On Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver called out Donald Trump for continuing to blame the shutdown on Democrats as he went to a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago before his administration froze the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on Nov. 1.
“Yeah, not only is that pretty insulting,” he said. “I’m guessing it’s also pretty infuriating to whatever exhausted high school freshman just wrote a 4,000-word essay about Great Gatsby as a grim meditation on the disillusionment of the American Dream, only for CNN to tell them, ‘You know what? It’s really just a book about rich people partying.’”
Oliver continued, “And for what it’s worth, the actual theme of that event was, and I quote, ‘A Little Party Never Killed Nobody.’ And I guess that is true. Although, it is also true, that as we are all finding out right now, a ‘grand old party’ is capable of killing a whole lot of people, and unfortunately, they don’t seem to give a single marble and gold-encased shit about that.”
The suspension of SNAP benefits to over 42 million Americans by the Trump administration on Nov. 1 has proved to be a political lightning rod during a pretty low-key shutdown. In some of the ugliest examples of the MAGA mindset, the Department of Agriculture has determined in October it can’t use the billions in contingency funds long set aside for SNAP, due to legal considerations.
That decision has led to a series of court challenges by states, cities and others amidst an expected surge at food banks.
Two federal judges this week ruled the administration has to tap into the $6 billion available. However, despite Trump posting late Friday it would be his “honor to provide the funding, just like I did with military and law enforcement pay,” the administration is demanding the courts provide guidance on how to pay out — a process that will still delay SNAP recipients from receiving benefits for weeks in the very best case scenario.
HBO’s genre dramas are often a big deal, and so far, Welcome to Derryis no exception.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, the first episode of the It prequel amassed 5.7 million cross-platform viewers over three days. It’s the third-biggest series debut in HBO history, coming behind the pilots for 2022’s House of the Dragon andThe Last of Us in 2023. In their first days alone, Dragon had nearly 10 million viewers, while Last had 4.7 million viewers and gained plenty more over the three-day period. (The finale to Last’s first season alone almost reached the same numbers as Dragon’s premiere.)
Most Welcome to Derry viewers caught onto the premiere after its initial Sunday night airing. Despite the show’s solid reviews, the episode itself caught attention online with its bloody ending, and it helped that it premiered shortly before Halloween. That twist took a lot of people by surprise—including HBO, as it turns out—and will likely get seats in butts for the remainder of the season.
Since Halloween fell on a Friday this year, the second Derry episode launched on HBO Max ahead of usual Sunday timeslot. HBO also released the show’s intro, made by production studio Filmograph. In a separate THR interview, executive producer/director Andy Muschietti called the title sequence a “descent into dread” as it features Pennywise luring in kids or observing chaotic events throughout the town’s history. The sequence “reflects our desire to show the big catastrophic events” referenced in Stephen King’s novel, continued Muschietti, and further leaned into Derry being “a place that’s seemingly wholesome, but there’s something dreadful under the surface.”
You can read more about the sequence’s creation here, and it’ll play before new episodes of Welcome to Derry every Sunday.
Emma Thompson in ‘Down Cemetery Road’ Credit: courtesy of Apple TV
Premieres Wednesday:
Ballad of a Small Player — Filmmaker Edward Berger (Conclave) casts Colin Farrell as an inveterate gambler and swindler living under an assumed identity in China. The Wall Street Journal called it “a failed attempt to wring laughs out of this abundantly awful man.” That was on page B25, directly opposite a full-page profile of Peter Thiel. (Netflix)
Down Cemetery Road — Emma Thompson plays a private investigator whose search for a missing girl uncovers a shocking secret: Vast numbers of Britons who were believed dead are secretly still alive and well. “How does a guy get in on that?” asks Keir Starmer. (Apple TV)
Hazbin Hotel Season 2 — With the forces of Heaven vanquished, Charlie finds her infernal hostelry overrun with new guests who see no need to renounce their evil ways. See, God? This is what happens when you think you’re putting Charlie Kirk somewhere where he can’t do any more damage. (Prime Video)
Ink Master — The prize is not only $250,000 but recognition for one’s origins in Season 17, which carries the theme “Hometown Heroes.” That’s a significant departure from the previous 16 seasons, the theme of which was “hepatitis.” (Paramount+)
Selling Sunset — Season 9 adds new realtor Sandra Vergara, who just so happens to be Sofia Vergara’s cousin. And also her adoptive sister. How does that work, you ask? Forget it, Jake, it’s Sunset! (Netflix)
Star Wars: Visions — Season 3 of the animated anthology hearkens back to Season 1 by once again focusing entirely on anime. I don’t know, do we think that genre is really bankable yet? (Disney+)
Colin Farrell in ‘Ballad of a Small Player’ Credit: courtesy of Netflix
Premieres Thursday:
Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers — Archival footage and interviews with survivors paint a documentary portrait of the criminal psychopath who made living in Central Florida a waking nightmare in the late 20th century. And here you thought everyone had forgotten Glenda Hood! (Netflix)
Amsterdam Empire — Famke Janssen takes on the role of a former Europop star who tries to ruin her husband’s cannabis business as revenge for his infidelity. I never thought I’d say this, but J.Lo’s inability to find true and lasting love suddenly seems kind of trivial. (Netflix)
Hell House LLC: Lineage — The fifth and final installment in the franchise about a cursed haunted attraction is the first one that isn’t based on found footage. Which I’m assuming means it was stolen. (Shudder)
Juan Gabriel: I Must, I Can, I Will — Four documentary episodes retrace the remarkable career of the flamboyant Mexican balladeer, who became a gay icon despite having fathered six children with three different women. In related news, my strategy of hanging around the Parliament House for four years is due to put me up to my neck in it any minute now. (Netflix)
Son of a Donkey — The Australian YouTube duo known as Superwog launches a new series that explores the lighter side of modern challenges like road rage, online scams and failing kidneys. It must be nice to live in a country where those are your biggest problems. Some of us would gladly give up a kidney to be that close to Kylie. (Netflix)
The Witcher Season 4 — The eagerly anticipated penultimate season finds Liam Hemsworth taking over the title role from Henry Cavill. But don’t worry, Henry fans: You’ll be able to see him soon enough, in … oh, I’ll think of something. (Netflix)
Premieres Friday:
Bad Influencer — A single mother with a special-needs child to take care of runs afoul of the law when she conscripts an aspiring influencer to help her sell phony handbags. And she might have gotten away with it, if Kim Kardashian hadn’t spotted the unauthorized knockoff of her pubes. (Netflix)
Breathless — The Joaquín Sorolla Hospital has gone entirely private as Season 2 begins, forcing our already taxed resident physicians to make some tough choices. For example, when they have to tell a cancer patient that insurance won’t cover her treatment, do they do it through the portal or as a Zoom puppet show? (Netflix)
The White House Effect — Return with us now to the complicated days of Bush 41, when warring factions of the Republican party problematized the administration’s response to climate change. Nowadays, the warring factions are the ones who want to ignore it and the ones who want to ignore it while wearing blackface. (Netflix)
Premieres Monday:
Crutch — This spinoff from the CBS series The Neighborhood has Tracy Morgan as a Harlem businessman who’s having to do a lot of recalibrating now that his grown son and daughter have moved back in with him. In the hilarious third episode, the son comes out as gay and Tracy stabs him to death with a kitchen knife. (Paramount+)
In Waves and War — Follow the healing journey of three Navy SEALs who had to travel overseas to be prescribed psychedelics for their PTSD. Meanwhile, ICE want you to know they’re going to shoot you in the face if you try to charge them for that vanilla latte. (Netflix)
Premieres Tuesday:
All’s Fair — And speaking of Kim Kardashian, she’s been cast in the lead role of a divorce attorney in Ryan Murphy’s new legal drama. Supporting parts go to Glenn Close, Naomi Watts and Sarah Paulson, who might be stars themselves someday if they can just get their muffs on Candies. (Hulu)
Leanne Morgan: Unspeakable Things — Taking a momentary step away from her Netflix sitcom, the Tennessee comedian fills us in on everything that’s been going on in her life, like adjusting to success and trying gummies. As opposed to Pete Davidson, who’s adjusting to gummies and thinking about trying success. (Netflix)
Squid Game: The Challenge — The spinoff competition show stays married to the bit in Season 2, pitting another 456 contestants against each other in pursuit of $4.56 million. High concept, right? Now give me my two tickets to Tucson, because my flight is boarding at Gate 2 in two minutes. (Netflix)
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Plus a schlock-doc about the racialized 2023 Ocala shooting and the return of ‘Loot’ on Apple TV
Plus everything else debuting on Netflix, HBO Max, Peacock and the rest
Plus everything else debuting this week on Prime Video, Shudder, AMC+ and the rest
Fans of Stephen King’s IT as well as the two film adaptation installments will be excited to return to the world of Pennywise the clown in prequel series IT: Welcome to Derry.
Developed for television by filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti (IT, IT Chapter Two, The Flash) and Jason Fuchs (IT Chapter Two, Wonder Woman, Argylle), the series expands the universe established by Andy Muschietti in the two films. Muschietti directed multiple episodes of the show.
For all the details around IT: Welcome To Derry’s release schedule, read on.
When does IT: Welcome to Derry premiere?
The prequel series arrives Sunday, October 26 at 9 p.m. ET and PT.
How many episodes are in IT: Welcome to Derry?
There will be eight episodes in the show.
Will new episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry premiere weekly or all at once?
New episodes — following the premiere — will arrive weekly on Sunday nights through December 14 when the finale launches. Find the dates of the rollout below:
Sunday, Oct. 26: Episode 1
Sunday, Nov. 2: Episode 2
Sunday, Nov. 9: Episode 3
Sunday, Nov. 16: Episode 4
Sunday, Nov. 23: Episode 5
Sunday, Nov. 30: Episode 6
Sunday, Dec. 7: Episode 7
Sunday, Dec. 14: Episode 8 (FINALE)
Who is in the cast of IT: Welcome to Derry?
The Pennywise prequel series stars Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso, and Bill Skarsgård.
What is IT: Welcome to Derry about?
Set in the titular Maine town in 1962, the show’s trailer teases Leroy (Adepo) and Charlotte Hanlon’s (Paige) move to the “normal” town of Derry after Leroy’s stints on base in the military. The clip then hints that the small town is anything but, with disappearances of children, creepy creatures and more lurking in its past and haunting the present.
If there’s one thing streaming services love more than a rebrand or a bundle, it’s a price hike. Over the past few months, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Apple TV+, HBO Max, and even humble BritBox have raised their subscription rates. Asking customers to shell out more each month has been a part of the streaming business going back to the early days of Netflix, when it incrementally increased prices on certain tiers on an almost annual basis, and since more services began popping up to compete with the service in the past five or six years, they’ve been predictable additions to your streaming bills, some notable exceptions aside.
To illustrate their ubiquity, we’ve rounded up as many as we could below — focusing on the major streamers’ so-called “standard” paid monthly subscriptions with and without ads. For ease of comparison, we omitted bundles and tiers like Netflix “Premium” and Hulu + Live TV, as well as any services which haven’t been around for at least two years or haven’t had some sort of price increase. We’ll update this story with more services, too — and with the inevitable new price hikes when they roll out in a quarter or two.
A few insights we noticed as we browsed the numbers:
➼ The prices for plans at Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, and Peacock have more than doubled since their respective launches. ➼ Hulu’s ad-supported rate actually dropped at one point — very much an anomaly. ➼ Since launching in 2019, The Criterion Channel has never raised its prices.
Since launch, Netflix has dramatically expanded its original and licensed programming, expanded to new global markets, and introduced live sports and video games to their service, so beyond inflation, it’s had overhead to account for over the years. Users may wonder why the ad-supported price introduced in 2022 was lower than what ad-free users were paying for Netflix in 2011; that’s because Netflix reasoned that it could make more revenue per user on the ad-supported plan even if it was less than half the cost of the standard ad-free plan, and priced it accordingly. Plus, as it also started cracking down on password sharing, it wanted to make sure folks unwilling to finally pay for their own full-price account had an affordable alternative to consider before walking away completely.
Hulu’s 2019 adjustment to its ad-supported plan was a rare price drop — at the time a hedge against users rebelling that the cost of its live TV service would be going up. More recently, the $4 hike between 2022 and 2024 has been designed to prompt users to switch to the Disney Bundle, which offers both Hulu and Disney+ at a deep discount.
Like other services that launched the heyday of the early streaming wars, Disney+ was priced to move — a bet that $7 per month was a nice carrot for families and older fans of Star Wars and Marvel alike. Five years, one pandemic, a long Hollywood strike season, and two Bobs later, that $7 looks quaint by comparison. As for the relatively huge hikes to the cost of the ad-free plan, chalk that up to a the same thinking about the aforementioned Disney bundle, plus the industry-wide push to get people to watch ads again.
HBO Max/Max/HBO Max’s pricing has gone up incrementally compared to its competitors in part because started out a higher price point than any other post-Netflix streamer, thanks to the HBO of it all. But in that same time, Warner Bros. Discovery and CEO David Zaslav have become known for axing content across the service, from classic HBO shows to Sesame Street. Will the departure of Discovery content (once WBD’s breakup and/or sale is finalized) drop the price? Don’t hold your breath.
• 2016: Launched at $9 • 2024:$12
• 2024: Launched at $9
Prime Video doesn’t call its “ad-free” option here another stand-alone plan, but customers can pay an additional $3 per month to remove ads. Otherwise, strikingly, Prime Video’s rate remained the same until it began rolling ads onto its platform. Of course, many folks haven’t even clocked how stable the base rate for Prime Video has remained because the most common way they get Prime Video is through Amazon’s much broader (and somewhat pricier) Prime subscription service, which offers everything from “free” package delivery to discounts on gasoline.
• 2021: Launched at $10 • 2023: $12 • 2024:$13
• 2021: Launched at $5 • 2023: $6 • 2023: $8
With its 2023 hike, Paramount+ also added Showtime to its ad-free plan and did away with Showtime’s standalone streaming service. On the bright side, it hasn’t added a special surcharge for Taylor Sheridan series — yet.
At one point, Peacock was literally giving itself away for free — sort of, anyway. That’s no longer the case of course, but it’s another streamer, like Disney+ and Apple TV+, that learned from the Covid era that it couldn’t underprice its offerings forever. What’s more: The NBA is coming to Peacock, wrested away from David Zaslav in the last rights negotiation for an annual bill of $2.45 billion. Now both of Peacock’s standard plans cost more than Netflix’s. Plus, John Tesh wasn’t going to let NBC and Peacock use “Roundball Rock” for free. Somebody had to pay up.
A service without a robust licensed library that focuses mostly on originals would not have been appealing for $13 a month in 2019, but to be honest, it’s not too shabby in 2025. Apple has established itself with enough hits like Severance and The Morning Show and Ted Lasso to make the price point work, and even feel like a modest value compared to other major players like HBO Max or Peacock.
• 2020: Launched at $9 • 2024:$10
• 2023: Launched at $5 • 2024:$7
You’re not just getting AMC’s programs and live feed with this service; the streamer also bundles in content from horror-rific Shudder plus indie movies from Sundance and IFC, along with a sample of stuff from sister streamer Acorn TV (see below.) If the ad-free tier still seems a bit expensive, that’s in part because cable operators would freak if AMC offered it too cheaply.
Inside Furioza — The sequel to the 2021 crime drama Furioza has a new kingpin taking hold of the Polish underworld, with plans to extend its reach into other countries. At press time, a confused Stephen Miller had ordered the arrest of Doda. (Netflix)
Loot — Molly and Arthur are stranded on a desert island at the top of the long-awaited Season 3, which is finally hitting screens after a hiatus of nearly a year and a half. See, for a while there, it looked as if star Maya Rudolph was going to be busy playing Kamala Harris. Isn’t it great when we can be two previews into one of these things and you already want to put the gun in your mouth? (Apple TV)
Murdaugh: Death in the Family — Jason Clarke plays Alex Murdaugh, the “it” killer of 2023, in a drama series that was announced two months before he even went to trial. What were they going to do if he was acquitted, retcon him as a K-pop demon hunter? (Hulu)
No One Saw Us Leave — The Mexico of the 1960s is the setting for a reality-based drama in which a couple’s divorce becomes needlessly complicated when the husband kidnaps the daughter. That’s a niche market for the lawyers all right, but I understand their billboards are the s***. (Netflix)
Six Kings Slam 2025 — Plant yourself in front of the screen for three days of men’s tennis from Riyadh, but think very carefully: Do you really want to spend that much time in a country even Shane Gillis wouldn’t visit? (Netflix)
Premieres Thursday:
Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy — The humane approach is the modus operandi of an eight-episode dramatization that’s so determined to avoid exploitation it doesn’t reenact a single one of the infamous Gacy’s murders — or even show his victims interacting with him in any way whatsoever. As Derek Smalls would say, that’s a cozy 10 minutes. (Peacock)
The Diplomat — As Season 3 commences, the sudden death of the American president elevates a psychopathic vice president into the top job. Listen, we’d take it. (Netflix)
Romantics Anonymous — A chocolatier who has trouble making eye contact falls in love with a customer who doesn’t like touching people. Which explains why their meet cute is her throwing a bag of truffles at his head and missing by a mile. (Netflix)
Starting 5 — The quintet of NBA greats profiled in Season 2 includes James Harden, No. 1 point guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. Or as I knew him until five minutes ago, that guy whose side eye I use to respond to every one of James Woods’ tweets. (Netflix)
“The Perfect Neighbor” on Netflix Credit: courtesy Netflix
Premieres Friday:
27 Nights — The life of Argentinian artist and writer Natalia Kohen inspired this probing drama about a woman whose daughters have her committed, even though what looks like mental illness on her part might simply be eccentricity. It’s more complicated than it seems, because she was born four decades too early for the Tylenol defense. (Netflix)
Good News — A black-comic take on the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese commercial flight, with the authorities exploring a bunch of zany strategies to restore order. Bright idea No. 1 is having Johnny in the control tower just unplug everything. (Netflix)
Hollywood Hustler: Glitz, Glam, Scam — Former friends and even his ex-wife explain how they were taken in by Zach Horwitz, a struggling actor who fraudulently claimed to hold the foreign distribution rights to various big Hollywood films. Investors were seduced by fake contracts with Netflix and HBO — documents that were later ruled phonies because they didn’t include a single notification of coming subscription hikes. (Prime Video)
Mr. Scorsese — Fellow filmmaker Rebecca Miller salutes the great Martin Scorsese with a five-part documentary that chronicles the great man’s life and work. Follow his entire creative evolution, from his early days as a student filmmaker at NYU to his later years as Kevin Feige’s No. 1 troll. Cinema! (Apple TV)
The Perfect Neighbor — Bodycam footage is used almost exclusively to document the racial tensions that culminated in a 2023 shooting in Ocala. Or you could just plug your Nextdoor feed into Google Photos and hit “animate.” (Netflix)
She Walks in Darkness — A Spanish secret agent risks her life to spend years undercover with the terrorist group known as ETA. But how dangerous can they be if they’re never totally sure when they’re going to get anywhere? (Netflix)
The Thaw Season 3 — The six-episode third season of the Polish crime drama has widowed detective Katarzyna Zawieja (Katarzyna Wajda) investigating a drug ring run entirely by teenagers. Well, it’s a better return than they used to get from delivering Gritski, Poland’s family newspaper. (HBO Max)
Turn of the Tide Season 2 — Eduardo returns to his Azores neighborhood three months after the events of Season 1, to find the local drug trade controlled by a new and intimidating enemy. Careful, Eduardo! Those Polish teenagers will f*** you up! (Netflix)
Turn of the Tide: The Surreal Story of Rabo de Peixe — Learn the true story behind today’s returning crime drama in an accompanying documentary that shows how a humble fisherman’s life was turned upside down by the washing ashore of a massive shipment of cocaine. For one thing, he sure could gut those fish faster! (Netflix)
The Twits — This animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book about “the meanest, smelliest, nastiest people in the world” features new songs by David Byrne. “No comment,” say Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison. (Netflix)
Premieres Sunday:
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards — Presenters in the 27th annual tribute to the best in horror cinema will include Ryan Coogler and GWAR. Expect the state of the art in bloody decapitations. And I’m sure GWAR have something fun planned as well. (Shudder)
Premieres Tuesday:
Who Killed the Montreal Expos? — Two decades later, Canada is still wondering how it lost its first MLB team to Washington, D.C. Which only goes to show that country is ahead of us in everything, because America is currently wondering how it lost everything to Washington, D.C. (Netflix)
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Euphoria fans got a surprise update this weekend, with the show’s third season release date window being revealed.
When is the Euphoria Season 3 release date window?
Speaking to Variety while at the Emmys over the weekend, HBO head Casey Bloys spoke about a litany of content coming up for the iconic network. When it comes to Euphoria Season 3, though, Bloys was surprisingly open about when to expect the third season of the Zendaya-led show.
“It’ll be the spring, but we don’t have a date confirmed yet,” said Bloys when he was asked about when fans might expect a premiere date for Euphoria Season 3. It’s unclear exactly when the show will arrive, but it does seem to be sooner than some fans previously thought.
Euphoria’s third season has been an up-and-down production. Initially, Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and the rest of the cast of Euphoria were set to begin filming on Season 3 in 2024, but HBO announced that it had postponed production, with stars told to pursue other opportunities while creator Sam Levinson worked on the third season.
Shortly after the postponement, reports began to surface that people at HBO were unsure if a third season would ever happen due to the different visions that the creative team for the show had.
According to reports at the time, early drafts of Season 3 stories were seen as unsatisfying to HBO, with Levinson’s original vision for the new series featuring a five-year time jump. HBO was reportedly happy with the storylines given to Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi’s characters in the early drafts; however, the company took issue with Zendaya’s proposed character arc, which saw her working as a private detective.
Now, though, it seems as if things are progressing well for the show’s highly anticipated third and potentially final season.
Paramount Skydance, backed by the family of CEO David Ellison, is getting ready to make a bid to take over all of Warner Bros. Discovery before the two companies can go through with their plan to split, per a new report from The Wall Street Journal. If such a deal happens, it would put networks as diverse as CBS, CNN, TCM, and MTV under one roof and result in the combination of two historic Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. There has been speculation in multiple media outlets for months about something like this happening — the idea of HBO Max and Paramount+ combining into a single app is a no-brainer — but the speed with which it could be coming together, so soon after Skydance closed its deal for Paramount, does feel a tad surprising. Deadline is also confirming the WSJ story, though it throws a bit of cold water on how much urgency there is to the bid: “Nothing new there, he’s just taking a closer look, assessing the pros and cons,” says a Paramount source quoted by the trade outlet.
We’re probably still a long way away from such a deal actually becoming reality (if it does), and to be clear: No offer has been made. It’s also not clear how WBD management and shareholders would react — though WBD stock soared nearly 30 percent after the WSJ story broke — or whether news of this possible bid brings out other potential buyers. It’s still early days.
That said, given how much Hollywood loves a merger these days, it’s always worth thinking about what comes next and what such a mash-up of media giants might bring — for good and (mostly ill). Some immediate questions and thoughts about the possibility of Para Bros.:
➼ If the Ellisons get control of WBD, they get control of CNN. Given how much Paramount has pushed CBS News rightward in the past couple weeks, it’s easy to imagine the Trump White House won’t stand in the way of the Ellisons taking over WBD. In fact, one could see it happily pushing for a deal that would put CNN in the hands of owners even more accommodating than its current overseers.
➼ Bari Weiss, founder of the right-wing outlet The Free Press, is rumored to be in line for a major gig at CBS News. If this deal happens, will she end up overseeing a CBS News powered by CNN — or all of a combined CNN-CBS News?
➼ Will the studio attrition from five major studios to a mere four accelerate moviedom’s seemingly endless doom cycle of sequels, reboots, and tired IP retreads? Coming just a half-dozen years after Disney’s $71.3 billion swallowing of 21st Century Fox, the Para Bros. merger would necessarily trigger a cascade of industry executive layoffs but also drastically reduce the number of studio suitors vying for hot, original movie projects. That would leave less room for new filmic voices and engender frictionless pushback against the kind of corporate groupthink responsible for the boring sameness behind our current multiplex malaise. (Exhibit A: This summer delivered the worst cumulative box-office returns since 1981 adjusted for inflation and discounting COVID lockouts.)
➼ Given the trend toward streaming consolidation (see Hulu on Disney+), importing the relatively small content offering of Paramount+ into HBO Max feels like a given under any merger scenario. That said, David Ellison has already started working to dramatically improve the tech of Paramount+ and HBO Max has had its own user-experience issues. It’s quite possible the end result of a deal would be the creation of a totally new platform with, yes, another new name. HBO Max, we hardly knew ye.
➼ The amount of layoffs that would result from this merger is depressing to consider. As it is, Paramount Skydance is already planning to pink-slip thousands of employees this fall. The pain will be real and deep.
➼ Will putting DC and Star Trek in the same corporate family give us the Star Trek–Superman crossover some Trekkers have fantasized about? Who knows, but the IP-sharing potential of a Warners/Paramount combo is huge. The same company would control The Godfather and The Sopranos, Top Gun and Barbie, I Love Lucy and Friends.
➼ Assuming Para Bros. stays in the cable business, would ancient enemies Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network team up to give the new entity enough IP to better take on Disney? Or would the new company care about kids and animation at all?
➼ And the most important question of all: Will David Zaslav, fresh off his role in the new Sphere remix of The Wizard of Oz, get himself a cameo in the next Yellowstone spinoff? Or will he ride off into the retirement sunset, having successfully added tens of millions to his net work this decade?
“The Girlfriend” premieres on Prime Video Wednesday Credit: Christopher Raphael/Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Premieres Wednesday:
AKA Charlie Sheen — Now that Bookie has been canceled, Mr. Winning has to fall back on a docuseries that chronicles his amazing career and extensively reported personal troubles. Listen, Charlie, we’ve moved on. Unless you’re planning on hang-gliding into the Taylor/Travis wedding, we’re just not interested anymore. (Netflix)
The Dead Girls — Learn the shocking story of Mexico’s Baladro Sisters, whose day job running a successful bordello was a front for their nefarious activities as serial killers. Ah, Mexico: where running a cathouse qualifies as a respectable cover. (Netflix)
The Girlfriend — The potential for psychodrama is off the charts when an upscale mom (Robin Wright) meets her son’s new squeeze (Olivia Cooke) and decides the girl might not be on the up-and-up. Yeah, that’s what they thought about Michelle Carter, but what a catch she turned out to be. (Prime Video)
Love Is Blind Brazil — Season 5 features contestants who are all over 50 years old. Even more amazing, none of them is in prison for trying to overturn a free and fair election. (Netflix)
Love Is Blind France — Meanwhile, the land of baguettes and ennui becomes the 11th territory to get its own Love Is Blind franchise. Like the flagship American version, it’s hosted by a real-life celebrity couple — in this case, judo champion Teddy Riner and his wife, Luthna Plocus, a … a … well, someone who appears to be Teddy Riner’s wife. Gotta love that European progressivism! (Netflix)
Tempest — The safety of the Korean peninsula depends upon an alliance between a South Korean diplomat and a special agent of indeterminate national origin. Given that the character’s name is Baek San-ho and he’s portrayed by Gang Dong-won, I think we can rule out Dutch. (Hulu)
Carla Sehn as Amanda in “Diary of a Ditched Girl” Credit: Carolina Romare/Courtesy of Netflix
Premieres Thursday:
Diary of a Ditched Girl — Can a Swedish woman finally find true romance, despite having been dumped by half the population of Malmö? I know that sounds bad, but you need to understand that Malmö is only the third-largest city in that country. Heck, they don’t even have room to house everybody in Ghost. (Netflix)
Dylan’s Playtime Adventures Season 1C — New installments further the stripy animated dog’s habit of pursuing a new career in every episode. Just remember you let your kids grow up on this when you one day want to lambaste them for their lack of focus. (HBO Max)
Kontrabida Academy — A Filipina restaurant worker embarks on a journey of self-actualization when she receives lessons in assertiveness from some of TV’s top villains. See, I knew Jim Cramer could find a good side hustle if he really applied himself. (Netflix)
Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black — As Season 2 commences, former stripper Kimmie has assumed control of Bellarie Cosmetics — which is going to require a lot of adjustment on the part of the Bellarie family, who naturally assumed they had dibs based on name alone. Honestly, that’s nothing compared to the catfight Bob and Frisch are having over Big Boy. (Netflix)
Wolf King — Season 2 is the swan song for Drew, whose responsibilities as the last king of the werewolves include picking a suitable queen. I’d say the hardest part is getting the friendship bracelet to her before the show, but it would just look like I have Tay-Tay on the brain. (Netflix)
Premieres Friday:
Beauty and the Bester — Explore the twisted relationship between South African rapist-murderer Thabo Bester and celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, who’s accused of helping him escape from prison. Gosh, so much romance this week. And to think Half-Valentine’s Day was last month. (Netflix)
Maledictions — An Argentinian politician is determined to find his missing daughter, even if it means exposing some dark secrets that could end his career. And if that doesn’t impress you, Ted Cruz’s kids are lucky he even tells them when he’s going on vacation. (Netflix)
Ratu Ratu Queens: The Series — Four Indonesian women make a new life for themselves as New Yorkers in a series that’s a prequel to the 2021 film Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens. What do you mean you don’t remember it? Girl, you’re such a Chinta! (Netflix)
The Wrong Paris — Miranda Cosgrove plays a contestant on a dating show who thought she was being sent to Paris, France, but ended up in Paris, Texas, instead. As a consolation prize, she may get swept off her feet by a charismatic cowboy anyway. Silly Miranda! That isn’t a cowboy. That’s Wim Wenders! (Netflix)
You and Everything Else — Female bonding is the leitmotif of a K-drama that charts the ups and downs of a best friendship over the decades. The final challenge is when one of the women has to be present for the other on her deathbed. That’s commitment all right, but it has its perks if you’ve had your eyes on a silverware setting. (Netflix)
Premieres Saturday:
Canelo Álvarez vs. Terence Crawford — This battle for the super middleweight belt pits reigning champion Alvarez against the upwardly mobile Crawford, a former welterweight who put on enough pounds last year to land himself in an entirely new classification. Wow, you too, huh? (Netflix)
Premieres Monday:
Futurama — Unlike seasons 11 and 12, which followed a release schedule of one episode per week, Season 13 of Matt Groening’s beloved 31st-century comedy is dumping all of its content at once, in one fell swoop. Sounds like somebody’s heard something about the future we’d rather not know about. (Hulu)
Premieres Tuesday:
Love Island Games — Season 2 sees Maya Jama being replaced as host by Ariana Madix, who’s now doing double duty as the presenting face of Love Island USA. Next up: a Kennedy Center honor! (Peacock)
Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story — And to wrap up a week of upside-down courtships, here’s a juicy inquest into the controversial marriage of Norwegian princess Märtha Louise and African American shaman/con artist Durek Verrett — who, among his other questionable statements, has claimed he can rid women’s vaginas of evil spirits. Seriously, and Meghan Markle thinks we want to watch her bake bread. (Netflix)
David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, plans to make HBO more expensive, and passwords a lot harder to share, . Zaslav shared his general outlook on the state of television at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, with the main theme being that HBO Max’s content is good and Zaslav thinks he should be charging a lot more for it.
“The fact that this is quality — and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and streaming quality — we all think that gives us a chance to raise prices,” Zaslav said. “We think we’re way underpriced.” HBO Max most recently , back when it was . As of right now you can get an entry-level Basic with Ads plan for $9.99 per month, while the ad-free Premium plan costs $20.99 per month. Zaslav clearly thinks he can get more, though.
Warner Bros. Discovery has been more open about its plans to address password-sharing. During an earnings call in August, the it wanted to close all loopholes for sharing passwords by the end of the year. While it’s great that people continue to be drawn to HBO content, “it’s all tricky with the password sharing,” Zaslav said. “We’re going to begin to push on that.”
Price hikes and password sharing crackdowns have been thoroughly and other streamers. HBO Max following suit should be more than expected. Stating those plans so plainly doesn’t improve the image of Zaslav as , but that’s the least of his worries given the of Warner Bros. Discovery.
A lot of things on Peacemaker have the capacity to surprise us. The creatively gruesome action sequences, the bizarre non sequiturs, the seamlessly way that its events were retconned over into James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe.
But the latest episode of the show’s second season just found a whole new way to blow the audience’s minds… with the introduction of a relationship that nobody could have expected.
**Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 3 of Peacemaker, “Another Rick Up My Sleeve”, below!**
The very first scene of the episode, before we dive into the anthemic opening dance sequence and into the parallel dimension adventures of Christopher Smith / Peacemaker’s (John Cena), is a flashback. More specifically, it is to three years before the events of Peacemaker Season 2, as Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) gets out of bed and gets ready for the day. In the bed behind her is Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), and the two of them begin to talk about the nature of their relationship.
Rick brings up the possibility of him breaking up with June Moone / Enchantress (played by Cara Delevigne in 2016’s Suicide Squad), who could react by tearing “a hole through the planet.” He says that that might be worth it, though, so he and Emilia can truly be together.
Emilia, meanwhile, claims that the two of them are probably each other’s only friends and that really being in a relationship could “screw that up.” Rick argues that, by hooking up, they probably already have screwed things up. Emilia pushes him to get dressed for the day because he ships out to Corto Maltese in just a few hours, before a montage of his scenes from The Suicide Squad play, culminating in his tragic death at the hands of Peacemaker.
A new ship for a new DCU
It’s impressive what this scene accomplishes (and raises questions about) in the span of just a few minutes. Even though Gunn has referred to the events of The Suicide Squad as an “imperfect memory” in this new DCU (with the fallout of Peacemaker killing Flag Jr. on that mission remaining the biggest constant so far), fans will probably spend the next few days and weeks debating the timeline and canon of it all.
The “three years ago” flashback would move the DCU events of The Suicide Squad (and by extension, the first season of Peacemaker) later than they were in the previous DC Extended Universe canon, putting them in closer proximity to what we’ve recently seen in projects like Creature Commandos and Superman. And Rick’s mention of June provides the biggest crumb in years for 2016’s Suicide Squad, even though there’s no telling at this point if any of that film’s events are canon, or if Delevigne would even reprise the role in the DCU. Rick mentioning that June could use her powers in 2022, when Suicide Squad ended with her being freed from Enchantress in 2016, seems to hint at a different chain of events than what we’ve previously seen onscreen.
But beyond that, this scene between Emilia and Rick is impressive on an emotional level. It ties together two characters who never even shared a frame in The Suicide Squad, but whose personalities and histories with Black Ops have more overlap than any of us could have probably realized. Some fans probably had their suspicions after Peacemaker Season 2’s premiere, when Earth-2 Keith Smith (David Denman) told Peacemaker that Earth-2 Emilia is dating a “jarhead,” but the reveal that they were also together on Earth-1 is something else altogether.
It adds a new weight to Rick’s death, and to the ensuing months of Emilia having to work alongside the man who killed him… which has only become more complicated now that they’ve seemingly started to develop feelings for each other. As Season 2 of Peacemaker has shown us thus far, there’s a multiverse of possibilities for how this could shake out.
New episodes of Peacemaker debut Thursdays at 9/8pm CT exclusively on HBO Max.
The online discourse surrounding The Last of Usseason two was entrenched in unwarranted outrage, sparked by outrage over the show’s centering a gay love story and killing off the franchise’s leading man. The trolling, which resulted in the show getting review bombed, of course, is weird considering that both these major plot aspects are also present in Neil Druckmann’s series of Naughty Dog games.
Recently Bella Ramsey, the show’s Emmy Award-nominated lead (alongside Pedro Pascal), discussed with The Awardist podcast their reaction to the reactive rage-baiters who took issue with Ellie’s lesbian relationship.
“Because there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. The show is out. There’s nothing that can be changed or altered. So I’m like, there’s not really any point in reading or looking at anything,” Ramsey shared. “People are, of course, entitled to their opinions. But it doesn’t affect the show; it doesn’t affect how the show continues or anything in any way. They’re very separate things to me. So no, I just don’t really engage.”
Ramsey addressed how that vocal minority of vile-spewing can sincerely excuse themselves from engaging with season three, which will see showrunner Craig Mazin, helming solo after Druckmann stepped back, follow the show’s antagonist Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who killed Joel (Pascal). The story twist has been around since it debuted in the game, but it still continues to divide The Last of Us fandom and shock casual show viewers during season two.
The shift in leading characters will delve into Abby’s world to inform her worldview. How Ellie comes into play is under wraps but Ramsey affirmed that they hope haters steer clear if they won’t approach the story with an open mind: “You don’t have to watch it. If you hate it that much, the game exists. You can just play the game again. If you do want to watch it, hope you enjoy it.”
Season two of Peacemaker will finally have Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) coming in hot for Chris Smith (John Cena) to exact revenge over the death of his son. Killing his squad leader, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad was a moment that made Peacemaker irredeemable before being hilariously unpacked in season one of the HBO Max show, which centered the antihero’s mistake as something that broke him—that and the bullet Bloodsport (Idris Elba) put through his neck.
In an interview with GQ, Peacemaker star John Cena discussed how Smith viewed his action in the moment: “To know that Peacemaker is willing to kill for peace is important because he does. And he kills a person who he looks up to and who he’s developed a friendship with. What we know about Chris Smith through the film is he doesn’t have many friends. And when he falls in with this ragtag group of people, there’s a scene at the cantina where everyone is having drinks and sharing and getting along, and like, you can see him leaning into having friends for the first time.”
Cena continued, “We don’t know any of the backstory from season one. We don’t know about how he’s brought up. We don’t know about his brother. We don’t know any of that stuff.” This is backstory viewers become privy to when they see multitudes in Chris he’s not even aware of on Peacemaker, but the killing in Suicide Squad makes it hard to overcome based on what’s given.
“You can give a note about [how] this guy’s kind of a social outcast, and that can stick. He’s found somebody in lockstep like Rick Flag, where he admires this person. It’s everything he wants to be. And then when Flag gets a different perspective on what truth is and what virtue is, Peacemaker does what he usually does. And that’s just kill for peace. And this is the first time you probably see that armor wear thin.” Deserving any sort of redemption is the last thing on anyone’s mind when he kills Flag.
In season one of Peacemaker, we begin to see that he might be deserving of forgiveness despite the red on his ledger, because Flag’s final words to him resonate: “Peacemaker…what a joke.”
The trauma of the mistake sets in motion the identity crisis at the core of the show when you see he’s afraid to kill. Cena described the moment when Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) calls him out over it as “Peacemaker’s first chance to kind of get back on the horse after the Rick Flag trauma, and you can see he’s not over it.”
He’s seen by the 11th Street kids as vulnerable: “This hard-nosed killer who talks amongst his peers like the biggest badass when he’s hit with the moment of truth to do things that he wouldn’t even think twice about. He starts to question if what he’s doing is right.”
Eventually Peacemaker had a breakthrough by killing his bigoted fascist father, but now, of course, in season two, another dad is on the way to get even. He continued to describe how Chris’ evolution might change a well-deserved amount of payback when Flag Sr. shows up: “[You] want to root for the flawed character, and I think that’s what’s important about all the characters in Peacemaker. They all have their setbacks and flaws, but you all want to root for them because they’re all trying to do better.”
This week in television delivers superheroes, satire, and spirituality in equal measure. John Cena’s Peacemaker is an exploration of violence and identity wrapped in superhero absurdity. KevOnStage’s Churchy is a Texas-sized comedy about faith, ambition, and the chaos of running a church. Bob-Waksberg’s Long Story Short is an animated reflection on the strange intersections of adulthood and tradition.
This trio offers a chance to see stories of self-discovery told through wildly different lenses. Whether you want a bullet-riddled dive into the DC Universe, a comic take on megachurch drama, or an animated show that tugs on your heartstrings while delivering LOL moments, August television has you covered.
So far 2025 has been an interesting year for the unseen one known as John Cena. Cena is in the midst of his retirement tour from World Wrestling Entertainment, but that hasn’t stopped him from stacking up headlines in and out of the ring.
Earlier this year he won a record-breaking 17th World Championship at WrestleMania, a crowning moment made even bigger thanks to Houston native Travis Scott helping him win the title (yes, that happened much to the WWE Universe’s dismay). Cena also made a splash in DC Studios’ relaunch of their connected universe with Superman, the highest grossing Superman film of all time under the direction of James Gunn. Cena only appeared in a single scene, but it was the kind of scene DC fans live for, him slipping back into the gaudy, gleaming, and gloriously over-the-top attire of Peacemaker.
Audiences first saw Cena don the ridiculous helmet in 2021’s The Suicide Squad. That performance was strong enough to earn the character DCU’s first ever television spinoff, Peacemaker. The series arrived ahead of Colin Farrell’s transformative turn in The Penguin, a role that pulled Emmy nominations. Peacemaker wasn’t just a novelty either, the first season scored a powerful 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, proving critics could laugh, cringe, and cheer all at once.
Season 2 of Peacemaker finds the titular antihero squaring off against the strangest opponent of all…himself. A Comic-Con trailer revealed Christopher Smith face to face, gun to helmet, with an alternate version of his own character. While Marvel has been busy twisting itself into a multiversal pretzel, Gunn’s series is taking a different tack. This isn’t a sprawling web of infinite timelines. It is a singular alternate dimension, designed to force Peacemaker into something scarier than another villain: emotional growth.
That choice keeps the show grounded. The new season emphasizes character development over cameo stunts or fan-service chaos. It’s a darker, more intimate story, still armed with the foul-mouthed bravado and outrageous violence from the mind of James Gunn that made season one such a cult favorite.
Peacemaker Season 2 begins streaming on HBO Max on August 21.
If Peacemaker is redefining the superhero comedy, Churchy is putting a spotlight on religion, ambition, and the fine art of keeping a straight face in a megachurch.
KevOnStage (Kevin Fredericks), the wildly popular comedian with millions of followers, proved his creative chops last year by producing, writing, creating, and starring in season one of Churchy on BET+. The streamer has now brought the show back for a second season.
Fredericks, an El Paso native, sets his series in Lubbock, Texas, where his character Corey Carr Jr., the son of a megachurch leader, is passed over for leadership and strikes out to start his own ministry. Season 2 finds Corey inheriting Bethlehem Temple. But with the pulpit comes not just responsibility, but an Everest of debt. He must shepherd his flock while fending off a rival determined to bulldoze the sanctuary and replace it with, of all things, a trampoline park.
It is a setup that lands somewhere between the satirical sting of Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. and the unholy hilarity of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones. Both of those titles thrived on poking fun at the spectacle of faith while still finding humanity in their characters. Churchy follows the same path, giving Fredericks plenty of space to lampoon megachurch absurdities while keeping Corey Carr Jr. surprisingly sympathetic.
CHURCHY Season 2 begins streaming on BET+ on August 21.
Meanwhile, Netflix, still the streaming king of the 21st century, continues to prove it will try just about anything once. From anime adaptations to Marvel side projects, the platform has built an empire by covering every genre. In recent years it has been shining a particular spotlight on adult animated comedies.
Next month brings Haunted Hotel, the story of a single mother who inherits a haunted property and runs it with the ghost of her brother and an unruly squad of other spirits. Also arriving soon is Fixed, an R-rated animated feature directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and starring Adam Devine as a dog who learns he will be neutered the next day and decides to live out one last wild night.
But the most intriguing new entry is Long Story Short, a series from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of BoJack Horseman. The show follows a middle-class Jewish family navigating everyday adult struggles while reflecting on their strict orthodox upbringing. It is voiced by Ben Feldman, Abbi Jacobson, Paul Reiser, Dave Franco, and Nicole Byer.
Bob-Waksberg explained that a lot of the connective tissue in his shows comes from instinct rather than spreadsheets. “A lot of it is math in my head,” he said, recalling how he once tried to create a color-coded Google Doc of story arcs during BoJack’s first season, only to realize neither he nor his writers needed it. He later added that the beauty of animation is in its flexibility. Episodes can evolve well into production, with foreshadowing dropped in after the fact. “We might be working on episode eight and realize it would be great to set something up in episode one,” he said. “If Abbi Jacobson is already coming in to record another line, we can just add it. Animation lets you connect things after the fact.”
That ability to revise and stitch together layers, he explained, means there are constant opportunities for subtle Easter eggs. “At every stage, whether it is writing, recording, animatic, or editing, you have another chance to weave details back in,” he said. Long Story Short looks ready to carry the tradition of BoJack Horsemen forward.
The series streams exclusively on Netflix beginning August 21.
Warning: This article contains spoilers about plot points of The Pitt season two, premiering in January.
The first thing I see are the scrubs, waiting for me on the golf cart. I’ve just checked into the Warner Bros. lot, site of the immersive 18,000-square-foot set for The Pitt,HBO Max’s Emmy-nominated medical drama. Currently in production on season two, the show favors a comprehensive, 360-degree filmmaking style, wherein crew members or background actors might find themselves accidentally passing through a shot. Anyone hanging around for the day must blend in so as not to disrupt the flow. We drive from the WB gate to the production offices, where I change, then head to stage 22 and walk inside. It’s a hot day in Burbank, but the California sun fades like a distant memory as the cool AC and fluorescent lighting of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center take instant effect.
The vivid realism is palpable, but one reason why The Pitt has caught on so strongly. The 15-episode first season, which aired this past winter and depicted an especially chaotic day inside the hospital (with each episode covering about an hour), evolved into a streaming phenomenon, ranking among the top 10 shows on Nielsen’s ratings charts and cultivating a rabid online fan base. Starring ER’s Noah Wyle as a senior attending physician grieving the loss of his mentor, The Pitt recalled beloved medical dramas of a past TV era while forging boldly ahead, poignantly speaking to the perilous state of American health care post-COVID and spotlighting both the everyday heroism and the human flaws of the medical workers keeping the system afloat.
Created by R. Scott Gemmill, the show is up for 13 Emmys, including for best drama and best actor (Wyle), a major achievement that was celebrated by the cast and crew while they’d just started getting to work on season two—which will be set approximately 10 months after season one, over Fourth of July weekend. In other words, they went back to work under very different circumstances. “Last season, I came in with about a month’s notice, moved to America for the first time, had no idea what was going on,” says Shabana Azeez, who plays the wide-eyed medical student Dr. Javadi. “So this time, people looked familiar. Maybe they looked prettier to me because I loved them already.”
“Will the show have enough dramatic engine and built-in aggregate tension—and will the characters be just as gripping as what we gave the audiences last year? I hope so,” Wyle tells me from The Pitt’s waiting-room set, which is empty for the day. “You can’t do a major catastrophe every season without it feeling like a hospital is not plotted in reality. Hopefully, it’s the characters, the interactions, the behaviors, the nobility—the quotidian detail of the show that people really responded to.”
Inside this hospital, I’m first shuffled into video village. Typically on a set, this means going to a faraway room where crew members watch takes and give notes over headsets. Not here—it’s a makeshift system going from zone to zone (whichever is both unoccupied and safely out of the filming range), with the director John Cameron, writer Cynthia Adarkwa, and others crammed together. A “rate your pain” chart and a masking policy sign hover above us, lest we forget this room is usually used for fictional patient evaluations. They’re early in the process of shooting episode four, beginning the day with a long dialogue scene, the cameras roving between simultaneous conversations. The Pitt moves fast, but you also see the actors taking advantage of the authenticity of their space. Their movements are fluid from take to take.
“The set is the secret hero,” says Katherine LaNasa, a longtime character actor who was just nominated for her first Emmy for her portrayal of the indefatigable Nurse Dana. “It’s why the acting seems so good. You can actually really live in it.”
It’s almost torture to be a fan of The Pitt and watch a juicy scene like this out of context. At one point, Dana asks Wyle’s Dr. Robby if he’d like to pull Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) out of triage to help him out. “We are doing just fine without him,” Robby replies. This should pique any regular viewer’s interest, since season one ended with Robby refusing to forgive Langdon after discovering the young doctor had stolen doses of lorazepam and Librium. Season two takes place both on Langdon’s first day out of rehab and, Wyle tells me, on Robby’s last day at the hospital before taking a lengthy break.
DoorDash is offering their annual DashPass subscribers a free HBO Max with ads subscription which typically costs $99.99/year.
DashPass annual subscribers who want the ad-free HBO Max can upgrade for $10.99/month (instead of the regular $16.99).
Our Verdict
This won’t work for the free Chase DashPass benefit since that’s a partner plan which is excluded in the terms.
Nice freebie with DashPass annual plan which costs $96/year – it’s actually a few dollars cheaper to buy DashPass than to buy the $99.99 Max-with-ads subscription directly.
Targaryens are going to war and dragons are about to dance. House of the Dragon season two premiered on June 16 and HBO only dropped one episode that night. We can’t binge the entirety of season two quite yet, so let’s take a look at all the episode titles that have already been confirmed in the meantime.
Spoilers ahead for all episodes of ‘House of the Dragon’ seasons one and two.
Episode 1: ‘A Son for a Son’
(HBO)
The premiere episode of season two is titled “A Son for a Son” and for good reason. For those of us who watched the finale of House of the Dragon season one, we saw the death of Lucerys Valeryon via his uncle Aemond Targaryen when Vhagar brutally crunched Arrax in half and (presumably) had Luke as a snack. It’s easy to see why Luke’s mother Rhaenyra Targaryen wants vengeance or why this episode is titled as it is. Honestly given the fan feedback, I think it should have been called “Blood and Cheese.”
Episode 2: ‘Rhaenyra the Cruel’
(HBO Max)
When HOTD season two episode two aired, it was almost immediately clear why the episode is titled “Rhaenyra the Cruel”. As King Aegon’s council tries to face the grievous events at the end of episode two in which Jaehaerys Targaryen is beheaded, Otto Hightower suggests that the council use the event to cast political rancor on Rhaenyra. Not only is this accepted, but a public display of grief is architected and a horrid spectacle even our Queen Rhaenyra herself would never approve of takes place.
Episode 3: ‘The Burning Mill’
(HBO Max)
At the end of June 2024 we got “The Burning Mill”, the third episode in this second season of HOTD. The story opens with a Bracken versus Blackwood feud coming to a head on a disputed territory line in the Riverlands. If you’ve been following season two as closely as we have, we all know the Riverlands are a critical location for a queen to secure Westeros. So when the locals erupt into battle and death and burning mills down, the conflict between the greens and the blacks continued to heat up.
Episode 4: ‘The Red Dragon and the Gold’
(HBO Max)
We all had to experience this devastating and wild episode together as the war between the dragons begins in full force. Meleys, the red dragon that is bonded with Princess Rhaenys, goes to war and it’s a bloody exchange. In the heat of the of the moment, Aegon mounts his gold dragon Sunfyre and goes to join Ser Criston Cole and Dwayne Hightower on the battlefield at Rook’s Rest. Aegon, Sunfyre and Vhagar, whom Aemond Targaryen rides, team up against Meleys and Rhaenys. Both the Princess and her brave dragon engage with their fiercest courage, which is heartbreaking at the end of the episode. But isn’t breaking viewers’ hearts a classic Game of Thrones universe move?
Episode 5: ‘Regent’
(HBO Max)
After the injuries and deaths at the Battle of Rook’s Rest in episode four of this season, the realm and all our favorite characters are reeling with grief and shock. We got to see dragons really fight and it was tough to see the sky puppies in battle. The real question is, how will the greens recover with Aegon injured and abed, since their entire strategy relied on his claim to the throne. Who will be the regent while Aegon is ill? You’ll have to watch the episode to find out.
Episode 6
(HBO)
Episode six has no title as of the premiere week either. We’ll be able to watch it when it airs on Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 9pm EST. This episode is directed by Andrij Parekh, who is an expert drama director with six episodes of Succession under his belt, including the infamous episode titled “Kill List” where the Roy siblings travel to Norway to negotiate with Mattson. Suffice to say we predict this episode will be full of gripping, world-changing conversations.
Episode 7
(HBO)
We may not know the title of episode seven just yet but we do get one image hint on IMDB: Rhaenyra and a massive dragon that is definitely not Syrax, Rhaenyra’s dragon. Was there foreshadowing in the final episode of season one when Daemon talked about the many untamed, wild dragons available near Dragonstone? We must know! Though we’ll have to wait until July 28, 2024 at 9pm EST to find out for sure what this image means. If having action-focused director Loni Peristere on board for this episode is any indication, then episode seven is going to be full of it. Peristere has a resume that includes directions episodes of American Horror Story, Warrior, and The Witcher.
Episode 8
(HBO Max)
Though the title of the season two finale is as yet unknown, it will air on Sunday, August 4, 2024 and make us all sad that the second season is over. It will be directed by Geeta V. Patel, who has a wide variety of experience in television since 2016. We do get a preview image from IMDB, but it feels fairly generic as it’s simply a dragon flying towards a distant city that could (maybe?) be King’s Landing. It’s hard to tell. We’ll know soon enough after we feel the heat of the Targaryen face-offs all summer long.
Featured image: (HBO Max)
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The Color Purple (2023) is a musical period drama movie adapted from the stage musical of the same title and inspired by Alice Walker’s novel. Blitz Bazawule directed the film while Marcus Gardley wrote the script. The story follows a woman who goes through tough times but finds strong hope and courage from the enduring support of sisterhood. The film garnered an Oscar nomination for Danielle Brooks in the Best Supporting Actress Award category.
Here’s how you can watch and stream The Color Purple (2023) via streaming services such as HBO Max.
Is The Color Purple (2023) available to watch via streaming?
Yes, The Color Purple (2023) is available to watch via streaming onHBO Max.
The movie centers around a black American girl named Ceile. In 1909, her cruel father forced her into marriage to a farmer named Albert, who does not treat her well. Celie believes in God, and she finds hope when a jazz singer helps her escape to a distant city, where she finally finds happiness.
Watch The Color Purple (2023) streaming via HBO Max
The Color Purple (2023) is available to watch on HBO Max.
HBO Max is an American streaming service. It features all of the original programming from HBO like Succession, Game of Thrones, and Hacks, as well as a vast library of older HBO shows and movies.
$19.99 per month or $199.99 per year (ultimate ad-free)
Enter your personal information and password
Select ‘Create Account’
Max With Ads provides the service’s streaming library at a Full HD resolution, allowing users to stream on up to two supported devices at once. Max Ad-Free removes the service’s commercials and allows streaming on two devices at once in Full HD. It also allows for 30 downloads at a time to allow users to watch content offline. On the other hand, Max Ultimate Ad-Free allows users to stream on four devices at once in a 4K Ultra HD resolution and provides Dolby Atmos audio and 100 downloads.
The Color Purple’s official (2023) synopsis is as follows:
“A decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and of one woman’s journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.”
NOTE: The streaming services listed above are subject to change. The information provided was correct at the time of writing.
Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy has assured fans that the highly anticipated movie won’t need a ton of Marvel…
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Netflix has officially boarded the movie adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club, the upcoming mystery film directed by Chris Columbus.…
A clash between Zai and Higan was inevitable in Ninja Kamui, but what we didn’t expect was for Zai to secretly be exactly like Zenitsu from Demon Slayer. Zai is no coward, but tell me he’s not Zenitsu when his secret art is also named “thunderclap.”
The cherry on top is that Zai can launch attacks at lightning speed the same way Zenitsu does with his signature seventh form of thunderbreathing: thunderclap. If you think Demon Slayer is the only reference here, Higan also unleashed his secret art. I was half expecting him to scream either “domain expansion” from Jujutsu Kaisenor “bankai” from Bleach—he didn’t, but the effects were the same. Higan’s secret art, “serenity,” fine-tunes the body’s senses and enhances physical strength.
So we’ve watched 11 episodes of Ninja Kamui and caught not one but three other anime references in a single fight scene. What’s next? Is Yamaji doing a shadow clone jutsu? Who knows, but we’ll be able to watch Ninja Kamui episode 12 on April 28, 2024, on Adult Swim in the U.S. and Channel 4 in the U.K.
Humor aside, the last episode of Ninja Kamui was a little surprising. Yamaji and AUZA have both turned against each other and are battling it out for world dominance. Only one will be left standing. But, just as Joseph (evil tech CEO) was about to perish, his bodyguard Dilly chose to protect him. Something is going on between the two of them, but it’s one of the few times we see Joseph care about another person beyond himself and his plans to rule the world.
It’s almost endearing if you try to forget AUZA’s corruption. But if there’s one thing we can take away from all of this, it’s that more ninjas might defect from Yamaji in pursuit of their own principles.
(featured image: Adult Swim)
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Santa Campis a heartwarming comedy documentary that follows a group of wannabe Santas who trade in their day jobs for elf duty and reindeer wrangling. Will they learn the secrets of Christmas cheer or will their holiday spirit crumble under the pressure of Santa boot camp? Get ready for belly laughs, heartwarming wholesome moments, and the question we’ve all wondered: can anyone become Santa?
Here’s how you can watch and stream Santa Camp via streaming services such as HBO Max.
Is Santa Camp available to watch via streaming?
Yes, Santa Camp is available to watch via streaming on HBO Max.
Santa Camp isn’t your typical holiday movie filled with twinkling lights and reindeer. This 2022 documentary delves into the real world of Santa Claus impersonators. It follows a group of trainees, including a Black Santa, a transgender Santa, and a Santa with a disability, attending a boot camp run by the New England Santa Society. The film explores the challenges and rewards of becoming Santa, the push for diversity in the role, and the heartwarming desire to bring Christmas joy to children of all backgrounds.
Santa Camp stars Dan Greenleaf as a central character among others. The film features a documentary style and focuses on a smaller ensemble cast.
Watch Santa Camp streaming via HBO Max
Santa Camp is available to watch on HBO Max. HBO Max, now known simply as Max, is a streaming platform offering a library of content. It combines all the HBO classics and originals with shows and movies from Warner Bros., DC Comics, Cartoon Network, and more.
You can watch via Max, formerly known as HBO Max, by following these steps:
$19.99 per month or $199.99 per year (ultimate ad-free)
Enter your personal information and password
Select ‘Create Account’
Max With Ads provides the service’s streaming library at a Full HD resolution, allowing users to stream on up to two supported devices at once. Max Ad-Free removes the service’s commercials and allows streaming on two devices at once in Full HD. It also allows for 30 downloads at a time to allow users to watch content offline. On the other hand, Max Ultimate Ad-Free allows users to stream on four devices at once in a 4K Ultra HD resolution and provides Dolby Atmos audio and 100 downloads.
The synopsis of Santa Camp is as follows:
“This heartwarming and provocative documentary shines a light on the New England Santa Society and their efforts to bring more diversity to one of the most beloved figures in history – Santa Claus.”
NOTE: The streaming services listed above are subject to change. The information provided was correct at the time of writing.
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