In the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans has finished up his role as Captain America and Steve Rogers has been given his much-needed retirement. Now there is a void, which can hopefully be filled in by his two best friends. Sam Wilson, the titular Falcon (played by Anthony Mackie), has been in six movies as of this point. Not everyone can check out every MCU flick, so a refresher course is in order on who Sam is and why he’s been hand-picked to be the next Captain America....

The Flash Season 8 Episode 4 Almost anyone who has watched The Flash for any length of time knows there really three certain things in life: Death, taxes, and the Reverse Flash. By far the most iconic of Barry Allen’s foes, Eobard Thawne is guaranteed to turn up every few seasons like clockwork, in an attempt to kill The Flash, steal his speed, or just generally ruin his life. The danger, of course, lies in the risk of repeated Reverse Flash appearances becoming stale or boring, even repetitive at certain points....

The Flash Season 8 Episode 19 Few things are certain in the world of The Flash and several are downright inexplicable (you try coherently describing how the Forces of Nature are meant to function as both people and physical places, is what I’m saying). But one thing is always true: No matter what timeline or time period we’re talking about, The Reverse Flash will do his best to bring down Central City’s hero....

From the Washington D.C. mouth-rings to Emily’s bandages to Janine’s missing eye, The Handmaid’s Tale has a knack for creating indelible, horrific images. The season four finale gave us another: the headless corpse of Fred Waterford strung up on a wall sprayed with the legend ‘Nolite te bastardes carborundorum’. It’s an image, showrunner Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter, that June now sees every time that she closes her eyes....

Shortly after The Haunting of Bly Manor, the followup to Netflix’s massively successful Haunting of Hill House, was announced, series creator Mike Flanagan made an intriguing promise via his Twitter. “We are already discussing how to up our hidden ghost game,” the prolific horror writer and director wrote. Flanagan was referring to the fact that The Haunting of Hill House was positively teeming with ghostly Easter eggs. In many scenes throughout the series’ 10 episodes ghosts can be seen quietly languishing away in the shadows....

The Magicians Season 2 Episode 11 The Magicians is rarely predictable, and “The Rattening” is the perfect example of the show’s ability to surprise viewers who think they’ve got it all figured out. The journey to the Underworld, the addition of Penny’s young companion, the self-realization of Senator Gaines, and the sudden fissure between Eliot and Margo all go in directions no one would expect. The stories aren’t remotely related this time around, but it doesn’t seem to matter at this point....

The Magicians Season 3 Episode 9 As the third musical episode of The Magicians in as many seasons (which implies that this might be an annual occurrence), “All That Josh” had an obligation not to hit any sour notes. Fortunately, the musical unity of the cast was accompanied by some satisfyingly triumphant moments, the combination of which was gloriously entertaining. As a result the quest for the fifth key, no matter now ridiculous the premise, was the best one since Quentin and Eliot’s alternate life in Fillory....

The assassin introduced in The Mandalorian season 1 episode “The Gunslinger” seemed like an exciting new character to add to the show’s noteworthy lineup of rogues…until she was unceremoniously killed off. Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) was a masterful sharpshooter, known for her skills with a sniper rifle and as one of the most dangerous assassins in the galaxy, so it seemed like a waste that she was set up as a one-off character....

You can watch the trailer here: Lana Wachowski’s follow-up to the original Matrix trilogy promises to reawaken the freedom fighters from their virtual prisons in a new generation. One of the most satisfying things about the teaser, of course, is that even after several minutes of mouthwatering footage, we still don’t understand what is going on. Is this another version of Neo reincarnated as with previous Matrix cycles, or did the Neo we followed 20 years ago get literally resurrected?...

Merchant himself stars in the show alongside Rhianne Barreto, Darren Boyd, Gamba Cole, Clare Perkins, Eleanor Tomlinson and Christopher Walken as the misfit convicts. We sat down with him to chat about British humor, comic book movies, and Christopher Walken’s cooking. Where did the idea for The Outlaws come from? Were you concerned about how US audiences would react to the Britishness of the show? I think my concern is if you start to iron out the specificity and you don’t make any cultural references to specifically British things, I think it starts to exist in a no man’s land that’s not quite America or England....

There’s a lot to take in during the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, from the introduction of multiple cultures and people across Middle-earth (and beyond), shots of dazzling new locations, and a rapid-fire crash course in the history of the First Age and war against Morgoth. But one of the weirdest moments had to be the crash landing of what appeared to be a fiery comet, but actually turned out to be a raggedy man with no obvious identity....

The first two episodes of The Rings of Power packed in plenty of surprises for anxious Lord of the Rings fans. Not only did we learn what all of that meteor business was about but the show also set up the potential origin story of a particularly beloved Middle-earth character, all while introducing us to a whole new clan of sneaky Hobbits (or “Harfoots,” as the show calls them) and teasing the pivotal part they’ll play in the history of the Second Age....

But that’s a minor thing: The Shape of Water is simply a gorgeous dark fantasy peopled with wonderfully drawn characters, laced with a frank sexuality (something new to the del Toro playbook) and layered in rich metaphorical meanings. In customary style, it’s filmed and designed to perfection as well, with the director creating a 1962 Cold War period piece that is exquisitely detailed and also relevant to the times at hand....

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 12 The Simpsons Season 32, episode 12, “Diary Queen,” may be the sweetest offering of the series. It’s not only sentimental and self-esteem-positive, it’s downright edumacational. At least for Bart, who certainly learns a lesson. Thankfully, as the episode explains by example, he probably won’t retain it. “What’s the matter, Bart? I figure you’d be used to failing by now,” Edna Krabappel once consoled the spiky haired kid who seemed so determined to get through school without schooling....

Playing one of only four returning characters, one would think that Joel Kinnaman would be carrying some benefits and some baggage into The Suicide Squad. As it turns out, that’s half right: as Kinnaman tells us in an interview, the camaraderie and chemistry with his returning castmates is there, but any baggage of carrying the first movie’s “plot donkey” forward was completely lifted from him by the new director’s tone and style....

Building a crime thriller around that impulse makes the series relatable, says Carmichael. At its heart, the show is about ‘wanting to be a mum and wanting to be the perfect mum.’ As her character’s backstory unfolds, ‘you understand her’ says Carmichael, though ‘she absolutely puts people through hell.’ Whether Agatha could ever be forgiven, she says, is a question for the audience to mull. There’s no talk of a second series as yet for The Secret She Keeps....

Yet, if anything, the past 40 years has seen The Thing become one of the most beloved sci-fi horror movies of all time, influencing everything from Stranger Things to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. To paraphrase Die Hard 2, it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with Carpenter’s sci-fi led gorefest arriving alongside Blade Runner on June 25 of its year, just a few weeks after the family friendly alien fun of E....

Critically mauled on release and largely overlooked in cinemas, John Carpenter’s The Thing has only grown in stature since 1982. What were once condemned as deficiencies – its graphic gore and violence, icy tone and low-key characterization – are now generally regarded as positives. Its simple story about a group of scientists and misfits who encounter a shape-shifting alien in their Antarctic outpost, The Thing has aged remarkably well for a 35-year-old film: Rob Bottin’s practical effects are still extraordinarily imaginative, and fans still debate the finer points of its action today....

We’re glad that the esteemed Mr. del Toro—not just one of our finest modern filmmakers, but one of our most influential proponents of all things fantastical—has finally gotten to make Pinocchio just the way he wanted. But the truth is that it’s just one of many, many projects that del Toro has developed or been attached to over the years that nevertheless eluded him. This one just has a happier ending than many of the other projects....

These images are unofficially accompanied by a post on Geralt actor Henry Cavill’s Instagram account in which he shares this quote from the second Witcher novel, Time of Contempt, which will likely prove to be relevant to the upcoming season’s plot: “‘It may turn out,’ said the white-haired man a moment later, ‘that their comrades or cronies may ask what befell these evil men. Tell them the Wolf bit them....