sigil found in Brienne’s Evenfall castle home on Tarth isn’t so much of a “hint” that the two are related as it is an outright confirmation. Martin himself agreed, affirming Brienne and Dunk’s familial connection in 2016.

But if Ser Duncan is Brienne of Tarth’s grandfather or great-grandfather then who is her grandmother or great-grandmother? Well, would you believe that the aforementioned Dornish painter named Tanselle is another one of Westeros’ Very Tall Individuals? And would you believe that Ser Duncan the Tall appears to be absolutely smitten with her? Sure, Dunk displays absolutely zero rizz when interacting with “Tanselle-Too-Tall” but his story is far from finished. And Martin has entrusted A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker with the blueprints to many future Dunk and Egg stories. It’s entirely possible that Tanselle will be revealed to be a part of Brienne of Tarth’s family history as well. The actress who plays her certainly hopes so.

“Everybody’s so connected and intertwined in this show, so I mean, that would be my dream, honestly,” Crawford says. “Gwendoline Christie, oh gosh, she’s so amazing. I’d love to carry on the tall girl legacy. That’s my honor.”

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’ Daniel Ings on the Scene That Best Explains Lyonel Baratheon

This article contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 2.

According to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker, one character in the Game of Thrones prequel series was particularly challenging to cast. The role wasn’t that of the seven-foot-tall hedge knight Dunk (Peter Claffey) nor his adolescent squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). Instead it was a bombastic tourney competitor with a very familiar surname: Ser Lyonel Baratheon.

“I had begun to think that I had written [the part] poorly because we were getting auditions that just weren’t doing the scenes how they were in my head,” Parker tells Den of Geek.

Lyonel Baratheon is a deceptively hard figure to nail down. Simultaneously magnetic, intimidating, and sensual, he appears to synthesize all the best and worst qualities of his Game of Thrones descendants: brothers and rival kings Robert, Stannis, and Renly. Thankfully, an actor stepped forward to accept the challenge.

“Danny Ings came in and it was like I had scored the script for him or something,” Parker says. “He got the ups and downs. Lyonel’s cadence. When he speaks, his words just rip through the air like Al Pacino. George [R.R. Martin] said, when he saw him in the first episode, ‘You gotta be careful. This guy might steal the show,'”

British actor Daniel Ings has steadily climbed the TV ladder over the last decade with roles in notable projects such as Lovesick, I Hate Suzie, and Guy Ritchie’s surprise 2024 Netflix hit The Gentlemen. Now he’s embodying the knight they call the “Laughing Storm,” a bon vivant who arrives to Ashford Meadow with a level of curiosity and empathy that’s unusual for a Westerosi nobleman… let alone one who is in line to be Lord of Storm’s End one day. For Ings, the key to understanding Lyonel begins with his look, highlighted by a conspicuously gaudy earring that Game of Thrones fans have latched onto since the trailer first arrived.

“This is a guy who’s traveled the high seas and taken little trinkets from everywhere he’s been,” the actor explains. “He’s been to Dorne, he’s been east, he’s been west. He probably plucked [the earring] off a dead body and was like ‘Oh, that’s pretty I’ll take that.’ It was fun finding those little flourishes in prep. He’s pretty battle hardened. He’s lived. He’s got some scars. But he’s not afraid of a bit of flair.”

That colorful personality emerges in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ first episode when Lyonel is drawn to the novelty of a very tall hedge knight who enters his private party tent not with gifts but a simple desire to have dinner. The subsequent dance shared between Dunk and Lyonel served as a highly reshared highlight of the premiere.

“He sees this Dunk guy as like ‘Yeah, you’re interesting, you’re weird. You’re big too, so I can use that… that’s fun for me. Bring your little pal with the bald head over, let’s go.”

Episode 2 “Hard Salt Beef,” however, presents an even more illustrative Lyonel moment. For as interested as he is in others, Ser Lyonel Baratheon is always most fascinated with himself. Who else but Lyonel Baratheon would organize a game of tug of war among all the knights of Ashford Meadow only to abandon it midway through for a drink? Then, after wetting his whistle and trash-talking, Lyonel returns to the front of the line to deliver the decisive yank of the rope.

“It does distill the character to his barest elements, which is like hyper masculine and wanting to win and fight and do man shit. But also, at certain point, being like ‘Carry on, boys, because I’m gonna go and have a little sip of beer, and then I’ll be back in a minute,'” Ings says.

The hardest part of Lyonel’s tug of war wasn’t the pulling, it turns out, but the talking.

“It’s quite hard screaming Westerosi insults and making them up on the fly. Ira would come up and whisper to me ‘call them c*nt-strapped daisies.’ It was fun having to figure out the language while having [at the time 10-year-old] Dexter there on set. Can we do it? Can we not? Do we have to?”

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 2 Review: Hard Salt Beef

The following contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 2.

The Targaryens arrive on the scene in the second episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but much like almost everything else about this show, they’re not entirely what you expect. Part of the reason for that is, at this particular moment in Westerosi history, the Targs are kind of not having a great time. Yeah, the family is still on the Iron Throne, but all their dragons are dead, and King Daeron II just had to put down a rebellion by his own illegitimate half-brother, Daemon Blackfyre. In short, the whole Fire and Blood thing really just isn’t as impressive as it used to be.

Case in point: The fact that they’re attending this tourney at all. Let’s face it, and no shade to House Ashford or whatever, but nothing about this event suggests that they or it are important enough for this many Targaryen heirs to the throne to be attending. The entourage includes: Prince Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvell), the heir to the Iron Throne, his younger brother Prince Maekar (Sam Spruell), and Maekar’s son Aerion (Finn Bennett). Two of Maeker’s other sons are also meant to be part of the group, but they’re missing at present, and everyone’s pretty much just hoping they aren’t dead in a ditch somewhere. But, currently missing kids aside, that’s still a lot of Targaryen royalty for this particular tournament. (It’s Aerion, for his part, who somehow at least seems aware of this, and is predictably snotty about being forced to attend.)

Their arrival is suitably dramatic, with fluttering banners, lots of attitude, and several members of the Kingsguard in tow. Baelor is immediately striking, if only for all the ways he doesn’t look like a conventional Targaryen. Dark-haired and stocky rather than white-blonde and willowy, he very visibly takes after his Dornish mother rather than his father, the king. But his appearance isn’t the only thing that goes against our expected understanding of how Targaryens are supposed to be and behave. Because Baelor is kind. When given the chance to rage at Dunk for eavesdropping or humiliate him for his clearly desperate request, he listens. He’s even sympathetic. He vouches for Dunk so that he can enter the jousting tournament, even though it’s not entirely clear whether he actually remembers Ser Arlan at all. And, to be fair, I kind of love the idea that he may have chosen to just do this big dumb kid a solid, knowing that no one else would remember whether or not what he said was true. It’d be such a non-Targaryen-coded move.

But with his admission into the tournament finally secured, it’s time for Dunk to get ready. Unfortunately, weird knight rules mean that he can’t wear Ser Arlan’s colors or armor, which leads him to having to go buy some of his own, which, of course, he can’t afford. (It probably doesn’t help that he’s also gigantic. He’s not shopping off the rack.) Cue him selling his beloved white palfrey, and their goodbye is pretty much straight out of a Disney movie, with Dunk promising to reclaim her if he manages to win, and making the guy who buys her promise to give the animal extra oats and an apple. It feels like we’re seconds away from bursting into some sort of farewell song. (It’s not ineffective, to be clear. If Dunk doesn’t get that horse back, I’m sending someone hate mail.)

On the plus side, needing to get the crest on his shield repainted does give Dunk an excuse to talk to the pretty puppeteer girl he’s been admiring at one of the tents surrounding the jousting pitch. Her name is Tanselle, and she was teased about her height as a child. (Tanselle Too Tall!!) They’re so adorable, it ought to be illegal, and you can easily picture the giant, sweet but dumb children they’ll produce. Egg, who has spent most of the episode being kind of an enormous nerd, also turns out to be an excellent wingman, asking Tanselle the sort of get-to-know-you questions that Dunk is truly not equipped to manage. We’re all rooting for you, ser.

The episode closes with Dunk and Egg off to watch the first competitions on the pitch. The party atmosphere is infectious, and the event itself is raucous and wild. And it all looks nothing like the more sedate jousting we’ve witnessed elsewhere in this universe. Six jousts seem to be running simultaneously, featuring knights from all the big houses bearing shields with familiar crests: Targaryen, Tully, Lannister, Baratheon. Lances are splintering wildly, horses are crashing into one another, and men are gleefully riding each other over. It feels dangerous and violent, particularly when it’s shot from the perspective of the crowd of commoners, who gleefully cheer every slice and injury. No one’s performatively giving out roses to pretty girls in the audience, not this time around.

Afterward, Dunk’s strangely melancholy, reflecting on the life that Ser Arlan lived, and the success he chased but never achieved. He was never a champion in the lists. Most of the nobles don’t remember him anymore — if they ever did — and don’t seem particularly grateful for any service he may have done for them. What was the point of his life, of being an honorable man? Well, the episode makes it pretty clear: Dunk is the point. Arlan didn’t have to, but he raised a lost kid to be a good person, and that’s no small thing in this world of death and vipers.

“I am his legacy,” Dunk says, and it sounds like a promise. What that legacy will turn out to be, well. I guess we’re about to find out.

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.