This Star Wars: The Mandalorian article contains spoilers.

The Mandalorian season 3 kicks things into high gear with “The Pirate.” Gorian Shard wants to take Nevarro for himself but seriously underestimates Greef Karga’s connections. When Din, Bo-Katan, and the rest of the Mandalorians show up to kick the pirates out of town, all hell breaks lose in the skies above the city as well as on the ground. The Armorer smashes a few faces in with her hammer while Paz lays down the law with his gatling blaster, with air support from Din and Bo. By the end of the episode, Gorian has nowhere to go but down.

Unsurprisingly, the lead up and the battle itself cue up quite a few callbacks and references to other Star Wars stories, including a few cameos that should get excited for the future of the Mandoverse! Here are all the easter eggs and other things we noticed in “The Pirate.”

Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum)

Yes, the Lasat in the blue flight suit is indeed our pal Zeb Orrelios from the Rebels animated series! Thanks to The Mandalorian, we finally get to see what old Zeb has been up to since the end of the Galactic Civil War. No longer with the Ghost crew, Zeb’s now stationed on Adelphi with Carson Teva and the rest of the Rangers operating as space cops in the Outer Rim. CGI Zeb is once again voiced by Rebels veteran voice actor Steve Blum.

A fun fact about Zeb: his species, the Lasat, was originally Ralph McQuarrie’s design for the alien character who eventually became Chewbacca in A New Hope. In other words, Zeb’s legacy goes all the way back to the very beginnings of Star Wars. And The Mandalorian finally gives us the character in live action as was originally intended (from a certain point of view). Pretty cool!

You can read more about Zeb here.

Colonel Tuttle (Tim Meadows)

Tim Meadows cameos as New Republic requisitions officer Colonel Tuttle, a name that not so subtly nods to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, a satire about a dystopian society ruled by bureaucracy and the kinds of officials who are more interested in paper work than actually helping anyone. We’ve already seen plenty of other ways the New Republic resembles the totalitarian rulers of Brazil and here we get to see another way the galactic government is ineffective.

You can read more about Tim Meadows here.

Lt. Reed (Max Lloyd-Jones)

Max Lloyd-Jones returns as Lt. Reed, one of Carson Teva’s New Republic wingmen when out on patrol in the Outer Rim. The character first appeared in The Book of Boba Fett. But this isn’t Lloyd-Jones most famous role in Star Wars, of course. He first served as Luke Skywalker’s body double in the famous The Mandalorian season 2 finale, with Mark Hamill de-aged face CGI’d onto Lloyd-Jones’ head. Lloyd-Jones didn’t play Luke on Boba Fett, though. That was Graham Hamilton.

“He Shot First!”

It’s the old “Han Shot First” debacle all over again when Greef Karga and Gorian Shard argue about who started the fight on Nevarro in “The Apostate.” At one point, Greef asserts that the pirates shot first and therefore he and Din were forced to defend themselves. We know of course that it was actually technically the other way around…but only because the pirates wouldn’t back down!

Carson Teva and the Adelphi Rangers

Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and the other New Republic rangers who patrol the Outer Rim are based at an outpost on Adelphi, a planet first mentioned in season 2, but that makes its first real appearance here. All we know about the planet is that it offers nice views for the bar where all the rangers hangout after hours.

It’s at this bar that we of course reunite with Zeb, but there are also three other cameos in the scene. Sitting on the opposite side of the bar are exec producer Dave Filoni as Trapper Wolf, director and exec producer Rick Famuyiwa as Jib Dodger, and director and Obi-Wan Kenobi showrunner Deborah Chow as Sash Ketter. All of these characters were first introduced in The Mandalorian season 1 episode “The Prisoner.”

Snivvian and Other Aliens

If you love Star Wars aliens, this episode is absolutely packed with all different races, from the pirates working for Gorian Shard to the citizens of Nevarro. We’ve got all the classics like Aqualish, Gran, Jawas, Klatooinians, Mon Calamari, Nikto, Quarrens, Rodians, Trandoshans Twi’leks, Ugnaughts, and Weequay.

But we have to give a special shoutout to the pig-like Snivvian tending bar on Adelphi. Not only was this one of the original species featured in A New Hope but it was introduced in the famous cantina scene, so the return of the Snivvian here sort of serves as a double nod to the Original Trilogy.

Y-wings and the Corsair

– While the New Republic rangers seem to favor X-wings as their starfighter of choice, we also see Y-wings landing at the outpost on Adelphi. These ships were first introduced in A New Hope during the attack on the Death Star. Although in that movie, they went on the trench run like all the other fighters, Y-wings primary function is as a bomber.

– Gorian’s ill-fated pirate ship is identified as a corsair, a type of warship that was actually first introduced in the recent Thrawn prequel novels. In those books, these ships are piloted by the Lioaoin Regime, one of the powerful factions that operate in the Unknown Regions of space. They often rivaled the Chiss Ascendancy, the nation from which Thrawn originally hails from. The Thrawn connections keep on coming!

Everybody knows that Wilson Fisk is the Kingpin of Crime, not a legitimate business and political figure. I mean, it’s right there in his name! So when Vincent D’Onofrio made his surprise cameo in the finale of Hawkeye, it made sense. He was the menacing figure behind the tracksuit mafia who had been manipulating Maya Lopez aka Echo (Alaqua Cox) all along. And while his Tommy Bahama casual wear was quite a break from the dapper brute we got to know during three seasons of Daredevil on Netflix, he still felt like the same guy, a mobster whose social graces barely cover his criminal cruelty.

But the most recent set photos from the upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again lend credence to long-held rumors that Fisk is giving up his life of crime in the new series, at least on the surface, to run for Mayor of New York City.

In one set of images, we see a crowd gathered in New York’s Times Square for New Years’ Eve celebrations. Among the revelers is a man holding a foam fist with the world “Fisk” in bold, capital letters (less pertinent, but interesting, are the celebratory doo-dads bearing the name of PymVanDyne, the company we met briefly in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania).

Another shot shows D’Onofrio’s Fisk standing in front of what may be a construction site (or a section of the city partitioned off for filming). Gone is the tan leisure wear he sported in Hawkeye, replaced by a more conservative suit combo. If one did not know the Kingpin as the Kingpin, they might mistake this well-dressed man as a respectable civil servant. And that may very well be the costume designer’s intention.

We already know that Daredevil: Born Again will blur the line between continuation and reboot of the TV-MA rated Netflix series, carrying over some elements, such as star Charlie Cox and Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, while leaving behind some of the plot points of the past series, as well as Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson and Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page (at least for now). It’s also unlikely that Born Again will adapt the Marvel comic book arc of the same name, in part because it was already covered in season three of the Netflix series.

The Fisk as Mayor rumors point to a different, more recent comic book run as inspiration for the Man Without Fear’s Disney+ adventures. 2017’s Daredevil #595 — written by Charles Soule, drawn by Stefano Landini, and colored by Matt Milla — saw Fisk rise to New York Mayor on a law and order platform, despite his gangster leanings (mirroring a real New York-based figure who won elected office in 2016). The political rhetoric did not prevent Fisk from shoring up his power and continuing his criminal activities in secret, which made life that much more difficult for poor Matt Murdock.

Of course, as mayor of the most important city in the Marvel Universe, Fisk changed the status quo for more characters than just Daredevil. Mayor Fisk not only turned public opinion against superheroes, even beloved figures like the Fantastic Four, but eventually completely outlawed superheroes in New York. Although that decision led to Fisk’s eventual ouster in the recent Devil’s Reign storyline by writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Marco Checchetto, he managed to ruin a lot of lives along the way.

Should Born Again follow this comic book storyline, it will help the new series further distinguish itself from its Netflix forerunner, while still establishing Fisk as a formidable threat for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen as well as the other heroes of New York City. And with D’Onofrio confirming that Marvel has plans for a second season of the show, Mayor Fisk’s term in office could be a very long one in the MCU.

Daredevil: Born Again is slated to hit Disney+ in early 2024.

This article contains spoilers for HBO’s The Last of Us.

The season 1 finale of HBO’s The Last of Us may have been climactic, but things didn’t necessarily end on a massive cliffhanger. After finding the Fireflies in Salt Lake City and discovering that Ellie (Bella Ramsey) would have to die for them to make a cure for Cordyceps, Joel takes matters into his own hands and forcefully stops the surgery that would have removed the Cordyceps from her brain. Leaving behind the bodies of Fireflies who would dare stand in his way, Joel takes Ellie and sets off for his brother’s settlement in Jackson, Wyoming.

When Ellie wakes up, she asks Joel what happened, and he lies saying the hospital was attacked and that the Fireflies had been able to conduct enough tests on other immune people that they had stopped looking for a cure. Once they reach Jackson, it’s clear that Ellie is having doubts and makes him swear that what he told her was the truth. Joel lies again and swears that it’s true, leaving Ellie, who still doesn’t seem to believe Joel, to decide how to move forward. She simply says “okay” and the two presumably continue on to Jackson together.

While this ending wraps up Joel and Ellie’s story well and doesn’t appear to leave too many loose ends, fans of the video game series that the show is based on know that Joel’s actions will have some nasty consequences. But whether you’re familiar with the plot of the second game that the series is planning to adapt or you’re a newcomer who has no idea how much emotional damage awaits them, fans are eager to see where the HBO series will take Joel and Ellie in season 2.

Unfortunately, the wait for the second season will likely be a long one. In an interview with The Jonathan Ross Show (via Independent) on March 18, Bella Ramsey shared that it will probably be a while before the second season airs saying “I think we’ll probably shoot at the end of this year, beginning of next. So it’ll probably be the end of 2024, early 2025.”

But a long break between seasons isn’t out of the ordinary for HBO series. Season 1 of The Last of Us started filming in July 2021 and took around 200 days total to film. Even though the first season of House of the Dragon aired its finale in October 2022, it will likely be 2024 before we see the return of that series as well.

Even though it will be a long, long time before we get to see where Joel and Ellie’s story goes from here, it will be worth the wait to see how showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann adapt the complicated and emotional story of The Last of Us Part II. The controversial game has plenty of material for the series to expand upon, and the showrunners have already given some hints as to what viewers can expect in the second season. 

Though this wait will be brutal for many of us, the next two years will probably be the most challenging for those hoping to avoid major game spoilers before watching season 2. While I highly recommend playing the game or at least watching a playthrough on YouTube before the internet spoils major emotional moments for you (and because the game is that good), we wish you the best of luck in staying spoiler-free while waiting for season 2 of The Last of Us.

This Quantum Leap review contains spoilers.

Quantum Leap Episode 17

Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) lands this week on an international luxury airliner and in the body of a rookie stewardess neatly coiffed and tucked under a pill-box hat. Ben’s service-with-a-smile includes offering potent drinks, slicing rare beef and figuring out how to save all the passengers from the crash that takes all their lives in the past. The cause of the plane crash was unknown, so it’s up to Ben to figure out why the plane went down and how to prevent that from happening (again).

This episode jives with some of the best that Quantum Leap offered this season with its twists and turns, whodunits and MacGyver strategies, such as “O Ye of Little Faith,” “Fellow Travelers,” “Leap, Die, Repeat” and “S.O.S.” In fact, Ben is nothing if not an unconventional problem solver, and we see that this week when he manages to neutralize two armed hijackers, puts the copilot and his girlfriend-accomplice to sleep in order to access the cockpit and stabs someone in the neck. Ben deserved that opportunity after receiving such a stab himself in the last episode, “Ben, Interrupted.”  

Ben’s ability to get out of the worst jams is remarkable, but so is his ability to relate to the folks in his leaps, encourage them and ultimately convince others to do what’s right, even when that’s the hardest thing to do. I will forever stand corrected in my observation after the Quantum Leap pilot that Ben Song is not charismatic. Perhaps it was difficult to like a guy who abandons his fiancé, Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett), whose love language may very well be this simple—information.

Information is one thing that fans don’t have a lot of as we prepare for the season finale next week. Ben’s brain is still too swiss-cheesy to get much out of him and Janis has been little help. Ziggy is shut down due to its potential to spy on the team and report to the future, so even the team is relying on analog info to solve the leaps and keep Ben alive. Information may still be scarce, but those details are what propels Ben through his coordinated leaps and sling-shots him to the location where the finale will take place.   

Ben goes back to the future at the end of “Friendly Skies,” but he sails past his own time and lands in a nuclear winter where an aged Dr. Ian Wright (Mason Alexander Park) awaits him. Interestingly, the location he leaps into is the Quantum Leap project’s HQ, complete with a gaping hole in the roof and Ziggy signage that shows the AI is not just shut down but dead. Ian recognizes Ben, whoever he leaps into (or maybe he is himself), right away, which begs the question: who is Ben hosted by in the future and how does Ian know with certainty that it’s Ben?

While it seems like a nuclear holocaust may be exactly the thing that Ben leaped to save everyone, including Addison, from experiencing, apparently nothing wrong about the past has been put right enough to prevent this disaster from impacting the earth since it’s still part of the future. What could Ben learn by going there…a desolate, dying place with Ian dressed in burlap sacks instead of their regular couture? All we know for sure is that Ben’s leap to the future is a first…why he wanted to go there and what difference it might make in the past are all questions that the season finale is tasked with answering.   

Quantum Leap airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC. The sequel’s episodes, as well as all five seasons of the original show, are available to stream on Peacock.

This Star Trek: Picard article contains spoilers.

For all of its fan-service reunion moments and surprisingly deep character drama, Star Trek: Picard doesn’t forget to give us the spectacle we’ve come to expect from the franchise in 2023. So while the portal gun that Vadic stole from Daystrom Institute is undeniably cool, our interest was more than a little piqued by the reveal that the portal gun caper was just a cover for a different object. And then, as excited as we were to see most of the The Next Generation crew back together again, the reunion hid an even bigger surprise when the Data/Lore/B-4/Noonian Soong sampler platter revealed that the thing actually stolen from Daystrom was Jean-Luc Picard’s human remains.

What in the world would a bunch of Changelings want with an elderly man’s body, so broken down that even he exchanged it for a new one?

Of course, we’ll get an answer over the four remaining episodes of Picard. But attentive viewers have taken to the internet to offer their own theories in the meantime. And there’s one specific character at the center of the biggest theory of the moment: Locutus of Borg. As Captain Shaw memorably put it, Locutus was “the only Borg so deadly, they gave him a goddamn name.” We of course met Locutus in the season three finale of Next Generation, when the Borg assimilated Picard and transformed him into their mouthpiece for the Federation, using his knowledge to wreak chaos during the battle of Wolf 359.

While the non-serialized nature of Next Generation meant that Picard got over being Locutus by the end of season four’s second episode, the trauma of the event was revisited in the movie First Contact and in the first two seasons of Picard. We’ve seen the Borg return in one form or another in each of these properties, and with them, their attempt to bring Locutus back into the fold.

With its emphasis on the Changelings, the prime antagonists during the Dominion War shown on Deep Space Nine, it seemed like Locutus and the Borg were in the rearview for Picard season 3, save for Shaw’s memorable Quint moment. But a number of fans, ranging from users on Reddit to the hit Star Trek podcast Greatest Trek, have theorized that the Changelings want to bring back Locutus for their own ends. And the theory seems plausible!

One Reddit user proposes that Locutus would have the same regenerative capabilities as the Borg Queen, something that could be of interest to those Changelings who did not receive the cure for the bio-weapon the Federation unleashed on them during the Dominion War: “These Changelings were absent from the Great Link when Odo delivered the cure to the morphogenic virus, so they are still infected. They managed to come up with ways to survive, but it has drastically affected their shapeshifting abilities (remember, Odo’s constant shapeshifting while working with Kira and Damar accelerated his condition).”

“At some point, these Changelings met up with a piece of functioning Borg technology that contains an exact copy of Locutus. Remember, the Queen has been killed at least 3 or 4 times and always comes back more or less the same. Locutus was intended to be her counterpart, and thus was preserved the same way,” Reddit user Captain_Strongo continues. “Locutus offers the Changelings a chance to be able to ‘link’ together again–as a collective. But to do that, he needs a physical body with compatible Borg nanoprobes. The Changelings stole Picard’s body, but maybe there’s something insufficient about it, so Locutus orders the Changelings to bring Jack instead.”

A climactic final battle between our synth Jean-Luc and a reborn Locutus would certainly fit with this season’s theme of legacy. Although a very dark chapter in his life that haunts him in retirement, Locutus is very much a part of what Jean-Luc has left behind for future generations to reckon with. We see how it’s affected a younger Captain Shaw and has shaped his worldview, particularly the way he feels about Seven of Nine, and how it changed Commander Sisko‘s life on Deep Space Nine. Finally confronting what is arguably the darkest villain of The Next Generation era could be a proper send-off for the Starfleet hero.

Another Reddit user posits that Locutus 2.0 could be the latest in a long line of evil AI in Star Trek, not unlike Control or Landru: “Baddie is a Locutus and evil AI (AGMUS, Control, Landru, Peanut Hamper, whatever) combined together. Similar to Picard, Locutus is without a body and has combined with an evil AI to exist. That’s why they stole Picard’s body for Locutus. As well as Jack Crusher for the evil AI so they can have physical form.”

Bringing in the Borg, AI, and Synths together as a final boss for the Next Generation crew to defeat would certainly bring things full circle for a show which has sought to explore all three in greater detail than ever before. Of course, these are just theories, most of which do not address other big mysteries, like Jack Crusher’s visions seemingly brought about his Irumodic Syndrome. However, if indeed Picard season 3 is the end of the road for Jean-Luc, then it would make sense that he would need to face off one last time with his shadow self. And that catharsis would be even more satisfying than a super cool galaxy-destroying weapon.

Star Trek: Picard season 3 streams on Thursdays on Paramount+.

This Yellowjackets review contains spoilers.

Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1

Yellowjackets’ season 2 premiere opens with an extended montage centered on the series’ emergent antagonist, cultish mystic Lottie. It’s set to Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen,” a Springsteenian anthem in which she has a conversation with her younger self. “I know what you’re gonna be/Afraid that you’ll be just like me/But you’re just seventeen.” The song is a perfect fit for this manic, macabre coming-of-age tale. Clever artistic choices like this are what made season 1 so damn cool, and judging from this first episode, season 2 looks to be another smart, stylish cocktail of murder, mayhem, and mystery, garnished with a twist of nostalgia for good measure. 

We learned at the end of last season that Lottie was the one who sent her fellow survivors the cryptic postcards, likely killed Travis, and most definitely arranged for Natalie’s abduction. And now we find out that she was so transformed by her time in the woods that, upon returning home in 1998, her parents subjected her to FREAKING ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY to get her back to “normal.” And as an adult she’s attracted a flock who have committed their lives to her “Wicca bullshit” and do her bidding blindly, even if it means committing felonies, apparently.

Last season the show pulled off an impossible juggling act, presenting seemingly dozens of unique storylines and relationships across two timelines while making every one of them compelling, typically in some twisted or perverse way. Positioning Lottie as the center of gravity for both timelines feels like a natural evolution for the story. It’ll be interesting to see Courtney Eaton featured more prominently this season, and Simone Kessel (Obi-Wan Kenobi) is an exciting addition to the cast.

Natalie’s storylines seem to be the most tethered to Lottie’s so far, with ‘96 Nat feeling Travis drift away towards Lottie in the wake of Javi’s disappearance after she shows him trippy visions of “hope.” And then there’s adult Nat, who makes a stabby escape from her prison on Lottie’s compound only to find her old friend in command of an army of bedsheet-wearing cultists who apparently bury their brethren alive. She offers Nat a message from the very-dead Travis, and man…on paper, it all sounds absolutely insane. But the show is so weird and so good that it all works in practice.

One of the wonkier aspects of the show is the disconnect between Sophie Thatcher and Juliette Lewis’s performances. Aside from the fact that they don’t resemble each other at all, they also seem to have slightly different interpretations of the character. It may be that Lewis is too idiosyncratic to match. Still, both performances are terrific and serve their respective storylines well. There’s just a lack of connective tissue between the actors that isn’t present for the other teen/adult counterparts.

Case in point, Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty’s respective takes on the maniacally dependent Misty align flawlessly. They truly feel like older and younger versions of the same person, and it’s fun to watch Misty sociopathically navigate situations in both timelines. The present-day confrontation between Misty and the motel clerk who shall not be bothered is a hilarious display of passive-aggressive posturing, and it’s juxtaposed nicely by young Misty, who’s seemingly lost all confidence but may have found her first real ally in the warm-hearted Crystal.

Wait…Crystal? Who’s Crystal? It seems the show has added a new face, and it’ll be interesting to see how she’s folded into the larger story. She loves musical theater, which we know adult Misty is obsessed with, so all signs point to her replacing Coach Ben as her new object of obsession.

Shauna’s story looks to be even more complex and wickedly funny this season, with the cover-up of Adam’s murder being the going concern for the foreseeable future. A subtle but notable change in this first episode is that Jeff—one of the most unexpectedly endearing characters on the show—graduates from side character to protagonist. We see things from his perspective for the first time, like when he finds odd catharsis in jamming out to Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” in the car. Warren Kole and Melanie Lynskey have really found their groove with one another, and the looming specter of Adam will no doubt alter the onscreen couple’s dynamic in fascinating ways. And now that Callie is onto her parents’ schemes, the drama is about to get real thick.

‘96 Shauna is going through a different kind of drama altogether. She’s having heart to hearts with her dead bestie on the daily, and the episode ends with her committing the show’s first act of cannibalism (chronologically). The C-word has been looming large for the entire series thus far, but it’s still no less shocking to see, especially considering who’s eating who.

Of the main storylines, present-day Taissa’s has consistently been the least compelling. She’s torn between her home life and her political career, but both subplots feel largely irrelevant to the rest of the show, with her most interesting interactions, by far, being those with her fellow Yellowjackets. Some of the familial drama just feels a bit awkward. 

When Simone tells her to “stay the f*ck away” from their son, citing the diabolical stash of horrors she found in their basement, it’s strange that she’s coming at her with such anger. It’s understandable that she’s frustrated Tai won’t seek professional help, but doesn’t she realize that Tai sincerely has no idea about Biscuit’s decapitated head in the basement? The rage-to-empathy ratio feels a little disproportionate here, especially when Van is so sweet and understanding with ‘96 Tai, even after all of the craziness they’ve been through.

Yellowjackets looks to be in top form as it kicks off its second season, with the main plot lines maturing in fascinating ways. Adult Lottie’s nature cult, in particular, seems to signal a shift from the thus-far urban setting of the present-day storyline to a return to the wilderness, where the survivors may be forced to finally confront their traumas head-on. Lottie preaches to her flock that there’s nothing more painful than hiding your “primal, elemental self.” We’ll see if she’s able to lure her former teammates and unlock their primal, elemental selves as the season unfolds.

The first episode of Yellowjackets season 2 is available to stream on Showtime.com and Showtime on Demand now. New episodes premiere via streaming Fridays and cable on Sundays.

When fans of the critically-acclaimed HBO hit Succession found out that the upcoming fourth season would be the last of the series, it came as a surprise to many. The unique comedy-drama seems to be at the peak of its powers right now, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Drama Series last year and getting nominated for a litany of other accolades. 

The third season finale left off on the cliffhanger surrounding the divide between the Roy children and their father, with supporting characters such as Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Greg (Nicholas Braun) siding with Logan (Brian Cox). It doesn’t really feel like the story needs to come to an end yet. There are still so many different plot lines to wrap up before the finish line arrives, from uncovering family trauma to resolving marital distress and corruption. 

The epiphany that there was very little time left to do all of these things seemed to surprise Shiv Roy actor Sarah Snook just as much as it did the fandom. The Australian talked to the Los Angeles Times about the end of the road for the story, saying that she was taken aback and upset. 

“I was very upset,” she said a few weeks after our Brooklyn meet-up, in a follow-up call from Melbourne. “I felt a huge sense of loss, disappointment and sadness. It would have been nice to know at the beginning of the season, but I also understand not being told until the end because there was still a potential that maybe this wasn’t going to be the end.”

It’s natural for the people who put so much into their characters to feel emotional when the journey comes to an end. Transforming into a different person is an art-form, and it’s certainly not like any other job on the planet. Still, these sentiments from Snook are a little concerning for the end of the show when taken at full. She talks about not being told that the fourth season was the end of the show, something that would seemingly be vital information for any actor who wants to help conclude the arc of their character. Going in blind might mean that we are going to get more of an ambiguous ending than we originally thought. 

Avoiding “Jumping the Shark”

No matter how the show ends, we know that Succession hasn’t “jumped the shark” in the sense that so many other legendary series have. Dexter, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead would have benefited tremendously from knowing when it was time to call it quits. Overstaying your welcome often overshadows the iconic scenes and moments from earlier on in the story. 

On the other side of the coin, getting cut off prematurely can be just as detrimental to the plot. Deadwood needed a movie nearly two decades later to make up for the cancellation it received on HBO in the mid-2000s. Ending a story is a very delicate choice that involves many factors. Often these variables are outside of the storytellers’ hands, but Succession doesn’t seem like the type of show that would be rushed out the door before creator Jesse Armstrong is ready. 

Is There An Endgame? 

What makes the end of a show excellently executed? Well, it’s simple enough to look at the past to glean some answers. Breaking Bad, and more recently Better Call Saul, both seemed to pinpoint this location on the storytelling map to perfection. All character arcs were completed without being rushed, yet there’s still some room for interpretation in the lives of the protagonists. Stranger Things’ creators Matt and Ross Duffer and the cast of the Netflix hit have been candid about how the upcoming final season of their show will satisfy fans because the show was never meant to go past five seasons. Even though they still have to stick the landing, it has to be a huge boon for the actors and writers to all be on the same page about where they are in the path to the endgame. 

Hearing Sarah Snook say she was unaware the show was ending this season means that we may not get all of the answers we’re looking for when watching Succession. The main plot since the pilot has been all about who will overtake Logan and succeed to the throne of Waystar Royco. The various interludes that have taken place between that time and now have been intricate and fascinating. Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) is a broken man with a (potentially) good heart. Tom and Shiv have navigated their selfish relationship with slime and substance, leaving us to wonder whether there is any authentic love below the surface of the facade. And let’s not forget the way Greg went from puny nepo baby to potential CEO. It would be unfair to think that we need answers to all of the questions we have about these characters, but we certainly deserve closure on the central thematic elements that make it special. 

What Could More Seasons Accomplish?

This is almost an impossible question to answer until we start getting into the meat and potatoes of the new season. If more seasons means repetitive storytelling such as Logan foiling the plans of the Roy children over and over again until he croaks, we’ll take a hard pass on that. But if extra time allows the relationship between Kendall, Shiv, and Roman to breathe, or it creates a scenario where the satirical writing can commentate ever more on the current pulse of the political landscape in America, then there should be a green light by all means necessary.

Most of all, Jesse Armstrong needs to stay true to what he originally intended for the show. Great writers know where the ending lies. Just because Snook and others on set were unaware of the light at the end of the tunnel, it doesn’t have to mean the climax will be insufficient. The fact that we’re always guessing about what that conclusion will be is a testament to the originality of the story.

Succession season 4 premieres Sunday, March 26 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

This article contains spoilers for Daisy Jones & The Six.

Daisy Jones & The Six has finally careened towards the gig that ended it all. At the start of the 10-episode season, viewers were told the band broke up with no official reason why on Oct. 4, 1977 – now we finally know (well… unless you’ve read the book in which case you already knew.) 

So what exactly happened to this group that was inches away from international domination? Here’s everything you need to know as the series reaches its heartbreaking conclusion. 

What Happened at Soldier Field?

This episode, more than the others, chucks us around timelines significantly. There’s Soldier Field in Chicago, the gig that ended it all, the linear timeline that has tracked the band from the start of the ‘70s, and then there’s the Behind The Music style documentary, set around 1997. 

Episode 10, “Rock n Roll Suicide” starts at Soldier Field, only unlike before this time we have a little more context. As the group performs “Regret Me,” the crowd might be cheering along, but the entire band is hanging by a thread, trying their best to keep their game faces on as they’d rather be anywhere than on a stage. 

Karen and Graham are giving each other heartbreaking looks and trying not to cry, bassist Eddie has a black eye, and Billy is dipping off stage to chug from a whiskey flask after falling off the wagon after years of sobriety. Then there’s Daisy, who is off her head on cocaine and booze more than usual. Drummer Warren is the only one remaining any kind of chill, though in a cut to the documentary being filmed 20 years later, it’s revealed he just “didn’t want to see” his band was collapsing around him. 

The bitter conclusion was hours in the making. Daisy, knowing she’s in love with Billy, is using drugs to deal with those feelings in a way she only knows how, but is ready to get out. She tells Simone after the gig, she’s out. Meanwhile Billy is feeling just as torn, amplified by wife Camila, who isn’t blind to the fact there’s something between her husband and Daisy. He insists nothing’s going on, and there’s never been more than one kiss, but he stops short at assuring Camila he doesn’t love Daisy. When Eddie comes to his hotel room with his own chip on his shoulder at being shoved out of the band, Billy snaps when Eddie suggests he’s slept with Camila, giving Eddie the black eye he’s later seen on stage with, and smashing up his guitar. 

He later goes down to the lobby to call producer Teddy for comfort and a sobriety check, but doesn’t get through to him. As he leaves, a fan offers to buy him a drink and he accepts, marking the start of a downward spiral that continues at the gig. Meanwhile Daisy and Camila have a confrontation. While Daisy assures Camila that nothing has happened between them, she hits a nerve by suggesting Billy is only still with Camila out of family obligation to her and their daughter rather than actual love. Daisy then starts her own spiral, calling her mother who scolds her for being a “pretentious little shit” and being told that “while a million people love her, no one knows her”. She buries her upset in a bag of cocaine and a bottle of wine. 

Then there’s poor Graham and Karen who, after legitimately falling in love, have to make a decision to part ways after Karen secretly gets an abortion, telling him afterwards she “took care of it” in the hotel elevator. Karen makes it known she has no intention to ever have children. Heartbroken, Graham doesn’t understand why she doesn’t want that and would put her career first. At a stalemate, their relationship breaks down. 

Does Billy Choose Daisy or Camila? 

Billy and Daisy both miss sound check, but when they finally arrive Billy grabs Daisy and passionately kisses her. While she’s initially fine with it, she realizes he’s been drinking again, and that it’s a cause for concern. Billy also goads Eddie on stage, hyping him up before whispering in his ear that “he’s done”. The pair switch their rock star personas on in time to get on the stage. There are moments where Billy looks like he’s set to kiss Daisy, which unnerves her as she realizes something is wrong. Meanwhile Camila is watching this all from the crowd, upset at what her marriage has become. 

Tour manager Rod (Timothy Olyphant) notices too, asks if Billy’s OK, but he’s shrugged off with Billy telling him he’s “never been ok”. In another passionate kiss backstage, Billy tells Daisy they can be “broken together” but she pushes him away, telling him she doesn’t want to be broken. When the band go back on stage for the encore, the fans are demanding “Honeycomb (Look At Us Now),” but instead Daisy approaches the microphone and gives a speech about how love hurts, and how you need to find your “light” to look after you, even at points you don’t deserve it. Realizing she’s telling him to go back to Camila, Billy breaks down in tears, before he and Daisy give a knowing nod to each other, and he storms off the stage and rushes to return to his wife, leaving the fans to sing his part. 

Who is Filming the Documentary?

At this point it’s revealed the filmmaker in the ‘90s, the one who’s convinced the entire band to finally share their story, is Billy and Camila’s now-adult daughter, Jules (Seychelle Gabriel). Jules admits she remembers parts of that night, especially interrupting her parents having a tear-filled conversation back at the hotel. Back in the 70s timeline, Daisy reaches out to Simone and agrees it’s time for rehab. Billy also agrees to put the work in and also go back to rehab. 

The next morning, while the bus is being packed up, the band go their separate ways. Eddie takes a cab, while Graham lays down his guitar and walks away too. It’s revealed in the years that follow, the band make names for themselves in different ways. Karen continued to make music, fronting her own band and becoming a success story but admits she “wasn’t entirely honest” with Graham by breaking up with him. Graham moved back to his hometown and now has a wife and kids, saying what Karen did was for the best. Eddie started his own band, but it never amounted to anything, while Warren became a session drummer, marrying his girlfriend Lisa, having kids and now lives on a boat. Simone opened a club with girlfriend Bernie, becoming the queen of disco, while Teddy died “doing what he loved in 1983”, passing away in a recording studio after working all night. 

Billy worked hard to earn back Camila’s trust, and they remained together until she got sick, ultimately dying off camera. Her interviews had been filmed before she died, something viewers weren’t privy too until that moment. Daisy successfully got sober, had a daughter, went solo, and “fell in love many times”. She and Billy both admit they did love each other, but were ultimately too volatile to work during their time in the band. Jules reveals to them both Camila had spoken about her thoughts on the relationship before she died, and shows them the footage. She says she was always Daisy’s biggest fan and was happy for how her life turned out, before encouraging Billy to call her. In the final moments, Billy knocks on Daisy’s door and they share a knowing smile as they’re reunited, with Camila in the voiceover telling Jules: “At the very least, those two still owe me a song.” 

All 10 episodes of Daisy Jones & The Six are available to stream now on Prime Video.

This Star Wars article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.

Four episodes in, The Mandalorian season 3 lacks the focus and energy of past adventures. Although the season 2 finale set up a status-quo-shattering turning point for the show in 2020, The Mandalorian finds Din and Grogu in a very different place in its third season, their previous separation now a non-issue. What momentum the series had earned after that massive cliffhanger had been all but broken a year later in The Book of Boba Fett.

Fortunately, that spinoff also set up a new quest for Din and Grogu. Excommunicated from his Mandalorian tribe for taking off his helmet in front of others, Din’s next mission would take him to Mandalore, the homeworld of his people. Once there, he would need to recite the Mandalorian Creed while bathing in “the Living Waters beneath the mines of Mandalore,” a pilgrimage we were led to believe would be a dangerous and arduous one. Imagine our surprise when season 3 resolved that storyline within two episodes.

Midway through the season, Din is once again “cultist of the year,” and we’ve been left wondering where the season goes from here. What is it about? Where is it heading?

The Mandalorian season 3 has teased several ways it could set its plot in motion again. “The Apostate” opened with the IG-11 debacle and a random brush with pirates, but those plotlines have completely fallen by the wayside. Meanwhile, there’s a New Republic out there doing its very best impression of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, and while Dr. Pershing’s current plight on Coruscant and past with Moff Gideon do tie back to Din and Grogu’s story in some fundamental ways, episode 3’s somewhat jarring interlude seems to largely exist in a vacuum, a pocket universe separate from what Din and Grogu are doing back at the covert. It’s possibly set up the eventual return of Gideon, the show’s main villain, but when exactly?

We opened with the exciting prospect of Din’s pilgrimage to Mandalore. But what’s followed are a lot of Mandalorian darts shot at a board at random. All of these moments hint at a purpose, a new motivation for Din, and suggest season 3 will soon answer what’s next for our heroes after their long-awaited reunion on another show. But so far, they’ve all felt like false starts.

Does The Mandalorian season 3 have a path forward? Bo-Katan’s trip to Mandalore set up a very interesting possibility for the show’s future. In “The Mines of Mandalore,” arguably the best the series has been this season, Bo-Katan comes face to face with a real-life Mythosaur, a thought-to-be extinct creature that’s one of the anchors for an entire Mandalorian religion she doesn’t believe in. But one dive into the Living Waters later, everything she thought to be true has been called into question, just as Din has reaffirmed his own commitment to his faith. If there was one moment that could thrust season 3’s story forward, it had finally arrived here and in captivating fashion: a defeated Bo-Katan is reborn under the gaze of the Mythosaur.

Now that she knows for sure that there really is something worth fighting for on her home planet, and that there might actually be something to all that Mandalorian religious mumbo jumbo, will this bring her into conflict with Din over the Darksaber, making her the surprise antagonist of the season? Or will she join Din’s faith and move his tribe towards her goal from the inside?

What little time we spent with Din and Bo-Katan in “The Convert” before and after the New Republic interlude seemed to set up the latter. At least for the moment, Bo-Katan has bought into the Way — the name of this clan’s particular religion — and joined Din’s covert, embracing their traditions, such as keeping her helmet on in public. She even recites “This is the Way.” But does Bo-Katan mean it or is she planning something? The Mandalorian season 3 is in no rush to tell you.

Frustratingly, “The Foundling” somehow makes it all feel like yet another road to nowhere. After a raptor kidnaps Ragnar Vizsla, Din, Bo, and their Mando crew go on a rescue mission that feels like a complete detour — and not in the way that the show’s video game-inspired storytelling structure usually handles its side quests. Whereas past seasons sent Din to point A as a way to reach points B and C — for example, Din escorting Frog Lady to Trask so that he can contact Bo-Katan, who can tell him where to find a Jedi — things in season 3 don’t feel that tightly knit.

The rescue mission is akin to the pirate fight in that we’re not sure it’s meant to lead anywhere, or if the show’s dragging its feet before a more impactful second half of the season. Perhaps this episode was about giving viewers something a bit more standalone for a change, a little comfy mini-mission more in line with the storylines of season 1, giving us the pew-pew vibes before the next round of exposition. But this approach feels less charming in 2023.

While The Mandalorian thrived in 2019 by embracing a more low-stakes and intimate take on the Star Wars universe, it’s outgrown that initial premise. The show is now tied to much bigger things going on in the galaxy, whether it’s following up on Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, setting up Grand Admiral Thrawn and the return of the Emperor (all that cloning business with Dr. Pershing), or exploring New Republic or Mandalorian society at large. The Mandalorian is not just a “father and son bounty-of-the-week” show anymore — and that’s by its own design. It chose to go big and there are certain expectations that come along with that — although keeping your story moving is a universal necessity for a TV series regardless of its size.

When “The Foundling” does finally address the elephant in the room in its closing scene, and Bo-Katan reveals to the Armorer what she saw in the Living Waters, the clan’s foremost expert in the Way simply brushes the Mythosaur off as a vision. At least for the moment, Bo-Katan’s stunning revelation is another dead end.

To be clear, the problem of “The Foundling” isn’t that the Armorer pays no mind to Bo-Katan. We already knew that even she didn’t believe in the prophecy. “The songs of eons past foretold of the mythosaur rising up to herald a new age of Mandalore. Sadly, it only exists in legends,” the Armorer tells Din in The Book of Boba Fett. It’s reasonable to assume that Bo-Katan will find a way to show the other Mandalorians that what she claims is true and that the Armorer will eventually change her tune. The issue is the show’s alarming lack of urgency in getting to the next bit of the story. Bo-Katan saw the Mythosaur two weeks ago, now going on three!

Instead, season 3 has spent much of its runtime fleshing out backstories and world building. If you love Star Wars lore first and foremost, there’s been no better time to watch this show. We now know who saved Grogu from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant during Order 66. We know what motivated Dr. Pershing to join the Empire. We have a sense of what life is really like under the New Republic. Most importantly, we’ve visited Mandalore, one of the most important planets in the galaxy (just not in the movies). But lore isn’t the story. While many of these moments have been incredibly enjoyable for a sect of hardcore fans who are very plugged into Star Wars canon and its complicated timeline of events, eventually season 3 will need to push its own tale forward to support these weekly lore drops.

Past seasons of this show have flowed more seamlessly. The Mandalorian seasons 1 and 2 felt like series of modern Doctor Who: a collection of smaller stories that make up a larger overall arc, with a big finale to tie them all up. At the moment, an unfocused season 3 feels like it has too short an attention span to reach its victory lap.

The Mandalorian season 3 streams Wednesdays on Disney+.

For those who haven’t watched the two previous seasons of Star Trek: Picard, or only remember those seasons hazily, season 3 hasn’t really asked you to know much about what happened on the show before The Next Generation crew got back together. For all intents and purposes, Picard season 3 is a soft reboot for this series, and more of a direct sequel to TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the TNG-era films. But the big revelation at the end of episode 6, “The Bounty,” is a very specific callback to the Picard season 1 finale, “Et in Arcadia Ego Part 2.”

At the end of “The Bounty,” one season-long mystery has been solved: We now know what the Changelings stole from Daystrom Station: the human body of Jean-Luc Picard.

Throughout season 3, a few characters — including Jack and Vadic — make jokes about Picard’s current physiological status. In episode 2, Vadic says, “Jean-Luc Picard, in the positronic flesh.” Meanwhile, in episode 6, when Picard tells Jack that he died from Irumodic syndrome, Jack respondeds, “Right, the positronics.” This refers to Picard’s positronic brain, which is the same kind of brain Data had in The Next Generation. When Picard died in “Et in Arcadia Ego Part 2,” his consciousness was transferred into a Synth body, which differed from an android body in several ways. This body is flesh-and-blood, and Picard will age normally, and still die around the time he would normally die from old age. (Assuming he doesn’t die in a phaser fight or on a starship before that!)

Turning Picard into an artificial lifeform was a huge part of the theme of season 1. Don’t get it twisted. The message of Picard season 1 wasn’t in favor of group-think AI or hivemind unoriginality like the Borg, but instead, asserted a different thought experiment: Shouldn’t synthetic bodies be treated morally the same as biological ones? At the time, season 1 showrunner Michael Chabon put it like this: “If we didn’t do it, then that meant we were totally chickening out on one of our clear, stated theses of the series — that synthetic life is just as valuable as organic life. If Picard believes that premise, and by extension, we believe it, and the Federation and Starfleet believe it, then the ultimate test and the ultimate proof of that belief can be found in making Jean-Luc Picard a synthetic life form.”

Still when Jean-Luc Picard left one body for another, cyberpunk style, a huge philosophical question was born: Was this the same person? The famous Star Trek fan wiki, Memory Alpha, briefly listed the “Gollum Picard” as a separate character before eventually combining the entries. Chabon responded to a fan question on Instagram who asked, would Picard have “Ship of Theseus ponderings” if he saw his dead body, and Chabon said, “I would.”

“Ship of Theseus,” a thought experiment based on the Greek hero of the same name, asks whether an object is still the same object if it’s had all its original parts replaced with different ones. Has the original object’s identity been irrevocably changed? In other words: is Synth Picard still Picard?

With season 3, showrunner Terry Matalas has brought that massively complex question back, but with a twist. It seems unlikely that season 3 will feature a moment like the two Visions debating in Wandavision about the Ship of Theseus, but instead, Picard’s organic body is part of a bigger puzzle.

Why do the Changelings want Picard’s organic body? The good money is on some kind of duplication plot. We’ve seen how the Changelings can pass for organic now, so perhaps, a super-shapeshifter that looks like Picard is coming.

There’s also the question of his Borg implants, which we know were implanted in his body. Not all of these can be removed. Perhaps the Changelings want to extract those? Picard also has an artificial heart, which he got in his twenties after getting in a bar fight and being stabbed through the back. It seems unlikely that anybody would want his artificial heart, but then again, the Changelings move in mysterious ways.

Star Trek: Picard season 3 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.