Roumen.ganeff

GPS SOS

Sometimes things happen that are unexpected – just ask Ned Stark. In a far less fictional event, Microsoft has posted an update on their DirectX Blog announcing that they’ve brought a form of DirectX 12 to Windows 7, via official support for the latest DX12 version of World of Warcraft on Windows 7. Where do we even begin?

For some background, Microsoft’s latest DirectX API was created to remove some of the CPU bottlenecks for gaming by allowing for developers to use low-level programming conventions to shift some of the pressure points away from the CPU. This was a response to single-threaded CPU performance plateauing, making complex graphical workloads increasingly CPU-bounded. There’s many advantages to using this API over traditional DX11, especially for threading and draw calls. But, Microsoft made the decision long ago to only support DirectX 12 on Windows 10, with its WDDM 2.0 driver stack.

Today’s announcement is a pretty big surprise on a number of levels. If Microsoft had wanted to back-port DX12 to Windows 7, you would have thought they’d have done it before Windows 7 entered its long-term servicing state. As it is, even free security patches for Windows 7 are set to end on January 14, 2020, which is well under a year away, and the company is actively trying to migrate users to Windows 10 to avoid having a huge swath of machines sitting in an unpatched state. In fact, they are about to add a pop-up notification to Windows 7 to let users know that they are running out of support very soon. So adding a big feature like DX12 now not only risks undermining their own efforts to migrate people away from Windows 7, but also adding a new feature well after Windows 7 entered long-term support. It’s just bizarre.

Now before you get too excited, this is currently only enabled for World of Warcraft; and indeed it's not slated to be a general-purpose solution like DX12 on Win10. Instead, Microsoft has stated that they are working with a few other developers to bring their DX12 games/backends to Windows 7 as well. As a consumer it’s great to see them supporting their product ten years after it launched, but with the entire OS being put out to pasture in nine months, it seems like an odd time to be dedicating resources to bringing it new features.

Microsoft does say that DX12 will offer more features on Windows 10, which makes sense since the graphics stack was designed for it right from the start, but if you do play World of Warcraft on Windows 7, you’re going to get a free performance boost. You may still want to look into getting off of Windows 7 soon though, since this isn’t going to move the January 2020 end-of-support date back for gamers.

For Blizzard, the publisher of World of Warcraft, this is a huge win for their developers, since they’ll no longer need to maintain two versions of the game.

Overall, this an unanticipated and rather exceptional event for the state of Windows graphics APIs. And having reached out to one expert for commentary on Microsoft's announcement, they seem to agree:

"This is a big deal" - Ryan Smith, Editor-in-Chief of AnandTech

Perhaps they are also working on Continuum and Windows Store updates for Windows 7 as well. They do have nine months after all.

We've reached out to AMD and NVIDIA for responses on whether there are specific driver versions that are required. NVIDIA has responded letting us know that Windows 7 users will just need the latest Game Ready Driver for this.

Source: Microsoft DirectX Blog

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Captain Marvel premiered over the weekend and pulled in high box office numbers totaling $455 million worldwide.

The strong numbers pushed the first female-led Marvel film into the second slot of the highest-grossing MCU solo films since Black Panther.

Fans have been checking up on the previous most-recent female-led superhero film, Wonder Woman, in comparison. However, on Monday, Gal Gadot shared a fan design of Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman being pals together and said, "I'm so happy for you sister! Congrats" in bold letters on her Instagram story, reported by Buzzfeed.

Continue reading…

The best joke in Gotham is that Gotham keeps getting worse. New lunatics kept finding new reasons to smear makeup on their face and paint the town red with brainblood. Then the bridges exploded the city into a feudal madman island. Now the water’s turned nasty green from toxic chemicals. In the context of this downward spiral, I often wonder if Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) is secretly the weirdest character on the show. Years into the ongoing criminal nightmare of his GCPD existence, he maintains a perfectly combed stalwart bearing, tie tied tight against the apocalypse.

Thursday’s episode, “The Trial of Jim Gordon,” focuses squarely on the good captain. He’s dreaming of reunification with the mainland. But the city’s running low on clean water, and gang activity is skyrocketing. (Because this is Gotham, the gangs all have kooky themewear: gas masks and mutant visors, club kid hair and I think I spotted a couple cowboys.) Gordon organizes a gang meeting, which seems like one bad idea, at the house of Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), another bad idea. “It’s like you won’t be satisfied until you sacrifice yourself!” says Lee (Morena Baccarin), Gordon’s renewed flame.

“Trial of Jim Gordon” is an immensely satisfying episode, all the more impressive since it feels like one last tee-up for the show’s final three episodes. It’s directed by Erin Richards, the actress who plays Barbara, and written by McKenzie himself. Sometimes when actors write or direct an episode of their TV show, the result is a talky conversation piece: uncomplicated visuals, more shot, reverse-shot dialogue scenes. Instead, McKenzie wrote himself a wild trip to purgatory. And Richards directs with glossy flair, filling the screen with eerie close-ups on Poison Ivy’d gents and lightbeams blasting behind silhouettes.

Gordon gets shot in the chest at the gang meeting, and spends the episode staring down oblivion in a courtroom beyond space and time. Also in that courtroom: another Jim Gordon, saying every nasty thing Gordon’s ever thought about himself. (“He’s failed Gotham at every turn!”) In a clever bit of symmetry, Bruce (David Mazouz) is having similar feelings. In the years since his parents’ death, his attempts to save Gotham have often seemed to attract bad, city-destroying influences. Should he leave town after reunification?

Both characters have struggled the most, I think, with Gotham’s status as a very long origin story. While everyone else on the cast slithers all across the spectrum of morality, the show always has a bit of tunnel vision toward the eventuality of the good-guy Batman myth: Commissioner Gordon and the Dark Knight, working together for heroic purposes.

So I like how “The Trial of Jim Gordon” taps into the deeper suspicion that their destiny is also a kind of doom. “It won’t always be like this,” Gordon tells Lee. Except it probably will always be like this — maybe worse! “I don’t think things are ever gonna be normal,” Bruce tells Selina (Camren Bicondova), and boy is he right.

Meanwhile: What fun gets crammed into this episode! Ivy (Peyton List) is back, love-slaving every action man in town. That includes Zsasz, played with increasing good cheer by Anthony Carrigan. Carrigan’s star has risen after his wondrous turn on Barry. It’s great to see him find new strains of chatterbox comedy — and kind of remarkable, given how totally brutal the Zsasz character was in the comics of my youth. (“I’m really taking the time to stop and smell the roses these days,” he says, “Like, actual roses. They’re great!”) And a bit of mutual Ivy-fication leads to my favorite exchange of the episode, between Bruce and Lucius Fox (Chris Chalk).

Lucius: “It’s not glamorous work, but we are helping to save the lives of thousands of people.”

Bruce: “People, ugh.”

Lucius: “I’m sorry, did you just say, ‘People, ugh’?”

Bruce: “Lucius, what if I told you I have in my possession the most intoxicating perfume you’ll ever smell?”

Lucius: “I would tell you that’s an abrupt change of topic. Can we go back to the part where you said ‘People, ugh’?”

Richards herself gets a standout scene with the gang leaders, hosting an underworld get-together full of poisoned chalices. Barbara’s still struggling with complicated feelings about Gordon and Gotham itself. Should she stay, and try to build a new life adjacent to her baby daddy? Should she flee by submarine, taking her child far from this metropolis of criminal id? (ASIDE: I realized, probably later than everyone, something intriguing about Barbara’s pregnancy. It seems very likely that she is pregnant with some version of Barbara Gordon, later to become a caped crusader in her own right. Is Gotham secretly a Batgirl origin story??? END OF ASIDE.)

Intriguingly, Ivy’s motivations in this episode run right alongside what Gordon and Bruce are feeling. In her flora-first perspective, Gotham is a place that’s been going downhill since before the Industrial Revolution. She’s a furious local Lorax, speaking bloody murder for the trees.

The episode almost ends on a sweet, symphonic note. Gordon lives, a month passes, and all the non-murderous characters assemble at the GCPD to witness his wedding to Lee. A bit of autobiography here — McKenzie and Baccarin got real-world married a couple years ago! — and I did like how Harvey (Donal Logue) made sure to mention that time Lee tried to kill Jim, though I wish there’d been room to really dig into their whole five-ring-circus romantic history.

Bruce also kissed Selina, a bit of joy piled atop joy. You wonder if this is as close to a happy ending as Gotham will ever allow. (It was, apparently, the last episode filmed, a fact that adds some subliminal glow to the wedding sequence.) We know from the season premiere that there’s a battle looming, with a literal army trying to invade Gotham. And we know, vaguely, that the future doesn’t hold much security for Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, Jim Gordon, or the people in their lives. Maybe Barbara and Ivy have the right idea. Leave Gotham to the trees.

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HBO wants to remain a good judge of character(s).

The network announced on Monday that it had given a series production commitment to not one but two series from Silicon Valley co-creator/executive producer Mike Judge.

QualityLand, which is set in the near future, unspools the story of “humanity’s struggle against the tyranny of convenience — but funny,” according to the logline. Judge will serve as executive producer and co-writer alongside Josh Lieb (The Daily Show). The series is based on Marc-Uwe Kling’s life-optimization satirical novel QualityLand.

The second project, titled A5, is a limited series, and follows a bioengineer who discovers the gene that is responsible for turning people into, well, assholes. The protagonist will attempt to “answer the questions nagging at all of us: Why do assholes exist? Why have they come to dominate our culture? And can they be cured?”

Judge will co-write A5 with Silicon Valley producer Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder), and both will serve as executive producers.

QualityLand and A5 are the first projects announced as part of an overall exclusive two-year deal that Judge is signing with HBO.

The creator of Beavis and Butt-head and co-creator of King of the Hill also wrote and directed the big-screen comedies Office Space and Idiocracy. In addition, he’s the creator and narrator of the Cinemax animated series Mike Judge Presents: Tales From the Tour Bus.

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Microsoft has announced that it has open sourced the Windows Calculator on GitHub under the MIT License. Microsoft is seeking more community contributions and ideas in the development of Windows Calculator. Reviewing the Windows Calculator code will allow developers to learn how to work with Microsoft technologies. Reviewing the Calculator code is a great way to learn about the latest Microsoft technologies like the Universal Windows Platform, XAML, and Azure Pipelines. Through this project, developers can learn from Microsoft's full development lifecycle, as well as reuse the code to build their own experiences. It's also a great example of Fluent app design. To make this even easier, we will be contributing custom controls and API extensions that we use in Calculator and other apps, to projects like the Windows Community Toolkit and the Windows UI Library. Discussion

Arrow star Emily Bett Rickards and The Flash‘s Grant Gustin have opened up about the news that Arrow‘s upcoming eighth season will be its last.

On Friday, Rickards, who plays tech-genius Felicity Smoak — the breakout character of Arrow — broke her silence on Instagram and shared a truly heartfelt message in which she explained how the WBTV-produced series has meant to her.

“Without this show I would have not met the inspiring people pictured here nor those I have gotten to work with and get to work with everyday. People who have become my family,” she wrote. “I’m excited to see what is in store for the story we have been telling. I’m excited and nervous. A combination of emotions Felicity Smoak vibrates at frequently. Needless to say without the last seven years I wouldn’t have met her…”

View this post on Instagram

I’ve been trying to find the words to simply say what the last seven years have meant to me, and I believe this photo sums it up! It’s a cuddle puddle. Everyone here is exhausted and smiling. Everyone here looks at home. The incredible mind of my friend @schwartzapproved will be taking Arrow into its 8th & final season sending it off with pride, power and love. Without this show I would have not met the inspiring people pictured here nor those I have gotten to work with and get to work with everyday. People who have become my family. I’m excited to see what is in store for the story we have been telling. I’m excited and nervous. A combination of emotions Felicity Smoak vibrates at frequently. Needless to say without the last seven years I wouldn’t have met her… Thank you to all of you for your massive support, passion and accompanying us on this journey. It’s because of you we found each other.

A post shared by emilybett (@emilybett) on Mar 8, 2019 at 3:09pm PST

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Rickards’ Felicity started out as a recurring character who worked at Queen Consolidated; however, her quirky energy quickly helped her become a fan favorite, and by the back half of the first season she had joined Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) and John Diggle (David Ramsey) in their quest to save the city. Since then, the computer genius has become an integral member of Team Arrow, and in the show’s sixth season, she and Oliver got married.

On Saturday, Gustin, who made his debut as Barry Allen in Arrow season 2, wrote a similarly touching tribute to the show in which he reflected on the joy of working with Amell on the crossovers and what Arrow means to the entire Arrowverse it spawned.

“We don’t get to see a lot of each other, because we both work very similar schedules, on different shows, for 9 1/2 months out of the year. But when we’re brought together for those grueling crossover episodes, it always results in something pretty special,” he wrote. “And not JUST a special kind of hell. It’s just absolutely bananas to stand around with that many people in super suits, and get paid to play make believe on tv. It’s something that wouldn’t happen year after year if it weren’t for the groundwork that Arrow, Stephen and the whole cast and crew laid for us.”

He added: “Not just that, but Stephen has always brought a different kind of passion to his show and the whole Arrowverse. It’s always been clear to me how much it means to Stephen to have the privilege of getting to go on this journey as Oliver Queen. And how much care he’s always put towards it. I will never forget ohh soo many memories we shared together during our hundreds, if not thousands of hours of crossover filming. Thank you to everyone who was a part of making Arrow for letting me come on this journey with you all. Congratulations on a badass show that will live on forever.”

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It kinda just hit me this morning that Arrow will be leaving us next year. Ever since I started doing this, it’s always been “Flash & Arrow” (or really this should of said “Arrow & Flash” on it’s cover….right, Stephen?)We don’t get to see a lot of each other, because we both work very similar schedules, on different shows, for 9 1/2 months out of the year. But when we’re brought together for those grueling crossover episodes, it always results in something pretty special. And not JUST a special kind of hell. It’s just absolutely bananas to stand around with that many people in super suits, and get paid to play make believe on tv. It’s something that wouldn’t happen year after year if it weren’t for the groundwork that Arrow, Stephen and the whole cast and crew laid for us. Not just that, but Stephen has always brought a different kind of passion to his show and the whole Arrowverse. It’s always been clear to me how much it means to Stephen to have the privilege of getting to go on this journey as Oliver Queen. And how much care he’s always put towards it. I will never forget ohh soo many memories we shared together during our hundreds, if not thousands of hours of crossover filming. Thank you to everyone who was a part of making Arrow for letting me come on this journey with you all. Congratulations on a badass show that will live on forever. I’ll never forget binge watching season one and being scared shitless my first day on set, seeing you all in person. Stephen, you’re a legend. Maybe this means we can hang out more?

A post shared by Grant Gustin (@grantgust) on Mar 9, 2019 at 8:57am PST

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Arrow is currently in the middle of its seventh season, and will return in the fall for 10-episode eighth and final season. It airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

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The Emerald Archer is hanging up his bow and quiver.

Arrow’s recently announced eighth season will be its last one, EW has confirmed. The CW superhero drama’s final season will consist of 10 episodes.

Star Stephen Amell, who has plays the Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, announced the news via Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

“Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life…but you can’t be a vigilante forever,” Amell tweeted. “Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall. There’s so much to say… for now I just want to say thank you.”

Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life… but you can’t be a vigilante forever.

Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall.

There’s so much to say… for now I just want to say thank you.

— Stephen Amell (@StephenAmell) March 6, 2019

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During a Facebook Live, Amell explained that he brought up the idea of leaving the show with executive producer Greg Berlanti last year. “Toward the end of season 6, I approached Greg Berlanti, who I will be thanking in a second, and said that I thought both personally and professionally that, at the end of my commitment this coming season, it would be the best for me to move on,” said Amell, explaining that he made the decision, in part, because of his family.

Even though his time as the Green Arrow is ending, Amell offered some hope that this might not be the last time we see him in in the Arrowverse. “Something tells me even when I’m done, I won’t be gone. If you’ve watched the Arrowverse, you should understand that,” he said. “It’s no Supernatural, but it’s been a good run.”

When the Warner Bros. TV-produced series debuted in 2012, it began as a grounded, Dark Knight trilogy-inspired take on the Green Arrow. After five years in hell (read: getting shipwrecked on an island, fighting with mercenaries, thwarting bioweapon attacks, joining the Russian Bratva, and more), Oliver returned home intent on avenging his father’s murder and saving his city as a bow and arrow-wielding vigilante. Along the way, he picked up several allies, like John Diggle (David Ramsey) and tech-genius Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), and the show also spawned an entire universe (a.k.a. Arrowverse) that includes The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl.

“This was a difficult decision to come to, but like every hard decision we’ve made for the past seven years, it was with the best interests of Arrow in mind,” said executive producers Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Beth Schwartz (showrunner) in a statement obtained by EW. “We’re heartened by the fact that Arrow has birthed an entire universe of shows that will continue on for many years to come.  We’re excited about crafting a conclusion that honors the show, its characters and its legacy and are grateful to all the writers, producers, actors, and — more importantly — the incredible crew that has sustained us and the show for over seven years.”

The decision to end Arrow, which is currently in the middle of its seventh season, isn’t entirely surprising because it is old and shows tend to get more expensive as they age. Furthermore, the show has experienced some recent cast turnover with the departures of Echo Kellum, Willa Holland, and Paul Blackthorne and last month, CW president Mark Pedowitz hinted that the network was starting to think about the future of the network’s DC Comics programming.

“What I’d really like to do is, things will age and we want to get the next generation of shows to keep this CW-DC universe going for as many years as possible,” Pedowitz told reporters in at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in January.

What remains to be seen is if and how Arrow’s conclusion relates to the next crossover “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” which will have a profound affect on the entire Arrowverse. “It will take some big swings,” said Pedowitz. “It is Crisis on Infinite Earths and if you know the history, things collapse.” Perhaps Arrow will be one of the things that falls?

Arrow — which currently also Rick Gonzalez, Juliana Harkavy, Colton Haynes, Katie Cassidy Rodgers, and Sea Shimooka — airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW. 

This post has been updated. 

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Stephen Amell isn’t the only Arrow cast member sharing a heartfelt message about the show’s end.

On Wednesday, Amell announced that the long-running CW superhero drama would end this fall with a 10-episode eighth season. In the wake of the news, several of the series’ actors, both past and present, jumped on social media to pay tribute to the show that birthed the Arrowverse.

“Sad to say that #Arrow will be coming to an end after a 10 episode Season 8,” Colton Haynes tweeted. “Thank you to all the fans who’ve watched. It’s been such a blessing to be a part of this incredible show. What a beautiful journey”

“What an awesome ride! @Arrow fans have been the best any actor could’ve asked for! Thank you for helping me bring John Diggle/Spartan to life!!!” David Ramsey wrote. “Love all of you! Can’t wait for you to see what we have in stock for you. Let’s end on a high, shall we?”

Former cast members like Colin Donnell, who played Tommy in season 1, and Madison McLaughlin also shared sweet messages to the fans. See everyone’s reactions below:

View this post on Instagram

#Arrow has been the greatest adventure of my life. If that weren’t enough, I have also made friends I will have for the rest of my life. I am so, so grateful for all of it. Here’s to an incredible final season, and here’s to all of you. Thank you for your passion, your love, and your support. We love and appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. #ArrowSeason8 #DinahDrake #BlackCanary #TheBestIsYetToCome

A post shared by Juliana Harkavy (@julianaharkavy) on Mar 6, 2019 at 5:19pm PST

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Being a part of this series from the beginning & being brought back over the course of its run has been beyond.

It a professional highlight it & brought me wonderful lifelong friends.

Thank you to all the fans who’ve kept Tommy alive all & congrats to all those involved https://t.co/KJIsSI6Ta1

— COLIN DONNELL (@colindonnell) March 7, 2019

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Thankful and grateful to have had the chance to bring #WildDog to life on #Arrow. Thank you to all the writers and producers and cast and crew for welcoming me with open arms. And a big hug to all the fans for the love. It’s our job to give you an amazing last 10 episodes.

— Rick Gonzalez (@officialrickg) March 7, 2019

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Wow! End of an era. #Arrow made so many of my dreams come true. So thankful to have played my part on this amazing series. Gonna be sad to see it go. #8SeasonsAndAMovie

— Echo Kellum (@EchoK) March 7, 2019

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Sad to say that #Arrow will be coming to an end after a 10 episode Season 8. Thank you to all the fans who’ve watched. It’s been such a blessing to be a part of this incredible show What a beautiful journey

— Colton Haynes (@ColtonLHaynes) March 6, 2019

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What an awesome ride! @arrow fans have been the best any actor could've asked for! Thank you for helping me bring John Diggle/Spartan to life!!! Love all of you! Can't wait for you to see what we have in stock for you. Let's end on a high, shall we? #ARROW pic.twitter.com/CDfjpCTNqA

— David Ramsey (@david_ramsey) March 6, 2019

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family big time love for this whole crew. my time on arrow was always fun and supportive and also pretty sure I had to change my underwear from laughing too hard (thx a lot @ embett and echo) (joe and rick are funny too) pic.twitter.com/G8aH1NcyBc

— Madison McLaughlin (@MadisonMcLaugh) March 7, 2019

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Without an audience, there is no show. Thanks to the millions who provided years of employment to hundreds. We aim to craft a finale season that will do you proud. https://t.co/bVyeyotiQZ

— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) March 6, 2019

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Here’s what Amell had to say when he shared the sad news:

Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life… but you can’t be a vigilante forever.

Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall.

There’s so much to say… for now I just want to say thank you.

— Stephen Amell (@StephenAmell) March 6, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Arrow airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on the CW.

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As author J.R.R. Tolkien once said of writing his Middle-earthian books, “I wisely started with a map.” So, over the past couple of weeks, Amazon too started promoting its forthcoming The Lord of the Rings series by releasing a series of maps. While they sparked a lively debate from fans about what they all mean for the series, the time period setting is now confirmed.

“Welcome to the Second Age,” Amazon tweeted on Thursday morning.

Welcome to the Second Age: https://t.co/Tamd0oRgTw

— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) March 7, 2019

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A long-standing theory posited the series would focus on a younger Aragorn, played in Peter Jackson’s films by Viggo Mortensen. However, that character, the future ruler of Gondor, was born during the Third Age. So we can nix that rumor right now.

The Second Age is also known as “The Age of Númenor.” Fans will notice that, in the most recently updated map for the Amazon fantasy epic, the island of Númenor is shown in the bottom left corner.

It’s not yet clear whether Númenor will serve as a major setting for Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings, though its presence already answers some questions.

Númenor is considered a mythic lost city of men in the world of Middle-earth, one established on an island in the Great Sea that had been destroyed for thousands of years by the time of Frodo and Aragorn. In The Second Age, according to Tolkien lore, it was said that the island was brought up from the ocean as a gift to men by the Valar (the gods of Middle-earth). The kingdom would later fall after they defy the laws of the deities.

The Second Age also sees the development of the Elven City of Rivendell, the Dark Lord Sauron famously forging the dark Ring of Power, and the races of elves, men, and dwarves all uniting to fight him for the first. The period spans about 3,441 years, so there’s a lot of ground to potentially cover.

JD Payne and Patrick McKay will serve as showrunners for this reportedly costly fantasy epic after their work on Star Trek 4 and Jungle Cruise. Casting is still under wraps for the moment.

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The world has gone mad, sure. But the senior partners at Reddick, Boseman, & Lockhart foretell a return to normalcy. “I’ve had my fill of left-wing anger,” explains Liz (Audra McDonald). “I’m trying not to let politics get in the way of moving the firm forward,” declares Adrian (Delroy Lindo). “I’m happy,” are the doomed words Diane (Christine Baranski) says at the very beginning of the indescribably wonderful new season of The Good Fight (beginning March 14 on CBS All Access.)

Don’t get too comfortable. Chaos reigns. For Diane, Donald Trump is still everywhere: On the news, in her head, somehow right here in her bedroom. But in season 3 of this glorious series  — a transcendent screwball horror farce, which pretends to be a legal procedural in a manner that recalls the villain from Texas Chainsaw Massacre borrowing another person’s face — there are bigger problems than the Leader of the Free World.

Allies are becoming enemies. The incoming class of associates looks suspiciously Caucasian. Someone’s handing out secret salary information. Someone else is handing out fentanyl lollipops. The glass walls of Reddick, Boseman, & Lockhart are shattering — literally, shattering! The dead live again: A secretary comes forward with a disturbing allegation about a deceased Civil Right icon’s decadel-plus sexual assault habit. And then a stenographer comes forward with another allegation, and then why even use a word like “allegation” anymore? The rain won’t stop, all day, every day. “Is this global warming?” asks Marissa (Sarah Steele). “I think it’s just Chicago,” answers Jay (Nyambi Nyambi).

Ah, but The Good Fight‘s Chicago is a fantasy battlescape, nexus central for politics and entertainment. In this Chicago, Roy Cohn’s spiritual heir walks out of an office and Fake Taylor Swift walks in. Down the street, an all-female resistance movement plots a digital coup from a subterranean headquarters that looks like a Medieval throne room. Across town, an insane attorney named Roland Blum (Michael Sheen) lives like the least subtle Roman Emperors, crushing his enemies in the courtroom by lying the truth into oblivion. Sheen’s a new addition this season, and he is giving one of the single most most performances since Al Pacino discovered the phrase Hoo-ah!. Blum breathes drugs through his gills, mainsplains American history in ravenous soliloquies, announces his entrance by bellowing “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree!”

He could be a cartoon character. But The Good Fight has moved its own stylistic goalposts far beyond its progenitor series, pushing The Good Wife‘s snappy-smart dramatics toward the visceral and the surreal. When Blum starts singing “I’ll Be There” by the Jackson 5, he’s just fitting in with the crowd. Everyone’s got a tune in their heart now. Lucca (Cush Jumbo) lulls her ten-month-old to sleep with a rendition Buddy Holly’s “Everyday.” Liz sings “I’ll Fly Away,” and perhaps one definition for TV perfection is letting Audra McDonald sing for no plot reason except because she can. I’ve seen the first four episodes of the season, and every one has a breakaway animated musical number. These “Good Fight shorts” all have witty lyrics by Jonathan Coulton explaining concepts like NDAs and troll farms.

Coulton wrote last season’s Schoolhouse Rock-aping number “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” That ditty earned the series its only Emmy nomination last year. A travesty, but understandable. CBS All Access is one more streaming service no one can keep track of. I’ve spent the last year proclaiming The Good Fight‘s abject greatness, and the net result in pure viewership numbers is that my mom finally started watching.

But so, a new proclamation: The Good Fight returns as the best show on TV. Co-creators Michelle and Robert King aren’t just chasing topicality. They’re telling deep stories about rich characters struggling to make sense of this incoherent moment. Every action has inadvertent, apocalyptic consequences. Lucca takes her baby for a stroll and sings a few bars of “Baby Shark” within earshot of a loudmouthed white lady, and somehow that incident begins an uncivil war among the law firm’s employees. Diane seeks a new output for her liberal rage — and winds up conjuring an uncontrollable political movement.

In the Kings’ expanding vision, certain individuals receive even more of a spotlight this season. Local Republican Julius (Michael Boatman) has political aspirations. Liz withstands a couple tabloids’ worth of personal revelations, leading McDonald to heights of raw emotion. Rose Leslie’s Maia felt like the odd woman out last season, and with meta good humor, The Good Fight seems to comment on her stick-in-the-mudness, granting her a makeover gone way wrong. Meanwhile, Jumbo finds thrilling new notes of daffy exasperation, juggling single-mom maternal instincts with undimmed professional ambition.

The subject matter must sound, to the outsider, like a polemic of political chatter and absurdist satire. (Various Trumps continue to be barely-offscreen presences.) It is, unequivocally, a fancy drama about fancy people. One key subplot begins when someone overhears gossip at “A Historical Law Society wine tasting.” These new episodes call for active engagement, and will confuse your allegiances.

But the Kings have also infused The Good Fight with a bubbling comic spirit. Everyone is a little ridiculous — Diane’s taken up axe-throwing! — but no one is a clown. I love Delroy Lindo’s savvy realism, the way he makes Adrian a kind of idealist for moderation and a patriarch embarrassed about his own patriarchy. I love how two chic floors of law firm hallways have become a fast-talking Thunderdome for American ideas.

The writers meticulously capture the new feeling that every person stands for something whether they want to or not. Two friendly colleagues like Jay and Marissa might suddenly discover that they are, themselves, infuriating symbols of wage disparity. (Everyone on The Good Fight, white or black, starts to worry that they might be racist.) And I love how the talented cast gets the material for high drama, low comedy, and everything in between. Diane’s husband Kurt (Gary Cole) tells her some bad news — and Diane slams her head against the wall, again and again and again. Baranski sells that scene in every direction. It’s funny, like Sideshow-Bob-stepping-on-rakes funny, and despondently cathartic, because she’s just doing what we’re all feeling.

There’s an eerie rising tide in this season. Noble protagonists look to villains for helpful strategy. They create counter-opposition fake news, and betray trusted allies for The Greater Good. But what else can you do when monsters and monstrousness rule the day? “We’re starting over,” Liz promises Adrian. And for all the loopy humor and twisted rage, the Kings take that optimism seriously, too. The rain keeps falling, the kind of storm you worry will become the proverbial Tempest. The characters on this show are not waving, they’re drowning. Next season, I predict, they’ll be breathing underwater. I’ve seen stranger miracles; I’ve seen The Good Fight. A

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The original 1996 Diablo is now available for the first time digitally on GOG.com. Fans of Blizzard's classic RPG can choose between two modes; an old-school version with 20 FPS, SVGA graphics and Battle.net multiplayer support, or a more modern vers...

Promising to be one of the most ambitious projects in metal's history, BLIND GUARDIAN's upcoming release will be well worth the wait. The idea to record an orchestral album originally formed in the minds of the two leading lights of the BLIND GUARDIAN universe — guitarist André Olbrich and singer Hansi Kürsch — during the 1990s when BLIND GUARDIAN started to use orchestral elements to enhance their opulent sound. In recent years, the giant project started to take shape, and parallel to epic sound cascades, the lyrical concept was developed. For this, BLIND GUARDIAN was able to find support in German best-selling author Markus Heitz, whose new novel, "Die Dunklen Lande", is being released today (March 1). The book is set in 1629 and contains the prequel to BLIND GUARDIAN's opus "Legacy Of The Dark Lands", which will be released November 1. The first trailer is available below. "It's incredible that after 20 years we can actually finish this really exciting project," states Kürsch. "I am so happy and more than satisfied with it. Every single track unveils spectacular worlds and tells its very own story. With this album, our biggest creative dream finally becomes reality." Kürsch's favorite author was equally excited about the collaboration. "It's really crazy: as pen-and-paper role players, we used to listen to BLIND GUARDIAN whilst playing," Heitz recalls. "And years later, I get to work together with the band, which was incredible. It's amazing, the things that can happen sometimes. Of course, I immediately agreed to join! This creative collaboration is very special for me." The two protagonists have actively cultivated their creative exchange over the last five years. "Markus is a great story teller; with 'Die Dunklen Lande', he created the perfect setting and with the mysterious Nicolas the perfect character for our complex works," Kürsch says. "His inventiveness seems to be almost infinite. Absolutely impressive and very inspiring." Both sides tell in their own way the story of the mercenary Nicolas and his involvement in the Thirty Years' War. Heitz starts the story off in his book and BLIND GUARDIAN follows suit with "Legacy Of The Dark Lands". What is the secret surrounding Nicolas? Will he be able to cast off the chains of war and how will his loved ones fare? On "Legacy Of The Dark Lands" via BLIND GUARDIAN'S TWILIGHT ORCHESTRA, Olbrich and Kürsch fulfill their longtime wish of emphasizing imposing choral singing and classical orchestral arrangements. It promises to be an opus unlike any other that the German quartet has ever released, or rather an opus as has never been heard ever before.

THE PRODIGY frontman Keith Flint has died at the age of 49. He was found dead this morning (Monday, March 4) at his home in Essex, a county in the southeast of England, northeast of London. Flint's THE PRODIGY bandmate Liam Howlett said that Keith died by suicide. "The news is true, I can't believe I'm saying this but our brother Keith took his own life over the weekend," he wrote. "I'm shell shocked, fuckin angry, confused and heart broken….. r.i.p brother Liam." An Essex police spokesman confirmed that a 49-year-old man had died. "We were called to concerns for the welfare of a man at an address in Brook Hill, North End, just after 8.10am on Monday," he said. "We attended and, sadly, a 49-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed. The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner." THE PRODIGY released a statement confirming the news, saying: "It is with deepest shock and sadness that we can confirm the death of our brother and best friend Keith Flint. A true pioneer, innovator and legend. He will be forever missed. We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time." THE PRODIGY had six No. 1 albums in the U.K. and one in the U.S. Its last album, "No Tourists", came out in November. THE PRODIGY was scheduled to embark on a U.S. tour in May. The 10-date trek was slated to include appearances at several festivals, including Sonic Temple in Ohio and Welcome To Rockville in Florida. In a 2015 interview with The Guardian, Flint lamented the state of modern pop music. "We were dangerous and exciting," he said. "But now no one's there who wants to be dangerous. And that's why people are getting forcefed commercial, generic records that are just safe, safe, safe."

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the finale of Umbrella Academy Season 1!

The first season of Umbrella Academy ends on a pretty major cliffhanger, and no character is more affected than Ellen Page's Vanya Hargreeves.

The finale sees Vanya make her final transformation from unloved Umbrella Academy reject to full-blown villain, as she transforms into The White Violin and winds up dealing the killing blow that wipes out humanity. Read on to find out more about what this transformation means and how it compares to her story in the Umbrella Academy comics.

Who Is the White Violin?

At the beginning of the series, Vanya is introduced as the forgotten member of the Umbrella Academy. Designated "Number Seven" by her cold and unloving father, Vanya's apparent lack of superhuman powers ensures she never gets to join her siblings on their missions. However, both viewers and Vanya herself come to learn over the course of the season that she does have powers. Not only that, in terms of pure, destructive potential she may well be the most powerful member of the Hargreeves family.

Continue reading…

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the entire first season of The Umbrella Academy. Read at your own risk!

Well, that happened.

The first season of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy introduced viewers to the seven Hargreeves siblings — the superstrong Luther (Tom Hopper), the wily knife-throwing Diego (David Castaneda), the reality manipulator Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), the trippy medium Klaus (Robert Sheehan ), the time-traveling Number Five, the late Ben (Justin H. Min), and the seemingly normal Vanya (Ellen Page) — who were all adopted by the late billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) because of their unusual powers. Due to Hargreeves’ rigorous standards, the children all grew up disaffected and alienated from each other. Reunited by Hargreeves’ death and their long-lost sibling Number Five’s warnings of an impending apocalypse, the siblings were eventually able to reconcile with each other by the end of the season. They did not, however, manage to actually stop the aforementioned apocalypse. Season 1 ends with the planet in flames, a significant change from the original comics by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba.

EW spoke with showrunner Steve Blackman about choosing family over the world, Vanya’s season-long journey from Muggle to monster, the day that was and the day that wasn’t, and more. Check it out below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I want to start right at the very end. As the last episode ends, it becomes apparent that they did not stop the apocalypse. The last shot is literally of the Earth being engulfed by explosions. How did you guys decide to play it that way?
STEVE BLACKMAN: Yeah, it ends horribly! What I really wanted to do was find a really good cliffhanger. I also thought it was too easy for this family to come together in eight days and save the world. It has to be trickier than that. I wanted to have an ending where they sort of came together as a family, but they didn’t achieve the greater goal of saving the world. If we get a second season, we’ll see how they’re gonna end up. These guys aren’t dead, but we don’t know what happens. I thought it told a lot about who this family was, which is they couldn’t quite get it together. Their wonderfully dysfunctional family couldn’t quite win the day. I thought that was very telling for the season.

I like how the White Violin story ended up. You kept all the main beats from the Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite comic (Vanya killing Pogo, slashing Allison’s throat, playing the apocalyptic concert, etc.) but in a format unique to the show. How did you conceive her journey?I talked about it early on with Ellen. We decided we wanted to play it from start to finish. Ellen made some really creative choices and acting choices in episode 1 to show the whole metamorphosis into episode 10. Like how she goes from less to more makeup, how she starts wearing her hair down as this relationship with Leonard Peabody (John Magaro) escalates and she starts feeling more in control of her life. All the way to the endgame, where she’s overtaken by the abilities she didn’t even know she had. So it was a lot of talk with Ellen about playing a full metamorphosis in the truest sense of the word, going from light to dark or dark to light, whichever way you see it.

The ultimate revelation about Vanya is that she wasn’t powerless at all, she was the exact opposite. And if you come to see Hargreeves as a villainous figure due to the negative effects he’s had on his children, her opposition to him almost makes her seem heroic or sympathetic.
There is more to Hargreeves, he’s not just a villain. There’s much more to this character that we’ll see if we get more seasons. But he held her back, he medicated her, told her she was nobody, and she became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She lived believing she wasn’t special, and that’s very damaging. Getting to open up like this overwhelmed her in the end.

For the graphic novel fans, I still wanted to gave her an ending that was similar to the graphic novel. The ending’s different, but similar ideas are in there so that real fans won’t feel cheated. I really wanted to get back to Apocalypse Suite, even having our composer Jeff Russo to spend a lot of time on that. The guy’s won an Emmy. He wrote that from scratch, the whole “Apocalypse Suite.” All that music you’re hearing is Jeff Russo’s score. It’s a 90-person orchestra, it’s all original music, and it’s all fit to what we’re doing. I told Jeff right away this is what I wanted to do and that he had to write a 20-minute score. That’s something I want people to know, because that’s an amazing thing Jeff Russo did. It’s a true “Apocalypse Suite.”

On this track, I wanted to talk about Leonard Peabody, a.k.a Harold Jenkins, because he’s the one who sets Vanya on her path. He’s not quite a figure from the comics, though some things about him resemble the evil crazy orchestra conductor in the first volume. But I love the idea that the person manipulating the Umbrella Academy and bringing them down is their former biggest fan. Can you talk about conceiving this character and his role?First of all, John Magaro is great. I wanted to get away from the conductor, because it felt like too much of a trope. It was such a villainous character, almost with a twirling mustache. It worked in the comics, but I needed someone to psychologically manipulate Vanya as opposed to physically change her. So the idea was to give her a love interest. What was tricky about him is he’s read that journal and knows all the secrets of the family, so he approaches Vanya thinking she’s the weakest link to go after them, and so he sort of unleashes the monster without realizing it.

He does it well, I worked it out with him and Ellen early on how we’d slowly over time peel the onion on this story. He manipulates her with every single beat, but you can get it, given who Vanya is. He keeps it together almost until the end, but then his hatred spills over and he spills the beans too early. But he almost makes it with her! Once she’s in that bathtub, he’s gotten her to comply and she’ll do whatever he says.

And then he ends up getting one of the most brutal deaths in the show.Oh, I love his death. That was so much fun to do. I think for the audience it’s unexpected when it happens, because usually the villain makes it to the end. I wanted to kill him in the early-middle part of an episode where you just go wait, he can’t die, he’s the bad guy! But it’s too late. Vanya has her own autonomy now, her own agency now, and she’s moving forward even without him. The mad scientist is gone now, but the monster’s there.

I wanted to ask about that one episode, episode 6, that gets erased from history because of what Number Five does. I think that’s interesting because seeing events play out differently shows you various dynamics in the family, like how strangely things go when the person comforting Luther over Hargreeves’ moon lie is Klaus rather than Allison. Did you worry viewers might get frustrated by that fakeout, or do you hope you’ve built up trust with the audience by that point in the season?I want them to see it with trust, but in a world where a guy like Five exists, there’s a paradox where he can go back and reset a day. “The Day That Was” and “The Day That Wasn’t” are the two episodes. I thought it was a really beautiful way to show how each of our actions has consequences. As minor as they may seem, getting another chance and turning left instead of right or saying something different may shift the course of your life. For example, Luther and Allison will never know that kiss happened. That might be torturous to the audience, but I hope they take it for what it’s worth. It’s fun storytelling to show them this is the world that these characters live in. It was not to torture the audience. I wanted it to be something fun and whimsical so they could understand why we did it, because it’s just pure storytelling in my mind. It tells a great story about what Five is going through and then he comes back a day earlier to be able to say “we’re not gonna f— around on personal s— today, we’re going to pull together as a family and make things right.” And that changes all those moments they had together. They might be my favorite episodes. They were hard to write and break, but I’m really proud of those two episodes.

I love the show’s version of Klaus going to heaven, because the black-and-white color scheme and the fact that the show’s on Netflix make it seem like he wandered into Roma for a second. If I didn’t colorize his shirt, he would be in Roma, wouldn’t he? That’s a good point. I did want to keep the shirt in color, which was expensive because we had to do it in every frame. But I wanted it to feel like a comic book, with a bit of color on a white background. If I didn’t do that and he ran around you’d be like, he’s in Roma!

My favorite scene in the whole show I think is where Hargreeves gives Klaus a shave. It’s just a wonderful moment where you get to talk to your dad who’s dead, and the fact that he’s giving you a shave is just so weird and creepy. By the way, I didn’t say it was heaven! So it may or may not be heaven where that happened.

I really enjoyed Ben’s presence over the course of the season, culminating in the fact that we got to see his amazing powers again at the end! Plus the other siblings actually get to see his presence manifest. Was that meant to symbolize their reconciliation as a family?Yeah it was very important that we came full circle and they got to see that Ben’s still weirdly with them still. It’s why they broke up in the first place, because his death broke him apart. Now they see him at the end of the first season, and you got it that it represents their greater reconciliation. Now if only they only could achieve their final job of saving the world!

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The great battle is over.

The snowy ground is streaked with blood.

Beloved heroes lay dead outside the castle gates.

Winterfell is quiet.

And then…

A sudden roar from above. A gust of wind. A blur of low-flying movement.

A dragon?

No.

An ice dragon?

Worse.

“F—king spoiler helicopter just flew right over the set!” says an alarmed crew member.

This could be a disaster. It’s April 2018 on the set of the final season of Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland. The helicopter seemingly came out of nowhere and flew directly over a ridiculously sensitive scene from the show’s final season. The production is supposed to have government-protected airspace — no planes, no drones, and sure as the seven hells no mystery choppers buzzing Winterfell. If paparazzi armed with cameras were on board, their photos would cause an explosion in the entertainment universe. Did anybody get its tail number?

The production calls the Civil Aviation Authority to track down the pilot’s identity while showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are informed of the potential breach. As usual, they are calm. You cannot command a set as sprawling and intense as Game of Thrones and lose your cool every time there might be a catastrophe or you’d never stop hyperventilating.

“There’s always a crisis, there’s always an imminent disaster,” Benioff says. “You never quite know where it’s coming from but, over time, you get a sense of where the real catastrophes are and which ones are probably going to be okay.”

After a tense hour, the news comes down: It was a police helicopter. So GoT’s secrets remain safe for now. All the while, the production never stopped moving. The show must go on, after all, and the HBO drama’s final season is the biggest show on the planet, spending 10 months filming just six episodes for its climactic season 8. Expectations are incredibly high.

“The fans will not be let down,” says director David Nutter. “There are a lot of firsts in these episodes. There’s the funniest sequence I’ve ever shot on this show, the most emotional and compelling scene I’ve ever shot, and there’s one scene where there’s so many together it feels like you’re watching a superhero movie.”

Nutter tackled three episodes in the final season, including a calm-before-the-storm entry that might surprise viewers with its play-like intimacy. The showrunners also directed one episode: the mysterious series finale. (More on that in a bit.)

But it’s the season’s most ambitious entry — arguably the most difficult-to-produce episode in television history — that’s expected to be particularly staggering.

The episode chronicles the great battle of Winterfell, pitting an uneasy collection of allies against the Night King and his army; a face-off teased from the series’ very first scene. It’s one of two in the final season directed by Miguel Sapochnik, who previously tackled “Hardhome” and the Emmy-winning “Battle of the Bastards.” Here fan favorites like Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), and Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) are fighting for their lives, impossibly outnumbered against a supernatural enemy.

The episode is expected to be the longest consecutive battle sequence ever committed to film, and brings the largest number of GoT major characters together since the show’s debut episode in 2011 (“You can’t have this many actors on set, there are too many egos!” jokes Harington).

“What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie,” says co-executive producer Bryan Cogman. “This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle. There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. David and Dan an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.”

“Exhausting” is quite the understatement. The episode required 11 weeks of grueling night shoots. Imagine up to 750 people working all night long for nearly three months in the middle of open rural countryside: The temperatures are freezing in the low 30s; they’re laboring in icy rain and piercing wind, thick, ankle-deep mud; reeking horse manure and choking smoke. The stars of Game of Thrones require some coaxing to get candid about their experience because nobody wants to sound like they’re whinging (as The Hound would say). But if you spend even a brief time on set you realize staging the battle was unprecedentedly brutal.

For Williams, the episode marked Arya’s first Game of Thrones battle, an irony that isn’t lost on her. “I skip the battle every year, which is bizarre since Arya’s the one who’s been training the most,” she says. “This is my first taste of it. And I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.”

A full year before filming began, Sapochnik phoned Williams to warn her. “Start training now,” he said, “because this is going to be really hard.”

“And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’” Williams recalls between takes, looking ultra-grimy with dirt and mock blood on her face (as do all the actors). “But nothing can prepare you for how physically draining it is. It’s night after night, and again and again, and it just doesn’t stop. You can’t get sick, and you have to look out for yourself because there’s so much to do that nobody else can do… there are moments you’re just broken as a human and just want to cry.”

Williams’ feelings are backed up by seasoned action veterans on the show, such as Iain Glen, who plays Ser Jorah Mormont. “It was the most unpleasant experience I’ve had on Thrones,” Glen says. “A real test, really miserable. You get to sleep at seven in the morning and when you wake in the midday you’re still so spent you can’t really do anything, and then you’re back. You have no life outside it. You have an absolute f—ked bunch of actors. But without getting too method about it, on screen it bleeds through to the reality of the Thrones world.”

Concurs The Hound actor Rory McCann: “Everybody prays they never have to do this again.”

To get periodic warmth, actors occasionally huddle around a space heater in a tent or duck inside the production’s cramped, bare-bones trailers. But for the show’s crew there is no relief. “I heard the crew was getting 40,000 steps a day on their pedometers,” Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth) says. “They’re the f—king heroes.” Sporadically, one of the crew members would get switched to the day shift where a different episode was being shot and you could instantly spot the gaunt, gray-faced battle episode workers. “It’s like seeing Nosferatu coming in,” Benioff says.

When preparing for the shoot, Sapochnik tried to find a longer battle sequence in cinema history and couldn’t. The closest was the nearly 40-minute Helm’s Deep siege in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which he studied to determine when the audience would get “battle fatigue” from too much hacking and slashing. “It feels like the only way to really approach it properly is take every sequence and ask yourself: ‘Why would I care to keep watching?’” says the British director between takes. “One thing I found is the less action — the less fighting — you can have in a sequence, the better.”

Another directorial challenge was figuring out which character to focus on in each scene when so many heroes are involved. “The I’ve done previously were generally from Jon’s perspective,” Sapochnik says. “Here I’ve got 20-some cast members and everyone would like it to be their scene. That’s complicated because I find the best battle sequences are when you have a strong point of view. I keep thinking: ‘Whose story am I telling right now?’”

Part of Sapochnik’s strategy is asking the actors to fill in the blanks of their storyline of what happens whenever the camera cuts to somebody else. As John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) explains: “We may not have seen Sam for 10 minutes but something has happened to Sam in those 10 minutes — you’ve been fighting, or you’ve been running, or you’ve been hiding. How has your story developed? You have to hold in your mind what’s happened since we saw you last.”

To keep actors focused during the long, cold hours, Sapochnik surprises them with questions. “You’re in the middle of a battle and Miguel comes up and goes, ‘Why are you here?’” McCann says. “Why am I here? It gets you thinking. Then he’ll go to another actor and go, ‘What are you fighting for?’” (One actor snarks back, “My close-up!”). As Glen notes: “Everybody is fighting for a personal reason and Miguel tries to imbue every moment in that.”

During one scene that requires a lot of standing still (not during the fighting) one of the show’s series regular actresses abruptly collapses. “Medic on set!” a crew member yells. The showrunners are out of their tent in a flash and run to her. For a few still moments, it feels like the whole cast and crew are holding their collective breath. Then the news circulates that she’s okay, “just fainted.” The actress goes home early and is back the next day.

Filming wasn’t always going be this tough. The original schedule made the battle easier by breaking up filming into very short, specific shots that would, on an average night, require a smaller cast and crew. That’s the standard Hollywood approach to assembling an action sequence.

“We built this massive new part of Winterfell and originally thought, ‘We’ll film this part here and this part there,’ and basically broke it down into so many pieces it would be shot like a Marvel movie, with never any flow or improvisation,” Sapochnik says. “Even on Star Wars, they build certain parts of the set and then add huge elements of green screen. And that makes sense. There’s an efficiency to that. But I turned to the producers and said, ‘I don’t want to do 11 weeks of night shoots and no one else does. But if we don’t we’re going to lose what makes Game of Thrones cool and that is that it feels real.’”

The producers agreed. “When you have rapid cutting you can tell it was all assembled in post-production,” Benioff says. “That’s not the show’s style and it’s not Miguel’s style.” So they approved a schedule that became infamously known among the team as “The Long Night.”

The actors say the immersive sets and shooting style boosted their performances. “The Winterfell set is unlike anything I’ve seen in my life,” says Grey Worm actor Jacob Anderson. “It’s not like most sets you walk through a door and you see and equipment. You can walk into rooms and cross into tunnels and find yourself in another part of the castle. It’s really immersive. Especially when there is haze and snow and people running around, you can get genuinely lost. There were a few moments where I momentarily forgot it wasn’t real, which is bizarre.”

Amid the exhaustion, every detail still counts. During one scene, Bradley wields a sword at undead wight attackers played by stuntmen (the script playfully says of the wights: “They’re zombies but not zombies, we have our own thing.”)

“Sam looks like a badass,” I say admiringly to Cogman.

The producer turns to others: “You hear what he just said? That’s the problem. Sam isn’t supposed to look like a badass.”

I suddenly wish I hadn’t said anything. But Bradley quickly adjusts his performance. The next take he looks more confused, awkward and startled by each new attack. It clicks. Suddenly you’re not seeing badass Bradley, but Samwell Tarly.

“When doing these huge fight sequences, you get carried away sometimes,” Bradley says. “You want to make yourself look as good as possible. Miguel said to me, ‘I know that you want to show you’re quite good at this. But remember your character. Sam’s not that good at this. You have to play him because that’s what’s going to be truthful. So stop being so good!’”

The battle scenes shot inside the studio during the day are tough as well. The production’s cavernous Paint Hall hangar is kept full of smoke created by a machine that heats up paraffin and fish oil. Soon the cast and crew find themselves coughing up fishy candle wax. Protective paper masks multiply in popularity and one crew member has an asthma attack and is taken to the hospital.

Amid some rare downtime in the dim, smoky hangar, two seated figures enjoyed a moment of respite with some tea.

“We’re no longer the little kids of Game of Thrones,” Turner reflects.

“Thank God,” Williams replies.

“You know the Titanic was built here,” Turner says. “All that child labor went into it and the child labor continues here today.”

“Except they had it worse, they weren’t brought tea,” Williams says.

Sapochnik suddenly appears and halts their banter: “Do you know what you’re doing next?”

“We think so,” Williams says.

“Have you seen your scene?” he asks, referring to a “pre-viz” animation he mocked up of the battle episode.

“Yes,” Turner replies. “Can we see the whole episode?”

“No.”

“Rumor has it it’s 90 minutes long,” she prods, helpfully doing my job for me.

Sapochnik just smiles and darts to his next task. He’s directing three different units shooting three different scenes all at the same time, which is, frankly, bonkers. “If Miguel lives through this it will be the hardest thing he’s ever done,” executive producer Bernadette Caulfield says, “the hardest thing all of us have ever done.”

Spoiler: The cast and crew lived. And all our favorite characters? Well, their fates remain to be seen. Crew members don triumphant “We Survived The Long Night” jackets and the actors can now tell their war stories. “The hard work pays off on this show,” Williams says. “After one of those really tough days, you know it’s going to be part of something so iconic and it will look amazing.”

Yet there’s another episode in the final season where fan expectations are running even higher: The show’s extremely top-secret final episode, directed by Benioff and Weiss.

For the finale, secrecy was ratcheted up to another level. Only crew members wearing a special Episode 6 badge were allowed on set during filming and some scenes were shot on a closed set.

“When something has been sitting with you for so long, you have such a specific sense of the way each moment should play and feel,” Weiss explains of the pair’s decision to helm the episode. “Not just in terms of ‘this shot or that shot,’ though sometimes it’s that as well. So it’s not really fair to ask somebody else to get that right. We’d be lurking over their shoulder every take driving them crazy making it hard for them to do their job. If we’re going to drive anybody crazy it might as well be ourselves.”

And what will the Game of Thrones ending feel like? The show’s cast have teased a wide and conflicting spectrum of reactions in media interviews. You know this is a story that subverts conventional fantasy storytelling. And you might also know Benioff and Weiss have long said they ignore what fans say they think they want in their story.

Still, make no mistake…

“We want people to love it,” Weiss says. “It matters a lot to us. “We’ve spent 11 years doing this. We also know no matter what we do, even if it’s the optimal version, that a certain number of people will hate the best of all possible versions. There is no version where everybody says, ‘I have to admit, I agree with every other person on the planet that this is the perfect way to do this’ — that’s an impossible reality that doesn’t exist. I’m hoping for the Breaking Bad argument where it’s like, ‘Is that an A or an A+?’”

Adds Benioff: “From the beginning we’ve talked about how the show would end. A good story isn’t a good story if you have a bad ending. Of course we worry.”

The finale will air May 19. Tens of millions of fans around the world will tune in to see which characters perish, which survive (if any) and who sits on the Iron Throne (if anyone). And then we’ll enter a post-Game of Thrones world, with all our watches having ended.

Benioff is pretty blunt about his finale viewing plans. “I plan to be very drunk,” he says, “and very far from the internet.”

Related: EW reveals 16 epic season 8 cover photos

Get your copy of Entertainment Weekly’s biggest Games of Thrones issue ever: 78 pages of exclusive stories and photos on the past, present, and future of the HBO hit. Buy your choice of 16 different covers now, or pick up the issue on stands Friday. Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

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Warning: The following contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of The Gifted. Read at your own risk!

The Struckers have lost one of their own.

In the season 2 finale of Fox’s The Gifted, Reed (Stephen Moyer) sacrifices himself to stop Reeva (Grace Byers) from building the false mutant nation she’d hoped to create with the help of Benedict Ryan (Peter Gallagher). He lets his powers take over and destroy the Inner Circle’s headquarters once and for all.

But Moyer says this doesn’t have to be the last time he gets to let loose as Reed. After all, season 2 wrapped up with Blink (Jamie Chung) returning to her mutant family. Below, the actor delves deeper into Reed’s decision and what it was like saying goodbye to the show — for now.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you know your time was up? Were you ready to leave Reed behind?
STEPHEN MOYER: Well, I’ve got 6-year-old twins, and older kids who are 16 and 19. When I went off to do True Blood, I was off for a long while, and that worked out great, but last year, I was away in Atlanta and I was thinking, “This is a long time to be away from my little people.” The second time around this year, I missed a lot of firsts: I missed their first concert, their first day of school, their first day of soccer, and it was kind of hitting me.

I knew that they were looking for a big death at the end of season 2, so Matt and I talked about the possibility of it being me. It was great for the show because they were able to do something big, and I don’t think people will be expecting me to go. But also I love my gang, I love the cast. I’ve had an amazing time on the show. I adore Atlanta, but truthfully it was really about seven months is a long time to be away, and I felt this was a really cool way to bring the character to a satisfying, massive ending.

Reed sacrifices himself for the greater good, and in a way you’re doing the same for your personal life. 
Exactly! And Reed is a fantastic trigger in a lot of ways in season 1. He sets them off on this adventure. As he learns about himself and about who he truly is, he starts to realize how he’s been this fatal pawn in all of this. He’s been pushed in this direction without realizing it. And therefore, it’s his chance to take control of his own destiny in a way that he’s never been able to do, and I was kind of attracted to that idea that he was able to have his final place in the world without anybody saying so.

And of course, we are talking about a Marvel show. We are talking about the comic book universe in general. Characters don’t ever really die. The plasma that is Reed, it still exists. Like in Terminator 2, for instance.

Or like the way Doctor Manhattan puts himself back together in Watchmen.
Exactly.

So have you discussed the possibility of coming back if the show’s renewed?
It’s up in the air. I think there’s a real chance to shift the story, with what happens with Blink , so there’s so much you could do. Matt did ask if I’d like to come back and direct an episode. I’ve directed a bunch of True Blood and some features, so there’s a possibility I might come back and do an episode. Who knows? You can do all sorts of things in this world. I certainly wasn’t saying goodbye forever. We are a very close-knit tribe.

Story-wise, when do you think Reed made that call to sacrifice himself? Right in that moment when he talks to Caitlin ?
No, I think he’s been thinking about it. Remember, he does talk about the fact that he’s going to stop taking the medicine. He feels that there’s a sort of destined moment that’s coming.

How do you feel about Reed’s arc across these seasons overall? He’s quite the opposite of the bigoted cop you played on Shots Fired, the series you did just before The Gifted.
You know, it’s interesting: When Reed begins, he’s kind of a buttoned-up, conservative-with-a-small-c gentleman who does what he’s told. His job at the beginning of the show is quite dark. He’s been told that removing mutants from society is the best thing to do. So when he starts out, he’s not that different from that character in Shots Fired, in some ways.

And then he starts learning that, in fact, he’s been played, but the only way you learn that stuff is by actually being around people who are experiencing it on the ground level, who are marginalized. Ultimately being around his children and other people living this existence is a way of showing it to him. In some ways, his sacrifice at the end is to make up for his part in what he’s done in the past.

There are several key Reed scenes in the finale — his goodbye with Caitlin, his showdown with Reeva. Which did you most enjoy working on, as an actor?
I got a scene with Percy that I loved. You know, I’m very, very close to those two kids, and as I said earlier, I have a 16- and 19-year-old, and they’re the same age. So I do have a relationship with Percy and Natalie that is parental, and I adore those kids, so I was really happy to get a nice closing moment with Percy, and there’s a scene with Natalie where we’re sitting on the couch, which I thought was lovely. So it was a really satisfying arc.

Now, Reed’s power had been suppressed most of his life and not allowed to develop naturally, which is why he can’t control it. If he had been able to develop it properly, what do you think he would have been able to do, ultimately?
One thing I like about this mutant universe is that with practice, to quote the Malcolm Gladwell of it all , with 10,000 hours, you might be able to the skill. With Reed, he’s dissolving things. We came up with a whole thing where I was called Mr. Crumble, and they even made Mr. Crumble a chair back, and my character was like this. It was like I was some kind of manic clown. Obviously you never get to see it, but that’s what we were doing on set.

So I suppose if he had been able to work with that ability from the beginning, he would have been able to take metals, to take alloys, and be able to dissolve certain elements and keep other elements there. If you take it right down to a physics place, he probably would have been able to separate atoms! Which , I spy a spin-off! I can feel it now!

Fingers crossed! One last thing: Did you take home anything from set, even if there’s a chance you’ll return?
I took my Mr. Crumble chair back.

Related links: 

The Gifted recap: Time to choose a side The Gifted boss on how Sean Hannity inspired Benedict Ryan

Well, here we are at the end of season 2.

Every episode this season has started with flashbacks, and this one is no different. The finale starts by showing us the Strucker family’s reactions to the infamous events of 7/15. We still don’t see what exactly happened on that fateful day, but we do see Reed and Caitlin watching news coverage of it at home alongside a very young Andy and Lauren. In fact, we learn that the day’s events are what inspired Reed to join the ranks of corporate mutant hunters in the first place. But we also get other flashbacks over the rest of the episode, showing the Strucker family at other moments of their lives. We revisit that time Reed “rescued” Lauren from a party after her powers activated for the first time, and how his paranoid anti-mutant rhetoric made her afraid to ever come out to her parents.

In the present day, the Struckers have other problems. For one thing, the Mutant Underground’s hideout is besieged by Purifiers. Andy and Lauren think they might be able to break out by using their Fenris powers, but this episode makes the interesting choice to mostly sideline the Strucker siblings. Before they can even finish having a debate about whether it’s ethical or not to use their devastating powers against Purifiers, they’re kidnapped by the Inner Circle! The Cuckoos take control of them telepathically to force them to use Fenris for Reeva’s plan, and they’re able to sneak in using Fade’s invisibility. Remember that guy? The invisible bartender who acts like a dick in every scene he’s in? When Marcos learns what happened, he has a hilariously understandable response: “God, I hate that guy.”

Reed, Caitlin, Marcos, and Lorna need to find the Struckers, but they need to get past the Purifiers first. That’s where John comes in. Knowing that Jace Turner has a maniacal obsession with him by this point, John figures he’ll be able to draw the Purifiers’ attention and fire while his friends escape. He’s right about that, but he does a little preparation beforehand. We finally get to see him go Full Thunderbird, putting black paint under his eyes and grabbing a hellishly sharp hatchet. We cut between him and Jace for a few seconds as they each prepare for the confrontation in a very Pocahontas-like way. And then, after a long season of the Purifiers constantly winning every confrontation, John proceeds to wipe the street clean with their bodies. They all come at him, and they all get thrown over cars, hit with a mailbox, punched unconscious, or strangled with their own chain weapons. His friends have no problem rushing through the blockade after that.

Eventually, Jace takes a few blows and has to go into hiding. Luckily, he’s not the only one who’s been hurt by the Purifiers. Erg shows up, and the two put aside their differences long enough to absolutely wreck these fascists. The Purifiers already know not to attack Erg directly, so John does it for them. A few punches charge up Erg’s eye enough to blast all of Jace Turner’s minions into unconsciousness. That leaves the two J’s, and one handgun isn’t enough to slow down John at this point. He jumps off a wall, tackles Jace to the ground, and just starts pummeling his face. I’ve waited a long time for this catharsis, but of course, a bloody Jace has to ruin it by begging John to kill him. That’s what he’s wanted all along, you see — to see his daughter again. This show is so good at pulling the rug out from under you and making it hard to cheer for revenge, violence, or easy answers. Jace has done so many horrible things to so many horrible people, but you can’t even have the satisfaction of killing him for it because that’s all he’s wanted all along.

Thunderbird doesn’t give him the satisfaction.

NEXT: You want to know my secret, Reeva? I was never in control

The voyages of Star Trek: Discovery will continue into a third season.

The CBS All Access series has been renewed for another year which should continue the drama into 2020.

The series is also bringing on Michelle Paradise (The Originals, Hart of Dixie) to serve as co-showrunner along with producer Alex Kurtzman.

“Michelle joined us midway through season two and energized the room with her ferocious knowledge of Trek,” Kurtzman said. “Her grasp of character and story detail, her drive and her focus have already become essential in ensuring the Trek legacy, and her fresh perspective always keeps us looking forward. I’m proud to say Michelle and I are officially running Star Trek: Discovery together.”

Kurtzman is rather busy as he’s overseeing CBS’ burgeoning Trek franchise that includes the upcoming Patrick Stewart-led Picard series and the animated comedy Lower Decks plus other titles in the development.

The sci-fi drama has had four different showrunner configurations so far. The series was originally developed under showrunner Bryan Fuller, then switched to Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts for season 1, then switched to Kurtzman for season 2, and now will have Kurtzman and Paradise together for season 3.

The first six episodes of Discovery‘s second season are currently available on CBS All Access with new episodes uploaded at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays.

Related content:

Star Trek: Discovery squanders a good Saru episode with silly Red Angel twists Star Trek: Discovery ends a few eras in a strange course-correction episode Star Trek: Discovery goes bananas in a violently lurid spinoff showcase

NBC continues to believe in the Nine-Nine.

The network announced on Wednesday that it has renewed Brooklyn Nine-Nine for a seventh season. NBC rescued the beloved but low-rated cop comedy starring Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher to great fanfare after Fox canceled it last May, and later boosted its 13-episode order for a sixth season to 18 episodes.

Brooklyn kicked off season 6 in January, and it has averaged a 1.4 rating in the key 18-to-49-year old demo while netting 3.9 millions viewers in Live+7. (Last year, the show was averaging 2.9 million viewers on Fox at this point in the season.)

Created by Dan Goor and Michael Schur, the series also stars Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Joel McKinnon-Miller, and Dirk Blocker. Chelsea Peretti, who was an original cast member, departed last month but will return later this season as a guest star. Speaking of guest stars, Lin-Manuel Miranda is slated to appear in the Mar. 7 episode, playing the brother — and rival — of Amy (Fumero).

We leave you with a video of the Brooklyn team receiving the renewal news from the network.

In true #Brooklyn99 fashion, we waited 9 seconds to tell them the good news. We're coming back, y'all! pic.twitter.com/T3ioSJcehi

— Brooklyn Nine-Nine (@nbcbrooklyn99) February 27, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Related content:

Chelsea Peretti on Gina’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine exit: ‘You will laugh and cry’ Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Andy Samberg on season 6, Jake’s Split moment, Chelsea Peretti’s exit Chelsea Peretti breaks down her Brooklyn Nine-Nine farewell episode

The evolution of 3D NAND memory had enabled storage device makers to offer rather unprecedented capacities. To that end, this week at Mobile World Congress, Micron and Western Digital their first 1TB microSDXC cards, marking the point where the pint-sized storage cards have become too big to be measured in mere gigabytes. Besides offering loads of storage space, the cards also feature SD Association’s A2 capabilities and support running Android applications directly from the card.

The c200 1 TB microSDXC card from Micron and the SanDisk Extreme 1 TB microSDXC card from Western Digital are based on 96-layer 3D NAND flash memory from the respective companies as well as controllers designed in-house. Both cards are also compatible with existing SDXC hosts. While Micron confirms that its card uses 3D QLC NAND, Western Digital is somewhat reluctant to disclose the type of memory it uses. It is logical to assume that the SanDisk card also uses the company’s second -generation 3D QLC NAND devices, but this information is not official.

Moving on to performance offered by the products, both cards support the A2 app performance class specification. This means they can provide random performance of at least 4000 read IOPS and 2000 write IOPS, as well as support for such capabilities as command queuing (with a minimum depth queue of 2 and a maximum depth queue of 32) to optimize random read performance, caching to hit write performance targets, as well as self-maintenance capabilities.

Micron says that its c200 1 TB microSD card is capable of up to 100 MB/s sequential read speeds as well as up to 95 MB/s sequential write speeds. The card also supports the V30 video speed class specifications, so this means its minimum write speed is at least 30 MB/s.

Meanwhile for their part, Western Digital says that its card is capable of 160 – 170 MB/s read/write speeds, which makes it the "world’s fastest microSDXC 1 TB UHS-I card." There is a catch though: the UHS-I bus only supports up to 104 MB/s throughput, so SanDisk Extreme 1 TB microSDXC cards can only hit the advertised speeds on hosts supporting DDR-200 transfer rates. While there are some smartphones that can do this, it is usually not advertised. So in the vast majority of cases the card will hit the maximum that the bus offers: around 100 MB/s reads and writes. Meanwhile, the card also carries the V30 badge and its minimum write speed is 30 MB/s.

Western Digital plans to start selling its 1 TB microSDXC card in April at a price of $449.99. As is usually the case for storage products, this is a bit of a price premium for the top capacity model; by comparison, WD's 512 GB microSDXC product costs $199.99.

Meanwhile Micron does not disclose MSRP of its 1 TB microSDXC card, but the company indicates that it will be “competitive for the target audience”. The product will be available sometime in the second quarter.

Related Reading:

• SanDisk Extreme microSD Cards with A2 App Performance Spec Unveiled: 4K/2K IOPS
• HiDisc’s 1 TB SDXC Card with A2 Rating Now at Retail
• ADATA XPG Launches Gaming microSD Cards, up to 512GB
• Lexar Launches 512 GB microSD Card with A2 App Performance Spec

Sources: Micron, Western Digital

We go through a lot of device announcements here, especially around MWC. Getting your feedback and comments on said devices is usually a fun and often times educational part of the job. One type of remark that seems to never go out of style are battery capacity complaints. Well, you probably won't find too many of those in the comment sections of Energizer phones. At least not traditionally, that is. Recently the company announced its "Ultimate" line of devices - a clear attempt to venture into more premium smartphone territory. Along with that - a bigger focus on slick design and...