The Testaments finally spotlights Aunt Lydia as it airs a big, game-changing episode
"Was I a phoenix rising from the ashes? Or a cockroach? I don’t know, but I was alive."
The Handmaid's Tale was, by definition, the story of a Handmaid named June Osborn (Elisabeth Moss) who fought to escape the tyranny of Gilead. But within the wider tale of this fascist regime, other voices soon came to the fore. Chief among them was Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), a cruel taskmaster who punished June and the Handmaids when they stepped out of line. Here was a woman who subjugated other women like her in a violent patriarchy just to uphold the status quo. Yet as monstrous as she was, Lydia only grew more fascinating over time once the cracks in her armour started to show. It was with great anticipation then that fans came into The Testaments hoping to understand Lydia better (and perhaps watch Dowd nab another Emmy for playing her in the process). Five episodes in, she's largely been absent though, save for a few sporadic scenes following her introduction to Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti) at the start. While it was smart to focus on the new characters first, establishing them as important in their own right, longtime fans of the franchise have been waiting to scratch that itch and dive into what Lydia's been up to (especially for those already familiar with her trajectory in Margaret Atwood's book). After five episodes of switching between Agnes and Daisy (Lucy Halliday), the latest episode of The Testaments finally adopts Lydia's viewpoint via, not just narration, but also flashbacks to her life pre-Gilead. It's there that we come to realise she and Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li) actually knew each other prior to the takeover. They were working together as teachers in a school when Gilead agents stormed in and took over as part of a larger, nationwide coup. Like they did in The Handmaid's Tale, such scenes provide us with horrifying glimpses of that sudden change in leadership and how it looked for women throughout the country who suddenly lost everything. Well, except for Lydia. Upon witnessing the murder of multiple women who were shot in the stadium where they'd been rounded up, Lydia realised she would have to change if she were to survive this new world order: "Men who understand the power of women, who want to control it instead of deny it… There is no one more terrifying." To ingratiate herself to those in power, Lydia began to make suggestions to Commander Judd (Charlie Carrick), suggestions that would go on to shape the formation of Gilead itself as we know it now. "If you believe society is best served by separate spheres for men and women, shouldn’t they be truly separate?" pointed out Lydia. "Who’s going to teach the women to be better women?" Yep, Lydia is the one who came up with the Aunt system she went on to lead. And later, we find out that she even helped pick out the fabric of their uniform, choosing the most uncomfortable option to bypass the "ease and comfort" which bred "entitled little brats" in the "old world." How much of this was a survival measure and how much of this radical ideology did Lydia truly believe in? It seems she herself began to lose sight of the truth, asking, "Was I a phoenix rising from the ashes? Or a cockroach? I don’t know, but I was alive." That belief in both herself and Gilead was tested when Lydia was forced to raise a gun to one of the women bound in the stadium, only to discover that it was her old colleague looking up at her. "Please," begged Aunt Vidala. "I don’t want to die, Lydia. Don’t. Please." View Green Video on the source website We already knew she would survive given her involvement in the present, but what we didn't know was that Lydia would actually pull the trigger on Vidala, only for us to quickly realise that the gun hadn't been loaded. As Lydia said earlier on in the same episode, "I learned quickly that having friends in Gilead is a liability and only brings suffering." This is exactly the kind of character development that viewers have been waiting for. Not only does this help us better understand the moral greys that Lydia has always worked within, such scenes also provide greater insight into her position within Gilead and how a woman rose to such prominence in a malicious, male-led society. The timing of it all couldn't be more perfect either, not just because the new cast needed their own chance to shine, but because of how these flashbacks recontextualise a big reveal that suddenly comes at the end of the episode. Back in the present, Lydia and the other Aunts raise a glass to all the hard work they've put into matching each of their girls with a Commander. But after the others leave, Lydia's narration chimes back in, reminding herself of the promise she made to the girls after the deaths of those in her charge during the attacks on Jezebel's and Boston (as seen in The Handmaid's Tale). "I vowed to document everything and everyone," recalls Lydia. "Aunts were allowed to write, we were the only women who could. But what was I writing? The crimes of weak men and too many women." Yep, Lydia has decided to "bring down these men" from the inside, collecting evidence that can one day be used against them and destroy Gilead for good. "May God protect these girls, because I’m not sure I can…" <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/04/1774060126RT-7f143d9.jpg" width="3000" height="2000" alt="THE TESTAMENTS - “Daisy” - An incident on a school trip spurs Daisy’s memories of Toronto, revealing her past and a world shattered by violence. (Disney/Russ Martin) Mattea Conforti, Lucy Halliday and Chase Infiniti star in The Testaments; their characters are stood outside a brick building, wearing neat uniforms and talking with one another" title="MATTEA CONFORTI, LUCY HALLIDAY, CHASE INFINITI" /> It's quite the contrast from when we first watched Lydia devote herself to this regime in flashbacks from the very same episode. But that was the point, not just to misdirect us from the twist that's about to come, but also to remind us that her allegiance to Gilead didn't come as easy as others might assume. When this shift happened exactly isn't clear, although the final season of The Handmaid's Tale hinted this could happen, especially in regard to Lydia's love for Janine (Madeline Brewer), a perpetually abused Handmaid who she formed a deep connection with. But at the end of the day, Lydia has always tried to protect the women she's in charge of. Or at least, that's what she always told herself so she could sleep better at night. Readers of the book this show is based on will have already seen this twist coming. But no matter. Weaving it in at this precise moment, just as the show hammered down on Lydia's past misdeeds, is a genius move, one that bodes well for how this game-changing development will continue to evolve in the episodes that remain this season. So does this all mean that redemption is at hand for Aunt Lydia? The Testaments isn't quite her story in the same way that The Handmaid's Tale was for June. But together with Agnes and Daisy, Lydia can at least strive for something better, even if it doesn't make up for all her past atrocities. View Green Video on the source website The Testaments continues to air on Disney+ every Wednesday. Add The Testaments to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. 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The Testaments introduces a dark spin on Bridgerton in disturbing episode 5
The latest episode grotesquely contorts the glamorous imagery of Netflix's romantic drama.
Gorgeous gowns. Stolen glances. The swell of orchestral music as your heart sings at the sight of him. For the women in Bridgerton, the balls are a source of joy. Well, joy when it all goes according to plan. There's also the anxiety that comes with the flutter of young love and the fear of rejection that goes with it. And that's all assuming you even want to get married and agree to what society demands of you. As season 5 of Bridgerton will soon remind us, not every woman is interested in marriage — or men for that matter either. Yet even with all that added pressure, the balls in Bridgerton are still a dream compared to what the main characters in Gilead endure when they attend a Prom of their own. The latest episode of The Testaments introduces a darker spin on those signature dances from Bridgerton, even if the end goal remains the same. In both cases, the young women must make themselves as presentable as possible, hoping to win a man over and secure their future with him. Except, the young women in Gilead aren't women at all. They're still young girls, even if those in power try to suggest otherwise. As Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti) points out early on this episode, "Gilead limits adolescence." Before the Prom, you're a child. After the Prom, you're an adult. And this Prom dictates your entire future. Some of the girls seem excited, and why wouldn't they be? That's how they've been told to behave, conditioned all their lives to see marriage as the ultimate fulfilment. But darkness is already creeping in, forcing these girls to grow up far too soon. And it only gets worse when the Prom begins. Still reeling from Dr Grove's assault, Agnes tries to keep it together as middle-aged Commanders take her and others by the hand to dance. "I was dancing with a boy," she said to herself, trying to be excited. But that is no boy. Daisy (Lucy Halliday) recoils when an older Commander tries it on with her because she has a better sense of what's really going on thanks to her time in Canada. "If you're a good girl, this white might become green," the Commander tells her. "And you'll become ripe." Yep, the Prom in Gilead is nothing more than an excuse for perverted old men to round up little girls and abuse them before forcing them into marriage. It's disguised as a Disney fairytale akin to Bridgerton, but the truth is so much more sinister. Don't forget that some of these girls haven't even had their periods yet. But it's precisely because of their youth that so many of the girls go along with this, and even see each other as competition. To them, the Prom is everything, a chance to vie for the attention of the highest ranking Commanders to ensure their future in Gilead is a prosperous one. Agnes briefly realises that things don't have to be this way when she ends up dancing with Garth (Brad Alexander), the younger man she's had her eye on for some time now. "So this… this is what it’s supposed to feel like?" It's in this moment that The Testaments evokes the romanticism of Bridgerton without subverting it. A slow-motion caress as hands join… This is what it's supposed to feel like, but the show is only doing this to emphasise the reality of what's really happening here and remind us of what the girls are missing. The Testaments quickly pulls us back down to earth, however, when Becka Grove (Mattea Conforti) — who was never excited for Prom in the first place — is pressured into drinking alcohol she's too young for. And the reason why is all too horrifying. Daisy helps Becka get away from the Commander in question when it becomes obvious that she's drunk. It turns out she didn't eat beforehand because she was too anxious, and now she doesn't want to go back out there to face the men either. "I don’t want them touching me," says Becka. "I don’t want them looking at me. I know it’s a sin, but sometimes I pray to god to burn away the earth and extinguish the stars." Daisy tries to comfort Becka, saying that her bestie Agnes is there for her and loves her. "Not the way I love her," replies Becka, seeming to admit the sapphic feelings we've long suspected she holds for Agnes. Agnes isn't having the best time of it either, forced to explain how she'll exemplify her "wifely duties" to a room of Commanders after via web cam. View Green Video on the source website When the two girls reunite later, they talk of running away, eager to escape what's coming next now that the Prom is over. But all Agnes can think of is her crush on Garth. Were he to become a Commander, he'd be eligible to marry one of the girls. "And if he were eligible, he could become mine." "All I could think about was his eyes," adds Agnes. "His touch, his heat. I thought the world was full of possibility and hope," she tells us. But as we already know, this is no possibility for Agnes and the others. There is no hope. Manipulating them out of the childhood they deserve has already robbed these girls of their innocence. And no lavish Bridgerton-style ball or the promise of happiness in Gilead can ever hope to fix that. The Testaments is available to stream on Disney+ from Wednesday 8 April 2026. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month. Add The Testaments to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Testaments finally begins to reveal the true horrors of Gilead – but in a very different way to The Handmaid's Tale
The latest episode, titled Green Tea, ends with a deeply disturbing realisation.
**Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Testaments book and episode 4 of its streaming adaptation. It also contains discussions of sexual abuse that some readers may find distressing.** Watching The Testaments, there are moments where you almost forget just how awful Gilead really is. Almost. Everything looks so pristine, so cared for and well thought out. There's talk of kindness and consideration and doing what's right by your fellow man. But of course, it's all a lie. The fascist regime first established in The Handmaid's Tale is a living, breathing nightmare that skews dangerously close to where we're at in the real world these days. And it's not just those who watch from afar that recognise this. At the very beginning of spin-off The Testaments, Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti) is ashamed to admit that she once believed in the promise of Gilead. "It's easier to accept a story, even a childish one, than believe the people around you are monsters." But there are glimpses early on of just how monstrous this society truly is. Later in the premiere, Agnes and the other Plums are taken to see the dead bodies of those who would dare break the law in Gilead. "God's justice is beautiful," they say. Further down the line, a man caught "touching himself amongst us on school grounds" is tied down as a saw slices through his body. And with an audience, no less. The girls all scream at him, shouting: "Burn in hell." But in truth, they're already in hell, and it's these outlets for their suffering which help keep Agnes and the others going. Still, this is all treated as normal within the world of Gilead, and no one bats an eye. Well, no one except for Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a new Pearl who's only just recently moved there. We guess that's what happens when you're raised in a dystopian nightmare and don't know better. Still, it's not long before hints at something darker below this already hellish veneer start to make themselves known to Agnes and other girls too. In episode 2, we meet Becka's (Mattea Conforti) father, Dr Grove, who works as a dentist in Gilead. Agnes is at his office for a check-up, and it's all going well until Grove gets very creepy and very handsy. "You really are getting to be a big girl, Agnes," Grove says as he lightly strokes her breasts. Agnes is just as shocked as she is horrified, but the moment takes her by surprise, and she's been taught to always respect men above all else. Nothing really comes of this until episode 4 when another appointment with Grove is scheduled. But there's already a shift inside Agnes. As difficult as her life has been up until this point, she's always felt safe still within the structures that Gilead provides. That's suddenly changed now though, even if Agnes doesn't fully understand why. View Green Video on the source website Without any prior education on sex and consent, Agnes might not fully grasp the full extent of what's happened to her, but she knows it's wrong. The idea of seeing Grove again fills Agnes with dread, but go she must, because who is she to defy the adults who control her every waking moment? Although Daisy does pick up on Agnes's fear in the waiting room, she assumes it's just the typical anxiety one often feels getting their teeth checked. "I guess even in Gilead no one likes to go to the f**king dentist," Daisy thinks to herself. Agnes needs more dental work this time around, so Grove puts her to sleep with a mild sedative. What happens next isn't clear, not until Agnes gets home later that night. While getting ready for bed, Agnes notices that her shirt is undone. And it wasn't her who undid it. The episode ends with Agnes looking horrified as she stares into the mirror and realises what Grove must have done while she slept. Although the specifics might elude her, that feeling of being violated by someone she's supposed to trust threatens to undo Agnes entirely. Up until this point, the horrors of Gilead have mostly been kept to the periphery, at least when it comes to the central characters. This changes everything though, bringing The Testaments more closely in line with The Handmaid's Tale that came before it. There, June and other handmaids were constantly abused out in the open, front and centre. This was cruelty of a permissible kind, allowed within the framework of Gilead as a nation. But the abuse that Agnes endures is more insidious, hidden behind closed doors to maintain the illusion of kindness and perfection that forms the bedrock of this society. In the book that this show is based on – and be warned: there are big book spoilers ahead – Grove also sexually abused his daughter Becka from the age of four. Both girls refuse to report him, however, because they fear that they will be punished instead for trying to besmirch the doctor's good name. It's not until Aunt Lydia gets involved that justice is won in the form of Grove's public execution. Given the changes that have already been made from page to screen, it's unclear at this point whether Becka is also a victim of her father's abuse. What we do know though is that the evils of Gilead will always come to light eventually, regardless of the victim's status. And now we're approaching the halfway point, it seems that The Testaments is finally peeling back the true extent of this evil. Because it's only a matter of time before you can no longer pretend that the people around you aren't monsters, not when wickedness lies at the foundation of this society at large. The Testaments is available to stream on Disney+ in the UK and Hulu in the US. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month. 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Why is The Testaments holding back a game-changing The Handmaid's Tale secret?
The first three episodes are now streaming, leaving us with more questions than answers.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Testaments book and its TV adaptation. Secrets are currency in the dystopian regime of Gilead. The right ones can bring untold power. But let one slip in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you'll lose more than just your tongue. So it goes in The Handmaid's Tale and now The Testaments, a sequel that's also based on the writing of Margaret Atwood. And now there's a new secret in the latter that fans of the books will be chomping at the bit to uncover. While the first book followed the story of June Osborne, a handmaid enslaved by her Commander, the second revolves around three different women who are embedded in Gildead's society. The most recognisable of them is Aunt Lydia, who also played a pivotal role in The Handmaid's Tale, while the other two are Agnes, a Commander's prospective wife, and Daisy, a girl who infiltrates Gilead from the outside. All three are connected, not just to each other, but to June's story as well. Secrets bind the latter pair to June especially, which becomes more and more apparent as The Testaments book unfolds. By the end, it seems clear that these two girls are in fact June's children and the same could very well be true for the TV adaptation of The Testaments too. Except, things are never that simple in Gilead, especially when you consider just how much these shows expand the world created in those books. While The Handmaid's Tale novel ended with Offred potentially pregnant with Nick's baby, the series kept going to the point where this baby became a reality. By the end of the flagship series, Nichole Osborne was smuggled out to Canada where she could be kept safe from the eyes of Gilead. But what of June's other daughter? After six seasons of fighting, June still failed to rescue Hannah, who ended up being raised as a daughter of Gilead. Following the final episode of The Handmaid's Tale, showrunner Eric Tuchman described this turn of events as "heartbreaking": "Knowing we couldn't reunite them, it was heartbreaking," said Tuchman. "Because we're certainly aware of how much the audience was longing for that. It seemed to be what was driving June over the course of the whole series." View Green Video on the source website The reason for delaying what felt like a natural endpoint for the show was because The Testaments had already been greenlit as a series. In that book, June appears at the very end when she is reunited with her two daughters at last. And, yep, the daughters in question are Agnes and Daisy, aka, Hannah and Nichole. Atwood kept this connection vague during an interview at the time, pointing out that the book only suggests their relationship as such, never explicitly confirming it either way. "We are pretty sure," Atwood told Time. "But we don’t really know." Still, the timings match up, and we do learn that both girls share a mother who was once a handmaid. Atwood seems less coy now that The Testaments show is a reality. Showrunner Bruce Miller told Time that she was the one who suggested baby Nicole be called as such on screen, seemingly confirming that familial link at last. But what about the show itself? Is it confirmed on screen that June gave birth to Agnes and Daisy? Hints are scattered throughout the first three episodes made available on launch. Chief among them is the (not-so) surprise return of Elisabeth Moss as June Osborne. She arrives via flashback, appearing to Daisy after her adoptive parents are killed and it's revealed they were working for Mayday. View Green Video on the source website That first moment we see June return is accompanied by the central narration where Agnes says, "I didn't know who my mum was yet. My real mum. That would come soon." Clues to this then recede, however, as the main narrative takes front and centre. June doesn't appear in relation to Agnes at all from that point on, although she does feature again in Daisy's flashbacks. Viewers unfamiliar with the books might suspect Agnes belongs to June given how prominent Hannah's storyline was in the flagship show. However, June's link to Daisy might be less apparent, especially at first when the show's focus is on the parents she just lost. However, June does reveal in episode three that Daisy was born in Gilead, and it seems as though she was also there when Daisy was smuggled out: "When you first got out of Gilead, you would not stop screaming. Just so little. Mayday took you in the middle of night to Neil and Melanie. They didn’t know you were coming." June sure does know a lot about Daisy, huh. If Agnes and Daisy are indeed June's children, why doesn't this version of the story just reveal that straight out the gate? The obvious answer is that the writers want to surprise casual viewers with this twist. Not only would such a reveal shock fans who didn't pick up on those clues, it also adds a lot more depth to the connection that Daisy and Agnes forge over the course of this season. Social hierarchies don't matter so much when you realise that you share the same mother. But given just how popular the original book is, there might be another reason why The Testaments has held back from revealing everything up front. Perhaps the dramatic tension comes from changing this narrative entirely, surprising fans of the book by revealing that one or both of these girls is not June's daughter, like they'd assume. In a recent chat with Radio Times, Miller and executive producer Warren Littlefield discussed the weight of audience expectation, suggesting that they "may not do exactly what [fans] are asking for in our narrative." Could it be that they're planning to pull the rug out from under us and remove that connection entirely? Whether they keep it in or not, there's plenty of dramatic material to mine from this regardless. Because secrets hold power, and not just in Gilead. The Testaments is available to stream on Disney+ from Wednesday 8 April 2026. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month. Add The Testaments to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. 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The Testaments drama makes major changes to the book – 7 key differences explained
Some changes were necessary for the show to fit into the world of The Handmaid's Tale.
Just one year after The Handmaid's Tale ended on TV, the franchise returns to Gilead with a spin-off titled The Testaments. This adaptation of Margaret Atwood's sequel follows two young women named Agnes (Chase Infiniti) and Daisy (Lucy Halliday) who navigate life under this fascist regime in very different ways. While the first book was published in 1985, the sequel was released by Atwood in 2019, two years after the Handmaid's Tale series began. The acclaimed author has since noted that Ann Dowd's performance as Aunt Lydia in the first series helped inspire her character's trajectory in the second book (via Time). Atwood also let the writers of the show know the direction these characters would develop so they could plan accordingly (via Variety). Yet even so, adapting a book to screen will always necessitate changes of some kind. TV is a very different medium to text, so it should come as no surprise that The Testaments show walks a slightly different path than fans of the novel might expect. Some alterations that have been made are bigger than others, but it's all in service of the story and capturing the essence of what made Atwood's novel a worthy sequel in the first place. So without further ado, let's go in grace and take a closer look at some of the biggest changes made to The Testaments story in this new adaptation on screen. The Testaments book to show differences explained 1. The Testaments is set 4 years after The Handmaid's Tale Before we dive into the nitty gritty, the most immediate change is where this new series is placed within the franchise's overall timeline. While the book starts 15 years after the main events depicted within Atwood's first Handmaid's book, this show only jumps four years ahead following the final season of The Handmaid's Tale. The Testaments showrunner Bruce Miller explained this in more detail last year during a chat with The Hollywood Reporter. "There are parts of the [Testaments] book that take place very far in the future, and we want to save those things for far in the future," said Miller. "They’re goals we’re working towards. But there’s a compact bit of the story that takes place with the girls when they’re going through this process of finding husbands. That, as a core, is what we’re shooting for." View Green Video on the source website 2. Tabitha doesn't appear in season 1 In the original book, Agnes is raised by Commander Kyle and his wife Tabitha, who later dies from sickness. Following her death, Kyle marries a woman named Paula who also lost her partner. This all happens in the show as well, but the storyline is compressed so we don't really see much of Tabitha at all beyond what Agnes recalls of her. The common thread between both versions, however, is that Tabitha loved Agnes as much as Paula (Amy Seimetz) despises her now. 3. Aunt Lydia changes jobs The Testaments book reveals that Aunt Lydia worked as a judge before Gilead took over. But as we've seen as far back as The Handmaid's Tale season 3, Ann Dowd's version was a teacher instead. This thread continues in season 1 of The Testaments through flashback sequences that occur in later episodes. 4. Aunt Vidala is different too The Testaments book introduces a new Aunt character named Aunt Vidala who supported Gilead even before the takeover. In fact, Vidala handpicked Lydia and other women to become Aunts under Commander Judd's supervision. Mabel Li's version of Aunt Vidala didn't back Gilead in those early days, however. Wait until later in the season to find out the specifics of Vidala's story and how she got tangled up with Dowd's take on Lydia. 5. Daisy arrives earlier in the show Along with Agnes and Lydia, a third character named Daisy also narrated the story, and her on-screen counterpart is quite similar to start with. Both versions lived in Toronto until their parents were killed because they were secretly working with Mayday against Gilead. In both cases, Daisy also infiltrates Gilead as a spy to help Mayday bring them down and get justice for her parents. What's different here is that Lucy Halliday's version is around the same age as Agnes, so they attend school together. That's a big change from the book where Agnes is around 10 years older than Daisy, working now as an Aunt named Victoria. By deviating from this specific age gap and power dynamic, the show puts Agnes and Daisy on more equal footing, thereby transforming the nature of their relationship entirely. 6. Garth plays a different role in the series The series first introduces Garth (Brad Alexander) as one of the Eyes charged with protecting Agnes and her household. It's not until episode 3 that we learn he's actually working with Mayday to bring Gilead down from the inside. The original Garth is also a Mayday agent, but he doesn't work within Gilead. This version emigrated from Texas to Canada so he could help bring Gilead down from the outside. It's there in Canada that he helps Daisy trick the Pearls into recruiting her. The reason for this change is that the show enlists June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) to help Daisy in Canada, so it makes more sense to bring Garth into Gilead directly, completely changing the trajectory of his narrative. 7. June Osborne's expanded role in the show Perhaps the biggest change of all is the involvement of June Osborne. In the book, June doesn't appear until briefly at the very end in an epilogue where she's reunited with her daughters, Hannah and Nicole, in Canada. Still, her influence as a key Mayday operative is felt throughout. Given how disappointed some fans were when this reunion didn't happen at the end of The Handmaid's Tale series, it makes perfect sense that The Testaments would find more ways to bring June in, potentially setting up that reunion later down the line. And that's especially true when you factor in Moss's involvement in The Testaments as an executive producer. View Green Video on the source website In the series, June shows up to help Daisy, first with the loss of her parents and then with her future working for Mayday. Moss's iconic character is not the focus this time though, not like before. Despite June's expanded role, the story of The Testaments still belongs to Daisy, Lydia, and Agnes. It's now their turn to make sure the you-know-whats don't grind them down. The Testaments premieres on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK on Wednesday 8 April 2026. Add The Testaments to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Heated Rivalry star explains why he was drawn to "weird energy" of acclaimed new film Lunar Sway
Kaden Connors has a new role in the offbeat comedy – which recently had its public premiere at the BFI Flare Festival.
Cliff (Noah Parker) floats around the small town of Mooncrest, scraping by with his fluorescent sign-making business. Yet it's not until a woman claiming to be his birth mother, Marg (Liza Weil), suddenly arrives that Cliff is suddenly confronted with a sign that something needs to change. Lunar Sway, a clear standout at the BFI Flare film Festival this year, evokes a range of cinematic influences in its outlook, but the off-kilter, often dreamlike bisexual chaos at its core feels entirely unique to the work of writer/director Nick Butler. "I've seen some people say Lunar Sway is like Paris, Texas meets David Lynch," says Butler. "It is very offbeat, quirky, with a lot of eccentric small town characters. But I would say my biggest inspirations from movies are probably the Coen brothers. They also write very colourful, eccentric characters." Cliff encounters plenty of loveable weirdos in his journey, from a self-styled vigilante named Bailey (Grace Glowicki) to even his therapist, Neal (Andy Yu), whose note-taking skills leave a lot to be desired. But throughout it all, even after he embarks on a road trip into the weirder realms of mid-West America, it's a past encounter with an artist named Jovi (Kaden Connors) that haunts him most. View oEmbed on the source website Through surreal dreamscape interludes, Cliff recalls posing nude for Jovi's art in what now feels like a past life. Memory and perception shift to the point where even Jovi's face can no longer be perceived - blurred beyond recognition. Each encounter is erotically charged as the creative connection they shared grows physical, yet fate still pulled them apart regardless. Connors was immediately drawn to these "odd" moments, this "quirkiness" in Butler's script. "When there's a weird energy to something, I just feel like it's authentic," Connors told Radio Times. "It's not looking for approval. And I think those qualities are very admirable." Take Jovi's facial blindness, for example, which leads to a chance reconnection between him and Cliff, except Cliff's the only one who realises they've actually met before. "When I got the script and the breakdown for Jovi, I was like, 'This is interesting,' because there's so many layers. It's very complex. And as an actor, you can really sink your teeth into that." While Liza Weil came into this project established already thanks to star-making turns in Gilmore Girls and How To Get Away With Murder, Connors has enjoyed what you might describe as the complete opposite trajectory. "When we cast Kaden, Heated Rivalry didn't really exist," recalls Butler. "Before the world got Heated Rivalry fever, [Kaden] did an amazing tape for us and brought this really special quality to the character. We needed someone with a very strong, unique presence who could carry that character, someone who had that very special ethereal quality. Kaden has that." This "ethereal quality" bleeds into every scene throughout the film. "I really wanted to create a world that feels slightly out of touch with reality, slightly heightened," says Butler, "because it's a movie about people who are lying," points out Butler. "The main character never knows who to believe." But it's in these encounters between Cliff and Kaden's Jovi where we feel this disorientation most. "Cliff keeps having these haunting memories of their time together that really taps into his pining and yearning. And it feels a bit like a nightmare, so we articulated it as like a dream-like nightmare. The highs of this romance are kind of like a dream, but it's also haunting you, and it's torture. I feel like sometimes we get so dramatic when we're in that state of mind, so the only way to represent that was this kind of over-the-top symbolism." With this abstract symbolism also comes something more tangible, physical even, in the nudity and sex scenes that ensue. "I knew from the moment I started writing, it's about intimacy," says Butler. "And we lean right into that… We had an amazing intimacy coordinator named Aryn Mott out of Vancouver who really set the tone and really made it a lot easier for all of us." "Aryn is just so fantastic at what they do," adds Connors. "They just made us feel so comfortable by having those preliminary conversations. Sometimes just breaking the ice and having a conversation about intimacy really helps get rid of nerves and energy that you might not have control over." While this was one of Kaden's first experiences with an intimacy coordinator, Heated Rivalry fans know that scenes of this nature also pop up there too for his character, Sasha. Butler notes that the success Connors has since found through that show has also generated more interest in Lunar Sway. "We didn't know [Kaden] was going to become this famous, but it definitely helps. We had a bunch of Heated Rivalry fans come to the screenings at BFI specifically because Kaden was posting to Instagram." Having performers like him, Weil and rising star Noah Parker in the lead "adds a level of legitimacy to the movie in the eyes of programmers and distributors certainly. They do care about that. But for me, it really comes down to if the performances are good, the movie's better." Just like Heated Rivalry, Lunar Sway is intrinsically queer, and not just when it comes to the emotional connection that Cliff once shared with Jovi. Everything from the film's approach to memory and relationships to tone and genre speaks to a fluidity that's queer in of itself. And that's a big part of why Connors signed up in the first place. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/Kaden-Connors-as-Sasha-in-Heated-Rivalry-7d5c03a.jpg" width="1200" height="800" alt="Kaden Connors as Sasha in Heated Rivalry. He wears light black shirt with large patterned roses on it. Three buttons are undone at the top of the shirt. Standing in-front of a mirror he stares longingly at someone out of shot." title="Kaden Connors as Sasha in Heated Rivalry" /> "I love working on queer stories. It's a big honour to work on something that feels like you're helping the world, making it a better place… There's nothing really better than that. I'm a huge supporter of queer rights and freedom and expression, so getting movies like Lunar Sway, not just being a part of them, but helping get them onto stages and onto screens so bigger audiences can see them? We need to continue to push to normalise things so that we can see equality." Beyond the specificity of queerness in Lunar Sway and all the bisexual chaos that comes with it, Butler hopes that audiences "see themselves reflected in Cliff's yearning to find connection and love in all the wrong places, and maybe his dysfunctional way of looking for it." "This is really about a character taking steps towards learning how to get out of that toxic habit in his life. I think a lot of people can relate to that and see themselves reflected in it." If not, let's hope Lunar Sway can act as a sign of sorts, just like the ones Cliff's made his life's work in the strange little town of Mooncrest where this all takes place. The world premiere of Lunar Sway took place at BFI Flare 2026. A wider release across the UK is expected later this year. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Heated Rivalry star Kaden Connors reveals his hopes for Sasha's story in season 2
Kaden Connors teases what he'd like to see happen in the next run of the hugely popular ice hockey romance.
Few TV series in recent months have captivated viewers quite to the extent of Heated Rivalry – and it came as no surprise when the Canadian ice hockey series was renewed for a second run very soon after its first season debuted. The follow-up outing will be adapted from the sixth book in Rachel Reid's series of source novels – titled The Long Game – and speaking exclusively to Radio Times at the recent BFI Flare Festival, one of the show's stars Kaden Connors revealed his hopes for the next batch of episodes. Connors stars in the series as Sasha – the former partner of main character Ilya (Connor Storrie) and also the son of his former coach – and he explained some key aspects of his character he'd love the new run will delve into. "The thing about entertainment is that entertainment is dramatic," he said. "If there's no drama in a storyline, you don't get an arc, right?" He added: "Sasha lives in Paris, so if he's not fluent in French, he'll know enough still, plus he knows Russian, and would know English as well, because that's the unifying language in Europe. "So Shane (Hudson Williams) speaks French and Ilya speaks Russian, but they don't know the other language. There's totally so much you can do with that, with language as an aspect of Sasha coming in and being a point of contention." Connors admitted that he knew "a lot of fans don't want that", given most of them were understandably rooting for Shane and Ilya – but he added: "The victory is only as strong as the battles, right?" View Green Video on the source website "But I will say that, ultimately, I do feel like this is a positive, happy ending, queer storyline, through and through, for all of the characters," he said. "So if Sasha were to come back in that manner, I imagine him coming in and being there for Ilya. "In The Long Game, Shane has a community, but Ilya is very alone. So there's definitely characters who could come alongside him, Svetlana, etc, who could show up and kind of be that for him. "Ilya went down a path of changing, so what if Sasha did too? Then on the other side of that, they could have a reconciliation kind of thing. And suddenly, now it's like, 'Hey, I'm here for you.'" Connors was speaking to Radio Times for an interview about his new film Lunar Sway, which had its public premiere at BFI Flare and sees him star alongside Noah Parker, Douglas Smith and Gilmore Girls star Liza Weil. A black comedy written and directed by Nick Butler, it follows a young LGBTQ+ man living in the small desert town of Mooncrest, who is drawn into a wild spiral of events with his boyfriend after his estranged birth mother Marg returns to town. The world premiere of Lunar Sway took place at BFI Flare 2026. A wider release across the UK is expected later this year. Heated Rivalry is now available on Sky and NOW – sign up for Sky TV here. Add Heated Rivalry to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Comeback's final season proves Lisa Kudrow's best role isn't Phoebe in Friends
Valerie Cherish is back one last time – and if you haven't met her yet, you're in for a treat.
Add The Comeback to your watchlist Lisa Kudrow stars in one of the greatest sitcoms ever made, and I'm not talking about Friends. That's not to say the '90s hit show wasn't special or that Kudrow didn't impress as Phoebe Buffay. There's a reason her breakout role was nominated six times at the Emmys, after all. Plus, it's fair to say that 'Smelly Cat' still remains a banger, three decades on. But if there's any justice in this world, Kudrow's legacy would be defined by another Emmy-nominated role of hers instead. Following Friends, Kudrow teamed up with Sex and the City creator Michael Patrick King to develop a new sitcom based on a character named Valerie Cherish, who she developed while performing improv comedy in LA. The result was The Comeback, which starred Kudrow as a tightly wound actress who would do whatever it takes to revive her career. No sacrifice was too big in the pursuit of fame, and more importantly, validation. Season 1 went under the radar at first, as is often the case with shows ahead of their time. Despite Kudrow's considerable fame and status in the world of comedy, Valerie Cherish became an underdog both on and off screen when the show was abruptly cancelled after just one season in 2005. Mixed reviews and poor ratings didn't matter though when word-of-mouth and a new life on DVD gave the show a comeback of its own nine years on. After season 1 pre-empted the humiliations of reality TV, following Cherish as she desperately clawed her way back to prominence, season 2 saw Cherish play a fictionalised version of herself on an HBO show based on real-life problems she faced in season 1. Meta in both narrative and theme, The Comeback has always had an eye on what's coming, tackling insecurities in Hollywood via the world's most insecure actress. Twelve years on, the third and (supposedly) final season confronts what might be Hollywood's biggest threat yet — AI. Doing all she can to stay relevant using social media and a podcast named Cherish the Time, Valerie gets swept up when execs ask her to front a new sitcom written by AI. The scourge of artificial intelligence, which first helps then hinders Valerie, proves to be just as unfunny as you'd expect, producing subpar scripts that recycle jokes from decades prior. Thankfully though, the presence of AI doesn't hold back laughs when it comes to comedy in The Comeback itself. The first episode alone will have you screaming "Emmy" at the screen between chuckles and belly laughs alike until you lose your voice. What other reaction makes sense when you're watching Kudrow pose for cameras with her picket sign while everyone else protests the death of their industry? Episode two ups the ante even further with a new contender for the show's best meme-worthy moment. That's saying something in a world where Valerie's "Well, I got it" GIF went triple platinum in my house. And the ending? Without spoiling too much, I have never laughed so hard watching someone drive their car as I did here. I'm as obsessed with The Comeback as Valerie is with her last failed show, Mrs Hatt, which nobody watched because it was on Epix. How Kudrow and King manage to make a show this funny and this relevant in 10 year intervals needs to be studied. Much of its success just comes from how sharp the writing is. Centring AI provides as much opportunity for satire as it does for comedy, reminding us that "broken, beautiful souls" are what make art special, be it a fictional sitcom or a sitcom about that fictional sitcom. But there's something extra special about the broken, beautiful soul at the centre of it all. Valerie Cherish is a comic creation like no other, an oddball funny girl who's addicted to the camera almost as much as she's addicted to herself. Yet even in Valerie's most selfish or manic moments, Kudrow imbues her with an endearing pathos that helps our favourite narcissist transcend caricature. Through every high and low, we're there with Valerie, rooting for her despite ourselves. And that's particularly true this time around following a tragic loss that impacts the show both on and offscreen. Robert Michael Morris played Mickey Deane, Valerie's best friend and stylist, in the first two seasons of The Comeback before he sadly passed away in 2017. Season 3 honours his legacy throughout, but in episode three especially when Valerie tries to figure out where to spread his ashes. Hyper-fixated on the cameras around her and the image she must maintain at all times, Valerie guards herself best she can, but there are slips when it comes to Mickey, cracks that give us a glimpse of the pain she's masking. And that is infinitely more heartbreaking to watch than an actual breakdown. It's nothing short of award-worthy, especially one tiny grief-induced yelp that conveys more than actual winners do in an entire season of their respective shows. Kudrow is masterful at navigating that vulnerability and how it juxtaposes with the front that Valerie puts on each day, from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep. The camera knows this too, often lingering for uncomfortable lengths of time as shades of every emotion flicker across Valerie's face. But with such vulnerability also comes strength, a newfound confidence in herself that's starting to sync up with the fake confidence Valerie endlessly puts out into the world. What was once desperation has become something bordering on self-respect. For all the humiliation she has endured — and continues to endure as "a woman of a certain age" in this industry — Valerie's fighting spirit has served her well, proving she does have talent and therefore should demand respect. A clash with Benito Skinner's costume designer, on the set of her own show no less, pushes Valerie to hold her ground when he patronises her and refuses to listen. When he says "I won't listen to an actor tell me what another actor should wear," Cherish replies, "That’s not what this is. It’s an executive producer telling a costumer". That grit embodies Valerie's hustle, that dogged determination to be seen. And after decades in the biz, it's finally paying off. Andrew Scott's character notes early on that Cherish knows more about sitcoms than anyone else around, and he's right to say it. She's put in the time, working tirelessly while other trends and talents have fallen by the wayside. And the same is true of Kudrow herself. Just like Cherish could have been defined by her star-making turn in the '80s sitcom I'm It!, Kudrow could just as easily have skated by on the success of Friends and Friends alone. That mega-hit did make her a household name, after all. Instead, Kudrow outdoes herself time and time again on this lesser-known, but vastly superior show. It's no exaggeration to say that Phoebe Buffay walked so Valerie Cherish could run. That's how special The Comeback is. It's all the more fitting then that Valerie's new sitcom in the show is filmed on the same stage that Friends once was. The third and final season of The Comeback is a victory lap for Kudrow, one that might win her the lead Emmy at last and will cement Valerie as one of the greatest comedic characters ever conceived. But even if Kudrow doesn't win all the awards, even if the viewing figures don't soar as high as they should, I for one will cherish this show always.
Lisa Kudrow stars in one of the greatest sitcoms ever made, and I'm not talking about Friends. That's not to say the '90s hit show wasn't special or that Kudrow didn't impress as Phoebe Buffay. There's a reason her breakout role was nominated six times at the Emmys, after all. Plus, it's fair to say that 'Smelly Cat' still remains a banger, three decades on. But if there's any justice in this world, Kudrow's legacy would be defined by another Emmy-nominated role of hers instead. Following Friends, Kudrow teamed up with Sex and the City creator Michael Patrick King to develop a new sitcom based on a character named Valerie Cherish, who she developed while performing improv comedy in LA. The result was The Comeback, which starred Kudrow as a tightly wound actress who would do whatever it takes to revive her career. No sacrifice was too big in the pursuit of fame, and more importantly, validation. Season 1 went under the radar at first, as is often the case with shows ahead of their time. Despite Kudrow's considerable fame and status in the world of comedy, Valerie Cherish became an underdog both on and off screen when the show was abruptly cancelled after just one season in 2005. Mixed reviews and poor ratings didn't matter though when word-of-mouth and a new life on DVD gave the show a comeback of its own nine years on. After season 1 pre-empted the humiliations of reality TV, following Cherish as she desperately clawed her way back to prominence, season 2 saw Cherish play a fictionalised version of herself on an HBO show based on real-life problems she faced in season 1. Meta in both narrative and theme, The Comeback has always had an eye on what's coming, tackling insecurities in Hollywood via the world's most insecure actress. Twelve years on, the third and (supposedly) final season confronts what might be Hollywood's biggest threat yet — AI. Doing all she can to stay relevant using social media and a podcast named Cherish the Time, Valerie gets swept up when execs ask her to front a new sitcom written by AI. The scourge of artificial intelligence, which first helps then hinders Valerie, proves to be just as unfunny as you'd expect, producing subpar scripts that recycle jokes from decades prior. Thankfully though, the presence of AI doesn't hold back laughs when it comes to comedy in The Comeback itself. The first episode alone will have you screaming "Emmy" at the screen between chuckles and belly laughs alike until you lose your voice. What other reaction makes sense when you're watching Kudrow pose for cameras with her picket sign while everyone else protests the death of their industry? Episode two ups the ante even further with a new contender for the show's best meme-worthy moment. That's saying something in a world where Valerie's "Well, I got it" GIF went triple platinum in my house. And the ending? Without spoiling too much, I have never laughed so hard watching someone drive their car as I did here. I'm as obsessed with The Comeback as Valerie is with her last failed show, Mrs Hatt, which nobody watched because it was on Epix. How Kudrow and King manage to make a show this funny and this relevant in 10 year intervals needs to be studied. Much of its success just comes from how sharp the writing is. Centring AI provides as much opportunity for satire as it does for comedy, reminding us that "broken, beautiful souls" are what make art special, be it a fictional sitcom or a sitcom about that fictional sitcom. But there's something extra special about the broken, beautiful soul at the centre of it all. Valerie Cherish is a comic creation like no other, an oddball funny girl who's addicted to the camera almost as much as she's addicted to herself. Yet even in Valerie's most selfish or manic moments, Kudrow imbues her with an endearing pathos that helps our favourite narcissist transcend caricature. Through every high and low, we're there with Valerie, rooting for her despite ourselves. And that's particularly true this time around following a tragic loss that impacts the show both on and offscreen. Robert Michael Morris played Mickey Deane, Valerie's best friend and stylist, in the first two seasons of The Comeback before he sadly passed away in 2017. Season 3 honours his legacy throughout, but in episode three especially when Valerie tries to figure out where to spread his ashes. Hyper-fixated on the cameras around her and the image she must maintain at all times, Valerie guards herself best she can, but there are slips when it comes to Mickey, cracks that give us a glimpse of the pain she's masking. And that is infinitely more heartbreaking to watch than an actual breakdown. It's nothing short of award-worthy, especially one tiny grief-induced yelp that conveys more than actual winners do in an entire season of their respective shows. Kudrow is masterful at navigating that vulnerability and how it juxtaposes with the front that Valerie puts on each day, from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep. The camera knows this too, often lingering for uncomfortable lengths of time as shades of every emotion flicker across Valerie's face. But with such vulnerability also comes strength, a newfound confidence in herself that's starting to sync up with the fake confidence Valerie endlessly puts out into the world. What was once desperation has become something bordering on self-respect. For all the humiliation she has endured — and continues to endure as "a woman of a certain age" in this industry — Valerie's fighting spirit has served her well, proving she does have talent and therefore should demand respect. A clash with Benito Skinner's costume designer, on the set of her own show no less, pushes Valerie to hold her ground when he patronises her and refuses to listen. When he says "I won't listen to an actor tell me what another actor should wear," Cherish replies, "That’s not what this is. It’s an executive producer telling a costumer". That grit embodies Valerie's hustle, that dogged determination to be seen. And after decades in the biz, it's finally paying off. Andrew Scott's character notes early on that Cherish knows more about sitcoms than anyone else around, and he's right to say it. She's put in the time, working tirelessly while other trends and talents have fallen by the wayside. And the same is true of Kudrow herself. Just like Cherish could have been defined by her star-making turn in the '80s sitcom I'm It!, Kudrow could just as easily have skated by on the success of Friends and Friends alone. That mega-hit did make her a household name, after all. Instead, Kudrow outdoes herself time and time again on this lesser-known, but vastly superior show. It's no exaggeration to say that Phoebe Buffay walked so Valerie Cherish could run. That's how special The Comeback is. It's all the more fitting then that Valerie's new sitcom in the show is filmed on the same stage that Friends once was. The third and final season of The Comeback is a victory lap for Kudrow, one that might win her the lead Emmy at last and will cement Valerie as one of the greatest comedic characters ever conceived. But even if Kudrow doesn't win all the awards, even if the viewing figures don't soar as high as they should, I for one will cherish this show always. The Comeback is available on Sky Comedy and streaming service NOW. Shop Sky Stream deals for new customers. Add The Comeback to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Invincible has neglected a key character - now season 4 needs to do him justice
What exactly has happened to William Clockwell?
Being a superhero is never easy, but Mark Grayson is having an especially hard time of it lately. Invincible season 4 starts on a downer following the messed up place we left Mark in season 3. Following his battle to the death with Conquest, not to mention all the casualties that happened along the way, Invincible is now completely disillusioned with life as a superhero. And what's worse is that he's starting to see killing as a potential option if it will stop villains from doing more harm. Never mind all the horrors that came with his girlfriend (briefly) dying and everything that went on with his father beforehand. In short, Mark needs a friend. And not just another superhero on the Guardians team, or even his girlfriend, but an actual friend who knows Mark inside out, someone who's been there with him since the start. You know, someone who can be entirely objective about the superhero stuff. If only someone like that was available… Oh wait, there actually is someone who perfectly fits that bill. Anyone else remember William Clockwell? Before Prime Video's adaptation of Invincible began, creator Robert Kirkman promised that “William is an essential part of the Invincible story” (via Metro Weekly). And at first, it seemed like that was definitely going to be the case. In the very first episode, William's sexuality was immediately established without it becoming a topic of discussion. There was no turmoil or big coming out scene, which stands in stark contrast to William's introduction in the comics, two decades prior. The original William doesn't come out to Mark until #80, published back in 2011. Before that, there were a few scenes where Mark and even Atom Eve described things as "so gay" in the derogatory sense that was (unfortunately) popular to say back then. By skipping over all that, the TV series also sidestepped the awkward homophobia, updating this story for modern times. The problem, however, is that William still ends up falling into the gay best friend trope, always hyping Mark up with very little agency of his own. In an early interview with Digital Spy, William voice actor Andrew Rannells star suggested that "William's not a typical 'this is the gay friend of the lead character'." "They did a really fantastic job of making sure that he's not just a side character," Rannells added, yet William's actual trajectory in the first season tells a very different story. Across the first five episodes, Mark's best friend barely even registered as a character. Instead, the writers were far more focused on our hero's romantic feelings for Amber. And when Invincible did need advice, he turned to Atomic Eve, not William, because she knew what he was going through as a fledgling superhero. The sixth episode of season 1 briefly attempted to re-establish William as an important character when he became the star of his own storyline. Watching William visit his boyfriend Rick at university, it was refreshing to see him enjoy a relationship completely separate from the friendship he shares with Mark. However, things took an unfortunate turn when William's boyfriend was transformed into a monster and beaten up pretty bad by the end. View Green Video on the source website After being sidelined for so long, William was finally given a proper love interest of his own, only for them to suddenly face trauma and violence in their first (and only) spotlight episode together. There's not enough space here to list all of the ways queer couples have previously been "punished" like this and defined by tragedy across TV and film. Things haven't exactly improved since then either as William started fading into the background even more after that. By the time season 3 came around, he only appeared in half the episodes and did very little of note. Now season 4 is upon us and William isn't included at all in the first three episodes that dropped on launch day. And as far as I can recall, there's no mention of him so far either. So where did William go, exactly? We don't know, because the writers couldn't even be bothered to explain his absence. And you thought Mark had it bad this season. Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. I appreciate that there are a lot of characters to juggle in this world, especially when you introduce new alien races and multiple side quests. But William isn't supposed to be just another character. He's Mark's best friend who started out in what looked like it was going to be a key role throughout the series. The optics of this aren't great either, especially when you consider that William is the only queer character of note here. Without him, there are no queer people at all in Invincible. During that aforementioned interview with Metro Weekly, Kirkman suggested: "There are a lot of different stories that come from [William's] sexuality that will be worked into the series." Let's hope the rest of season 4 actually lives up to that promise at last or Invincible risks falling into the same clichés that the comic did 20+ years ago. Except this time round, it's 2026, and there's really no excuse for history to repeat itself. Invincible season 4 is available to stream on Prime Video. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Scarpetta season 1 ending explained: Who was the killer? And who appears at the end?
**Warning: contains full spoilers for Scarpetta season 1.** Long awaited by fans of Patricia Cornwell's writing, the first season of Scarpetta adapts not one but two of her books for screen. While the modern-day story draws from 2021’s Autopsy, the flashback timeline is inspired by Postmortem, the first book that introduced us to Dr Kay Scarpetta back in 1990. Season 1 jumps back and forth between the two, exploring how an early investigation ties into new murders that the titular lead has been tasked to solve. But the team behind Scarpetta are already looking to the future, too. Season 1 ends with a wild cliffhanger, the kind that would infuriate you no end if the show was suddenly cancelled there and then. Luckily, Prime Video renewed Scarpetta for a second season before the first one even came out, and with good reason too. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of release, star and executive producer Nicole Kidman teased: "When you see all eight, you’ll see why you couldn’t end it there." And she was absolutely right to say it. So let's start a little investigation of our own and look closer at what exactly happens at the end of Scarpetta season 1. Scarpetta season 1 ending explained: Who was the killer? So it turns out there were two killers, one operating in each timeline. The 90s killer was already revealed to be a 911 operator one chapter earlier in the penultimate episode. Using emergency call records (and soap?), Scarpetta figured out that Roy McCorkle was choosing his victims based on their voices. After she tracked him down, Scarpetta ended up killing him by stabbing him in the neck. And with no mobile phones to hand back then, McCorkle wasn't exactly in a position to call 911 for himself now, was he? View Green Video on the source website Kay's brother-in-law, detective Pete Marino, arrived straight after and finished the guy off. He then covered for Scarpetta by telling the authorities that he and he alone was the one who figured everything out and confronted McCockle. For reasons that aren't especially clear, Scarpetta kept the truth of what happened that day from her husband. Only now in the final episode does the truth come out, and it's safe to say he's not a big fan of what went down. Scarpetta's hubbie, Benton Wesley, asks Kay for a divorce, which is kind of wild, because why would you want to divorce Nicole Kidman? Left alone in the house, Scarpetta is suddenly forced to fend off the present-day copycat killer when Officer August Ryan shows up and attacks. The pair first met at the murder scene of Lori Peterson in 1998. Seeing the original murders unfold in real time ignited something in August. At one point, Ryan – who we also discover once witnessed his uncle committing sexual assault, which obviously messed him up no end – mentions how hard it was to replicate the murders exactly. Gwen Hainey’s death and mutilation were "perfection", he tells Scarpetta. Kay's not really on board with this, unsurprisingly, prompting Officer Ryan to strangle Scarpetta in her own home (much like McCorkle tried before). You don't easily get to kill Scarpetta in a show named Scarpetta though, so it should come as no surprise that Kay survives. And she does so in a rather grisly way. Using a conveniently placed baseball bat, Scarpetta beats Ryan and knocks him down the stairs before bashing his skull in. The copycat killer should have scarpered out of Scarpetta's house when he had the chance. While that goes down, Kay's niece Lucy is also struggling in her own way. After the death of her wife Janet, and then the subsequent deletion of the AI program posing as Janet, she turns to former actor Matt Petersen to try and find a way to bring both of their spouses back from the dead. Yes, that really is a sentence I just typed out in full. Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. Lucy takes part in one of Petersen’s weirdo cult ceremonies during the finale's closing montage, confirming their alliance moving into season 2. There is also some science involved as one of the victims, Gwen Hainey, was involved in research that could potentially reanimate dead tissue, and therefore people, somewhere down the line. It's giving Resident Evil at this point, especially when we watch Scarpetta repeatedly bash Ryan's brains in with that baseball bat. The season then ends with someone arriving at the door, someone who sees everything... Who arrives at the end of Scarpetta season 1? Is this someone a zombie or a member of the Umbrella Corporation? Probably not given that this is not actually Resident Evil. However, the look of pure shock on Scarpetta's face at the end suggests that this visitor has come as a surprise to her regardless. Could it be Lucy coming home? Or Kay's sister Dorothy? Or perhaps even someone new who we haven't met? We won't know the answer to this until season 2 arrives, but our money's on it being Maggie. Not only has she got more involved with Kay's life recently, Maggie also handed Scarpetta some key evidence just a few minutes prior. Maybe she's shown up to bring Kay some more in the closing scene? It could also be Pete or Benton of course. And without Scarpetta's investigative skills, it's impossible to know for sure. Whatever the case, you can see why Kidman said they "couldn't end it there". All episodes of Scarpetta are available from Wednesday 11 March on Amazon Prime Video. Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime Video and pay £8.99 a month after that. Add Scarpetta to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1 ending explained – How does the trial end?
Everyone is now back aboard the USS Athena, but that doesn't mean anyone is safe.
School's almost out for summer, or whatever constitutes a summer break aboard Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's USS Athena. This semester has flown by, especially as the final two episodes of the season are actually a two-parter that reunites Caleb (Sandro Rosta) with his mother after 16 years apart. As seen at the very start of the season, Caleb was separated from Anisha (Tatiana Maslany) when he was just a kid due in part to Holly Hunter’s officer Nahla Ake. That's why the captain has gone out of her way to help Caleb all season, to make up for this awful past trauma. By the end of last week's episode, Anisha was wounded after she helped Caleb's fellow cadets escape execution. Everyone is now back aboard the USS Athena, but that doesn't mean anyone is safe, not with Paul Giamatti’s obnoxious baddie Nus Braka back on the scene. And where does Anisha's allegiance really lie? Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1 ending explained — How does the trial end? Braka has everyone's favourite crew on the ropes when the finale begins. Overlapping mines have prevented the ship from escaping, and there are 240 inhabited planets in the blast radius if one should go off. Not even the USS Discovery could jump through this using Mycelium Spores because that would trigger the bombs too. The skeleton crew that remains aboard surmises that the energy field surrounding these mines is being controlled by one signal. If they can isolate it and jam it, they can deactivate the entire network of bombs. They just need to do so without disrupting it, because that would lead to one big BOOM. The Venari Ral warp in then with Braka at the helm. Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) hides the first year cadets below deck as the ship's shielding is pummeled to breaking point, allowing Braka to teleport onboard. "It was always going to be me in this chair," he laughs, leaving his stinkiness all over Nahla's nice Captain's furniture. Braka is very surprised to see Anisha still alive, and what's even more shocking is that she's not saying much of anything. "You were awfully chatty when I busted you out of prison two years ago," he points out before adding: "What are the only two people in the universe who hate me most doing together?" Before Braka takes Anisha and the Captain away, Nahla leaves the Doctor (Robert Picardo) with a cryptic message: "Leap clear of all that is corporeal and make yourself greater." Braka is obviously an idiot because this all passes him by. That's just as well because Nahla was actually telling the Doctor to run training mission Hermes 19. What is that? We don't have time to figure it out because the Venari Ral open fire then and destroy the USS Athena completely. Boy, that was a short finale… Except, the show's title card suddenly appears over the debris as it's revealed all the broken pieces of ship that remain are actually holograms initiated by Hermes 19. The decoy worked. Everyone on board is still alive and the Venari Ral have left without realising their mistake. The ship itself has seen better days, however, as its structural integrity continues to fail. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's something wrong with the Doctor. He's malfunctioning, repeating weird strings of words like "There's glue in the shoe." The gang come together to try and come up with solutions, spearheaded by Reno who uses this life and death situation as a teaching moment. Never mind the "trillions of lives" at risk. Teachers are still gonna teach, damnit! Meanwhile, the Captain finds herself on trial, even appearing on a Venari Ral news broadcast that's being sent across the quadrant. Before shit goes down though, she reassures Anisha that Caleb is safe. Braka recounts a story from his childhood, one which explains his hatred for the Federation and how he ended up the way he did. Basically, Braka's father sent flares up to Federation ships who hit his family with missiles in return. "From my colony, eight of us survived." "So today," Braka continues, "We’re putting the Federation on trial for their lives and crimes against democracy. I never got a real trial and neither did the woman next to me (Anisha)." Braka decides that Anisha alone "will decide if the Federation deserves a reprieve," presumably so he comes across as impartial. Of course, Braka knows that Anisha hates The Federation and Nahla especially because she's the one who separated Anisha from her son. As Giamatti showboats it for the cameras, Nahla pushes back, claiming that Braka's opening statement is wrong because The Federation would never attack civilians. "But who writes the history?" asks Braka. Oh, good point. "Liberators don’t take hostages," counters Nahla. Oh, also a good point. "But you took a kid and put him in the uniform of his mothers jailers." Ooh, snap! Nahla quickly changes the subject by pointing out that Federation shuttles "had to make hard choices in impossible times". Anisha chimes in then, attacking Nahla for her role in separating mother and son at such a young age: "I want you to have no shelter from this [guilt], to feel it every day like cold or hunger or broken bones. I want it there when you close your eyes, when you’re laughing or grieving. I want you to see me. It's the only way I get justice and the only way I get to dance on your grave." Back on the USS Athena, the cadets bond in the face of death, and in doing so, they suddenly find a solution. It turns out The Doctor has been trying to communicate a solution this whole time, even though he can no longer articulate sentences properly. With surprising speed, they surmise Doc was referring to Ruben particles. View Green Video on the source website By reducing these particles, simulations show a way to transmit the algorithm so they can bring down the wall of the signal completely. They just need the right frequency. Oh wait, Tarima (Zoë Steiner) just found it. As the others try to find a way to narrow down Braka's location, Caleb and Tarima get cutesy in a psychic room together. Just your everyday Betazoid fling, really. During their chat, Caleb reminds Tarima how she used her psychic ability to connect with his mother. "Can you find her again through me?" asks Caleb. "Then we can find Braka." Everything's coming together, which makes this the perfect moment for Reno to chip in with an inspiring speech: "As far as final exams go, this is a doozy. Pass we live, fail, we're all dead." Oh. OK. We then cut back to the trial, which is already ending apparently. "You wanna dance on my grave?" asks Nahla. "There’s another grave… The pilot you killed," she points out, reminding Anisha of what she and Braka got up to on that ship together all those years ago. "He was from Earth, Hawaii," Nahla continued. "We served together… He was a lousy singer. That supply ship was supposed to be his last rotation before he retired. What did you think was gonna happen when you boarded that shuttle? You both had weapons and were prepared to use them." Braka claims he shot the pilot in self defence, so Nahla continues to interrogate Anisha instead, asking if she could have stopped him. "'Maybe' is not enough. In that moment, you changed the lives of his kids as well, and your son’s life. So did I. We have to live with it, Anisha claims to hate Nahla still, proclaiming her guilty at the trial (even though she's supposed to represent The Federation? It's all a bit of a mess, if we're being honest.) Caleb shows up then, just before the trial is about to end. Braka lets him talk to save face in front of all the cameras broadcasting everything as it unfolds. He's there to save Nahla, yes, but he's also buying the Athena crew time to finish deactivating the mines. "Mum," says Caleb. "I would ask at this minute for you to listen… I can be more than just a 'space rat' or a 'lost son.' I can be part of a community." Accepting this community at Starfleet Academy felt like a betrayal at first, a betrayal to his mother and everything she stood for. But the lessons he learned there, the friends he made… "I've laughed more in the last year than in my entire life. But I was a coward and I fought them. I did horrible things and they deserved so much better. I tried to push them away, but they didn’t let me because they all live for something bigger than themselves." To be fair, this is all coming from a genuine place, as is Caleb's respect for Nahla. "[Nahla] believed in me, mum. She’s never given up on us. She listens… I know what happened 16 years ago. She taught me I can’t stay there forever. I can be part of this world without forgetting where I come from, forgetting you... I’ve been searching for you my whole life, looking for a home for so long and now I think I finally found it." Anisha cries, realising that her son has finally found happiness in his life. Sensing that the tide is shifting, Braka tries to laugh it all off as brainwashing. Nahla then brings up strontium, of all things, a fuel source that could be found on Braka's planet. Caleb explains that it's cheap, but lethal, burning red when it explodes. Earlier on, Braka mentioned that The Federation rained down "red hellfire" on his settlement, but their weapons are always green. As such, Nahla realised that The Federation didn't attack. It was the weapon used by Braka's father which burned up the atmosphere because it was made of strontium. "Vicious lies!" screams Braka. "Lies! Lies and propaganda!" "You were a kid," says Nahla. Then she turns to the cameras using Holly Hunter's trademark charisma and husky voice. "Is this the person you want to follow into the future? An angry child with a finger on the trigger whose entire worldview is based on a lie?" Spectators watching the trial in person begin to leave, presumably to go rewatch Anatomy of a Fall instead. Braka gets desperate, threatening to blow up all the mines with a trigger. What he doesn't know, however, is that the Athena's crew are doing all they can to deactivate them at the same time. We see a counter reach 93 per cent, and then he presses the button. That's a misdirect, obviously, because a Star Trek show like this was never going to casually wipe out trillions of people in one fell swoop. Yep, the counter reached 100% before Braka pulled the trigger, which means that the mine field has been nullified. And with that, other Federation ships are suddenly free to come in and arrest Braka for his crimes against the quadrant. Maybe he would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling kids. Anisha punches Braka as he's led into custody, because her allegiance will flip on a dime, it seems. "Close your eyes and you'll see me in your nightmares!" he screams. And you know what? With all those gross prosthetics he's sporting, Braka might just be right. We then cut to one last sequence where Caleb goes over future summer plans with his mum. "Part of me hopes you won’t wanna come back," says Anisha, "but I know you will". Sounds harsh, but really she's just a bit reluctant about him and the whole Starfleet Academy thing. Anisha tells Caleb how proud she is of him then. "I know this is your home, but you always have another one here." Yep, she touched her heart as she said it. Totes adorbs. Caleb runs off to give his mum the tour then as everyone else at Starfleet Academy enjoys the end of year celebration that's unfolding aboard the ship. He then says some cute stuff about home and trusting people in his first ever cadets log entry as we watch the crew celebrate the end of a successful season year. Don't be scared though. A second season of Starfleet Academy has already been confirmed, so there's plenty more classroom hijinks to come once the summer break comes to an end. Just don't be surprised if this "summer break" takes a year or so to conclude in real time. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is streaming now on Paramount+. Add Starfleet Academy to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
One Piece season 2 ending explained: Who is Mr 0 and what happens to Chopper?
Everything you need to know about the finale episode – and what's coming next.
**Warning: contains full spoilers for all episodes of One Piece season 2.** With the end of One Piece season 2, the Straw Hats are just a teensy bit closer to finding the fabled One Piece. But with hundreds more anime episodes to adapt, don't expect Luffy and co to find it on Netflix anytime soon. That's OK though. There's more than enough going on here anyway. Between Chopper's intro, Princess Nefeltari Vivi's journey home and the looming presence of Baroque Works leader Mr 0, there are many, many pieces moving around in One Piece. So what does this mean for the season 2 finale and what's to come next? The penultimate episode of season 2 mostly consisted of a devastating flashback where we learned how Tony Tony Chopper came under Dr Kureha's care. So it's with tears in our eyes that we jump back to the present and find out how the Drum Island arc reaches its end. One Piece season 2 ending explained: Who is Mr 0 and what happens to Chopper? The final episode begins with Wapol, leader of Drum Island, showing off the new power Mr 0 gave him through eating some devil fruit. We watch as he devours a wooden pole and then transforms his arm into a metal sword. Wapol's body has become like a factory, able to consume, transform and combine anything he eats into what he wants. I would eat cakes and turn them into money, but that's just me. Dalton, the former captain of Wapol's Royal guard, rebelled against Wapol, and now he proves himself to be a "monster" too when he transforms into a minotaur-like beast to fight back. The King quickly stabs him though and then transforms his metal mouth into a much bigger metal mouth with what looks like an arm inside? Meanwhile, Miss All Sunday taunts Vivi, telling the Princess that her friends will die and so will her people thanks to Wapol's new army. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/ONEPIECEnS200223120R-f54bb5b.jpg" width="2700" height="1800" alt="Tony Tony Chopper appears wide-eyed in One Piece season 2, bundled in his signature hat as he stands against a snowy forest backdrop, his small antlers and soft fur dusted with frost." title="Tony Tony Chopper appears wide-eyed in One Piece season 2, bundled in his signature hat as he stands against a snowy forest backdrop, his small antlers and soft fur dusted with frost." /> Yep, that was an arm in his mouth before. It turns out Wapol ate his entire army and transformed them into metallic monsters to ravage what's left of the Drum Island uprising. Big ew. While Usopp and Zoro defend the village, Vivi runs off to Kureha's hideout in search of Luffy, using a new grappling hook device Usopp created for this very occasion. Up in Kureha's castle, Nami listens to Sanji share a story from his childhood that explains why he enjoys taking care of loved ones through his cooking. It's the exact kind of tender scene that's needed amidst all the action, giving Sanji his big moment and us yet another reason to cry this season. When Vivi arrives to update everyone on what's happening, Kureha suggests they run, but Chopper pushes back, saying they must stay to help those who will get hurt in the coming battle. "That's what a doctor does." I just want to smush and squish Chopper's little cheeks. What a sweetheart. Wapol suddenly appears then, ambushing the gang via a secret passageway. He makes a big blustering bad guy speech, but Luffy isn't listening because he's too busy warming up and stretching for their big fight. Vivi stands up to this hideous dictator and punches him in the face as Zoro and Usopp discover back in the village that his metal army is a lot more resilient than they thought. Usopp's "Sure Kill Fire Star" move doesn't produce a sure kill, after all, and neither does Zoro's sword. Nami is still too weak to fight as she's recovering from her sickness, so Chopper and Sanji protect her from Wapol's henchmen. When Chopper grows bigger all of a sudden, the effects are kind of rubbish, but we'll forgive One Piece because tiny Chopper is just the best still. Wapol is keen to eat another devil fruit, by which we mean he wants to eat Luffy. Our rubber boy holds Wapol's giant metal mouth open with his fingers stretched out and then Vivi uses her weapons to close it just as he's about to fire a cannon. With nowhere to go, the cannonball explodes in Wapol's mouth, and he's mad about it too. "I'm a member of the world's government," says Wapol. "Attacking me is a crime." It's funny how a character created decades ago feels more relevant than ever today. But then, sneaky Wapol surprises the gang with his attempt to destroy Luffy's flag, the one Dr Hiriluk gave him before he died. Urgh, why did I have to bring that up again? Luffy being Luffy won't let that happen though, so he jumps in the way of Wapol's cannonball, saving the flag. Flags are a big deal when you're trying to be King of the Pirates. Luffy and Sanji team up with an air assault combo which, ironically enough, is just Wolverine's 'cannonball special' move (from X-Men) in all but name. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/OPS2Unit09318RC-a34b9d1.jpg" width="3600" height="2400" alt="Rob Colletti as Wapol stands encased in heavy, fur-lined armour in One Piece season 2, snow drifting through the warm-lit interior as he faces forward with a commanding, menacing presence." title="Rob Colletti as Wapol stands encased in heavy, fur-lined armour in One Piece season 2" /> With Wapol defeated, Luffy assumes Chopper is going to join him and the Straw Hats on their next adventure. "I’m very grateful to you all," says Chopper. "You’ve been so nice to me… but I’m not a human like the rest of you." All those years of rejection, first by the other reindeer and then by his good doctor friend, have taken their toll on Chopper's self-esteem. The gang doesn't care though. They're all weirdos and now Chopper is one of them too. "Just shut up and come with us!!" shouts Luffy, and it works. They all laugh together as Chopper agrees in a very cute, wholesome moment. What's not cute, however, is Kureha's response when she finds out that Chopper is leaving. "You ungrateful little s**t! After all I’ve done for you. You’ll never survive out on the seas…" Kureha can be a bit of a meanie, yes, but really she's just sad to see Chopper leave, even if she knows it's the best thing for him. The poor little guy needs to follow his dreams, after all. Chopper lives up to his reindeer heritage and pulls the gang along in a sleigh out of the castle to their ship which they now live on together. "My very first pirate ship," says Chopper, all happy. But then he realises that he's leaving home for good, and the tears soon start to flow. "I know what it feels like leaving home," says Usopp. "But you don’t have to be nervous…. We’ve got your back always." Chopper realises then he left his backpack with all his medical supplies back home. But Nami found them in the sleigh, which means Kureha must have put them there to help Chopper on his journey. The supplies include a jar of what looks like golden balls. Chopper tells the crew that their purpose is a secret, but we're all friends here so I'll tell you exactly what they are. These balls are actually Rumble Balls, small pills invented by Chopper to enhance his transformative powers. Their effect only lasts for three minutes, however, and eating too many too fast can transform Chopper into a huge monster. As Kureha watches the Straw Hats sail away, she gets out a cannon that she can use to fulfil the dying wishes of Dr Hiriluk. He found a way to "cure this country, but never got to do it himself…" says Kureha. "Let's find out if he was right." The sky lights up then, not with explosions, but with a pink, snow-like substance. "It looks like cherry blossoms," says Chopper, watching from the ship. The deceased doctor's words return in voiceover then, reminding us that "Once people lose hope, they turn to fear." He believed that looking at cherry blossoms like this can give the islanders hope again and turn the tide against fascist forces. Chopper cries again, because of course he does. But Zoro puts him on his shoulder and the gang watch this beauty unfold together. The island looks like one giant cherry blossom tree now, which is exactly why Drum Island will likely be renamed Sakura Island from now on, just like it is in the source material. "If a man can bring cherry blossoms to this frozen land, maybe a reindeer can be a pirate," says Dalton. Kureha agrees, suggesting that Chopper's new friends are very special. "Perhaps [Luffy] will be the one who will find the One Piece." "He does share certain traits with Gol D Roger…" You know, the Pirate King Luffy has always admired and aspired to be Back on the ship, everyone parties to celebrate Chopper joining their crew. But one person doesn't look so merry. View Green Video on the source website "I’m gonna miss this, says Vivi, assuming that they will all go their separate ways once she's returned to her kingdom. That is the plan, agrees Luffy, but not until they defeat the Baroque Works and help Vivi save Arabasta. "You’re one of us too," says Zoro. "And friends help each other." "I never should have doubted it," replies Vivi. "I appreciate you all." But with this development, Vivi realises that she must tell the gang what she learned about the Baroque Works when she worked with them undercover. We then cut to marine captain Smoker who talks of a secret that "could rock the foundations of everything…" And it seems all eyes are pointing to Vivi's kingdom, Arabasta. In one final scene, Miss All Sunday convenes with her boss at Baroque Works to tell him that Wapo failed. Mr 0 isn't fazed by this though, because Wapo's royal treasury will "help with our cause." "Don't you mean your cause?" replies Miss All Sunday. "What’s good for me is good for you," he replies rather vaguely. "For all of us, Nico Robin." "I’ve told you not to call me by that name," says Miss All Sunday, aka, Nico Robin. Mr 0 doesn't care. Instead, he talks of plans to commence Operation Utopia, which will lead to the fall of Arabasta and take him "one step closer to obtaining the One Piece". We zoom out then to see that his lair is underwater and a huge crocodile-like creature is swimming outside. So who is Nico Robin? Who is Mr 0? And why should we care about Operation Utopia? Without spoiling too much, Robin is so much more than just another assassin with freaky powers. She's actually the only survivor of the island Ohara, which means she's the only person left who can read ancient stones called Poneglyphs which contain secrets deemed threatening by the World Government. Expect to see a whole lot more of Robin in season 3, not to mention a few twists and turns when it comes to her relationship with the Straw Hats. And what of Mr 0? The Warlord actually goes by the name Crocodile, using his intellect and cunning to trick Arabasta and the marines into thinking he's on their side. In reality, he's been secretly using Baroque Works to weaken Arabasta for eventual conquest, betraying the World Government while he's at it. It's clear that Crocodile will play a much bigger role in season 3, and that should come as a huge worry to the Straw Hat gang. Using his ability to become sand, Crocodile is easily one of the most dangerous foes the crew have ever faced. In fact, he's the first to ever defeat Luffy in combat, at least if the source material is anything to go by. The plan Crocodile mentioned, Operation Utopia, aims to take out King Nefertari Cobra so the throne of Arabasta will be his. This is all in aid of finding an ancient weapon named Pluton which is supposedly hidden somewhere in the kingdom. Using this, Crocodile will be able to create his own "utopia" which can compete with the World Government. But only if the Straw Hat crew can't stop him first. Let's just say it's no stretch to imagine a world where Luffy manages to do exactly that, but at what cost? I guess we'll find out when season 3 finally sails into view on Netflix in the next year or two. One Piece is available to stream on Netflix. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Why Scrubs revival's relationship development is such an unexpected yet inspired move
A JD–Elliot divorce wasn’t on our Scrubs reboot bingo card, but despite initial doubts, it’s proving to be a genius move for the show.
Happy endings can be hard to come by, especially in a hospital setting. But JD managed to get his at the end of Scrubs when a final scene revealed visions of the life he'll share with Elliot and their future family. Or at least, that's what happened the first time the show ended. A much-maligned surprise ninth season brought our faves back a year later, confirming that their wedding did indeed become a reality off-screen. This wasn't exactly a happy ending though, because JD and Elliot barely appeared at all this time around. And now, 16 years later, a new Scrubs series has undone that perfect ending entirely by revealing that their marriage has ended completely. Yep, that future vision of happiness that JD saw at the end of season 8 wasn't real, just like so many other fantasy sequences he's envisioned throughout the show's run. But actually, it turns out Scrubs is all the better for it in this case. Season 10 begins with Elliot sniping at JD upon his return to Sacred Heart Hospital. It's clear that their marriage didn't end on good terms, even if we don't know the specifics of why they broke up at this stage. While that might come as a blow to fans who have been rooting for them since day one, it's not entirely out of character to see the pair face off like this. In fact, you could argue JD and Elliot have never been a good fit, constantly at odds despite the obvious chemistry they share. View Green Video on the source website Scrubs has spent the vast majority of its run convincing us that this 'will they/won't they' couple doesn't make sense long-term (a far cry from their contemporaries in other sitcoms like Friends, Frasier or The Office). The revival presents a perfect opportunity to explore that in depth, exploring a very different kind of tension beyond simplistic notions of "Will they make it?" Now that we know they don't make it, Scrubs instead offers us a glimpse of married life at a very different stage, one where JD and Elliot work towards an understanding that continues to fit them both now that their marriage has ended (not to mention the two children they continue to co-raise outside of work). Rather than rely on the easy jokes that can come from bickering, these new episodes smartly delve deeper beyond the arguments to face what the emotional realities of working with your ex might look like. It's hard at points, as we see when Elliot struggles to navigate her friendship with Turk upon JD's return. But there's an emotional nuance to the end of a marriage that Scrubs works hard to unpick as this season progresses. This shouldn't necessarily come as a surprise. At its best, Scrubs has always grounded the show's often absurd flights of fancy with a very real emotional core. That's true whether it was telling a story of friendship or loss, or in this case, a combination of the two. Read more: Scrubs season 10 release schedule – when will the episode air? Scrubs season 10 review: New reboot is much better than it has any right to be In episode 3 of the Scrubs revival, Elliot and JD initially butt heads again until they suddenly reconnect and come to an understanding. "I care about you, JD," says Elliot. "I will always care about you. You’re my family. I just don’t know how we will figure this out." How often do we get to see a fan-favourite couple explore the "honeymoon phase" of their failed marriage, as JD jokingly describes it? In doing so, the writers continue to foreground a key dynamic from the show without betraying the strength of their connection. They might not work long-term as a couple, but that doesn't mean that there isn't any love between them. Just because you divorce doesn't mean you have to stop caring about the other person, especially when kids are involved. In some cases, this love just evolves into something different, something akin to family, and that's just as beautiful in its own way. Series creator Bill Lawrence told Deadline that he was resistant to separating Elliot and JD at first. It wasn't until showrunner Aseem Batra explained her own journey co-raising her child as a single parent that he realised the potential of this new development for the revival. "It doesn’t mean that their story is over," says Lawrence, "but it certainly is something that adults have to navigate all the time." Scrubs star Zach Braff echoed this in the same interview, explaining that dreams, like those JD fantasised about at the end of season 8, don't "necessarily come true, especially when you’re 50 years old". "Things that you didn’t want to happen, happen," he continued. "Some marriages fail, some don’t. You have the contrast with Turk and Carla, where they’re as happily married as ever compared to us, who are learning now to co-parent and eventually work together. So I think it was a good way of also showing a wide array of how marriages can turn out in midlife." With the revival just beginning, it's impossible to know where this journey will take JD and Elliot long-term. There's probably a temptation to bring them back together at some point, given their on-and-off-again past. But the happiest ending I can envision for this pair is one rooted in a familial kind of love where 'will they/won't they' becomes 'they shouldn't' and 'they won't'. Scrubs season 10 is streaming now on Disney+ in the UK. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month. Add Scrubs to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Beauty ending explained: What happens to Cooper Madsen?
Ryan Murphy's latest show ends on a wild note.
The Beauty began in explosive fashion, quite literally with the death of that drugged-up model, and it ends much the same way too. But what else would you possibly expect from a show created by Ryan Murphy? Especially one with a premise as wild as this? For those catching up, Murphy and co-creator Matthew Hodgson adapted a comic book of the same name which premiered back in January. The story, originally written by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, follows the spread of a sexually-transmitted virus known as "The Beauty" which transforms people into perfect, idealised versions of themselves. The catch is that you'll eventually die, which is far from ideal. FBI agents Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall) have been on quite the journey to stop the virus from spreading. Both ended up getting infected, except Cooper was accidentally transformed into a much younger version of himself. This was also far from ideal. By the end of the penultimate episode, Byron Forst (Ashton Kutcher) had made The Beauty public, selling it through his corporation without any concern for how this might change society. Spoiler alert, it doesn't go well, although the full extent of the horrors this treatment can bring aren't revealed until the final episode. The Beauty ending explained: What happens to Cooper Madsen? The finale begins with Byron's two deadbeat sons dancing with their mother to the sound of Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses. It turns out these kids aren't so sweet, however, when they stab Franny (Isabella Rossellini) with the serum against her will. Later, they tell Byron that they have a special surprise set up for him, one that will bring them closer together as a family. Yep, Franny is young and unbearably hot now, which makes sense because Isabella Rossellini was already the hottest woman on the planet. And she's even hotter because she's wearing almost the exact same beaded top that Rossellini famously wore in the classic '90s film Death Becomes Her. This one's for the gays, and we're not mad about it. Franny is mad about it, however, and understandably so, because her awful dumbass kids just changed her entire body without her consent. "I feel like a prisoner trapped inside a body that is not mine." In a rare moment of wisdom and clarity for this show, Franny then describes how her scars, her stretch marks, "the age I owned," have all been taken from her. This is the message this show should be conveying, and for once, it actually resonates. Byron tries to reassure Franny, reminding her how much he loves her and always has. She doesn't care though, because let's face it; Byron has always been a fool. Franny starts smashing up antiques to make the point that "their beauty comes from their age". "I was a goddamned work of art," she continues, "and one thing you never bothered to notice is some people are perfect just the way they are". Wishing she could go back in time to speak with the girl she was before she ever met Byron, Franny grabs a broken shard and suddenly slices her own throat with it. The Beauty then reintroduces a teenager named Bella who we first met in the previous episode. She's at a resort this time, meeting a very cute boy, and they both seem nervous. Bella is surprised the hottie feels that way though. It turns out he's not used to talking with girls because it wasn't so long ago that he weighed 345 pounds, "addicted to anything considered edible". Nothing helped him until he tried The Beauty. "It was the easiest choice I've ever made." And now? "I want to help give other people that same feeling." Bella won't be receiving an injection though. Not in the traditional sense. "A version of The Beauty can also be spread through bodily fluids," reveals the boy. Bella discloses that she's a virgin, so she's a little nervous, but she did stuff she wasn't proud of to get the money and she needs to see this through to completion. The boy mentions that he took an extra injection of The Beauty beforehand to ensure she gets the "strongest dose of this miracle of science". "Whatever small chance there is of something bad happening, it’s worth it to me," says Bella. And that's how you know something real bad is about to happen. After she pays up and they do the nasty, Bella returns home to receive a nasty welcome from her mother. She ignores it and runs to her room, super sweaty all of a sudden. The convulsions begin to take hold, but Bella smiles through them, knowing that this will all be worth it in the end. At 12:43 the next day, Bella's mother returns home from her shift to catch Bella out from skipping school. It turns out Bella had good reason to call in sick though. If anything, she should have called an ambulance, because when the mother arrives home, there is blood and slime everywhere. Yes, you read that right. Slime. Oh, but that's just normal when The Beauty kicks in, right? The infected go through convulsions and then form a weird slime cocoon where all those perfect genes brew and transform. Not this time. Bella's mother follows the slime trail to her daughter's closet where she finds Bella hiding, or what remains of Bella. The Beauty has often been compared to Demi Moore's The Substance these past few weeks, but nowhere is that comparison more clear than in the mutated monstrosity that now sits before us. Bella has become a grotesquely deformed creature, crying and screaming and bleeding from weird holes where holes should not exist. She is essentially The Substance in all but name, presumably because that double dose she got messed with the process somehow. She's not the only one suffering from hideous side effects though. We then cut to a board meeting where Byron is told that there's been an 83 per cent success rate out of the 6 million doses given so far. 450,000 incidents of mutation, including "cranial breast fusion," have been reported, and it appears that the sexually transmitted variant is the worst offender. With several class action lawsuits building and multiple investigations led by local federal agencies, things aren't looking good. Even the President is no longer backing Byron's company after the secretary of defence was accidentally turned into a 9 year old. The FDA has revoked its approval of the drug and plans to ban it shortly. Byron is way ahead of them though in the sense that he actually agrees and already plans to shut down the clinics. Boosters will be kept flowing free of charge to help those already infected, and he plans to cut cheques for those adversely affected. View Green Video on the source website Byron's son arrives then, enraged that his father is going to give away all their profits. Byron has never exactly cared for his children though, and his personality has turned a complete 180 after what happened to his wife. "No, this isn’t about optics," says Byron. "It’s about fundamental change, fixing everything and everyone. We will pay and provide resources to those affected and restructure our company so our resources can be focused on antidotes and cures. We need to fix the things we have broken and hopefully bring my wife back to me, in whatever form, whoever, however she wants, because she is and always has been the one person on this planet who can open my eyes and help me see." Franny is stable for now thanks to the best surgeons Byron could find. And it looks like Rossellini might even come back in a potential second season now that efforts are being made to reverse engineer The Beauty. We then return to agents Madsen and Bennett one last time along with Antonio (Anthony Ramos) and Jeremy (Jeremy Pope) who have turned their backs on working for Byron. Together, they meet Byron's son and his associate where plans are made to kill Byron in a coup. The son claims that he's developed a cure to pull the world back from the brink. Can he be trusted? Madsen doesn't care either way. He's so desperate to transform back into an adult that he'll do whatever it takes. And that includes taking an untested cure. "Don’t do this for me or anyone else," says Bennett. "I’ll always love you, no matter what." Once the cure is injected, dark veins appear on Madsen's face and he starts to scream. The show then cuts ahead to him in a cocoon, transforming. A hand breaks free and then so does Madsen. But did it work? Is he back to his original adult self? Or has Madsen become a mutated horror story like Bella did? No one knows, except maybe Murphy and Hodgson because the credits roll in just as everyone reacts to the new Madsen in shock. We don't get to see what they see, leaving things nice and open for a potential second season. There's been no word yet on whether a renewal might actually happen, but people have certainly been talking about this show a lot. In fact, The Beauty might be the most well-received Ryan Murphy show in years, critically speaking, and it's not like the cure has taken full effect just yet… The Beauty is available to watch on Disney+. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Scrubs season 10 review: New reboot is much better than it has any right to be
The beloved hospital sitcom has been successfully resuscitated.
Looking back, Scrubs was always a little bit cringe. That's not to say it was bad though, not by any means. The medical sitcom was once hugely popular thanks to its combination of rapid-fire one-liners and terrific chemistry that would suddenly give way to devastating emotional turns which hit hard, but never felt out of place. The fantasy cut-aways were more touch-and-go, however – something to sit through rather than actively enjoy. That didn't matter so much at first, not when the overall show worked as well as it did. Later seasons began to drop the ball though, skirting around the character development that reeled us in with broader gags that lost sight of why Scrubs became so popular in the first place. This felt especially pronounced following a network move from NBC to ABC where the central quartet, our main reason for watching, were sidelined completely in favour of new, less interesting doctors. A decade and a half on, Scrubs is the latest millennial show to inevitably be revived, but why should we care about a show that flatlined for good reason when we can just rewatch the original again? After the writers quickly conjure up a way to bring JD (Zach Braff) back to working at Sacred Heart, the new episodes feel like more of the same at first, except everyone is a little older. Carla (Judy Reyes) still calls JD "Bambi". He and Turk (Donald Faison) still affectionately bro out when they see each other. And Dr Cox (John C McGinley) still runs his mouth off with the longest, most withering put-downs known to man. But then little shifts take hold that suggest Scrubs has developed beyond a mere greying of the temples. When JD tries to jump on Turk's back like he used to in the good old days, they quickly realise that they're too old now for such shenanigans. And it's tempting at this point to suggest that might be true of the show as a whole. But then JD tries to lift his friend's spirits with a "Whassup!" joke that falls flat and you start to realise that this new Scrubs is fully aware that it can't just rely on millennial humour anymore. Concessions to that are also embodied by a new HR figure, Sibby, played by SNL alum Vanessa Bayer. What could have felt overly critical of political correctness, neutering characters like Cox and even JD, ends up carrying a loopy sincerity of its own that fits remarkably well with the often absurd tone Scrubs is known for. The new jokes balance what came before with a need for modernity that's rooted more deeply in the narrative as well. This shift comes subtly at first in an opening title sequence which retains that "Superman" theme song with a digital twist. But then we see it too in stories around the affordability crisis in healthcare, as well as harmful TikTok diets and even a robot in surgery. It all works within the signature framework of the show, updating Scrubs without scrubbing its personality away entirely. As such, skipping over COVID in this context does feel a bit odd. What the revival doesn't skip over though is how the intervening years have changed the dynamics between most of the main characters. We see it in how Turk struggles to find time for JD as a father of four. We see it in how Elliot (Sarah Chalke) and Turk negotiate their friendship at work upon JD's return to Sacred Heart. And most effectively of all, we see it in how Elliot and JD fight yet still love each other in the wake of their divorce. Episode 3 is the biggest standout so far thanks to them. These emotional beats, noticeably missing among the newbie doctors who our faves now teach, have always been at the core of what makes this show work. To recalibrate them now with older, wiser eyes justifies the existence of this revival in ways that plenty of other franchises could learn from. There are still some teething problems, of course. The cut-aways, once integral to the show's identity, are more distracting than funny these days, pulling away from the situational humour that winds up being a lot more effective. The rookie doctors could do with some more fleshing out too, but if Dr Cox was willing to take a chance on JD, we should give these newbies a chance to settle in too. Speaking of Dr Cox, he's not around so much this time and neither is Carla due to the actor's other work commitments. Thankfully, actor/comedian Joel Kim Booster brings some much-needed sass in their stead, playing JD's rival Dr Park who pushes back against Bambi without letting their friction dominate proceedings. After watching the first four episodes provided for screening, it's safe to say that Sacred Heart has changed a lot in ways both big and small. There's a new janitor, for example, and a new robot too. But JD and Turk are still hanging out like old times when they can, and it's surprisingly nice for us to be hanging out with them again after so long too. Scrubs has already flatlined once – twice if you take that bizarre network shift into account – so let's just hope this revival continues to hold up until the newbies are no longer newbies and the series has settled into its rhythm. Despite my initial misgivings, I think it's important sometimes to enjoy a show like Scrubs that isn't afraid to be sentimental and yes, even a little cringe at some points too. Because much might have changed across the intervening years, but the warmth found at Sacred Heart has not and that's needed just as much now as it was when JD first stepped through those automatic hospital doors. Scrubs season 10 launches on Disney+ UK on Thursday 26th February 2026. Sign-up to Disney Plus from £5.99 a month. Add Scrubs to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 5's book change highlights the show's biggest problem
The Game of Thrones prequel is overwhelmingly fuelled by testosterone from the get-go.
**Warning: Spoilers ahead for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 5.** A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms tells the story of a Hedge Knight called Dunk and a boy named Egg. Yet this is a story of men, and only men. More than any other visit to Westeros, HBO's new Game of Thrones prequel is overwhelmingly fuelled by testosterone from the get-go. To be fair, that's also true of George RR Martin's novella that the series is based on. Attempts to flesh out that world with more women have been pretty minimal up to this point, including a few sex workers here and there to tease Dunk. Beyond that, the only female character of any significance in the show so far is Tanselle, an artist and puppeteer who paints a new sigil for Dunk's shield. "I think there's maybe two or three sentences [in the novella] describing what she looks like, and maybe one on her personality," actress Tanzyn Crawford told Polygon. There's more in the end product, true, but Tanselle's impact on the story is still quite minimal when it comes down to it. Such sparing representation is somewhat improved, however, in the penultimate episode of season 1 when a new character is introduced via flashbacks. Mid-tournament, Dunk's mind ventures back suddenly to his time in Flea Bottom before Ser Arlan of Pennytree took him on the road. There, we meet a girl named Rafe (played by Dune: Prophecy star Chloe Lea), who hangs out with Dunk in this medieval hellscape. In the book, they're both described as beggars and thieves, as well as "little monsters," yet their connection here is a tender one. The pair are clearly close, talking of plans to escape and start a new life for themselves in the free cities. There's friction too, but their love is clear still, whether it's romantic or forged in friendship. Of course, this being a show set in Westeros, their plans for a better future together don't pan out. And that's because the people they encounter are so much worse than the "little monsters" that Martin's writing described them both to be. Just as the kids scrape enough money together for salvation, thieves attack and steal their hard-earned coins. That would have been devastating enough, but then the show takes this one step further when an attacker ends up slitting Rafe's throat right in front of Dunk. Yep, the only female character of note was killed just a few scenes into her very first episode. And what's worse is that this didn't even happen in the book. The writers actually went out of their way to introduce a female companion for Dunk, only to brutally murder her almost immediately after. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/02/0501AKOTSKS01-1-812b952.jpg" width="3840" height="2560" alt="Peter Claffey as Dunk in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, riding a horse through a misty landscape in full medieval armour. He wears chainmail and a weathered steel breastplate, his expression focused as the armoured head of his horse fills the foreground." title="Peter Claffey as Dunk in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" /> To be clear, death is nothing new to the world of Westeros. Characters die all the time throughout this franchise, often in brutal fashion. That's just par for the course. And yes, these would, of course, be dangerous times for women especially. The men in Game of Thrones are, for want of a better phrase, extremely messed up, and that will often manifest itself in violence towards the opposite sex. The issue here is when the scales are tipped so strongly in favour of men. Without a Daenerys or Rhaenyra to balance things out, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is unrealistically skewed against women, reducing them to walking tropes who lack agency and depth. And when they do appear, they're simply included as window dressing in service of the men at this story's centre. That's true of the sex workers, that's true of Tanselle, and worst of all, that's true of Rafe. Dunk might have treated her as an equal, but the writers did not, choosing instead to kill her off in service of his story. Things could have ended so differently for Rafe, especially given how much freedom the show had to expand on her role, yet they went down the most boring, obvious and offensive route they could. Season 2 will hopefully do a lot better when it comes to female representation, considering the prominent role of the Red Widow in the second novella. However, when it comes to season 1? It seems that the gender politics in the writers' room are just as medieval as the time and place in which this show is set. Just because A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a story by men, for men, shouldn't automatically mean that women get short shrift too. It's not true to the world we live in, and it's not true of Westeros either when you take the other shows into account. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms airs weekly on Sky and NOW - find out more about how to sign up for Sky TV. If you’re looking for something else to watch in the meantime, check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Fantasy hub. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
James Van Der Beek became a '90s heartthrob in Dawson's Creek – but his legacy extends far beyond that
James Van Der Beek will be best remembered for the American teen drama Dawson’s Creek, but time and again he proved himself far smarter and more versatile than he was often given credit for.
In the days following James Van Der Beek's tragic death, Dawson's Creek has obviously come up a lot. It's no exaggeration to say that the '90s teen drama changed TV as we know it. I could fill a page or more with the names of every series that wouldn't exist today if Dawson's Creek hadn't come first. The stars aligned in many ways to make this happen, but writing aside, it was the cast who propelled the show to the heights it reached across its six season run. It's no surprise, after all, that so many cast members went on to find even greater success after, including Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, and Michelle Williams. But there would be no Creek without Dawson, and there would have been no Dawson without Van Der Beek. After landing the role of a lifetime at just 20, Van Der Beek achieved immortal heartthrob status as one third of the love triangle that still has fans arguing between Team Dawson and Team Pacey to this day. That barely scratches the surface of just how much drama took hold of this small town over the years. The Creek was practically overrun with talky teens who intensely dissected every feeling, every moment, in the way that only teenagers can. Looking back at Dawson in particular, it's easy to focus on the melodrama and all the memes that came of it (or 'Vandermemes', as Van Der Beek himself named them). What that fails to recognise, however, is the wit and heart Van Der Beek brought to the role. Whether Dawson was helplessly romantic for Pacey or mourning the death of his father in season 5's standout The Last Goodbye, there was a serious talent under all that boyish charm. When you grow famous overnight, there's always a risk that you'll only be remembered for the role that got you there. But Dawson isn't the only character who fans have been celebrating in the days that followed Van Der Beek's passing. Many of the roles that followed smartly sent up his squeaky clean image from Dawson's Creek, twisting the boy next door into something infinitely more complex. Early on, Van der Beek stood out as the lead in 2003 indie The Rules of Attraction where he played Sean Bateman, the younger brother of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. This came as quite a surprise to fans of the Creek, but subsequent performances proved this wasn't a one-off motivated by shock value alone. Memorable roles in Robot Chicken and the Jay & Silent Bob Reboot took Van Der Beek further down this path, as did the capitalist monster he played in season 1 of Ryan Murphy and Steven Canal's Pose. MTV lovers will also remember the time Kesha enlisted Van Der Beek to appear opposite her in the music video for Blow, where the singer calls him "James Van Der Douche" to his face. "I don’t appreciate you slander-Beeking my name, Ke-dollar-sign-ha,” Van Der Beek replied before they share a laser gun face off which ends with his head mounted on Kesha’s wall. Van Der Beek never took himself too seriously – even when the rest of the world did. That was key to the success of arguably his greatest role, when James Van Der Beek played James Van Der Beek in Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23. Or at least, a fictionalised exaggerated version of himself. This version of Van Der Beek was a bit of a douche, but that was the whole point. Opposite Krysten Ritter's Chloe, Van Der Beek toyed with the absurdity of celebrity through the lens of someone who remains synonymous with one character to this day. The result was wickedly fun, helping to elevate this humble sitcom into one of the all-time greats (for the few people who actually saw it when it first ran in the early 2010s). Van Der Beek wasn't just in on the joke. He actively tapped into his own perspective and humour to make the role his own beyond just how others might perceive him. Speaking with Buzzfeed at the time, Van Der Beek revealed that this exact kind of humour helped keep him sane during the heyday of Dawson's Creek: "These are the kinds of jokes I would make to friends of mine, privately. When you suddenly become famous at 20 [years old], it doesn't make sense on any logical level. I was always the guy [that] if we ever didn't get a table at a restaurant, I would turn to my friends and say, "Does she have any idea who I think I am?" A running gag in the series was that the rest of the Dawson's Creek cast hated him, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Among the many celebrity tributes shared following his passing, one written by former co-star Katie Holmes was especially moving and tapped precisely into what made Van Der Beek so special. "To share space with your imagination is sacred," wrote Holmes. "Breathing the same air in the land of make believe and trusting that each other’s hearts are safe in their expression." And what a gift it has been for all of us to "share space" with his imagination too. There was skill and talent, of course, whether Van Der Beek was asked to cry Dawson's tears or make us laugh as Fake James in Apartment 23. But there was always an intelligence to everything he did that was often overlooked at the time yet shone through more than ever since his cancer diagnosis was made public. Van Der Beek helped change the face of TV, yes, but it's his eternal optimism and devotion to others that people will surely remember most if the overwhelming wave of tributes that have been shared this week are anything to go by. Both on and off screen, that legacy will endure just as brightly now as it did when Dawson Leery first showed up as an aspiring filmmaker all those many years ago.
Apple TV drama Shrinking shows that, yes, older people have sex lives too
At 83, Harrison Ford brings effortless sex appeal to Shrinking – and the show leans into it.
Shrinking started out as a showcase for Jason Segel, who plays the titular shrink at hand. It's Jimmy's tragedy, and the growth he develops from overcoming his trauma characterises much of season 1 especially. But it wasn't long before Harrison Ford's supporting role in Shrinking began to overshadow Jimmy, delving deeper into what life was like for his boss, Paul, as he came to terms with suffering from Parkinson's disease. Season 3 marked the biggest shift in this direction yet with an hour-long premiere driven by Paul's wedding to Dr. Julie Baram (Wendie Malick), the neurologist treating his disease. Inappropriate? Technically, yes, although these crazy kids make it work anyhow. What wasn't inappropriate, however, was the way that this episode opened with them practically naked in the bathroom together. The scene itself is pretty straightforward. Paul's just shaving and chatting to his future wife while she prepares to take a shower. Pretty typical stuff for a couple their age who are living together. What's not typical or straightforward, however, is the fact that Paul is doing all this shirtless. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/02/Shrinking-Apple-0207777.jpg" width="8640" height="5760" alt="An older man and woman wearing sunglasses walk side by side along a sunny park trail. The man wears a grey T-shirt, dark jacket and black leggings with a light blue waist pouch, carrying a large water bottle, while the woman wears a beige sweater and shorts and holds a pink water bottle. Trees and greenery line the path behind them." title="Shrinking Apple" /> Harrison Ford is no stranger to a cheeky flash of pecs or torso. His open shirt in Indiana Jones launched a thousand ships, after all. But that was decades ago. He's still an iconic movie star, of course, even now at 83 years old. Yet how often do TV shows this mainstream depict older bodies so naturally like this without there being a very specific reason for doing so? Shrinking co-creator Bill Lawrence told People last year that Ford was actually the one who requested to be shirtless in this scene: "[Ford] called me up and he's like, 'I’m not going to shoot this…' If I’m shaving, I have to be shirtless." 10 push-ups later, Ford shot the scene that wound up in the season three premiere. This striving for realism is a nice touch, but the by-product of doing so is what's really important here. On and off screen, there's a tendency to sideline people of a certain age or forget them entirely. When they do show up, it's usually in smaller roles that play into tropes around kookiness or memory loss. What you don't get to see all that often is the simple fact that older people are still people. It may seem simple, but yes, 83 year olds take their clothes off to shave or use the bathroom, and 83 year olds also flirt with their girlfriends. As Shrinking reminds us in scenes like this (and many more prior to it), senior citizens aren't sexless or incapable of romance. It's just that TV usually shies away from that aspect of their lives, flattening them out into broader stereotypes that few audiences would even question. There are some exceptions, of course. The latest season of Bridgerton gives Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell), the family's matriarch, a chance to find love for a change instead of endlessly matchmaking her kids. And Just Like That also celebrates love and sex for women in their fifties (one of the few things that show actually had going for it). Yet there are even fewer examples of what this looks like for people who have grown past middle age once they retire. A Man on the Inside touches on romance and even sex somewhat with Ted Danson's lead, but it's a lot harder to think of examples where lust and nudity come into play like they do in Shrinking. Grace & Frankie paved the way in some respects, although that show is long gone now. That's not to say Paul and Julie are clawing at each other in every episode. None of the characters really do that, regardless of age, because it wouldn't fit the tone of this show. But what Shrinking does so well is organically remind us that people can still be sexual or attractive to others once they reach a certain age. It's in the flirty remarks that Paul and Julie share. It's in the occasional kiss or body language the actors embody. And it's there in the big moments too like that big wedding smooch that closed out episode one of the third season. Scenes like this prove that Paul and Julie's relationship is just as important as any other in the show, romantic or otherwise, easily slotting in alongside different narratives drawn from all walks of life. In fact, their connection is often the most interesting of the lot, especially with the depth that comes from navigating illness and finding love later in life. Shrinking started out as Jimmy's show, but the shrink we all keep tuning in for is his boss, Paul. And given Jimmy's own love and admiration for Doctor Rhoades, we reckon he'd be ok with that. New episodes of Shrinking air on Apple TV on Wednesdays. Seasons 1-2 are available to stream now on Apple TV. You can sign up to Apple TV now. Add Shrinking to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. 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Wonder Man ending explained: What happened to Simon Williams and what's next?
It's fitting that the creator of DC's Wonder Woman invented an early prototype of the lie detector, because Marvel's male counterpart, Wonder Man, is based almost entirely on lies. Or at least the MCU version of Simon Williams that's played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. There's the lies that Simon's tells himself, desperately trying to suppress his devastating ionic power. Then there's the lies he tells on set everyday, pretending to be just another ordinary man. Never mind that he's an actor whose stock and trade is artifice. Yet despite all this, Williams is still devastated when it turns out that his new best friend, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), has also been lying this whole time too. Originally planted as a mole by the Department of Damage Control (DODC), the former 'Mandarin' quickly grew fond of Williams, developing a real friendship as they auditioned together for the Wonder Man movie. But by the end of episode seven, the jig was up. "Hell of a performance," says Williams as he storms out, leaving Slattery behind, genuinely gutted by how the truth hurt his one real friend. Fit to burst with rage, Williams finally snaps, unleashing all the ionic energy he's kept inside. It's a good thing he's in an empty studio or someone could have got hurt. Still, the Wonder Man crew who helped build the set sure won't be pleased the next day, and there's the little matter of a reporter from the New York Times who's still snooping around on the lot… So what does all this mean for Williams? Is an Oscar on the cards? Avengers membership? Or how about prison? Marvel's Wonder Man ending explained: Where does Simon Williams go? The season one finale begins in the past, showing us again just how formative the '80s Wonder Man film was on Simon and his relationship with his father. These moments they shared are the driving force for everything Williams does, although we sort of got the message already a few flashbacks ago. The next morning, news of the explosion he caused reaches Slattery and agents at the DODC. Realising that he's running out of time, Williams calls up his mum for a chat. Said chat is really a goodbye, but he doesn't want to worry her, even though a mother always knows when something's up. Just as it looks like DODC agents are about to break into the apartment, Williams receives a call from Slattery: "I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to you, but I’m making it right," he says in what sounds like another thinly veiled goodbye. "Promise me you’ll live your life to the fullest." And with that, we're suddenly shown a video confession recorded by Slattery in the role of the Mandarin. Yep, the same terrorist he pretended to be all the way back in Iron Man 3, 13 years prior. "America, did you miss me?" asks Slattery as he takes responsibility for Simon's meltdown. Yep, those DODC agents were actually storming his apartment, not Wonder Man's. It's a sad end for this kindly thespian who's worked so hard to get out from under the Mandarin's shadow, but it's the only way he feels he can atone. The DODC seems happy enough with the arrest, even if it's "not the one we wanted." Never mind that they've apparently been hunting Williams down for years because of the incredible threat he poses? Nah, just let him carry on being a huge Hollywood movie star instead. Slattery maintains to the arresting officers that he was actually The Mandarin all along, and that the acting career was just an act all along. How meta! Wonder Man director Von Kovak asks Williams to channel this betrayal in his performance, but what really helps is the original retro glasses that Simon's given by the prop guy, the same ones worn in the 80s film that his Wonder Man is based on. And they just so happen to be the signature look of Simon Williams in the comics as well. Joe Pantoliano ends up taking over the role of Barnaby from Slattery, which is a bit savage given how cruel The Sopranos star was to our so-called Mandarin prior. We then cut rather snappily to the Wonder Man premiere, which everyone is absolutely loving, if conversations outside the theatre are to be believed. There's already talk of a sequel and even Simon's asshole brother Eric is a fan. Everything's worked out perfectly for Williams, exactly how he wanted. Except, of course, for what happened to Slattery. Simon's agent reveals that bigger projects are being sent his way now, and presumably, that's why we next find Williams out in the middle of nowhere, shadowing an average joe trucker. He must be studying for a new role, right? A few scenes go by where Simon gets to know Chuck Eastman, an old acquaintance of Simon's from the industry, and his family. It's such an abrupt shift, not to mention a long-winded one, that you can't help but wonder what we're even doing here now that we're so close to the end of the show. But then we find out that Chuck works security at the DODC and everything falls into place. Nondescript agents discuss the true power Simon possesses as "an extraordinary threat… or asset" while he casually breaks into a highly secure government building with nothing more than a fake name and a dream. It's not long until 'Alfonso' finds The Mandarin's cell and frees him using his powers, powers which he's suddenly seemed to master, despite suppressing them his entire life. And it's not just super strength he uses here either. It turns out Simon can also fly, a skill he doesn't hesitate to use, rocketing up and through the ceiling without any help from the rocket jets that his '80s inspiration used on screen. What's next for Simon? Is he going to eventually wind up joining the Avengers like his comic book counterpart? Given that the origin of Simon's powers were never explained, could he be a few films away from teaming up with the X-Men? Or could he even help found the Great Lake Avengers, a D-list superhero team that Doorman joins early on in the comics? View Green Video on the source website What's clear in the short term is that Williams and Slattery are on the run for committing crimes against the US government. Why they didn't just arrest Simon earlier when they had proof of his powers is anyone's guess, especially if he really is the huge threat that the DODC claims him to be. Don't be surprised if answers for all this never come, however. Marvel has a habit of leaving their TV-based heroes on a cliffhanger, like Moon Knight or She-Hulk, for example. And the difference with them is that Disney actually invested a lot more time and promo into their stories. With Wonder Man already being billed as a miniseries, one that Disney unceremoniously dumped all at once online, the chances of Abdul-Mateen II (or Williams) starring in a Wonder Man sequel seem close to none. But when it comes to Marvel, never say "never". Wonder Man is available to stream now on Disney Plus. Add Wonder Man to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" class="x_OWAAutoLink" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. 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Who was Juan "Spike" Osorio? Wonder Man tribute explained
The first episode of the Marvel show features a tribute card.
Most Marvel heroes strive for greatness, but in Wonder Man, Simon Williams isn't trying to be a superhero. Instead, he hopes to wow the public with his acting, so his biggest fight is keeping those impressive powers of his under wraps. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II's struggling actor is joined by fellow actor slash former "terrorist" Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley), who the world remembers as the so-called "Mandarin" from Iron Man 3. Together, they're fighting to appear in a new remake of the classic Wonder Man superhero film that Simon loved growing up. Questions abound, however, when it turns out that not everyone is who they say they are. When it comes to questions, another is raised at the end of episode 1 when a dedication appears before the credits roll, which reads: "In memory of Juan 'Spike' Osorio." So, who is Juan Osorio? And why did Wonder Man pay tribute to him? Read on for everything you need to know about Spike. Who was Juan "Spike" Osorio? Osorio was a veteran lighting technician who worked in the electrical department across multiple Hollywood productions. Before Wonder Man, he was credited on a wide array of sci-fi and fantasy projects including The Dark Tower, American Born Chinese, and Marvel's 2018 sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, plus more grounded fare such as Mayans M.C. and The Conners. According to interviews with fellow crew members (via The Daily Beast), Osorio worked in the army before moving to Hollywood. Rigging gaffer Dave McGrory explained that Osorio once survived a devastating explosion while serving in the Middle East. "He was in a Humvee that drove over an IED which exploded. And he basically watched his closest guys die in front of him,” McGrory said. "And there was another firefight in a cave in Afghanistan, where he was wounded with some shrapnel. I know that because he got a scar under his left eye, from rock fragmentation." McGrory added: "The man made it out of Afghanistan, and didn’t make it out of the studio system." What happened to Juan "Spike" Osorio? While working on Wonder Man, Osorio fell through a catwalk at Stage 3 at the Radford Studio Center in Studio City (per Variety). He died on the same day – 6th February 2024. Osorio, aged 41 at his time of passing, was survived by his wife, industry boom operator Joanne Osorio-Wu, and his mother Zoila Osorio. Hundreds of people attended a vigil in Burbank to honour Osorio (via ABC7), and Osorio's widow shared a heartfelt message to attendees at the vigil. View oEmbed on the source website "I know Spike would want all of you to know how much he cared for you," Joanne Osorio-Wu said. "Each and every person that he worked with, each and every person that he knew, he wanted to make sure that they were safe, whether they were in his department or not. He was the most important part of my life, and I appreciate you all and the impact that you all had on him." Kaitlyn Yang, the visual effects supervisor on American Born Chinese, remembered Osorio: "I worked with Spike on my last series. He made sure I had all the lights to make our blue screens work. As many crew have echoed before me, I felt seen and heard in his presence. May he rest in peace." Marvel issued the following statement: "Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with his family and friends, and our support is behind the investigation into the circumstances of this accident." Following the tragedy, a Cal/OSHA investigation concluded that the catwalk Osorio fell through had a deteriorated section of wood, which was improperly nailed to a roof support. As a result, Disney was hit with a $36,000 fine and Radford Studio Center was fined $45,000. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Osorio’s widow and mother also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Radford Studio Center seeking unspecified damages, with the family’s lawyer alleging that it "failed to properly maintain, repair and inspect its premises". Radford’s lawyers disputed the claims and argued that the accident could have been caused by negligence on the part of Osorio or others. Wonder Man is streaming now on Disney+. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Jujutsu Kaisen season 3's Culling Game rules explained
The latest episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen have hit like a train, yet not a single punch was thrown. Following Yuta Okkotsu's addition to the team, Yuji Itadori and the gang suddenly find themselves front row at an episode-long lecture about the impending apocalypse. As the freaky-looking Tengen explains, The Culling Game they're about to enter is a Battle Royale-style deathmatch that will span the entire nation of Japan. That means it's a big deal for every sorcerer who takes part, plus all of us watching back home too. But boy there are a lot of rules. To be fair, the animators do an incredible job of keeping us entertained without any cursed battling in sight. Flow charts have never come with so much aura. Still though. It's a lot. The rules flashed up ever so briefly in the first two episodes, but for those of us who don't wish to pause and read text longer than the Bible, I'm on hand to break down Kenjaku's plan in more detail. What is The Culling Game? The tournament isn't your typical anime showdown. The ancient sorcerer Kenjaku, aka, the guy who ruined all our lives in season two's Shibuya Incident, has been planning this battle royale for centuries. His goal is to pit 1000 sorcerers against each other in a game where anyone can die at any point. Even Kenjaku can snuff it, but if he does, The Culling Game will continue anyway, generating enough cursed energy for him to transform the whole of Japan into one singular cursed entity. The wildest thing about all this is that he's essentially doing it all for giggles because not even Kenjaku knows what will happen after this. Yuji, Megumi Fushiguro and the gang want to stop this because, well, you can guess why already. But they also want to specifically save Megumi's sister, Tsumiki, who is now one of the many humans who Kenjaku awakened as a sorcerer at the end of season 2. And the odds of surviving a game with "Culling" in the name seems unlikely. There's also the matter of Satoru Gojo, the blue-eyed wonder who was sealed in the Prison Realm last season. As the most powerful Jujutsu sorcerer, his return would turn the tide in humanity's favour. But to free Gojo, the gang must compete in order to find a reincarnated sorcerer named Angel who holds the power to break his seal. All caught up? Let's break down the rules in more detail. Rule 1: Every player must choose a colony within 19 days Anyone who's participating, whether they're choosing to join or were awakened by Kenjaku against their will, must enter a colony within 19 days. There are 10 colonies in total across Japan to select from, each separated by an impenetrable barrier. Once you've declared your decision, you are now officially a player in the Culling Game. As brutal as the 19 day deadline is, it also prevents anyone from training longer and gaining an unfair advantage. Plus, there's nothing like a deadline this deadly to stir up a little extra tension. Rule 2: Breaking the first rule will result in almost certain death Why don't participants just say no? Anyone who refuses to compete once they've awakened will have their cursed technique removed (Idle Transfiguration), which results in brain damage and most likely, death. This clause stops anyone who tries to skip the game or even forfeit after the game has begun. Kenjaku is a sneaky bugger alright. Rule 3: Civilians have one chance to leave the game Regular folk who don't possess cursed energy can't usually see spirits without the aid of a special tool. That means innocent bystanders might accidentally cross a colony barrier without even realising it, which would technically make them a player too. However, those who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time are given one chance to exit at the very start. If they choose to remain, then all the rules of The Culling Game will apply to them from here on out. Kenjaku isn't all that nice for introducing this component though, because he's really all about just throwing extra chaos into the mix. Rule 4: Players earn points by killing each other Want to win? You need to kill other competitors to secure those much-needed points. As such, the game isn't so much about survival as it is slaughter. Players are encouraged to go on the offensive, which results in utter carnage throughout this longer-than-average arc. As if that wasn't chaotic enough, Kenjaku also adds extra wild cards halfway through in the form of newly awakened sorcerers and resurrected curse-users from the past. Rule 5: Every player has a set point value Killing is key for everyone who competes, but not all players are valued equally. While sorcerers and cursed spirits are worth 5 points, non-sorcerers are only worth a measly one point. Still, every win counts, especially when game master Kenjaku can change a player's worth on a whim depending on their threat level. This creates an intriguing dynamic where powerful sorcerers become the focus for players hoping to earn big while others hunt out low-score humans to play it safe. Rule 6: 100 points can be used to propose a new rule This rule is a literal game-changer because any player who stacks up 100 points can propose a new rule to Kenjaku. These new rules can do anything from reshape the battlefield to creating different mechanics that aid the player in question. As such, rule-making is essentially another type of weapon for those strong and smart enough to wield this power correctly. It's safe to say that this rule easily tips the scales in favour of more powerful sorcerers who can rack up those points quicker. Sorry to all the random humans who stroll in unawares. Rule 7: Kenjaku must approve each new rule Of course, there's always a catch. Players can ask for almost anything, but only up to a point. That's because the one rule players can't request is the removal of rules previously set in place by Kenjaku. Kind of like a 'genie refusing to give more wishes' kind of deal. Long-term changes are also disallowed. Essentially, Kenjaku can do what he wants with these requests. And remember, his priority is to maximise the body count, because he's kind of messed up like that. View oEmbed on the source website Rule 8: Stop for 19 days and your cursed technique is removed While the first rule gave players 19 days to choose a colony, the final rule punishes competitors who don't increase their score for the same length of time. Sit idle for 19 days and you lose your cursed technique, which usually results in death for the player who's been targeted. So much for waiting things out until everyone else is dead. This rule quickly weeds out anyone who's too weak to make an impact on the tournament, plus it adds even more pressure to an already stressful game. And by "stressful," I mean "unbearable to the point of madness". Combined, these rules create monsters out of good people and make bad people even worse. In short, this is a horrifying ordeal that sucks for everyone competing, but kind of rules for us waiting to see all the endless culling unfold back home. So. Much. Culling. And with that, there's nothing left to except let The Culling Game commence! And may the odds be ever in your favour. Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 is streaming now on Crunchyroll. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' most graphic scene so far makes a crucial point about the show
Plenty of people have had a s**t time of it in Westeros, but few have had it quite as bad as Dunk (Peter Claffey). A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms begins with the modest hedge knight in mourning. Once Dunk has wiped away his tears, the plan is to honour his late master, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), in a jousting tournament nearby. But before he heads off to compete, another task must be completed first. It's all very serious as Dunk buries Arlan with all the gravitas you might expect from a show set in this world. The music swells and builds ceremoniously as the hero's journey is about to begin… And then we suddenly cut to Dunk defecating by a tree. It's not a brief dump either. The camera cuts from a modest overhead shot to a wide angle where we can see the full extent of the poop spraying out from Dunk's behind. Targaryens will get down and dirty in all kinds of ways, often with their own siblings, but you'd never catch one of them doing that. Not on camera anyway. Of course, Dunk doesn't know he's being watched by us either. Poor guy. And things are about to get a whole lot worse for him before they get better… It's tempting to assume the graphic nature of this scene has been included this early on just for shock value. Games of Thrones is hardly known for taming things down, after all. But like a doctor looking through a stool for answers, we too can learn a lot about Dunk and this show's outlook through a messy scene like this. There's the abrupt shift in tone for one. While both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are rather serious (for the most part), leading with this bowel movement early on establishes that this ain't your nana's Westeros — not by any means. Humour is as integral to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as knights and kingdoms are. It's there in the way people greet each other — "What you gawping at, you blue eyed c**t?" — and it's there in the crueller putdowns too, like when a woman says early on, "A hedge knight is like a knight, but sadder." None of this is funny for Dunk, of course, just as it's not amusing to poop outside without a roll of bog paper to wipe up. But this kind of callous toilet humour situates the show in a very different place than previous visits to Westeros, making us laugh while also establishing the realities of life for an everyman who wasn't fortunate enough to be born into nobility. This outlook differentiates A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms from both Thrones and House of the Dragon in ways that this franchise sorely needed. There's only so many times you can circle back to nobility in Westeros before risking repetition, and as this series proves, there's a whole world out there full of interesting new stories to navigate. To be fair, Game of Thrones did manage this to some degree, and once even with poop as well. Remember at the start of season seven when Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) began maester training only to discover that this entailed cleaning up human waste? Bradley spoke to Vulture about the importance of this bedpan sequence at the time: "The first time we see Sam, he’s being put through abject misery compared to how elated he was when he first arrived at the Citadel at the end of season six. He’s so disenchanted with it all, realizing that after all the time he’s invested in the Wall all these years, he’s now away from everybody." "Sam is restless and angry," adds Bradley, "and he feels he’s letting Jon down. The scene makes you believe all that. It’s a very functional scene at establishing his psychology and his motives going into this season, but it does it in a very entertaining and, hopefully, very funny way." Just as this sequence highlighted the contrast between noble life and the gritty toil of scholarly pursuits, so too does the excrement in Seven Kingdoms, which points to hardship for Dunk. As showrunner Ira Parker told RadioTimes.com and other outlets, "The moment behind the tree is so important to season 1. [It's] Dunk feeling this call to try something really hard, to go out there and to be a knight... "He so badly wants it, he picks up the story, feels this call, but then, of course, like all of us, whenever we try to do something new and hard that we've never done before, your guts just turn to water. "He's not a hero, yet, he's not this fake version of a hero that senses his destiny and goes out and grabs it. He is a human being like me and you. He wants things, but he doesn't exactly know how to get the better things, and his journey this season is going to be about whether or not he can endure the trials of knighthood, and actually rise to the occasion." Nothing says you're struggling like pooping under a tree and sleeping out in the open. But we're not just meant to feel sorry for Dunk. This is simply the life of an everyman in Westeros, yet even so, this humble hedge knight doesn't let it get him down. By establishing Dunk's world as a cruel one, it's all the more impressive when he sticks to his guns in the face of great difficulty. With Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) by his side, Dunk's belief in what's right never falters and that makes him a hero worth rooting for. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the ruling class above him whose merest whims can send our hedge knight spiralling. Dunk has been dealt a s**t hand, and I'm not just talking about the lack of toilet paper in that field. But, this is exactly what sets A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms apart and makes it a worthy extension of George R. R. Martin's world. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on 19th January 2026 on Sky Atlantic and NOW and airs in the US on HBO. Game of Thrones seasons 1 to 8 and House of the Dragon seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Sky and NOW – find out more about how to sign up for Sky TV. If you’re looking for something else to watch in the meantime, check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Fantasy hub. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
His & Hers ending explained: Who was the real culprit all along?
**Warning: contains spoilers for His & Hers episodes 1-6.** Don't let the name of this new Netflix thriller fool you. His & Hers is anything but romantic, driven by dark desires that result in a dangerous game of cat and mouse between two exes. The former lovers in question are Jon Bernthal's highly strung detective named Jack Harper and Anna, a cutthroat journalist played by Tessa Thompson. Personal trauma ripped their marriage apart a year prior, but when a woman is brutally murdered in their Atlanta hometown, Anna returns to investigate and salvage her career. The problem is Jack might have been the one who killed her… It turns out His & Hers is just as twisty as the Alice Feeney novel it's based on because just when you think you know who killed Rachel Hopkins, viewers discover that the culprit was actually a lot closer to home. His & Hers ending explained Five episodes in, time is running out for Jack. After dodging his detective colleague Priya Patel (Sunita Mani) all season, the evidence is stacking up against him. But does he care? No, not after he finds his sister Zoe (Marin Ireland) murdered in the bathtub. Yep, what might have been a red Lush bathbomb turns out to be her blood, which is now all over Jack. Anna makes a discovery of her own, less gruesome, but no less dangerous, when she realises that the rival anchorwoman gunning for her job isn't just a random blonde named Lexy (Rebecca Rittenhouse). She's actually Catherine (Astrid Rotenberry), a girl who Anna's friends bullied back in school. It turns out Catherine lost a lot of weight and changed her name to fool everyone and enact revenge. But that's not all she's done. The final episode of His & Hers starts with a flashback where Lexy, back when she was known as Catherine, goes on a family boat trip. Sounds cute, right? Sadly no, because it's not long before Catherine's sister starts poking fun at her weight. In response, Catherine does what anyone would do and deliberately uses up the medicine in Andrea's inhaler so she won't be able to use it when she needs it most. Ok, that might not be what most sane people would do, but the result is the same. Andrea dies while on the boat trip, unable to use the medicine she needs, which just goes to show you shouldn't make fun of people. We then cut back to the present where Anna has just realised the truth about Lexy/Catherine (despite knowing both versions of her for many, many years). The problem is she's only just realised now while she's in Lexy's house after her husband Richard (Pablo Schreiber) led Anna there in the previous episode… Anna calls Jack for help, but he's a bit tied up with finding the corpse of his sister. Still, he comes anyway when Anna reveals the danger she's in, pointing out that Lexy must have been the one who killed Zoe (not to mention Rachel and Helen too). Jack is delayed, however, when Patel shows up, ready to finally confront him about his potential role in Rachel's murder. Frankly, her timing couldn't be worse, not just because Anna's in danger but also because of the extremely incriminating blood that Jack's absolutely drenched in. Meanwhile, Richard has cottoned on to the fact that Anna has called for help, which is far from ideal. The fact they regularly work together – and do a lot more together – doesn't stop him from having a go at Anna. Scared, she manages to grab the concealed gun in her bag and shoot at him in the house, but then the bullets quickly run out, so Anna locks him in another room. That's when Lexy shows up to help her hubby out, but instead of smashing Anna's head in with a plant pot, Anna turns the tables and smashes her head against the wall instead. Patel was knocked out too, by Jack, and now wakes up outside his house with police back-up checking to see if she's alright. Anna calls Lexy a psycho, which is fair, but Lexy calls her one back, saying Anna "lured her" into the woods 20 years ago. You know, back when something terrible happened to the group. More on that later. There's also a great line about drinking piss which I'd argue is Emmy-worthy. Anna's tooth comes out in the resulting fight, so she hits Lexy mad as hell and they fall through a glass table. It's not really a TV fight unless someone falls through a glass table. Jack shows up just as Lexy goes for the gun. He pushes Anna to the side, not realising that the gun is empty. That's when a bullet suddenly hits Lexy from outside where Patel is now standing. She didn't realise the gun was empty either so she went for the head shot, killing Lexy in an instant. We suddenly cut to dawn the next day as Jack and Anna sit together and talk while the police clear up everything around them. Anna gives Jack her condolences for the death of his sister, suggesting that she can maybe help out raising his niece, Meg. But just like us, Jack needs answers about what happened between Anna and Zoe and all the other girls that fateful night in the woods when they were young. "Rachel was the ringleader, but Helen and Zoe knew about it too," says Anna, who then describes how she and Lexy were led into the woods on Anna's 16th birthday. It was supposed to be a party, but then men showed up after Rachel had sent them photos of the girls. "These men attacked Catherine. Rachel and Helen and your sister watched. I wanted to tell you, I started to a hundred times and I just couldn’t. I thought maybe I shouldn’t because of Zoe and... the truth is, Jack, I’ve just never been able to tell anyone. I thought I… Maybe I could just pretend it didn’t happen, so that’s what I did. I’m sorry." This story is horrific, but Anna and Jack have been through their own fair share of trauma already following the loss of their baby last year. It's no surprise then that they'd reconnect in this moment, sharing a kiss after baring their all to each other. The police find more incriminating evidence that seems to prove Lexy was behind the murders and Patel very quickly seems to have forgiven Jack for knocking her out the night before, so everything is fine and peachy. Right? Right??? One year later, it sure does seem that way. Anna has got her old job back, she's pregnant with Jack's baby, and they're also raising Meg together as a family. Finally, they've managed to claw back what was stolen from them following the loss of their first child. The end... Except, wait. There's more. Anna begins narrating again, like she usually does at the start of every episode. But this time, the words are familiar. In fact, these are the same lines we've heard across the five episodes prior to this one. Lazy writing? No. Because it turns out that these were never Anna's words. It was simply Anna reading the words of someone else, someone very close to her. That doesn't become clear though until the narration suddenly changes from Anna's voice to the voice of Anna's mother, Alice (Crystal Fox). And the change happens right as she says the word "killing". <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/01/Netflix-3d8313d.jpg" width="2616" height="1744" alt="An older woman sits on a sofa, cradling a younger woman against her chest in a warm, softly lit living room. The younger woman rests her head on the older woman’s arm as they share a quiet, intimate moment, with sunlight streaming through the windows behind them." title="His & Hers" /> Oh yes. With this switch in narration, we watch as Anna reads a letter written by Alice that reveals she's been a lot busier than the show's made out. As detailed in the letter, Alice looks back with pride at everything Anna had accomplished, including the birth of her baby Charlotte. But when Charlotte died in Alice's care, all she had left of Anna were old video tapes. She'd watch them daily, and regularly visit Charlotte's grave hoping her daughter might return home. There, Alice saw Jack meet Rachel for some loving in a side road. But that wasn't her concern at this time. No, it's what happened next that kicks off her murderous rampage. Six months into Anna's absence, Alice finally gets round to watching one last video tape of her on Anna's 16th birthday. The celebrations quickly turn to horror though as Alice watches and discovers that Anna was sexually assaulted by the men in the woods too, who committed the vile act as so-called friends like Rachel watched and laughed. They even sing "Happy Birthday" during the assault, which is one of the most disturbing things you'll see happen on TV this year. Alice breaks down watching all this, and then she concocts a plan for revenge. "No one expects a woman to be a serial killer," says Alice, pointing out that some of her suspicious actions were quickly written off as signs of dementia. "That’s the thing about older folks. Like back doors and the workers who use them, we’re usually forgotten, ignored, invisible." But that works to Alice's advantage. "Year after year after year. Same locks, same doors, same keys. They could’ve stopped me, but we see what we want to see, even when the truth is right in front of us." We watch then as Alice goes around killing all the women responsible for what happened to Anna. She didn't intend to kill Catherine as she figured "prison was fair" for the smaller role she played. But she "didn't expect Patel to be such a good shot". "Killing Rachel brought you home," adds Alice. "Killing Helen kept you here, and killing Zoe gave you the family you lost." It's kind of worked out perfectly, no? And as far as outlandish TV twists go, this one is actually kind of believable. Ridiculous? Yes. Entertaining? Absolutely. But before the show ends, presumably for good, Alice reveals why she's written this letter to Anna. "I’m writing this now, baby, because soon you’ll be a mother again. Love my grandbabies as I’ve loved you. Teach them the value of hard work and planning. Prepare them for a life both ugly and beautiful. Unpredictable, always changing. Except for one thing. Show them that a mother’s love never dies, never weakens. It's constant, continual, relentless. All my love, my precious girl. Your mother…" Anna looks up at her mother then with tears of disbelief as Alice hangs out with the rest of the family in another room. But Alice sees Anna watching and watches back, knowingly. The show might be called His & Hers, but the story is very much hers and only hers by the end. His & Hers is available to stream on Netflix. on deSign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media. Add His & Hers to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" class="x_OWAAutoLink" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. 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Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 review: Anime A-lister returns to cull the competition
The first two episodes of season 3 amp up everything we love most about Jujutsu Kaisen.
This review is based on Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 episodes 1-2. Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 kicks off with an uncharacteristically quiet moment for the teen sorcerer at the heart of this show. Yuji Itadori is washing blood off his hands, but there's just too much of it. Red stains spiral into the sink, stubbornly refusing to come clean. Endless torrents of blood are par for the course in both the series and the Gege Akutami-penned manga this story is based on, but this isn't just the aftermath of any old battle. Season 2 ended with The Shibuya Incident, Jujutsu Kaisen's most devastating arc yet. Friends died at the hands of demons and countless more perished at the hands of Yuji himself once the power of Ryomen Sukuna took over. In the fallout from this, the blood on Yuji's hands carries something far heavier, and the overarching mood is thick with despair as well. Survivor's guilt coupled with guilt over the carnage he technically wreaked shapes everything here, visually warping Tokyo itself with a bleary pink sunrise stained like the blood on his hands. A giant, grotesque monster claws at Yuji all of a sudden, throwing us into battle, but you can feel that Yuji's heart isn't in it. Even at his most impressive, jumping and spinning and hurtling through the air mid-fight, Yuji's body language speaks to a broken man far removed from the protagonist we were first introduced to in season one. Dread infuses every frame, every lingering shot of an empty staircase or demolished building. It's eerie and atmospheric in ways that speak to the show's movie-level animation and how the team at MAPPA are capable of stunning beyond Jujutsu Kaisen's signature fights. These too are just as elaborate as ever, first when Yuji tears into Cronenbergian demons, and then when Yuta Okkotsu arrives to kill him on orders from the Jujutsu Council. We've only seen glimpses of Yuta in the main show before now, but here, the protagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is finally unleashed in full, pitting the franchise's two heroes against each other in a battle to the death. The fan-favourite sorcerer is also one of the most powerful, and you can feel it in every blow. This long-awaited confrontation between them is as visceral as it is balletic, practically operatic in its gravity-defying athleticism. Note how the pair's different fighting styles bring a new kind of energy to the show as well, paired with Jujutsu Kaisen's usual chaotic framing and sharp camera movements. View oEmbed on the source website Between every cursed punch and kick, it's also gratifying to see how Yuta carries himself now, no longer the timid student we met back in the prequel film. His self-assured arrival further shifts Jujutsu Kaisen into new territory along with the addition of other characters including Naoya Zenin, a potential clan leader who has Megumi Fushiguro in his sights. Beyond each individual fight, power struggles in the wider world of Jujutsu Kaisen ebb and flow to form new enemies and alliances at every turn across these first two episodes. The writing speedruns some of this set-up, moving faster than even our battling sorcerers, as season three hurtles towards The Culling Game. As fans of the manga know, the longest arc in the series (spanning 63 chapters) is a game-changer that might even top the Shibuya Incident in terms of impact. That's assuming the show can navigate this arc and condense it where needed without losing too much of the original story. With less room to maneuver here, season three runs the risk of mishandling the pace, a problem that can already be felt a bit in these first two episodes. Jujutsu Kaisen has never been the easiest show to follow, rushing through convoluted setups and ever-changing rules, but nowhere has this been felt more keenly than at the end of episode two when The Culling Game rules are first explained. Well, "explained" is generous given how quickly huge swathes of text are plastered across the screen, only to be removed seconds later. Exposition is often dense in this show, but usually we're given at least a fighting chance to catch up and understand. Other character beats beyond Yuji's despair in the opening also land quickly, although you might not realise that initially thanks to the sheer spectacle of everything that unfolds. Fans hyped for the show's return probably won't mind too much though. By and large, the first two episodes of season 3 amp up everything we love most about Jujutsu Kaisen. Every frame, every note in the score, goes harder than ever. This is apocalyptic aura farming at its most effortless, which makes it easier to overlook occasional issues with the writing. Even without our blue-eyed boy Satoru Gojo on hand, season 3 has loudly announced itself as the A-lister to beat once again. Everything from the soundtrack to the voice-acting is next level, and with something as big as The Culling Game looming so close, blood will pour for anyone who stands in the way of Yuji and Jujutsu Kaisen alike. Jujutsu Kaisen is streaming weekly on Crunchyroll. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Why everyone's talking about Heated Rivalry
The Canadian sports romance series, based on Rachel Reid's novels, is the show of the moment.
Add Heated Rivalry to your watchlist When it comes to sport, hockey might be a big player on the international stage, but it's not exactly a huge draw when it comes to storytelling on screen. Not since the Mighty Ducks, anyway. That's all changed now though thanks to a pair of gay hockey players who develop the hots for each other while they puck their way to the top. Based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series, Heated Rivalry follows Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they compete on the ice and get steamy in the bedroom. Along the way, they struggle with the toll that comes with keeping their love secret while training to be the very best at what they do. Throw in a whole lot of butts and it's easy to see the immediate appeal of this story. But even so, it's hard to fathom just how quickly Heated Rivalry took the world by storm. Jacob Tierney's adaptation started out as a Crave original, which probably doesn't mean a whole lot to people who live outside of Canada. But just a week before the premiere launched, Heated Rivalry picked up an international distribution deal, expanding the show's reach to millions more via HBO Max (you know, the streamer that won't arrive on our shores until March 2026). Now it will air on Sky Atlantic from Saturday 10 January. Even so, Heated Rivalry didn't receive the same kind of big marketing push that HBO originals like House of the Dragon take for granted. Not from the network anyway. Instead, promotion fell to the fans. Specifically, horny fans of Reid's original book who pored through every moment in the first trailer, creating countless edits and screaming reaction videos using just 90 seconds of material. View Green Video on the source website Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Brendan Brady revealed it was this fan buzz that directly led to HBO Max's involvement, thereby securing the show's international success. But distribution alone could never guarantee such a rabid response, especially for a show that has no recognisable IP outside of the book fanbase. That's where the butts come in. What started with just happy book readers soon turned into a collective lust driven by gay men and straight women alike, something the series heavily leans into. From early showers together to their first hotel hook-up, Shane and Ilya's relationship is defined almost entirely by sex. It's the language of the show itself. As Tierney told THR, "Sex is how you tell the story because their sex changes as they get to know each other, as they get to know themselves." Sex sells, of course, but it's also easy to imagine a world where Heated Rivalry could have downplayed these scenes, watering them down to appeal to a wider audience. Thankfully, Tierney's team did no such thing, and the results speak for themselves. If anything, their adaptation of Heated Rivalry goes to even further extremes in the bedroom department. The sex is almost constant, punctuated by brief conversations and expansive time jumps before the bedroom action begins anew. It's no exaggeration to say that far more of the show takes place between the sheets than on the ice. Except, the sheets rarely get in the way of what can only be described as a peachy barrage of endless cheeks displayed onscreen. Actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie obviously bring a lot of physical appeal to Heated Rivalry, but beyond the well-lit smut, it's their chemistry that sells the show. Without that, the sex could have been corny or even cringe to watch. And it's not just in these scenes where their connection shines. Even with clothes on, Williams and Storrie embody something very real, a growing lust and even love worth rooting for. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they're nice to look at too, but good looks will only get you so far, especially with such a straightforward narrative. Rather than gun for big names, Tierney's team prioritised choosing the right talent to bring these characters to life, actors who could lean into the yearning that's so integral to this story. As naughty as the show can be, it's also rather moving at points – I defy you to watch Shane slowly delete his "we didn’t even kiss" message without feeling something. Heated Rivalry is as authentic in its feelings as it is in its approach to gay sex, something which mainstream productions rarely nail. And therein lies the show's true appeal, this ability to pull us in and speak to the romantic in us too. Well, that and the fact there's almost no actual hockey here to speak of. Why would we want to watch sports when we can watch Shane and Ilya score off the rink instead?
Pluribus ending explained: Cast break down every twist and reveal
It's Christmas, Carol! But that doesn't mean it's all cheer and goodwill as far as Pluribus is concerned. Santa giveth and Santa taketh too with this season 1 finale, which marks the end of a chapter, but also gives us one of the most unique, special ends to a season we've seen in quite some time. The episode, titled 'La Chica o El Mundo', is essentially a three-hander between Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga), and Zosia (Karolina Wydra) — even if the latter technically represents pretty much every other person on the planet. And with this close proximity comes a few disturbing twists that we spoke to stars Rhea Seehorn and Karolina Wydra in greater detail about. But the final chapter begins before these three characters meet, revealing what happens when one of the few remaining survivors gets her wish in Peru. Pluribus season 1 ending explained: What happened to Carol? Interviews by Alex Hewitt. With the clock ticking 71 days in, the season one finale of Pluribus starts with Kusimayu watching as a plane arrives in her small Peruvian village. A relative (in the group mind) asks if she's 'excited or nervous about what's to come.' Against gorgeous scenic backdrops, we watch as a special crate is delivered to Kusimayu. "Will it hurt?" she asks. "Not one bit," replies the group mind. And with that, Peruvian chanting begins as Kusimayu breathes in vapour that emanates from the delivery. As soon as she falls to the ground, mid-seizure, the religious-like chanting immediately stops. The Joined have what they wanted now. Kusimayu has joined them too, and she did so willingly, so there's no need to keep up any semblance of normalcy. Everyone in the entire village suddenly leaves at once, letting the farm animals free as they go. Where they go next, we don't know, because then the action returns to Carol and Zosia watching Manousos on his way to Albuquerque. Zosia suggests that they/she should not be here when he arrives in case her presence upsets him. Carol wonders if Manousos might be dangerous, as if she's not casually sleeping with a cannibal in her own home. Manousos arrives with a machete in hand, which doesn't exactly scream diplomacy. Carol is wary, even if he's only carrying it in fear of The Joined and what they might do to him. He's wary too, unwilling to talk inside her home. Together, they speak through a translation app outside, but Manousos is worried about Carol's phone so he tries to take it and they end up dropping it inside the grate. "I'm finito," says Carol, as she storms back into her house and closes the front door on him. How will she keep up her Candy Crush streak now? Realising that he's messed up, Manousos tries to retrieve the phone using his machete for leverage. A multi-purpose tool if I've ever seen one. He then convinces Carol to talk with him again, first outside with an umbrella to shield them from satellites, and then finally, inside her house. "These weirdos are evil," says Manousos. "They have stolen everyone’s soul. If we can't fix them, they are better off dead." "They are still human beings," replies Carol. "They are not evil. They wouldn’t even kill an ant." Manousos is surprised that this Carol is so different to the one he saw in the video she sent. What he doesn't know is that Zosia is attractive and therefore has won Carol over. Inside the house, Manousos is checking for bugs and wire taps that The Joined might be using to listen in. Carol thinks he's absurd for suggesting it until he suddenly finds something very suspicious hidden away in the back of her liquor cabinet. Carol immediately calls Zosia, who tries to tactfully reveal that it was Helen who put what turns out to be a motion sensor in there so she'd know if Carol was drinking when she shouldn't be. It's a devastating reveal, another twist of the knife that doesn't just reopen old scars but creates new ones too, just when Carol had been trying her best to suppress that grief. Manousos reluctantly moves into one of the neighbour's houses while Carol drinks herself to sleep with The Golden Girls playing again in the background. Sounds like my idea of a good time, if it wasn't for the soul-tearing grief and post-apocalyptic vibes of it all. The next day, Carol finds Manousos talking to Zosia, and she's instantly horrified at what she must have revealed to him. As she pulls Zosia away to find out if she disclosed the physical nature of their relationship, Manousos calls the group mind and asks to speak with another representative. Zosia didn't lie to him, because she can't lie, and she loves him the same as well. Another betrayal, another stab in the gut for Carol. But it's not so much a betrayal of love as it is a reminder that this romantic fantasy Carol has begun to indulge in is all a lie. "No, you can’t love him the same," she cries. "He’s a stranger and we… You’re my… You were my…You’re my chaperone. Mine." Seehorn broke down this "very upsetting" exchange with us exclusively, saying: "Carol’s very careful to not poke holes in this water balloon that’s barely holding water. There's a willingness to hang onto what she would like to believe in this moment, because not only was she very, very broken from how long she was left in isolation, it was an existential threat of loneliness." "She might just be sitting in her house watching Golden Girls until the day she dies," continues Seehorn, "unless she chooses to have a relationship with one of these people, be it a close friendship or a romantic relationship or anything. She was looking at a life alone for the rest of her life." Manousos has become a threat to that, so Carol asks Zosia to stay away from him, mentioning all the bad things he's said about The Joined. In response, Zosia suddenly lies down, telling Carol not to be alarmed regarding what's about to happen. It turns out Manousos got angry with another member of The Joined, deliberately so, in order to test theories around their connection and extreme collective response to heightened emotions. "Rick, I know you are there," he says, checking the signals emanating from the radio he's placed in his hand. "Come back. I know you are there. I am there." It looks like Manousos is trying to find a way to sever Rick's connection to the alien group mind, which explains all the scientific research he was doing alone back in Paraguay. And crucially, it looks like he might be onto something. But before Manousos has the chance to test his research out completely, a shotgun blast suddenly takes a chunk out of the wall behind him. Carol is back and she is livid. When Zosia wakes up, she reveals that all The Joined must leave again, like they did last time. "For what it’s worth, [Manousos] did warn us first before he did what he did. Please tell him we’re sorry it came to this." Manousos doesn't care though. He's just happy that his research was fruitful: "It was worth it completely. Now I know much more. You were right. I think there’s a way to put things back in their place. Come on, now the work begins…" Carol doesn't seem too interested though. "Do you want to save the world or get the girl?" asks Manousos. Our answer comes in the form of stunning holiday vignettes from around the world. Swimming in a gorgeous pool, drinking tea in a luxurious apartment, visiting a snowy ski resort and what appears to be Halong Bay in Vietnam… But is it enough? "You seem pretty quiet," says Zosia. Carol's been wondering about Zosia's past, the unjoined Zosia, and whether she had a special someone in her life. Yes, it turns out, but they must have died before or during The Joining because they're not present in the group mind now. "I don’t think I’m good at just feeling good," says Carol. "What makes us happy in our bodies?" View Green Video on the source website They talk about chemical reactions before Zosia suggests things will "only get better" once Carol joins them, just like Kusimayu did at the beginning of the episode. Carol checks that they need her stem cells and her consent for the joining to occur, but something's off and Carol senses it: "My eggs. The ones I froze with Helen. You have them, don’t you. And you can make those into stem cells… You’re working on it." "We are," replies Zosia. "You have to understand how beautiful it is. You have to see how we see it… Remember the young Peruvian girl? She just joined us. She’s happier than she's ever been." "How long do I have?" asks Carol, broken by this news. "A month. Hopefully no more than two or three." "If you loved me you wouldn’t do this," pleads Carol. "Carol, please understand we have to do this because we love you. Because I love you." The Joined can access every memory, every skill of each person in their group mind all at once, so it looks like they've learned plenty about gaslighting and manipulation to get what they want out of Carol. It's devastating to watch, not just for us but Seehorn too. "In episodes 8 and 9, Carol is living in a delusion somewhat voluntarily," the actor says. "She is choosing to not see obvious signs of certain things. I don’t think she saw the egg thing coming, I really don’t." Wydra had no idea that this was coming until she received the script for episode 9: "We didn’t get all the scripts at once, so with each episode, there was a new discovery of the story as it was unfolding..." "It was great to read that and to see how to Them, their biological imperative is everything, at all costs. They really need [Carol] to experience this thing that they’re experiencing. Same with Manousos, same with all the rest of the ‘old-schoolers’." As Seehorn points out, this betrayal "starts the whole plot ticking again, of being ‘turned’. They can now do this without my consent." It's with this information that Carol arms herself as the final scenes of season one pull into focus. Now 74 days into the countdown, we see Manousos doing research using science books from the library (sometimes translated using his English dictionary). A helicopter suddenly arrives with a huge crate just as Carol pulls up in a car. "You win," she tells Manousos. "We save the world." "What is this?" "An atom bomb," replies Carol. And then the camera zooms out from above into the credits. Yep, angry Carol is back, fresh off the horrors of that betrayal, and she's ready to stop The Joined using whatever means necessary. But how this will actually look remains to be seen. Could Pluribus really go there and actually set off an atomic bomb? "The good news for me is that I don’t have to keep secrets," Seehorn tells us, "because I don’t know anything! I literally don’t know what she’s doing with the atom bomb." "I have gone through a lot of thoughts in my head," she adds. "I know that they are in the writer’s room right now writing season 2, and I have chosen not to specifically ask that." "But as excited as I am about the chemistry and the relationship and the bizarre rollercoaster that I have with Karoline Wydra playing Zosia so brilliantly, and wondering where that’s going, the dynamic between [Koumba] Diabaté (Samba Schutte) and Carol is also slightly different now. We see that he does have some compassion and admitted that he wouldn’t want to be turned either, so would he help me?" "And then, the dynamic I have with the brilliant Carlos-Manuel Vesga playing Manousos, so fun. I’m looking forward to their combative energies, because they both so dramatically are hanging onto their own intentions and secrets that they are both immovable objects when they come up against each other, which is just often comedic, no matter how you go at it! That was a lot of fun, and he’s a tremendous actor." Pluribus is streaming now on Apple TV – you can sign up for a seven-day free trial of Apple TV now. Add Pluribus to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
My Hero Academia is ending after more than a decade – here's how it became an anime phenomenon
The beloved cast reflect on the incredible series in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.
School's out for good with the end of My Hero Academia, but it's not just the end of another academic year. We're talking the end of an era, the end of a franchise that expanded and deconstructed an entire genre. Where else could you see the kind of earnest, hopeful superhero storytelling that came to define Kōhei Horikoshi's decade-long run in his manga and the show that followed? So much more than just another story about super-powered school kids, My Hero Academia introduced us to countless heroes and villains who are just as inspiring as they are "quirky". It's not just their powers or "quirks" that set them apart though (as weird as they often were). No, it was their determination to push through imperfection and fight for what mattered. Izuku Midoriya, especially, represented a new kind of hero in that sense, worlds removed from the dark or quippy protagonists popularised by Marvel and DC. It's not just us who are saying goodbye to Midoriya and the gang though. After 170 episodes and four theatrical film releases, the English dub cast have been forced to reckon with the end of an era for themselves as well, learning to let go of a show that's dominated anime and their own personal lives for the better part of a decade. "I'm definitely in the beginning phases of mourning," says voice actor Ernesto Jason Liebrecht (Dabi) ahead of the final episode: "It is really kind of a crazy thing to live with a character in your head for a decade of your life, to experience the level of character development that the creators so graciously provided to us as actors." Justin Cook (Red Riot) was quick to echo that sentiment: "There's a part where you don't want to say goodbye to these characters, but at the same time, watching the story wrap up on its own terms… It's pretty powerful to be a part of it." Very few titles make it to eight seasons in any medium, so the fact we're now here in the final stretch with some of the show's best reviews yet is nothing short of phenomenal. It didn't always seem like that would be a given though. Luci Christian (Uravity) recalls huge hype at the start, only for the first season to come and go without much fanfare. "We all went, 'Oh well. That's how it goes. It's no big deal.' Then the second season came out, I think, or was about to come out, and it just went huge." "I think My Hero Academia happened at a really perfect time," adds Christian. "It's kind of when streaming anime took off. It became a lot more mainstream. And I think My Hero Academia really reaped the benefit of that." Between the peak visuals, innovative powers and epic saga at hand, it's always been easy to fall in love with My Hero Academia. Patrick Seitz (Endeavor) likens all that to the "frosting," so to speak, on the foundation of this series and its appeal. "The cake, the underpinning, the structure of it all, is still about imperfect people trying to do better for each other… People want connection. They crave connection. They foster it, they love it, or they suffer for the lack of it. And I think that's what speaks to people about this. Yes, it has the power fantasy. It has the big fights. It looks great. The production is great. But again, that's, that's the frosting to the underpinning. If the underpinning weren't solid, the frosting would just collapse in on itself." "My Hero Academia really breaks the mould of the Shōnen genre," adds co-star Christopher Sabat (All Might). "As somebody who's watched it with his kids, I think the thing that makes it special is that everyone gets to participate. With Shōnen, you'll traditionally have the main character that does everything, and everyone else stands on the sideline explaining to the audience why it's so cool that the main character is doing their thing. But in this show, everyone has a role to play." Just as everyone has a role to play within My Hero Academia, everyone seems to have their own opinion about the show too, or at least how it ends. When the manga was completed last year, criticisms around the fate of Midoriya and the rushed feel of it all inspired Horikoshi's to write an additional coda that addressed these issues. This, of course, impacts the anime in turn. "I thought it was interesting of Horikoshi to give us a little bit more," says Christian. "It's a little bit messy. I kind of like that. I think that's part of the story that he tells with these heroes, because it's not black and white. It's not necessarily tied up at the end with a bow, with the good guys winning. It's just not quite like that. So I'm okay with how it ends. I like it. I guess I'm okay with the bittersweet. And I always have hope that maybe he'll come back and give these characters more to do later." Christian's not the only one who feels this way. "We live in a time where I feel like all the franchises keep coming back if you give them enough time," says Clifford Chapin (Katsuki Bakugo). "I'm not going to give up hope that maybe one day there will be My Hero Higher Education or something to follow this series." But what would such a thing actually look like, assuming it does eventually happen one day? For two of the franchise's most significant heroes, it seems like it might be time for some long overdue rest. Sabat's grateful that All Might lasted as long as he did. "Every single season has been just nail biting, wondering when this is going to be the season that they use All Might as a vehicle to make Izuku stronger. So I'm just grateful that he got as far as he did, and I think he could probably use a little time just at home. Maybe All Might and Midoriya can link up online and play games or something like that. They just need to chill." Justin Briner (Izuku Midoriya) is on board with that too. "If they want to make a show all about Deku's day-to-day life, I'm there for it. I just hope for him that he's living his best life. Deku's achieved so much in such a short time. He's proven himself on the world stage as the hero that he's always wanted to be. Now, I think hopefully he's just living proudly with the knowledge that he has made the difference that he has always wanted to." The Todoroki family have a lot of recovering to do as well, and given all they've been through, the cast hope to see them work through that together. "I would just want to see Endeavor living life as a civilian, doing no harm, trying to come to terms with himself," says Enji voice actor Patrick Seitz. "His story, it feels like Greek tragedy to me. He had the hubris. He was smote many different ways for it… His race is run as far as what I want to see. But if there were more material, I hope it would just be something day-to-day, pastoral, going to see Toya, speaking to the children that will still speak to him. No harm, no interactions with rage, just real slice-of-life, just something low stakes. Because for him, that is such high stakes." "You hit upon a fantasy of mine," adds Liebrecht. "I had this weird notion that it would be really cool to see Engie and Toya in their recovery mode, living in some little house with a garden and Eng taking care of them, taking care of each other, and it just being a normal, beautiful life. Finally, peace, redemption, the turning of that page." But what about Shoto Todoroki, the family's premier hero? "I have this idea of Shoto, having fully accepted who he is and where he's come from, taking some of his Dad's wants and needs doing them the right way," says David Matranga (Shoto Todoroki). "I have that idea of him out there in the world, heroing, really in the light, because Endeavor's idea was born in shadow, in intensity. So for Shoto to go and be a top hero in a different way, truly embodying that… I would be so jazzed for that." As it stands, there are currently no plans to continue Shoto's story or revisit any of his peers in Class 1-A either. Not in animated form anyway. But with a Hollywood live-action adaptation on the way, not to mention a popular new anime spinoff titled My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, anything's possible. "After you do this for a really long time," says Christopher Wehkamp (Eraserhead), "You suddenly realise that these shows don't always go away. My Hero Academia is so big and it's so meaningful to so many people, we could always hope that it's going to be back in some iteration or another. Vigilantes is kicking off now and, and that's a nice bridge to jump to if you really want to. There's always going to be hope that maybe someday down the road we'll see something else." But even if this really is the end, even if it's time to say goodbye to Class 1-A for good, at least My Hero Academia was able to end on its own terms. "At this point, I don't really know what it'll be like for it to really, actually end, but I'm happy that it gets to end," says Chapin. "There are so many shows we've worked on that don't get proper endings. The fact that we're going to at least get to do that is kind of its own little blessing." And don't forget; My Hero Academia will always be here in some shape or form, ready to inspire a whole new generation. Kind of like One For All, when you think about it. "I think we'll be talking about My Hero Academia for a very, very long time," says J. Michael Tatum (Ingenium). "I think it'll age incredibly well. New generations will continue to find it and be moved by it. And I think it'll go on to be — well, it probably already is —the gold standard that other shows will be judged by going forward." My Hero Academia is available to watch on Crunchyroll. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Why won't there be a My Hero Academia season 9?
The anime has bowed out after eight seasons.
After almost a decade, My Hero Academia is officially ending. The anime phenomenon, created by author and illustrator Kōhei Horikoshi, follows Izuku Midoriya/Deku, a boy who was born without a superpower (or a Quirk) in a world where they have become commonplace. After he dreams of becoming a superhero, he is scouted by the world's greatest hero, All Might, and enrols in a high school for superheroes in training. Now, the show is officially bowing out. Here's why there won't be another season of the beloved anime. Why won't there be a My Hero Academia season 9? Quite simply, eight seasons were enough to tell the story from Horikoshi's manga. Season 8 adapted the final chapters from the manga (plus a bit of bonus content), bringing the story to an end. In the grand scheme of things, 10 years is actually not a super long run for anime, when compared to titan franchises like One Piece, Naruto and Bleach, which have run and run for decades. Ending the anime can't have been an easy feat, especially when the ending to the manga proved rather controversial, with fans criticising the pacing and how things ended for Deku. Speaking exclusively about how the cast feel ending the show, Dabi voice actor Ernesto Jason Liebrecht told RadioTimes.com: "I'm definitely in the beginning phases of mourning. "It is really kind of a crazy thing to live with a character in your head for a decade of your life, to experience the level of character development that the creators so graciously provided to us as actors." Justin Cook (Red Riot) added: "There's a part where you don't want to say goodbye to these characters, but at the same time, watching the story wrap up on its own terms… It's pretty powerful to be a part of it." "After you do this for a really long time, you suddenly realise that these shows don't always go away," said Christopher Wehkamp (Eraserhead). "My Hero Academia is so big and it's so meaningful to so many people, we could always hope that it's going to be back in some iteration or another." If you love the world of My Hero Academia, thankfully, there's more to delve into, with spin-off My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. The show, which premiered in April 2025, is set five years before the events of My Hero Academia and follows Koichi Haimawari, who helps others with his Quirk despite not being a licensed hero. The second season is set for release in 2026. My Hero Academia is available to watch on Crunchyroll. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
When it comes to sport, hockey might be a big player on the international stage, but it's not exactly a huge draw when it comes to storytelling on screen. Not since the Mighty Ducks, anyway. That's all changed now though thanks to a pair of gay hockey players who develop the hots for each other while they puck their way to the top. Based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series, Heated Rivalry follows Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they compete on the ice and get steamy in the bedroom. Along the way, they struggle with the toll that comes with keeping their love secret while training to be the very best at what they do. Throw in a whole lot of butts and it's easy to see the immediate appeal of this story. But even so, it's hard to fathom just how quickly Heated Rivalry took the world by storm. Jacob Tierney's adaptation started out as a Crave original, which probably doesn't mean a whole lot to people who live outside of Canada. But just a week before the premiere launched, Heated Rivalry picked up an international distribution deal, expanding the show's reach to millions more via HBO Max (you know, the streamer that won't arrive on our shores until March 2026). Even so, Heated Rivalry didn't receive the same kind of big marketing push that HBO originals like House of the Dragon take for granted. Not from the network anyway. Instead, promotion fell to the fans. Specifically, horny fans of Reid's original book who pored through every moment in the first trailer, creating countless edits and screaming reaction videos using just 90 seconds of material. View Green Video on the source website Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Brendan Brady revealed it was this fan buzz that directly led to HBO Max's involvement, thereby securing the show's international success. But distribution alone could never guarantee such a rabid response, especially for a show that has no recognisable IP outside of the book fanbase. That's where the butts come in. What started with just happy book readers soon turned into a collective lust driven by gay men and straight women alike, something the series heavily leans into. From early showers together to their first hotel hook-up, Shane and Ilya's relationship is defined almost entirely by sex. It's the language of the show itself. As Tierney told THR, "Sex is how you tell the story because their sex changes as they get to know each other, as they get to know themselves." Sex sells, of course, but it's also easy to imagine a world where Heated Rivalry could have downplayed these scenes, watering them down to appeal to a wider audience. Thankfully, Tierney's team did no such thing, and the results speak for themselves. If anything, their adaptation of Heated Rivalry goes to even further extremes in the bedroom department. The sex is almost constant, punctuated by brief conversations and expansive time jumps before the bedroom action begins anew. It's no exaggeration to say that far more of the show takes place between the sheets than on the ice. Except, the sheets rarely get in the way of what can only be described as a peachy barrage of endless cheeks displayed onscreen. Actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie obviously bring a lot of physical appeal to Heated Rivalry, but beyond the well-lit smut, it's their chemistry that sells the show. Without that, the sex could have been corny or even cringe to watch. And it's not just in these scenes where their connection shines. Even with clothes on, Williams and Storrie embody something very real, a growing lust and even love worth rooting for. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they're nice to look at too, but good looks will only get you so far, especially with such a straightforward narrative. Rather than gun for big names, Tierney's team prioritised choosing the right talent to bring these characters to life, actors who could lean into the yearning that's so integral to this story. As naughty as the show can be, it's also rather moving at points – I defy you to watch Shane slowly delete his "we didn’t even kiss" message without feeling something. Heated Rivalry is as authentic in its feelings as it is in its approach to gay sex, something which mainstream productions rarely nail. And therein lies the show's true appeal, this ability to pull us in and speak to the romantic in us too. Well, that and the fact there's almost no actual hockey here to speak of. Why would we want to watch sports when we can watch Shane and Ilya score off the rink instead? Heated Rivalry is available to watch on HBO Max in the US. Add Heated Rivalry to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.