Following the massive success of KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix is once again collaborating with Sony Pictures Animation to develop the sequel to 2021’s acclaimed sci-fi comedy The Mitchells vs. the Machines. The movie was a critical success with a Certified Fresh score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 94th Academy Awards.
What do we know about Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines 2?
According to Variety, Guillermo Martinez and JP Sans have been tapped to helm The Mitchells vs. the Machines 2, which is being written by Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin. Martinez previously worked on the first installment as the head of story. The upcoming animated sequel will serve as his feature directorial debut. Interestingly, Martinez also previously worked as a story artist on KPop Demon Hunters.
The original movie’s director Mike Rianda, and Aditya Sood have signed on as executive producers, while Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Kurt Albrecht are set to produce the movie. Netflix is planning to start the sequel’s production in early 2026. Just like the first installment, the streamer will be distributing the movie as part of a licensing agreement with Sony.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines featured the voices of Abbi Jacobson as Katie Mitchell, Danny McBride as Rick Mitchell, Maya Rudolph as Linda Mitchell, Rianda as Aaron, Eric Andre as tech inventor Mark Bowman, and Olivia Colman as a Siri-like voice assistant called PAL. The story centered around young Katie Mitchell, who embarks on a road trip with her parents and younger brother after they insist on accompanying her to college. However, their trip is cut short when the world is suddenly taken over by electronic devices that have come to life to stage an uprising.
Netflix reported its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, and revenue was $11.51 billion—slightly below Bloomberg’s forecast of $11.52 billion. Earnings per share were $5.87, below an estimate of $6.94. (All of this is per Yahoo! Finance). Not catastrophic, but not great. The company’s stock price went down by 5.6%.
But hey, how about all that AI?
In its shareholder letter, and then again in its earnings call, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters touted coming generative AI implementation as an exciting new development across content generation, user experience, and in advertising. All the AI talk made it feel like it was 2023 again.
To illustrate how much AI seems to be on the CEOs’ minds, at 26 minutes and 34 seconds into the earnings call, Peters gives an answer in which he rattles off what seems to be an ad-hoc list of six challenges Netflix faces as a company, starting with creating TV and movies around the world. Implementing AI is the second item he mentions.
The shareholder letter kicked off the topic of AI with what is actually a pretty big truth bomb: “For many years now, ML and AI have been powering our title recommendations as well as production and promotion technology.” That’s truer than you might think. All the way back in 2008, Netflix found a genuinely fun way to publicize its use of machine learning: by asking the public to figure out why some people like Napoleon Dynamite and others don’t, with math.
Much has changed since those days, and now Netflix says it’s shoehorning AI features into Netflix wherever it can. For instance, the earnings letter says a beta test is ongoing that adds a “conversational search” function, helping people “discover the perfect title for that moment.” The goal here sounds easy enough to picture without speculating too wildly. I can picture saying “What’s a movie to watch with my mom on her 50th birthday?” into a Roku remote and getting a list of recs.
On the techical side, Netflix says there’s an effort afoot to use AI to “localize” (which basically means “translate”) promotional assets into other languages and regions, which sounds like it could theoretically allow relevant—but obscure and foreign—movies and TV that I might love to come to me, even without readily available artwork and summaries in my language. Theoretically anyway.
But most of all, Netflix says it will be “empowering creators with a broad set of GenAI tools to help them achieve their visions.” For instance, the letter boasts that AI de-aging was used in Happy Gilmore 2, and that the producers of Billionaires’ Bunker used Generative AI tools for concept art.
But how does Netflix regard Sora 2, the video generator that plunged the internet into copyright hell upon its release last month? Sarandos, for his part, is not telegraphing some kind of rapid slopification at Netflix—and he hastens to add that he’s not intimidated by Sora 2 currently. According to Sarandos, “it’s likely to have a lot more impact on UGC creators the most in the near term. In other words, AI content replacing viewing of existing user-generated content. That starts to make sense.”
It’s worth noting that Sarandos is already trying to convince influencers to leave YouTube. If you’re a YouTuber who hasn’t already agreed to a Netflix deal, and you’re worried that Sora 2 is coming to eat your lunch, Sarandos’ suggestion that your business model is more vulnerable than his could be part of an effort to win you over.
But Sarandos says AI “doesn’t automatically make you a great storyteller if you’re not.” For once a tech CEO talking about AI doesn’t sound like he’s sharpening his layoffs ax. “We’re confident that AI is going to help us and help our creative partners tell stories better, faster, and in new ways,” Sarandos said, adding, “We’re all in on that.”
As the entertainment industry reckons with when and how to use generative AI in filmmaking, Netflix is leaning in. In its quarterly earnings report released on Tuesday afternoon, Netflix wrote in its letter to investors that it is “very well positioned to effectively leverage ongoing advances in AI.”
Netflix isn’t planning to use generative AI as the backbone of its content but believes the technology has potential as a tool to make creatives more efficient.
“It takes a great artist to make something great,” Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said on Tuesday’s earnings call. “AI can give creatives better tools to enhance their overall TV/movie experience for our members, but it doesn’t automatically make you a great storyteller if you’re not.”
Earlier this year, Netflix said it used generative AI in final footage for the first time in the Argentine show “The Eternaut” to create a scene of a building collapsing. Since then, the filmmakers behind “Happy Gilmore 2” used generative AI to make characters look younger in the film’s opening scene, while the producers of “Billionaires’ Bunker” used the technology as a pre-production tool to envision wardrobe and set design.
“We’re confident that AI is going to help us and help our creative partners tell stories better, faster, and in new ways,” Sarandos said. “We’re all in on that, but we’re not chasing novelty for novelty’s sake here.”
AI has been a contentious topic in the entertainment industry, as artists worry that LLM-powered tools that non-consensually used their work as training data have the potential to negatively impact their jobs.
With Netflix as a bellwether, it seems that studios are more likely to use generative AI for special effects rather than to replace the role of actors — even if an AI actor recently caused an uproar among Hollywood actors, despite not yet booking any gigs (that we know of). These behind-the-scenes AI uses still have the potential to impact visual effects jobs, however.
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These debates recently escalated when ChatGPT-maker OpenAI unveiled its Sora 2 audio and video generation model, which was released without guardrails that prevent users from generating videos of some actors and historical figures. Just this week, the Hollywood trade organization SAG-AFTRA and actor Bryan Cranston urged OpenAI to institute stronger guardrails against deepfaking actors like Cranston himself.
When an investor asked Sarandos about the impact of Sora on Netflix, he said that it “starts to make sense” that content creators could be impacted, but he’s less worried about the movie and TV business — or so he tells investors.
“We’re not worried about AI replacing creativity,” he said.
Netflix’s quarterly revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $11.5 billion, though this fell below the company’s forecast.
Harkening back to the Star Wars pre-order cardboard days, Netflix is playing catch-up by making sales for KPop Demon Hunters toys and merch available before the actual products are ready.
Netflix has announced partnerships with Hasbro and Mattel in response to the massive demand from the fans for KPop Demon Hunters toys. Projected to roll out starting spring 2026, there will be a range of global products, including collectibles, games, and role-play products that will bring the world of Huntr/x and the Saja Boys to the homes of fans eagerly wanting to add their favorite characters to their toy troves.
Mattel’s KPop partnership with Netflix will feature dolls, action figures, accessories, collectibles, and playsets. We’re already imagining a concert playset with action figures. There will also be collabs with Mattel’s co-brands, which could mean Little People figures for the littlest of Huntr/x fans. But the fan age range is truly from baby to adult, because while I want toys for my little one, I also want the Mattel Creations three-pack of Huntr/x dolls for myself that was announced just today.
The deluxe fashion dolls, which have yet to actually be revealed, feature Rumi, Mira, and Zoe in their showstopping finale performance looks—and yet I’ve never clicked faster on a pre-order page ahead of the sale going live November 12.
The Hasbro-Netflix KPop partnership is also gearing up to be expansive and filled with must-haves. Plushes stood out to us immediately—we need high-quality Derpy tigers!—and there will also be youth electronics and role-play options tying in with Hasbro Games, Wizards of the Coast, and Nerf. Please, please make Nerf versions of the amazing Huntr/x demon-fighting weapons. And maybe a Magic secret lair, considering Wizards of the Coast has already done ones for Post Malone and Hatsune Miku.
Hasbro’s early drop announcement is a card-based variation on Monopoly, Monopoly Deal: KPop Demon Hunters, which is already available for pre-order on Amazon, Target and Walmart, with orders shipping January 1, 2026.
KPop Demon Hunters products from Mattel and Hasbro will be available to retailers by spring 2026 and continue arriving through the rest of the year. That means they won’t arrive in time for this year’s holiday gift-giving, but you could print out pre-order confirmations to stuff into stockings in the meantime: “IOU the Huntr/x Dolls. Love, Santa.”
Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media conglomerate to go up for sale.
The company, which owns HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio, and several cable channels, announced on Tuesday that it is reviewing a variety of offers to sell the company.
It said it would consider these bids as it moves forward with previously announced plans to separate its streaming and studio business from its struggling cable channels.
“It’s no surprise that the significant value of our portfolio is receiving increased recognition by others in the market,” said David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a press release. “After receiving interest from multiple parties, we have initiated a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets.”
All options appear to be on the table, including a sale of the entire company or separate deals for its streaming/studio division and its cable channel business.
The move could totally reshape Hollywood and continue the trend of media consolidation into a frighteningly small number of hands. Just this year, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, MTV, and Paramount Studios, completed its merger with Skydance Media. And it wasn’t that long ago, 2019, when Disney acquired its longtime rival, 20th Century Fox.
It was also only in 2022 when then-WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to become Warner Bros. Discovery. That deal was pitched as a way for the two to become more competitive against conglomerates like Disney and Comcast, as well as streaming pioneer Netflix. But it seems like things haven’t gone as initially planned. This June, the company announced it was splitting itself into two, with its streaming service and studios becoming Warner Bros. and the majority of its cable channels forming Discovery Global.
The company’s streaming service has also undergone several rebrands, most recently settling on the HBO Max name. The company also announced today that it is raising prices for the service.
So, who’s interested?
The Wall Street Journalreported today that Warner Bros. Discovery rejected a second offer from Paramount this week. If the two companies were ever to reach a deal, it would put a lot of power in the hands of Paramount CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
As head of Paramount, Ellison currently controls CBS News, where he recently appointed The Free Press’s Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief. Under a deal with WBD, Ellison could also potentially gain control over the cable news network CNN.
Comcast is reportedly interested as well, despite recently starting the process of spinning off its own cable channel business, according to The New York Times.
For now, it doesn’t appear that Netflix is seriously considering a bid. Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters recently shut down rumors that the streaming giant is seeking to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
“We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers,” Peters said earlier this month at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Deadline reported. “One should have a reasonable amount of skepticism around big media mergers. They don’t have an amazing track record over time.”
Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamilton, beloved alums from the first season of Love Is Blind, have officially entered parenthood! The couple, who met and married on the groundbreaking Netflix reality series in 2020, welcomed their first child — a baby boy named Ezra — on Wednesday, Oct. 1, at 8:18 p.m. Speaking exclusively with PEOPLE, the Hamiltons shared the joyous news. Lauren, 37, said that the arrival of their son, who weighed in at 5 lbs., 15 oz., has made their long and emotional fertility journey “worth it.”
“He’s been such a blessing already,” she gushed to PEOPLE.
Lauren underwent in vitro fertilization treatment before welcoming her new bundle of joy, a process she described as “tough”on a 2024 episode of her podcast The Love Seat, which she hostsalongside her husband.
Cameron, 35, echoed her joy and reflected on the surreal nature of finally holding their baby after years of trying to conceive.
“It still feels surreal that we have a son after four years of trying to conceive,” he shared. “That said, the 4 a.m. feedings and diaper changes have definitely made it feel more real. I’m grateful for it all.”
A Name With Meaning
As for their son’s name, the couple says it came to them naturally, and a touching moment involving Lauren’s late father confirmed it was meant to be.
“The name ‘Ezra’ just came to us one day when we first started talking about baby names,” Cameron explained. “Once I suggested it, we both agreed that was going to be his name. It felt right.”
Lauren added a poignant memory.
“After my dad passed, we were organizing his things, and we found a Bible that had been his mother’s. When we opened it, the Bible opened to the book of Ezra, and a picture of Dad fell out. That was a sign.”
A Full-Circle Moment
After the long road to becoming parents, holding baby Ezra for the first time was a moment filled with emotion and awe.
“It was such a sense of relief holding him,” Cameron shared with PEOPLE. “I was thinking, ‘We really did it. After all the intentional work we put into making him, he’s here.’”
Lauren described their first moments together as “magical,” saying she didn’t want to let go once Ezra was in her arms.
“I didn’t want him to move again,” she added. “I was thinking, ‘He looks just like Cam. I knew it!’ I had a dream that he would look like this. But even more than that, I was thinking about how grateful I am to be his mom and raise him.”
For Cameron, seeing his son’s eyes open for the first time brought on an instant protective instinct.
“I got to see him open his eyes for the first time and in that moment I thought, ‘I have to protect him for the rest of my life,’” he recalled.
Adjusting to Life with a Newborn.
Now home with their baby boy, the couple is settling into the realities of new parenthood, including sleepless nights. Although it’s been “rough,” according to Lauren, the couple is embracing the challenge, learning as they go, and figuring out what works best for them as a new family of three.
So, what led up to this beautiful moment, you ask? Check out a complete timeline of Cameron and Lauren’s love story after the flip.
Netflix, no stranger to adapting games into streaming hits, has announced that it’s partnering with game publisher Asmodee to create new TV shows and films based on the board game Catan, with multiple projects already in development. While the streamer has primarily specialized video game adaptations, the belief in post-Barbie Hollywood is that any recognizable IP could be the source of a future TV show or movie.
In Catan, players are tasked with collecting resources and building out a civilization on a remote island, with multiple ways to win or obstruct fellow players from doing the same. It’s not too hard to imagine the game being converted into some kind of competitive reality TV show, though apparently animated and live-action narrative projects are also on the table. “Anyone who has played Catan knows [that] the intense strategy and negotiation at the core of the game has endless opportunities for some serious drama,” Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of scripted series for the US and Canada, shared in the press release announcing the deal.
Whichever Catan project ultimately heads into production, Netflix says it’ll be produced by Darren Kyman from Asmodee, Pete Fenlon from Catan Studio, and Guido and Benjamin Teuber, the sons of Catan creator Klaus Teuber. If Asmodee sounds familiar, it might be because Netflix has partnered with the publisher in the past. Exploding Kittens, another Asmodee published game, was adapted into both a mobile game for Netflix Games and an animated series with the help of its original creators.
Netflix has officially acquired the rights to the upcoming TV adaptation of Catan, based on the iconic Asmodee board game created by German designer Klaus Teuber. Besides receiving a TV show, the acquisition deal also includes plans for unscripted, live-action, and animated projects.
What do we know about Netflix’s Catan TV show?
At the moment, Netflix hasn’t revealed the creative team that’ll work on the Catan TV show. According to THR, it will be set in “a place where settlers must navigate bountiful and varied landscapes, shifting alliances and limited resources, while robbers roam the land.” Before the Netflix acquisition, producer Gail Katz and Sony Pictures had previously attempted to adapt the game into a movie in 2017.
“Anyone who has played Catan knows that the intense strategy at the core of the game has endless opportunities for some serious drama,” Netflix executive Jinny Howe said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to partner across series, features, animation, and games to bring this world to life for hardcore Settlers and new fans alike.”
Catan was first launched in 1995 in Germany, where it was originally called The Settlers of Catan. It is a multiplayer board game that requires players to take on the roles of settlers on a fictional island. Since its debut, it has already sold more than 45 million copies globally and been translated into over 40 languages.
“When our father Klaus Teuber first introduced Catan 30 years ago, he imagined an aspirational world where people would gather by trading, building, and settling together — both at the table and beyond it,” Benjamin and Guido Teuber shared. “This collaboration with Netflix marks an exciting new chapter in that journey. For three decades, Catan has connected families and friends around the world. Now, we’re thrilled to see it inspire storytelling on a global stage — staying true to our father’s vision of creativity, strategy, and human connection.”
Asmodee CEO Thomas Koegler added, “Millions of people are enjoying Catan since it was created, and for many, it remains a gateway to modern board gaming. I’m thrilled to see the game expanding to a larger audience who will discover the richness of its universe. I find it exciting for the future of the brand. It’s also a testament that board gaming is truly part of pop culture and a popular form of entertainment in everyone’s homes, and I’m delighted to continue Asmodee’s relationship with Netflix.”
If you ever wondered what it would be like to have Eleven’s powers, Sandbox VR now offers that chance. The nationwide chain of immersive VR experiences just added its latest Netflix collaboration, Stranger Things: Catalyst, inspired by the Duffer brothers’ hit retro ’80s series. Its entertainment partnership with the streamer also includes playable stories within the Squid Game and Rebel Moon franchises.
Just in time for Halloween and the release of Stranger Things season five, io9 was invited (media tickets were provided) to experience the new horror-tinged offering at a local Sandbox VR location. Having enjoyed the Squid Game VR, I was keen to try this one out, as it seemed like it would really bring you into the world of the Upside Down and have you face the scarier elements of the series. The Squid Game activation was just entering the dystopian tournament with mostly just games like “Red Light, Green Light,” rather than, say, a concrete narrative.
In Stranger Things: Catalyst, players become Dr. Brenner’s test subjects and experience a different perspective of a Rainbow Room type of break-in. You and your group start by practicing your powers through a wand to channel telekinetic abilities—think Nintendo’s Wii and Switch controllers, held in the hand to supplement the powers and seen through the headset VR setup. During the in-world power honing at Hawkins Lab, which is just practice, the training gets interrupted by an attack on Hawkins Lab, and you’re thrust into the fight against the forces of the Upside Down.
The premise serves as an excuse to engage in what’s more of a chaotic free-for-all than a fleshed-out story. Players work together to escape the lab while confronting the monstrous threats of the Upside Down, navigating through the trees of Mirkwood and ultimately battling the Mind Flayer in the distorted version of Hawkins. The powers are really fun; you can grab items to throw at the supernatural threats in the form of the Demobats, Demodogs, and even the Demogorgon, but also telekinetically push them away from you or your friends.
The big boss attacks are your standard co-op fare; you all focus on different weak points of, say, the tentacles coming out of the rift or the Mind Flayer’s spider legs and bring them down as a group. But that’s pretty much it; there’s not really a larger story you’re a part of that has anything to do with characters you’re familiar with. You don’t get to interact with Eleven or the Hawkins heroes—just dear old Papa Brenner. The immersion is pretty much a greatest hits of the ops you’d want to face from the Upside Down, except Vecna.
While overall, Stranger Things: Catalyst is enjoyable and filled with jump scares while you mind-blast (trying hard to not say “Force push”) through hordes of Vecna’s forces, be aware that it is a workout. The more people in your group, the more ops get added to the experience. Our group found that it was just too much coming at us all at once. During the team-ups you’re trying to grab things to attack your opponents, but also randomly possessed Upside Down hazmat agents while getting them off your teammates, which overwhelmingly would take up most of the experience. You don’t really get a sense of why this is happening because too much is happening.
Do I wish there were more of the characters we know and love? Yes, but these sorts of activations don’t really need it to be a good time. So if you’re looking for a cohesive side-quest narrative in the Stranger Things universe, this isn’t it. But for a group outing to a private Halloween season activation or just to get the Stranger Things binge crew off the couch, it’s well worth it.
There are a lot of thrills, chills, and laughs to be had. The Demogorgon might get you, but it’s when the ground beneath you gives out that your mind plays tricks on you. I found myself dropping to the floor to make sure it was still there. And yeah, you might die a lot, but at least you can revive an unlimited amount of times; respawns only take a few seconds to get back into the game. Once it ended, I thought, despite the sheer amount of times I would not have made it in the Upside Down, I’d definitely play this again with friends to be our own Scoops Troop and all be powered like Eleven.
For a list of Sandbox VR locations offering Stranger Things: Catalyst, visit here. The final season of Stranger Things begins November 26 on Netflix.
Easing trade tensions and a big gain in Apple shares helped drive stocks back toward records on Monday, the start of a heavy week of corporate earnings.
Indexes opened with gains, with some investors saying sentiment was buoyed by President Trump saying he will soon meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Friday comments that he will meet with his Chinese counterpart in person this week.
I felt like our connection was this cynicism we had. I always thought that was interesting—you create an alliance, whether it be with a best friend or a family member, that you have this viewpoint on something, but it’s not always forever. So Joanne and Morgan shared philosophies until Joanne kind of grew out of it, and it just felt really right that that would kind of piss Morgan off. When I paired off with my husband, Simon—
Sara: What is this “paired off”? I’ve never heard you use this term.
Erin: Really? [Shrugs] I don’t know. But when Simon and I got together, Sara was very supportive and connected to him, and we didn’t have that issue.
Sara: But in life it’s hard when you’re accustomed to a certain dynamic and that dynamic shifts. Like, Erin hasn’t been to my house in two years. Normally, she’d be done with work like, “I’m coming over.” She’ll cook me dinner, she’ll put my kids to bed. She’s literally not been in my house for a year and that’s an adjustment—
Erin: Because I had a baby.
You both have been creative partners for most of your adult lives, but do obstacles in your dynamic still arise?
Sara: There’s no push-and-pull power dynamic. We both have pretty clear lanes. There’s no part of me that wants to be a writer. Erin has such an innate talent that is so specific to her. I would say she has the most important comedic voice in TV right now. She can’t say that about herself, but I can and I’m so proud of her.
Erin: Yeah, but it’s taken many years for it to fall into this natural rhythm. There’s a lot that I’m not as passionate about, like the business side of things is not as exciting to me as the creative side, but you have to have both. And it’s hard for me to have a lot of different plates spinning. I get overwhelmed. I’m good at focusing on the thing in front of me, and I think Sara’s really great at reminding us to diversify and keep the train on the tracks. The writers room monopolizes a lot of my time, so I’m really unable to be in a ton of meetings and fittings for Favorite Daughter and even development stuff for other shows. So she’s really great about being able to lead the charge on that and be understanding when I have to be in the writers room.
Earnings reports next week, including from Tesla and Netflix, will provide a deeper look at U.S. corporate profits while delayed U.S. inflation data will mark another test of the stock market, which has become shakier even as it remains around record highs.
The fourth year of the S&P 500’s bull run kicked off this week with some significant gyrations after a long period of market calm.
Revived U.S.-China trade tensions and credit concerns at regional U.S. banks drove the anxiety. The CBOE market volatility index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, has surged in recent days and hit its highest level in nearly six months on Friday.
“The market is becoming more volatile, but it’s also coming off of a very non-volatile period where we didn’t have a lot of risk catalysts bubbling to the top,” said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede.
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“Once you have valuations hit sort of full levels, as we’re seeing now almost across the board, you have to be on the lookout for incremental risk catalysts.”
The spark for the latest volatility was a surprise resurgence in U.S.-China trade tensions. Stocks slumped late last week after the U.S. threatened to significantly hike tariffs by November 1 over China’s rare-earth export controls.
The U.S.-China trade issue will be key for markets in the coming week, said Doug Beath, global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that he would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in two weeks in South Korea.
Sharp swings in global financial shares to end the week also kept investors on edge as they weighed the extent of credit concerns emerging from regional U.S. banks.
Major stock indexes posted weekly gains and are on pace for strong years. The benchmark S&P 500 is up 13.3 percent year-to-date and 1.3 percent below its record high. But there are signs the market is weakening under the surface.
The percentage of S&P 500 stocks in some form of an uptrend declined from 77 percent in early July to 57 percent as of Tuesday while the number of stocks in a downtrend increased from 23 percent to 44 percent over that time, according to Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial.
That “narrowing gap highlights emerging cracks in the market’s foundation,” Turnquist said in written commentary. Similarly, Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said he will be watching how broadly based the market’s gains are going forward.
“If you have a fewer number of companies that are actually moving higher, but the indexes do move higher because of the megacaps, that’s a really important divergence,” Gordon said.
Attention will be on third-quarter earnings after major banks started the reporting season on a strong note. Aside from streaming giant Netflix and electric vehicle maker Tesla, other companies due to report in the coming week include consumer companies Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, aerospace and defense giant RTX and tech stalwart IBM.
The corporate results and executive comments will offer insight into the economy as the U.S. government shutdown has stopped economic data releases since October 1, including monthly employment data.
Corporate “reports and what companies say is really our best chance at assessing what the broader economic health is,” Gordon said.
The government has said it will release the U.S. consumer price index for September on Friday, nine days late, saying the CPI data allows the Social Security Administration to meet deadlines for timely payment of benefits.
The CPI report, which is a closely watched inflation gauge, will be released days before the Federal Reserve’s next monetary policy meeting on October 28-29. The U.S. central bank is widely expected to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point again, after weakening jobs data prompted the Fed to lower rates last month for the first time this year.
“We’d really have to see something out of left field in terms of notable inflation pressures to knock the Fed off of a rate cut path at the October meeting,” Glenmede’s Reynolds said.
Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by David Gregorio and Cynthia Osterman
Netflix’s new TV and movie release schedule for October 20 to October 26, 2025, includesThe Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2, Nobody Wants This Season 2, Parish, and A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE.
On October 21, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 drops on Netflix. The drama series focuses on Daryl, who finds himself in France and tries to find out how he got there. As such, he decides to make his way back home, making new connections and tackling endless problems.
Further, Nobody Wants This Season 2 drops on the streaming platform. It follows the passionate love story of a sex podcaster, Joanne, and Noah Roklov, a newly single rabbi. They face numerous struggles in their romance due to their opposing beliefs and meddling families.
Also coming to Netflix is the crime drama series, Parish. The story focuses on Gray, who is haunted by the murder of his child. Things turn upside down when he is thrown into the underworld with no escape route and every path leading to danger.
Additionally, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE arrives on the streaming platform. It follows the launch of an unattributed missile in the United States. As a result, a thrilling race against time begins to catch the culprit and save the day.
New Netflix releases for October 20-October 26, 2025
Below are all the new TV shows and movies being added to Netflix from October 20 to October 26, 2025.
The finale is a fun, sexy time for just about everyone … if you ignore all the personal and political betrayals. Photo: Clifton Prescod/Netflix
There are so many flavors of betrayal to sample in “Schrodinger’s Wife”. We’ve got Trowbridge’s grievances, whatever it is Todd imagines is going on between Grace and Hal, Hal’s supreme annoyance with Kate’s inability to just enjoy her new relationship, Stuart’s difficulty processing what Billie knew about Rayburn (and when she knew it), and Kate’s horror at Grace and Hal’s betrayal (once again!) of Trowbridge when she figures out that they’re the ones who made off with the incredibly dangerous Poseidon drone. Whew!
The only people having a relatively normal time of it at the U.K./U.S. summit being held at Chequers (the formal residence for the Prime Minister to use as a country retreat or for entertaining on a large scale) are Austin Dennison and his wife (!!), Thema Aseidu-Dennison (Tracy Ifeachor, late of The Pitt). Somehow, they’ve been married for a month, but Kate hadn’t heard a word about it until now? Their backstory is really lovely, too, a second chance at love after having been married to other people previously. Dennison is such a decent person and a true friend to Kate. That’s wonderful, but as a plot twist sicko, I can’t help feeling a little wistful about how much more bonkers this episode would be if the Wylers were fully broken up and Kate were with Dennison. I’m not saying that it’s suffering from any kind of bonkersness deficiency, but if we’re going to be hanging on a massive nuclear drone-shaped cliff for the next 12-15 months as we await season four, why not go fully maximalist?
This is the third consecutive season finale for The Diplomat where Hal Wyler is the sun around which wild things rotate. His actions have led, so far, to a deadly car bombing in central London, the death of a U.S. President, and now, the theft of the Poseidon. While Kate has been coming to grips with the notion that she is the common denominator in her troubled romantic relationships, now might be a good moment for Hal to reflect on what internationally significant dangers his usually well-intended schemes bring into the world. I’m chuckling at myself now; this is never going to happen!
Elsewhere in White House couples, Todd Penn sees marital betrayal where it doesn’t exist, while Kate fails to see political and personal betrayal where it does, only perceiving it after Todd confides in her about his insecurity regarding Grace and Hal’s apparently rock-solid working relationship. I love that this episode finally gives us the degree of Grace and Todd content I’ve been expecting; while I haven’t thought of CJ Cregg and Josh Lyman once this season, there’s still a bit of glow from The West Wing shining on Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford that is always going to be irresistible to me. I’d like to see more real conversations between them, like the one we get early in the episode — they’re funny, snuggly, sexy, pissy, all in the space of one scene.
Let’s pause here for a moment, because I have questions about this scene, specifically about the moment when Todd, trying to get Grace to put down the phone, nuzzles all over her torso, murmuring sweet nothings, comparing her to a fresh focaccia. A! Fresh! Focaccia! What? Now, far be it from me to kink-shame anyone, particularly about something so benign and kind of adorable, but I want to know some specifics. How many baked goods were considered prior to settling on focaccia? Were they all savory, or were some sweet options in the mix? Were all candidates for the oddest wholesome sex metaphor all in the yeasted dough category, or did chemical leaveners get some representation? How many takes did this scene require? Janney and Whitford are capital-p Professionals, but I imagine the focaccia line might have elicited some particularly loud and uncontrollable giggles, even from them. Also, this is the second scene of the season in which a male love interest professes an intense and specific oral fixation with his female partner. In the fourth episode, Dennison announced his desire to lick Kate until she screamed (and don’t think we aren’t still baffled by the failure of that plan to come to fruition), and now we have focaccia.
The Penns’ almost-sex scene segueing into the one big sex scene of the season, between the Trowbridges is quite something. It’s great to have Pandora Colin back as Lydia Trowbridge, and I hope we get more time with her next season. It’s fun to see married couples cast as married couples, and Colin makes the most of her minimal screen time, investing the word vigorous with degrees of boredom and impatience unmeasurable by any device in existence.
Following that betrayal of sorts, we have the relative palate cleansers of PM Trowbridge vs. President Penn. They go two rounds in formal negotiations, with a third in the form of an excruciatingly awkward fancy dinner for both delegations. What’s most interesting to me is how quickly and totally Trowbridge’s advantage over Grace has evaporated. Even before he stomps out of the room in round one, she manages to get him over a barrel largely by weaponizing his own beliefs about etiquette against him. It’s bad enough that he trumpeted Rayburn’s involvement in the HMS Courageous bomb attack at all, but to do so at her vacation home? That’s just not cricket, is it, Nicol? Tsk tsk, you naughty boy, we are very disappointed with you.
The second round is a bigger swing, a bolder gambit all the way around, really, and not just because it’s based on a high-stakes example of the adage about asking for forgiveness being better than waiting for permission. Grace makes a convincing show of being shocked by Trowbridge’s initial refusal to accept help in retrieving the Russian submarine and Poseidon drone, but I think she and Hal were always counting on Kate to intervene with a solution everyone can live with. Sealing the submarine and its dangerous weapon in concrete elegantly solves several problems at once: the danger of radiation leakage will be contained, and no one will have access to Poseidon. Well, they won’t have access to this particular Poseidon — who even knows what kind of stockpile the Russians have ready to deploy? — but they’re going to take the win now and worry about the rest later.
Well done, everyone! The dynamic duo of Kate and Hal have pulled off one more Hail Mary pass, and seemingly, a romantic reconciliation, too. I’m a little fuzzy on what leads her to beg him to take her back, and have concluded that there’s no singular thing that brings about this change of heart. Instead, I think the combination of her fight and post-fight conversations with Callum, Hal’s “why can’t you be happy?” outburst, Dennison’s incredibly generous perspective on the Wylers’ relationship and urging to be patient with herself and with Hal all combined to point Kate in this direction. Maybe the moment that sealed it was the concrete gambit — nothing is sexier to these two than a successful international relations moment — even Callum noticed Kate’s face as Hal winked at her across the table and she looked down, smiling and blushing. (Now that I think of it a bit more, it’s also possible that Hal describing Callum as having a full ah-matization-ready “resplendent, gallows-bound cock” may have helped, too. Having a partner who makes you laugh, especially when you’re mad at each other, is so important.)
For Kate to have her moment of joy blown to smithereens by her deduction that Hal and Grace must have cooked up a plan under the plan (a sub-plan?) to steal the Poseidon before the submarine could be sealed in concrete is a cruel, dizzying experience. If anything, Todd Penn is thinking too small in his jealousy over Hal and Grace’s working relationship. Why fret over a nonexistent betrayal of marriage vows when an international betrayal is right in front of his face?
For my money, though, the most profound betrayals are the ones Stuart is trying to process. The president he thought was so decent, so worthy of Stuart’s decision to sacrifice time with his dying father, is now known the world over as the architect of a plot that killed 41 British Navy personnel? His closest friend lying to his face for months about it, and possibly setting him up to face questioning under oath as a result? Who is telling him the truth? Is anyone telling him the truth? How can he continue to work for these people? He probably needs a lawyer, but as Eidra points out, doing so may ruin his career and livelihood! Everything is a mess! Everything except Eidra, who asks him not to leave and crawls into his arms. One item from my season three wishlist, delivered at last! I’ll take it.
• The grand country house standing in for Chequers in this episode looks more like Balmoral thanks to its dark gray stone facing. The real Chequers — which is a beautiful red brick pile — was donated to Great Britain in 1917 by Conservative MP Arthur Lee and his wife Ruth. You can hear Trowbridge explaining its history in the background conversation during this episode’s fancy dinner scene.
• Yes, I am still thinking about focaccia. It’s incredibly easy to make, and so delicious that everyone will think you labored over it for hours and hours. Claire Saffitz’s recipe is my standby.
The fact that Frankenstein is hitting theaters before it arrives on Netflix is no doubt due to Guillermo del Toro’s strong desire for his dream project to have a theatrical experience. It also helps that movies must have a theatrical run to qualify for award season.
The latter is one reason Netflix’s surprise hit KPop Demon Hunters had those limited movie theater screenings in August, with a return coming this Halloween due to popular demand.
But while KPop Demon Hunters hit screens across multiple theater chains, if you were hoping to see Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight) and Jacob Elordi (Euphoria) in Frankenstein on the big screen, the opportunity is seemingly just as elusive as the monster himself.
While Netflix struck a deal with AMC theaters to show KPop Demon Hunters, Frankenstein will not be screening at any of the chain’s cineplexes. So if you’re like me, a paying member of AMC A-List, you won’t be able to slot it into your weekly movie plan. Many families budget in the flat A-List fee to see movies monthly; for Frankenstein, you’ll have to shell out full price to see it elsewhere and then—if you have kids too young to enjoy del Toro’s passion project—you’ll have to book a sitter on top of that.
But if you have an unlimited entertainment budget, you can find your closest venue on Guillermo del Toro and Netflix’s Frankenstein ticket site here. Just know that your nearest theater might not be so near, especially during opening weekend; it will expand next week.
Your chances are better if you live in a major city. To use Los Angeles as an example—a city with many, many movie theaters—you can only watch it at the Egyptian Theater (operated by Netflix) in Hollywood or make the drive to Santa Monica, where the Nuart Theater is playing it in 35mm.
New York City, meanwhile, only has three theaters playing it, including the Angelika Film Center, which has it in 35mm as well. The rest of the presentations are on digital unless you’re lucky enough to nab IMAX screening tickets (as of publishing, IMAX does not have a listing page for the film). Your best bet if you’re dead-set on seeing Frankenstein in IMAX is to call your local theater or check its website rather than simply going by the Netflix ticketing site.
Pentagon Press Secretary has scathing remarks for “Boots” an LGBT+ military Netflix series.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson had a lot to say about the new Netflix series “Boots” that was released earlier this month. Wilson said in a statement that Netflix’s “leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience”. The show follows a closeted gay teen who impulsively follows his best friend’s lead in enlisting in the Marine Corps. The show is loosely based on Marine Corps Sergeant Greg Cope White’s memoir “The Pink Marine,” which details his journey as a gay man in the military in the 1970s-80s, when it was illegal.
“Boots” deviates as it takes place during the 1990s, or the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era, where gay soldiers were allowed to serve as long as they remained silent about their sexual orientation. Although it isn’t directly about his life, White served as a writer for the show alongside late producer and WWII veteran Norman Lear. Andy Parker, the creator of the show, “did not feel the series was inherently political”, however, Secretary Wilson disagreed, stating that the US Military “will not compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda”.
This statement aligns with the beliefs of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality who is helping “the US Military to get back to restoring the warrior ethos”. He has previously supported Trump’s executive order, which mandates the discharge of all trans service members and prevents new trans troops from enlisting. Earlier this year, he ordered that the US Navy Ship Harvey Milk, named after the veteran and gay activist, be renamed. In May, he spoke about “leaving weakness and weakness behind”.
It is a violent reaction for a show that, at its bare bones, is based on someone’s personal experience, especially when the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed in 2011. Created by two veterans about one of the toughest branches in the military, the show aims to shed light on the experiences of gay veterans, which is apparently too much for the Pentagon to handle. Netflix has not commented on the situation at this point. Especially when the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed in 2011. Created by two veterans about one of the toughest branches in the military, the show aims to shed light on the experiences of gay veterans, which is apparently too much for the Pentagon to handle. Netflix has not commented on the situation at this point.
The final season of Stranger Things nears, and with that, our Hellfire Club catch-up session draws to a close. Here’s everything you need to remember from season four before the Duffer brothers’ series returns to Netflix on November 26.
If you’re new here, you can also refresh on Stranger Thingsseason one, season two, and season three in the previous sessions of our Hellfire Club catch-up series, where we break down all the important things we think could come into play for the show’s epic conclusion.
Season four did an excellent job at raising the stakes with the Hawkins crew being ripped apart across the world. Joyce (Winona Ryder) started off in California with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Mike (Finn Wolfhard), who is on a school break visit. Before, of course, the arrival of a mysterious package from Russia, alerting Joyce that Hopper (David Harbour) might still be alive and skipping town with Murray (Brett Gelman) to rescue her man. The kids don’t notice immediately but wrangle up trouble when El fights the popular girl at school who picks on her, alerting the government of her whereabouts. Thankfully Doctor Owens (Paul Reiser) steps in.
Meanwhile, back in Hawkins, a series of grotesque deaths haunts the halls of Hawkins High. Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), the game master of the Hellfire Club that Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Erica (Priah Ferguson), and Mike are a part of, becomes the prime suspect thanks to the 80’s D&D Satanic Panic. But of course, the deaths have the marks of the Upside Down all over them, so the remaining Hawkins heroes help hide Eddie. Meanwhile, Max (Sadie Sink) begins to realize she might be next, as her mind gets plagued with dark visions that put her friends on high alert to protect her. Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Steve (Joe Keery), and Robin (Maya Hawke) lead the investigation with the kids and uncover Hawkins’ darkest secrets along the way, which reveal that the whole town may just be in mortal danger from a way bigger threat.
A lot happens in season four, including a lot of events in Russia, where Hopper gets his own movie essentially, but we’re not going to focus too much on that, as this season unveiled that the whole Soviet thing was a red herring for a danger much closer to home in Vecna/Henry Creel/One (Jamie Campbell Bower).
The story in Hawkins is established by two games, a basketball one where Lucas saves the team and wins the game in the last minute, and the Hellfire campaign against the D&D version of Vecna. In the tabletop world, Vecna almost gets the gang, but Erica swoops in to save the day. Like the game in season one, which hints at an early move causing an initial loss, maybe this will foreshadow things to come next season.
Hopper lives!
Joyce receives a mysterious package, which includes a Russian doll with clues that Hopper is alive and in a KGB prison. Agreeing to pay the ransom to get him out, she and Murray fly to Russia to extract their friend. It’s truly such an unhinged side mission that I still sort of question its necessity other than just being an instrument to get Joyce away from the kids. All that’s discovered here is that Joyce and Hopper are in love and the Russians have failed to really understand the Upside Down in their experiments.
Vecna gets an all-timer intro when he’s set up as a horror villain who stalks his prey’s darkest moments to gain control over their minds. His first victim is Chrissy the cheerleader (Grace Van Dien), who he drives crazy to the point she goes to Eddie for drugs. Unfortunately for our pal Eddie, it’s too late for her, and he witnesses her being lifted off the ground, bones broken like sticks and eyes popped in by an invisible force. When her body is found, all suspicions make Eddie the prime suspect because he runs the Hellfire Club, and so of course Dungeons & Dragons must be a cult. Dustin, Lucas, and Erica know there’s more to it, as it has the marking of the Upside Down’s forces at work.
The Story of Victor Creel
Nancy is on the case; she interviews Eddie’s uncle, who knows his nephew didn’t do it. He drops the deepest of lore that sets the journey toward the truth in motion and tells her about Victor Creel, a man who killed his wife and children in the same way Chrissy died. Ever the sleuth, Nancy teams up with Dustin and the rest, including Steve and Robin, to uncover who is really behind the killings. With Robin, she visits Victor (played by Freddy Kruger himself, Robert Englund), who tells her he’s innocent and his home was haunted by a specter who murdered his family. The only thing that saved him was hearing “Dream a Little Dream” on the radio and coming back to consciousness to find his kids dead too. Working off the hunch that this has something to do with the Upside Down, Nancy and the gang break into the Creel house for more clues.
Early on in the season we see Max listening to “Running Up That Hill” on her tapedeck before Chrissy’s death. It coincides with the therapy sessions we see her attending, provided by the school counselor. Max doesn’t know this at first, but the power of Kate Bush keeps the monster hunting her from within at bay. After another student who was seeing the counselor winds up dead, it gets pieced together that music is the key to keeping potential victims safe from Vecna’s intrusive thoughts gripping their minds. It comes in handy when Vecna almost gets Max at the cemetery, and Nancy tells them to put the song on for her before it’s too late—Max escaping Vecna is still one of the best scenes in the entire show, all scored to Bush’s incredible song and helped Sadie Sink shine in a star-making turn.
Eleven on the run
The deaths in Hawkins make Eleven the prime suspect in the government’s eyes, and they attempt to sweep in to take her out. Thankfully Owens manages to get to her after she’s apprehended and offers to help her get her powers back in order to take on whatever is truly behind the killings. The downside? Her papa, Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), is back to continue his work and retraumatize her into recalling not only her powers but also unearthing some suppressed memories of the Rainbow Room massacre. There she finds out that the orderly Henry, who monitored the rooms with the kids to update Brenner on their progress, attempted to help her break out while also asking her to help him remove a handicap placed on him too as another of Brenner’s prisoners.
When Eleven remembers that Henry is 001, we see through her eyes the real events of the Rainbow Room massacre. Henry is just as powerful as she and once he recognized that, he set her up to free him so they could both escape and he could have her by his side. Considering the rest of the experiments inferior, he kills all the other children to absorb their powers, as well as most of the lab workers (for their life force), and that pisses little Eleven off. The pain makes her reject him and fight back, ultimately blasting him through the veil of reality and into what would go on to become the Upside Down.
In the Upside Down, Henry, transformed into Vecna, plotted his revenge on Eleven as he used his mind to build the Mind Flayer from its dark forces and used it to control the Demogorgons as his scouts. Every time Eleven was pushed by Brenner to psychically probe the Upside Down, Brenner was lying to her: he wasn’t using Eleven to see if the Soviets had anything to do with the mysterious reality; he was really looking for Henry.
Every time she’d go in looking for him, the veil between both worlds would get thinner, and Henry would send the Demogorgons to go and hunt victims for him to drain of their life force and memories and to help build out the alternate dimension Hawkins. Every life he claimed through his minions, the Mind Flayer, and Max’s brother Billy (who helped lure countless people to Vecna) helped Henry gain the ability to project into the minds of others and prey on them himself. His victims, starting with Chrissy, were meant to finally open the gates to bring the Upside Down pouring into the real world. His aim? To destroy what Eleven loves in front of her, before absorbing her powers.
The season culminates with Max and the others enacting an audacious plan: Max wants to allow Vecna to possess her, tempting the villain with a distraction so the rest of the gang can try and kill him in the process, both physically and with Eleven combatting him psychically. Things don’t go so well for our heroes, however, as poor Eddie sacrifices himself in the Upside Down to distract Vecna’s hordes of Demobats, and Max herself perishes in the possession process, leading to Eleven having to resurrect her (albeit leaving her in a coma). Now left to regroup and face their setbacks, Hawkins prepares for an all-out battle with Vecna and his forces at the height of his powers… with everything at stake coming into season five.
Stranger Things season five is still over a month away and while fans are very curious to see how the storyline in Hawkins wraps up, there might be even more curiosity about the spin-off that creators Matt and Ross Duffer have been dropping hints about for a while.
The brothers may have recently moved their operations from Netflix to Paramount, but the spinoff, which they will create and have a hand in but won’t showrun, will remain at the streamer. And that’s… just about all we know about it, though we now have a better idea of what not to expect.
Season five, the Duffers emphasized to Variety, will wrap up the tale of Eleven and company with finality. The spin-off, therefore, won’t continue with any of the characters we’ve met in Stranger Things, nor will it follow any threads that were introduced in the world of that show. It won’t be, they insist, like another franchise that’s found great success with interconnected stories.
“It’s so different than something like Star Wars,” Matt Duffer told the trade. “It doesn’t really work like that.”
What is a spinoff if not that, you ask?
The Duffers see it as more of a brand expansion that leans into their “style of storytelling,” broadly including “kids, adventures, sci-fi/fantasy, rather than increasingly [expanding] what could become an increasingly convoluted mytholody.”
Which means, according to Ross Duffer, “They’re going to live in a bit of a different world. There’s going to be connective tissue, but you’re almost anthologizing in a way. Because we’re not Star Wars. We can’t be like, ‘Oh, now we’re on this planet.’”
This approach is more creatively freeing for the duo. “You’re starting with new characters—it’s like clean slate. You’re not tied up into any knots. There’s something refreshing about it … the hope is you’re not just doing something to just do it.”
While we wait to see what that same-but-also-different project looks like, Stranger Things season five is nearly upon us. The first batch of episodes arrives November 26 on Netflix.
You might be surprised by this unexpected crossover between Stranger Things and Frankenstein that you never realized you needed. One of Netflix’s hidden gems is a half-hour mockumentary released in 2019 that’s part PBS Masterpiece Theater and part Orson Welles vanity show parody starring David Harbour (Thunderbolts*).
Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein hits that nostalgia for watching public broadcasting with your grandma while sitting on plastic-wrapped couches and eating hard candy. Truly, while watching it, it felt like I got drop-kicked into that core childhood memory. David Harbour plays himself as David Harbour the third, who unearths his father David Harbour Jr.’s (who he also plays) Frankenstein-inspired project. Experiencing daddy issues, Harbour III grapples with an existential crisis brought on by his mad genius dad’s love for the theater over, perhaps, his own son. I cannot stress how unseriously serious everyone is in this, especially Harbour, who relishes the larger-than-life movie star that was his fake-real father.
Complete with a dramatic made-for-TV music score, the mockumentary (directed by Daniel Gray Longino and written by John Levenstein) follows David Harbour’s journey in unpacking his dad’s life work and love for the stage. The TV play within the special chronicles the Welles-esque capitulation into selling oneself out while grasping for one more artistic success.
The play we watch throughout the mockumentary has that PBS TV station filter lighting and the weirdest plot. Frankenstein, the doctor (Harbour), invites over an alluring potential investor, Miss Macbeth (Kate Berlant), to fund building another monster. His assistant Sal (Alex Ozero as ’80s heartthrob Joey Vallejo) poses as the doctor while the real doctor poses as the monster (or does he), which hen suddenly it cuts to an ad for a steak restaurant Harbour Jr. is endorsing while eating his feelings of jealousy toward Vallejo—a feud that may have led to Harbour Jr. cutting the brakes of his competition’s car.
Yeah, it’s definitely convoluted in that Adult Swim style of surreal humor but on Netflix, much like the Kristen Bell murder mystery farce The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window.
It’s so meta, and for that reason we think it’s a must-watch this season leading into the release of Guillermo Del Toro’s authentic Frankenstein feature for the streamer and Stranger Things season five. Harbour is definitely having fun as a lumbering star of the stage that a mere televised special cannot contain. There are even interstitials of him proclaiming, “That’s how I got into Juilliard!” on his mentor’s Inside the Actor’s Studio-style school of acting program.
The kicker? His mentor is played by Alfred Molina, who is relegated to being a sea captain of few words on Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein. It’s so unhinged to see the great actor just show up for kicks.
The random nature of the special within the show leaves you with so many more questions than answers. Take, for instance, Harbour attempting to rationalize an irrational man who is completely made up and then being that very man who played two other men. I threw my hands up in the air so many times because it was just so ridiculous. Was he playing Frankenstein, the doctor pretending to be Frankenstein the creature? Or was he Frankenstein, the creature pretending to be his creator to get the investment to make a mate? The galaxy brain that went into this is astounding.
After watching it, it became the most quoted thing around my house or when watching movies. The “Chekhov’s Gun” gun, called out upon introduction in the first act (“It has to go off in the last!”), became something I think of when I watch movies to review. But the most inside joke that lives on has to be “And that’s how I got into Juilliard!”
We chatted with Harbour about it in 2023, which was before the release of his portrayal of Frankenstein for James Gunn’s Creature Commandos for DC Studios; he regaled us with his best Harbour Jr. and discussed why he was drawn to Mary Shelley’s creation: “The most interesting thing to me about Frankenstein’s monster in general is that he was created to be this sort of erudite, intellectual, romantic, brilliant person, and he winds up being a monster. I mean, that complexity can make for some pretty ripe comedy and also pathos—that a guy who considers himself one thing is viewed by others as something very different.”
Contemplate his take on the monster, the man behind the monster, and his own father behind the man that David Harbour would go on to become before Hopper’s return on Stranger Things season 5 in the clip below for a taste.
