Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to craft The Town’s first ever Hollywood Power List: their definitive (and subjective!) ranking of who has the most “juice” a.k.a. the most influential figures in the entertainment business. Matt and Lucas debate who deserves to be in the top 10, who doesn’t, whether an actor will break the top 10, and who currently deserves the coveted top spot.
For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click here.
Fandom’s biggest night is upon us and all of the Ringer-Verse stars are out as they celebrate the 2023 year in the world of fandom. They give out their awards for Best Power Couple, Biggest Heartbreak, and so much more. Special guests also join them throughout the show to give out awards of their own in this all-out celebration.
Hosts: Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson, Charles Holmes, Van Lathan, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman, Ben Lindbergh Guests: Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney, Daniel Chin, Justin Charity, Matt James, Arjuna Ramgopal Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran
Matt is joined by Jeremiah Reynolds, partner at Eisner LLP and copyright law expert, to untangle the recent plagiarism accusation by screenwriter Simon Stephenson over Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, then outline whether or not this case has merit. Matt and Jeremiah discuss famous past examples of copyright infringement, whether the WGA can help with plagiarism, and what a writer can do if they feel their idea is being stolen. Matt finishes the show with a prediction about the films that will premiere at South by Southwest.
For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click here.
Rachel Lindsay, Callie Curry, and Jodi Walker break down ‘Summer House,’ the ‘Real Housewives of Miami’ Season 6 reunion, and the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 13 reunion
Rachel Lindsay and Callie Curry begin today’s Morally Corrupt with a breakdown of Summer House, Season 8, Episode 4 (4:21), before getting into the conclusion of the Real Housewives of Miami Season 6 reunion (24:20). Then, Rachel is joined by Jodi Walker to discuss the end of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 13 reunion (30:45) and Season 11, Episode 7 of Vanderpump Rules (51:39)
As Chicagoans attempt to track The Bear with Season 3 production underway in various locations around town, including Randolph Restaurant Row, reports have emerged that the show has already been green-lit for Season 4.
There’s speculation that Seasons 3 and 4 are being filmed back to back with episodes for Season 4 already in production. Some have also called Season 4 the show’s final season. In the wonderful world of television, nothing is ever a certainty and FX hasn’t confirmed any of this.
Show creator Christopher Storer, a Park Ridge native, reportedly has a long list of projects necessitating an endgame to Carmy, Sydney, and Richie’s antics. Similarly, actors Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are entertaining more opportunities. It’s come a long way since the 2022 James Beard Awards in Chicago where White attended and was easily approachable. His stock, along with his co-stars’, has soared since then.
Season 3 should debut in June on Hulu.
Atelier and Christian Hunter Make Moves
Back in January, Christian Hunter, the chef at Michelin-starred Atelier in Lincoln Square, posted a diner menu on Instagram (since deleted), and that prompted folks to think that the James Beard-nominated chef was on the cusp of opening a second restaurant. Hunter would tell Eater in January that this was a dream, to open a diner that would pay homage to his mother’s (Angela Laverne) Cincinnati roots. Yes, that meant chili loaded with noodles and cheese. He also mentioned Coney Dogs, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and veggie options. Fine dining was great, but Hunter wanted to open a more affordable restaurant and was working with Atelier founder Tim Lacey on fleshing out the concept. In late February, Atelier announced that Hunter was now a co-owner and that they had promoted Bradyn Kawcak from chef de cuisine to executive chef to give Hunter room to pursue new projects as a bonafide restaurant group. Kawcak had worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago like Band of Bohemia, Entente, and Elizabeth. As far as the diner is concerned, Lacey and Hunter are searching for spaces with hopes of opening something by the end of the year.
River North nightclub owner faces felony drug charges
The 43-year-old owner of Spybar, a River North nightclub, has been arrested and faces felony drug trafficking charges for allegedly attempting to smuggle 14 pounds worth of ketamine and about 5.8 grams of ecstasy through O’Hare International Airport.
Cook County prosecutors claim Dino Gardiakos tried to bring the illegal drugs through airport security as he arrived from London with the intent to sell them. Gardiakos had already been placed on probation for felony drug charges. He now faces a battery of charges including trafficking of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance. He’s been released on pre-trial conditions after appearing in court on Thursday.
Cousin Sal is joined by Jimmy Kimmel to discuss hosting the Oscars, the Jake Paul–Mike Tyson fight, and the glory years of UNLV basketball before being joined by the D3 to debate which former NCAA basketball player would’ve made the most NIL money.
Host: Cousin Sal Guests: Darren Szokoli, Brian Szokoli, Harry Gagnon, and Jimmy Kimmel Producers: Michael Szokoli, Joel Solomon, Jack Wilson, and Chris Wohlers
Sean and Amanda discuss a recent run of positive 2025 movie news (1:00) before digging into Rose Glass’s second feature, Love Lies Bleeding (20:00). They take stock of Kristen Stewart’s unique movie star presence, discuss Glass’s genre command and audacious screenwriting, and praise Katy O’Brian’s wonderfully physical and emotional performance. Then, they run down a list of films they’re calling the 21st Century Noir Movie Canon (36:00). Finally, Sean is joined by Glass to discuss the production of Love Lies Bleeding, working with a star like Stewart, why she set the film in America, how Ed Harris became involved in the project, and more (53:00).
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Rose Glass Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner
Matt is joined by Julia Alexander from Puck and Parrot Analytics to discuss what is and isn’t working in Netflix’s foray into live sports and sports-adjacent programming, and they outline how Netflix is experimenting to make a potential bid on live rights for a major sport. She reveals some data around Netflix viewership, explains why the sports documentary market is oversaturated, and outlines the importance of live sports for Netflix’s bottom line. Matt finishes the show with a prediction on the opening weekend box office for the new Mark Wahlberg film Arthur the King.
For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click here.
I could talk about how Halo’s centering of humans as the bad guys behind every plot cheapens one of the few fascinating moral complexities of the Halo games and books — that the Spartans were built for fundamentally inhumane treatment of rebel fighters and then accidentally found justification in a surprise alien invasion. But it’s more fair and even more damning to talk about all of this on the Halo TV show’s own terms. And on those terms, I simply have no fucking idea why there are even aliens in this show to begin with.
In an effort to underline the badness of humanity, Halo has completely sidelined the Covenant, throwing the entire show off course and spinning wildly into space. Even the Covenant’s grand invasion of Reach in the show is just another human plot, one of a thousand ways the TV show wants to prove that the human bureaucrats are evil, something we’ve known since the earliest moments of the show’s first season.
But all this emphasis on humanity’s sins begs a critical question: Almost two full seasons into Halo, what point is it trying to make, exactly? Season 2’s seventh episode, “Thermopylae,” seems to offer some attempt at answering that question, when Makee (Charlie Murphy) pleads with Chief to stop helping humanity so that the two of them can settle Halo on their own and make it a paradise, rather than letting either side use it as a civilization-destroying weapon. Setting aside the silliness that is this version of Halo being so constantly tempted to recast Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) as the lead of a domestic drama, Makee’s statement still leaves a gap in our understanding of what this show is doing. If the point is “war makes monsters of us all,” then shouldn’t we see that equally in both the human and Covenant factions? And even more pressingly, why won’t anyone acknowledge that the Covenant are the ones who threatened extinction first and based their whole galactic conquest on the Prophets’ lie about a Great Journey that would take them from the galaxy?
Photo: Adrienn Szabo/Paramount Plus
We’re subjected to half a dozen scenes each episode of humanity’s reckless and evil leaders making civilization-shaping choices — particularly the ongoing machinations of Admiral Margaret Parangosky (Shabana Azmi), one of the worst and least compelling characters in recent TV memory, thanks to her consistently baffling decisions and seemingly lack of strategy and communication. (Put simply: She’s here to antagonize every other character, with no real character of her own.) Meanwhile we only get to see the Covenant’s side from the point of view of Makee and the criminally underdeveloped Arbiter. Sure, we hear them say that the Prophets might be full of shit and that the Great Journey might be a lie, but it remains a complete mystery why the alien’s genuinely compelling similarity to Earth’s own corrupt and lying authorities is drawn with such a faint line. Perhaps drawing those connections more clearly would help us make sense of why Master Chief has fought more humans in Halo season 2 than he has Covenant.
Despite the moment-to-moment conflict rarely making sense, or seeming to lead anywhere, it hasn’t stopped the show from introducing more plot threads or drip-feeding longtime series fans with new bits of recognizable lore. For instance, this latest episode gave us our most meaningful look yet at the Forerunners, though they haven’t been named quite yet. It also hinted at yet another alien faction that could soon arrive, but we’ll have to wait and see if that thread goes anywhere.
All these new introductions do little to lessen the feeling of narrative cheapness that surrounds Halo, however. As more ideas and plots get introduced, it only serves to underline how little sense any of this really makes. Sure, we know the Covenant are knocking on humanity’s front door, but the sudden diversion of every character in the show now converging on a need to capture “the Halo,” as they keep calling it, feels like it came out of nowhere. Which is a pretty astounding feat of messy storytelling considering it’s the object the entire franchise is named after.
Halo season 2 is now streaming on Paramount Plus. The season finale will be released on Thursday, March 21.
The West Loop may be Chicago’s most polarizing dining neighborhood. Randolph Restaurant Row is still considered one of the city’s most prestigious strips with restaurants past and present like Red Light, Girl & the Goat, and Belly Q, but lately the young and too hip have targeted the dining district, peppering it with insults.
McDonald’s built its headquarters on Randolph Street and real estate developers fight for political influence. A group of restaurant owners are pushing for a privatized security force. So it’s not hard to see why these criticisms exist. But the neighborhood, which includes Greektown, is more than a branding showcase and developer’s playground. Come check out some of Eater’s favorites. And just remember: Restaurants do exist in places other than Randolph Street. Note: restaurants considered in Fulton Market were omitted.
Eater maps are curated by editors and aim to reflect a diversity of neighborhoods, cuisines, and prices. Learn more about our editorial process.
If you buy something or book a reservation from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics policy.
Tyson and Riley are back to recap the third episode of Survivor 46. Today, they are joined by Lauren Harpe from Survivor 44 as they answer the question: “Do the Wackadoodles win Survivor?” Then, they go over the pros and cons of group idol hunts, discuss the possibility of producers creating a miracle for the contestants, and talk about the episode’s surprise ending.
Hosts: Tyson Apostol and Riley McAtee Guest: Lauren Harpe Producer: Ashleigh Smith Theme Song: Devon Renaldo
Chicago’s Northwest Side Filipino community is robust and isn’t about to be shut out of the city’s Filipino American restaurant boom. Seafood City isn’t enough. Kathy Vega Hardy is readying to open her first standalone restaurant in early April in Jefferson Park. In August, closed her popular Filipino food stall, A Taste of the Philippines, inside Chicago’s French Market as she prepared to launch an independent operation.
For this particular project at 5914 W. Lawrence Avenue, “independent” isn’t entirely accurate. Vega Hardy is partnering with another Filipino business, Crumbs and Cookies, a bakery that’s best known for sylvana, a cookie stuffed with flavored creams. Spouses Katrina and Mharloe Requiron founded their operation after the pandemic began in 2020. They’re splitting the space with Vega Hardy.
Twenty-eight seat A Taste of the Philippines will serve a few desserts, such as their signature ube doughnut and turon (a sweet lumpia with ube drizzle), but the two businesses believe they complement each other with Vega Hardy offering mostly savory items like lumpia and pancit. Without a permanent home, Vega Hardy has been using the space at Schoolhouse Kitchen in Portage Park to cook food for her catering business which also includes pop-up dinners.
Ube doughnuts and cheesecake bites.A Taste of the Philippines
Chicago’s food scene includes prime-time players like Bayan Ko and Boonies Filipino Restaurant, plus a little Michelin-starred success story called Kasama. Mano Modern Cafe opened last year in West Town. Vega Hardy says her food fills a specific niche.
“I wouldn’t call it upscale, but it’s not fast food either,” she says. “I feel I’m in the sweet middle ground.”
Vega Hardy’s story has been well told around Chicago. She’s a Manila native who lived in Denver where she started A Taste of the Philippines as a food truck in 2012. As is the case with many Asian families arriving in America, few recipes are actually written down. Immigrant food in the States often tastes different because of guesswork in reformulating a recipe (there’s also a difference in ingredients that leads to changes). Vega Hardy has worked toward preserving Filipino culture while putting her own spins on items. But, as chefs who cook international cuisines can attest, it’s sometimes exhausting trying to sell food to folks unfamiliar with other people’s cultures. Food can be educational (Vega Hardy also teaches at Schoolhouse Kitchen), but it can be daunting: “I really thought I was the only Filipino person there,” she says of her time in Denver.
When she moved to Chicago, she gained a following selling food at farmer’s markets before opening in the French Market in summer 2020. Even at the market, she sometimes got anxious having to explain her evolving menu to passersby who were strolling through the food hall browsing menu boards.
Egg sandwiches and specialty coffee are served.A Taste of the Philippines
The commute from the Northwest Side to the West Loop was brutal, especially with construction on the Kennedy Expressway. Vega Hardy won’t have to contend with that headache as she’s a Jefferson Park resident. She’ll also have more room to be creative and productive (on an average day of lumpia making she can roll about 150; the number will now increase at the restaurant). Vega Hardy touts a vegetarian adobo made with local vendor Four Star Mushrooms. Now, fans of that Kasama operation might be familiar with their dish which was featured in some cookbook and also in a Chicago-based TV show called The Bear. Adobo can be a personal thing that varies depending on family preferences. Vega Hardy’s is a little bit more saucy. She talks about how the gravy properly coats the rice.
A Taste of the Philippines will also serve breakfast with silog, sandwiches, and more. Longanisa — which will be used in a Scotch egg — will be made on premises. Imagine pan de sal with a fried egg and havarti cheese. The full espresso bar will have fun drinks with coffee from Veloria Coffee, another Filipino American business.
There’s plenty of great thriller films to watch on Netflix. But if you prefer your stories to be more procedural, there’s just as many fantastic TV series to choose from on the service.
We’ve put together our conspiracy corkboards, crunched the numbers, and followed the money to bring you our list of the top suspects for the best thriller TV series to watch on Netflix. From modern classics like David Fincher’s Mindhunter and You to pulse-pounding murder mysteries like Erased and more, Netflix has a selection of thriller TV just waiting to become your next obsession.
Here are the best thriller series you can watch right now on Netflix. Our latest update added The Diplomat as our editor’s pick.
A throwback to the kind of plot-heavy political thriller that used to run television (and the screwball comedies of days gone by), The Diplomat is a delightful star vehicle for Keri Russell. She is Kate Wyler, a whip-smart career diplomat whose plans are thrown into disarray when her upcoming assignment in Afghanistan is changed to what seems to be a cushy post as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. For Kate, who loves her work and is very good at it, this is a clear downgrade, but the more power-focused people in her life (including her conniving husband Hal, played by Rufus Sewell) are delighted by the new role. What follows is a whirlwind of intrigue and mystery, with snappy dialogue, strong chemistry between the leads, and plenty of twists and turns.
After courting many viewers for its first season, The Diplomat will return for a second. We can’t wait, especially after the first season’s cliffhanger ending. —Pete Volk
Babylon Berlin
Image: X Filme Creative Pool
Bad things are coming to 1929 Berlin. We know this, of course — with the vantage point of history, the Weimar Republic era was marked by economic insecurity and the beginning of the Nazi Party. But the ’20s in the world of Babylon Berlin exist just before that horror, when the degeneracy from all that economic downturn could give way to roaring ’20s clubs just as easily as unending darkness.
That tension is captured in Babylon Berlin by two protagonists: Gereon Rath (a soft and strong Volker Bruch), a vice inspector on a secret mission to take down an extortion ring, and Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries, all vinegar and chutzpah), the new police clerk who moonlights as a sex worker. Together they provide two very distinct vantage points on the Weimar Republic’s waning days, exposing the rot of what’s to come at the same time they find hope in what could’ve been.
Babylon Berlin’s trick is by not getting ahead of itself. The show is perhaps one of the slower boils on this list; the thrills of the mystery, such as they are, come from meticulous pacing. Answers don’t come easy, and a whole country’s politics don’t change overnight. Babylon Berlin is a web of history and conspiracy, and by taking those elements equally seriously and methodically, you get a twisty, hardboiled detective story for the ages. —Zosha Millman
Bodies
Image: Netflix
Solving a murder is hard enough, but how do you go about apprehending a culprit whose crime literally transcends space and time?
Bodies is a terrific cerebral whodunit with an excellent ensemble cast whose stories weave into one another effortlessly as the series builds and the mystery deepens. Created by Paul Tomalin (Torchwood) and based on Si Spencer’s 2014 comic, this sci-fi crime thriller follows four detectives living in different time periods of London who find themselves investigating a strange murder. What’s so strange about it? Well, the victim’s body appears — and reappears — in each time period in the exact same location. What’s even stranger is that the victim was last seen alive in 2053, despite being seen dead both in that year and as early as 1890.
A engrossing drama that feels like a mashup between Class of ’09, Dark, and Alex Garland’s Devs, Bodies is one of Netflix’s most compelling releases this year and wholly deserves to be added to your watchlist. —Toussaint Egan
Erased
Image: A-1 Pictures/Aniplex of America
This sci-fi mystery thriller miniseries from 2016 centers on Satoru Fujinuma, a 29-year-old delivery man who is inexplicably sent back in time and reawakens in his 11-year-old body. Determined to save the lives of his mother and his elementary school classmate, who died and disappeared, respectively, under mysterious circumstances, Satoru must combine his knowledge of the future with his ability to change the past in order to apprehend the culprit and bring them to justice.
Erased is a compulsively watchable thriller anime, filled with enough twists and turns to keep audiences guessing right up to the series’ exhilarating conclusion. —TE
Ganglands
Image: Netflix
French action cinema is having a bit of a renaissance, and one of the leading figures is director Julien Leclercq. He made the very good Olga Kurylenko thriller Sentinelle, the Jean-Claude Van Damme-led The Bouncer, and my favorite movie of his, the tense crime thriller Braqueurs (also known as The Crew).
Six years later, Leclercq took his talents to television with the Netflix series Ganglands (also known as Braqueurs). It shares the same name, lead (the excellent Sami Bouajila), and general vibe, but is not technically a sequel or a remake. In Ganglands, a crew of expert armed robbers are drawn into a gang war: They’re so dang good at crimes, everyone wants to hire them, even the people they rob.
Leclercq and writer Hamid Hlioua have created a muscular little thriller anchored by strong leading performances and the director’s tension-filled style of building action and conflict. The second season was recently released on Netflix, and both seasons are very much worth your time. —Pete Volk
Lupin
Image: Netflix
The thrill of the heist — there’s just nothing like it. Ask Assane Diop (Omar Sy). He’s been working as a con artist and thief for years, drawing his inspiration (and moniker) from an obsession with the literary gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. His thrills are hard-won, but they’re also smoothly meticulous. For Assane, the art of the heist — even with a priceless diamond necklace worn by Marie Antoinette — is a given.
What comes less naturally is revenge. Lupin’s first season follows his quest to seek vengeance on the rich family that wronged his father, and the show is full of twists and turns as his mission starts to bleed from his gentleman thief persona back into his real life.
The French series was a breakout hit when it premiered on Netflix, thanks in large part to Sy’s performance. He is magnetic as he makes con artistry look easy, with the sort of natural charm that makes you believe he can fake his way into any vault or safe in France (and that’s all before we get into his thieving skills and connections). With a heist, the end is, typically, self-assured. Sy’s performance ensures Lupin has the same confidence, and makes every step of the ride along the way its own thrill. —ZM
Mindhunter
Image: Netflix
David Fincher’s exacting vision is applied to the television format in one of the best shows Netflix has ever produced. Over two seasons, odd-couple FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (the terrific Holt McCallany) interview serial killers in the burgeoning field of criminal psychology.
In a nice twist on conventional character tropes, it is the young agent who is often cold and emotionally removed, and the older one who worries about the consequences of their actions. Their chemistry, as well as Mindhunter’s deep study of our culture around serial killers and the approach to stopping them, makes the show excellent, and it never veers into the exploitation of its peers in the genre.
How exacting is Fincher’s vision? Take a look at this mind-blowing VFX reel from the show, which literally changed how I watch modern cinema. —PV
Monster
Image: Madhouse/Viz Media
If you’re a fan of the 1960s crime drama series The Fugitive, you’ll likely love the 2004 anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s psychological thriller manga. After all, the series was inspired by it! Set in Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Monster centers on the story of Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon living in Düsseldorf. After being implicated in the murders of his superiors, Kenzo must go on the run to clear his name by tracking down the real culprit: a young man he once treated.
Spanning 74 episodes, Monster is a labyrinthine drama filled with a rich cast of characters and enough harrowing twists and revelations to fill a Matryoshka doll. —TE
The Night Agent
Photo: Dan Power/Netflix
Sometimes, you want a “light brain” thriller — something not too deep that might be perfect for a bucket of popcorn or for background viewing while you fold some laundry. The Night Agent is Netflix’s quintessential plot-heavy popcorn thriller, elevated to solid fare thanks to the surprising chemistry between its two leads.
Adapted by The Shield creator Shawn Ryan from the novel, The Night Agent stars Gabriel Basso as an FBI agent who has been relegated to watching a phone that never rings in the basement in the White House. When that phone does ring one night, he and the person on the other end (Luciane Buchanan) are brought into a vast conspiracy that threatens to unravel everything he knows. —PV
You
Image: Netflix
No one is doing it like Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley). The man is in a league of his own when it comes to stalking women and obsessing over them. This is the double-edged sword of watching You and following Joe in his unethical exploits: He is outright the villain of his own story.
Luckily, You is very aware of this, taking the initial premise of the first season — boy meets girl, boy stalks girl, boy manipulates her whole life to a dangerous degree — and continues flipping it over, putting Joe through his paces, letting him scramble to cover his ass as he gets in deeper and deeper. Each You season is a flavor unto itself, switching locales and ladies and letting Joe make the worst kind of case for himself.
You is not a show for the faint of heart, but it’s also not a thriller that rests easily on its underlying darkness. Joe may be an absolute piece of shit (even Badgley thinks so, and would really like it if you did too), but the show knows how to keep him engaging as it turns the screws on him. Each of the four seasons challenges him in new ways, and it makes for a snaky and startlingly good time. With You there’s only one thing you can always expect: for Joe to go to extreme and violent lengths to prove he’s not the bad guy. Also a plexiglass vault. —ZM
Persona 3 Reload is a long game with an emotional ending — made more emotional by the sheer amount of time you’ve spent in this world and with these characters. If you got the game’s true ending, you may still find yourself watching the credits and asking: Wait, is there anything I could’ve done differently?
In this Persona 3 Reload guide, we’ll walk you through the ending of the game, the fate of the game’s protagonist (Makoto Yuki), what influence you have over its outcome (if any), and how it all connects to Episode Aigis — the upcoming epilogue expansion.
[Spoiler Warning: This post contains major spoilers for the true ending of Persona 3 Reload and some minor spoilers for “The Answer”epilogue from Persona 3 FES, which is being remade into the upcoming Episode Aigis DLC for Persona 3 Reload. If you want to stay as spoiler-free as possible, bookmark this guide and return to it once you see the credits roll. In the meantime, check out our guides for classroom answers and social link requirements.]
Graphic: Polygon | Source images: Atlus/Sega
Is the protagonist dead at the end of Persona 3 Reload?
Image: Atlus/Sega via Polygon
Yes. When the protagonist falls asleep in Aigis’ lap, as all his friends are rushing up to the rooftop of the school, he passes away. This happens regardless of whether you choose the “……” option or the “Close them” option when the game tells you your eyes feel heavy. The blue butterfly fluttering away is meant to symbolize the character’s death in that moment.
OK, but how do we know for sure? Well, that answer — funnily enough — comes from the game’s epilogue expansion called “The Answer,” which is a part of Persona 3 FES. That expansion is not part of Persona 3 Reload, but it’s coming in September of 2024 as the Episode Aigis DLC.
In “The Answer” — and presumably Episode Aigis, based on how faithful Reload is to Persona 3 FES — you play as Aigis a few weeks after graduation and the death of the Leader character (which the game explicitly calls out). If you look back at the final battle against Nyx, the protagonist uses the Universe Persona to perform the Great Seal ability. The cost for casting Great Seal is equal to the Leader’s max health, suggesting that he gave everything to stop Nyx.
The death is a little bit more complex than that, but we’ll leave you to discover those answers in Episode Aigis. Just trust for now that — unless Atlus makes an absolutely massive change to the story — the Leader is dead.
Can you save the Leader in Persona 3 Reload?
Image: Atlus/Sega via Polygon
No, technically. While you can choose to get the bad ending for Persona 3 Reload and kill Ryoji back in December, it’s understood that everyone on Earth will eventually die in that reality — even if you never see it. In order for everyone else to survive in Persona 3 Reload, the Leader must give up their own life to stop Nyx.
Sacrifice is part of the main story thrust of Persona 3 Reload, with many players losing loved ones to heroic moments of sacrifice. Yukari and Mitsuru’s fathers are both great examples of this theming at work. By dying for his friends and the world, the protagonist’s death completes the sacrificial theme.
Enjoy the game’s beautiful final moments knowing that you did nothing wrong here. You got the game’s good — albeit bittersweet — ending.
The 2024 Academy Awards are in the books, which means we’ve finally reached the end of awards season. (That sound you hear is countless pop culture bloggers breathing a collective sigh of relief.) While there weren’t too many surprises during the show, the Oscars did what it does best: celebrate some of the best movies of the year, while giving a generational filmmaker his worthy coronation on Hollywood’s biggest night. Below, we break down the biggest winners and losers from Sunday’s festivities.
Winner: The Oscars
The Academy may not want to consider itself to be in crisis mode, but the Oscars haven’t been in the best place lately: the ratings continue to be in a freefall, and the most memorable moments of the past decade happen to involve an infamous Best Picture envelope mishap and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in the face. But even though most of the awards on Sunday night had predictable outcomes, the Oscars managed to be something the ceremony has sorely lacked: fun.
Ryan Gosling blew the roof off the Dolby Theatre with his lively rendition of “I’m Just Ken”; a naked John Cena realized we can see him (more on that shortly); the acting categories tried something different by having former Oscar winners give stirring tributes to each nominee. These moments and more contributed to the Oscars accomplishing what it should strive to do each year: celebrating the power of cinema with humor and heart.
Winner: The Christopher Nolan Victory Lap
Sometimes, the Oscars take a while to anoint an artist with a long-overdue statuette. After delivering masterpieces like Raging Bull and Goodfellas, it took until The Departed for Martin Scorsese to finally win an Oscar; Leonardo DiCaprio, meanwhile, had to eat raw bison liver in The Revenant to receive the Oscar he had long been craving. In that spirit, the 2024 Academy Awards will forever be known as the Christopher Nolan Oscars, with Oppenheimer taking home seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. But what’s so thrilling about Nolan’s coronation on the Oscars stage is that it’s a result of what may be the best film of the director’s distinguished career: a three-hour biopic that captivated moviegoers around the world and made nearly a billion dollars in the process.
Also exciting: Nolan is 53, which in filmmaking terms—health permitting—means he’s got decades ahead of him to outdo what he achieved in Oppenheimer. Perhaps this won’t be the last time we see Nolan going on stage to accept an Oscar or two; we live in a twilight world, after all.
Loser: Barbie
For anyone who felt like Barbie was already dismissed by the Academy, which failed to nominate Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie for Best Director and Best Actress, respectively, the Oscars did little to dispel that notion. Despite being up for eight awards, Barbie only managed a single win, for Best Original Song, courtesy of Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell’s “What Was I Made For?” (One bit of good news: by winning, the 22-year-old Eilish and 26-year-old O’Connell became the youngest people in history to win two Oscars.)
While Barbie was an outsider for Best Picture, it stood a much better chance of making some headway for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. In both of these categories, though, Barbie lost out to Poor Things, which, as many people have noted, feels like a bizarro version of Barbie itself by way of Frankenstein’s Monster. It was a night to forget for Barbie, but that should be of little consequence. After all, Barbie was the highest-grossing movie of 2023: to paraphrase its Oscar-winning song, that’s what it was made for.
Loser, Somehow: Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese has a long and storied history at the Oscars, and unfortunately, he’s often been on the losing end of things: both Gangs of New York and The Irishman had the honor of being nominated for 10 Oscars—and the ignominy of winning zero of them. Now, sadly, we can add Killers of the Flower Moon to that list, and like Scorsese’s previous epics, it deserved much better.
There are two categories, in particular, where Killers of the Flower Moon should feel hard done by. For one, there was a time when Lily Gladstone seemed like a lock to win Best Actress: not only was her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart the soul of the film, but she would’ve become the first Native American to win an acting Oscar. Alas, the award went to Poor Things star Emma Stone, who looks like she’s living out the second season of The Curse in real time. And while Ludwig Goransson was widely tapped to win Best Original Score for his work in Oppenheimer, spare a thought for the late Robbie Robertson, whose music made a memorable imprint on Killers of the Flower Moon. All told, Scorsese’s latest masterpiece deserved better from the Academy; here’s hoping he has more luck with his adaptation of The Wager.
Winner: Cord Jefferson
In the past five years alone, American Fiction writer-director Cord Jefferson has put together an impressive body of work, writing episodes of The Good Place, Station Eleven, and HBO’s Watchmen miniseries, the latter of which won him an Emmy. (He was also a consultant on Succession, which just so happens to be one of the best shows of its era.) Now, Jefferson can add a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar to his resume—in his directorial debut, no less—punctuated by a charming acceptance speech imploring Hollywood to make more $20 million movies instead of placing all their bets on one $200 million blockbuster.
Also, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Jefferson became the first person to win an Oscar who used to be an editor at Gawker (RIP). It’s been a brutal few months in digital media; Cord’s Oscar win is a win for journos everywhere.
Winner: John Cena’s … Bits
To commemorate (?) the 50th anniversary of the time a streaker ran across the stage during the 46th Academy Awards, John Cena briefly appeared naked on stage to present Best Costume Design. Poor Things ended up winning the Oscar, but that’s not what viewers are going to remember. Yes, that was an (absolutely shredded) WWE star actually waltzing on stage with just an envelope covering his crotch. There’s a universe in which this bit about Cena’s, ahem, bits, failed spectacularly, but if Dave Bautista is the WWE-turned-actor GOAT, Cena is far and away the funniest performer who started out in professional wrestling. The fact that this moment didn’t fall flat is a testament to Cena’s gifts for physical comedy. (Also, shout-out to that quick wardrobe change.) Hollywood, keep putting John Cena in comedies—just make them better than RickyStanicky.
Impossible to Categorize: Al Pacino Announcing Best Picture
The Academy brought out some legends of cinema throughout the evening—none other than Steven Spielberg handed Nolan his Best Director Oscar—but the ceremony saved the best for last. Al Pacino was on hand to present Best Picture, and he was rightly given a standing ovation by the attendees when he came on stage. Even among A-listers, the living legend who starred in the Godfather trilogy, Serpico, Heat, Dog Day Afternoon, Scent of a Woman, and so many more classics is in a league of his own.
But as has been proved throughout his iconic career, Pacino also marches to the beat of his own drum: You never know what he’s going to do, or how he’s going to enunciate a line of dialogue. (“She’s got a GREAT ASS” lives in my head rent-free.) And after all the anticipation for the final award of the night, Best Picture, my guy anticlimactically opened the envelope, looked inside, and said, “My eyes see Oppenheimer?”
I’m obsessed with the way Al Pacino announced Oppenheimer as Best Picture. couldn’t have been more chaotic or confusing lol
“Best Picture…uh, I have to go to the envelope for that. And I will. Here it comes. And my eyes see Oppenheimer?”#Oscarspic.twitter.com/a0hNQ4ZP7j
Yes, Al Pacino turned his Best Picture announcement into a question with all the energy of someone who was brought on stage without any advance warning. Give him an Oscar for this performance, and let him announce every category next year.
Loser: Messi’s Haters
For anyone who watched Anatomy of a Fall, the true star of the film is Messi, the family dog who was integral to the plot—all the way down to the final verdict in the courtroom. Messi genuinely delivered what might be the best performance a dog has ever given on-screen, and he was given the A-list treatment throughout awards season, giving “interviews” on red carpets and appearing at official Oscars functions. Incredibly, some awards strategists were pissed about Messi stealing the limelight in the lead-up to the Oscars, fearing that this good boy would sway Academy members to give their vote to Anatomy of a Fall, and there were even reports that he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. Well, suck it, haters: not only was Messi in attendance, he was applauding during the show and peed on Matt Damon’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Is Messi the reason that Anatomy of a Fall ended up winning Best Original Screenplay? Who’s to say, but between the dog and the soccer player he’s named after, it’s safe to say that America has Messi Fever.
What the wannabe successors proved (that everyone seemed to know at the time except IP-hungry executives?) is that Thrones’ secret wasn’t scale, but substantive drama. A great show needs characters with big questions and big goals, but down-to-earth emotions. The balance of a continent could hinge on valiant knights and ancient prophecy and dragon battles as long as when those involved got mad, it felt like actual people getting mad. For all the finale-related flack, Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were afforded the time and space to adapt the human side of Martin’s sprawling narrative as well as its set-pieces. So it’s no surprise that while the rest of Hollywood chased tentpoles, Benioff and Weiss set their boyhood dreams of making a Star Wars movie aside (phew, crisis averted) to cash their chips on a deal where they could demand time and space and quality work that didn’t involve swordplay.
And they actually did it: Teaming up with veteran TV writer Alexander Woo (The Terror season 2), their new Netflix series 3 Body Problem, like Thrones, feels epic in scale while probing the messiness of human instinct. Movies like Interstellar and Solaris ventured into deep space to confront our innate spirituality, but 3 Body Problem season 1 sticks close to home to the benefit of its characters, who juggle romantic relationships and work-life stress and impending doom. Still, there is something extraterrestrial out there in the universe, a cosmic unknown. Benioff, Weiss, and Woo treat that promise like a chemical pipetted into a petri dish. Just a few drops of knowledge cause an instant reaction with consequences that will only be felt hundreds of years in the future.
Image: Netflix
The showrunner trio adapts Liu Cixin’s famed Remembrance of Earth’s Past science fiction trilogy with both reverence and an eye toward storytelling economics. The core drama of 3 Body Problem season 1, focused on a set of physicists out to understand what the hell is going on in the universe, weaves together people, places, and things from across all three books in order to be propulsively paced while easily digested. Die-hard readers may miss Liu’s dense “far out, man”-core style, but the pillar moments remain. Early episodes bounce from China’s Cultural Revolution to present-day London to virtual reality landscapes that hold the key to greater mysteries. The prickly politics of solving Earth’s perilous future simmer across timelines. Benioff, Weiss, and Woo don’t dumb any of it down as they tear through the plot, relying on genre conventions to keep it all watchable. (British mysteries like Broadchurch and Happy Valley feel as much part of the show’s DNA as any sci-fi series.)
Perhaps a 10- or 12-episode season would have made room for deeper character work, but the writers are pros at making every line of dialogue illustrative of their characters’ deeper motivations, and every silent gesture — staring at the stars, gasping at equations, even watching a kid play Mortal Kombat — speaks volumes. Unlike recent Netflix adaptations that have crammed long narratives into uncompromising run times by removing all downtime “filler,”3 Body Problem is full of humanity’s quirks. The show has religious zealots, anxious nerds, quiet romantics, and Benedict Wong as a no-bullshit cop. There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo about quantum physics and gravitational interaction, but also one of the best on-screen meet-my-family awkward dinner dates in recent memory.
Doing the Lord’s work is actor Jess Hong, a relative newcomer and the nexus of all of 3 Body Problem’s narrative strands. In a cast full of Game of Thrones veterans and big-screen talent like Wong and Eiza González (Baby Driver, Godzilla vs. Kong), Hong takes on the burden of making all of the show’s otherworldly turns feel totally natural. Whether her character, Jin, is sipping a beer and making pub chat or navigating the immersive third level of the least fun virtual puzzle game ever invented, she reflects an authentic reality that’s increasingly tested by the show’s oddities. 3 Body Problem ultimately questions whether we deserve the planet we have so often fucked up. Hong’s Jin, in all her ups and downs, glimmers with the kind of humanity that we want to believe in.
Jess Hong as JinPhoto: Ed Miller/Netflix
It really helps that Netflix didn’t skimp on 3 Body Problem, which, for all its character drama, goes big when it needs to go big. Benioff and Weiss’ clout has bought them the kind of top-tier production value that I thought only David Fincher commanded; flashbacks to the 1960s/’70s China feel rich in detail, while scenes set in the present-day drama have a refined look, rather than the cheap digital sheen that’s plagued so many post-Fincher Netflix projects. Anyone haunted by awful renderings of VR in movies and TV will be relieved by the show’s intentionally uncanny, often fantastical digital worlds that look like actual Unreal Engine survival-game backdrops. And when 3 Body Problem kicks into a high sci-fi gear, the show gets truly mind-bending — and often gnarly. The giddy provocateurs who orchestrated the Red Wedding are absolutely at the helm of this series.
I’m a little in awe of 3 Body Problem. Liu’s books are like a character study of humanity itself; there is inherently too much to chew on. But Benioff, Weiss, and Woo came ready to cook. Their adaptation is gripping from the start and already prioritizing the pieces needed for a coherent endgame. From the trilogy’s pages of information they’ve carved out a visual story, dazzling and frightening. There are nits to pick from episode to episode, leaps in logic that may not stand up to scrutiny, but it’s a show that, unlike the Game of Thrones imitators, swept me up. Most of those shows settled on escapism. 3 Body Problem feels like a true escape, an excuse to wonder about the vastness of the cosmos from the comfort of the couch and wonder, What if?
I’m very drunk and decided to rewatch Avatar after watching nostalgia critics review of the shamaylan movie I had sucj a crush on Katara as a kid imagine ypr a 12 year old boy stuck in a ball of ice for 100 years and the first thing you see after waking up is a cute brown skin girl staring you practically nose to nose in the face boner
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