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Clearly didn't watch Blue Planet II

Affected processors date back as far as 2008

Supergirl’s penultimate episode finds our heroes embarking on different missions, all of which are presumably racing toward the same end goal in next week’s finale.

Let’s start with Lena, who’s such a boss that she bought her mother’s privately owned prison so Lillian could work on extracting Harun-El from James. To ensure her compliance, Lena poisons her and gives her a day to earn the antidote. She also slaps a baby Truth Seeker on her mother’s arm.

“Couldn’t you just waterboard me like a normal person?” Lillian asks, but she also confesses that she paid $14,000 to make Lena’s middle-school boyfriend scram and she tells her daughter that she loves her. Aww! Happy Mother’s Day!

Lena also tracks down Lockwood to let him know that President Baker, and therefore he himself, is working for Lex. Lockwood, who’s got Harun-El-induced red eyes and shedding hair, isn’t pleased by this news and goes tearing off. James and Lena follow.

Before he confronts Otis, Lockwood injects himself with more Harun-El, which is certainly a choice. Dumb-dumb Otis, tucked away in a safe house with video games and what looks like a sweet plate of donut holes, confirms that yep, they’re working toward Lex’s goals of money and world domination. “Supervillain, right, I get it,” says a disgusted Lockwood. Then Otis and Lockwood start to fight. James tries to pull them apart but is overcome by his Harun-El, and in the end, Lockwood rips out Otis’s Metallo Kryptonite heart and bolts.

Lena then helps James to the lab, where Lillian injects him with her anti-Harun-El solution. And when she suggests that Lena didn’t have the ovaries to actually poison her, Lena coolly offers her a vial and suggests, “You should drink it.”

Okay, our next group of heroes are Brainy, J’onn, and Nia, who are tasked with finding the aliens from the DEO desert facility. Brainy’s also tasked himself with telling Nia he’s in love with her because he’s a multitasker.

A unicorn keychain gives Dreamer a vision that leads them to an Amertek facility, but J’onn says Brainy’s odds for successfully Wookiee prisoner gag-ing their way in are too risky. But when he flies off to survey the scene and the young’uns spot the keychain girl, they move in on their own, with Brainy’s image inducer making him look like Lockwood.

And let me tell you, friends, what follows is an amazing 60 seconds of television as Sam Witwer delightfully channels Jesse Rath’s Brainy trying to be Lockwood. It’s *chef’s kiss* perfection. And the Children of Liberty bust them immediately, of course, because Ben Lockwood’s a lot of things, but robotic he is not.

Time for a little light torture. At first, Brainy begs them to spare Dreamer, but the harsher the treatment gets, the more affected he is. Then he starts glitching—and I use that word intentionally. As he tells his captors, he’s from a race of synthetic beings who are time and space travelers with ancestral memories. And those ancestors were very bad people: conquerers and collectors. He laughs and cries, and the lights on forehead flicker and flash.

Then he announces that they rebooted him to be more like his emotionless ancestors. “And that was a calamitous mistake,” he warns before he effortlessly takes out a roomful of guards, smoothing his hair, and collecting his Legion ring.

In a voice several shades deeper and more dispassionate than we’ve come to know, he explains to J’onn, who snuck in disguised as Eve, that Nia could be useful to his plans. He enters her cell and kneels in front of her. She’s clearly expecting that love declaration, but instead, he locks her back up and informs her that she’s to walk through the portal with the other aliens. Then she can astral project and they can liberate the camp.

Nia’s not cool with this plan, but Brainy doesn’t care. Then he performs what to my untrained eye looked like the five-point palm exploding heart technique and leaves J’onn to be captured, calculating that this doubles their odds of success.

Dreamer catches sight of Brainy turning his back on her as she’s waiting to be ushered through the portal, and dang, you thought Brainy was cold? You haven’t met Brain the Fifth.

Finally this week, we have Kara, informing Baker’s henchmen that in the U.S., we don’t just black-bag journalists. They sneer that the CatCo servers have been scrubbed, so bye-bye evidence. She easily escapes the humans, but Red Daughter gets the jump on her with the help of some Kryptonite.

As Red Daughter casually screws a silencer onto a gun, Kara, restrained with a Kryptonite chain, begs her to see that they’re the same. Red Daughter disagrees, calling Kara limited and mocking her cheerleader skirt. (She’s just jealous, Kar-Kar!)

As Red Daughter rants about the American Dream being snake oil, Kara reminds her that she’s got 15 years of Kryptonite tolerance on her and escapes out the window with only a bullet wound in the arm.

She heads to J’onn for patching up (prior to his Brainy/Amertek exploits), and she realizes that if Lex knows who she is, Alex is in danger. But J’onn says restoring Alex’s memories could destroy her mind if her sealed-off neural pathways are opened up through his psychic force. The only hope is that she remembers on her own.

Well, how convenient, then, that Alex just had a dream about Kara’s unexplained strength when they were children. Kelly, who’s casually hanging at Alex’s, suggests the adoption trauma led to adopted sister memories, but Alex says it’s the same weird feeling she had during the recent DEO security sweep. I think it’s happening tonight, friends! The remembering is upon us!

Concerned, Supergirl sneaks into the DEO to work with Alex on locating Red Daughter using a satellite scan. When Haley finds them, she immediately believes their story that Baker’s working with Lex, particularly because she has reason to believe that Lex hopes to acquire Project Claymore technology. (Apparently,pp all six of the engineers on the project recently woke up dead.)

When the tracker turns up Red Daughter, Supergirl ditches Alex and finds an apartment filled with her belongings. “Oh, Rao, she’s stalking me,” Supergirl breathes.

She’s studying a photo of Mikhail when Alex comes in, horrified that Red Daughter’s place looks like Kara’s. Alex describes her fear for Kara as feeling like a piece of her heart is out there in the world, on its own without protection. As she cries, Supergirl takes her hand, but the almost-sisterly moment is interrupted when their mother calls to say that Kara’s there with her.

Supergirl freaks and races to Eliza’s, where Red Daughter’s super judgy about all of Kara’s stuff. She insists that Lex goes by “Alex” and says she serves the collective, not individuals. Kara asks about Mikhail, which was a mistake because Red Daughter believes the Americans killed him. She unleashes the exo-suit and the pair fight, with Kara insisting, “Hope, help, and compassion for all. That’s what I stand for.” But Red Daughter refuses to listen to her warning that Lex will turn on her.

While Kara assumes they’ll be evenly matched in the powers department, Red Daughter brags that she’s “evolved” and unleashes a purple lightning punch that … knocks out the daylight, somehow? I don’t quite understand it, but it’s suddenly dark as she pummels Kara into submission just as Alex arrives on her bike.

Kara the hero, of course, refuses to submit, and as Alex watches the power show, she experiences the return of other memories: Kara roasting marshmallows with her laser eyes, making it snow indoors with her cold breath, rescuing her plane in the series premiere, reluctantly accepting Alex’s offer to save her with the memory wipe.

“Kara,” she breathes just as Red Daughter delivers a terrible blow. Alex tries to intervene, but Red Daughter knocks her down, listens to the slowing of Kara’s heart, and flies upward. Come on, did Lex not teach her the double tap? Alex remembers everything now and races over to Kara’s body, screaming, “Kara, you can’t go!” as their mother arrives. Red Daughter watches from the sky until a distant noise summons her.

Desperate, Alex tells the unmoving Kara that there’s sunlight in everything, stuffing grass into her fists and insisting, “Kara, just take it. Take the grass. Please.” Then streaks of light travel through the ground and flow toward Kara, who’s pulling the sunlight from the Earth into her body. It revives her, and her first words to Alex are, “I missed you so much.” Danvers sisters forever!

Then Haley calls Alex with bad news: She found plans for a compact Claymore that could fit into a Lexosuit. And the television gives them worse news: Kaznia invaded while everybody else was busy with all the other stuff, apparently. The president tells the nation that Kaznia was aided by the terrorist Supergirl, and Lex in a Lexosuit singlehanded thwarted their plans and killed her. As proof, the news shows a dead-looking Red Daughter in Lex’s arms.

Snaps of the cape

Questions! I’ve got ‘em! How did the Kaznian invasion slip by such that everybody’s hearing about it for the first time on TV? Who can un-reboot Brainy? Was Red Daughter’s purple lightning what brought down Lena’s plane last week? Who else instinctively screams “Wolverines!” when they see the title “Red Dawn”? Is Red Daughter really Dead Daughter? I mean, she can’t be, right? We need her “Mikhail’s still alive!” redemption arc. Such fun acting challenges for both Witwer and Rath this week! The former nailed the “Brainy-as-Ben” vibe, and the latter gets to create a whole new approach to his character. I can’t wait to see how this storyline unfolds, but I hope it ends with a lot of groveling for forgiveness from poor Nia. Are you ready for the finale next week? I am (give us more Lex!), and I’m not (the show’s been so fun this season!). Until then, super-friends…

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Overwatch just signed off on Arrow (hopefully, for now).

Emily Bett Rickards’ run as tech-genius Felicity Smoak came to an end in Monday’s season 7 finale, as the actress is leaving the show ahead of its eighth and final season. Not only did the finale give Felicity an emotional send-off, though, it also planted some major seeds for the Arrowverse’s next crossover, “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” Here’s how it all went down (We’ll have a full recap later tonight):

In the finale, Team Arrow (which also included Black Siren, Bronze Tiger, and Curtis) rallied to put an end to Emiko’s terrorist attack on the city. Despite everything she did, Oliver firmly believed that he could convince Emiko to stop and redeem her. And he turned out to be right! When the Ninth Circle turned on Emiko, she saw the error of her ways and fought alongside her brother. Unfortunately, she died in the battle, and with her dying breath, she told Oliver that he and Felicity needed to go into hiding to protect their daughter.

So, that’s what Oliver and Felicity did. After leaving the rest of the team to defend the city, Oliver and Felicity relocated to that isolated home we saw “Star City 2040” and remained there for Mia’s birth. Their lives calmed down and they even started discussing the possibility of asking Williams’ parents for joint custody — of course, that’s exactly when the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) shows up to remind Oliver of the deal they made.

What deal you ask? Well, let’s flashback to December’s “Elseworlds” crossover event, which ended with Oliver and the multiverse observer striking a deal: In exchange for the Monitor saving Barry (Grant Gustin) and Kara (Melissa Benoist), Oliver had to agree to leave his life and go with the Monitor to save the multiverse from the impending crisis (you know, the one coming in this December’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover). And now the time has come for Oliver to hold up his end of the deal. Despite Felicity’s protests and learning that he will die in the “Crisis,” Oliver leaves with the Monitor, but not before making Felicity promise she’ll keep their children safe and give them normal lives.

Flash-forward to 2040: Future Team Arrow manages to take down the ARCHER program and the Zetas by destroying the wall that separated the Glades from the rest of Star City. This is technically an actor of terror, and someone needs to take the fall. So, Dinah, Roy, and Felicity decide do that and go on the run for the rest of their lives because they know Mia (Katherine McNamara), William (Ben Lewis), Zoe (Andrea Sixtos), and Connor (Joseph David Jones) can keep the city safe.

Before hitting the road, though, Felicity visits Oliver’s grave — which confirms he dies in 2019 — with Mia and William because she wants to say goodbye to them one last time. Her two children don’t understand why they can’t stay in contact while she’s on the run, but Felicity simply says it’s time for her to go on her own journey…that leads her right to the Monitor.

When she meets up with the Monitor, she tells him she’s ready. “Where I’m taking you, there’s no return,” he says. But Felicity doesn’t care because she’s waited a long time to see Oliver. From there, they breach away to only God knows where to be with the fallen Green Arrow. And thus, Rickards’ time on the show came to an end.

Honestly, it’s unclear what all of this means for the final season. As of right now, all we know is that the final season will include flash-forwards, too, which showrunner Beth Schwartz confirmed to EW. Beyond that, we just have several questions: Will the final season just follow Oliver’s adventures with the Monitor? How will the remaining characters fit into that? Is this actually the end of the Ninth Circle, which is apparently hunting Oliver and Felicity’s kid? How did Roy end up back Lian-Yu? Does the fact that Felicity heads off to join Oliver mean he’s not actually dead-dead? Is there a salmon ladder wherever Oliver and the Monitor are going? And so many more.

Guess we’ll just to have wait until Arrow returns in the fall for its 10-episode final season.

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Editor's note: This is an update to a previous list, last published in May 2019. Every now and again, something will happen in this world of ours that already happened in a different world. That would be the universe of The Simpsons, the iconic Fox sitcom that some consider the greatest television show of all time. On numerous occasions, we've shouted "The Simpsons did it!" to actual current events. The latest in a long line of creepy coincidences involves a classic Season 4 episode that somehow managed to predict the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of so-called "murder hornets" in one fell swoop. After 31 seasons and well over 600 episodes, here are a few other times when The Simpsons predicted the future... [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-time-the-simpsons-predicted-the-future&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"]

1. The Coronavirus and Murder Hornets (Season 4, Episode 21)

When did it happen in real life? December 2019 - who knows? We're used to The Simpsons predicting the future at this point, but perhaps not with this much specificity. The series somehow managed to predict the events of 2020 way back in 1993. The episode "Marge in Chains" features Springfield's residents panicking over a dangerous new Asian superflu dubbed Osaka Flu. When an angry mob confronts Dr. Hibbert for a cure, he tells them anything he could offer "would only be a placebo." So, naturally, the mob starts rioting looking for the placebo, which results in a truck full of killer bees being overturned. Even writer Bill Oakley had to admit the show called that one. Dangerous new diseases, hysterical mobs, and deadly, stinging insects? That's 2020 in a nutshell.

2. The Ending of Game of Thrones (Season 29, Episode 1)

When did it happen in real life? May 12, 2019 The Simpsons kicked off its 29th season with "The Serfsons," a fantasy-themed episode where Springfield is re-imagined as a medieval dystopia. Naturally, the episode took some potshots at Game of Thrones and even featured a cameo from Jaime Lannister himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. But we really didn't expect it to wind up predicting the climax of that HBO series two years ahead of time. "The Serfsons" features a scene where Homer accidentally sets a dragon loose and it begins torching the entire town, basically foreshadowing the destruction of King's Landing in the shocking and controversial GoT episode "The Bells."

3. Two Eerie Football Predictions (Season 26, Episode 16)

When did it happen in real life? July 13, 2014 & December 3, 2015 This 2014 episode managed to predict two completely separate world events, both connected to the glamorous world of football (no, not the American version). First, it accurately predicted Germany and Brazil would face off in the 2014 World Cup final. Maybe that's small potatoes, considering both countries are famous for having great football teams. But even more impressive is that this episode managed to predict the 2015 FIFA corruption case, even going so far as to show the VP of the fictional "World Football Federation" being arrested by the feds.

4. Donald Trump Becomes President (Season 11, Episode 17)

When did it happen in real life? November 8, 2016 In the episode "Bart to the Future" we get a glimpse of a future wherein Lisa is President of the United States. And wouldn’t you know, there’s a joke about how Lisa's tenure is being hampered by a budget crisis caused by President Trump. At the time, it seemed like a silly and ridiculous notion. We could all have a laugh at the idea of Donald Trump being President. Then... he was actually elected. Yeah.

5. Disney Buys Fox (Season 10, Episode 5)

When did it happen in real life? December 14, 2017 In "When You Dish Upon a Star" there’s a sign gag in the episode that features the 20th Century Fox logo with the words "A Division of Walt Disney Co." slapped on it. Cut to 20 years later, and the Disney juggernaut has purchased Fox, which just so happens to be the company that produces The Simpsons. Here's hoping that isn't the only pop-culture prediction from this episode that comes true. We'd love to see Ron Howard direct a movie about a killer robot driving instructor whose best friend is a talking pie.

6. Siegfried & Roy's Tiger Attack (Season 5, Episode 10)

When did this happen in real life? October 3, 2003 This one's sad. In the world of The Simpsons, they have an analog to Siegfried & Roy called Gunter and Ernst. They've appeared infrequently, but one time Gunter was attacked by their white tiger, Anastasia. It was a harmless joke at the time, but a decade later fiction became reality when Roy Horn was attacked by Montecore, the tiger the real-life duo used in their act.

7. Homer Predicts the Mass of the Higgs Boson (Season 10, Episode 2)

When did this happen in real life? 2012 Homer Simpson is not the sharpest tool in the shed. He has, however, had brief moments of brilliance. For example, when he became an inventor he made an impressive scientific discovery 14 years before actual scientists managed to do it. According to Simon Singh, who wrote the book The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Homer's prediction for the mass of the Higgs boson particle wasn't that far off (775 giga-electron-volts compared to the actual 125 giga-electron-volts). Apparently that’s quite close. We'll have to take Singh's word for it.

8. The Simpsons Impacts the Design of the iPhone (Season 6, Episode 8)

When did it happen in real life? 2007 and beyond Here's a case of The Simpsons making a joke in the present that ended up resonating into the future. Dolph has an Apple Newton, an archaic PDA, that he tries to write "Beat up Martin" into. The Newton changes it to "Eat up Martha," much to the chagrin of Springfield's bullies. Apparently this moment was so impactful on Apple that it frequently referenced it when designing the keyboard for the iPhone. Of course, anybody who’s ever cursed autocorrect while texting knows that Apple did not quite achieve their goal.

9. A Real-Life Whacking Day (Season 4, Episode 20)

When did it happen in real life? 2013 and 2016 Whacking Day is a Springfield tradition where everybody drives snakes into the center of town to club them to death. Homer loves it, Lisa is against it, and in the end, it turns out that the whole thing started as an excuse to beat up the Irish. That wasn't the case in Florida, one hopes. In 2013 and 2016, down in the Everglades, they sanctioned actual snake-whacking events in an attempt to curtail the presence of the Burmese python, an invasive species. They just called it the "Florida Python Challenge," because they evidently lack the imagination of Springfield down in the Sunshine State.

10. Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish (Season 2, Episode 4)

When did it happen in real life? 2011 Blinky is one of the more-iconic images from the world of The Simpsons. The three-eyed fish was first found by Bart in the episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish," where it’s strongly intimated the fish was mutated by the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Life imitated art when a three-eyed fish was found in a reservoir in Argentina in 2011. Yes, the reservoir was being fed water from a nuclear power station. Unlike Blinky, the real three-eyed fish is not a cutesy cartoon, but a terrifying nightmare.

11. Milhouse Predicts a Nobel Prize Winner (Season 22, Episode 1)

When did this happen in real life? October 10, 2016 It shouldn't be surprising that Lisa, Milhouse, Martin, and Database had a Nobel Prize betting pool. This was in 2010, and Milhouse's prediction for economics was Bengt R. Holmstrom. The whole storyline was just leading up to a gag about Krusty the Clown winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but there was a shrewd prediction slipped in. In 2016, Holmstrom did win the Nobel Prize in Economics alongside Oliver Hart. It may have been a few years late, but eventually, everything did indeed come up Milhouse.

12. A Lemon Tree Gets Stolen (Season 6, Episode 24)

When did this happen in real life? June 6, 2013 The adjoining cities of Springfield and Shelbyville have a longstanding rivalry stemming from the latter's desire to keep cousin marriage legal. This rivalry once led to some kids from Shelbyville stealing Springfield's lemon tree. Perhaps inspired by this episode, some monster stole a lemon tree out of a woman’s yard in Houston. Seriously, they ripped it right out of the ground and took off with it. The woman told local reporters that the thief must have been stupid, because they didn't realize it was too late in the season to replant the tree. Yeah, stupid like a fox.

13. The Simpsons Invent FaceTime (Season 6, Episode 19)

When did this happen in real life? June 24, 2010 And finally, while Star Trek gets a lot of credit for predicting future technology, The Simpsons holds its own as well. For example, in "Lisa's Wedding" Marge and daughter have a video conversation on their "picture phone." It's a technology that is strikingly similar to FaceTime. Nor is this the only piece of 21st Century technology foreshadowed in "Lisa's Wedding." That episode also features characters wearing smartwatches, while the futuristic London skyline features a fictional skyscraper that looks an awful lot like The Shard (which didn't even begin construction until 2009). Of course, in that episode Lisa's fiancé Hugh Parkfield mentions how Britain saved the United States in World War III. Here's hoping that's a prediction from that episode that doesn't come to pass... And there you have it, a bunch of times The Simpsons eerily got a future event right. What other times did The Simpsons see the future? Let's discuss in the comments!

Going into Arrow’s season 7 finale, I had no idea what to expect because there was so much to accomplish. Not only did it have to wrap-up Oliver’s half-season long conflict with his villainous sister Emiko, but it also had to tackle the future storyline and give Felicity an emotional and fitting send-off because her portrayer Emily Bett Rickards is exiting the show after this season.

Was it entirely successful? In the episode’s immediate afterglow, I’m willing to say, mostly yes. Sure, most of it felt rushed and over-stuffed, and I couldn’t keep the particulars of the plot straight. But in the grand scheme of things, that’s not terribly important because “You Have Saved this City” — which was written by showrunner Beth Schwartz and Rebecca Bellotto— landed almost every emotional beat it had to. Not only that, but there was a gravitas to the story that’s been missing all season and made it feel like this was the conclusion to this part of the story.

At the beginning of the season, Schwartz stated that the theme was redemption, and the finale returned to that idea in a big way. The hour, which was energetically directed by supervising producer/oner lover James Bamford, began with Team Arrow narrowly evading being arrested by the SCPD for a number of crimes, because there are more important things to do — specifically, foiling Emiko’s terrorist/Queen family legacy-ruining attack on Star City. Luckily, though, they won’t be doing it alone because several familiar faces return to help: Black Siren, Curtis, and Bronze Tiger, who joins in to help the team calm a crowd down and destroy some Signus dispersing drones.

With Black Siren and Bronze Tiger part of the team, the finale really starts to hone in on this whole idea of redemption. Both of these former criminals acknowledge how Team Arrow helped them turn their lives around, and they support Oliver’s decision to continue fighting for Emiko’s own redemption. As the hour goes on, you get the sense that Arrow’s thesis statement is that redemption is possible for everyone, but you can’t do it alone.

Bamford’s direction does a good job of conveying the importance of the collective. Look at the way the camera sweeps around the bunker in some of the longer takes and shows everyone who’s there, or in the way he tries to cram as many heroes into one static shot as possible, like when everyone in the bunker crowds around Felicity’s workspace. I’ll admit I was truly moved to see Oliver, Felicity, Curtis, Diggle, Dinah, Rene, Black Siren, Roy, and Bronze Tiger standing all together down there. The diversity of experiences sort of reminded me of James Tynion IV’s recent installment of Detective Comics, which focused on a superhero team comprised only of Bat-family heroes. Here, you have a team comprised of Arrow- family members, and that sense of family is incredibly potent.

With Felicity and Curtis’ help, the team tracks Emiko to the old Queen Consolidated/current Palmer Tech building, because Emiko is nothing if not poetic. So, Green Arrow, Bronze Tiger, Spartan, and Arsenal head there and split up. While Oliver heads upstairs to the penthouse to confront his sister, the remaining three stay downstairs to fight the Ninth Circle, disable a relay device that would allow Emiko to set off her many bombs (including the ones there), and evacuate the building. The trio is on the verge of being overwhelmed, but then Wild Dog, Black Siren, and Black Canary show up with the police for reinforcement, having cleared everyone’s names with the help of Sergeant Bingsley.

Upstairs, Oliver comes face to face with Emiko, who is determined as ever to destroy their family’s legacy by bringing the entire building down. Despite everything, though, Oliver never abandons hope that she can be redeemed and spends their entire fight trying to get through to her. In fact, when he eventually gains the upper-hand, he offers to let her kill him.

Right at that moment, though, Virgil and someone named Beatrice (wow, super on the nose) show up with more Ninth Circle reinforcements. However, they’re not there to help their leader. No, the Ninth Circle wants to kill Emiko because her petty sibling rivalry has exposed them to the rest of the world. So, Oliver and Emiko team-up to take them down. Unfortunately, Emiko is fatally wounded in the fight and uses her final words to urge Oliver to go into hiding with Felicity and their daughter because the Ninth Circle won’t stop coming after them. Redemption Achievement, unlocked!

Oliver takes Emiko’s words to heart. When he returns to the bunker, he and Felicity announce that they’re taking a step back from this hero business because he has faith that the team can protect the city without him. “Every bit of success I’ve had along the way has been because of you,” he says. Is this a rehash of the season 3 finale? Yes, but here it feels like there’s more weight to it because the script is drawing on six seasons worth of history. To be honest, I’m not sure if season 7 itself actually earned this moment, but whatever, I don’t care because I was moved. Because Oliver and Felicity are doing this for their children, it feels more definitive and like it would stick were it not for certain extenuating circumstances. Anyway, everyone realizes that Oliver managed not only to end his cycle of violence but turn it into a cycle of heroism because Team Arrow is his legacy.

So Diggle helps Oliver and Felicity move into that isolated home we saw in “Star City 2040” and they all decide not to tell the team about Mia because the Ninth Circle would target them. From there, we’re treated to a montage that shows Oliver and Felicity’s life in the home. It’s super touching.

A few days/months after Mia’s birth, Oliver and Felicity decide their life is calm enough to try to get William back. Naturally, that’s when the Monitor shows up, tells Oliver he needs to hold up his end of the bargain they made in “Elseworlds,” and come help him save the multiverse. Felicity begs him not to go, especially once they find out that Oliver dies in the forthcoming crisis (!), but Oliver agrees. Before he leaves though, he and Felicity share a heart-wrenching and tearful goodbye in which he makes her promise to make sure their children have safe and normal lives.

Meanwhile in the future storyline: Future Team Arrow narrowly avoids being captured by the Zetas and launches a daring plan to destroy the ARCHER program. This requires Mia, William, Zoe, and Connor to infiltrate an ARCHER checkpoint and blow up the entire wall surrounding the Glades, which is where the terrible security program is housed. Of course, Felicity doesn’t want her children risking their lives, but in the end, she has no option but to let them be the heroes she knows they can be. And by the grace of writers, they manage to pull it off, and Mia even gets a badass moment in which she takes down several Zetas before grappling down the wall right as it goes boom.

In the wake of destroying the wall, Dinah, Felicity, and Roy decide to take responsibility for the action so that the young heroes can step up and become the city’s defenders. Before Felicity heads out on the run, though, she meets up with her children at Oliver’s grave (our hero dies in 2019, ahhh) to say goodbye because where she’s going she can’t stay in contact. Mia and William don’t understand, but they accept it. So, as Felicity leaves the graveyard, she walks through a portal with the Monitor to reunite with Oliver somewhere.

Overall, I think the way the show wrote Felicity off is pretty good. It’s definitely a bit stronger than the goodbye Thea got in season 6. Throughout the episode, it felt like we spent a lot more time with Felicity in the bunker than normal missions, and the future storyline gave her the opportunity to reconcile with her children. Even though I wasn’t fully invested in the flash-forwards, I still found her scenes with Mia and William very moving. And the fact that her final scene is her going off to see Oliver is what ‘shipper dreams are made of. That being said, the way she’s written off definitely leaves the door open for Felicity to return for the final season, and hopefully, she does because it’ll be rather disappointing if the show can’t tie this loose end up. Based on this ending, it seems as though the producers are confident they can get Rickards back next year to close the loop.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to season 8, which better just be Arrow & The Monitor: Multiverse Adventures.

Wall of Weird:

If you have more questions about the Monitor of it all, check out this quick post on how the finale teases “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” Overall, I’m not entirely sure what to make of the season as a whole. It’s definitely one that I need to rewatch before I decide where it falls on my personal ranking. “Trust me, the world needs her,” The Monitor, to Felicity, about her daughter Mia. I smell a spin-off! William asks Roy how he landed on Lian-Yu and Roy simply says that’s a long story. If it involves Thea, I would definitely watch that show/web-series! Original Team Arrow got a really cute goodbye. “So this is what it feels like to save a city,” Laurel, after saving the day. The finale explains how the Mark for Four came to be and, well, that’s one of those things that they could’ve just left unexplained or put in a DVD extra.

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EW is pulling back the veil on season 5 of Netflix’s Black Mirror.

Below is the first photo from the eagerly anticipated new season of the Emmy-winning anthology drama.

Here is Anthony Mackie (Avengers: Endgame) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) facing off on a rainy street in one of the new episodes.

There are no additional details about this episode. But series creator Charlie Brooker teases: “It’s the Marvel-DC crossover no one saw coming.” 

Season 5 represents the first new content from the series since December’s groundbreaking stand-alone episode “Bandersnatch,” which allowed viewers to make interactive choices that decided the show’s narrative.

There are a lot of open questions about the mysterious new season, such as: When does Black Mirror return? For how many episodes? And who are the other cast members (many have been reported, including singer Miley Cyrus, who has implied in an interview she’s in the new season).

More news to come at a future date. Until then, check out our gallery of every Black Mirror episode ranked.

Disney has revealed that the next Star Wars film to be released after the Skywalker Saga concludes will be from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Talking on an investor call earlier today, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that the next film will be the mystery project written Benioff and Weiss. It will release in 2022, meaning a three year gap for the series that has seen annual releases since 2015’s The Force Awakens.

“We’re hard at work already,” Igor said

“But we felt three years was the proper amount of time to not only take a breather and reset, but to gear up for the next film’s release.”

From the launch of the new film, the schedule will be a pre-Christmas weekend release every other year, putting the first three releases at December 2022, 2024, and 2026. It is unclear if Disney will alternate between two concurrent Star Wars projects as they have with the current trilogy, or if all three of the upcoming films are part of a single story.

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NEXT is a thrilled about a deadly and rogue artificial intelligence. Paul LeBlanc is a Silicon Valley pioneer who built a fortune while also alienating the people around him, including his daughter, Abby, and his younger brother, Ted (who now runs Paul’s company). When Paul discovered that one of his own creations – a powerful […]

Warning: The following contains spoilers from the entire fourth season of Lucifer, which was released on Wednesday. Read at your own risk! 

The Devil’s work is never over.

Lucifer‘s fourth season, which Netflix released on Wednesday, followed the titular fallen angel (Tom Ellis) as he spiraled through an identity crisis. In the wake of killing Cain (Tom Welling) and Chloe (Lauren German) finally seeing his Devil face in the season 3 finale, and the return of his first girlfriend Eve (Inbar Lavi), the self-loathing Lucifer found himself torn between the old Devil that Eve remembers and loves, and the good person he was becoming by working with Chloe. Thankfully, by the end of the season, he was able to reconcile these two sides.

In the season 4 finale, several demons escape from hell intent on convincing their king, Lucifer, to return to his old kingdom. Because he just had a breakthrough and committed himself to becoming a better person and leaving his devilish side in the past (and because he likes it on Earth), Lucifer refuses and tells them to rule hell themselves. Alas, only a celestial is able to do that, so the demons kidnap newborn nephilim baby Charlie with the intention of making him their new king.

With Eve, Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt), and Amenadiel by his side, Lucifer goes full devil (wings, horns, face etc…) and puts a stop the demon’s plans. But Lucifer knows the demons will eventually be back, so he does the responsible thing and resolves to return to hell, fully believing that he can both be the King of Hell and the good angel he wants to be. And this leads to one of the series’ most heartbreaking and highly anticipated moments.

“I love you,” Chloe tearfully says. “Please don’t leave.”

“See, we were wrong about something else in the the prophecy. My first love was never Eve. It was you Chloe. It always has been,” says Lucifer right before he kisses her, spreads his angel wings, and flies down under to reclaim the throne and lord over the damned.

Below, EW speaks to Lucifer showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich about the finale’s hellish twist and that big Chloe-Lucifer moment.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The season ends with two big things: Chloe and Lucifer saying I love you to each other and Lucifer returning to hell. I’m curious, which of those came first when you were mapping out the season?
ILDY MODROVICH: We definitely actually knew he was going to go back to hell. That was a given. We actually went back and forth on the “I love you.” We knew we wanted Chloe to basically come full circle from where she started at the beginning of the season. “I don’t know if I can accept this person with this new information,” to end with, “not only can I accept him, but I love him.” We knew wanted her to express that someway, whether or not she said those three little words. If you watch again, Lucifer doesn’t actually say the actual words. We might just be saving that .
JOE HENDERSON: One of the things we realized as we were digging into it is that this is our season of breakthroughs. Season 3 was sort of where we broke a lot of our toys, and season 4 is where we try to heal them. One of the things we really wanted to do, as Ildy was saying, was have Chloe accept Lucifer for what he was and for Lucifer to accept himself. For this whole show, we’ve had Lucifer in therapy. One of the things we really wanted to do was have Lucifer actually have an epiphany and actually start down a path of healing. It was kind of a scary thing because at first we were like, “Are we going to break the show? If Lucifer has an epiphany, is that it?” One of the things we realized is that it just opened up all new story. To me, they were dueling paths that met in the middle, which is Lucifer learning to accept himself and Chloe learning to accept him. Lucifer accepting himself allows him to accept Chloe, because he wants to but what’s in the way is that he doesn’t think he deserves her.

Was having him end the season back in hell a way to also avoid breaking the show?
HENDERSON: That was definitely an element of it. So much of the show is that you want to have them take one step forward and one step back, and that was definitely something we felt could do that. But also, we loved the idea of Lucifer having to face the responsibility of his life, because so much of realizing who he is, is also realizing the responsibilities he has. An epiphany is a double-edged sword inasmuch as he realized that he’s a better man than he always thought he was, but if that’s the case, a better man would take on the responsibility in front of him. So, we really tried to have it come from character.
MODROVICH:  Also, Lucifer is becoming a big boy. He has to learn to accept himself and that the love for himself can’t come from other people, and that’s really what the whole season is about and why we introduced Eve in the first place, too. There were a lot of people that balked at, “Oh, another love triangle,” but it really wasn’t about that. It was about bringing in a character who not only accepted Lucifer for being the devil, but like encouraged it. It forced him to go, “I’ve grown past that. I’ve become something else, something more.” Then by the end, really realizing that, “Yes, that is me, that dark side. But I’m also the light side. I’m both those things, and I have to embrace both sides of me. And the dark side is actually pretty useful sometimes.” So useful that when these demons come up, he’s the only one who can put it right, and he’s proud of himself in that moment. Chloe’s proud of him in that moment. He’s used his bad, if you will, for good. That’s kind of the big win of the end of the season.

Judging by the fact that he uses both his full devil form and his angel wings in the finale, Lucifer has reached at least the first step in self-acceptance?
HENDERSON: Yeah, I think a lot of it is him finding balance, knowing that you can have angel wings and a devil face. We don’t necessarily know if he has the devil face in that moment, but that’s the balance. He’s got angel wings but he’s sitting on the throne of hell. Lucifer is both, as Ildy was saying, lightness and darkness. He is both good and bad, or at least all of us have that inside of us.

It’s interesting, there was an earlier version of episode 9 that I had written where Lucifer took a lot more ownership of everything. Ildy actually gave me a bunch of notes on it. One of the things I did is that I had Chloe walk him through the path and sort of forgive him, and Ildy’s note was, “This is Lucifer’s journey. Let him find it on his own.” What I love about what the scene became is that Chloe is just guiding him on the path; It’s Lucifer discovering what he wants deep down. I think that’s so important that he both take ownership of it and Chloe recognizes that it’s gotta be him. You can’t tell someone how to fell, they have to find it.

John P. Fleenor/Netflix

Ildy, you wrote the finale. Is there a moment in it that you’re particularly proud of?
MODROVICH: The opening dance number is such a fantasy come true for me. I was giddy with excitement through the whole thing. I learned the dance along with the cast, so did Joe . Oh yeah, we can do that s—t!
HENDERSON: That was the last thing we shot, wasn’t it?
MODROVICH: We planned it that way. We sort of held the best, or at least our favorite thing, for last. We were drinking champagne, we were dancing, it was so much fun! Oh my god, flying through the air! The whole thing was just us being silly, and it turned out so well! It exceeded my expectations. That’s just one of my favorite moments in the whole show really. My favorite, though, has to just be the end when she finally has him and she’s finally able to say how she feels about him, and he has this responsibility that he has to go and has no choice. You see it in his eyes; it’s almost enough. He knows he can’t be with her, but just knowing that she accepts him fully, every facet, is going to sustain him down there on that deep, dank throne. You see the joy in his eyes. I take  that with me, as an audience member.
HENDERSON: Speaking to that moment: Lauren likes to come fresh for table reads and experience them in the moment. Laurel made the entire room cry when she read that final scene.
MODROVICH: Yes, she did! This is absolutely her season. The depth of emotion she managed to hit, every single side is so much fun to watch. She just really brought it.

How did you decide what Lucifer’s throne would look like?
BOTH:
MODROVICH: Actually, that was a big discussion! At first, I wanted it to be really claustrophobic, so I went the opposite way in my head. I wanted it to be almost Inception-like, in that it’s curling back around on you — hell from every side. When we saw the renderings, it made it seem small.
HENDERSON: It lost its sense of scope.
MODROVICH: It just didn’t feel grand enough. Then, Joe was like, ‘Dude, we’ve seen hell.” We’ve also seen it from this angle. So, we pulled those images back and we just built on that. It did end up being more grand and more claustrophobic in a way because of its infinity. Feeling like it just went on forever and ever and ever was the most terrifying part of it. His throne: The only person who can sit on the throne has to be angel, so we knew the way to get to it is to fly. We knew we wanted this precarious-looking spire that came up. Then our amazing production designer Alex Hajdu just went to town and a had a blast with it.
HENDERSON: The inspiration we described was: What if Yertle the Turtle was in hell? It’s basically Dr. Seuss in hell visually, but what’s so cool about it is that it’s jagged and irregular and looks like it both might topple over at any moment and will never fall. Yertle the Turtle in hell is my pull quote.

If Netflix renews Lucifer for a fifth season, would you want to bring Eve back?
HENDERSON: Here’s the thing: We loved working with Inbar. As you can see in the season, she’s absolutely fantastic. The question becomes, as we get into our room, how much story would we have for that character? We set her off on an amazing new starting point for her life, so I think that’s one of the first thing we’ll discuss. My hope is, in whatever way, that’s not the last you’ve seen of Eve.
MODROVICH: Good answer.

Another season 5 question: Do you already know how you’ll bring Lucifer back from hell?
HENDERSON: We have a lot of exciting ways, and one way in particular, to do it that launches an awesome, awesome season 5. We did spend some time digging into what we think can be season 5. We even have the first scene , which is one of my favorite things we’ve ever come up with .
MODROVICH: Oh my god, so exciting! Overall, when we approach a new season, and this sort of speaks to your last question about Eve, we really try to ping it in a completely different direction. If everybody is speculating on one thing, we just try to think as a bats—t as we can, as outside of the box as possible, so that people don’t get bored, so we don’t get bored. We do have an idea. It’s an idea that when it came up in the room, we went, “Oh god, that’s crazy.” Then the more we talked about it, the more we went, “and brilliant.”
HENDERSON: Those are the ones that often stick and those are the ones that help to define our show.

Is there anything else you guys wanted to add?
HENDERSON: I am so happy we got to have sing at Lux. It’s funny, when we first listened to her recording, we thought someone had juiced it because her voice was just so amazing. And it was just her and it was her first take!
MODROVICH: I thought it was like a studio person marking it for her. “Woo, that’s good! When is Lesley-Ann going to jump in?”
HENDERSON: One of the things that’s been really fun is to explore the different skills of our cast as we’ve gotten to know them so well. To let Kevin go darker, to really push beyond her boundaries and see how she is on cocaine.
MODROVICH: And Molly!
HENDERSON: To give Rachael so much to play with dealing with the birth of the child. And Tom! It’s so easy to forget Tom Ellis because what he does is so casually amazing, but I think this was once again a showcase for how damn good he is and how amazing he is as an actor. He’s so effortless that you forget, but my god, we are so lucky to have him. And I leave Lauren out because we already highlighted her earlier. I do think this is Lauren’s season.

The complete fourth season is available on Netflix now.

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Warning: this article contains major spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5 "The Bells"! 

The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones will almost surely turn out to be one of the most divisive in the series' history. This episode marked the exact moment where one of the greatest heroes in the entire Game of Thrones saga, Daenerys Targaryen, transformed from liberator to destroyer. When given the chance to spare thousands of innocent civilians from a destructive battle, Dany instead embraced her darkest impulses and burnt King's Landing to ashes. Dany has made it clear she isn't the ruler Westeros deserves. That's a bitter pill to swallow for anyone (fans and GoT characters alike) who's been a hardcore member of Team Dany for all these years. But that's exactly what makes it true to the spirit of Game of Thrones in the first place.

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It’s been a week since Game of Thrones gave us a trying, tense and emotional episode in which one of our favorite characters met her untimely and brutal end, and Nathalie Emmanuel is still processing the wave of anger and heartbreak that has grown online since, tying her character’s demise into a larger conversation about the show’s lack of on-screen racial diversity.

After last Sunday’s episode “The Last of the Starks” saw Daenerys’ trusted advisor Missandei (Emmanuel) captured by Cersei and then beheaded when the tyrant queen’s demands are not met, a wave of outrage grew online at the fate that befell not just one of the most-liked characters, but one of only two long-standing minority characters in the show.

“To be honest with you, when I read the script for it, I was like, not surprised that she died because I had been expecting it for a really long time,” Emmanuel told EW a few days after the episode aired.

“So many people die in that show and I guess I didn’t think I was any safer than anybody else in that respect. But I am fully aware and engaged in the conversation of representation because I am the only woman of color in this show that has been on there regularly for many seasons,” she added.

After entering the show in season three when Daenerys frees her from slave master Kraznys mo Nakloz in Astapor, the brilliant, intelligent, multi-lingual Missandei has been one of Daenerys’ biggest assets, standing calm and dignified next to her queen while advising her and being her support in an otherwise male-dominated world. When she and Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson), the stoic leader of the Unsullied with the puppy dog eyes, fall in love against all the odds, viewers were rooting for them to escape to the warm desert island beach that Grey Worm proposes to her in Winterfell before “The Long Night,” which they both miraculously survived.

Emmanuel believes the outrage about Missandei’s demise comes not only from the tragedy of it happening in front of Grey Worm and Daenerys, the two most important people in her life, but that she was the sole long-standing woman of color in the series. “It’s safe to say that Game of Thrones has been under criticism for their lack of representation and the truth of it is that Missandei and Grey Worm have represented so many people because there’s only two of them,” Emmanuel said.

“So this is a conversation going forward about when you’re casting shows like this, that you are inclusive in your casting. I knew what it meant that she was there, I know what it means that I am existing in the spaces that I am because when I was growing up, I didn’t see people like me. But it wasn’t until she was gone that I really felt what it really, truly meant, until I saw the outcry and outpouring of love and outrage and upset about it, I really understood what it meant,” she added.

See Emmanuel’s full response to Missandei’s death below, what she wishes she could have done more with the character and her next move after Game of Thrones – the world of romantic comedies.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Missandei’s final scene was so tragic and brutal, and it stoked an anger and outrage online, especially over the treatment of not just a woman but the sole woman of color on the show, and she died in chains. How did you respond to that?
NATHALIE EMMANUEL: To be honest with you, when I read the script for it, I was like, not surprised that she died because I had been expecting it for a really long time. So many people die in that show and I guess I didn’t think I was any safer than anybody else in that respect. But I am fully aware and engaged in the conversation of representation because I am the only woman of color in this show that has been on there regularly for many seasons and Jacob and I are fully engaged in that conversation constantly and throughout our whole time together.

I guess when I saw that she gets captured and she dies in chains, I just felt the weight of that and what that really means, I really felt, I was heartbroken for her really. But I think in a story sense, it doesn’t matter that she’s a good kind person, she is not safe and in the grand scheme of things, she’s disposable really. That is the hard reality of the world of Game of Thrones and the world they’ve created, even that person who’s so kind and loving and calm and harmless, even that person can be taken away. I think the fact that she died in chains when she was a slave her whole life, that for me was a pungent cut for that character, that felt so painful but like I said, it’s the reality of the world. It’s kind of makes sense in a social sense, a world sense in that we’re out of chains but sometimes the world makes us feel like we’re not, and that is for me, even playing it when I had the shackles on, it made me quite emotional, it’s hard. Just on an emotional level, I just really felt the impact of that.

But generally, I understand people’s outrage, I understand people’s heartbreak, because this is the conversation around representation. It’s safe to say that Game of Thrones has been under criticism for their lack of representation and the truth of it is that Missandei and Grey Worm have represented so many people because there’s only two of them. So this is a conversation going forward about when you’re casting shows like this, that you are inclusive in your casting. I knew what it meant that she was there, I know what it means that I am existing in the spaces that I am because when I was growing up, I didn’t see people like me but it wasn’t until she was gone that I really felt what it really, truly meant until I saw the outcry and outpouring of love and outrage and upset about it, I really understood what it meant.

It was kind of like a learning moment for me but playing that part and playing that story out, I just felt like she left the show like she started, with dignity, she was strong and brave and she was angry and she left with power and she stood in her power and I thought we’d seen Missandei in a way that we had never seen her. Usually, she’s so quiet and collected and this time she was angry and she left that world with strength and I really appreciated that I got to play that. When I made the choices of how I was going to play that, it’s very easy in the moment to stand there above the man that she loves and her best friend and not to be in bits weeping, and I was like, no, she knew that was going to happen, she knew she might die, she knew she might forfeit, she knew she might go hungry, and … that was her response.

And so she was prepared to die and when it came to that moment, she was ready almost. It’s a really complex conversation and it always astounds me how much it meant to people and how much my being in that show has meant to people in terms of representation. The fact that I’ve been able to do that for people literally makes me want to up and cry every time someone says it to me. It’s a hard one and I think the fans, what we’re learning is no one’s safe and the outcry and the rage about it, the anger about it speaks to that conversation of why representation matters. So much responsibility falls on these two characters because it’s only them but if we were more generally inclusive, that probably won’t be as prevalent.

It felt really savage.
I mean, it was savage. It was brutal and hardened and that is the world that we’re in. Whether we’re talking about Game of Thrones or this one, it is brutal and that is what they did. They don’t take holding prisoners, those guys, they’re like “we’ll make you really love them and then we’ll kill them,” that’s been true for everyone. The one thing I would say is I really had wished that I had more time or scenes this season maybe with Daenerys or even with Cersei, scenes where we get to see her being brilliant before she dies, I think that might have eased the pain a bit more for people, and reinforcing a friendship that she and Dany had because we haven’t really seen anything for a few seasons but I think she’s so fiercely loyal Dany and I think she was until the bitter end, and it’s almost fitting for Missandei really, in a way.

Coming off Game of Thrones, your next role is the romantic lead in Mindy Kaling’s Four Weddings and a Funeral Hulu series. How did it feel taking on a very different type of story and world where you don’t have to worry about White Walkers or Cersei coming for you?
It can’t be further from the other. Nothing’s trying to murder me, the rom-com genre can’t be any more different from fantasy. I think – I won’t harp on about it too much – but genuinely, the representation element of this show, just the working environment is different because it’s really a different experience when you’re not the only one or few people of color on a set. As a person of color or as a woman of color, you generally feel more supported when there are other people who look like you around, so that was a lovely, enjoyable experience. Not to say I wasn’t supported on Game of Thrones, I love that cast and crew and everyone from the bottom of my heart, but those conversations that only you and other people of color understand, it happens and you don’t feel as shy or nervous. And also, what I’ve found is that you can learn about other people’s experiences that are different from yours, I think is important for any set. Just in terms of the story, this is much more fun and lighthearted and obviously, there’s ups and downs and trials and tribulations, but it’s just so much more polite and less intense.

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This was the most consequential episode in Game of Thrones history. The penultimate episode of the series was an extremely tense visual stunner that had an enormous impact on most of the major characters. Several fan favorites are dead. Daenerys went Full Targaryen. Tyrion committed treason. The loyalty of Dany’s remaining supporters — including Jon Snow — is now in question. The Cleganebowl happened. And Arya decided to choose life over vengeance.

In a way, the episode — titled “The Bells” — felt like a response to the criticisms of the Battle of Winterfell even though it was filmed at roughly the same time. “Episode 3 was too dark.” Oh, you think so? How’s this for some battle clarity? “The first battle was overhyped.” Okay, here’s a second battle that was kept totally secret. “Not enough major characters died in the first battle.” Well, buckle up buddy. (Both episodes, by the way, were directed by “Battle of the Bastards” helmer Miguel Sapochnik).

I have a lot of thoughts about this one, especially about Dany’s “Mad Queen” turn and Arya’s big decision. Let’s break down this incredible episode. Keep in mind, however, this is a recap in progress and I’ll be updating through Monday night.

Dragonstone: The episode opens on Varys, which isn’t a good sign for him.

On the beach, Varys intercepts Jon Snow as he arrives. Varys urges him to take the crown for himself and Jon, of course, refuses. Varys was also writing letters, presumably outing Jon Snow as the true heir. “Every time a Targaryen is born the gods toss a coin,” Varys says. “I still don’t know how her coin has landed, but I’m quite certain about yours.”

In the castle, Daenerys looks unlike we’ve ever seen her before. The grieving Mother of Dragon’s hair and makeup team apparently went down with the rest of her fleet last week. She’s visited by Tyrion who informs her that somebody has betrayed her. “Jon Snow,” she says. In a way, Dany is correct. If it wasn’t for Jon Snow going against her wishes, Tyrion wouldn’t have found out about his parentage and then Varys wouldn’t have started maneuvering to betray her.

Daenerys sees this as Sansa’s treachery. So many fans blasted Sansa last week for not keeping Jon’s secret. But notice what Dany is saying. Couldn’t this have been a clever Littlefinger-like plot rather than a moment of weakness confiding in a friend? Watching that scene, it was tough to tell. Perhaps it was a bit of both? Sansa was throwing a bomb into Dany’s inner circle and had to know it would explode.

For Tyrion, this is a tough situation. Tyrion likes Varys, who once saved his life. But Tyrion is also a survivalist. He’s already on thin ice with Dany and if he doesn’t tell his queen about Varys’ treachery, then when she finds out he’s dead too. Tyrion has made a lot of blunders the last couple seasons, but ratting out Varys isn’t one of them.

Later, Grey Worm gets Varys from his room. The Spider taking off his rings really got me. He’s brought to the beach. This is where Melisandre once sacrificed heretics to the Lord of Light so many seasons ago. Now a different burning is about to take place, but the night is still dark and now it’s full of even worse terrors. “I hope I’m wrong,” Varys tells Tyrion. “Truly I do.” But you can see it in his face — Varys is certain he’s right. Tyrion gives him a kind touch, the last he’ll ever feel, and Varys looks surprised.

Dany executes Varys with a blast from Drogon, who emerges out of the darkness behind her like a beautiful demon. The mode of execution is rather fitting as castrated Varys’ genitals were tossed into a magical fire when he was a kid, inspiring his lifetime dislike and distrust of sorcery. Now the rest of him is consumed a magic-induced fire as well.

Later, Tyrion tries to convince Dany, one last time, to show restraint and not attack the city. We’re supposed to be entirely on his side, morally speaking. But the residents of King’s Landing are Cersei’s responsibility and she can only hold them up as human shields while deliberately provoking a dragon-riding Targaryen to attack for so long before she shares some blame too.

Tyrion also brings up Meereen, which is an important reminder of Mad Queen foreshadowing. Remember Dany’s first instinct when Meereen was under bombardment by the slave cities in season 6? “I will crucify the masters,” Dany declared. “I will set their fleets afire. I will kill every last one of their soldiers and return their cities to the dirt. That’s my plan.” Tyrion talked her out of it. At the time we thought, Well, Dany probably didn’t really mean it. But she did. She’s said other things like this too along the way. In season 2, Dany likewise promised, “We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground.” And in season 6, she asked the Dothraki to pledge to “kill my enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses.” Time and again, we dismissed such talk as bluster. It wasn’t.

And once again, Tyrion gets Dany to hold back, or seems to. Tyrion says he’ll sneak into the city and try to convince his sister to surrender one final time. If successful, he’ll ring the city’s bells signaling for Dany to stop the attack.

Dany then reveals to Tyrion that Jaime Lannister was caught trying to sneak behind enemy lines. She warns Tyrion — just as she warned Varys last season — that she will execute him if he betrays her.

So what’s Tyrion going to do? Again, like Varys, he goes for broke. He visits his imprisoned brother and decides to release him, just as Jaime freed Tyrion in season 4. Tyrion rightly realizes Cersei is far more likely to listen to Jaime. The two have a very touching and emotional goodbye. “Tens of thousands of innocent lives, one not particularly innocent dwarf, seems like a fair trade,” Tyrion says. “If it weren’t for you I never would have survived my childhood. You were the only one who didn’t treat me like a monster.” Tyrion also reveals a secret passage out of the Red Keep for the two to escape.

We’re teased here with a happy ending for the Lannister twins: Sailing off to start a new life together somewhere far away, just as Grey Worm and Missandei dreamed about. Tyrion knows he’s never going to see his brother alive again, one way or the other.

And Tyrion now seems dead either way. If he marched into the Red Keep to have a chat with Cersei, she’d either kill him or he would have perished in the attack. But by sending Jaime in his place, Tyrion is committing treason. His best option would have been to do nothing — stay at Dragonstone and keep Jaime locked up for his own safety and sit back and let Dany be Dany. But doing nothing and risking nothing is also the selfish move that Cersei would have done.

King’s Landing: At first, Daenerys’ attacking King’s Landing is super gratifying. She wipes out the Iron Fleet, figuring out what fans pointed out last week that, ohhh, you can circle behind the ships to blast the scorpions. Euron escapes to safety. She also takes out the scorpions on the castle walls (it would be wiser for Dany to attack at night, but after the Battle of Winterfell we’re happy for the daylight action).

For Daenerys, the battle for King’s Landing is now pretty simple. Once she gets all the scorpions, the city is hers. So now what?

Red Keep: Qyburn gives Cersei the bad news. Cersei is in denial as always. “The Red Keep has never fallen, it will not fall today.”

So much of the lead up to the big turn is directed with such gorgeous precision and suspense. Ramin Djawadi nail-biting score ratchets the tension to another level.

We get a standoff. Jon Snow, Grey Worm, and Davos with the Unsullied confront the remaining Golden Company troops. Dany on Drogon perched on the city ramparts. Cersei staring out from the Red Keep. Cries from the people to ring the bells.

Will Cersei ring the bells? No. She won’t. But somebody does anyway. She looks fine about this, perhaps even relieved that the decision was taken out of her hands. The Golden Company throw down their swords to surrender.

So this is over now right? A happy ending? Everybody can live.

But Dany has other ideas. She’s high on destruction. She doesn’t want peace. She’s staring at the Red Keep and looks furious. She could stop all this but … well…she just doesn’t want to.

Dany flies into King’s Landing and blasts away. Buildings, civilians, everyone. The Mad Queen has arrived. Her house words are “Fire and Blood” and she’s delivering both.

Tyrion watches this and realizes: He was wrong about Dany.

Jon Snow watches her and realizes: He was wrong about Dany too.

We watch Daenerys and … wait, were we wrong as well?

Did we already think Dany was capable of this? Or were we in denial about her murderous ways? Did we really think somebody who crucified 163 people because she assumed they were all responsible for killing slaves was a good person? Or do we feel this is an unfair trick; that writers of GoT are pushing a Mad Queen narrative against Dany’s character?

Remember that scene in season 2 in the House of the Undying? Dany had a vision of walking through the Red Keep. The ceiling was broken open and there was this white stuff falling into the throne room. We assumed that was snow and that winter had come to the South. In this episode, at long last, Dany really is in King’s Landing and the Red Keep is being destroyed. But there’s no snow. We see that white stuff was actually ash. Dany’s the queen of the ashes. So this turn was foreshadowed from the show’s very early days.

There were plenty of moments in previous seasons to support Daenerys going Mad Queen. Has the show been a bit tricky in playing her murderous moments as heroic and only recently seemed to want us to really question them? Perhaps. But I wouldn’t say GoT has been suddenly pushing the idea that Dany is bad so much as doing what a good drama does in its final act — putting its protagonist to the ultimate test of character. And in doing so, the thing that GoT is actually pushing is a debate about Dany’s morality, bringing that question into the foreground of the show after letting it sit quietly in the background for so long.

We think Daenerys is a good person because she’s happily made so many benevolent choices to try and make the world a better place. Those choices tended to be made when Daenerys was feeling calm and secure. When you have two armies and three dragons it’s easy to decide you’re going to banish slavery because you can. But the show has also pretty consistently shown that when Daenerys gets really-really angry she rather nimbly leaps to “kill them all in the most painful way possible” as the best solution regardless of whether it’s fully justified or not. And she’s never been angrier than she is now.

Since season 7, Dany’s lost two dragons, her two most trusted friends and advisors (Ser Jorah and Missandei), and has gone from ruling a land where she was worshipped to a continent where — as she puts it — nobody loves her. Dany didn’t seem like she needed that big of a push to nuke a city, and the final season has given her a really hard shove. What she does here is a lot like Aegon I Targaryen’s burning of Harrenhal to conquer Westeros in the first place.

And yet…and yet…it’s definitely shocking that Dany opts to just start nuking civilians when it’s so clear she didn’t have to. That is rightly shocking. Characters hopefully sometimes do shocking things otherwise they’re utterly predictable and dull. The debate is whether this is an earned “character surprises you” moment or — as one fan grieved on Twitter — “character assassination.”

I suspect the key is Dany’s quote earlier about ruling by fear. She doesn’t just want to win, she wants to teach Westeros a lesson after all her struggle. No more traitors, no more lords refusing the bend the knee, no more disrespect — all that’s over. If you mess with Dany, this is what happens and now everybody will fall in line. Of course, maybe this wasn’t about any kind of logic all. Varys warned about Targaryen predisposition to madness. Perhaps we’re meant to believe Dany just finally snapped.

If I’m pushed to nitpick, then I’d say that I wished season 8 had more episodes to play Dany’s arc out a bit longer, but I also know the production gave the final season everything they had given the level of production required to pull off its battle sequences.

The Hound and Arya: The Hound talks Arya into not entering the Red Keep with him. “If you come with me, you’ll die,” he says. “Cersei’s dead anyway. Do you need to die with her?” Cersei has been on Arya’s list of names for so long. But Arya decides she’s had enough of death and changes her mind.

I’m disappointed not to get an Arya/Cersei scene because that would have been amazing. But Arya sneaking in and killing Cersei like so many have predicted would have been a terrible ending for Cersei, reducing her death to punishment for her season 1 sins and making irrelevant everything that Cersei has done since then. The “right” death for Cersei, narratively speaking, is that she dies due to having made one terrible leadership decision after another — which is exactly what happens and Cersei is literally crushed by the collapsing weight of the building that symbolizes her power (not entirely unlike the way she blew up her enemies at the end of season 6).

And besides, I love this turn for Arya and it really matters that her choice is made in the same episode as Dany torching the city. Because I’ve had some of the same concerns about Arya’s homicidal streak as I’ve had about Dany. Arya, too, has engaged in increasingly indiscriminate killing — wiping out that hall full of Freys because they’re part of that group, regardless of each individual’s guilt or innocence. And just like with Dany, we’ve cheered Arya’s murderousness and not questioned it because she’s another young hero who’s gone through hell. But killing people has seemed to have less and less meaning to Arya. And as that happens, life has less and less meaning too.

So Arya chooses to let go of her vengeance — the opposite of Dany. Instead, Arya devotes the rest of the episode to trying to help others. Arya also calls The Hound “Sandor” for the first time, offering him back a bit of his humanity too before the end.

The Hound, however, feels like he doesn’t have anything to live for. He’s been waiting to fight his brother ever since Gregor held his little brother’s face into the fire when they were kids.

The Hound finds The Mountain. I like that there’s little hesitation. As soon as The Mountain sees him, the giant silently knows and agrees that this is totally happening. Qyburn foolishly tries to stop The Mountain and gets killed. Cersei, in the only moment of levity in this episode, positively slithers past The Hound to get out of the way.

They fight and it’s beautiful. The scene looks like some kind of Renaissance painting come to life. We get to see The Mountain’s Anakin Skywalker face. There’s a moment where we think The Mountain is going to repeat his eye gouging trick but The Hound escapes. The Hound stabs The Mountain in the eye with a dagger, and that doesn’t stop him. The Hound realizes the only way to kill his brother is to sacrifice himself too — into the fire. Sandor faces his two greatest fears, his brother and the flames, and pulls them both over the edge. Peace for The Hound at last.

After the CleganeBowl, we get The Dane Bowl — Jaime vs. Euron (both played by Danish actors). Everybody predicted CleganeBowl, but nobody predicted this fight and it makes so much sense for both characters.

The fight tests Jaime’s left-handed sword fight training and Euron has a blast. Is it weird that I sort of admire Euron Greyjoy? Despite so many terrible qualities, Euron finds so much reckless joy in everything he does and there’s something appealing about that. He’s so thrilled to be in this fight that he cannot really lose.

Euron mortally wounds Jaime with several devastating stabs to the gut. Jaime is still able to finish him off.

“I’m the man who killed Jaime Lannister,” Euron marvels with a smile on his face. He’s the only character on the show who’s ever been so thrilled to perish.

Jaime finds Cersei who is in full panic mode as reality sets in. I can’t help but wonder what Tywin Lannister would have done differently if he was still in charge. It’s tough to imagine Tywin ever surrendering to a Targaryen queen, yet I also can’t picture him letting King’s Landing get destroyed.

Jaime takes his sister down into the cellars where Tyrion told him there was a secret exit. For a moment, we think they’re going to escape. They find the passage blocked. The giant dragon skull seems to mock Cersei — a living dragon is destroying the city above and here is a dead one down below, with Cersei about to join it.

“I don’t want to die, I don’t want our child to die,” Cersei says, her icy composure breaking down completely for the first time in the show. (So, yup, still pregnant — Happy Mother’s Day everyone!).

Jaime realizes the end is near: “Just look at me, there’s only the two of us, we’re the only ones who matter.” Jaime soothes her by echoing her own words from years ago.

They’re staring at each other as the ceiling collapses, killing them both (yes, they’re really dead). They went out of the world as they came into it — together. As I’ve pointed out before in these recaps, Jaime and Cersei — for all that’s twisted about their relationship — otherwise have had the longest and most traditional romance on the show. Many thought that Jaime was going to return to kill Cersei. But Jaime has always loved her even if we do not. He’s the friend in the toxic relationship who won’t listen to reason. And while Jaime fought with the Starks and found some romance with Brienne, nothing happened in Winterfell that would make Jaime suddenly hate Cersei, so why would he risk his life just to kill her? The best way to ensure Cersei’s death — if that’s what Jaime wanted — would have been to stay with Brienne.

Returning to Cersei in her hour of need was one of those things…we do…for love…

What the show has done here is pay off the long-foreshadowed Mad King moment. Years ago the last Targaryen king wanted to destroy King’s Landing while it was under attack from Tywin Lannister along with Ned Stark, and then Jaime Lannister killed him. We’ve been reminded of this so many times that proper storytelling insists Game of Thrones had to somehow revisit that conflict and those decisions. What the showrunners have done is avoid simply repeating the past or opting for the most obvious paths. All the elements have come back together: An invasion, a Targaryen, The Kingslayer, Tywin’s other children, a Stark and the city at risk of being destroyed by fire. Yet the elements have been remixed to play out in an entirely new and largely unexpected way.

EW will have four big interviews about tonight’s episode. There’s one up right now with Conleth Hill, who plays Varys, and he gives a very candid perspective (“Nothing could console me…”) about what it was like to find out his storyline was ending and has some thoughts about the show’s treatment of his character.

You can also read Lena Headey’s insight about Cersei’s final moments, in which she says it may be “the first time that Cersei has been at peace.”

There are two more interviews coming Monday and the links will be added here when they’re live.

Oh, and here’s HBO’s trailer for the series finale.

I also have my podcast coming Monday (here is last week’s episode) and it’s going to be a long one: We’re going to talk not just this episode but tackle some of the criticism GoT has gotten recently and I have a bit of an anti-spoiler rant.

This is a recap in progress, refresh for latest version…

Note: This post contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 5, “The Bells” 

Cleganebowl happened. The Hound vs. The Mountain. Sandor took on his ghoulish undead murderous older brother Gregor in a long-awaited fight that’s seemingly been destined since they were children. Did you bet on The Hound to win? The Mountain? Turns out, the correct answer — appropriately enough for Game of Thrones — was “neither.” Both men perished. Yet The Hound was victorious on a personal level, confronting his terror of fire and concluding the fight on his own terms, carrying his brother into the flames, a literal pyrrhic victory.

On the set of Game of Thrones last spring, EW spoke to The Hound actor Rory McCann about the show and his character’s exit. Getting McCann for an interview was never a sure thing during our years of visits to the Northern Ireland production. The 50-year-old Scottish actor, like The Hound, isn’t much of a talker. Many GoT actors are entirely different from the characters they so convincingly portray (Lena Headey, for example, is nothing like Cersei Lannister). Yet McCann is similar to The Hound in rather likable ways. The man is a quiet, gruff outdoorsman who keeps to himself, yet is totally straightforward when he has something to say. “I’m very close to being The Hound,” McCann notes at one point. Thankfully, for the final season, McCann opened up to lend some insight into his experience and his character. What’s below are the most words we’ve ever gotten out of him.

During the interview, McCann sat in his trailer on the Belfast set. He seemed to fill the entire space. It’s difficult to not to be unnerved by his elaborate and convincing prosthetics for that “scar” on half his head. Our discussion opened with a reference to a scene McCann had just shot, fighting by the fire trench during the Battle of Winterfell…

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I hope don’t hate fire in real life because you have to be around a lot of it on this set.
RORY MCCANN: I’m staring into fire most nights now. It doesn’t help having half your face in latex and you just have a pool of sweat underneath. But I maybe have 20 more days to go. No point in complaining about it now.

What did you think of the scripts this year?
Really good. I’m very happy with the way The Hound’s story ends, thank you very much. I love all the endings. I don’t know how they managed to sew it all together. I don’t know how it goes with George R.R. Martin’s ending, if it’s the same or no. I haven’t watched the series much. Only watched a few episodes. I don’t watch the telly. And when the show’s on I’m usually out in the wild sailing or something. I’m looking forward to getting the whole box set and then I’ll watch it when I get the flu.

What was the table read like for you?
It was quite emotional. You’re seeing deaths and it’s all happening in front of you and you’re seeing people get upset and then you get to your bit. It was quite funny when the so-called Cleganebowl started. I secretly brought a trumpet with me. is reading and I’m like, “Can you pause right before I say one of my last lines?” He did and I brought out this trumpet and . I got butterflies in my stomach over that fight.

You haven’t shot it yet.
No. I’m getting the fear with that.

The Mountain is truly huge. He’s kind of staggering.
I hope he knows his f—ing strength. I’m just going to have to go into Glasgow bar fight mode if it goes the wrong way because he’s a big big boy. One time he ordered chicken and they gave him two breasts of chicken and he just looked up and said, “No, a chicken. Not just chicken. A chicken.” Then he’d be eating again a couple hours later. He’s a beast.

That almost sounds like The Hound’s lines from the tavern scene with the chickens.
Yeah. There have been some great lines for The Hound. I’ve enjoyed all the Arya/Hound road trip stuff. Those were my fondest memories. Anything outside usually because I’m so hot that I’m more comfortable.

What’s the scene you’re most proud of?
I loved doing the Brienne fight. That was great fun. But I loved some of the dialogue scenes with Maisie and myself. It came at the right time when I was just starting to relax. The first couple years on the show I was very nervous all the time. And then I found the character after a couple years. Sometimes I just look in the mirror and go, “F—, there’s no reason to play scary, no wonder that little girl is frightened of me. Less Is more.”

What was unique about this season for you?
The Winterfell battle … I like , I can really connect with him. There are some directors who don’t speak much and if you’re doing your job there are no words back. Younger actors will do a scene and afterwards there’s a look of “want” on their face: “Did I do good?” And with some directors, there’s not a word, not even a nod — he’s not thinking about you but his other 50 jobs. But Miguel is very personable and David Nutter is lovely as well.

What was it like reuniting with ?
She’s all grown up now and knows everything that’s going on. It’s been great seeing her again. The last parting shot with Arya and The Hound is lovely. She calls him “Sandor” for the first time in the whole 7, 8 years. It’s a lovely moment. And the parting moment with Sansa was lovely too.

For Cleganebowl, you had figured this fight would happen.
I’m dead. It would have been nice to keep living and go on a road trip and do a spin-off. But I’m absolutely delighted. I’m blessed to be given this storyline. Blessed to be given storylines in the past seasons with all the politics going on — that we were able to have a Hound-Arya road trip. The Hound seems to get some great one liners. You could have a T-shirt factory with just the one-liners I’ve been given. I’ll be glad to be out of a job where I’m in hours of makeup. I’m always on set first. I’ve been trying to sleep on the floor for the past 6, 7 years. I’ll bring my own caravan next time. I’m due for an upgrade.

What are your thoughts on how the fight goes down?
I hope I have enough gas in the tank to do it right. It’s a massive fight. I think it’s going to take three days to film it. He’s going to be throwing me. I’m absolutely sure I’m going to be limping for months after it and that’s the reason my last filming days are the fight. It’s a glorious death. He’s laughing at it. The Hound can see that can’t be killed by sticking a dagger in his eye. He has to be burnt. Of all the things Cleagane has to do, he has to go into the fire. That’s the sacrifice. But his pain is over.

It’s so right for his storyline.
Maybe he could have found peace and wandered off. But this is a fine way to go. It seems pretty beautiful to me. How lucky to be an actor who gets ends up on one of the biggest and best shows in the world. I see panic in some eyes: “What are we going to do now?” Relax. Don’t worry. We’re on the map now.

You’ll always have this. And it will always be currency to a studio or network when they can say in a press release that they cast a Game of Thrones actor.
That’s why I feel it will carry me through a few years. I’ve certainly not wanted to do a job when it’s close to time to shoot Thrones again. I’ve been pretty unavailable the last six or seven years. I’m very protective of that.

So why have you kept to yourself so much?
It’s an ongoing thing. Before each season, I phone all my friends and tell them I don’t want to speak or have any contact with anyone at all. I make myself lonely before every season, purely because I’m going onto Thrones. I don’t want contact with anyone before starting the job. It’s only been in the past couple years I’ve started to talk to people and go out to pubs and be with the other actors. Before that I was the weirdo who was going back to my room or in the gym. I was doing a scene with and he went to hug me as his character and I said, “Don’t touch me.” And I’m so like that home. I’m very close to being The Hound. I’m not used to human touch. I’m a bit of a recluse. Now I’ve made some friends. I’ve started to relax. I’ve learned a lot. It’s been a hell of an education. But now I’m just itching to get the hell away in this boat I’ve been building…

What kind of boat is it?
It’s an old wooden ketch. Two masts. All wood, 45 years old. Gorgeous thing with a peat fire inside it. I’d like to go away for a couple years. Maybe I’m meant to take a nice job after this. We’ll just see.

You live a pretty rustic life.
I’m a sailor and spent all my years trying to do up boats. Now I’m thinking of finishing my last few scenes sand sailing off into the sunset. That’s my dream.

That sounds fantastic. Where are you going to go?
That’s my f—ing business.

That should be the end of this story. It’s a perfect final quote for McCann and/or The Hound. But there’s a final bit. When we spoke to Maisie Williams on the set, she had something to say about working with McCann again after they spent several seasons apart. McCann thinks being around his castmates all these years has changed him, opened him up more. But he’s not the only one who’s changed.

“Rory would always chat with me about adventures he’d have in his life — buying a piece of land and living in bunker — all these crazy things he’d do,” Williams said. “Before I was like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ Now I’m like, ‘Oh, I just bought a piece of land next to the sea too.’ I realized he’s really shaped me quite a lot as a person. I’ve realized his way of life does seem really appealing and I’ve learned a lot from him. I respect his friendship and loved working with him this year.”

Read our episode 5 “The Bells” coverage:
— Lena Headey on that King’s Landing battle ending: ‘The first time Cersei has been at peace…‘
— Game of Thrones actor on his surprise death: ‘Nothing could console me’
— Game of Thrones recap for season 8, episode 5: Queens of the ashes

Warning: This article contains spoilers from the season 6 premiere of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Read at your own risk!

Phil Coulson is dead. Long live Sarge?

In the season 6 premiere of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., viewers were introduced to Clark Gregg’s mysterious new character, who made his grand entrance in a huge truck that barreled into our world via a breach in space and time that destroyed an entire museum.

Yes, Sarge looks exactly like our dearly departed Coulson, except with more stubble and a buzz cut, but the similarities appear to end there. Not only does Sarge have a cold, murderous vibe to him that Coulson didn’t, but he also doesn’t know what S.H.I.E.L.D. is and shot one of the agents before driving off with the rest of his team, who spent the episode causing all kinds of trouble Coulson wouldn’t approve of. (Read our full episode recap and postmortem with the showrunners.)

Although we know this isn’t Coulson, the premiere doesn’t tell us who Sarge is, what he wants, or where he came from. Luckily, EW visited the set of the ABC drama in September and spoke to Gregg and costar Ming-Na Wen (who plays Coulson’s love Melinda May) about Sarge’s arrival, May’s reaction to Coulson’s doppelgänger, and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So you’re back after dying in the finale…
MING-NA WEN: Again…
CLARK GREGG: It was enough that I came back after dying the first time. Apparently, I’m hard to kill.

Are you used to it by now?
GREGG: I’m the Marvel cockroach.
WEN: No, no, you’re the cat. You have nine lives.
GREGG: Oh, I like that better.

So how are you back, and is Coulson back?
GREGG: Well, Coulson is not back, as far as we can tell. And I have to qualify this by saying we’re shooting episode 5 right now, and they’re very comfortable that there still a lot questions, so we only know a little bit. We’re putting this mystery together ourselves. But the story seems to be that Phil Coulson himself expired magnificently in Tahiti.
WEN: We’re not being coy here. They’re really not telling us anything.
GREGG: No, but I’m led to believe that the character I spent 10 years playing, that guy died.
WEN: And I refuse to believe it. May believes it.
GREGG: And then very quickly in the intro of season 6, some mysterious humanoid creatures start showing up from God knows where. And one of them is a dead ringer for Phil Coulson. But other than these spectacular features, that seems to be where the similarity ends. He seems to be part of a very ruthless non-Earth-based beings, who are tearing sh— up.

How does he differ from Coulson?
GREGG: That’s part of the mystery, but he seems to be on a mission. It’s not clear what’s involved, but they’re hunting something, and they don’t care who or what they have to kill to find whatever they’re hunting. He’s the anti-Coulson in that way. Phil Coulson was never comfortable much with collateral . This guy, as the kids say, he has no sh—s to give.

As you mentioned, you played Coulson for 10 years. Was it weird saying goodbye to him?
GREGG: It’s weird to say goodbye to him every time. So much of our experience on this show is art and life fusing. I’ve been playing this guy, and in different iterations, this somewhat peripheral player in the early phase of the Marvel movies, just geeking out at who he was getting to interact with, which was very much my experience as well on those films. Then he was dead, and that was very sad. And then all of a sudden he was back with a new team of strangers under tremendous pressure, which is very much was our experience of season 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. And then we came to a moment when we didn’t know if the show was going to… we had no news of a pickup. So we shot the finale of season 5, titled “The End,” as if that was the end of the show. And his tab had come due in terms of how he’d been brought back from Tahiti, and he had burned through whatever life-rejuvenating serum had saved him by becoming the Ghost Rider to save his friends at the end of season 4, and it looked fatal.

The season 5 finale functioned as both a season and series finale. Did you guys feel a sense of closure on the story up to that point?
WEN: Well, as Clark says, you work on a character for this many years and you build this incredible family, and you fall in love with your character. So there was a sense of, “Okay, if this is truly the series finale…” It’s emotional, it’s sad, and you’re saying goodbye, not to just these fictional characters, but real people that you’ve enjoyed working endless hours with. And so, I don’t know if it was a closure, because we didn’t know…
GREGG: It was weird when we got the pickup .
WEN: We live very gypsy lives, and we get used to it, but it’s never easy. So there wasn’t a true sense of closure because there was still that lingering, well, possibility that we would go into a season 6.
GREGG: I would say, though, that Coulson and May run a close second to Fitz and Simmons in terms of how many obstacles had been thrown between them and how much dancing they had been doing around what’s the right moment to take a friendship to a different place? And there was something really nice about finally snapping through those walls and having it become a full-blown romance even it was —
WEN: Very quick, on the beach scene.

Ming-Na, how is May handling Coulson’s doppelgänger?
WEN: When she sees this face —
GREGG: Girl, I can’t even imagine
WEN: — and she’s already said goodbye to the love of her life and had this wonderful last moment in Tahiti (that’s what I’m imagining and the writers keep telling us), she’s pissed. Absolutely pissed. Like, “I’ve gone through the grieving! It’s a year later! What the f—? You show up to tear up my heart again? No way, I’m going to kill it.” I want to beat it up! “No LMDs! No aliens! No imposters!” She doesn’t believe that this is happening.
GREGG: It’s definitely interfering with your grieving process.
WEN: Absolutely. It’s been fun because she gets to be a little bit more emotional.

With each season, the show has leveled up: from Inhumans, to magic and LMDs in season 4, to space in season 5. What’s the next frontier for the show this season?
GREGG: Every time I think I know when I’m interviewed during episode 5 or 7 or whatever we’re doing it for, the writers haven’t told me what the last . So I don’t even know what the second half of this is. What I dig about what we’re doing so far is other than Sarge and his team of people wreaking havoc for a reason we don’t know yet, it’s not like, “Oh, it’s Inhumans. Oh, it’s the Kree. Oh, it’s space.” It’s different. It’s hard to say. They’re after something more subtle in the sci-fi realm.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers from the season 6 premiere of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Read at your own risk!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. encountered a very familiar face in the season 6 premiere.

Picking up a year after the season 5 finale, the ABC drama’s season opener found the agents adjusting to life without the late Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Mack (Henry Simmons) is now the director, but still checks in with a Coulson hologram; May (Ming-Na Wen) seems to have reached the acceptance stage of grieving; and Yo-Yo (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) has a new boyfriend. Of course, all this forward motion would be challenged by the premiere’s big reveal.

At the end of the episode, three new non-Earthly characters, who breached in from God knows where, converged on a museum and welcomed their leader, Sarge, who looks exactly like the dearly departed Coulson (and is also played by Gregg). But this isn’t Coulson, as Sarge made clear when he said he has no idea what S.H.I.E.L.D. is and shot one of the agents in order to save a comrade.

Meanwhile, the search for Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) continued in space. Daisy (Chloe Bennet), Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), Piper (Briana Venskus), and Davis (Maximilian Osinski) managed to locate Fitz’s cryo-pod, which was mysteriously empty. A cold and determined Simmons found some deep-space coordinates in his pod and wanted the team to follow them. Three out of the four people, though, voted to return home instead because they’d been gone for so long and deep space is pretty dangerous. But when a Confederacy ship fired on the Zephyr, Daisy ordered Simmons to input the coordinates to Earth, and instead Simmons put in the other ones, sending them further into space to find Fitz — who is currently working on an alien planet and has green alien eyes now.

After watching the premiere, EW hopped on the phone with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. showrunners Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jeff Bell to talk about the season ahead:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Last season we got a reference to the events in Avengers: Infinity War, but there wasn’t an MCU reference in the premiere. Can we expect any references or nods to Infinity War or Endgame in the new season?
JED WHEDON: We are pre-Endgame.

That means the season is taking place during the years with the vanished. Does that have any bearing on the story at all?
JEFF BELL: We’re actually pre-Snap.
WHEDON: For the multiple reasons, we had to do that. One of the main ones being that we were not positive when season 6 would air. We were pretty sure it was going to be in the summer, but if they moved us up to January and we had tied into in any way, it would’ve destroyed everything. So the safest course of action for all parties involved was for us to stay pre-Snap.

The premiere introduces Clark Gregg’s new character, Sarge. Who is Sarge, where do he and his team come from, and what do they want?
MAURISSA TANCHAROEN: That’s something we hope to answer!
BELL: That takes us 13 episodes to answer.
TANCHAROEN: We set up the mystery. That will define the season.

Is what Sarge and his team are ultimately after based in Marvel mythology, or was that something you created for the show?
WHEDON: I think that one’s a wait-and-see.

How does Sarge differ from Phil Coulson?
WHEDON: Besides his cool jacket and his cool boots, it is a very different character. When we were tossing around ideas for a potential season 6, it was one of the main things we struck upon that made us feel like we could keep doing this in thrilling fashion. We felt like we needed Clark Gregg still at the center of the show. Everything was founded on him and he’s still at the heart of the thing, so we wanted something for him. When we stumbled upon this idea, we felt like it would be thrilling for the fans and difficult for fans to see him be someone so different, and also would be fun for Clark. He’s been playing the same guy for a decade.

From a writing perspective, has it been difficult writing Clark, at least based on the trailer, as more of an antagonist?
WHEDON: Yeah, with any new character, we had to find the character’s voice. We talked a lot about what that would be and how to let Clark play humor, which he’s so good at, in a new way, in a dark way. We weren’t positive that we got it right until we got the dailies and we went, “Okay, this is going to be great.”

This premiere revealed how everyone has processed Coulson’s passing. How does May react meeting Sarge for the first time and dealing with him?
TANCHAROEN: It’s going to be difficult for all of them. They’re still going through the process of grieving Coulson, and we’ve made it very clear that all of the team’s process is about moving forward and just plugging on. Specifically for May, it was important to not have her be steeped in sadness. She’s in a new place. She’s thankful for the time they had together. So of course, to be confronted with the face of the man you love, that you are —
BELL: — still grieving
TANCHAROEN: — it’s definitely going to stir up emotions for her and the entire team.

Who has the most visceral reaction to this? Is it May or someone else?
BELL: I would say it’s both May and Daisy. One is a partner, and one there was very much a father-daughter relationship between Daisy and Coulson. I think part of the fun will be to see how they each react to it. Is there hope? Is there a connection? Is there not? Is this an affront that we should destroy? I think everyone will be affected, but those two in particular.

Daisy and Simmons are out in space looking for Fitz, and Simmons takes them even deeper into space at the end of the premiere. What dangers await them out there?
WHEDON: We already see someone is after them, and we’ve seen that Quake is sort of known throughout the galaxy on the data streams. They’re a little bit wanted, they’re in unfamiliar territory, and they’re going to go to some new planets. I think that it’s not looking for great for them. Then we get a glimpse at where Fitz is, and I think it’s safe to say that he’s been on his own adventure. We’re excited for the audience to see how that plays out.

This Fitz hasn’t gone through anything that happened last season. How is he different?
BELL: The big headline is that he has no idea he was married. There was a whole adventure with him and Simmons, and they got a beautiful wedding and all of that. Then to also find out that another version of him died. I think those are all pretty big issues for him to have to process once we learns about them.
WHEDON: Right now he believes that his friends have been sent to the future, doing everything he can to get there.
BELL: He has no idea that they succeeded, that they got back, that the Earth has been saved. He’s just trying to get there to reunite with Simmons and save the Earth.

Simmons seemed much colder in the premiere. Can we expect her one-track focus on Fitz be the source of a few more problems?
WHEDON: Yeah, I think she has already pushed them over the edge. Her singular focus is also based on the idea that she’s already lost him once and can’t abide the idea that could happen again. So it’s definitely pushed her personality to the point where her decision making was not based on the same moral code it used to be.
TANCHAROEN: Everyone’s process of grief is different, and it’s very clear that she’s not willing to be grieving two people, so she must find the other Fitz. I think that sort of determination and singular focus is going to lead to some conflict.

What’s in store for Daisy this season?
WHEDON: Well, she’s definitely more confident in her abilities stronger than ever. We saw her at the end of season 5, she didn’t want the role of leader, she wanted the role of soldier, but she’s still one of the team members that everyone looks to. So we’ll see her struggling with that and her own grief. How is she going to process the idea that she’s lost Coulson, especially if she sees his face?

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Daenerys Targaryen may be down a certain something (SPOILERS!) in the war for the Iron Throne on the final season of Game of Thrones, but will Clutch the bear turn the tide?

Actress Emilia Clarke got a new ally when she attended Game 6 of the NBA season with the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets.

In a video shared by the Rockets’ Twitter page of Friday’s face-off at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, Clutch, the Rockets’ mascot, bends the knee to the Mother of Dragons as music from the Game of Thrones score resounds throughout the stadium and the announcer totally blows up her spot.

“Look who’s here,” booms the announcer. “The Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones. Welcome to Houston, Emilia Clarke.”

THIS IS NOT A BLOOPER

The Mother of Dragons is at the #Rockets game with a coffee!@emiliaclarke | #RunAsOne pic.twitter.com/hqo2jeXMuo

— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) May 11, 2019

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Clutch was also seen carrying a coffee cup before he dropped it at the sight of Clarke before him. So, cup-gate continues.

Sadly for the Rockets, the team lost that game to the Warriors.

Clarke was just one of two queens in the stadium on Friday. “Queen Bey” Beyoncé Knowles-Carter came out for Game 6 with husband Jay-Z. In a separate video, they are seen welcomed to the sound of Beyoncé’s “Crazy In Love.”

Jay-Z and @Beyonce in the house! pic.twitter.com/Szn1pIakjz

— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) May 11, 2019

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After signing a huge development deal at Netflix, black-ish creator Kenya Barris’ first series at the streamer will star…Kenya Barris. Joining him as star and executive producer of Black Excellence will be Rashida Jones, who previously guest-starred on black-ish.

Netflix says the series is inspired by Barris’ “irreverent, highly flawed, unbelievably honest approach to parenting, relationships, race, and culture,” and that Black Excellence will reboot the “family sitcom” like we’ve never seen before.

The project from Barris and Jones comes as one just gained another series and the other lost one. Last week, ABC renewed black-ish for season 6 and ordered the prequel spin-off mixed-ish. The news wasn’t as good yesterday for Jones, whose TBS comedy Angie Tribeca was canceled after four seasons. She’s best known for her run as noble land mermaid Ann Perkins on Parks and Recreation.

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Season 5 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a wild ride. It started in space in the future, and ended by almost ripping the Earth apart in the present. Ahead of the show’s return for season 6 on Friday night, here’s a quick refresher of everything that went down.

Following up the season 4 finale’s cliffhanger, season 5 began with everyone but Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) being mysteriously abducted. They were then taken to a monolith, but not the black one that transported Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) to Hive’s home planet back in season 3. This monolith was white, and sent the team forward in time rather than space. As a result, they ended up on the Lighthouse, a space station floating around the desolate wreckage of the Earth and run by Kree colonists. The team found themselves separated and oppressed by this dystopian society. A Kree prince named Kasius (Dominic Rains) was in charge of the Lighthouse and became the villain of the first half of the season. But the team also found unlikely allies, such as Deke (Jeff Ward), a Peter Quill-like scavenger who was also secretly Fitz and Simmons’ future grandson.

Enter Fitz. Since he wasn’t taken to the monolith, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resident Scottish genius had to find his own way to the future. Old friend Lance Hunter (Nick Blood) returned to help break him out of a military facility run by the domineering General Hale (Catherine Dent). Then, using the prophetic drawings of Charles Hinton’s daughter Robin as a guide, Fitz teamed up with the alien Enoch (Joel Stoffer) and went into cryostasis for 74 years, eventually awakening in the era of the Lighthouse to help his friends. After a long struggle, the team killed Kasius and returned to their own timeline via the monolith — but not before finding out that Daisy (Chloe Bennet) was prophesied to be the Destroyer of the Worlds, whose earth-shaking powers were destined to rip the planet apart.

General Hale became one of the major villains of the season’s back half. She was a former HYDRA operative and trained her daughter Ruby (Dove Cameron) to be the ultimate HYDRA leader. Ruby was a powerful enough assassin to slice off Yo-Yo’s hands, but the whole “future leader” thing? That didn’t quite work out. Having developed an obsession with Daisy, Ruby wanted to take her place as the Destroyer of Worlds. To that end, she tried to absorb a powerful substance called gravitonium that allows the user to manipulate gravity. But Ruby was too weak to control it, and met her end at the hands of a vengeful Yo-Yo.

The world’s destruction hadn’t been averted yet. Glenn Talbot (Adrian Pasdar), recently awakened from a coma, absorbed the gravitonium and became Graviton. At the same time, Thanos’ invasion began (as seen in Avengers: Infinity War). Obsessed with his new powers, Graviton sought to uncover gravitonium reserves hidden under the Earth’s surface so that he could become the one to save the world from Thanos. Knowing that instead his efforts would destroy the planet and create the dystopian Lighthouse future, Daisy faced him as Quake. Using the Centipede serum, she enhanced her powers enough to fatally blast Graviton into space.

Unfortunately, without the serum, Coulson (Clark Gregg) was done for. His transformation into Ghost Rider at the end of season 4 had burned out the last of the drug that was keeping him alive. So he passed on, leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. in the hands of his capable comrades. But he wasn’t the only one who died: Fitz also perished in the struggle against Graviton. This was tragic since he and Simmons had finally gotten married upon returning to the present timeline, but there was a workaround: Present-day Fitz was still stuck in a cryostasis pod in space. All the team has to do now is find him and bring him home…

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Twenty-five years on from the last TV adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Stand, the author has expressed his excitement about the new 10-hour version of the epic post-apocalyptic novel that director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) is overseeing for CBS All Access.

“I like Josh Boone’s work,” King told Post Mortem podcast host Mick Garris, who directed the 1994 ABC miniseries. “I actually worked with him on his first feature (2012’s Stuck in Love). I couldn’t act in it, which is what he wanted me to do, so I had to be an audio thing. And then he did The Fault in Our Stars, which I thought showed his grasp of the medium. I like him a lot. I like his reach, his ambition for it. But, really, the thing I’m mostly excited about is, first of all, we’ve got two more hours to tell the story and, second, we’re free of all those things that held us back with The Stand — that is to say, not only is the budget bigger, even if you equalize the two eras, we’re in terms of language and in terms of violence in a way that we weren’t with the original Stand. CBS All Access would really like this to work, I think, and they put a lot of muscle behind it, so I’m hopeful, but it’s early days yet. The casting isn’t complete. My… son Owen has written some of the scripts and they’re terrific, so it’s good.”

It was announced in January that the streaming service CBS All Access had greenlit a new adaptation of King’s tale about a type of super-flu which kills virtually everyone on the planet and that Boone would direct the project.

The original miniseries, which premiered on March 8, 1994, starred Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Jamey Sheridan, and the late Miguel Ferrer.

Watch the trailer for Garris’ version of The Stand, above.

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Chernobyl may lack the supernatural element found in other terror-inducing series like Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House and Hulu's Castle Rock, yet it's still utterly terrifying - precisely because it really happened. The limited series doesn't need ghosts or ghouls to frighten you. Instead, Chernobyl uses its most powerful tool... The truth. Or as close as we're going to get from what writer, creator, and executive producer Craig Mazin (The Hangover Part 2) has painstakingly researched in order to tell his story.

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