Marvel quietly resets, True Detective makes some noise, and more from the week in entertainment

Old True Detective and new True Detective aren’t getting along

True Detective: Night Country’s finale ended with season-high ratings, according to Variety: 3.2 million viewers tuned in across HBO and its streaming service, Max. That capped off a viewership of about 12.7 million across all episodes, an all-time high for the franchise. As Variety notes, this new generation of True Detective has the benefit of new ways to watch (Max), but it’s undeniable that audiences were plugged in and often enjoying the show’s new direction… except for the series’ creator, Nic Pizzolatto. Read More

Marvel Studios’ quiet reset is a perfect chance to act like Doctor Doom was always the plan

Marvel Studios finally announced the cast for its new, highly anticipated Fantastic Four movie last week—with Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm—and everyone seems to agree that the movie could be/should be a perfect opportunity to gently reset the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, it’s about an iconic superhero team and it might be a period piece, both of which should give it some freedom to move around without worrying too much about established MCU canon (which, while the movie was fun, did drag down The Marvels quite a bit). Read More

Boy Meets World stars discuss being groomed by guest actor, Brian Peck

Former Boy Meets World stars Will Friedle, Rider Strong, and Danielle Fishel recently took some time away from recapping the beloved ‘90s sitcom to address a larger conversation happening right now about the ethics of child-led shows. Likely inspired by the upcoming docuseries Quiet On Set, which explores allegations of sexual abuse and grooming at Nickelodeon, Friedle, Strong, and Fishel were joined by a family therapist on the latest episode of Pod Meets World to discuss their relationship with season five guest star Brian Peck. In 2004, six years after the season aired, Peck was convicted of sexually abusing an unnamed Nickelodeon actor and spent 16 months in prison (via Variety). Read More

Jon Stewart uses second Daily Show appearance to address criticism of first Daily Show appearance

Ours is an age of mass misinformation, so let’s center ourselves with two objective facts. The first: Biden and Trump are both old—at least to be running for president. At 81 and 77 respectively, they’ll be the two oldest candidates to ever grace the ticket, beating the record they already set in 2020. Second: a lot of very loud people on Twitter/X—no matter on which side they’re on—really hate when people use their platform to present any sort of reasoned and measured critique of our country. Last week, Jon Stewart used his first appearance on The Daily Show in nine years to address the first issue. This week, he was forced to talk about the second. Read More