Postponing The Savant only highlights the show's importance

How is a straightforward Apple TV+ series that condemns white supremacists controversial?

By Saloni Gajjar | September 30, 2025 | 10:00am

The Savant (Photo: Apple TV+)

TV Features The Savant

Postponing The Savant only highlights the show's importance

There’s a good chance most people hadn’t heard of Apple TV+’s The Savant, the political thriller from The Americans and House Of Cards writer Melissa James Gibson, before last week. But the streamer directed attention to its Jessica Chastain-led show by announcing on September 23 that it was being pulled from its scheduled two-part premiere in three days’ time. No meaty reason was provided in a brief, nothingburger statement. But it isn’t a stretch to assume the events surrounding Charlie Kirk‘s assassination and its aftermath were a driving force, considering the series’ focus on right-wing extremist groups, the manosphere, and domestic terrorism. However, it’s the wrong move to push a drama that tries to address not just our current reality but also the ongoing violence problem. In a lengthy social media post, Chastain herself disagreed with the choice to pause The Savant and listed multiple mass shooting events, writing: “These incidents, though far from encompassing the full range of violence witnessed in the United States, illustrate a broader mindset that crosses the political spectrum and must be confronted.”

The show doesn’t even focus on any specific or recent occurrence—its inspiration is the 2019 Cosmopolitan article “Is It Possible To Stop A Mass Shooting Before It Happens?” Chastain’s character Jodi Goodwin, based on the subject of the story, is a mother of two, whose husband (played by Nnamdi Asomugha) is deployed overseas. She anonymously infiltrates hate groups, uses her skills to suss out men who pose a real threat, and works with the FBI to arrest them before they can act out. The A.V. Club‘s review, which is now on hold, dubbed the show “timely” and “urgent.” Without getting into any further details or spoilers that are still under embargo, Jodi’s mental health and family life are impacted by her job in ways we’ve seen before on Homeland and 24, so The Savant is pretty standard in that sense. In fact, after watching all eight episodes, there’s nothing inflammatory or seditious going on—there’s no mention of Republicans, Democrats, or any other people in power, nor is there as much gunfighting or real action. This makes the company’s unprovoked choice even more baffling. (Apple TV+ representatives didn’t respond to The A.V. Club‘s request for additional comments or a new release date.)

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In all likelihood, Apple hopes to avoid controversy over a particularly hot-button issue right now that could come with airing a drama that sees men motivated to commit crimes, driven by their sexism, misogyny, and fanaticism. The company also doesn’t want to face the potential wrath of a thin-skinned POTUS (or lawsuits in the vein of Disney’s and Paramount‘s). This preemptive act could also stem from everything that went down with Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night talk show was suspended for a few days because of his remarks about MAGA and Kirk’s shooter. At least he got the ABC gig back, but several other people lost their jobs in the wake of comments they made about Kirk, per The New York Times. Still, it’s worth asking how we got to a point where a straightforward program that condemns white supremacists and their rhetoric has become a target—if it is indeed one at all, considering neither President Trump nor anyone in his administration has mentioned The Savant as of this writing.

Plus, this is far from the only current pop-culture project that deals with stories about fascism or neo-Nazism. In the latest episode of HBO Max’s Peacemaker, Chris Smith (John Cena) finally learns the brutal truth behind his beloved alternate dimension: All the people of color there have apparently been locked up, and the stars on the U.S. flag have been replaced by the swastika symbol. Then there’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor play members of a far-left revolutionary group, while Sean Penn co-stars as a colonel who goes on a rampage so he can join a secret club of white supremacists calling themselves “the superior beings.” And FX’s The Lowdown, created by Sterlin Harjo, sees journalist Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) dig into the corruption of Tulsa’s political leaders, including a gubernatorial candidate with ties to white supremacy.

Which is all to say: The Savant doesn’t warrant the specific scrutiny it’s gotten. It’s probably not easy to navigate this type of territory, with the President ready to denounce anyone, especially those in the media, who might oppose him. But that’s not what the show is about. And to paraphrase Kimmel’s monologue from his returning episode on September 23—again, the same day The Savant was put on the back burner—”This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”