Homeland Season 7 Episode 5 Russia, Russia, Russia. It seems that whatever timeline you exist in, that’s what we’re always destined to obsess about. Whether the 2016 election fell for a fictional TV creation or if it elected Elizabeth Keane to the highest office in the land, it seems Homeland suggests all roads lead back to Rome… by way of Moscow. That is the big takeaway from tonight’s hour, with Saul beginning to sound the alarm about Ruskie attempts to destabilize the U....

In the three centuries between Aegon the Conqueror and Aegon ‘the artist formerly known as Jon Snow’, there are a total of nine Aegons in the Targaryen family tree. That’s standard practice for a royal name (the English got stuck in an Edward and Henry rut for a good few centuries), but clearly impractical when it comes to deathbed wishes and ancient prophecies, as we shall see. In House of the Dragon episode eight ‘The Lord of the Tides’ something catastrophic happens to the Targaryens....

“The gods have a dark wit.” So muses Paddy Considine’s King Viserys I Targaryen in last night’s sordid and steamy episode of House of the Dragon. The aging king utters this while reflecting on the irony of his strong, handsome, and noble father dying from a “burst belly” after a hunt. No sword, no dragon, and no glory. It was a cruel twist of fate. But Viserys could just as well be referring to the narrative fates being spun in House of the Dragon’s writers room....

In the pilot episode, self-professed “Gentleman Pirate” Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) proclaims, “Traditionally piracy’s a culture of abuse: floggings, keelhaulings. And my thought is why? And also: what if it weren’t like that?” Stede’s question doesn’t just get to the heart of the show, it gets to the heart of activism. Real world activists pose the question, “why is there so much suffering and what can we do to change that?...

Riverdale Season 6 Episode 22 “We should all be together for whatever’s coming.” Why do I still try to predict what will happen on Riverdale? That is the question I found myself repeatedly asking while I sat down to write this review of the show’s sixth season finale. This is not a series that operates by any logistical sense, nor do the words of critics have any impact on the head-scratching journey that it takes its viewers on....

Starfleet doesn’t always seek out new life and new civilizations; sometimes, it accidentally creates it. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation can easily quote from various Picard monologues in the classic episode “The Measure of a Man,” but what about the Voyager episode “Author, Author?” Just like Data had to prove his sentience in TNG, the holographic Doctor fought for his rights to express himself when he released his holographic pseudo-memoir, Photons Be Free!...

This tumultuous upheaval among Marvel fandom was fallout from the very first big budget Spider-Man movie starring Tobey Maguire in 2002. In that movie, director Sam Raimi—along with undoubtedly a slew of producers and studio executives at Columbia Pictures/Sony—made the choice to give Maguire’s Peter Parker organic web fluid. The concept was a leftover from the unmade Spider-Man movie that was being prepared by director James Cameron in the period between Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and True Lies (1994)....

Hasbro has announced a most intriguing assortment in the form of Star Wars: Droids commemorative action figures. The Target-exclusive lineup specifically consists of a lone offering from the 6” scale Black Series in Boba Fett ($26.49), and three from the 3 ¾” Vintage Collection with the eponymous droids, C-3PO and R2-D2, along with yet another Boba Fett (each $15.99)—because, you know, it’s Boba Fett. Indeed, Disney+ series The Mandalorian effectively reintroduced the shady-but-beloved bounty hunter into the post-OT canon, which will soon manifest with spinoff The Book of Boba Fett, fueling any excuse for more of him....

It’s an awkward piece of self-aware dialogue but also a fair, if simplistic, summation of what a slasher movie is. Like a musical or a rom-com the slasher genre is one hardwired to hit the same familiar beats each time around and, like a musical or a rom-com, audiences keep coming back for more. Horror cinema’s pilgrimage to mainstream TV in the 2000s has helped open our eyes to plenty of diverse new genre TV....

Like death row inmate Jefferson Grieff, Inside Man wants more life. That’s the only explanation for its post-credits scene, which added nothing but questions to an already unsatisfying story. After the credits rolled on the fourth and final episode, lingering viewers saw Grieff (Stanley Tucci) and his companion/human recording device Dillon being led into the interview room of their US prison. There, they met Janice Fife, the British woman whose murder Grieff had averted a week earlier from across the Atlantic using a combination of his criminologist nous and his best guess (“Guessing is how reason proceeds in the absence of fact” is one of his Sherlock-ian slogans)....

The details of Isaac’s involvement are few and far between at this time, but some have already pointed out that Isaac’s loaded upcoming schedule (which includes Moon Knight and an HBO miniseries) likely means that the Metal Gear Solid movie likely won’t start filming until sometime later in 2021. Even then, that’s an optimistic projection that doesn’t necessarily account for the million things that can happen between now and then as well as the chaotic state of the film industry these days....

Well, the unfortunate answer to that question is “no,” but that’s not the same as claiming Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a restrictive experience. Each new mainline Pokémon game is designed to one-up the previous entries. New moves are added, stats have been rebalanced, and, in the case of Pokémon Sword and Shield, routes were primarily replaced with semi-open Wild Areas. Following that evolutionary path, it’s only natural to assume that Pokémon Legends: Arceus boasts the kind of full open-world that some Pokémon fans have been dreaming of....

Like most things in the DCEU, Eisenberg’s Luthor met a great deal of criticism. But while most aspects of Snyder’s films have garnered their strong defenders, not too many have stood up for a supervillain who threatens people with jars of pee and jolly ranchers. But even today, Eisenberg remains proud of his performance. “I felt very personal about it,” he told Deadline. Specifically, the actor praises the work done by Batman v Superman screenwriter Chris Terrio to shape the character....

In old LEGO Star Wars games, players had to uncover rare Red Bricks in order to unlock specific cheat modes. The Skywalker Saga makes that process a bit easier. Players still need to purchase cheats and extra modes, but, unlike the old Red Brick system, any Datacard can be traded in for any extra mode. Even though LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has 20 extra modes in total, the game only includes 19 collectible Datacards....

“Last week, S.E. Hinton, author of the well-known YA series The Outsiders, made a condescending and obtuse remark on the validity of graphic novels on her Twitter. Naturally, Twitter went ablaze and swiftly set Hinton straight—but it’s still worth remembering that, whether or not you may personally believe it to be so, graphic novels are real books with literary merit and worthy of respect.” Read more at The Mary Sue....

“With each passing year, the idea that video games are only for children becomes an increasingly alien concept. Today’s biggest hits are mature, not just in their levels of copious violence, but also in their attempts to grapple with serious themes. Whether or not they succeed is a matter of opinion, but they are trying. These games are proving time and again that there’s a real audience of adult gamers....

“Spider-Man: No Way Home was so full of supervillains some of them barely had anything to do. But was the movie still missing one evil miscreant? Recently revealed concept art reveals the role Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhall in Far From Home) almost played in the movie, and the epic wizard battle we almost got to see onscreen. What was Quentin Beck up to in No Way Home? And what does this mean for Mysterio’s future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?...

“It’s been 20 years this week since Hayao Miyazaki’s wondrous rite-of-passage saga Spirited Away was first released in theaters in Japan. The winner of the 2003 Academy Award for animated feature and, up until just recently, the highest grossing film in Japanese history.” Read more at Thrillist Why you should revisit the original Planet of the Apes series streaming on HBO Max right now. Read more at Inverse Has the MCU found its Storm?...

“Back in 2017, Marvel started developing New Warriors, another Marvel superhero series centered on a team of young adults, with the cable network Freeform. Though the project never made it past the pilot stage and had been officially shuttered by 2019, showrunner Kevin Biegel (Cougar Town) is finally opening up about what was meant to be.” Read more at Inverse Will Dexter be able to redeem itself from the disappointment of the previous series finale?...

This city needs a hero, or maybe just some vengeance, but your collection needs one of these fantastic Batman comics from DC. In honor of the caped crusader returning to the big screen for his first solo outing in nearly a decade, we’re giving away three amazing Batman comics to three lucky winners courtesy of eBay. These rare, graded comics could be yours by entering our giveaway exclusively on our Instagram!...