Miss Pat explains it all as she returns to Houston for a weekend continuing at Houston Improv on Saturday, November 8.
‘Every hole I get,” the television comedian explains about her schedule, “ that’s for stand-up. Anytime I’m not doing something with TV, that’s stand-up and that’s because, and everybody know, but stand-up is what I own. TV is where I work. I have to keep my business going while I help them keep they business going.”
Having just finished the taping on the third season of BET courtroom series Miss Pat Settles It, the Georgia-born storyteller is back to the clubs to refine what will be her second stand-up special.
Her first hour long, the 2022 Netflix release Y’all Wannna Hear Something Crazy? had some all-star comedy pedigree behind it, with the legendary comics Wanda Sykes as a producer and Robert Townshend as director.
“I went after Robert Townsend,” the comic says of her pursuing Townsend, director of (among others) Eddie Murphy’s generational concert special Raw. “I said I just need you to do my stand up special because whatever you do, you do it right. That was my very first one and I’m working on my second one now. I tell people to go watch my first one so they can get to know me better, because I am very personal in it.”
“I’m working on it right now,” Pat says of her next hour special, “We’re gonna tape it in February. I don’t know about a quick turnaround, but it is a turnaround. It’s getting closer to solidifying, but I am still working. It’ll be pretty close by the time I’m in Houston. “
While Stand-Up remains the Last Comic Standing alumni’s happy place, she has made quite the impression on BET and BET+, which has aired five seasons of her self-titled sitcom.
But don’t let that success fool you – Miss Pat still does things her own way. “The special and the TV shows… either way, you’re getting to know who I am. And I’m not big into personal feedback, I don’t listen to what nobody says about me. Some people say I’m fat, some people say I’m sexy! I just try to be me.”
With her surprised court-room success, Miss Pat Settles It has locked in three seasons and counting of a show that both entertains fans of her material, as well as those who follow the world of reality TV. “Its like a family court and I always say: it’s a safe court where people want to go,” she explains to new viewers. “They come in fighting or whatever, but by the end, I’m gonna settle it and I hope I can put this situation back together. So it’s a sprinkle of love, life, family and counseling – and it’s that black grandma who can cook kind of counseling, and all of that good stuff at the end.”
This year? “We had reality show hosts, and we had friends and family, so we did it in three type of segments. And the reality? They drive me crazy. That’s all I can tell ya: reality is something else, honey.”
Also unique – Miss Pat invites her own children to be part of the proceeding as she settles a family dispute before a national audience. “I’m getting the kids behind the scenes, in front of the camera. Whatever I can do to keep them from asking me for my money!”
It seems like her kids might be the greatest gift of all – especially when it comes to gathering new material. “Every day, sir, you gotta come to my house and see who I live with: they’re animals. Stuff just fall out they mouth and onto my paper.”
Between two shows, a full touring act, and dipping her toes into the world of film, Pat certainly keeps busy. “It is a lot for a 50-something year old person,” the comedians agrees, before adding: “But I just keep eating my Chic-Fil-A and keep going.”
Miss Pat’s performance is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 9 at Houston Improv, 7620 Katy Freeway. For more information, call 713-333-8800 or visit improvtx.com/houston. $173.54
The KPop Demon Hunters dolls from Mattel have been revealed in detail. But don’t get too excited: they won’t arrive until next fall, and there’s another pricey catch attached.
Pre-orders for Mattel Creations’ KPop Demon Hunters dolls begin November 12. If you snag a pre-order with holiday gift-giving in mind, you’ll have to print out an IOU and stick it in a Christmas stocking, because the dolls are estimated to arrive “by October 2026,” according to Mattel.
Did we mention that, at least for this initial Mattel run, the dolls will only come as a package deal? You can’t just buy one Huntr/x member; you have to get the full set of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey—and the “What It Sounds Like” three-pack will set you back $150.
The details on Zoey, Rumi, and Mira are gorgeous. Their “What It Sounds Like” outfits look just like in the film, and it’s so cool to see Rumi’s demon marks prominently displayed across her design. But we have to admit, they look too fancy to play with, and that’s common with the Mattel Creations drops, which explains the sticker price.
If you’re apprehensive about committing to all three, there will be more toy drops, including more accessible options, also coming in 2026. And we’re hoping, of course, for Huntr/x dolls in the “How It’s Done” outfits and ones that sing “Golden” too.
With the sequel officially in the works, fingers crossed that Netflix and toy makers are ready to seal the Honmoon with an avalanche of KPop Demon Hunters merch before it’s released. Take a look at the “What It Sounds Like” dolls from the Mattel Creations set below!
As previously reported, the two-hour series finale of the series – the last episode titled “The Rightside Up” — will premiere on Netflix and in more than 350 movie theaters on Dec. 31, starting at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET, playing through Jan. 1. This marks the first time an episode of a Netflix series will also be exhibited theatrically.
“This has been a dream of ours for a while,” Ross told me Thursday night at the world premiere of the series’ fifth and final season at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Netflix announced the plans just days after Variety published an interview with Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria in which she insisted the streamer had no plans to release “Stranger Things” in theaters. “A lot of people — a lot, a lot, a lot of people — have watched ‘Stranger Things’ on Netflix,” she said. “It has not suffered from lack of conversation or community or sharing or fandom. I think releasing it on Netflix is giving the fans what they want.”
Praising Bajaria for her “poker face,” Matt said, “Ross and I just folded. The truth is…this was in the works for a long time. Netflix came to us with the idea. It was their idea to have the finale on a separate day and we thought that was cool, specifically because we thought we could pitch this movie theater idea, which we had never pitched before, honestly.”
He continued, “It never really made sense to us because everyone will always ask about it. I’m like, ‘Well, it’s kind of not fun because no one’s in sync. People will have seen the episode, some people won’t have seen the episode, it’s not the same. This actually recreates and is a real movie moment because everyone’s experiencing it at the same time together. I think that’s what we’re excited about it and it’s the first time we had that opportunity.”
Star Millie Bobby Brown explained that she wore a black custom Rodarte gown to the premiere as an homage to the end of the series. “It’s for the funeral of the show,” she said. “This dress kind of embodies the darkness of the show this season. I’m really excited for everyone to see how dark it gets. I hate to say it because I say it every season, but this is definitely the darkest and the more intense season.”
See more photos from the “Stranger Things” premiere below.
Sadie Sink, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp and Millie Bobby Brown at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Variety via Getty Images
Finn Wolfhard at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Variety via Getty Images
Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere After Party.
Variety via Getty Images
Caleb McLaughlin attends Netflix’s “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Getty Images for Netflix
Gaten Matarazzo, left, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, and Noah Schnapp attend Netflix’s “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Getty Images for Netflix
Noah Schnapp at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Michael Buckner
Sadie Sink at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Michael Buckner
Charlie Heaton at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Michael Buckner
Joe Keery and Maya Hawke at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
Michael Buckner
Nell Fisher at the “Stranger Things” Season 5 World Premiere.
“This is a true story about two men the world forgot. One was the 20th president of the United States. The other shot him.”
That’s the bitter epigraph that opens this invigorating first episode of Death by Lightning, and one important aspect of the book on which this miniseries is based, Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, is that the 20th president didn’t deserve to be forgotten. The Garfield of the book is, so far anyway, the Garfield of the show, carrying a humility and nobility that’s frankly disconcerting coming from Michael Shannon, who’s usually cast as more wayward types. (I did a double take when learning Matthew Macfadyen, not Shannon, had been tapped to play Charles Guiteau, though that decision is justified the moment Macfadyen opens his mouth.) In Millard’s telling, Garfield truly was a potential successor to Lincoln, a great orator and sturdy Midwesterner who abhorred slavery and spoke to the country’s highest ideals.
Except that Garfield died 200 days into his presidency. Eighty of those days were spent in agonizing pain from a gunshot wound. Destiny of the Republic tells many different stories about America, but one is about how easily the nation’s progress can be undone by the actions of a single deranged, fame-seeking asshole.
The deranged, fame-seeking asshole here is Charles Guiteau, and it’s a small masterstroke for Death by Lightning to open in 1969, in a warehouse at the Army Medical Museum, with his preserved brain rolling around in a box. If this were Igor in YoungFrankenstein, Guiteau’s jar would be the one marked “Abby Normal.” There’s a sense right away in this series that Garfield, a happily married congressman with a generous homestead in rural Ohio, would have been happy to be forgotten. By contrast, the words that greet this discovery at the museum, “Who the fuck is Charles Guiteau?!,” would have infuriated Guiteau, a man who envisioned the “destiny of the Republic” as one he’d have a hand in shaping.
But to reach his historical moment, Guiteau would have to climb out of a deep hole, and Death by Lightning takes that literally by opening with him serving out his latest prison sentence in a Manhattan detention facility called “the Tombs.” The chief judge in the five-man panel considering his case looks through Guiteau’s account of a “mix-up” with his landlord, pointing to a letter from Guiteau’s own father saying the two have been long “estranged” and assessing his shaky moral character, which includes a stretch among the hedonists of the Oneida Free Love Colony. Displaying a rhetorical gift that reflects Garfield’s like a carnival mirror, Guiteau likens himself to a great tradition of “rogues and migrants and freethinkers.” “Here and only here,” he says of America, “a man can be anyone.”
Though Guiteau and Garfield share a handshake at the end of “The Man From Ohio,” the episode elegantly sets them on the path to their crash course in Chicago, where they are pursuing important individual ambitions. Having been scooped up from prison by his sister Franny (Paula Malcomson), the sole family member with any affection for him, Guiteau announces a grand plan to raise seed funds for a newspaper called The Daily Theocrat. When he attempts to get those funds from a proper bank, he’s apparently counting on the loan manager to forget the man who threw a paperweight at his head a few years earlier. Meanwhile, Franny’s husband, George (Ben Miles), a well-to-do patent lawyer, doesn’t share his wife’s faith in her brother. When Guiteau inadvertently attacks her with an axe in a fit of unhinged rage, Franny quietly suggests that he check himself into an institution to work on his mental health. He’s merciful enough to his sister to agree, but he knows that all faith in him has been lost. He steals all the money from George’s safe and burns the last remaining bridge to anyone who cares about him.
Yet the real highlight of this episode is all the goings-on at the 1880 Republican National Convention, which is far from the multi-night commercial for party solidarity that they’ve become in the modern age. The presumptive favorite for the nomination is Ulysses S. Grant, the war hero who’d already served two terms in office and was seeking an unprecedented third. But in a presidency plagued by corruption and graft, the real power rests in his New York City cronies who, as Garfield’s wife, Lucretia (Betty Gilpin), colorfully phrases it, “parade [Grant] around their banquets like some puffed-up old totem.” Chief among Grant’s backers is Roscoe Conkling (Shea Whigham), a New York senator who benefits from the federal money funneled through the port and various other political favors.
Though Grant’s ultimate failure to secure the nomination underscores his weakness within the party, his challengers at the convention, James G. Blaine (Bradley Whitford) and John Sherman (Alistair Petrie), are weaker still. Blaine is not quite as feckless, but Sherman has an ace in the hole in Garfield, who agrees to endorse him in a speech. Garfield’s speech, with its eloquent and fiery plea to the values of the Republicans under Lincoln, proves to be a little too good for Sherman’s purposes, leading some delegates to wonder if this dynamic representative from Ohio might be interested in the job. When a delegate from Pennsylvania gives him a single vote on one of the many, many ballots needed to get a majority, Garfield is furious and tries to take steps to prevent his name from coming up again, but he’s denied. He doesn’t want to be president, but he’s told he has no choice in the matter.
Garfield offers an apology to Sherman, who’s deeply humiliated by this turn of events, but Sherman isn’t having it, and he offers perhaps the most important line of the episode: “Nobody makes a speech like that unless he craves it for himself.” The line feels true, and Shannon’s face suggests that Garfield is perhaps learning something about his ambition that he didn’t know. Lucretia seems to have known it before he does, too, because she says, “Whatever you do out there, don’t forget this” as she sends him away. While he does seem genuinely content with his family in Ohio, Garfield still came from abject poverty to get there, and his courage in battle for the Union cause speaks to a larger sense of duty. He may also have the slightly less noble quality of narcissism, which is the common denominator of every world leader who has ever lived.
The reluctant nominee also has two snarling adversaries in Conkling and Chester A. Arthur (Nick Offerman) and one big new fan by the name of Charles Guiteau. It won’t be long until all three are gunning for him.
• Referring to the Oneida community as a “free-love colony” makes it sound like a proto-hippie commune, but that could not be farther from the truth. This religious perfectionist group practiced group marriage, a sinister eugenicslike practice called “stirpiculture,” and “male sexual continence,” which is an orgasm-control principle. The founder, John Noyes, fled to Canada in the summer of 1879 to dodge statutory-rape charges.
• That Hanni El Khatib cover of “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead (You Rascal You)” really hits hard after that cold open. The robust energy of this show, in general, is hugely encouraging. History can be fun!
• The director of the episode (and the series) is Matt Ross, who HBO watchers will remember well as Alby Grant, the closeted son and heir to the Juniper Creek compound on Big Love, and Gavin Belson, the CEO of tech giant Hooli on Silicon Valley. More relevant to this show, Ross also directed the fine 2016 film Captain Fantastic, starring Viggo Mortensen as a domineering father who isolates his six children from society.
• Guiteau’s dodgy argument to the bank manager about the dent left in the wall by the paperweight: “Well, that was clearly a throw performed by a right-handed man, and I am a lefty.” Macfadyen channels much of the dim enthusiasm of his Tom Wambsgans character on Succession, and it gives this show the same comic lift.
• Already hard at work installing potential members of Grant’s next Cabinet, Conkling floats the secretary of the interior gig to Garfield in the bathroom. “I’m hardly qualified for that job,” says Garfield. To which Conkling retorts, “You own a fucking farm, don’t you?”
• It may be a bit much, but crosscutting Garfield’s stirring convention speech with Guiteau furiously chopping up wood is what we in the business call foreshadowing.
• There’s not even five minutes of screen time between Guiteau hearing of the new Republican nominee (“Who the hell is Garfield?”) to him wearing a Garfield campaign pin.
Hilarious co-op video game Overcooked is making the move to the real world. A24 has acquired the rights to the popular indie hit and Deadline reports that the company is working with Netflix to develop the concept into an unscripted competition reality TV series. I adore this idea, and with the right people behind it, I think it could be a masterwork of reality TV. According to the reports, this is the first time independent film and TV studio A24 will make a reality show, but Netflix has already had some success with food and cooking programs, such as with the absolute gem that is Nailed It!
The often ridiculous antics of Overcooked are a wonderful match for that type of lighthearted competition show. In the game, one to four players work together to cook customers’ food orders as quickly as possible while the environment creates silly, unexpected obstacles. Unfortunately, there’s no way the Netflix legal team will green light challenges where contestants might fall into actual lava, and recreating the space travel levels would probably blow the budget. But I can see all sorts of Overcooked-style mayhem from sliding on icy floors or suddenly moving countertops. I’m also imagining a lot of dashing between inconveniently placed kitchen appliances and occasionally plunging the contestants into total darkness. There’s no timeline given in Deadline’s report, but I cannot wait for this to exist.
Netflix loves to present fans of the true crime genre a new film or show to watch. Often, it breaks down what a serial killer did or the case itself. But with Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, director Emily Turner allowed her subject to do the talking.
Aileen Wuornos was a serial killer who killed at least seven people from 1989-1990. She was a sex worker in Florida and killed and robbed a string of men up until her arrest in January of 1991. While she is one of the very few female serial killers, her story is a complicated one. Wuornos claimed in many of these cases that she was defending herself despite what the public said and it has made her one of the more infamous killers. And the most controversial for how people react to her story.
Wuornos has a history of being sexually abused, hurt, and abandoned throughout her life. In Queen of the Serial Killers, she talks about how she ended up getting a gun for herself after one of her clients tried to kill her. Originally, she said every man she killed was in self-defense and then the reports change but what the new documentary does is highlight how the system worked against Wuornos at every turn.
Often, men get a way with killing women for years before anything is done. We’ve seen time and time again how many reports go out, missing people are never found, and yet these men are rarely brought to justice in a quick manner. Obviously, with Wuornos, that was different. She was caught quickly and the Florida court system showed her no mercy. But the documentary also shows a sexist system that can act quickly, just when it is men being harmed.
The complicated story of Aileen Wuornos
(Netflix)
Wuornos has always been an outlier. For most of America’s history, the serial killers people talk about are men and, for the most part, they’re hunting and killing women. With the exception of men like John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, these killers are actively searching to hurt women for one reason or another.
And watching as the police continue to fail women and we get to see just how many women have to die before they really care hurts. Especially when, in Wuornos’ case, she was stopped within a year. What she did is always going to be up for debate. She claims she killed one man after he sexually assaulted her and killed the other men right before they had the chance to. That’s her story and one she stuck by until she was executed in 2002.
But I did find this documentary to be a real spotlight on the problems within our system. The police acted quickly and swiftly when men were being murdered but I often find myself afraid watching these true crime stories because women can be murdered and discovered in the same place for years with no one caring.
“She is so confusing and so complex, which runs so in the face of how we like women to be,” Turner told Netflix’s Tudum. “And something that felt really important to me was that we weren’t here to make an apology piece about what she’d done. I hope that people come to really different conclusions.”
Wuornos’ story isn’t easy to watch but Turner did something new with the true crime genre and it is well worth the watch!
Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She’s been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff’s biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she’s your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell’s dog, Brisket.
Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.
The news we all knew was coming is finally here. Sony and Netflix have struck a deal to make the animated sequel to KPop Demon Hunters. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it probably won’t be here until 2029.
Bloomberg first reported news of the deal and release date. The reason is that animated films take time, especially highly anticipated ones like this. So everyone involved just wants to make sure they get it right.
KPop Demon Hunters debuted in June and, very quickly, became an unexpected sensation. It jumped to the top of Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched films for several weeks and, eventually, became its most-watched original film ever. Several of the songs from the soundtrack became massive radio hits and, quickly, talk of not just a sequel, but a whole franchise began.
But that wasn’t as easy this time around. Sony Pictures Animation produced the film, but sold it to Netflix for distribution. So all the details of its rights were a bit more complex. That all became more pressing when the film, seemingly out of nowhere, became the #1 movie in America at the box office weeks after release.
Netflix is bringing back one of its most popular shows for a third season, returning a hit romantic comedy series to fans.
What Netflix TV show is getting renewed for a Season 3?
Nobody Wants This, the series led by Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, is coming back for a third season. The new season of the series is set to premiere sometime in 2026, with news of the Season 3 renewal coming just a week after the second season of the show premiered on October 23, 2025, on Netflix.
Nobody Wants This’ second season, despite only being out for a short time, is already hugely popular on Netflix. According to the streamer, the show’s seconds season is number one in the Global English TV Top 10 for the second week in a row, and has garnered 18 million views through its first 11 days of being on the service.
In a quote on the show’s third season renewal, co-showrunners and executive producers Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan expressed their happiness about the renewal, and said they’re excited to get back to work.
“We are so grateful to Netflix and 20th for giving us another season of Nobody Wants this. This job is criminally fun. Working with the uniquely gifted Erin Foster, this unbelievable cast of talented, hilarious pros, amazing writers, and incredible crew has been a truly great experience. Go Dodgers!”
Nobody Wants This comes from creator Erin Foster, and stars Bell, Brody, Justine Lupe, Timothy Simons, and Jackie Tohn. The first season premiered in 2024 on Netflix.
“First comes love, then comes life. The last time we saw agnostic podcast host Joanne (Kristen Bell) and unconventional (hot) rabbi Noah (Adam Brody), their unmatched chemistry surprised everyone in their lives, including her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe), his brother Sasha (Timothy Simons) and sister-in-law Esther (Jackie Tohn), and even themselves,” reads the show’s synopsis for Season 2. “Their spark proved stronger than all of the obstacles trying to keep them apart. Now they’re back, and fully committed to merging their lives –– and loved ones — together. But their differences still exist and can’t be ignored. The challenge now is not just falling in love against all odds, but staying together in spite of them.”
Adam Sandler will be the next recipient of AARP’s Movies for Grownups career achievement award, the group said Tuesday.And maybe this time, the actor will wait for his signal.When Sandler won the group’s best actor prize in 2020 for”Uncut Gems,” he rushed to the stage too fast — before host Conan O’Brien had time to sing his praises. O’Brien made comic hay of the moment, sending the sheepish actor back to his seat with instructions to await “a signal.”From his “Saturday Night Live” roots to beloved comedies like “Billy Madison” (1995) and the cult classic “Happy Gilmore” (1996) to dramas like “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002) and his high-energy turn in “Uncut Gems” (2019), Sandler, 59, has displayed an ever-growing range.This summer, he reprised “Happy Gilmore” on Netflix, and in November, he will appear alongside George Clooney in Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly.”Winner of the 2023 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Sandler “is one of Hollywood’s most enduring and ever-evolving stars, whose talents resonate across generations,” the AARP said in a statement on Tuesday.Myechia Minter-Jordan, the group’s CEO, called the actor “a Hollywood legend whose remarkable career has set a new standard for comedic storytelling, captivating audiences across generations.”Adam’s enduring success, his ability to reinvent himself, inspire laughter, and move us through dramatic performances is a testament to the power of creativity at every age,” Minter-Jordan said.AARP launched the Movies for Grownups initiative in 2002 to advocate for audiences over 50, fight ageism in Hollywood and promote movies “for grownups, by grownups.”Actor Alan Cumming will host the ceremony in Beverly Hills on Jan. 10, to be broadcast by “Great Performances” on PBS in February.
Adam Sandler will be the next recipient of AARP’s Movies for Grownups career achievement award, the group said Tuesday.
And maybe this time, the actor will wait for his signal.
When Sandler won the group’s best actor prize in 2020 for”Uncut Gems,” he rushed to the stage too fast — before host Conan O’Brien had time to sing his praises. O’Brien made comic hay of the moment, sending the sheepish actor back to his seat with instructions to await “a signal.”
From his “Saturday Night Live” roots to beloved comedies like “Billy Madison” (1995) and the cult classic “Happy Gilmore” (1996) to dramas like “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002) and his high-energy turn in “Uncut Gems” (2019), Sandler, 59, has displayed an ever-growing range.
This summer, he reprised “Happy Gilmore” on Netflix, and in November, he will appear alongside George Clooney in Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly.”
Winner of the 2023 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Sandler “is one of Hollywood’s most enduring and ever-evolving stars, whose talents resonate across generations,” the AARP said in a statement on Tuesday.
Myechia Minter-Jordan, the group’s CEO, called the actor “a Hollywood legend whose remarkable career has set a new standard for comedic storytelling, captivating audiences across generations.
“Adam’s enduring success, his ability to reinvent himself, inspire laughter, and move us through dramatic performances is a testament to the power of creativity at every age,” Minter-Jordan said.
AARP launched the Movies for Grownups initiative in 2002 to advocate for audiences over 50, fight ageism in Hollywood and promote movies “for grownups, by grownups.”
Actor Alan Cumming will host the ceremony in Beverly Hills on Jan. 10, to be broadcast by “Great Performances” on PBS in February.
Season 2 put up another 9.4M views in its first full week on Netflix, from October 27 through November 2, placing it in first among English-language TV. Viewers were also revisiting Season 1 last week, boosting it to No. 7 on the weekly rankings with 2.4M views.
The Season 2 performance is slightly down from the first season, which was at around 26M views through its first 11 days. The second season is currently sitting at around 18M for that same interval, which is still strong despite the notable drop off.
The Witchercame in at No. 2 on the English TV rankings with 7.4M views for Season 4’s opening weekend. The latest eight episodes, which landed on Netflix on October 30, introduce Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia, taking over from Henry Cavill. It’s worth noting that this is a sharp decline from Season 3’s 15.2M views in the first four days of release.
Third place on the weekly rankings went to Season 9 of Selling Sunset with 4.2M views, while Boots continued to perform well with 3.7M views, good enough for fourth place.
Although new episodes of Stranger Thingswon’t debut until the end of the month, audiences are already preparing, it seems. Season 1 snagged tenth place on the English TV charts with 1.8M views. It’s likely that this trend will continue as the premiere date for Stranger Things 5Vol. 1 nears.
Netflix’s most-watched TV show of the week was actually a Danish thriller, The Asset, which debuted atop the non-English TV charts with 11.3M views.
Judging by the amount of HUNTR/X costumes on Halloween, no one will be surprised to learn that the hugely popular animated film Kpop Demon Hunters is still putting up monster numbers. It came in second place among English films last week with another 14M views, marking its 20th week in the Top 10.
Morbid curiosity continued last week with two serial-killer related offerings among the Top 10. In films, the documentary Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, about Aileen Wuornos, a rare woman serial killer who murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990, came in at No. 3 with 10.1M views. Among series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story hung onto sixth place with 2.8M views.
Also in film the Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton-starrer Ballad of a Small Player debuted at No. 4 with 6.9M views.
The victim’s sister called it “one big Greek tragedy”—and she meant it.
In September 2016, Nathan Carman took off in a fishing boat with his mother near Block Island. A few days later, a freighter spotted Nathan on a life raft off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. He was rescued. His mother, Linda, was never found.
Such begins the story of The Carman Family Deaths, Netflix’s latest true crime documentary, based on a 2021 WIRED feature by Evan Lubofsky. Carman was, according to his father, the “first-born grandson of a Greek dynasty,” and when questions began to emerge following his rescue, suspicions arose that what happened at sea wasn’t what he claimed.
Carman’s grandfather, Linda’s father, had been shot and killed several years before and there was a lot of money at stake. For the weeks following Carman’s rescue, the story made headlines as investigators tried to piece together what happened. Some thought Carman’s version of events didn’t add up, but his defenders pointed to the fact that he had autism spectrum disorder and could often be misunderstood.
In 2022, nearly a year after WIRED published its story about the Carman family, Nathan Carman was charged with killing his mother in an alleged attempt to inherit his family’s vast estate.
Directed by Yon Motskin, who made the UFO sighting documentary Encounters, The Carman Family Deaths is produced by Jesus Camp directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Mary-Jane Mitchell, and WIRED Studios. The film lands on Netflix on November 19. Watch the first trailer for the documentary below and read more here.
Just because a film is a box office hit doesn’t mean it’ll be a hit on streaming. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes a film will bomb at the box office but create such curiosity that, when it hits streaming, people are willing to give it a shot anyway. Then, weeks or months later, that bomb is now suddenly a hit, just by a different metric.
A recent example of that is the 2024 film Madame Web. According to Bloomberg, the Dakota Johnson Spider-Man spin-off (pun intended) was Sony Pictures’ most-streamed movie on Netflix last year, beating all of the studio’s biggest box office hits such as Venom: The Last Dance and It Ends With Us. Each of those films grossed around $145 million domestically, while Madame Web grossed closer to $44 million. It also sports a more than warranted 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which certainly didn’t help.
Almost instantly after release, though, the film seemed to gain cult classic status, getting recognition on podcasts like How Did This Get Made and more. That it was so bad gave it name recognition, and when it started showing up on Netflix, people watched. The same carries over to Sony’s fifth best streaming title last year, Kraven the Hunter, another ill-conceived Spidey spinoff that made even less money than Madame Web.
These stats come as part of a larger article about Sony trying to figure out a way to get more money from its streaming bombs. As it stands now, its current deal with Netflix is based on how much a film makes at the box office. But if the movies that make less are doing better on streaming, clearly, there’s money being left on the table. It’s a whole thing, which you can read about here.
What we care most about, though, is the simple, basic lunacy that Madame Web can be considered, in a very cut-and-dry metric, a hit. Who could have seen that coming? Nobody—except, of course, Madame Web herself.
Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe says the company’s 2026 Formula 1 comeback reflects a broader strategy linking performance, EVs and brand power. Jay Hirano/Honda Global
Honda has moved in and out of Formula 1 multiple times over the past 60 years, depending on the state of business. “Business is going good sometimes, and going bad sometimes,” Honda Global CEO Toshihiro Mibe told a roundtable of reporters, including Observer, in Mexico City last week, ahead of the F1 World Championship Grand Prix. “So, sometimes we quit [racing] to focus on the core business,” he said through a translator.
Next year, Honda will return to F1 as a standalone team in 2026, as F1 grows in global popularity and the Japanese auto giant navigates shifting consumer appetite for EVs, hybrids and internal combustion engine vehicles. As F1 grows in global popularity as the world’s most elite and expensive racing series, Honda’s comeback isn’t just about chasing podiums. It’s a calculated business move to merge performance, electrification, and brand relevance at a time when both automakers and consumers are redefining innovation.
Honda’s approach to racing has always centered on building brand recognition. The company began its racing journey with motorcycles in the 1960s, when founder Soichiro Honda believed that entering F1 was the only way for the small Japanese carmaker to be taken seriously on the global stage. At the time, Honda had barely begun building cars—let alone the powerful machines needed for F1.
Honda won its first F1 race in 1965 with the RA272, a car it brought back to Mexico City last week to commemorate the 60th anniversary of that victory. Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda took on the challenge of driving the vintage F1 car around Mexico’s 2.5-mile track ahead of the race on Oct. 26. Though the car stalled twice and needed a push out of the pits, it was a sight to behold.
In the 1980s, Honda established the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) to focus on motorcycle racing and prove its engineering prowess. Its racing technology eventually trickled down to consumer bikes. In 2022, HRC absorbed Honda’s four-wheel racing programs, including IndyCar and F1, to “provide some stability” for car racing and investment, said Mibe.
“The reason we decided to participate in F1 is that our business is concentrated in North America, and because of Netflix, F1 has taken off,” Mibe said. “With the new homoglation, and our strong relationship between F1 and the U.S., we can use that for our business.”
Honda’s largest market is the U.S., where it holds roughly 9 percent of the automobile market. This week, American Honda reported strong October sales, with total U.S. deliveries up 3.6 percent year-over-year. Growth was driven by demand for internal combustion vehicles, including the Accord and Passport, as well as electrified models like the popular CR-V hybrid. Notably, Honda sold a record 30,471 electric cars in October.
The Honda RA272 at the Formula 1 World Championship Grand Prix. Jay Hirano/Honda Global
The race track is a sandbox for new tech
Racing has always been a proving ground for automakers to push the limits of technology. F1, known for its blistering speed, high thermal loads and extreme engineering precision, is an ideal environment to test advancements in everything from batteries to engines.
The demands of F1—extreme acceleration, punishing temperatures, and ultra-efficient energy recovery—push performance, packaging and durability to levels far beyond what consumers experience. Yet, many of those lessons eventually find their way into everyday vehicles.
Honda’s decision to return to F1 was driven in part by upcoming regulation changes, said Ikuo Takeishi, general manager of HRC’s automobile racing division. Beginning in 2026, all F1 power units must be 50 percent electric and 50 percent internal combustion, powered by sustainable fuel. That balance aligns with Honda’s long-standing focus on hybrid and battery technologies. At the same time, it underscores how Honda, like many major automakers, continues to rely on internal combustion technology amid headwinds for EVs and shifting consumer preferences.
“The technology we’re using in F1 won’t show up directly in consumer cars,” Takeishi said. “But much of what we learn on the track can show up in consumer cars,” he added, citing improvements in battery technology and efficiency gains from high-powered magnets.
All is allegedly not well in Hawkins, Indiana. According to the Daily Mail,Millie Bobby Brown reportedly filed a lengthy complaint about David Harbour before they began filming the final season of Stranger Things.
A source told the outlet that Brown, who plays psychic test subject Eleven on the hit Netflix series, filed a harassment and bullying claim against Harbour—who plays Eleven’s adoptive father, ex-police chief Jim Hopper—before season five began shooting in January of last year. “There were pages and pages of accusations,” the source told the Daily Mail. “The investigation went on for months.”
The outcome of the investigation and the details surrounding the claims are currently unknown. According to the Daily Mail, Brown’s allegations against Harbour “did not include claims of sexual impropriety.” Brown was reportedly accompanied by a personal legal representative on set at all times while filming the show’s final season. Harbour’s Jim Hopper adopts Brown’s Eleven, and their rocky father-daughter relationship is a central theme of the show—which means they share significant screen time.
This is not the first time such allegations have plagued the Stranger Things set. A grip claimed in 2018 that two members of the Stranger Things team were creating a toxic work environment, with some believing that series creators Matt and Ross Duffer—a.k.a. the Duffer brothers—were responsible. According to CBS News, Netflix conducted an investigation and found no wrongdoing.
Outside of Stranger Things drama, Harbour is in the midst of a public split from singer-songwriter Lily Allen. Allen recently dropped her first album in seven years, West End Girl,inspired by their messy separation. On the album, Allen graphically details alleged intimate aspects of their relationship, including various alleged betrayals committed by Harbour. Per the Daily Mail’s source, the Stranger Things workplace complaints were completely unrelated to Allen’s grievances with Harbour. “Lily supported him throughout it all,” the Mail’s source said. “It was a brutal time.”
The 21-year-old Brown recently married actor Jake Bongiovi, son of rocker Jon Bon Jovi, and adopted a baby girl.
Stranger Things’ final season will be released in three parts, with the first four episodes dropping on Netflix on November 26. Three more episodes will debut on Christmas, with a two-hour finale episode released in select cinemas and on Netflix on New Year’s Eve.
Vanity Fair has reached out to Brown, Harbour, and Netflix for comment.
Throughout Netflix’s The Witcher, Freya Allan’s Ciri has grown into her power and become a monster hunter like her adopted father Geralt. In the newly released fourth season, she’s been separated from Geralt and Yennefer and now goes by the name Falka. She’s also hanging out with an outlaw band called the Rats and finds herself hunted by Sharlto Copley’s Bonhart, who wants to make some money by delivering her to her father Emhyr.
In a pair spoiler-heavy interviews, Allan and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich discussed the hero’s season-long arc and what’s next for the young Witcher.
During the season premiere, Ciri enters a romance with her fellow Rat Mistle, who saves her from Kayleigh, another Rat, trying to sexually asssault her. The show slightly diverges by having Ciri consent to Mistle kissing her after the ordeal, but like in the Witcher books, this kicks off a pairing longtime fans have complicated feelings about.
Complication is what Allan wanted: she told TVLine she didn’t want a “fluffy little romance” for her character similar to what’s found in the source material. To her, Mistle “lets see parts of Ciri we haven’t seen and really shows a different kind of vulnerability in her. There’s a big part of her saying goodbye to her childhood—a push and pull [where] we really get to see how desperate Ciri is to not be alone. Mistle confronts her about trying to run from her past…and says you can’t just run away from who you truly are.”
Separately to Variety, Hissrich said the romance give Cirii “a vulnerability that we’d never been able to see before. She’s been a princess, the most powerful person on the Continent, someone’s daughter, someone’s granddaughter. What starts to happen when she lives life for herself?”
Well, the answer to that is nothing good: after rushing off to save a young boy the Rats sold off, Ciri learns it’s a trap and returns to her friends just in time to watch Bonhart decapitate them all, Mistle included. The pair confessed their love to each other before Ciri left, despite Mistle begging her to stay, and to make matters worse, she ends the season defeated and captured by Bonhart.
This being the penultimate Witcher season and shot back-to-back with season five, Hissrich said the writers wanted it to end with characters brought to their low points. When we next see Ciri, she’ll face a “baptism by fire” that sees her “touch those deepest, darkest places within herself that she’s always pushed away. She worries that death follows her, and once she deals with the heartbreak and loss of the Rats, we get to see her start to access that for a while.”
The Witcher will return with its final season presumably in 2026, where we’ll see how Ciri gets out of this mess and whether she gets a good ending.
Billed as NetflixJapan‘s tentpole title for the year, Last Samurai Standing is set in 1878 Japan, and assembles 292 fallen samurais for a survival game, where the last competitor standing gets to claim a 100 billion yen (nearly $656M) prize.
Japan’s Junichi Okada, formerly of boyband V6, stars as the lead actor in the series, while also juggling producer and action choreographer duties.
Alongside Okada, writer-director Michihito Fujii (The Journalist, Faceless) helms the series. Both worked together on the film, Hard Days, in 2023.
Okada was initially approached by Netflix to produce a series together — one that would involve “updating” the period piece for contemporary tastes. Okada agreed, on the condition that he could choose some of the people he would work with, including peers like Fujii.
Fujii added that he and Okada admired the late legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) and wanted to pay homage to his works, through Last Samurai Standing.
He also acknowledged that 2024 series Shogun has also cultivated global interest in samurais and Japanese history, and he is excited for Last Samurai Standing to seize this cultural moment when it premieres on Netflix on November 13.
“I wanted to work together with Fujii-san, paying respect to the culture of the period piece, but at the same time, take on the challenge of updating the period piece. In my forties, this is something that I really want to dedicate my time to,” says Fujii.
Making a period piece for the present
Okada also looks back at his previous singing career in a boyband and says, “There was a song called ‘Made in Japan’ which I debuted to when I was 16. Even when I became an actor, I continue to think that way, wanting to create something that is ‘made in Japan.’”
He links that ambition to what he is currently doing with Last Samurai Standing, and said that he is proud that he can put Japanese culture and history — like the stories of samurais — on the world map.
Adapted from the novel, “Ikusagami,” by Shogo Imamura, Last Samurai Standing picks up in the Meiji period in Japan, in 1878, where the samurais experienced a sharp decline in their status. For centuries, the sword-wielding samurai were the ruling warrior class in Japan’s feudal society, and seen as military elites and cultural icons.
Under Japan’s new modernization laws, samurai were banned from carrying swords and become an increasingly impoverished and forgotten class of a vanished era. A mysterious invitation begins to circulate, and 292 samurai gather at the Tenryu-ji temple for a tournament, in the hopes of winning the massive cash prize.
Fujii was particularly drawn to the story of the samurais’ waning influence in society and said that there are parallels to the present, in how the pandemic and now, AI, have fundamentally changed the importance of some professions. He wanted to ask a question through the series: who are the samurais of today?
Fujii says: “I realized that what can make the story more interesting, even thought it is set in the Meiji period, is for it to be seen as not just a story that took place a long time ago, but for people to see it as their own story, in this current period. I wanted to have the young audience watching this to not see it as something that’s old.”
Looking at the landscape of film, television and streaming, Fujii emphasizes that streaming is a “place to experiment.
“TV dramas have been there before I was born, and film has a long-standing history. The only media that has been created after I was born is the streaming platform,” says Fujii. “What’s most interesting about streaming media is that this is the place to experiment.”
Producing realistic action
Multi-hyphenate Okada said that while he was originally slated to join just as a producer, he was soon asked to lead the action choreography too, given his extensive experience in various martial arts, including jiu-jitsu, jeet kune do and shooto, among others.
“They asked me, you’re also going to be part of this as an actor, right? So I said yes, although I wasn’t so sure if I could do both producing and acting together,” said Okada. “I have done the roles of action choreographer and actor, but not the role of producer, with being a lead actor. But I decided to just jump in and try.”
Okada plays the role of Shujiro Saga, a once-feared legendary assassin who ends up joining the deadly game in the hopes of earning money to save his ailing wife and child.
Hideaki Ito (Umizaru), Kazunari Ninomiya (from J-pop boy group Arashi), actress Kaya Kiyohara (Love is for the Dogs), and Yumia Fujisaki (The Parades) are also part of the cast.
One perk that Okada enjoyed, for wearing so many hats? He could greenlight a lot of his stunts — ones that a producer might have stopped for being too risky or expensive.
“One thing that was positive of doing all three roles, is that even if it’s seen as dangerous and not able to be done, I’m able to get rid of that, as other people do not need to take the responsibility. For example, normally they’ll ask, ‘What about the insurance?’ Nobody can take the responsibility, so these risks tend to get stopped. But if you are the producer, I said, ‘well, Okada wants to do it, so let’s do it’ and we managed to realize many situations.”
Okada adds that they were able to also work with longer takes, as he did most of his own stunt work, drawing from his 20-year-long career in the film industry. He wanted to use as much real action craft on set as possible, and minimize the amount of VFX needed.
“Since I’m the person doing the action and stunts, we can do the long take,” says Okada. “I do have a huge respect for stunt people, but then you have to shoot from the back to hide things.”
Fujii picks out the night-time assembly of 292 samurais in the first episode as the most complex scene that he had to direct.
All of the samurais were real actors — none were created through visual effects.
“For the crew, this was really challenging, and we spent about three weeks to arrange this shoot, in the middle of winter,” says Okada. “To have a rehearsal of 300 people was not possible, so we had an action team of 20 people, and make sure we are in completely alignment in what was going to happen, and then we called the actors. We arranged them in smaller groups, from group, A, B, C, all the way to G, and then we put them into the action scene.
“For example, we would say that group A would have a certain kind of energy, and then the B group would have to cross over. Then the C team would have to fight over here,” adds Okada. “There were a lot of minute calculations, with the people in the background to create such movements.”
Sources of inspiration
Besides Akira Kurosawa, Okada names Shogun star Hiroyuki Sanada as one of his role models, alongside other bandmates he grew up with. His adolescent years were not easy, and he often had questions about his career and identity.
“I didn’t have a father and I wondered what kind of man I wanted to grow up to be,” says Okada. “Through group activities, when I was an idol, I also wondered how my career was going to turn out. I was also the youngest, so I always wondered what I needed to say, for other people to listen to what I wanted to do. But since I started when I was 14, I built up a lot of experience, and I put up a lot of other people as my role models.
“There were many actors that taught me, when I was an idol, and encouraged me to continue,” adds Okada.
Fujii also praises Okada’s “childlike-ness” in the way he thinks creatively.
“Creators need to have a child-like way of thinking and humor, and I was able to find that [in him],” says Okada. “When we completed, we cried. We were a little bit embarrassed, but I think our friendship has really deepened.”
Guillermo del Toro revealed he and Isaac were on the same page from day one: “I think that one of the things we connected over that dinner was our Latinness. Because obviously the shadow of the father looms differently in the Latin family, I believe.”
Isaac supplied, “[The] patriarchal thing, it’s so strong.”
The director nodded at his actor’s assessment of the way patriarchy comes into play in his film in a different tone due to their upbringing: “[And] the melodrama, and the drama of being blind to those flaws, you know, it’s very Mexican.” The filmmaker shared that he showed Isaac 1949’s La Oveja Negra (The Black Sheep) by Mexican filmmaker Ismael Rodríguez, which stars Pedro Infante, the iconic figurehead of machismo masculinity of a bygone old cinematic era—think Clark Gable en español.
Isaac shared how he sprinkled some of the star’s on-screen presence as he made his Victor’s masculine energy inspired by the Infante’s sweeping movements when he played key scenes, “We used that one moment when Jacob [Elordi] comes back to ask for a bride,” and described how the creator responded to his creature’s request, “and I just kind of walked by him and pushed him away. That was a little nod.”
From a filmmaking standpoint, del Toro elaborated on his intentionality: “Those moments for me are things that you determine only from a Latin culture. The swarthy Catholicism of the film. But I think the sort of pageantry of Catholicism, which verges on the operatic, you know, the intensity of emotions,”
Isaac agreed, “That’s why we talk about it being a story of outsiders. I talked to you a lot about that first meeting, which was like feeling like an outsider from the moment that [I] came from Guatemala to this country and constantly moving around and always feeling like a bit of an other.”
Isaac explained how this was something he experienced in trying to prove himself over the course of his career to play outside of the stereotypical Latino roles as his career evolved. “That kind of fed into this kind of myopic view of, like, excellence. The only way I can succeed is by being excellent and better than everyone else at this thing. And no matter what it costs, you know, that was something that definitely, I think, fed into Victor.”
To del Toro, this made Isaac the right choice for his leading man in his lifelong dream project: “The Victor that I really believe would be a fresh Victor is a Victor that had swagger and sensuality and flair.” The filmmaker came to that conclusion from his experiences as a Latino, which ended up mirroring how he would see Victor’s final form in the eventual film as it came into fruition as “reclaiming that for not a British actor, not an Anglo actor,” as it related to his connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. “We talked on the set and I said, ‘it’s not an accident that our Victor is played by, you know, Oscar Isaac Hernandez.’ And we reclaimed some of that energy.”
Isaac added how he tapped into that wavelength. “Yeah, exactly. At one point, you’re like, ‘A European would never make a movie like this’—the way that you were shooting it with these huge sets and also the way you direct; sometimes you’d be like, ‘I need the Maria Cristina,’” he said in reference to the classic telenovela move where an actor walks away to process an emotion before doing a dramatic physical reaction, whether it’s a full-body turn or gaping wide-eyed brows up in the high heavens look.
In Frankenstein it’s used with great gothic aplomb on purpose. Isaac shared the note del Toro gave him in a big moment opposite Mia Goth. “‘It was like you have to walk from his left shoulder past him and then you stop and you turn back,’” he recalled.
“It’s like a telenovela,” del Toro interjected.
Isaac reminisced, “You have to make this Mexican boy very happy,” he said in reference to the boy who grew up worshipping Frankenstein, who would at an older age approach him to play the complex anti-hero of Shelley’s text.
Affirming, del Toro added, “When people say, ‘What’s Mexican about your movies?’ I say, ‘Me. Yeah,” he laughed, celebrating how his culture permeates his creations. “What else do you want? I think you cannot deny what you are, who you are. And what moves you in any act of artistic expression ever, you know?”
Watch the rest of the interview below:
Correction: A previous version of this article cited Netflix as the source. In fact, it was originally shared by GQ.
Could Netflix become the future home of the DC Universe’s Superman and Batman superhero films, the Harry Potter and Barbie film franchises — and owner of a trove of classics like “Casablanca,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Goodfellas,” “Unforgiven” and “The Shining”?
The streaming powerhouse is “actively exploring” some type of acquisition bid for Warner Bros. Discovery and has retained investment bank Moelis & Co. to put together a prospective offer, according to a new report from Reuters, citing anonymous individuals. Moelis was the financial adviser to David Ellison’s Skydance Media in its takeover of Paramount Global to former Paramount Skydance.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s board last week announced that it had received in-bound M&A interest from “multiple parties” and has commenced a process to review such offers. Per the Reuters report, WBD has granted Netflix access to its financials as part of assembling a prospective M&A offer. It’s not clear if a Netflix bid would also include Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max business.
Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. Reps for Netflix and Moelis did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
Netflix’s reported active interest in buying perhaps some of WBD’s assets comes as Paramount Skydance’s Ellison has made aggressive overtures — with three escalating bids for the entire company. WBD has rejected all three as too low, including Ellison’s most recent one for $23.50/share.
Comcast also is said to be looking at a potential bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, although, like Netflix, seemingly just for the studios and/or streaming side of the house. Mike Cavanagh, Comcast co-CEO, told analysts during Comcast’s Q3 earnings call Thursday morning that “the bar is high” for the company to consider a major merger of acquisition. But he didn’t rule anything out — and suggested that Comcast’s ability to secure federal approval for any transaction would improve once the spinoff of its linear cable channels (other than Bravo) into Versant is completed later this year.
Cavanagh said that “what we’d be looking for and what we’re going to look like post-Versant spin, I think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary that’s out there.”
Box-office hits in 2025 for Warner Bros.’s film studios, in a turnaround from past years, have included James Gunn’s “Superman,” “A Minecraft Movie,” Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s “Sinners,” “Final Destination Bloodlines,” Brad Pitt’s “F1: The Movie,” and “Weapons.” In 2024, the studios segment’s highlights were “Dune: Part Two,” “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” on the film side.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Television has produced shows for Netflix including “Running Point,” “You” and “Maid.” Other top-rated shows from WB Television include “Abbott Elementary,” “Shrinking” and “The Voice.”
Paul Hollywood better lock his doors, turn on the alarm, and get in the panic room because I am coming for him. I’m not going to hurt him or anything, but I am going to scratch one of his cars and eat all the sweet treats stashed in his house, and you know that, like Toby, his stash is considerable. How dare he treat my perfect Tom like that? First, at the beginning of the episode, he looks at Tom’s fingernails and says, “You’ve been hanging on by there for a while.” Seriously? Paul gave him a showstopper handshake, and now he’s like, “Eh, you kinda suck.” Please. Then the judging of the showstopper. Oh, you better clear the decks because I am about to go full Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale on his ass.
The signature is the only challenge during Patisserie Week that I don’t absolutely hate. The four remaining contestants, also known as Jasmine and the Gents, all have to make two batches of cream horns, which spawns about 15 “horny” puns. Only 15? The show is slipping. There is nothing wrong with this assignment, except that things are a little warm in the tent during what was England’s hottest summer on record. Pretty hard when patisserie requires the butter to be cold, which we are told more times than there are horny puns.
Toby tells us that he has never made rough puff pastry before, and the last time he made full puff, Paul yelled at him. So he tried Paul’s recipe, and it sucked, so he’s using Gordon Ramsey’s instead. This is the kind of shade that I never knew Toby was capable of, but it makes me love him even more. When Prue tries Toby’s pastry, she says it’s too hard, which Paul, of course, blames on Toby using a chef’s recipe. I’m sorry, but there will be no vindication for Paul this episode. While they love both his coffee-flavored and lemon horns, they both don’t love the actual pastry, which puts Toby at the bottom.
Down there with him is the artist formerly known as Perfect Tom. Don’t worry, Tom. I still think you’re perfect. The whole time he is baking, he keeps saying his horns are going to be more like short-crust pastry, and when the judges try them, that’s the exact critique they have. If Tom knew this was a problem, why didn’t he find a solution before the (im)perfect judges came along? However, much like Toby, they love his raspberry cream cheese and chocolate and clementine flavor combinations, but it’s the pastry that they seem to be grading.
The opposite is true of Aaron, who the bakers seem to think is the king of pastry, but I’m not sure why. Is there something that happened this season that I’m forgetting? Paul and Prue both love his dessert cornucopia, but they hate the flavor combinations. Paul says that his nectarine and cherry both taste great individually, but together they’re gross. He’s not wrong. It does sound a little like making a Slush Puppy at 7-11 and putting a pump of each flavor into the ice. The same goes for chocolate and lemon, which I don’t love either, unless it’s a See’s Candy Lemon Truffle. Mmmmmm.
Queen Jasmine, of course, gets nothing but praise. I’m sorry, but it’s no fun when there is a clear front-runner. We don’t watch to see who goes home; we watch to see who is going to win, and it’s so obviously been Jasmine for weeks now that there is no suspense at all. The judges love her pastry Bugles, which do look delicious. Paul loves their flake, Prue loves the balance of coffee and chocolate in one variety, and Paul loves the raspberry, pistachio, and white chocolate (barf) ones. However, he chides Jasmine for using too many pistachios for the rest of the episode, even though she never uses them again. Ugh. Paul. Always on my shit list.
The technical challenge is to make a Framboisier, a French dessert with layers of génoise sponge, crème mousseline, and fresh raspberries. (Anyone who has ordered gelato in Paris knows the French word for raspberry is “framboise.”) Bakers also have to make a fondant rose and a sugar dome to decorate the top. As an audience, we want these challenges to be difficult, but we ultimately want the bakers to succeed. We want to see something tricky but doable in the time so that they triumph. Here, no one finishes the cake they wanted in the allotted time, which means there is no problem with the bakers; there is a problem with the challenge. This is just too damn hard. Do they not test these before? Don’t they have something like on Survivorwhere they have non-contestants run the challenge first? Apparently not.
There is one good thing about the challenge, which allows Aaron to say that this is what he loves about baking: making a cake that looks like a cake, not one that looks like a football, Paul Hollywood’s head, or one of his many cars. Exactly! That’s what we want too. We don’t want them to be engineers, as this show so often turns them into; we just want them to make a great-looking cake. At one point in the showstopper, Jasmine says, “I’m not an engineer, I’m a medic.” Exactly! And she’s perfect the way she is. No wait. Tom is perfect. She’s adequate the way she is. (Just kidding. She’s great, too.)
I can’t think of a more disastrous bake in the history of this show than this technical. Making the glass dome is the part that befuddles most of them. What they need to do is boil sugar, pour it onto cling film (British to American translation: Saran Wrap), press down on the film so it bulges into a dome, wait for it to cool, then take it off the film. This seems like one of those things you watch a pastry chef do on TikTok and then say, “Coooooolllll!! I’m never doing that.” Tom almost completes his and then cracks it while putting it in the freezer. Aaron is the only one who manages to do it successfully, and his dome looks like a pint glass that has been sitting in a gutter for three days. When it comes down to judging, it’s between Jasmine and Tom for the top spot, and the judges like both of their cakes, but it ultimately goes to Jasmine. What if Tom had finished his dome? Would that have nudged him to the winner’s circle? Is it about the cake and its taste, or is it about this foolhardy technique that even Martha Stewart was like, “Why would you bother?”
The clear loser is Toby, who serves up something that looks like a protein shake and a green juice tried to have sex and both of their bottles fell over and they just spilled all over the floor. His problem is not only with the dome but also with the mousseline. It’s a custard that is combined with butter, but the custard has to be cool and the butter has to be soft or else it won’t set and, as Toby learns, spill all over the floor like a leprechaun’s milkshake. What he serves the judges looks less like a cake and more like a puddle, and Prue also says there should be two layers of sponge, but there’s only one. That’s like showing up at a burned-down house and asking why there isn’t WiFi. We have bigger problems here!
The showstopper is a macaron-based challenge where the bakers have to make a centerpiece at least 45 centimeters (about a foot and a half) that is “bold, impactful” and showcases 30 macaroons. I have no problem with this challenge; this is the kind of thing that the modern Baking Show has been doing for years. It’s difficult but seems attainable.
Most of the bakers (bar Jasmine) struggle with their macaroons, especially Aaron and Tom, who both have to make theirs again. At least Tom was perfect enough to know that the first batch might not turn out perfect, so he made enough for two batches so he could throw the second one right in the oven. Perfect. What makes the baking even harder is Alison and Noel harassing our poor bakers as they work. Noel comes around with his friend Mr. Spoon, who, much like the Magic Rhubarb from two episodes back, can get the bakers to the finals if they give it a big wet kiss. Damn it. If only I could have dressed up as Mr. Spoon, because I’d love kisses from all the remaining bakers and also Alison, if she ever gets herself unstuck from straddling that fence. (Literal, not metaphorical, because our Alison is wonderfully opinionated.)
While I don’t have a problem with the challenge, I do have a problem with the judging, particularly when Tom gets up there. He created a giant chocolate beehive (with Iain inside, according to Noel) hanging from an actual tree and covered it with yellow macarons painted to look like bees. When he brings it up, with much assistance, Prue says that it looks “astonishing.” Paul, however. Not so much. He says, “If it were chocolate week, I would accept it, but I can’t accept that when it’s a macaron challenge. The macarons look fairly flat. The painting is rudimentary, but the main thing I’m looking at is that [pointing to the hive]. It’s very Tom. I understand that. You should have made that smaller and covered all of it.”
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This goes against not only the challenge brief but everything that has been going on at Baking Showfor the past decade. They said they wanted “bold and impactful,” and they specified a height. It’s always rewarding more ornate, huger, crazier. Now suddenly this is too big, too ornate, too crazy? They asked for big, and then Perfect Tom gave them big, and they were like, “Never mind.”
How many times have we talked about how the bakers have to pay more attention to the structure of what they’re building, so that they don’t have time to make things taste good? How many times have they limited the types of biscuits or cakes they can make because they need to construct something that stands? I’m sorry, but that comes at the expense of the thing they’re actually baking. If you really wanted to taste delicious macarons with great painting, the challenge would have been to just make some macarons and put them on a plate. But it’s not. The challenge is to put a bunch of macarons on a sculpture, and the judges are mad because the sculpture is bigger than the macarons? Fuck right off.
Meanwhile, look at Jasmine’s. It’s dinky! It looks great, yes, but hanging a bunch of macarons from a Christmas tree is not inventive or creative. Jasmine’s bakes never are. She does the bare minimum, and they never tell her to step it up or tell her that she needs to be more inventive. She’s just skating by, and no one is challenging her. Yes, I know it comes down to flavor, and she nails it every time. But when you’re doing less than everyone, there is more time to focus on the baking and the flavors and everything else. The other bakers are showing some ambition, whether that’s making something huge, something with three different flavors, or even a giant macaron sign that says “Lemons,” because that is what the show has been rewarding for ages. Now, suddenly, they are rewarding flavors but not creativity? They’re rewarding meeting the brief and nothing else. Again, fuck right off.
But it’s Jasmine’s fifth Star Baker and third in a row, tying her for the most Star Bakers in one season. (Note, Richard Burr, the co-record holder, came in third in the finale, so it’s not all hers yet.) Paul and Prue gush over her tree, even though it looks like something you could construct out of a kit. Aaron’s is a bit messier because he had to remake his macaroons, but it has a certain charm. Okay, maybe that’s too generous. Aaron’s is both a mess, and the judges say the cookies are too chewy, and Paul doesn’t think they’re up to the standard. Tom, we already talked about how his looks, but both judges say that the macarons are underbaked.
Toby’s lemon crates look wonderful, but again, they’re like, “That’s a lot of gingerbread.” Dude! That’s what you asked for! While it looks cool, they don’t like the lemon macarons, saying they’re a little underflavored. The chocolate ones on the crates, however, they absolutely love, which seems to put Toby in good standing, like he could have saved himself, especially after the negativity heaped on Tom and Aaron. But it’s him who goes, with Paul saying that his disastrous technical was the decider. Here I am saying the technical doesn’t matter, but apparently, it doesn’t matter until it does. The end of the episode is especially weepy for Toby, like they all can’t believe they’re sending someone home. I thought for a minute Paul was going to put a Ru in front of his name because you know Drag Race loves to pull the “You’re all going to the final!” trick. But it didn’t come. Instead, we just get a lovely Polaroid of the group, Toby clutching everyone in his arms as all the bakers wonder just when and how the whole game changed.
The long-awaited clash between Vilgefortz and Yennefer doesn’t disappoint. Photo: Netflix
Let’s talk about how magic works in The Witcher. As Yennefer and her fellow students learned at Aretuza all the way back in season one, magic is rooted in chaos: a natural, powerful force that — when properly harnessed — can be drawn upon to do great and terrible things. Even for experienced sorceresses and wizards, chaos comes with a cost. The magical energy used to create a portal or launch a fireball needs to come from somewhere, and it’s usually the life of something else — everything from a flower or tree to a person.
Now: Consider the Cchaos required for Vilgefortz and his minions to attack Montecalvo, and consider the chaos required by Yennefer and her army to repel them.
Much of “Twilight of the Wolf” — an episode named not for the absent Geralt, but for his mentor, Vesemir — plays out like an elaborate strategy game, as Vilgefortz and Yennefer decide how and when to burn off their impressive reserves of magic and magic users. Vilgefortz, true to form, begins by leading a squadron that blasts magic so aggressively at the fortress that some of them crumble into bones on the spot. Yennefer, saving the energy of her heaviest hitters as long as possible, asks the novices-in-training to maintain a magical shield as long as possible — only ordering when their noses and eyes begin to bleed under the strain.
And that’s just the first wave of a multi-pronged battle. What separates The Witcher’s large-scale conflicts from similarly scoped set pieces like Lord of the Rings’s Battle of Helm’s Deep or Game of Thrones’s Battle of the Bastards is the plethora of weird strategies available to these mages. At one point, Triss Merigold transforms an enemy into a frog, which Vesemir promptly stomps on. At another, one of Vilgefortz’s more innovative mages uses telekinesis to grab an array of mounted swords from a wall and fling them, one by one, at their foes down the hallway.
There are heavy casualties on both sides. (We don’t really know anybody in Vilgefortz’s camp, but you can say good-bye to ancillary sorceresses Margarita and Nikita.) Still, this has always been a very personal conflict between Yennefer and Vilgefortz, which is why Vilgefortz finally stops letting his minions do all the fighting and jumps through the portal himself.
What he finds, on the other side, is his dead lover, Tissaia de Vries — hair still white but otherwise apparently unharmed and ready to fight to the death. This is, of course, a trap that Vilgefortz sees through very quickly: Yennefer has merely glamoured herself to look like Tissaia. But just when Vilgefortz thinks he’s gained the upper hand, Yennefer springs her actual trap: When his second-in-command enters the room, Vilgefortz spills the rest of his plan — only to discover that Philippa Eilhart has pulled her own trick by glamouring herself as his right-hand man.
With the upper hand, Yennefer takes the opportunity to dig into Vilgefortz’s mind and see what she can find. What she sees terrifies her: A future in which the mage has captured Ciri and is subjecting her to brutally painful experiments in an apparent effort to gain access to her power.
As the battle rages on at Montecalvo, a smaller battle, though no less consequential, is unfolding at Vilgefortz’s secret lair. Fringilla escapes her captors, weaker but no less determined, and rescues Istredd from his cell. Together, they reach the chamber where Vilgefortz is draining and sacrificing lower-level mages to maintain exclusive control of the portals. Having studied for so long, Istredd instantly grasps the answer: By sacrificing himself in the same way, he can shut down Vilgefortz’s control of the portals for good, giving Yennefer and her allies a much-needed tool back in their arsenal. There’s some hand-wringing by both Fringilla and Yennefer about whether the sacrifice is worth it, but with apologies to Istredd: Yes, losing one mage — even one we’ve been hanging out with since season one — is worth it if it means turning the tide of a war that could plausibly lead to the end of the world.
Back at Montecalvo, another fan-favorite character is making another sacrifice. After confronting Vilgefortz in one-on-one combat, just as he promised to do two episodes ago, Vesemir manages to stab Vilgefortz in the chest but pays with his own life. “For my son, Geralt,” Vesemir says with his dying words, a reminder that Geralt isn’t the only witcher who took a young orphan into his care.
After all that magical violence, the fight ultimately comes down to one last push. A late effort by Vilgefortz and his army to defeat Yennefer via fire magic is quelled when Philippa opens a water wheel. With Istredd’s sacrifice on the other side of the portal complete, Yennefer’s army teleports behind Vilgefortz, and with the advantage lost, the mage retreats to fight another day. It’s a victory, but a painful one; though Yennefer’s side struck a serious blow, they also suffered some heavy losses.
But regaining access to portals gives Yennefer a vital tool back in the search for Ciri, and to her credit, she doesn’t waste any time. After asking Fringilla where Emyhr would keep his most treasured possession, she teleports right into the heart of Nilfgaard and snarls the question that’s been at the heart of her mission all season: “Where the fuck is my daughter?”
• After all the cleverness and excitement of the magical battle at Montecalvo, it’s a little deflating when the episode suddenly cuts away to check in on the Rats. Having kidnapped a rich kid (and killed some guards in the process), Ciri celebrates by snorting her first line of fisstech. The other Rats are delighted, but Mistle finally confronts Ciri, rattled by the growing darkness she sees. “Accept me as I am, because all of this darkness … this is me,” Ciri replies, like any rebellious teenager might.
• Leo Bonhart watch: The bounty hunter kills some random dudes who are dumb enough to cross him and steals a Falka doll from some little girls who have adopted the Rats as folk heroes. It certainly seems like he’s narrowing in on his quarry.
• This is a nitpick, but what exactly are Vilgefortz’s minions hoping to gain by being on his side? He probably promised them a share of his ultimate power or whatever, but he’s not exactly a guy who seems to value loyalty, and there’s ample evidence that he’ll drain the life force of anybody if it means maintaining power.
• Vesemir’s death in the Netflix series deviates from the broader Witcher canon, where he remains a major character as late as the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
