Ever since Deadwood went off the air on HBO in August 2006 after three acclaimed and now almost legendary seasons, there has been talk about doing a movie to wrap up the story and give both fans and characters closure. At long last, it appears that those talks will finally bear fruit!

At the Summer TCAs on Wednesday, HBO programming president Casey Bloys said the words that Deadwood fans have been longing to hear, “I can finally-finally confirm we are greenlit on Deadwood movie … it will shoot in October.” Indeed, the film has been in production.

Deadwood Movie Trailer

OK it's not a full trailer but HBO released a teaser for their 2019 schedule and it features a good five seconds of actual Deadwood movie footage! If nothing else, consider this proof of life that this thing is real.

Deadwood Movie Story

Ian McShane dropped some interesting details about the Deadwood movie’s plot to Deadline at the TCAs. While we already knew that the story would center around the celebration of South Dakota’s statehood, it appears that the idea of transition and the taming of the Wild West will be a prevalent theme, instigated by the show’s historically-based character, George Hearst (played by a returning Gerald McRaney), who, after building a fortune from westward mineral mining (as we saw in Season 3), would lay the foundation for what would become the Hearst media empire. With that context set, McShane explains:

“Deadwood is celebrating South Dakota as a state, and Hearst has come back and Alma has come back in town, so you have all the main characters converging and how they changed in ten years. Now Hearst wants to put telegraphs in town, which isn’t going too well. Al has had a little bit too much of that over the years. There’s a surprise for Trixie and Star.”

Indeed, the Hearst publishing legacy began when George acquired the San Francisco Chronicle, which his son, William Randolph Hearst – himself the media magnate on which Orson Wells would base Citizen Kane– would take to the next level. However, as it so happens, a would-be westward publishing empire needs continent-spanning telegraph lines.

McShane also reveals that the moviemaking process forced creator David Milch to abandon his known strategy of on-the-fly script revisions, leaving much of the story in stone. Pertinently, regarding the movie’s climax, he teases:

“It ends leaving you wondering.” He adds, “If it makes $115M, HBO will somehow find a way to do another one.”

Deadwood Movie Photos

The first official images from the Deadwood movie have arrived, courtesy of EW. The duo of photos update the status of the show's characters after over a decade. We see Ian McShane's Al Swearengen at his Gem Theater bar, likely plotting his next monstrous machinations. Additionally, we have a photo of Timothy Olyphant's Seth Bullock, looking dapper in his duster, standing outside his new workplace, a U.S. Marshal office.

Now regarded as one of the greatest modern TV dramas of all time, Deadwood came along just before the real explosion of top-shelf scripted television and the massively accelerated growth of online fan communities, which might have helped keep the show going or get a movie to the screen quicker.

12 years after it was initially teased, a Deadwood movie script by creator/showrunner David Milch will see the light of day. As Bloys, confirms, “I wanted a script that would stand on its own … I’m happy to say that David totally delivered on that. It’s a terrific script.”

Additionally, Daniel Minahan will occupy the director’s chair for the movie. No stranger to the premium cabler, Minahan helmed four episodes of the Deadwood series, along with episodes of other HBO shows, Game of Thrones, The Newsroom, Six Feet Under, Big Love and True Blood.

Deadwood Movie Release Date

The Deadwood movie is set to arrive on HBO sometime in 2019. The specific release date is not yet known.

Deadwood Movie Cast

The dream project was no easy feat to achieve. As Bloys explained in the July announcement, “All of these people worked hard to get this together.” Adding, “It’s been a logistics nightmare getting all the cast members’ schedules together but we are there. It is greenlit.”

Indeed, as production prepared to commence, the task at hand involved locking down the schedules of the returning cast members; a logistical nightmare of a task that represented the greatest obstacle to the project.

Thankfully, the Deadwood movie will serve as a major reunion, with stars Timothy Olyphant and Ian McShane joined by returning faces such as Brad Dourif, Molly Parker, Anna Gunn Kim Dickens, Paula Malcomson, Sean Bridgers, Robin Weigert, Gerald McRaney, W. Earl Brown, Jeffrey Jones, William Sanderson and John Hawkes.

Additionally, the movie will feature a notable franchise newcomer in Tony Curran, who, on November 29, revealed that he’d already wrapped his mystery role.

It's quite impressive that HBO was able to wrangle what can be considered a reunion in more ways than one, since the movie’s events will be set against the backdrop of a celebration for the statehood of South Dakota (which historically occurred on November 2, 1889,) that brings the show’s characters back together after about a decade apart. In fact, before the movie's confirmation, we asked famed character actor Brad Dourif – who played Doc Cochran on the show – what, if anything, he’d heard about the now-confirmed Deadwood reunion movie.

“I've heard about that,” he said. “I hear fall, maybe. But I've been hearing fall every year. I think it'd be very difficult for them to get that cast together. I think it would be very hard. I know that David's written some things and he likes what he's written, but whether it will happen or not I don't know.”

We will most definitely keep you updated here on the Deadwood movie developments as they occur!

Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.

This The Walking Dead review contains spoilers.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 11

The Walking Dead Season 9 has been going from strength to strength since the “demise” of Rick Grimes. Last week exposed a vulnerability that Daryl hasn't shown since the earliest seasons and gave Henry a good reason to take over Carl's stories from the comic book. This week, The Walking Dead mines a rich vein of light comedy out of the adventures of Ezekiel, Carol, and the rest of the Kingdom's cast of random characters in a way that hasn't been that evident since the early days of the Kingdom's presence on the show.

On its face, The Kingdom is laughable. After all, it's a bunch of people gathered around what is basically a cosplaying zookeeper with dreadlocks who they decided to call a king. They ride horses, wear armor, wield bows and spears, and generally live a fairly medieval existence, by choice. The fact that they voluntarily fell in with a guy who was pretending to be King Arthur suggests that these are people who have something of a sense of humor. We've seen that with Jerry, but this is the first week that the others in the Kingdom, namely stone-faced Dianne (Kerry Cahill) get to show a little more personality—and they aren't killed immediately afterwards!

As a group, the Kingdom makes for good, light comedy. Ezekiel and Jerry are positively adorable together, and Carol has just enough of a stone face to make her occasional breaks into something even more charming. Khary Payton is very deft at turning on and off the Ezekiel voice, hamming it up most of the time but letting the bravado slip in the face of a withering glance from Melissa McBride, who plays up Carol's gruffer tendencies just enough to allow her sweeter moments to shine. Cooper Andrews has never not been charming on the show, with his excitement (and his unusual slang for announcing a pregnancy) coming off as very endearing and his clumsiness being natural, rather than forced.

That lightness courtesy of Matthew Negrete's script is needed, as the showdown at Hilltop is one of sheer tension. Alpha and the Whisperers standing outside of the walls, breathing heavily through leathery zombie skin masks, and the Hilltoppers on the inside, watching on as they debate in hushed tones from the parapets. Mr. Spock once said the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and that's the argument Daryl and Tara have; do they turn Lydia over to her mother for more brainwashing and abuse, or do they stand and fight and lose Alden and Luke in the process? Choices, hard choices, are made, but not without a struggle.

further reading: The Walking Dead Guide to the Whisperers

The two separate plots are united by a lovely little introductory moment, before the time skip, that details the Kingdom's eternal optimism for unity between their separated communities. They're still family, they fought and bled and died together against the Saviors, and differences now serve little purpose.

Ezekiel might be the only person keeping that hope alive, but he's keeping it not just alive, he's feeding it and making it thrive with a little help from people like Tara and Daryl, who are willing to cross party lines and strike out on their own to do the right thing, rather than the safe thing. (After all, this is a man who decided to break into a movie theater to steal a projector bulb for movie nights, as a means to expand the reach of his planned fair.)

Two halves that make a pretty complete whole episode, “Bounty” shows both The Walking Dead's neglected comic streak and its neglected dread streak. Too often in recent seasons, there hasn't been a real sense of danger to the zombies, or even to the confrontations with armed enemies. Meera Menon provides both, with a beautiful sense of visual flair. 

There are a half-dozen stunning shots in this week's episode, from the reverence with which Khary Payton holds the constitution of the survivor communities and shares a kiss with Melissa McBride in the closing moments of the episode, to the way that a panicking, terrified Connie (Lauren Ridloff) attempts to rescue a stranded, crying baby while being pursued by zombies through a cornfield, the only sound being the sounds made internally by her body as she flees, fights, and tries her best to save a baby that belongs with their enemies the Whisperers. 

It's stunning and resonant, sold well by the actress and delivered with skill and deftness by the technical crew. The decision to make it completely silent, save for the sounds you hear from your own body when you plug your ears makes it even more terrifying, and gives a glimpse into what life must be like for someone with a physical hardship in a world in which hearing something sneaking up on you is the difference between life and death. 

Dangerous or not, Connie does this not because it's the smart thing—it's not—but because it's the right thing. Daryl refuses to give Lydia over to Alpha because it's the right thing. Ezekiel risks the lives of his friends and loved ones to bring their communities together because it's the right thing, for his people and for their people as a consolidated group. Henry goes to rescue Lydia because, in his mind, it's the right thing (and Connie and Daryl go to rescue him for the same reason, with Connie's expressions and the way she writes down her communication with Daryl only further emphasizing the point that she's doing this despite the risks). 

Enid and Henry's brief confrontation wasn't a highlight of the episode, but it was a good telling of the whole point of the episode. Surviving isn't enough. Despite Alpha's opinion, people are not animals, doomed to live and die like animals. The world still belongs to humans, and it's up to humans to make it a world worth living in. It's not enough to keep living if you cannot live with yourself. JSS might be a good short-term strategy, but it makes a hollow, sad person.

Keep up with The Walking Dead Season 9 news and reviews here.

The Walking Dead season 9 continues after an explosive midseason finale that saw Daryl, Michonne, Jesus, Eugene, and a few newcomers come face to face with the Whisperers, a deadly new group that will challenge the heroes' notions about the outside world. Not everything has evolved for the better. 

These zombie-flesh-wearing stalkers haunt the lands beyond Alexandria, Hilltop, and Kingdom and introduce a challenge to the survivors unlike any they've ever faced. Can Michonne, Daryl, Tara, Carol, Ezekiel, and the rest of this eternally suffering family come together to fight a common enemy? Time will tell! Surely, it won't be so easy now that Rick Grimes and Maggie are gone...

Here's everything else we know about the second half of The Walking Dead Season 9: 

The Walking Dead Season 9 Release Date

The Walking Dead season 9 will return on March 3 at 9 pm ET with episode 12, which is titled "Guardians."

Here's a synopsis: "While one community struggles to ease tensions that threaten to divide from within, the true nature of another group comes into focus; a mission to rescue a friend has deadly consequences."

Here's a sneak peek:

Check out our latest review of the show.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Trailer

The trailer for the second half of The Walking Dead season 9 has arrived! Check it out below:

Here are the other trailers released thus far:

The Walking Dead Season 9 Cast

If your favorite character survived the first half of season 9, you'll see them again in the bottom half of the season. There are also a few new castings:

Samantha Morton (Minority Report) has been cast as Alpha, leader of the Whisperers.

Cassady McClincy (Castle Rock) will play Lydia, Alpha's daughter.

Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy) plays Beta, Alpha's second in command.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episodes

Here's where we'll compile episode titles, official synopses, and reviews as they become available. Click the titles to go to the full reviews.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 1: A New Beginning

Rick and his group make a run into Washington D.C. and search for artifacts they will need to build the civilization he and Carl envisioned.

Greg Nicotero directed the episode written by Angela Kang. 

Air Date: 10/7/18

Read our review of "A New Beginning" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 2: The Bridge

The communities join forces to restore a bridge that will facilitate communication and trade. Someone is gravely injured at the construction site.

Daisy Mayer directed the episode written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.

Air Date: 10/14/18

Read our review of "The Bridge" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 3: Warning Signs

Rick’s vision for the future is threatened by a mysterious disappearance that divides the work camp where the communities are building a bridge.

Dan Liu directed the episode written by Channing Powell. 

Air Date: 10/21/18

Read our review of "Warning Signs" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 4: The Obliged

Rick's vision of a civilized future is threatened by a sudden reckoning with past sins that remain unavenged and unforgiven.

Rosemary Rodriguez directed the episode written by Geraldine Inoa.

Air Date: 10/28/18

Read our review of "The Obliged" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 5: What Comes After

Rick is forced to face the past as he struggles to maintain the safety of the communities and protect the future he and Carl envisioned.

Greg Nicotero directed the episode written by Matthew Negrete. 

Air Date: 11/4/18

Read our review of "What Comes After" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 6: Who Are You Now

Six years after Rick's disappearance, a group of strangers tests Alexandria's trust and patience.

Larry Teng directed the episode written by Eddie Guzelian. 

Air Date: 11/11/18

Read our review of "Who Are You Now" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 7: Stradivarius

Carol seeks out an old friend living alone in a wilderness teeming with walkers; survivors make the perilous trek to a new home.

Michael Cudlitz directed the episode written by Vivian Tse. 

Air Date: 11/18/18

Read our review of "Stradivarius" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 8: Evolution

A small rescue mission braves a dangerous herd in their hunt for a missing comrade, only to discover a surprising threat that could doom them all.

Michael E. Satrazemis directed the episode written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.

Air Date: 11/25/18

Read our review of "Evolution" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 9: Adaptation

The recent loss of one of their own drives the communities to band together. New leaders rise when a disturbing and dangerous threat is unmasked. An escaped captive revisits his past.

Greg Nicotero directed the episode written by Corey Reed.

Air Date: 2/10/19

Read our review of "Adaptation" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 10: Omega

A new arrival at the Hilltop opens up about the leader of a group of mask-wearing savages.  A search party sets out on a daring mission to find two missing friends. 

David Boyd directed the episode written by Channing Powell. 

Read our review of "Omega" here.

Air Date: 2/17/19

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 11: Bounty

The savage group led by Alpha confronts the Hilltop in a harrowing attempt to retrieve her daughter; a supply run for the Kingdom turns into a dangerous quest.

Air Date: 2/24/19

Read our review of "Bounty" here.

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 12: Guardians

While one community struggles to ease tensions that threaten to divide from within, the true nature of another group comes into focus; a mission to rescue a friend has deadly consequences.

Air Date: 3/3/19

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 13: Chokepoint

Daryl's daring rescue mission forces Alpha to unleash a group of her own to retrieve what belongs to her, even if the price is paid in blood; the Kingdom's plans to reunite the communities are put in jeopardy.

Air Date: 3/10/19

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 14: Scars

An outsider's arrival forces Alexandria to rehash devastating old wounds; eye-opening secrets from the past are revealed.

Air Date: 3/17/19

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 15: The Calm Before the Storm

The fair at the Kingdom is underway, with all four communities coming together in celebration for the first time in years; while some pacts are renewed, other deals will come at a much steeper price.

Air Date: 3/24/19

The Walking Dead Season 9 Synopsis

AMC has offered an official synopsis for The Walking DeadSeason "9B."

"The second half of The Walking Dead Season 9 finds our groups of survivors, both old and new, continuing to deal with the impact of events that took place during the six years that have passed. Since the disappearance of Rick, many of these characters have become strangers to each other, and in some ways, strangers to themselves. What they do know is that they are in undeniable danger. They will soon realize the world just beyond does not operate as they thought. The group’s rules and ways of survival no longer guarantee their safety. A whole new threat has crossed their paths, and they soon discover it’s unlike any threat they have encountered or endured before. The group will start to question what they think they see. What may appear to be normal in this post-apocalyptic world could actually be more disturbing and terrifying than when the apocalypse first broke out. All that is certain is the stakes are high and numerous."

The Walking Dead Season 9 Spoilers

The Whisperers have arrived on The Walking Dead. Here are all the spoiler-y details about the show's new villains. 

John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9. 

This Star Wars Resistance review contains spoilers.

Star Wars Resistance Episode 18

Star Wars is anything but subtle, but with so many people out there who fail to grasp the parallels, “The Disappeared” has Stormtroopers bursting into taverns and forcing them to display very ominous, very Nazi-like military propaganda on the counter.

It’s red and glowing, depicting three “proud” First Order soldiers standing in a row, with the clarion call to others to join, to be a part of something bigger. You really can’t get more clear than that. The only thing that Star Wars Resistance failed to do was introduce these kinds of visuals earlier, to really get the sense of the First Order’s slowly overpowering, suffocating, dangerous presence.

The background stuff is finally starting become the foreground stuff. Things are getting ugly and complicated, and they are now elements that’s driving the story and various character motivations. It’s still very wonky (there’s still three other Aces that have yet to do anything), but the germs of an overarching idea is starting to form.

No more goofy one-offs running a shop or Poe excursions that, shocker, reveal the First Order are bad hombres. We now see them actually being bad hombres to people we know and ostensibly care about, and the actual people on The Colossus are doing something instead of random fist-shaking.

I think that there’s something to the arguments that are developing among Kaz, Tam, and Neeku that feel, if not realistic, then relevant. Kaz is antagonistic, obviously, but Tam is still stubbornly pro-First Order, even as their rights and freedom (and races) are being taken away. Neeku is still playing a wishy-washy centrist role, with no clear preference either way.

further Reading: How Star Wars Resistance Tells Unique Stories

It might be frustrating to see those latter two characters fail to be alarmed in any way by the aggressive behavior and tactics of the First Order, even after they’ve heard about what happened to Kel and Elia, and witness what they do to Hype and his ship, and how they treat the actual Captain of the The Colossus, and the fact that people are literally disappearing despite the facade of the First Order supposedly protecting people. But people refusing “to get it” is pretty clearly reflective of our contemporary environment, isn’t it? Again, Star Wars is anything but subtle.

“The Disappeared” is still a kind of sloppy episode in how it tells its story, with some early focus on Hype as the races are shut down and they impound his ship, before he disappears. Then Aunt Z suddenly becomes a prominent character, loudly voicing her complaints and protests against the First Order’s behavior and propaganda before she disappears (which makes me wish that we got see her developed a bit more, especially at the end when she says she has a friend off world that could help them).

Then we follow Kaz and Torra as they investigate what happened to Hype and Aunt Z, but this occurs in the middle of the episode. Yet we don’t really get to following their investigation, which would properly build suspense; the episode instead cuts to Hype, Aunt Z, and two other “captured” people to show where they are and what’s happening to them, mostly for the gag of Aunt Z climbing on top of Hype. It’s not a smooth narrative transition, particularly since Aunt Z, as mentioned, is underdeveloped until now. But it does make the overall threat of the First Order feel more real, so… baby steps?

The episode ends with a small fight as Kaz, Torra, Hype, and Aunt Z battle the Stormtroopers, with the heroes’ dumb luck winning out again. It’s relatively silly, but the dynamic is interesting, with Hype inadvertently joining Aunt Z to meet with what I assume to be a part of the Resistance. It’s unexpected for sure, and it would be bold if the show played down the role of the “Aces” for something grander.

At least there are stakes now, the conflicts directly on the surface, and the tension reaches its peak by ending with Kaz, Tam, Neeku and Yeager all captured by the First Order. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, which is something you always want for your endgame. Star Wars Resistance just needs to tighten up its narratives considerably to really pull something out from its own wishy-washiness.

Keep up with Star Wars Resistance news and reviews here.

Kevin Johnson is a writer who loves cartoons and animation. He has written for The AVClub and Topless Robot, and has more content at his own blog here. You can also follow him on Twitter.

This Shameless review contains spoilers.

Shameless Season 9 Episode 12

After last week’s genuinely devastating cliffhanger, in which Lip commanded Fiona to leave the house, my interest was so piqued by Gallagher drama—probably for the first time in the season 9 back-half—that I went back and rewatched some of the very first season on Netflix. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I watched those early Shameless adventures, but the experience was bittersweet. While the show must go on (literally), it seems inevitable that it’ll be a different beast after Emmy Rossum makes her exit, so going back to where it began was obviously a shot of nostalgia to the bloodstream. However, it was also a few more things too: Like a reminder of how much tighter the writing was in the early seasons, as well as a strong snapshot of how much Fiona Gallagher has done for her family.

I thought it worthy of mentioning after tonight’s episode since Lip has seemingly and almost entirely forgotten those times—and also because other than when dealing with Lip and Fiona’s competing dramas, “You’ll Know the Bottom When You Hit It” really didn’t offer a whole lot in the way of what should feel like a rising crisis in the Gallagher family. In fact, Shameless broke its own golden rule by refusing to put family first for really any of the Gallaghers except, strangely, Frank. Otherwise Debbie and Carl went about their horrendous love triangle subplot that no one cares about, as if nothing that happened to Fiona mattered, Liam was AWOL, and Franny was a prop. Altogether, that feeling of camaraderie amongst the siblings in season 1 was much more tangibly, and painfully, gone by the contrast. As was my interest in Debs and Carl.

At the beginning of the episode, Shameless continued the strange tactical error of assuming we were as invested in Xan as Lip is. I understood Lip’s fury last week, even as viewers were allowed to realize that he was letting it blind him to extenuating circumstances. However, Xan wordlessly being dragged off by DFCS lacks the entire emotional component the writers’ room clearly thinks it has. Continually nigh mute, Xan doesn’t even seem that phased about losing Lip. If not for the fact she made him a bracelet, I’d have assumed she wanted to leave given how blankly the scene is written and played. And yet, we’re supposed to feel Lip’s justified wrath as he gathers Fiona’s clothes (and that antique chair Ford convinced her to buy, which is a nice touch) and throws them on the curb like garbage.

Debs watches him do this and shrugs it off. Fiona, the big sister who really acted like her mother, is being tossed from the home and none of the Gallaghers are involved in this drama, or really even trauma. Debbie doesn’t even have a conversation with Lip about how maybe she would agree that Fi should go because she fears for the health and safety of Franny. Nay, we’ve seen too many episodes of Debs being oblivious to Franny’s health; tonight, she even only registers the fact that Lip might be a dad soon because it would give Franny a playmate.

It is believable that younger siblings will take for granted their older one, just as teenagers (and Debs, it is easy to forget, is still a teenager) by and large forget the sacrifices of their parents. However, what should be the thematic crux of the episode—what to do about Fiona—is treated as just a distraction by half of the characters, including those who have the most narrative skin in the game to either defend Fi or justify why they agree with Lip. Instead they can’t be bothered, so neither can I in talking about Debs and Carl’s crap for the rest of this review.

As for Lip and Fiona, their conflict feels much more authentic. As the two oldest siblings who are always alternating in a seesaw for dominant responsibility, and perhaps more accurately power, they’ve constantly been harder on each other than they are on “the kids.” And while the show has failed to make me care about Xan—I even forgot her name when she reappeared a few weeks ago—or Jason, both acting as flashpoints for Lip seems accurate. So the evolution of their dissolution tonight felt depressingly apt. Already obsessing over Xan and the fact she will not call him back, Lip’s in a bad place before he learned that he’s freaking Tami out by demanding “a vote” in the fate of her pregnancy.

While as a viewer, and a human being, I can totally understand Lip’s abject confusion over the fact Tami has soft-ghosted him, and that her friends are now threatening him, just as I totally understand Brad getting the hell out of that room when they’ve cornered the poor bastard. With that said, Tami is more than in the right to say she gets 99 votes to Lip’s one vote about the embryo’s destiny. This will be something she has to live with for the rest of her life, a life she points out may be cut as abruptly as that of her mother’s, and Lip is still not necessarily in a great place to be a parent. While he moans about Fiona ruining his shot with DFCS, the DFCS inspector did point out tonight there is an old man sleeping on their stoop (hi, Frank.) The house is still a shit show, and his need to over-invest can backfire, just as it has with a number of relationships from the romantic (Professor Runyon) to the personal (Professor Youens), to the paternal (Xan).

I believe Lip will be there for the child no matter what, and one day he might be a good father, but the man still lives like a boy trying to be an adult in that Gallagher chaos, and his rage is blinding. Tami should not rely on Lip until she must, and right now is the perfect time to analyze the pros and cons of that, no matter how often he shows up to her place of business.

In any event, that is not the Lip-related drama that most people will be talking about. Instead I imagine it will be his tough love solution to Fiona that seems dubious at best. For Fi is falling into the dangerous world where Frank could start going by “Dad” again due to all the awful life lessons he’s bestowing. Following up on that killer final shot last week of Fiona slowly realizing she is mimicking Frank’s oblivious debauchery, this week finds Fi ready to say screw it: Let’s go all-in with Frank-tanic.

It occurs when she blows her last Patsy’s paycheck on a morning vodka at the Alibi when the power goes out all over Chicago due to a massive brownout. In great comic timing, the ensuing panic of no electricity in the height of 90-plus degree summer summons Frank out of his stupor like a dog alerted by the sound of a UPS truck. There is trouble afoot. But does Frank have a strategy on the backburner to make a profit? Of course Frank has a strategy! It involves a glorified lemonade stand that sells ice, ice cream, and anything else a remote electric generator can offer. But this time he has a secret weapon: Fiona Gallagher.

Even drunk with uncombed hair and bloodshot-eye makeup, Fiona still looks like Emmy Rossum, and therefore will certainly sell more melted ice cream cones than William H. Macy. So he recruits Fi as his boozy sidekick, and it pains me to admit that they make a terrifyingly effective team. Macy and Rossum have always had superb chemistry as a father and daughter, but they’re also a father and daughter always at war. Being able to flip that to her not only aiding but enhancing his hijinks as they run off with some poor kid’s baby swimming pool is unsettlingly natural. Fiona has slipped into Frank’s bum bemusements like it was her destiny. Which might be the grim point of this subplot.

Frank also pegs Fiona well in some of his intoxicated logic: She’s a bad drunk. Whereas Frank (thinks) everyone loves his shenanigans at the bottom of a bottle, Fiona, with vodka in hand, becomes embittered at Lip, angry at Patsy’s, and finally pissed off about a lifetime in society’s gutter. The last bit is the fairest bone to pick, so she ruins Kev’s barbecue by suggesting that they march on the North Side upon learning that all of Chicago has gotten their power back except the South Side. To be fair, that is an ugly but realistic revelation: the poorest neighborhoods are treated as the smallest priority, because no one there pays enough taxes (or campaign donations) for the politicians to care about. South Side is treated as the butt of Chicago. Yet while she rolls her eyes at Kev calling it a good day, he and the community do see this crudely half-drunk glass as still half-full. Delusional? Maybe, but still better than Fi asking a strangely mostly white crowd of South Siders to march with her in search of a fight. Stranger still, Kev with an entire bag of ice melting on his shattered ball, goes along for a miles-long march in this heat.

When it inevitably ends after the power comes back on, Fi’s enraged, but she has more immediate concerns. It seems everyone in her life has agreed that she needs to spend at least a few nights on the street before she can be helped. While I’ve never been to an AA meeting, this rings as incredibly false to me and a poor way to wring out melodrama from her death spiral. It begins when Fiona confronts Lip about her crap being on the street. The house is in her name and she nearly rips her brother’s head off to make that point. Still, he’s unimpressed and practically threatens her in return.

You know you’ve hit bottom as a family unit, however, when Frank is the voice of reason. While he mocks Lip for his AA self-righteousness, he is right when he says raising six kids as a single parent is difficult. While almost none of the Gallaghers have exactly turned out to be well-adjusted (holding out hope, Liam!), Fi did pretty well for a teenager on her own. Frank shamelessly tries to claim her credit, but the point remains that if not for Fi, Lip would’ve never finished high school and probably wound up sitting next to Frank as a permanent resident of the Alibi long before Fiona’s flirted with it this season.

Because Lip has been here. He once entertained being Frank’s drinking buddy not that long ago, and Fi didn’t disown him. So his insistence that not only will he exclude Fiona from the family home with Liam and Franny in the house—yet strangely not Frank—but also demand Veronica likewise abandon her friend as a form of tough love, plays like phony self-righteousness. His pettiness at Fiona is not out of a place of love but vindictiveness. He’s seen her spiraling for weeks, maybe even months, but he never tried to help her go to AA. He only recommends it as a commandment after already throwing her out the door, so of course she’ll only spit it back in his face. He’s not trying to help her; he’s trying to punish her.

That makes V believing his BS all the more shockingly contrived. Veronica has not had much at all to do with Fiona as she’s spiraled out of control during the back-half of season 9. I was thrilled when Rossum and Shanola Hampton finally shared a scene together early in the episode, but V never actually tried to reach out and help Fi. She just wearily judged Fiona’s obvious bad choices, but then offered her a place to stay. Given she does have young daughters, V could’ve asked for some conditions for Fiona to stay with them: Don’t come home wasted, or as long as you’re under this roof, go to AA each day. But she lets Lip convince her that the only way for Fiona to stop drinking is if they make her homeless.

The show seems to confirm Lip is right given after she wakes up in her old apartment building—which is ridiculously abandoned, a near impossibility given most of the units were full when she sold it and could not be vacated in the span of a month—she realizes she’s at rock bottom. She’s sleeping in her past glories and failures without a home, puking on herself, with Frank right next to her. It’s a nice scene for Rossum and Jeremy Allen White when she stumbles into an AA meeting, humiliated and head bowed. It also is false.

I don’t believe Lip is ready to forgive Fiona yet, because this treatment seems to be borne from a resentment that stems beyond her drinking beers in front of him. Nor do I think it will. Last week, I speculated the show was finally adjusting to Rossum’s exit, but perhaps I was mistaken. Tonight’s episode seems to have been written in a way that could’ve gone either way. It could be the culmination of Fiona’s bad mistakes, ending with her atoning and seeing the light before the finale. It would seem that the writers were still hedging their bets, not knowing yet whether Rossum would stay or go. My guess is next week will have another sharp turn, because either Fi will have to sink further to necessitate an exit, or she’ll sober up enough to realize she has a reason to be pissed off at her ungrateful siblings. I hope it’s the latter.

With the exception of Liam, who is nowhere to be seen, all of her younger siblings have completely and totally failed the woman who raised them, and even more incredulously, V threw Fi out before she even spent a single night at their house. This is forced and contorted melodrama, but given we’ve bent in that direction, I’m taking Fiona’s side. She needs a better group of friends and family than the ones she gave everything to, and who then turned their backs on her at her darkest hour. With any luck, the next two episodes end with Fi thanking them for their ingratitude by throwing away the bottle and getting the hell out of town. Lip and Debbie want to play house in the home she saved for them? Have at it. Right now though, the show is doing no favors in making us want to watch that house after Rossum’s gone, which is a bizarre choice.

Read our full Shameless Season 9 coverage and episode guide here.

Most Shameless Quotes of the Week

“Look at me, I’ve always been the most fun member of this family? Why because I get it: sobriety is a fool’s game.” – Frank.

“It’s tough raising six kids by yourself. I couldn’t have done it without her.” – Frank.

“We brought this on ourselves, you know? Global warming. Nothing to be done though, too late.  What am I going to do, turn my A/C off? If I’m a dead man walking, I want to be comfortable.” – Frank.

The following contains spoilers for True Detective Season 3.

In the end, True Detective Season 3 was a long story that healed itself. When Julie Purcell disappeared, when her brother Will was found dead in Devil’s Den, a wound opened up in the center of a small Arkansas town that proceeded to swallow the lives of Wayne and Amelia Hays, Roland West, Lucy and Tom Purcell, and many others. In particular, Wayne’s work, his marriage, and his memories were so intertwined with the case that the mystery of Julie’s disappearance was all that held his mind together to keep it from unraveling. But all of the lives that were consumed, the tears shed, and the hours spent combing through the evidence eventually lead to something growing out of all that misery. Julie Purcell escaped her captors, learned how to rebuild her life, and found love with the boy down the street, starting her own family.

The culprits in Julie’s disappearance were mostly identified by “The Final Country,” but two figures in the True DetectiveSeason 3 finale, “Now Am Found” clear up the details for good. First, a drunk, disheveled Edward Hoyt all but confirms his involvement by threatening Wayne to forget about Julie’s case. Then in 2015, Wayne and Roland finally track down the mysterious one-eyed man, Junius Watts, who lays all of the facts bare. After a terrible accident takes her daughter and husband and leaves her distraught, Isabel Hoyt sees Julie Purcell and her family at a Hoyt sponsored corporate picnic. Seeing her daughter in Julie, Isabel has her caretaker Junius inquire with Julie’s family about arranging meetings between Isabel and Julie. Lucy Purcell agrees on condition that she receive payment and also that Julie’s brother Will is able to attend the meetings to look after his sister. 

read more: True Detective Season 3 Opening Credits Explained

Isabel, Junius, Julie and Will meet regularly in the woods, but because of Isabel’s fragile state and her use of lithium, she becomes confused during one of their meetings, accidentally kills Will, and takes Julie with her to live in a secret pink room inside of the Hoyt estate. Harris James, a police officer that helped after Isabel’s accident, frames Brett Woodard with Will’s backpack and Julie’s shirt, and then pays Lucy Purcell for her silence, figuring that Lucy was eventually going to sell her daughter to the Hoyts anyway. To ease with the transition and keep Julie confused about her past, Isabel keeps Julie drugged with lithium and locked away in her room. After growing guilt, Junius helps Julie escape in 1997 and she flees, eventually finding shelter at a covenant where she rebuilds her sense of self before helping others. 

The last piece of Julie’s story is put together by Wayne after he reads a passage from Amelia’s book. Even though Julie’s family had been wiped out by the Hoyts and Harris James, a part of her past returned. Mike Ardoin, a former neighbor who harbored a crush on Julie, notices her while doing landscaping work at the covenant. This reunion was hinted at back in the 1980 timeline when Mike gives the detectives the information about the adults dressed as ghosts that he witnessed on Halloween and again when the landscaping truck was seen in episode six, “Hunters in the Dark.” When we see Mike with his daughter, Lucy, we know that the pair got married, had a daughter together, and named her after Julie’s real mother. Finally, knowing that people looking to harm Julie may come looking for her, the nuns fake her death, claiming that she passed away from an HIV infection.

read more: True Detective Season 3 Timelines Explained

Wayne gets a happy ending as well. By the season end, he’s solved the Purcell case, reunited with his long-lost partner and his daughter and has seemingly made peace with his son. Roland will be spending part of his time living with Wayne and keeping a watchful eye on him. The episode ends with a flashback to 1980, with Amelia and Wayne resolving their argument, with Wayne stating “I think I want to marry you.” We then flashback even further into Wayne’s past, witnessing him as a tracker in Vietnam, searching for something. Wayne was always searching for something it seemed, he just never realized that he had found it in Amelia, a woman who challenged him and forced him to not be his withholding self.

So in the end can it be said that True Detective Season 3 was a love story? Not just one about Wayne and Amelia Hays, but also Julie Purcell and Mike Ardoin? And even Roland West and Wayne Hays? A lot of ugliness surrounded their tales, especially Julie, but in the end, she’s allowed to lead a peaceful life, without Wayne drudging up the past. It’s a small comfort in a dark story, but it’s a comfort nonetheless. It’s a story that healed itself.

Nick Harley is a tortured Cleveland sports fan, thinks Douglas Sirk would have made a killer Batman movie, Spider-Man should be a big-budget HBO series, and Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson should direct a script written by one another. For more thoughts like these, read Nick's work here at Den of Geek or follow him on Twitter.

This True Detective review contains spoilers.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 8

True Detective season 3, episode 8, “Now Am Found,”  closes out season 3 with the most insidious twist a series as dark as this can present, a happy ending. More than just happy, it is positively uplifting. And the thing that keeps it afloat is the lies it took to get it to rise. True Detective is about deception. At the close of the last episode, Detective Wayne Hays drove off in the limo of a very important figure in the community. Edward Hoyt, here played by Michael Rooker, who sideswiped Kevin Costner's New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as he looked for the true conspirators in a presidential assassination in Oliver Stone's JFK.

We get a short flashback to Hays as campus security at a college his wife Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) teaches at in a scene somewhere between the 1990 and 2016 timelines. It is around the same time Wayne's daughter goes of to college. Then the audience learns its first lesson of the day. The most powerful man in that section of Arkansas knows everything he needs to know when he needs to know it. But is completely in the dark about things he has no desire to look into. Hoyt and his entourage take Hays out to a remote area where they can talk things out. In the midst of their battle to get information and give nothing, Hoyt blinks, and gives in to some real inside information. He opens up about his own family and answers far more than any confession can do. Rooker makes it look like an accident and then allows himself to fall into it until he swallows it with the last swig of the booze which keeps his Kentucky windage hanging to the left.

Hays and Hoyt were both soldiers, each getting a particularly bad view of combat. Hoyt has a battlefield advantage. He's got Hays and West's squad car on his corporate surveillance video and the exact location of his missing security officer Harris James through the GPS on his corporate beeper. All Hoyt wants to know is if he's going to need a shovel. Hays keeps his cool, asking if Hoyt's got anything he wants to confess. Most of the conversation is held near a steep drop. This is allegorical, but it registers physically as we see how easy it would be for either of them to topple the other, or themselves, over the side.

Deceit floats through the scene even as Hoyt warns Hays not to start the proceeding by lying to him. Hoyt gives more than he gets, because he thinks he has it all. But he is the final key to unlock some of the last mysteries. He also unlocks Detective West, who takes over as lead detective with a "goddamn right" which put such an authoritative cap on an inspiring moment. One he finds, as an old man, that he's got to pick a few locks and bolt cut some chain links, he's in. The two old and confused cops go through the tunnels of time. The pink room is all it was cracked up to be, complete with a crayon castle wall mural featuring Sir Junius with an eye patch.

read more: True Detective Season 3 Opening Credits Explained

Junius Watts is an imposing figure through much of True Detective Season 3. He roused a crowd and cowed Amelia at a book signing, though he impressed the woman who made chaff dolls for St. Michael's annual fundraisers. But when Hays and West finally confront the man, all he wants is to be punished. He admits everything. He was close to Isabel Hoyt, was deeply moved by the tragic death of her husband and child, and only wanted to help. One thing led to another and there's a death and a missing girl and a whole community up in arms. Watts even fingers Harris James as the man who picked Julie Purcell off the chicken line to arrange play dates with her soon to be new mommy. But it's the lithium that puts Watts over the edge. He sees himself as a hero, until he realizes he's truly irredeemable to himself. He says he'd welcome an execution from the two visiting ex-cops, or gladly go with them and turn himself in. Hays and West deny him both, though West does suggest if he really wants the job done right, Watts should do it himself.

The Hoyt family did not need the mechanisms of a larger cabal to get away with a generation of a family crime, which led to the deaths of several people, or to cover it up. They're just rich people who see justice with a price tag and an instinct for who's on sale. In the 90s timeline District Attorney Gerald Kindt (Brett Cullen) is another powerful man with secrets to hide. He wants Hays to throw his girlfriend Amelia under the bus for writing a piece about the cops going after a quick conviction of the West Finger killer. Hays gets busted down to secretary for D Company's public information office when he balks at signing a statement burning Amelia. But he burns her in his head. He roasts her when he drinks. Wayne and Amelia's relationship is tied in to a dead boy and a missing girl and the things they don't tell each other never allows them to be what they need to be with each other.

Amelia remembers Hays is the kind of young man to join the army because if he get hot killed, his family would get $10,000 and his mom would be rich. But he makes the point that the case killed their lives, and the only thing to fix that is to start their lives over. When pressed on how to move forward from the grievous accusations and bitter hostility he threw at Amelia at their breakup, all he can think of is marriage. There seems to be no way Wayne and Amelia can come back from their breakup. He blames her for his demotion. He blames himself for his devotion. Ejogo keeps Amelia amazingly restrained. She wills this scene into a grounding as Ali is the one about to lose gravity.

read more: True Detective Season 3 Timelines Explained

The acting throughout the third season has been phenomenal, subtle and misleading. Wayne Hays remembers more than he forgets but Mahershala Ali plays his cards too close to catch the difference between subterfuge and a fugue state. Even the scene when Hays gets lost and stumbles onto Julie Purcell and her daughter, we wonder if he really got lost or was just looking for an ending to a story. The solutions Watts gives in his mea culpa were only the details, the specifics of the case. They don't give the same sense of closure to either of the detectives, even after they have folded their hands. In the poker game of criminal justice, Hays bluffs everyone including himself, and possibly Roland West.

Stephen Dorff is equally evasive, though far more open in his deceptions. The pair feed into each other in their scenes together and bleed into each other as opposite bookends when a book is being thrown. West appears to truly empathize with victims and suspects and yet can give an angry cop glare which can elicit a confession from the most hardened perp. Hell, I've never set foot in Arkansas in my life and was thinking about copping a plea during some of the questioning.

After picking a bar fight, and doing really well until he's completely outnumbered, Roland discovers his love of dogs. The conversation that leads up to the throw-down is downright charming. Dorff is, of course, the kind of actor who can throw a baby in traffic to get away from an angry nemesis with a gun. Ali can play a piano player who's never heard Little Richard.

Ali is especially adept at capturing the physical movements of old age, even his pursed lips speak of a silent age. The pair works as long-time comrades. There is a genuine affection between the two. When Hays starts packing up his desk he promises their friendship won't end, they'll still grab a beer or go to a game, but West wants more. This is his partner and he can't believe he's leaving. And over what? Pride? West is hurt.

read more: True Detective Season 3 Ending Explained

Purple Hays is internal, observant and intuitive. One of the best timeline transitions finds him sitting in a bar with the man he used to be. True Detectivefinds a redemption we never knew was necessary. The final deception is done by the holy sisters themselves. They have always known the fate of Mary July, a young runaway they took in after a tragic early life, and it lay in a happy home. The series gives the "lawnmower man" a happy ending. In the first season, the first glimpse we got of the serial killer was him cutting a crooked circle in a patch of grass. True Detective Season 3 ends with Mike Ardoin, a landscaper, finding the love of his life. No one expects a happy ending, it is a most unexpectedly delicious twist.

True Detective season 3, episode 8, “Now Am Found,” was written by Nic Pizzolatto, and directed by Daniel Sackheim.

Keep up with everything you need to know about True Detective season 3 right here.

Culture Editor Tony Sokol cut his teeth on the wire services and also wrote and produced New York City's Vampyr Theatre and the rock opera AssassiNation: We Killed JFK. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol.

The important thing you need to know about True Detective Season 3's timelines is that they're not designed to screw with you.

Seriously. While presenting one case over three different timelines, decades apart, isn't the most straightforward way of telling a story, True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto is adamant that the timelines don't exist to trip the viewer up or obscure the truth.

"I wanted to sort of be like, 'no tricks up my sleeve,'"Pizzolatto told Den of Geek. "Because 2015 and 1990 are happening at the same time as 1980, you're sort of constantly being told what is going to happen, like, all the time, you know?"

The three timelines in True Detective Season 3 cover the case of the missing Purcell kids in West Finger, Arkansas as it develops in 1980, 1990, and then 2015. This isn't a Pulp Fiction or Roshomon-like situation where stories overlap and intersect in a dubious, non-chronological order. True Detective Season 3 is simply telling a story so big and consequential to the characters involved that it spans more than one specific period in time...just like True Detective Season 1 did.

As Detective Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) says in the season's first episode, "I used to think back then it was before 'Nam and after 'Nam. But now it’s before the Purcell case and after the Purcell case." Some things are so big and so consequential that they stick with us, even as our memories begin to fade and degrade. 

Now, just because True DetectiveSeason 3 isn't actively trying to mislead the viewer doesn't mean that the presentation of the timelines is always completely straightforward or easily understandable. Sometimes the story does bleed into other decades or we receive information in say, the 1990 timeline that we're not privy to in the 1980 timeline. 

read more: True Detective Season 3 Review

It's understandable that some may want to follow the Purcell case and the lives of Wayne, Roland West (Stephen Dorff), Amelia Reardon (Carmen Ejogo), and Tom Purcell (Scoot McNairy) in as chronologically-sound an order as possible. So here we will fully explain the True Detective Season 3 timelines. Each week we will catalog the development in the Purcell case as they happen in each of the three distinct timelines. 

True Detective Season 3 Episode 8: Now Am Found

1960-something

Purple Wayne Hays traverses through a Vietnamese jungle, searching for something. 

1980

Amelia wrote an article saying that there are a number of clues being ignored in the Purcell case and state PD is very mad. Wayne accepts a role as a glorified typist in the PR office instead of being forced to write an Op-Ed denouncing Amelia’s “sources.” His days as a detective are over…for ten years.

Wayne and Amelia have a big fight regarding the article Amelia wrote about the case. Wayne is drunk and wants her to leave. Amelia then visits Wayne at the bar. Wayne, in true Wayne fashion tells Amelia he wants to marry her.

1990

Hoyt (Michael Rooker) takes Wayne out to the mountains for their discussion. He reveals that he had a GPS tracker on Harris James (woooooah big technology, Mr. ‘90s!) and can therefore find out where Wayne buried him and prove Wayne is a murderer. This buys Wayne’s silence for more than two decades.

Wayne and Amelia have another frank discussion in a bar. Everything they have is all tied up in a dead boy and a missing girl. “You want to write your real book, write it. I probably won’t read it but it will be great. I think I should quit. Let’s put this thing down that’s not ours.” Amelia doesn’t think their problems can be solved with one date night a week or whatever it is normal couples do, but they’re going to quit their respective jobs and give it a shot anyway. 

Roland picks a fight at a bar. And he does so spectacularly, getting his ass kicked by a group of large men. Later, when he’s outside the bar at his lowest, he sees a nice stray dog. He hugs and pets him.

1990-something or 2000-something

Wayne Hays is Chief of campus security at the University of Arkansas. Amelia is a professor there. They smile at each other from across Amelia’s classroom.

2015

Wayne and Roland visit Harris James’ widow and finally get the name of the black man with a white eye who they’ve been pursuing for decades: Junius Watts.

The elderly detectives break into the Hoyt estate and uncover the pink room. There is a vast child’s drawing of a castle on the wall with three little characters: Princess Mary, Sir Junius, and Queen Isabel.

Wayne and Roland meet with Junius Watt where they get the full story of what happened to Julie and Will Purcell. You can read all about that over here. But briefly: Julie lived with the Hoyts for years to replace Isabel’s dead daughter, Mary. Junius helped Julie escape when Isabel was becoming increasing unhinged. Isabel later killed herself with pills. Junius tells the detectives that he has some bad news about Julie. 

Julie eventually made it to a convent in Fort Smith. Wayne and Roland go to visit it themselves. They discover that Julie lived here happily for years but died from complications of HIV/AIDS in 1995. Wayne and Roland run into a nice groundskeeper with a daughter named Lucy and that’s it. That’s the only ending the two old men think they’re going to get. Roland says he will come to stay with Wayne certain days of the week to keep him company and help Henry out. 

The next day, however, Wayne reads more of Amelia’s book in which she discusses Julie’s childhood friend Mike Ardoin. Mike always thought he’d marry Julie. Upon reading this, the ghost of Amelia is conjured up in Wayne’s imagination. Amelia lets Wayne in on a few more secrets. As an adult, Mike just happened to work at the convent Julie was taken in by.  They fell in love and built a happy little life together. The nuns helped to fake Julie’s death.

Wayne gets the address of Mike Ardoin and drives over there where Julie is tending to her garden with little Lucy. But just then Wayne’s memory gives out. He can’t remember why he’s there. He briefly interacts with Julie to ask where he is. She gets him some water and keeps an eye on him waiting for Henry to arrive and bring his father home safely.

Henry arrives with Becca and the two Hays kids bring their dad home where he sits in the sun and watches his grandchildren play.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 7: The Final Country

1980

Roland goes to see Tom. Tom is packing up to leave and go “nowhere.” Roland gives Tom his number.

Wayne does some dishes at Amelia’s. Amelia talks about how she’s writing an article….though maybe it will be more than just an article. Wayne kind of begrudgingly gives Amelia his blessing to write the book.

1990

Wayne arrives to a hunting tower on the outskirts of town where Tom’s body has been discovered. There is a gunshot wound to his head and a gun lying next to him. There’s a note that reads “I’m sorry. I’m going to see my wife and son.”

We find out via Elisa’s MacBook Air that back in 2015 that back in ’90, Attorney General Kindt pinned Tom for the murder and exonerated Trash Man. 

Amelia goes to see the condemned Purcell house where Lucy’s friend, Margaret is now living. Margaret shows Amelia a picture from Halloween of the kids. In the background are two “ghosts” - adults dressed in sheets. Later Amelia goes to the Saw Horse bar to ask about Lucy. The bartender saw Dan O’Brien talking to a black man missing an eye.

Dan has officially gone missing. His car is at the motel, but he is not.

When cleaning out his desk, Wayne suddenly is granted the phone records from Nevada in ’88 that he requested. Later he tells Roland that there was a phone number called 8 times the night Lucy OD’ed. It was the Security Department - Harris James’ personal line. Harris James flew to Vegas before Lucy OD’ed and flew back after. After much discussion, Wayne finally convinces Roland to go “talk” to Harris themselves instead of escalating the news up the chain.

Wayne and Roland pull Harris James over in the dead of night. They abduct him and bring him to one of the many abandoned cabins in the woods. They beat him senseless to the point where Harris says he needs to be un-handcuffed because he thinks he’s punctured a lung or something serious. When they do, Harris reaches for Wayne’s gun and Roland shoots him dead.

Roland is upset to say the least about Wayne convincing him to go along with it. In a string of insults he stops just short of saying the “N” word. “Say it. Say it, motherfucker,” Wayne says. “No. I just want you to know I’m thinking it,” Roland replies.

Wayne returns home and burns his bloody clothes in a fire pit. Amelia sees him doing it but he says he can’t talk about why. The next morning Wayne still refuses to talk to Amelia but then he gets a call to the house. It’s from Edward Hoyt, himself. He’s outside in a fancy car. “I think we may have some things to discuss,” Hoy says. I’d like to discuss the events of last night as I understand them. I could come inside if you’d like.”

Wayne goes outside and is ushered into the backseat of a car, which speeds off.

???

A new timeline appears! Sometime between 1990 and 2015, Wayne drives Becca to college. He’s very sad to see his daughter flee the coop.

2015

“Did you ever think it was possible Tom didn’t commit suicide?” Elisa asks Wayne. Turns out there was a contusion at the base of Tom’s skull that suggested a killing blow. 

Roland turns up to Wayne’s interview with Elisa. Elisa finally drops all pretenses and asks what she wants to ask “Did any of Amelia’s research suggest a larger conspiracy? Like a cover up?” Elisa reveals that there was a black man with a missing eye who went by “Watts” going around looking for Julie. She brings up the fact that there were actiive pedophile rings in Nebraska and Louisiana in which the world’s rich and powerful mixed the occult with child abuse (here we get to see some newspaper clippings of our old friends Rust and Marty!).

Instead of responding warmly to this new evidence as one would expect, he excuses himself permanently from the interview process. “I’m tired of walking through the graveyard. The story is over for now,” he says. 

Wayne and Roland meet with a woman who used to be a housekeeper at the Hoyt mansion. She knows Harris James. She also knows that the Hoyts had a daughter who never left the estate. One night she took the car out and put it through the guardrail. The girl was watched over by a black gentleman with a white eye named Mr. June.

Later Wayne and Roland talk about Amelia. Wayne reveals that Amelia “talked” to him the other day. The conversation is interrupted, however, when Wayne sees a car outside…a real car this time. Wayne goes outside to antagonize the driver of the car. Roland gets a picture of the license plate as it speeds off.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 6: Hunters in the Dark

1980

“Hell of a day when a gun fight’s the second most exciting thing that happens to you,” Wayne says in a post-coital glow with Amelia. They discuss how due to his time in the war Wayne doesn’t spend much time remembering the past.

Wayne discovers that he’s been cleared in the Woodard shooting. Unfortunately he also learns that the AG is pinning the Will and Julie murders (yes, murders) on Woodard. Wayne disagrees with this call. “No. This isn’t all of it,” he says. Later AG Kent holds a press conference to announces that the cops have their (dead) man.

1990

The call from Julie (which came from a pay phone at a truck stop) certainly sounds like an indictment of Tom so Wayne and Roland are forced to roughly interrogate their little buddy. Tom plum loses his mind when he learned about the peephole in Will’s closet and starts screaming, bestial. 

Wayne is wearing real ties now. He and Amelia have an oblique conversation suggesting that neither of them is happy with their home lives. 

Wayne and Roland talk to Tom’s mechanic boss from 1980. They discover that Tom was on the outs even before the case due to his drinking and the fact that his co-workers found out he was a likely homosexual. The detectives later search Tom’s home and discover a Christian pamphlet reading “Homosexuality can be cured.”

Wayne and Roland catch up with Harris James. He’s the chief security officer at Hoyt Foods now. It’s a much cushier gig than his previous life as a highway patrol officer. Wayne clearly believes that Harris was paid off to plant evidence.

Amelia visits a home for young women in need. She meets with a young girl who knew Julie. Julie went by Mary or Mary Julie or Mary July. She would routinely talk about being a Queen in a Pink Castle. 

Amelia later holds a reading for her recently published book, Life and Death and the Harvest Moon. While there, a black man with a milky eye  (Sam Whitehead) approaches her and publicly shames her for profiting off the story of the Purcells. 

Our old friend Dan O’Brien calls the Purcell hotline and wants to meet with Wayne and Roland. They meet the very high and very paranoid O’Brien at a waffle joint where he says he wants $7,000 in return for information he has about Will and Julie’s disappearance. He reveals that Lucy was his stepsister and they…uh…used to be intimate. He also intimates that Lucy was murdered.

As the Arkansas state PD is contemplating Dan’s “offer,” Tom is let out of his holding cell and happens to hear the news about Dan. Drunk and fully off the wagon, Tom tracks Dan down to the cheap motel he knows he likes to stay at. Tom pulls a gun on Dan and demands to know about the peephole in Will’s closet. Dan insists that he knows nothing about it. Dan then reveals that he knows who was financing Lucy’s trip out west and therefore also knows who would have a problem with her asking for more money. 

Tom makes his way, still drunk, to the Hoyt mansion. He breaks in as someone watching him on the security feed. He makes his way to the basement and uncovers an almost literal dungeon. At the end of the dungeon hallway is a room…an all-pink room.

Tom views something in front of him and says “The hell….Julie?” Someone in a suit approaches him from behind.

Meanwhile Wayne and Roland have an argument about Wayne’s clearly obsessive involvement in the case. Roland intimates that Wayne doesn’t want to go home to his family and Wayne angrily demands to be let out of the car. Wayne walks back to the Purcell’s condemned home in the dead of night. There he discovers that what he thought was a “peephole” was likely just a way for Julie and Will to pass messages back and forth.

2015

Elisa says that the Julie phone call ended up being a real turn in the case. She also intimates that Tom eventually joined Lucy and Dan O’Brien as people who died as a result of this case. 

Elisa is kind of all over Wayne, to the point where it seems as though she’s trying to get him to confess to something. “I wonder if one day they’ll drain a quarry with him in it,” she says of Harris James. She also purses a line of questioning regarding Harris James that is almost identical to her conversation with Wayne yesterday. Wayne gets overwhelmed and says he is done for the day. 

Wayne reveals to Henry that he knows he’s having an affair with Elisa. How does Wayne know? “I’m still your daddy, boy. Also I was once a fair to middling detective.” Wane and Henry then have a frank conversation about fatherhood, family, and their various regrets. “Y’all made a coward of me,” Wayne tells his son. “I’ve been terrified since the day you were born. Maybe you know what I mean. Can’t hold back anything from the people you love.”

Later Wayne tells Roland what he knows about the peephole in Will’s closet - that the kids used it to pass notes. He also tells Roland that Elisa mentioned Harris James again. Wayne goes to the bathroom and when he returns he is surprised to see Roland. He asks Roland to check out the window to see if there’s a dark sedan on the street. There isn’t.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 5: If You Have Ghosts

1980

There’s a slaughter at Trash Man’s place. The lead hick kicks open the door, only to be blown apart by a claymore. Trash Man starts shooting from a broken window with a semi-automatic rifle. Several more Arkansas locals and some Arkansas police are killed. One accidentally shoots Roland in the leg in the process. In the melee, Wayne gets the drop on Trash Man and is forced to kill him.

Wayne is beside himself at the hospital, waiting for Roland to get out from sedation. Amelia comes to visit him and Wayne goes home with her where they make weird love for the first time.

A cop finds Will’s oddly pristine backpack under Woodard’s front porch.

1990

The new task force places an APB out on Julie but is keeping the public out of it this time. They run through what they know about the particulars of the case. Lucy OD’ed in a hotel room in Paradise, Nevada in 1988. Dan O’Brien last turned up in Vegas in ’87. 

Tom is forced to hold a tearful press conference to address Julie. Guess we’re not keeping the public out of it after all. David and Josie Woodard, Trash Man’s kids, want their father’s name finally cleared.

Roland and Wayne interview Freddie Burns as an adult. He’s not doing too well and clearly blames Wayne’s rough treatment of him as a kid as the cause. Freddie mentions coming across Julie on the night in question and her saying “I don’t know where they went,” referring to her brother and another unknown person.

Roland and Wayne interview a transient familiar with Julie. She said her name was Mary July. She couldn’t get straight what year it was. Said she was a secret princess. She’s a Princess from the Pink Rooms. She said she lost her brother and was looking for her brother. 

Wayne and Amelia visit Roland and his lady friend, Laurie, in the Foxwood suburbs. Roland’s lady friend just happens to be the same woman he chatted up at the church all those years ago. Amelia wants to talk about the case naturally and Wayne has an angry meltdown in from of Roland and Laurie. 

Back at home Wayne reveals that he’s upset Amelia flirted with Salisaw. But he’s really upset with the fact that he sees her as “voyeur.” Wayne has a complicated relationship with this case. He’s obsessed with it and clearly so is Amelia but he’s upset that Amelia is obsessed with it. Thankfully Henry and Becca remind their parents that they’re never supposed to go to bed without saying “I love you.” The whole family reads The Jungle Book as Wayne hallucinates seeing his ‘80s self outside the window.

Wayne is getting pretty intense on the new task force already. He stays up all night and snaps at an evidence processor when he sees there are some fingerprints missing from a file. His obsession pays dividends, however, when he realizes that the backpack at Woodard’s was most certainly planted. As was Julie’s shirt that they found in the fire print. He brings this evidence to Roland who seems at a loss. If they bring this information to Allen or Kent, the task force will get shut down.

A call comes into the hotline from Julie. Wayne, Roland, and Tom all listen to the recording in horror. It says, in full: “You’re looking for me. I saw on the television. I saw him on the television. Leave me alone. Make him leave me alone. That’s not my real name. Tell him to leave me alone. I know what he did. The man on TV acting like my father. Where’s my brother, Will? I don’t know what he did with him. We left him resting. No you won’t. You work for them. Tell him to leave me alone. He took me and I’m never coming back. Just leave me alone.”

2015

Elisa tells Wayne that Harris James, one of the officers who processed the Woodard scenes, went missing during the second investigation. Wayne says he didn’t know this. Elisa can’t help but point out that a lot of people involved in this thing are dead.

Wayne finally begins to read Amelia’s book. “Babe, I should have read this a long time ago,” he says after gleaning some important information about the letter left at the Purcells. He then has a bit of a freak out, seeing the brown car outside, and thinking that young Henry and Becca are missing.

We finally catch up with Old Man Roland. He has lots of nice doggies. LOTS of them. Big ones and little ones who all like breakfast. Wayne arrives with Henry and is surprised to see Roland lives alone out in the wilderness now. He was always a people person. Roland is pissed with Wayne but Wayne can’t remember why. They haven’t spoken in 24 years. Roland threw all the accolades from his career into the White River.

Wayne and Roland talk about the TV people and Wayne tells Roland the news about Harris James and Dan O’Brien. “How you gonna talk to these people with what we’ve done?” Roland asks Wayne. What if he accidentally reveals something? It’s clear that Roland and Wayne did something monstrous back in ’90. Perhaps even killed Harris or Dan. Wayne mentions that he believes Lucy left the note herself, just to help Tom move on.

Roland begrudgingly agrees to once again join Wayne and finish this investigation once and for all.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 4: The Hour and the Day

Read our review here.

1980

Roland and Wayne arrive at St. Michael’s Church of the Ozarks to investigate the photo of Will in prayerful repose. The children in the first communion photos are posed similarly to the way Will was in death. Their hands are folded in prayer, and Will is the only one who has his eyes closed in the photo. The priest says he took the shots himself, and guesses that Will probably blinked. He also says Will and Julie were good kids and part of a youth group. Last time the pastor saw Julie was excited about seeing an aunt. Julie doesn’t have any aunts…

The pastor is also able to identify the chaff doll. Patty Faber makes those for the church fair. Wayne is starting to believe that Will died defending his sister. This was always about the girl. 

Wayne and Roland pay Patty Faber a visit. She says a black man with a dead eye bought 10 dolls off of her at the fair for his nieces and nephews. Wayne and Roland head to Davis Junction past the railroad tracks where most of the black community in northwest Arkansas lives. The trip does not go well. A liquor store operator identifies Sam Whitehead as the man with the deadeye but Sam says lots of folks here have dead eyes. Wayne and Roland barely escape.

Wayne and Roland get alibis and fingerprints from everyone at the church. They’re reasonably certain the killer attended that church. Roland wants to attend the church now having seen how many attractive single women attend. Roland spots a cute believer and realizes "God is love."

Wayne and Amelia have a fancy dinner. Amelia reveals herself to basically be a My Favorite Murder listener and the two have a pretty sexual conversation. Roland is called to the Saw Horse bar on the edge of town where poor Tom has gotten his ass kicked. Tom realized that Lucy was screwing her boss and pitched a fit. Now Roland takes the poor guy back to his place. “I can’t be in that house, man. Every inch of that place is them kids. I can’t sleep there. I just want to die all the time,” Tom says.

Amelia visits Lucy to drop off some of the kids’ stuff. She tells Lucy that if she’s holding any information back, she has to tell Wayne. Lucy does not react to this well. At first, Lucy first opens up but then accuses Amelia of judging her and trying to get information for her cop-boyfriend, Wayne. 

Wayne and Roland confer with their FBI counterparts on the case, who tell them their prosecutor is going to appear on the talk show Donahue.

Meanwhile, Roland and Wayne interrogate Freddie Gibbs again because his prints turned up on Will’s bike. Turns out Freddie was just an asshole who stole Will’s bike and drunkenly crashed it into a tree in the woods. Wayne gives another chilling description of prison rape, but when Freddy breaks down they conclude he had nothing to do with Will's murder.

Brett “Trash Man” Woodard enrages the local hicks once again by innocently asking their kids for a can to recycle. The gang pursues Trash Man in a fleet of pick up trucks but Trash Man guides them back to his house, which he has booby trapped. One of the men kicks in the door that we know to be rigged with a claymore and..credits.

1990

Wayne and Amelia have a fight about the Purcell case. Wayne is upset that Amelia has so much ambition, Amelia is upset Wayne has none. They settle the argument with some aggressive lovemaking. Wayne and Amelia block their kids from the fight but can't hide the make up sex from their grinning kids.

Attorney General Kent comes to a meeting with Wayne and Roland. Kent wants Roland and Wayne to find evidence to uphold the original conviction, and also says Wayne might be able to get his career back if he does. Roland assures Wayne that he has no intentions of following the AG’s directive. Roland walks with a noticeable limp now. Wayne reminds the task force they may not be the only people looking for the decade-long missing girl and they are racing against a clock. 

Roland and Wayne visit the Sallisaw PD where they are able to view the CCTV footage from the Walgreens. Wayne sees Julie in the grainy black and white image.

2015

Wayne turns up at the Arkansas State police department to see his son, Henry. Turns out he’s a cop as well. Henry is concerned that remembering the case drove his father to have an episode, showing up at an old investigation scene. Wayne asks him for help looking up a few old things and for help finding Roland. 

Wayne goes to Elisa at her hotel room. Wayne makes a deal with her. He’ll continue to participate in the documentary but he also really wants to know what else her researches have uncovered. She agrees and as a teaser lets him know that Dan O’Brien’s body was uncovered some time ago.

Wayne is home at night processing his thoughts about new evidence into the tape recorder. It sounds like he is addressing Becca directly in the recorder. “I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself, losing track of you like that,” he says and then reiterates he failed over and over again. Vietnamese soldiers appear all around him in his room as he mourns his failures.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 3: The Big Never

Read our review here.

1980

The detectives analyze the letter left delivered to the Purcell’s. The address was handwritten so they’re not dealing with a brainiac. They can’t glean any other meaningful clues from it though. Wayne and Roland are feeling like they’re missing something big. They want to walk the case back all the way to the beginning. Wayne suggests talking to Will’s friend Ronnie Boyle again.

As it turns out, Ronnie wasn’t really a good friend of Will - Will clearly used “going over to Ronnie’s house” as an excuse to leave the house unsupervised. Wayne and Roland deliver this rough news to Tom and Lucy and ask to look through the kids’ things again. Roland discovers a little map among Will’s drawing. To my untrained eye it kind of looks like the woods where Will’s body was discovered. Wayne finds some disturbing note cards in Julie’s notebook that read “Don’t Listen” and “I’ll Always Keep You Safe.” He also finds a bag from Hoyt Foods. Lucy confirms that she worked there briefly in the chicken department.

Wayne and Roland pay a visit to Hoyt Foods. The company has set up an Ozark Children’s Outreach Center that is offering a cash reward for the discovery of Julie. Wayne and Roland are annoyed that they haven’t coordinated with the county prosecutor’s office but it turns out they have. Looks like county prosecutor is not coordinating with THEM. Wayne and Roland ask for the names and start dates of every Hoyt Foods worker - all 700 of them.

Later in the headquarters of the Julie Purcell Special Task Force, Wayne and Roland go over some of the evidence they’ve acquired. Wayne looks at drawings of a kitchen interior and an ornate castle that Julie drew. Roland ponders a secret Dungeons and Dragons-like game that Will used to play. But with whom? “All this stuff’s about that game,” Roland says. “Couldn’t find his dice but I’m not seeing anything - except he played a lot. The other kids didn’t play with him.”

Wayne and Amelia join another search party, combing the woods for clues. Wayne confirms to Amelia that he used to track men in the war. Amelia marched against the war. “Funny how the protests stopped once the draft ended,” Wayne says. Wayne then finds some dice in the woods and a backpack with toys in it. He also finds some blood and hair on a nearby rock. This is where Will was killed and his body was dragged to the cave. 

Wayne and Roland discover a pretty impressive farmhouse just outside the woods where Will died. Wayne and Roland confirm that no one has spoken to the owner of this house yet so they knock on the door to interview the farmer inside. The man says someone has spoken to him already actually. “Normal guy. White. Suit. Showed me a badge.” The farmer says that he had seen Will and Julie before, playing in the woods. Not many people come down this road. Just Will and Julie mostly…and a brown car that contained a black woman and a white woman. Wayne and Roland secure a warrant to search the farmer’s property but find nothing of note. 

They then show Tom and Lucy the toys they discovered in the woods but they don’t recognize them. Tom is sure he never bought these toys for the kids. Wayne discovers a photo album that contains a picture of Will with his hands help up in prayer like they were in death.

Meanwhile, Brett “Trash Man” Woodard is driving around town in his little go-cart, wanting to pick up trash in peace. Some Ozark good ol’ boys confront and harass him. They beat up Trash Man, telling him to stay away from their kids. Trash Man rushes home to his Trash Home and retrieves a large duffle bag from under a table and carries it outside.

1990

This episode actually opens up in 1990 with Roland’s deposition. It is May 17, 1990 and Roland is speaking to the same two men Wayne was. After glossing over why he was late to the scene of the letter (beating up a pedophile), Roland continues his narrative.

“Wayne had the idea that those kids were telling stories and he was right. Y’all fucked a good detective, you know that, right?” Roland says. Roland tried to get Wayne transferred over twice. Major declined both times. Roland and Wayne don’t talk anymore. They were good friends. But they just had that relationship where it stops when it stops. “Once we stopped working together. We just stopped. Sometimes it’s just like that with some people,” he says.

Wayne and Amelia sit in their car in front of a Walgreens, apparently the same one Julie burglarized in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. A whole lot of HBO viewers (including me) are about to find out that Northwest Arkansas borders Oklahoma. Fayetteville, where True Detective Season 3 was filmed, is about a one hour drive from Sallisaw. Anywho, Wayne seems to be at the end of this rope with this case. He wants to know more about Julie’s prints so he can be done with this. He can’t talk to Sallisaw PD…but Amelia can. She’s a true crime journalist after all.

Amelia secures pictures of Julie’s prints. They didn’t find any behind the pharmacy, just on the shelves. Amelia returns home to Wayne following drinks with a Sallisaw police officer (she really enjoyed her role as honey pot). Wayne is livid that Amelia is enjoying this. This case is hell for him. Just earlier that he briefly lost his daughter Becca in a Walmart and full on panicked. 

Following his deposition Roland visits Tom in a trailer home. Tom seems to be doing ok. We can tell because he shaved his mustache and is drinking coffee and not beer. Lucy, unfortunately, didn’t survive the past ten years. “I think of Lucy. I wish she was still around to hear this. Two years ago now,” Tom says. Lucy died in Las Vegas and Tom had her body brought back. He has been five years sober. He and Roland are quite close now and Roland agrees to pray with Tom.

Roland meets a surly Wayne at the VFW. There’s a new task force and Roland is leading it. 

“That promotion for merit or did it come with the pigmentation?” Wayne asks.

“I think unlike some others I lacked a big fucking mouth.” Roland says. 

Wayne’s big mouth clearly got him in trouble at some point ten years ago. Also Roland was shot at some point ten years ago. Wayne agrees to join Roland’s task force.

2015

Wayne and Henry are at a doctor’s office. Wayne maintains that he went to the Purcell home in a fugue state for a reason, he just can’t remember. The doctor insists to Wayne that he has a condition but stops short of saying the word…Alzheimer’s, presumably. Wayne tells Henry “I told you. You try putting me in a home and I’ll off myself.”

Later Wayne resumes interviewing with Elisa (who is on a first name basis with Henry, which I find…interesting). “Do you feel there was sufficient coverage of the neighborhood during canvassing?” Elisa asks. Wayne does but then Elisa points out that many people have since come forward to say they were never interviewed by police. Two of these witnesses saw a nice brown sedan driving around the neighborhood and then driving away from Devil’s Den. A boy even remembers seeing a black man with a scar in a suit at Devil’s Den. Wayne recalls tire tracks he saw near the scene.

That night Wayne retreats to his room to go over all this new evidence. He then begins to hallucinate. Amelia shows up in his room and has LOTS to say to him. Here’s a sampling: 

“Einstein said past, present, and future were all a persistently stubborn illusion.”

“At the end of all things, are you awake to what you withheld? Did you confused reacting with feeling? Did you confuse compulsion with freedom? Did you harden your heart with what loved you most? Oh sweetheart, did you think you could just go on and not once have to look back?”

Wayne eventually responds with, “Where is it? How much do I have to lose?”

“Everything. Same as everyone else,” Specter Amelia says.

“I lost Becca.”

“No you didn’t. Not the way you think. You’re worried what they’ll find. What you left in the woods.”

Huh.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 2: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

Read our review here.

1980

The events of the Purcell case in 1980 are pretty jam packed in True Detective Season 3 Episode 2. Here's as brief a rundown as possible for you clue hunters and clarity seekers. 

It appears as though Will Purcell died of a broken neck. Shortly after Will's autopsy, Wayne and Roland conduct an interrogation with Brett Woodard a.k.a. Trash Man. Wayne, Roland, and Brett all seem to understand one another quite well due to their time fighting in the Vietnam War. Brett has clearly been deeply affected by his time there. He can't seem to fathom how Wayne and Roland can just wear suits and clock in, day in and day out, after what they've seen. 

The local police department and city prosecutor, Judd Kent* hold a big conference for the town at the West Finger Community Center to air their concerns. Suffice it to say, they are very concerned. Never fear though because the FBI is here! They will be leading the search for the missing Julie Purcell while Arkansas State PD continues to lead the murder investigation of Will Purcell. Wayne hands Amelia a photo of the doll he discovered by Will's body and asks her if the kids know anything about it. She says she'll look into it. 

*HBO hasn't provided an official name or title for this character so I'm just going off of context clues and what I hear phonetically.

Wayne and Roland attend Will's funeral. There they encounter Lucy's cousin Dan O'Brien. He's a shifty dude but currently lives in Missouri and offers up some solid alibis. Then they speak with Tom's parents. Tom's mom, Louise, makes it clear that she hates Lucy and that she believes Julie may not even be Tom's child. 

Amelia's detective work with the kids pays off! One of Julie's classmates says that someone was passing out those creepy dolls on Halloween (just seven days before Will and Julie went missing). With the help of Wayne's Jedi impression (kids love Star Wars), the detectives learn the exact route that the kids took while trick or treating on Halloween. One of those houses undoubtedly provided the doll.

Wayne and Roland propose to Judd Kent that they keep this information to themselves and institute an expansive surveillance patrol with the entire Arkansas PD in the neighborhoods that the kids trick or treated on. Judd Kent doesn't seem very open to the idea. Sure enough, that very night when Wayne is getting drinks with Amelia, Judd publicizes the Halloween route via press conference. Judd is trying to get elected to higher office and constituents don't like being spied on as it turns out.

“I knew they wouldn’t listen to me but you should have stopped that,” Wayne later tells Roland angrily

“Why didn’t you stop them?" Roland shoots back.

"They aint my tribe," Wayne says.

Wayne and Roland are discouraged by how the week's events have played out. Their best lead, the Halloween route, has now been shot to shit and the town is in a panic. So they do what any Pizzolatto-ian hero would do: they look for a pedophile to beat up. 

Roland has received the name of sex criminal, Theodore Grange, from a contact in Vice. Teddy is in West Finger living under an assumed name. Roland and Wayne essentially abduct him from a bar and beat him up in an abandoned barn. While Teddy is in "custody," Wayne and Roland do some police work on him and discover that his alibi during the Purcell disappearance is rock solid. Still they throw him in the trunk of thier car and drive hm out of town, effectively exiling him from West Finger.

Meanwhile, Tom and Julie Purcell have received an anonymous note at their home. It reads: "Do not worry Julie is in a good place and safe. the children shud laugh. do not look. let go.”

1990

Wayne wants to know more about Julie Purcell in Oklahoma so he and Alan meet at a local restaurant. The print recovered from the scene is Julie's full print and there's surveillance footage but the cops have to wait for some red tape to clear to see it. 

“You alright going up against your old boss?” Wayne asks Alan.

“It’s overdue," he responds.

Alan's "old boss," Judd Kent, is now the Arkansas State Attorney.

The two discuss the past a little more. They concur that Roland has done well for himself but don't say what he's up to just yet. 

Wayne returns home from the deposition to his wife, Amelia and his two kids, Henry and Becca. Amelia shows Wayne an early copy of her upcoming book about the Purcell case. It's called Life and Death and the Harvest Moon. Wayne is a bit out of it tonight and Amelia doesn't like it when he's that way in front of the kids. Wayne tells her that Julie is still alive. 

2015

Wayne visits the West Finger Community Center with Henry. It's fallen into ruin but the sight of it is helping bring memories back. Wayne reveals that the last time he saw Becca was at Amelia's funeral.

Elisa introduces Wayne to the magic of true crime obsessives on the Internet. The Purcell case is breathlessly covered by sites like True Crime Diva and True Crime Truant. Wayne is impressed. 

Wayne tells Elisa that what happened in 1990 led to him leaving the force. The prosecuting attorney decided to take their best evidence and just toss it all over town. They got 400 tips in the first few days and the town was in a real panic. Most intriguingly, Wayne then acknowledges that the event that got him to leave the force was "what happened to Julie and her father." Not our sweet Tom!

Following the iterview with Elisa, Wayne has dinner with Henry, his wife and their two kids. 

Maybe you guys can see about getting Becca out here. I’d like to see her," Wayne says. 

Henry's wife informs Wayne that Becca lives in Los Angeles pursuing a music career. She doesn't like coming back home. She probably wouldn't come back for a visit. The tone in which they're speaking suggests that something really awful happened to the Hays family that potentially caused a fracture in relations. 

Wayne takes in this news about Becca for a moment then says again, "Maybe you guys can see about getting Becca out here. I’d like to see her.” Henry leaves the table, frustrated with his father's failing memory. 

Wayne comes to outside of his running car. It's the dead of night and he's wearing his nightgown and standing at the corner of Shoepick and Briarpatch. This is where the Purcells lived but the house is now in ruins.

True Detective Season 3 Episode 1: The Great War and Modern Memory

Read our review here.

1980

The very first moments of True Detective Season 3 take place in 1980. We know this not because of a time stamp that appears on the screen but because we see a boy riding his bicycle with a baseball card attached to the spoke of the wheel. That, my friends, is the '80s. Later on we're given a more precise date by 1990 Wayne Hays in voiceover. It's Friday, November 7, 1980 - the day Steve McQueen died.

Arkansas state police Wayne Hays and Roland West are enjoying a relaxing night of drinking, chatting, and shooting rats when they receive a call on their radio. There's a report of missing persons at a home on Shoepick Lane. Wayne and Roland arrive at the Purcell household where Tom Purcell says his children, Will and Lucy have not returned home despite being instructed to do so by 5:30 p.m. According to Wayne's watch, it is now 9:30 p.m. Central Time. He immediately instructs the other arriving officers to put out an All Points Bulletin about the missing children. 

Meanwhile Wayne and Roland investigate the house with Tom's blessing. Their first theory is that the absent mother, Lucy (Mamie Gummer) has run off with the kids. That theory is disproven almost immediately when Lucy arrives back to the house drunk and sans children. The only suspicious thing that Wayne and Roland discover are some Playboy magazines under the bed in Will's room and a little hole drilled into the wall in the closet of the same room that provides a peek into Julie's room. Lucy informs Wayne and Roland that her cousin, Dan O'Brien, lived with them a few months ago and stayed in Will's room.

Wayne doesn't go to sleep that first night. The next day he and Roland visit the West Finger K-12 School that Will and Julie attended. They learn that Will and Julie may have attended a party or two that the older kids have at a place called "Devil's Den." Wayne also meets beautiful teacher Amelia Reardon. 

Later that day Wayne and Roland investigate the home of local "Trash Man" Brett Woodard. Brett is so-named Trash Man because of his penchant for digging through the town's trash, looking for treasures. His home reflects his Trash Man moniker. Then they join a search party combing through the Ozark woods. Wayne, a talented tracker from his time in Vietnam, goes off on his own, following a trail that only he can see. Deep within the rock ledges of the woods, Wayne discovers a creepy wicker doll that resembles a faceless nun. Then in a cave Wayne finds the body of Will Purcell, well preserved and its hands held up as though in prayer. 

Wayne calls Roland and the rest of the searchers over then announces he is going back into the woods to find Julie, even though it's now dark. 

1990

We're introduced to 1990 Wayne Hays early on. Right after the shot of the boy and his bicycle, in fact. A chyron on the screen reveals that it is May 12, 1990 and this is a deposition. Wayne is speaking to Alan Jones (Jon Tenney), a prosecutor he's familiar with, and another prosecutor he is not familiar with. Wayne mentions that his wife, Amelia, is writing a book about the 1980 Purcell case.

Wayne is here to discuss the Purcell case of 1980 because the family of someone convicted in that crime is seeking to overturn the conviction. Alan Jones is OK with this attempt. The reason Alan is OK with this is that some new, incredibly compelling evidence has turned up. Julie Purcell is still alive. Her fingerprints turned up in a robbery of a Walgreen's pharmacy in Salazar, Oklahoma. 

2015

An elderly Wayne Hays wakes up and listen to a message that he's recorded for himself. The message says: “You have memory problems. Don’t whine about it. Today is May 20, 2015. Henry is coming over with people from the TV. But remember why you talking to ‘em. Figure out how much they know. Don’t need no surprises.”

It turns out that a documentary crew for the TV show called "True Criminal" is visitng Wayne at his home to talk about the Purcell case of 1980 and 1990. The host of True Criminal, a young woman named Elisa Montgomery, mentions that Amelia's book about the Purcell case is now considered a literary classic of the non-fiction true crime genre. Wayne speaks about his wife in a way that suggests she is dead. 

Wayne alludes to the story of the "Trash Man" to Elisa and then says "anyways, you know what happened with him.” Shortly after that Wayne becomes agitated recalling the details of Vietnam vet Brett "Trash Man" Woodard's scattered apartment and tells Elisa that he needs to stop the day. Wayne retreats to his study and his son, Henry (Ray "Cyborg" Fisher) ushers the crew out for Wayne.

Alec Bojalad is TV Editor at Den of Geek and TCA member. Read more of his stuff here. Follow him at his creatively-named Twitter handle @alecbojalad

HBO has released a 2019 lineup trailer, and it's jam-packed with all sorts of exciting things, including Maisie Williams’ Arya Stark getting a first eyeful of a dragon and clearly quite enjoying it. 

There's a lot more, besides. HBO has a lot of terrific-looking projects materializing this year. 

Ok, let's have a look at this trailer, then...

So we've got Zendaya in Euphoria, HBO's version of the hit Israeli series of the same name. The Righteous Gemstones, a new Danny McBride comedy creation starring none other than John Goodman about a famous televangelist family (yes please). Kathryn Hahn in Mrs. Fletcher, Emma Thompson in Years And Years, a first look at the Deadwood movie (sweet Lord), more new footage from the final season of Game Of Thrones (dragon-heavy), His Dark Materials (more here), Damon Lindelof's Watchmen adaptation, a suspicious Meryl Streep in Big Little Lies season 2, plus Silicon Valley andBarry and loads more! Phew.

This showcase at least seems to indicate that HBO will NOT be slacking in 2019.

Oliver Queen certainly hasn't failed his network. Arrow Season 7 is back on the CW!

Arrowkicked off the CW's incredible interconnected universe of DC superhero TV shows, and nobody, least of all this writer, would ever expect a show about Green Arrow would end up being one of the longest-running, most successful superhero TV shows in history. That's what happens when you get a great cast together and consistently deliver some of the most insane action and stuntwork on TV each week, now under new showrunner, Beth Schwartz.

Arrow Season 8 has been confirmed! More on that here.

“As The CW expands to a six-night, Sunday through Friday schedule next season, we are proud to have such a deep bench of great returning series for 2018-19,” said CW president Mark Pedowitz in a statement. “By picking these ten series up for next season, we have a terrific selection of programming to choose from when we set our fall schedule in May, with more still to come.”

Read our review of the most recent episode here.

Arrow Season 7 Return Date

The next episode of Arrow is called "Brothers and Sisters" and it airs on March 4. Here's the official synopsis...

"After months of covertly pursuing Dante, Diggle (David Ramsey) and Lyla (guest star Audrey Marie Anderson) finally have a solid lead on the elusive terrorist, so they deploy the ARGUS Ghost Initiative to apprehend him.  Meanwhile, Oliver (Stephen Amell) tries to bond with Emiko (Sea Shimooka)."

Check out the trailer...

That's all we know at the moment, but we'll update this with more details as they become available.

Arrow Season 7 Episodes

Here's our ongoing, updated guide to Arrowseason 7 episodes and reviews.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 1: Inmate 4587

"Following Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) shocking decision to turn himself over to the FBI and reveal his identity as the Green Arrow to the public, Oliver has spent the past five months in Slabside Maximum Security Prison.  Determined to keep a low profile to shorten his sentence for the sake of his family, Oliver is tested when he runs into old foes. Meanwhile, Diggle (David Ramsey) and Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) have taken on new jobs and left their costumes behind but not everyone is following suit. With her focus on William (guest star Jack Moore), Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) tries to start over but when someone from her past resurfaces, things become complicated."

airdate: 10/15/18

read our full review of the Arrow season 7 premiere right here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 2: Longbow Hunters

"In order to track down Diaz from inside prison, Oliver realizes that will require aligning with an old enemy. Meanwhile, in Star City, Felicity’s attempts to root out Diaz are thwarted by Diggle, whose allegiance to A.R.G.U.S. now requires him to keep civilians like her on the outs. Realizing that she can no longer rely on her old team or old methods, a clear-eyed Felicity resolves to find a new way to go after Diaz."

airdate: 10/22/18

read our full review of "The Longbow Hunters" right here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 3: Crossing Lines

"Still in prison, Oliver (Stephen Amell) faces his biggest challenge yet. Meanwhile, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) gets an intriguing offer, and Diggle (David Ramsey) asks Curtis (Echo Kellum) to go undercover for ARGUS."

airdate: 10/29/18

Arrow Season 7 Episode 4: Level Two

"Oliver (Stephen Amell) makes a drastic move in his quest to find Diaz (Kirk Acevedo).  Like her husband, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) pulls out all the stops to get to Diaz.  Meanwhile, when arsonists target Rene’s (Rick Gonzalez) community center, injuring Zoe (guest star Eliza Faria) in the process, the mysterious new Green Arrow swoops in to help save the day.  Faced with pressure from the mayor to capture the vigilante, Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) must decide if following the rules at all costs is the best plan to keep the city safe."

airdate: 11/5/18

read our "Level Two" review here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 5: The Demon

"Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) learns something new about Oliver (Stephen Amell) that shocks her.  Meanwhile, Diggle (David Ramsey) asks Curtis (Echo Kellum) to go undercover for ARGUS. Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) works with an unlikely ally."

airdate: 11/12/18

read our "The Demon" review here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 6: Due Process

"Slabside becomes even more dangerous after a guard is murdered and everyone is a suspect.  Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) enlists help from a surprising source in her pursuit of Diaz (Kirk Acevedo), and Laurel (Katie Cassidy) flexes her muscles as the District Attorney."

airdate: 11/19/18

read our review of "Due Process" here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 7: The Slabside Redemption

"Oliver (Stephen Amell) makes a choice that will affect his entire life, as well as the lives of everyone he cares about."

airdate: 11/26/18

read our review of "The Slabside Redemption" here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 8: Unmasked

"Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) stands by her recent decisions regarding her family. Meanwhile, Diggle (David Ramsey) and Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson) continue to look into the Dante painting that Curtis (Echo Kellum) found."

airdate: 12/3/18

read our review of "Unmasked" right here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 9: Elseworlds Part 2

"With Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Barry (guest star Grant Gustin) still stuck in the other’s bodies, the two get a lead on John Deegan (guest star Jeremy Davies) and head to Gotham City with Supergirl (guest star Melissa Benoist) to figure out why their reality has changed.  While there, they meet the mysterious Kate Kane (guest star Ruby Rose) who provides them with information that leads the group to Arkham Asylum."

airdate: 12/10/18

read our review of "Elseworlds Part 2" here. This episode also finally explained the status of Batman on the show. We have details on that right here.

You can read our complete guide to Elseworlds easter eggs right here!

Arrow Season 7 Episode 10: Shattered Lives

"Oliver (Stephen Amell) is ready to get back to work with the SCPD and to focus on his marriage with Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards).  However, when Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) tasks Oliver with tracking the new Green Arrow (Sea Shimooka) things take a surprising turn. Meanwhile, Diggle (David Ramsey) and Lyla (guest star Audrey Marie Anderson) must answer to ARGUS about Diaz (Kirk Acevedo)."

airdate: 1/21/18

Arrow Season 7 Episode 11: Past Sins

"The past comes back to haunt both Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Laurel (Katie Cassidy).  Curtis (Echo Kellum) is upset when he discovers that Diggle (David Ramsey) and Lyla (guest star Audrey Marie Anderson) have restarted The Ghost Initiative with Diaz (guest star Kirk Acevedo), China White (guest star Kelly Hu), Kane Wolfman (guest star Liam Hall) and Carrie Cutter (guest star Amy Gumenick)."

airdate: 1/28/18

read our review of "Past Sins" here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 12: Emerald Archer

"The 150th episode of Arrow showcases a documentary entitled 'The Hood and the rise of vigilantism' starring Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), and the rest of Team Arrow. As a camera crew follows Oliver and team around to talk about their past as vigilantes and what the Green Arrow means to Star City, Oliver must also deal with William’s (guest star Jack Moore) return from boarding school as well as a new threat to the city. The episode will feature 'documentary footage' captured by the BTS crew and interviews from those who have worked alongside the Green Arrow. The documentary is narrated by Kelsey Grammer."

airdate: 2/4/19

read our review of "Emerald Archer" here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 13: Star City Slayer

"Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) are disappointed after they learn that William (guest star Jack Moore) is hiding something from them. Wanting to focus on his family, Oliver steps back from his Green Arrow duties and let’s the team take over tracking down a serial killer. However, when the team becomes targets for the killer, things take a bloody turn."

air date: 2/11/19

read our review of "Star City Slayer" here.

Arrow Season 7 Episode 14: Brothers and Sisters

"After months of covertly pursuing Dante, Diggle (David Ramsey) and Lyla (guest star Audrey Marie Anderson) finally have a solid lead on the elusive terrorist, so they deploy the ARGUS Ghost Initiative to apprehend him.  Meanwhile, Oliver (Stephen Amell) tries to bond with Emiko (Sea Shimooka)."

air date: 3/4/19

Arrow Season 7 Episode 15: Training Day

"Team Arrow attempts to work with the Star City Police Department but much to Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) frustration, things don’t go as planned.  Meanwhile, Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) gets some life-changing news."

air date: 3/11/19

Arrow Season 7 Episode 16: Star City 2040

air date: 3/18/19

Arrow Season 7 Episode 17: Inheritance

air date: 3/25/19

Arrow Season 7 Cast

Colton Haynes is confirmed for a return as Roy Harper/Arsenal, this time as a series regular. 

But so far all the big casting news comes in the form of the baddies...

Arrow Season 7 Villain

Well, for starters, Oliver is in jail, which isn't a great place to be when you've put a bunch of guys there. Here's the official word from WB:

Now that Oliver’s behind bars, he will come face to face with many of his former enemies, including Ben Turner/Bronze Tiger (Michael Jai White), Derek Sampson (Cody Runnels) and Danny “Brick” Brickwell (Vinnie Jones). With all three held in Slabside, Oliver will be forced to confront these and other villains he locked up while wearing the hood.

But long term? Get ready to meet the Longbow Hunters next year. These were the villains of one of the most important Green Arrow stories ever told, Mike Grell's Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, which basically set the tone for all the Green Arrow stories that would come after...including this show!

Ricardo Diaz is back, and he has recruited the Longbow Hunters to do some dirty work for him. They are...

• Red Dart (Holly Elissa – Whistler), a ruthless and precise killer

• Kodiak (Michael Jonsson – Van Helsing), a beast of a man with brute force

• and Silencer (Miranda Edwards – The Magicians, Orphan Black), a master of stealth

Arrow Season 7 Story

Here's the official synopsis for Arrow Season 7!

There has been no shortage of close calls for Oliver Queen when it comes to protecting his Super Hero identity, but in the season six finale, he was finally backed into a corner and forced to reveal himself to the world as the Green Arrow. Now, Oliver will come face-to-face with many of the criminals he placed behind bars, as he makes a new home for himself at Slabside Maximum Security Prison. Oliver will find himself vulnerable in a way unlike ever before when a mysterious new enemy begins to unravel his work as Green Arrow, challenging him to redeem his name or risk losing everything.

We have more details on the upcoming season right here.

Arrow Season 7 Characters

Based on some casting breakdowns, there seems to be a chance that Ted Kord/Blue Beetle will make an appearance on the show this year. We wrote about that in more detail right here.

That Hashtag Show previously had some character breakdowns that mostly indicate new characters who probably aren't from the comics, although one COULD be Lady Shiva, a known DC supervillain.

We'll update this with more information as it becomes available.

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.

For any of you not in the know, Power Rangers is not a wholly original show. “NO WAY!” you may cry. Wait! Don’t go off into the Desert of Despair... let me explain.

Power Rangers takes much of its battle footage from a Japanese program called Super Sentai. Every year since its inception they’ve used footage and even some plotlines from the Japanese program to varying degrees of success. Sometimes the adaptation works and sometimes…well.

We'll just get right into it.

Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1

MMPR threw Zyurangerto the wind. It didn’t care what the plot was; it was just bending the footage any way they could to get 40 episodes.

read more: Power Rangers: The Unproduced Episodes

MMPRwould tell wacky stories of the day that just happened to have a ground battle and zord fight to take up a third of the episode. This was the whole premise behind adapting footage from Sentai. It was a cost cutting measure. Cut out anything too Japanese, remove any excessive violence or just plain weirdness. Get a third of the episode to use footage, no matter what Saved by The Bell plot would get you there. Even if you might see a Japanese kid in the background. It didn’t exactly stay that way…

Gosei Sentai Dairanger – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 2

Having exhausted all the footage from Zyurangerand having commissioned brand new fight sequences from Japan dubbed, “Zyu 2” by fans, Saban was finally faced with adapting another Sentai. However, they didn’t want to give up the distinctive MMPRsuits so they instead decided to adapt the monsters and zord footage from Dairanger. This lead to the odd distinction of the Zyurangersuits piloting the Dairanger mecha. 

read more: Power Rangers: Ranking the Red Rangers

They also threw out the green Zyurangersuit and went with the Dairangers'sixth ranger. A little boy who could grow into a full sized white ranger. Who ended up being Tommy. Thanks to mostly original fight scenes they were able to remove the more child-like aspects from the footage and his suit luckily lined up with the Zyurangersclosely.

Ninja Sentai Kakuranger – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 3

Still holding tight to the Zyurangersuits, Saban again decided to switch out the zords. Kakurangerin Japan was Ninja-based and this actually seeped into MMPRwith the rangers receiving ninja powers. One interesting aspect was that this season they actually hacked the footage completely backward. The Ninja Zords were actually introduced in the second half of Kakurangerwhile what became the Shogun Zords were introduced earlier.

read more: Power Rangers Seasons We Never Saw

However, the biggest thing taken from the Sentaiwas they finally utilized a full new team. The use of the Alien Rangers in the final ten episodes of the season finally meant production didn’t have to shoot all their own original fights for the first time in two years. This was to become the standard.

Choriki Sentai Ohranger – Power Rangers Zeo

For the first time, Saban finally made the big switch. They completely ditched the Zyurangeroutfits so they could finally take full advantage of the Sentaifights. Besides this, however, the adapting was still business as usual. 

read more: Power Rangers: The Lost Era Details Surface

Zeois often noted for really upping the ante on world building in the Power Rangersuniverse and they wouldn’t let the footage hold them back from that. They even adapted a child ranger into an adult once again with the Gold Ranger. Credit needs to be given to the writers for not missing a beat with the transition between seasons. From dinosaurs, to ancient mystical animals, to ninjas, to a more military style theme, they really made it flow effortlessly.

Gekisou Sentai Carranger – Power Rangers Turbo

Turbois the first case of Saban having to fight the Sentaifootage. Carrangerwas a full on parody of Sentaibut the first half of Turbotried to play it all straight. This led to such unintentionally hilarious moments as Tommy pulling a manual out on the subject of, “How to shift this thing into Turbo.” This first half is one of the reasons Turbois often hated by much of the fanbase.

read more: Power Rangers: Ranking all 25 Seasons

What most seem to forget is that the second half of the season, under new producer Judd Lynn, leaned much heavier into the silliness of Carrangerand made for a much stronger show. If the footage had the Red Ranger defeating a baseball monster with his batting skills? Turbowould go right with it and have its own red ranger, TJ, be a skilled baseball player. Because they leaned into the footage as much as they did, they ended up coming out the other end and delivering some solid stories.

Denji Sentai Megaranger – Power Rangers In Space

This is where things get interesting. Toei, the production company behind Sentai, created the video game season Megaranger. Undeterred by this they pressed on with the space concept. Aided by a few zord fights set in space and by tinting footage, the production team was able to have the rangers travel to multiple planets on their small budget (it just so happens a lot of planets look like downtown LA). The budget did finally catch up with them, which is where the overrated Psycho Ranger arc came from.

The 54 Power Rangers Episodes That Will Make You a Fan

It slavishly adapts a whole arc from Sentaiwith little rhyme or reason for existing within the story In Space had presented before hand. This was the first real instance of burning through Sentaifootage, and it would not be the last.

Seijuu Sentai Gingaman – Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.

This is where things get wild. With the success of In Spacethe writers were given an edict. “We’re going to space again!” The only problem? Gingamanwas a nature Sentai. Where one of the main characters was a tree. The whole season was an uphill battle, fighting the footage left and right with the rangers running on all fours and riding on horses.

Early production difficulties lead to the "Lights of Orion" arc, the worst part of Lost Galaxy. Exactly like the Psycho Ranger arc before it, it mindlessly translates Sentai episodes, such as the one where they spend a whole episode wondering if their new power up is hidden in sunflower statues. Yeah, whatever.

After that arc the season did finally figure out how to make the footage work and featured a much better balance of Sentai footage to American plots.

Kyuukyuu Sentai GoGoV – Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue

This is where PRstarted a trend of being more a translation of Sentaithan an adaption. While Lightspeed didn’t wholly copy GoGoV, it certainly used a lot of its aesthetics. Thankfully we were spared the kind of footage burning arcs that In Space and Lost Galaxy gave us, but there was a steady increase in the amount of Sentaifootage used throughout the season.

They did have good reason for it though, as this was the first season to introduce a wholly American original ranger. The Titanium Ranger was given one of the auxiliary zords from GoGoVand although his introduction arc was strong, the amount of American shot footage meant he would be shoved to the sidelines in favor of using more Japanese footage.

Mirai Sentai Timeranger – Power Rangers Time Force

If Lightspeedcopied a lot of GoGoV’s aesthetics; Time Force ripped Timeranger's plot whole cloth. The main arc of the show was nearly directly translated in most cases. Thankfully, the more Japanese-like elements and downright silly elements (like the main villain being propelled by farting) were removed or heavily downplayed.  In their place we were given Ransik, a formidable opponent played by Mad Max veteran Vernon Wells.

That was what Time Force did best with the Sentai. When it did copy, it at least knew what to leave out and would then add something else back in. It helped the story move much smoother and even made the Sentaifootage-heavy fights (including one where only the close ups on an unmorphed characters face are reshot) work.

Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger – Power Rangers Wild Force

If Time Force was a copy of Timeranger, then Wild Force is a find and replace on Gaoranger. It’s just translating the Sentaiwith barely any original thought in it. When it does decide to care, it’s actually some of the best Power Rangers out there. “Reinforcements from the Future” and “Forever Red” are fan favorites and “The Master's Last Stand” features a superb performance by Ilia Volok as the US exclusive villain, Master Org.

The season still falls apart because, while they must have saved a ton of money with the over abundance of Sentaifootage, nothing is added to it. It’s just watered down Gaoranger, and that wasn’t a fan-favorite Sentaito begin with.

Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger – Power Rangers Ninja Storm

The first season under the new Disney regime had a clear objective: Rekindle the magic of MMPR. The only problem? They were saddled with a Sentaiseason about ninjas. A season that featured a lot of ninja-like imagery wasn’t going to be as easy to get around as Zyuranger. Rather than reshoot it, the crew behind Ninja Storm just went with it. The main characters were students at a ninja academy.

It wasn’t the same story as Hurricanegerby any means (I’m fairly certain the Japanese characters were not adrenalin-juiced sports junkies) but it just couldn’t escape the footage. As much as they were trying to capture the lightning in a bottle that MMPRhad? The ninja aesthetic meant they couldn’t quite get to that level.

 Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger – Power Rangers Dino Thunder

This is where they finally got it right. With input from fans in mind, executive producer Doug Sloan took the series back to its roots. Dino Thunder totally disregarded the story of Abaranger, preferring to set the series back in high school. It totally changed the white ranger’s story (considering in Abarangerhis name was Abarekiller this isn’t a huge surprise) and threw out the talking dinosaurs.

One casualty of the season was the Triassic Ranger. At this time Power Rangers wasn’t that far behind Sentaiand they didn’t have the benefit of knowing where the Japanese footage was going. Early reports made it look like what became the Triassic Ranger would be its own unique ranger and the producers planned accordingly. However when it was revealed to just be a power up for the Red Ranger? Well, those plans were scrapped.

Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger – Power Rangers S.P.D.

Doug Sloan left the show and under Bruce Kalish a new style was adopted for dealing with Sentai. Create a US-exclusive overall plot for the season but mostly adapt the individual Sentaiepisodes. This caused a lot of problems when rangers would start acting way out of character. S.P.D. suffered from this greatly. To accommodate the Sentaiplots, the characters would often be reset episode-by-episode, leaving little forward movement in the plot until the final story arc.

Thankfully, veteran producer Greg Aronowitz saved the season. With his multitude of years in the industry (including designing monsters for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie) he was able to inject most of the originality into the storyline. Sadly he was only present for this season.

Mahou Sentai Magiranger – Power Rangers Mystic Force

Oh, Mystic Force. With the episode count cut to thirty-two, the strategy of directly translating episodes ran into a huge problem. The writers would sometimes adapt episodes one for one but other times they’d squash two or more Sentaiplots into one episode of Power Rangers. The pacing was all over the place and the stories suffered.

None worse than the "Ten Terrors" arc. Magirangerhad ten monster generals. So Mystic Force decided to use all of them, despite the fact they just didn’t have enough time to give them all proper story arcs. Sure, it burned a lot of footage, but is it worth saving all that money if it negatively impacts the plots?

GoGo Sentai Boukenger – Power Rangers Operation Overdrive

Overdrive's premise promised trekking around the world on an epic search for treasure. Not exactly different from Boukengerwhich dealt with a relic recovery team, but it was a fun play on the footage. The problem? Again, they didn’t know how to work the footage. So once more we were stuck with a decent American over plot saddled with Sentaiplots sloppily translated.

The show also started to look horrific. Boukengerwas the first Sentaito film in widescreen but Disney kept the show filmed in full screen to save money. The awkward cropping and squishing of the footage made some of the fights borderline unwatchable.

Juken Sentai Gekiranger – Power Rangers Jungle Fury

Jungle Fury had less an original American over plot than some scattered original ideas here and there. It took out anything too Japanese and just kept going. The 2007-2008 writers strike didn’t impact the story quality and the season just shuffled through the major beats of Gekiranger.

The one bright spot of the season (besides RJ) was a trio of American rangers, the Spirit Rangers. Even being the highlight of the season, the middle of their three-episode arc had a random Sentaiplot thrown in. Thanks, scab writers!

By this point PRhad fallen into a rut. It was the same thing every year.  However…

Engine Sentai Go-onger – Power Rangers RPM

Go-ongerhad wacky talking zords and were tasked with stopping pollution. RPMwas set in a post-apocalyptic world where the last remnants of civilization were trapped in a domed city. The most original use of Sentaifootage in years perhaps took it a bit too far. They went so far out of left field away from the footage (and the story) it ended up making the season fall behind its production schedule.

When you’re trying to do a “darker” season of Power Rangers, having wacky anime looking zords isn’t exactly the best course of action. They did lampshade all of the wackier aspects of Go-onger fairly well, but it was still an uphill battle. The end result more or less worked and it’s still regarded as one of the series' best.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger – Power Rangers Samurai/Super Samurai

Samuraiand Super Samurai are like Wild Force without the caring. They are Shinkenger, through and through. Not only would they copy the story but they’d downright copy whole sequences right down to how they were shot (and even taking footage of the moon in one case).

According to Tony Oliver, who did a small amount of writing for the season, they thought directly translating it would make the production easier. It didn’t. It lead to awkward Hong Kong translated style dialogue such as, “We became impatient!” The show was watered down Shinkenger. Not the most triumphant return to the franchise for Saban.

Tensou Sentai Goseiger – Power Rangers Megaforce

The Goseigers were angels. Clearly this would be gone from Megaforce. Instead the rangers are back in high school and we thankfully got some originality back into the show.

The only problem? Instead of adapting a 50 episode season into two, twenty episodes seasons like Samurai/Super Samurai did...Megaforcecompressed 50 episodes of Goseigerinto 20 episodes. The pacing was horrific. Battles would last for 85% of the episode. We barely got any time with the rangers out of suit and when we did it was just loose set up for the fights.

Villains are introduced and quickly disposed of. The lack of time and care put into the overall production was baffling, especially since it was the 20th anniversary season. “Gosei Ultimate” is one the worst episodes of Power Rangers by far because it squashes too many episodes together and is just one long, boring fight.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger – Power Rangers Super Megaforce

Gokaiger was a love letter to fans of Super Sentai. It was filled cameos from every single season and had a damn great cast to boot. To this day it's still beloved by fans.

Super Megaforce? Well.... It wasn't good. While it got a few of the anniversery elements down right most of the episodes were pretty forgetable. The characters really never got to develop and even the final episode featuring tons of cameos felt rushed. Oh yeah, they also used a bunch of suits for Sentai that had been made into Power Rangers. Including Dairanger. Whoops.

Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters 

At one point everyone thought this would be skipped but it'll be coming to America as Power Rangers Beast Morphers in 2019! We'll discuss the comparisons between it and Go-Busters after it premieres. Keep up with all our Power Rangers Beast Morphers news here!

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger - Power Rangers Dino Charge/Dino Super Charge

A Sentai involving dinosaurs, samba music, and a singing monster with a bondage mask. Kyoryuger was a pure delight from start to end. Dino Charge took the footage from Kyoryuger and simply did their own thing. Yes the dinosaurs were heavily present but with the addition of some American exclusive villains none of the plots overly matched their Japanese counterparts. 

They even went as far as taking an attack name for the Gold Ranger in Kyoryuger, Zandar Thunder, and spinning that into a whole country where the Dino Charge Gold Ranger was from! Now that takes some serious talent.

Ressha Sentai ToQger - Power Rangers Ninja Steel (sort of)

Now this is just... odd. ToQger was a train themed season that was skipped over in favor of the ninja themed follow up. Fans assumed all elements of it would be dropped like Go-Busters.

At least one element did make it through, a villain suit. In ToQger, Baron Nero was one of the main villain generals. In Ninja Steel he's the host of the intergaltic series, Galaxy Warriors. His face has also been slightly altered, becoming much softer.

Shuriken Sentai Ninninger - Power Rangers Ninja Steel/Super Ninja Steel

Much like Dino Charge, Ninja Steel takes only the surface elements of Ninninger and creates its own plot. Ninninger featured a team of ninjas all training to become the "last ninja". Ninja Steel features an intergalatic game show and wacky high school antics. Very few plots from Ninninger make their way into Ninja Steel.

It should be noted that, like Samurai and Dino Charge, Ninja Steel features American exclusive Zord cockpit sequences that feature American exclusive power ups.

Now I want to hear from you readers. How do you think Power Rangers has handled adapting Sentai? Should they be as original as possible? Or should PRjust be translating Sentai? Let me know in the comments below!

Shamus Kelley knows way too much about Power Rangers. Follow him on Twitter! 

There have never been more anime titles readily available to audiences, which is certainly exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. Not only are more legacy titles being added to streaming services every month, but there is also a steady stream of new series that are being added.

To guarantee that the various libraries of content at your disposal don’t swallow you whole, we’ve done the hard work and narrowed it down to just the top and most important titles! For both the obsessive anime fan and those entirely new to the form, here’s a whopping list of the 50 best anime that are currently streaming and exactly where to find them!

Aggretsuko

Available on: Netflix

Retsuko the Red Panda is all of us and we are all Retsuko. Aggretsuko is one of Sanrio’s most popular creations in recent years and while other mascots for the company like Hello Kitty or Keroppi capitalize on the sugary sweet demeanor of their cutesy characters, Aggretsuko instead taps into the inner rage that fills us all. Each vignette in Aggretsuko sees the mild-mannered red panda attempt to do her job, hang out with friends, or just get through some mundane aspect of her day. 

read more: Aggretsuko: A Must-See Netflix Anime

Retsuko does a fairly good job at keeping her cool around the constant frustrations that pop up around her, but it’s only a matter of time until something pushes the red panda over the edge and Retsuko explodes in a rage of unfiltered honesty and banging death metal. Aggretsuko is simple, low stakes anime, but there’s something endlessly relatable about these stories of a person being pushed to their limit. Everyone has the kind of days that Retsuko does, so why not commiserate with this character’s deeply cute temper tantrums? With a second season also on the way, thankfully the red panda freakouts are far from over!

Ajin: Demi-Human

Available on: Netflix

Ajin: Demi-Human might actually happen to be on your radar due to it being one of limited anime that Netflix has chosen to embrace and co-produce. The series is your basic demon-out-of-water story where a boy named Kei gets hit by a truck and ends learning that he’s actually an ajin (basically a demon) and incapable of dying. That’s all cool and dandy for Kei, only for the fact that ajin aren’t looked at too fondly in the community with the creatures being hunted and kept in camps. This naturally has a rough schism form between the humans and ajin that has revenge at its core and Kei getting caught up in the middle as he tries to mediate and find peace between everyone.

read more: The Best Action Movies on Netflix

There are a number of series out there where some member of the “outcast race” tries to bridge things between their kind and humanity (I mean, look no further than Tokyo Ghoul, which is also listed here), but Ajin stands out by offering complex characters that take time to define, as well as some super impressive monster designs that won’t soon leave your mind. With a recent live-action film adaptation making this property hot again, Ajin is one that you want to put on your radar!

Assassination Classroom

Available on: Funimation, Hulu

In what’s one of the best concepts that I’ve ever come across, Assassination Classroom deals with an octopus-esque alien that declares that he’s going to destroy the planet in one year unless he can be killed. Oh, and if you don’t think he’s serious, he just blew up three quarters of the moon. The measures that have been set in place here is that a class of students—the bottom of the barrel, at that—are given the task of being trained as assassins to take him down, garnering one billion dollars in the process. The conditions however are that this alien is their teacher, and he’s unable to hurt any of his students, with them having a year to pull off their task, lest the planet be destroyed yada yada yada. 

read more: What the Hulu/Funimation Deal Means for Anime

What’s kind of amazing is the symbiotic relationship between this alien, Korosensai, and his students/would-be assassins. Each episode has him genuinely bettering them and helping them grow, and it’s this bittersweet arrangement of them deeply caring for each other, yet this terrible asterisk hanging over it all. Now in the middle of wrapping up its second season, I legitimately don’t know how this show will conclude and I couldn’t be more excited about that.

Attack on Titan

Available on: Adult Swim, FunimationNow, Hulu, Yahoo View!

Look, you probably don’t need me to tell you about or push Attack on Titan on you. It’s a series that has grown into an institution and has slowly become one of the most successful cross-pond anime in recent years. The sheer fact that this selection is also on Netflix is a testament to the growth in demand. If you have been unaware of Attack on Titan though, now’s the perfect time to make the jump with the series’ third season nearing some sort of release, and the production of two live-action movies having gone on in the interim time.

read more: Attack on Titan Makes Giant Monsters Scary Again

The series is set in an alternate world where humanity has caged itself in through a series of giant successive walls as a result of the threat of Titans. These monsters are huge human-like monsters with an unstoppable hunger for humans. The series begins with the breach of one of these walls and the discovery of more powerful Titans behind it.

There’s real art going on here as the series jumps in stretches of the time and chooses to selectively focus on certain characters, building a real full mosaic in the process. There’s also just some stunning animation going on at these fighters zip through the air in their gear to take down these behemoths. The story only becomes deeper and deeper too, with fantastic twists that litter the end of both seasons. Year two takes some risks by banking more on characters than action, but there’s still a story that’s unbelievable to watch unfold. This is how you effectively build a world and tell a full, nuanced story. Plus, monsters and the biggest daddy issues this side of Neon Genesis Evangelion! 

Cowboy Bebop

Available on: Adult Swim (Random Episodes), FunimationNow, Hulu

Certainly one of the older shows on this list, but one that’s earned its place as legacy anime. Long before he was blowing people’s minds on Space Dandy, Shinichiro Watanabe was setting the standard with his planet-hopping space western, Cowboy Bebop. While again focusing on a ragtag group of bounty hunters and outlaws jumping around in space, there is a certain sense of tone and atmosphere conjured up by this series.

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Even though it’s a mostly episodic program, there is still such a connection to it among fans due to how well each story sees execution. It’s also responsible for those countless people you see cosplaying with big hair and a navy blue suit.Additionally, the score and music is done by Yoko Kanno, and it’s just pure bliss across the board. Bebop really makes its music a priority and the quality is undeniable. Can you think of a theme song that gets you pumped up more than “TANK”? No, no you cannot.

Dagashi Kashi

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu, Netflix

Dagashi Kashi looks at an inspiring manga artist, Kokonutsu. Kokonutsu is shackled to his family’s candy store, destined to take over the business. Then, with the arrival of Hotaru Shidare of the Shidare Candy Corporation who is looking to poach the owner, “Coconuts” is hurled towards the candy lifestyle more than ever before. Dagashi Kashi’s biggest draw is that it is absolutely in love with candy. It views the subject as if it’s the most magical thing in the world, and that viewpoint makes the show endlessly entertaining in its innocence. You can’t help but get equally excited about the subject matter.

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It doesn’t feel like a show like this should work—a pseudo-educational program that educates you about the wonder that is Japanese candy—but it’s crazy how infectious this formula is. It’s at a point now where I can’t wait to see what sort of random, unheard of sweet will be delved into each week. Also, why is our candy just candy, and not a fraction as cool as Japan’s multipurpose sweets? They have fake beer for kids, candies that imbue you with energy to run, stuff that turn into whistles. Even candies that double as marbles/trading cards. #FirstWorldCandyProblems

It’s also extremely indulgent towards the “fan service” area, and what’s a better pairing to candy than anatomy? Granted, the second season of the series loses some of its magic, but it’s still full of plenty of charm.

Death Note

Available on: Hulu, Netflix

It’s hard not to fall in love with this concept right away: Death Note is about Light, a high school student who finds a notebook that whenever he writes a name inside it, that person dies. Pretty nuts, right? It’s not long before Light is trying to cleanse the world of evil by using this notebook to play God and create a better world. That’s some deep subject matter to get into and Death Note handles this rise to corruption beautifully.

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As Light’s carnage begins to grow, a detective, L, tries to take him down. So add to that one of the best subversions to the cat-and-mouse detective genre that I’ve seen, and you’ve got an even more infectious hit on your hands. Waiting for these two to come across each other is such satisfying stuff, especially when even more death notebooks and Shinigami (demons) are thrown into play. The strong energy that the series gives off explains why there have been a number of movies and off-shoots to crop up in Japan over the years. People just need more of this.

Death Parade

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu

Death Parade is a perfect mix of the playful and the macabre, resulting in a surprisingly profound series. The anime is set at a way station of sorts, and when two people die at the exact same time, they’re sent to this location to play a game against each other. Scrubbed of their memories, these two people must compete in some sort of parlor game in order to determine their future—which of them gets to have an afterlife, and which is just gone, essentially.

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There’s something intrinsically compelling about watching people play a game of air hockey, billiards, or even Twister, for the highest stakes imaginable. Each game also has twisted tricks incorporated into them, such as the balls in billiards each corresponding to a different body part that will experience pain upon being sunk.The competition at work in each episode already makes this a suspenseful show, but it gains even more poignancy with what each episode is trying to say about life and death while these games are going on. Every installment is more or less a fresh story, and yet a great deal of pathos is created each time for these new people you encounter. Endlessly compelling and always having something to say, Death Parade is a great subversion of the afterlife.

Devilman Crybaby

Available on: Netflix

The Devilman franchise has been going strong in Japan since the 1970s. It tells a typical story of corruption and lost identity when an unsuspecting soul has his spirit mixed up with that of a demon. As a result, Akira has access to the extreme powers of Devilman, but he still retains his humanity. As Akira tries to come to terms with his transformation, this tug of war between good and evil wages on inside of him while he attempts to use the darkness to defeat demons, but not let it consume him in the process.

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There’s nothing too special about Devilman at its surface level, but Devilman Crybaby is such a worthwhile reboot of the property entirely because the legendary Masaaki Yuasa is in the one in charge. Yuasa injects the Devilman narrative with his typical eye-popping animation and art direction and helps this story ascend to something special. Yuasa has no limits when it comes to the series’ level of gore or how ridiculous the animation will become. You won’t want to take your eyes off of a single frame of Devilman Crybaby, but the rave scene at the Sabbath party from the first episode is an excellent primer for just how much this anime is a batshit, psychedelic fever dream. Nowhere else will you find nipples mutating into big, hungry mouths. 

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.

Available on: FunimationNow, Netflix

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K has been one of my greatest anime pleasures over the past year and it’s partly due to how recklessly random the style of this show is. To begin with, Disastrous Life of Saiki K began airing as daily bite-sized four-minute anime installments that offered up glimpses into the chaotic life of secret psychic, Saiki. Then, after enough time had passed the series began to be packaged as a conventional 24-minute series that would bundle up five of these short-form episodes into one full-length episode. As a result of this, a weird schism in the community has formed regarding whether Saiki should be consumed in small doses or full-sized endeavors, but the show absolutely works regardless of which style you prefer.

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There are a number of series to come along about psychics and everyday school life, but what makes Saiki stand apart from the rest is how invested it is in its own rules and mythology. The series builds up a truly unique set of rules for Saiki’s many abilities that you get acclimated with at a surprisingly fast rate. There’s such a clear joy for the world that’s been built here as Saiki simultaneously tries to get through the day drawing as little attention to himself as possible. Unpredictable psychic powers, constant cliffhangers, and an impressive list of side characters that you won’t want to leave anytime soon all point towards The Disastrous Life of Saiki K being one of the most fun and creative shows to come out of the season.

Dragon Ball/Z/GT/Super

Available on: Adult Swim, FunimationNow, Hulu 

Dragon Ball is one of the biggest, most successful anime franchises of all-time. Even before there were mainstream blocks like Adult Swim’s Toonami to cater to anime, Dragon Ball was one of the series that made it over and help break barriers for other series. Even if you’ve never seen Dragon Ball then you’ve at least heard of the anime series, which looks at the world/universe-saving exploits of Goku’s family and friends as they face increasingly dangerous threats. The long-running shonen series is far from perfect, but whether you’re a fan of tournaments, crazy abilities and even crazier transformations, or unique, lovable characters that actually grow, there’s a lot to enjoy through the various Dragon Ball series.

read more: Ranking the Dragon Ball Z Movies

The anime was long dormant, but with the debut of Dragon Ball Super a few years back, it seems like the property has never been more popular or alive. Dragon Ball isn’t the most important anime to watch from this list, but it’s nice to know that it’s available for whenever the show’s comforting energy is needed. 

Erased

Available on: Crunchyroll, Hulu

If there is any show on this list that demands a binge-worthy approach to viewing, it is Erased. Think of Zodiac and all of the best engrossing serial killer stories mixed with the best sort of supernatural weirdness and you’ve got Erased in a nutshell.

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The series looks at a character that experiences “revivals” when disasters strike, allowing him to go back in time a few minutes and prevent this wrong from happening. However, one such incident sees him flinging back in time twenty years to when he’s eight years old, stuck in his childhood trying to prevent a much bigger crime from happening that has its roots in the past. Erased builds such suspense (especially since the stakes are the lives of children) and you really just want to watch the next episode immediately after finishing one. It’s a slow burn, but telling a really nuanced, emotional story with unusual elements that it doesn’t lose itself in.

Eromanga Sensei

Available on: Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll

Eromanga Sensei operates with a very Three’s Company degree of logic to it, but there’s such a sweet story at its core. Masamune Izumi is a budding writer, but he can’t draw to save his life. An illustrator who goes by the name “Eromanga Sensei” communicates with Masamune online and illustrates his novels. Together they build a popular manga series through their odd relationship. Masamune also has a 12-year old sister, Sagiri, who’s a shut-in and stays in her room 24/7. What’s the big deal? Masamune’s little sister is actually Eromanga Sensei, his manga collaborator!

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Eromanga Sensei finds its sweet spot with the unusual but endearing relationship between Masamune and his sister. What also makes this series so much fun is that it’s all about writing and drawing. It’s an anime that gets to be about manga and anime.

FLCL

Available on: Adult Swim, FunimationNow, Hulu

FLCL is a coming-of-age story as if told by William Burroughs or Alejandro Jodorowsky. Each iteration of the series looks at a complacent pre-teen or teenager who’s lost over the future and the hurdles of adulthood. FLCL puts such relatable themes in a blender with absurdist plotting and surrealist animation and the result is one of the most unique, infamous anime series to hit the market. FLCL is a vespa-riding, alien invading, sentient guitar-playing take on adolescence and even if certain aspects of the series go over your head, it’s always a delight to watch. 

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FLCL plays things fast and loose with it animation style and it incorporates many different aesthetics to illustrate its lost mental state. You may not always understand the show, but you’ll always be in awe of it. FLCL never slows down and even when the show doesn’t quite work, it’s still an astounding experiment that taps into deep pockets of humanity. 

Adult Swim recently co-produced two sequel series, FLCL: Progressive and FLCL: Alternative that don’t quite carry the same manic magic as the original series, but they remain faithful to the show’s unique perspective. If you ever feel lost in life, pop on some FLCL to feel better (although be careful of the show’s dangerously addictive soundtrack).

Gurren Lagann

Available on: Amazon Prime Video, Netflix

Gurren Lagann is set in a future dystopian take on Earth where most of humanity is forced to live underground in remote villages. Two teenagers who are eager for more out of life and desperate to venture out to the surface come in contact with a powerful mech, the Lagann, and use it to brave the dangers above ground and challenge the evil Spiral King, Lordgenome's, tyrannical rule.

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Here's the thing about Gurren Lagann, it starts off very slow and definitely takes some time to get going, but once it does there's nothing holding back its awesomeness. The whole point of the series is that events build and domino into each other, so although the series starts at a small place in scope, it's absolutely ridiculous to see the level that everything's at by the end of the series. Hang through the opening chunk of the show and the rewards that follow will be well worth it. There are many great mecha series out there, but Gurren Lagann deserves respect for its slow build and how out of control the series gets before you even realize what's going on.

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

Great Teacher Onizuka is such a twisted morality story that it sneaks up on you slow subtly that you don’t even realize what’s happened. Eikichi Onizuka enters the series as slacker ex-gang member with few prospects. After an unattractive teacher steals Onizuka’s date, he determines that teachers must hold a strong sexual power over their students. This random event reshapes Onizuka’s entire life and he becomes a teacher! However, through the process he inadvertently develops a strong sense of morals and is no longer interested in doing something as depraved as hooking up with students.

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As Onizuka’s quest goes on, he finds himself hungry to become the best teacher of all-time and happy to dispense his unique outlooks on life to help his class. Onizuka turns into an inspiring mentor to dozens and it’s amazing to see how this “bad guy” finally figures out what his passion is in life. Great Teacher Onizuka will make you feel warm inside, but it’s also funny as hell. Onizuka’s embarrassing antics never disappoint and the show finds the perfect rhythm for its comedy. With 43 episodes available, Great Teacher Onizuka is the kind of comforting comedy that’s there for you to binge watch and relax. Live your best life.

Happy Sugar Life

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

Happy Sugar Life is one of the darkest series that you’ll ever come across, anime or otherwise. It may even cause some viewers to tap out due to its extreme subject matter, but those that stick around will see a gripping character study that chronicles cyclical abuse and the worst versions of Stockholm Syndrome.

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Happy Sugar Life looks at Sato Matsuzaka, a high school girl who kidnaps a small child named Shio because she’s madly in love with her. Now this isn’t a sexual love, but purely romantic and this child is just so innocent and pure that she tunes out all of the darkness in Sato’s life. Sato goes to any lengths necessary (like murder, for instance) to keep Shio locked in her home and a secret to the public. The series follows the very worst of deviants, but its dark perspective and Sato’s sugary sweet fantasies make for a strangely addictive curiosity.

Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto

Available on: Crunchyroll, Hulu

Sometimes overpowered characters in an anime can be exhausting because they suck all of the tension out of a scene. However, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto harnesses this energy and makes it the entire point of its series. The premise of Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is incredibly thin: Sakamoto is a high school student who’s incredibly popular and excels at every little thing that he does (the show’s banging opening credits song does a great job at how Sakamoto effortlessly becomes the king of everything). That might seem like a limited angle for a show, but the anime makes Sakamoto’s God-tier skills a constant delight. Rather than get annoyed at how Sakamoto is always at the top, the anime turns it into a brilliant game of tension. 

read more: The Best Shows on Hulu You Haven't Streamed Yet

The bullies and other jealous students around Sakamoto continually try to get the better of him and knock him down a peg, but it never happens. Sakamoto always has the perfect solution and his increasingly ridiculous escape plans are part of why the show’s so fun. It’s like Sakamoto is a magnet for good luck, and he can’t help it if things like his friend’s mom falling in love with him happen. Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto finds the perfect kind of energy for its comedy and it’s hard to not fall in love with Sakamoto, just like every else. 

High Score Girl

Available on: Netflix

High Score Girl is likely the only “Arcade Love Story” out there on the market, but it should be mandatory viewing for any fans of retro video games or sweet love stories. The series is set during the height of arcade culture in the 1990s and looks at Haruo Yaguchi, a boy who doesn’t care about anything other than video games. He suddenly meets his match at the arcade in the form of Akira Oono and the two are immediately in each other’s orbits in this unconventional love story.

read more: The Best Romance Movies on Netflix

One of the best things about High Score Girl is the very real passion that the series and Yaguchi have towards video games. The love here is very addictive and the series highlights plenty of formative titles like Mortal Kombat, Splatterhouse, lots of Street Fighter II, the release of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, and the general transition from video games in arcades to the console market at home becoming more feasible. It also makes such a difference that these are all real video games that High Score Girl uses for its examples (and it often shows actual footage from the titles). This anime is such a goldmine for fun history and nostalgia towards '90s video games—especially if you grew up through that era—but it also tells a sweet, humble love story between two kids. Plus, it’s impressive that Oono doesn't say a word throughout the entire series, yet you still completely empathize with her and want to see her be happy.

Inuyashiki: The Last Hero

Available on: Amazon Prime

Inuyashiki is easily one of the best anime to come out in the past few years. Its storytelling even rivals that of great American serialized television. It’s just that good. Right from the start it presents the sort of story that immediately gets your attention and lets you know that you’re watching something special. Inuyashiki is an elderly man whose family seems to hate him and are totally unappreciative of his existence. One night he goes for a walk in the park and some sort of alien explosion rocks the area. When Inuyashiki comes to, he appears to be a super powered robot with insane abilities. He uses these new powers to help those in need and even learns that he can heal and bring people back to life. Suddenly Inuyashiki has a purpose in life and watching him reawaken straight up made me cry on multiple occasions. 

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A bratty teenager is also at the park when the explosion happens and he turns into the same robot that Inuyahsiki becomes. This kid, however, is a psychopath and begins mass murdering individuals at an alarming rate. It’s terrifying how callous he is and what this power brings out in him. Some scenes are genuinely hard to watch and it doesn’t take long for him to become one of the most dangerous murderers that the country has ever seen. Suddenly Inuyashiki has a “rival” and the two are pit against each other in a bizarre, infinitely interesting way. This series is a thrilling examination of what people do with power and it balances humble moments of humanity with disturbing violence and insane action. Everything it does hits hard and its ending is perfect in its precision and poignancy. The animation is also stunning in its depiction of these human/robot hybrids and the “minimalist” (ie. finger guns) approach to the violence.

Inuyashiki is a series that I will be absolutely shocked if some savvy American director doesn’t opt to turn into a movie within the next few years. It’s an absolutely beautiful story that boils down to the universal concepts of good and evil. Catch it now and get ahead of the game. At eleven episodes it’s an extremely easy commitment that you’ll wish was longer.

Junji Ito Collection

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow

If Yamishibaiis the tame horror anthology that you can watch before going to bed, then Junji Ito Collection is pure nightmare fuel. This is not a series that should be watched with the lights turned off or even with a large amount of shade in the room. The series adapts some of the most disturbing stories from renowned horror manga artist, Junji Ito.

Junji Ito Collection packs two sordid stories into each episode and the subject matter ranges from supernatural curses, to deranged killers, to some of the most extreme body horror you’ll ever see in an anime (can David Cronenberg please take on a live-action adaptation of “Honored Ancestors”?). Ito conjures up unbelievable ideas that are truly a rarity for horror and stories like "Greased,""Long Dreams,"“Slug Girl,” and “Blood-Bubble Bushes” are all behemoths of horror.

Unfortunately, not all of the Ito stories that the anime chooses to adapt are winners, but the series’ unsettling art design still helps the weaker tales carry a strong punch. With any justice a second season of this will soon be announced to terrify anime fans well into 2019.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Available on: Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Yahoo View!

Hirohiko Araki’s Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of Japan’s most prestigious and beloved franchises. Araki began work on the Jojo series back in the ‘80s, but it’s only been in more recent years that Jojo fever has caught on in North America. The series spans the multi-generational saga of the Joestar family, with each new series/saga in the franchise tackling a new “Jojo” throughout the lineage. This allows Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure to span a huge amount of content and the series can change its goal, location, and protagonists with each new series.

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The third and fourth chapters in the series, Stardust Crusaders and Diamond is Unbreakable have been the most successful and compelling stories in the ongoing Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure saga. The series all feature unforgettable characters (with even more unforgettable outfits), but also some of the most creative fight sequences you’ll come across thanks to the spirit-like “Stands” that dominate the series. 

Magic powers are one thing, but the way in which some of these Stands operate will truly leave you surprised. Jojo has an uncanny ability to mix slice of life anime with breakneck action sequences and inspired serialized storytelling. The entirety of the series may be too long and intimidating for newcomers to jump in, but Diamond is Unbreakable is easily the most accessible of the seasons and an easy place to jump in for the uninitiated Jojo fans.

Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler

Available on: Netflix

Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler is the best anime about gambling that you’ll ever watch, but it’s also so much more than that. Yumeko Jabami transfers to Hyakkaou Private Academy, an institution that's full of the children of Japan's wealthiest and most influential. Accordingly, it's also become a hotbed for extreme gambling that runs a toxic underground culture at the school. The losers are turned into slaves and “house pets” of the winners and that’s just the beginning. Yumeko is special because she simply wants to gamble for the thrill and rush that it provides her, not because she seeks any financial gain or to dominate the student campus. Her unique fascination with how the school's culture works catapults her to the top of the campus, but Yumeko's proficiency at gambling isn't why this show it's great, but rather it’s how exaggerated her excitement and love for the act becomes.

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Each episode sees a character gamble their entire savings and livelihood for some spontaneous wager. Yumeko is an incredibly meek and reserved girl, but she does a complete 180 whenever she gets in the vicinity of gambling and experiences tantric full body orgasms. It's not just that her entire attitude changes, but it's like she becomes a demon. Her eyes take on an evil glow, the pitch of her voice drops, and she becomes otherworldly. Yumeko’s behavior is incredible, but the way in which the show’s animation and style also loses control during these moments is incredible. Kakegurui handles something as basic as rock, paper, scissors, or a hand of poker, but also covers more extreme games, like Russian Roulette, where actual lives are on the line.

This anime turns something normal into something insane and treats gambling like it's a fight between superheroes. It embraces an absolutely demented point of view that elevates this madness to something mandatory for fans of the extreme. Just watch the show’s opening credits and tell yourself that you don’t want to see more. With a second season on the way soon, now’s the perfect time to check out this insane anime.

Kill la Kill

Available on: Netflix, Hulu

Mashing together a bunch of things that shouldn’t work, but do, based on sheer will alone, Kill la Kill is the best sort of crazy. Pulling from a lot of different anime, the series follows Ryuko, who has just transferred to the Honnouji Academy after the death of her father. At this Academy, everyone wears certain quasi-sentient uniforms that imbue them with superpowers due to the “Life Fibers” that they’re made from. Ryuko seeks to take down the Academy’s villainous headmistress, while getting vengeance for her father and finding the owner of the other half of the Scissor Blade that she wields.

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That’s a lot to juggle but Kill la Kill balances it all well while also building real excitement as Ryuko slowly gets close to her end goal. The series’ animation may not be the most elegant, but that doesn’t stop it from attempting some really ambitious battle set pieces, not to mention some of the transformations that go on in this show are just bonkers. You wouldn’t think that clothing and fighting would go together so well but after Kill la Kill you’ll never want to separate the two.

Kokkoku: Moment by Moment

Available on: Amazon Prime

Kokkoku: Moment by Moment is a bleak, surreal mystery that plays with time and space in a way that feels fresh and exciting. Juri Yukawa is your typical underachieving teenager who’s failed to find her calling. Kokkoku quickly pulls the rug out from under the viewer and transforms this slice of life anime into something substantially trippier. Juri’s brother and nephew get kidnapped by a cult and Juri’s uncle reveals that their family has the power to stop time, which is exactly what they’re going to do to save them.

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It’s fascinating to watch Juri learn more of the secrets about her lineage as well as her own unique powers. When Juri and her grandfather freeze time, this frozen world is called Stasis, but there are also terrible monsters that lurk in Stasis that prey on those who stay in there for too long. Kokkoku creates such a rich, fully formed story with a deep history to it, but it also initially keeps the audience in the dark to simulate the same overwhelming experience that Juri is going through. Kokkoku slowly parses out answers as Juri and her grandfather become more entwined in the world of Stasis. It’s such an engrossing story that’s so much bigger than the characters and what they’re caught up in.

Laughing Salesman

Available on: Crunchyroll

Fozuko Moguro is a traveling salesman, but not just any type of ordinary salesman. He deals in human souls. Mr. Moguro views the world's population is sad, lonely individuals and he's more than willing to give them a helping hand—for a price. Mr. Moguro promises solutions to all of the problems and shortcomings of the people that he encounters, but there's always some sort of major caveat involved and there's a situation where anyone actually gets out on top. Moguro is a monkey's paw personified or he might even be Satan himself. 

Even though it's obvious that every story will end in doom, the show is incredibly addictive and works as a bizarre, unusual take on the typical anthology format. It's like if The Twilight Zone was done purely as character studies and driven by ego. It's a damning portrait of humanity just as much as it is an entertaining piece of storytelling. Each episode packs two stories into one installment and this show is much more effective when it can quickly fire off morality plays. Unfortunately the original Laughing Salesman from the '90s, which has over 100 episodes, isn't streaming anywhere, but hopefully Mr. Moguro will show up at some streaming services door and make them an enticing deal that they can't refuse...

Little Witch Academia

Available on: Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu

Trigger is one of those animation studios that whenever they take on a new project, it’s something that you want to put on your radar, regardless of its topic, because it’s going to end up being one of the most beautifully animated anime of the year. Little Witch Academia started off as a film (and a sequel), but the property has seen such popularity that a television series exploring the world of Luna Nova was made a priority. Little Witch Academia follows Akko Kagari, a witch superfan who is excited to be enrolling in the esteemed Luna Nova Magical Academy. Not only that, but Akko comes from a non-magical background making her enrollment at Luna Nova a bit of a double-edged sword. 

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A lot of this show is about celebrating the beauty (and responsibility) of magic, but there’s also much charm in the fact that Akko is not good at magic. You’re following a character that struggles to even ride a broom properly, not some pro. Akko also has a good group of varied witch friends to bounce off of with their banter being a fun aspect to the series as well. Little Witch Academia tends to avoid serialization and larger story arcs, which gives the show a nice boost of freedom where every episode is something completely different. One week can be about a dragon. Another about a renegade skeleton looking for his lost love. There’s much less urgency with this show, but it’s such a pleasant, beautiful looking anime that will sneak up on you in other ways.

Lupin the Third

Available on: Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu

Imagine if James Bond decided to become a master thief and you’ve got Lupin the Third in a nutshell. Lupin III is notorious for being the world’s best thief and whether he’s working a solo mission, or has help from his distinctly talented allies, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko, they’re always brilliantly evading capture and blowing the minds of the authorities in the process. Lupin and his gang travel all across the world for their heists across the course of the series and Interpol Inspector Zenigata is always hot on their heels. 

Lupin the Third knows how to expertly blend action, suspense, and comedy to turn each episode into a self-contained mystery while a broader storyline typically plays out in the background of each season.Lupin the Third is an anime that’s actually been running strong since the ‘70s, but Part II and Part IV have aired on Adult Swim and picked up a greater following. The same thing will likely happen with the show’s most recent addition, Part V, which takes its most modern inspiration and sees Lupin deal with many tech- and Internet-based crimes. 

Megalo Box

Available on: Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Hulu

There need to be more boxing anime out there—plain and simple. Sports anime are a dime a dozen and they can even manage to find a way to make niche activities like fencing, ping pong, and diving exciting (although I’m still waiting for an all-out insane marbles anime). Boxing seems like an area that seems tailor-made for anime when there are so many action series that capitalize on super powered people trading blows. It’s just boxing without the ring. 

Megalo Box is actually an update of the classic anime, Ashita no Joe, in honor of the series’ 50^thanniversary. Megalo Box updates the ordinary boxing series with a futuristic setting and the advent that boxers fight with metallic grid-like gear on their shoulders that intensifies the battles. In true badass fashion, the series’ hero, Junk Dog (Joe), fights gear-less. The anime tells the rags to riches story as Junk Dog rises above his nobody status and slows climbs the ranks of the Megalo Boxing rankings. The boxing matches all look incredible and at thirteen episodes, this is an easy series to give a shot.

Mob Psycho 100

Available on: Adult Swim, Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, STARZ 

Coming hot off the heels of his latest hit series, One-Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100 is also a strong blast of creativity courtesy of the brilliant mind of “One” (if the character animations weren’t also a dead giveaway). Operating much like his other series, Mob Psycho 100 is a frenzy of an anime that is all about shattering expectations and taking an overdone genre and making it feel fresh. Here, a totally normal boy named Mob learns that he’s an incredibly powerful Esper, meaning he wields a great deal of psychic power. Rather than doing something about these powers, Mob lives in fear of them getting out of control and instead tries to suppress his abilities and avoid the spotlight, however, trouble has a certain way of finding him and eking out his potential.

read more: Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 Review

Mob Psycho 100 is a triumph for its unconventional storytelling and great cast of characters, all of which fit somewhere different on the psychic spectrum. Part of the fun here is just determining who actually has psychic powers and who is just full of themselves (and who’s just an evil ghost), but everyone is still painted in an incredibly entertaining light. Plus, much like One-Punch Man, this series offers up some of most gorgeous animation that you’re going to come across. If you’re not marveling at the action scenes or laughing your ass off at its sense of humor, then you’re for sure going to be lost in the hypnotic look of this series. This one will sneak under your skin until you don’t even realize how obsessed you are with it, plus there’s an impressive dub for the series, too.

My Hero Academia

Available on: Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu, Yahoo View!

My Hero Academia is set within a well-defined universe where a good deal of people are born with latent superpowers known as “Quirks” that become activated after a matter of time. The series follows Izuku Midoriya, a quirk-less child who is more obsessed with superheroes than anyone else, in spite of his own normal status. However, everything changes for Izuku when the world’s greatest superhero, All Might, gives his own quirk over to Izuku in a rare act that forever ties the two together.

With Izuku still trying to understand and master the abilities of his new quirk, he finds himself enrolled in U.A. High School which becomes a training ground for all of the newest superheroes in training. My Hero Academia might skew younger a little in its tone, but it has an infectious energy that’s built upon having a strong (huge) cast of characters and an addictive narrative that sees these heroes-in-training trying to brave the trials of school.

read more: My Hero Academia Episode 1 Review

There’s something so soothing about clearly established battles of Good Vs. Evil and My Hero Academia excels at painting these extremes in such exciting, new lights. The fight scenes are also on a whole other level. Just taking a glimpse of the superpowers on display in this show should give you an indication that this is far from some X-Men rip-off. This series isn’t going anywhere though and if Funimation didn’t have Dragon Ball Super on their hands, My Hero Academia would be the other big hit that they’d be banking on. They’ve only scratched the surface with the superpowers of this one.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Available on: Netflix

There are dozens of worthwhile giant mecha anime out there, but Neon Genesis Evangelion is the Godfather of the genre in many ways. The series became notorious for its avant-garde deconstruction of the mech genre and the psychologically delicate areas that the series pushes its subject matter and characters. The series follows the basic setup of a select chosen few needing to pilot Evangelion suits in order to fight the invading “Angels” and prevent another Armageddon. Many series follow a similar mold, but Evangelion holds its characters in darkness and doesn’t relent. It’s no secret that the series’ director, Hideaki Anno, suffered from severe depression while working on the series and that’s all beautifully up on the screen in a way that only David Lynch gets close to recreating anywhere else. So yes, Neon Genesis Evangelion is full of stunning animation, beautifully choreographed battles, and an electric soundtrack, but it will also force you to reckon with the human condition in a way that so few other series can achieve. 

Neon Genesis Evangelion isn’t perfect, but it’s earned its notorious reputation and absolutely deserves to be seen. It’s been years since the anime has legally been available in the United States, so Netflix securing the streaming rights for the spring is kind of a huge deal for the anime community. It’s just a shame that their plan seems to be to re-dub the series, since the original dub is almost as legendary as the anime itself at this point.

Onara Gorou

Available on: Amazon Prime

Okay you guys, Onara Gorou isn’t freaking Shakespeare, but it’s a supremely weird series that looks at the antics of Gorou, “the most admirable of farts.” Gorou attempts to help out individuals (all while connected to the human that’s producing him) and every moment of this show elicits questions that you’re not even sure that you want the answers.

read more: The Best Comedy Movies on Amazon Prime

Onara Gorou almost feels like the early seasons of South Park where this crudely presented idea looks juvenile at its surface layer, but there’s something more intelligent going on underneath. Make no mistake, Onara Gorou isn’t a smart series, but it’s unrepentantly silly and it will make you laugh and question the laws of nature in a way that more shows should. How did you live your life without having this show and its nightmarish ending theme in your world!?

One-Punch Man

Available on: : Adult Swim, Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo View!

One-Punch Man is overblown action in the best possible way. The series is about Saitama, the eponymous "One-Punch Man", a superhero that is so powerful that he kills all of his enemies in one punch. Because of this lack of a challenge, Saitama has developed a blasé look on life as he searches for someone stronger than him. The fact that this extremely overpowered person looks like this is the perfect unassuming icing on the cake.

It's encouraging to see how well One-Punch Man nails the action and humor that it goes for, and it's funny that in a year that has seen people clamoring for (and receiving) more Dragon Ball, this is the series that seems to be satisfying most of these people's desires for overblown, God-level battles (the work done in the first season finale is truly a sight to behold in both animation and fighting).

 On the other extreme of this, the series is also very interested in the hierarchy of these superheroes, designating them classes, rules and restrictions, and through this we get a number of delightful ancillary low-level heroes that kind of out-Venture Bros the Venture Bros. Here you're getting such absurd fighters like Tank Top Vegetarian, Superalloy Darkshine, Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask, Metal Bat, Pri-Pri-Prisoner, Spring Mustache, and License-less Rider, who is simply a cyclist who uses his bike as a weapon. I dare you to watch that theme song and not want to give this adrenaline shot a peak.

Overlord

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu, Netflix

Overlord is the very best kind of wish fulfillment series where a slacker loser suddenly becomes the all-powerful ruler of a magical land. This isn’t exactly an original premise, but Overlord puts so much detail and love into its universe. In the year 2126, the most popular MMORPG is a title called “YGGDRASIL.” But when the game announces that it’s shutting down its servers, one stubborn player named Momonga decides to stay in the game. After “YGGDRASIL” shuts down, Momonga learns that the virtual world has rebuilt itself into something new and because he didn’t log out, he’s actually entered this world and turned into his avatar, a skeleton wizard.

read more: Digimon Adventure Film Announced with Original Cast

Rather than panic over this turn of events, Momonga decides to take advantage of his fate and pledges to become the ruler of this new world. Momonga’s journey and development through this new universe is incredible, but the non-playable characters that inhabit this world slowly gain emotions and learn to evolve, too. Overlord has had three seasons to grow and deepen its mythology and it’s turned into the home for some of the most realistic characters in an anime as well. The way in which the series incorporates rules from video games, but also subverts them and strives for something deeper, is another reason why this show is such a treat. It consistently wants to defy expectations and surprise its audience with where Momonga is headed.

Parasyte –The Maxim-

Available on: Crunchyroll, Hulu

Parasyte: The Maxim hits the ground running and is bonkers from its very first frame. The series revolves around a number of alien parasites that have landed on Earth and start possessing hosts. Shinichi Izumi is a mild-mannered high school student whose life drastically changes when one of these parasites possesses his right hand. This sets Shinichi on a dangerous journey to wipe out the other parasites that have landed on Earth, as well as figure out how to work alongside his new alien host, and if there's a way to rid himself of this threat. 

Parasyte: The Maxim operates like a superhero series at times as Shinichi acclimates to the new strength and powers that his parasite gives him. The series also navigates tricky moral territory as Shinichi, who's now a human-alien hybrid, must fight against the aliens that are now part of his biology (think Tokyo Ghoul, but with aliens instead of vampire demons). 

read more: The Best Horror Movies on Hulu

The path that Shinichi finds himself on gives the anime a strong narrative drive, but honestly, this is just a beautiful show to watch in motion. The fluid, bewildering effects that Shinichi's parasitic hand puts to use are ridiculous and it's just crazy to watch a boy partner up with an alien version of his hand for an entire series. H.P. Lovecraft would give this madness his full stamp of approval.

Ping Pong the Animation

Available on Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll, FunimationNow

Ping Pong the Animation is perhaps the best example of Masaaki Yuasa’s magic because he’s able to turn table tennis into one of the most gripping, eye-popping animated series that you will ever watch. There is absolutely nothing remarkable about the show’s premise—a high school table tennis player named Smile discovers his potential in the sport and attempts to rise through the ranks—but Ping Pong the Animation would make you think that the fate of the world is at stake.  

The anime squeezes an insane amount into its scant eleven episodes, but it makes every one count and you’ll eagerly anticipate each new match. You’ll swear that you didn’t know how the human body moved until you see how Yuasa puts people in motion. It’s proof that he can elevate anything into gold and just how much of a difference animation style makes. Story is always going to be important, but it’s a lot easier to be forgiving of downfalls when insane animation is breaking your brain. Watch this and awaken.

Pop Team Epic

Available on: Adult Swim, Amazon Prime Video, Crunchyroll, FunimationNow

Pop Team Epic doesn’t give a fuck if you like it or not—in fact it probably hopes that you don’t—and it’s why this manic, insane series is so special. The show is a parody sketch anime that operates with unpredictable, frenetic pacing. Any topic is fair game, but the animation style also radically changes without notice and the series tries to break itself down more than it presents a polished anime. Hell, the end of every episode even presents a “Next Time On…” preview for Hoshiri Girldrop, a fake series that they made up. Just watch the show’s legendary “Hellshake Yano” sequence to get a glimpse of its crazy style and fall in love with it.

read more: Pop Team Epic Brings Its Madness to Adult Swim

If the show’s unleashed attitude wasn’t enough, each episode is basically eleven minutes long and then the following eleven minutes is the same footage that preceded it, but with minor differences. The voice actors will be changed the second time around, animation touches will contrast, but it’s an incredibly bold experiment to play with the audience and their patience. There seems to be an equal split on the people that love and hate the show’s “Bob Team Epic” halves, but they have people’s attention. With Pop Team Epic recently joining the irreverent Adult Swim’s Toonami lineup, the cult series has become more popular than ever.

RahXephon

Available on: Amazon Prime

In many ways RahXephon may seem like the poor man’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, and while there are ample similarities between the two, RahXephon tells a distinct story that is crazy, contemplative, and awesome in its own way. RahXephon starts as the “boy meets mecha, boy pilots mecha to save the world” start of narrative, but it turns into such a perplexing mash-up of themes and sensibilities. There’s also a delicious ‘70s flavor to the show’s aesthetics that keep it in this weird displaced time that doesn’t feel quite like the past or the future.

read more: The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Amazon Prime

Where Evangelion finds its fuel from depression and nihilism, RahXephon turns to the power of music and folklore. The series still operates with all of the staples of a giant mecha action series, but RahXephon strives for more and tries to redefine what the mecha genre can do. The stylized, methodical series is not for everyone, but it should still resonate in a way that’s deeper than the standard robot brawler.

Re: Creators

Available on: Amazon Prime

Re: Creators is extremely awesome in the sense that it delivers sprawling, insane battle sequences, but is also all about the struggles of creation and failing expectations. Sota Mizushino is an avid manga and anime fan and hopes to one day create his own series that finds an audience. Suddenly, characters from all across media—manga, anime, video games— get brought to the real world and Sota somehow becomes the middleman between two factions of creations where the fate of the Earth is at stake.

read more: The Best Anime to Watch on Netflix

Re: Creators is far from the typical “lost characters need to get home” narrative and it manages to continually add surprises throughout the season (it also features one of the more creative takes on the “recap episode” that you’ll ever find). The series mixes existentialism with flashy fight scenes and Re: Creators creates something very bold and memorable in the process. It’s a great deconstruction of the medium in general.

Saga of Tanya the Evil

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow 

Saga of Tanya the Evil is basically one long grudge match between an Atheist and God. In present time, a selfish Atheist Japanese businessman is pushed in front of a passing subway. Before his death, time is stopped by an omnipotent force known as “Being X.” When the businessman refuses to acknowledge Being X as God, he not only transports the man into an alternate magic-friendly version of World War I Europe, he also puts him in the body of a young girl, Tanya Degurechaff. Being X informs Tanya that if she dies of an unnatural death or fails to believe in him, her soul will go to hell for all of the crimes from her previous life. Stuck in this war-torn territory, Tanya joins the military with career advancement on her mind, planning to avoid the front lines of battle as much as possible. In the process, Tanya ends up becoming one of the most enviable, ruthless members of the military and begins changing the shape of history in the process. 

The spiritual struggle that Tanya finds herself in as Being X continually tries to manipulate her (he makes it so her gun won’t fire unless she prays to him first) is one thing to love about the show, but the other is the action that goes down in this bizarre world. The military is headed up by mages that basically fly through the air and fire super-powered weapons with the aid of magic. The result of all of this are dazzling aerial battles that give Attack on Titan a run for its money, while mixing magic with history in the most bad-ass way.

Sagrada Reset

Available on: Amazon Prime

Sagrada Reset is set within the town of Sakurada, a special community where everyone that lives there possesses some kind of special ability. Kei Asai, for instance, has an exceptional case of photographic memory to the point that he hasn’t forgotten a single thing that’s happened to him in Sakurada. Kei eventually comes in contact with Misora Haruki, who has the ability to reset time for as far back as three days. This is an exceptional power, but through these resets Kei still retains his memory of the now-deleted time. Accordingly, Kei and Misora team up and use their powers in tandem to help out individuals and solve a much larger mystery that’s afoot in Sakurada.

read more: Attack on Titan Movie Gets Director

The dynamic here between Kei and Misora is so loving and beautiful, but the show also creates an interesting world where special abilities are not only common, but monitored by a shady corporate board. One of the biggest joys of the series is watching how various abilities overpower and cancel each other out. Kei and Misora have to put some real quick thinking into play to get out of their problems and this thoughtfulness to the stories is why the idea works so well.

Samurai Champloo

Available on: Adult Swim (Random Episodes), FunimationNow, Hulu

If you’re sifting through anime, you’re likely going to come across some samurai titles. They’re a staple of the form. Samurai Champloo, unsurprisingly, is exactly that, but also so, so much more. While at its core a simple quest story involving a mysterious beauty, Watanabe’s series is an anachronistic mash-up that reimagines Edo-era Japan into a post-modern hip hop wonderland. Watanabe continues to remix these ideas by literally rewinding episodes or “scratching” them like a record with a DJ-like sensibility as these classical themes get mashed together with current aesthetics.

read more: The Best Action Movies on Hulu

Just like Watanabe has revamped other classic anime archetypes, even if you’ve never been big on samurai series before, this one is likely to rub you the right way. Part of the fun here is just how successful Samurai Champloo is at creating its tone. It’s really a different way of presenting a narrative, and a smart pairing that deserves more credit. There’s also just something about seeing an elegant sword fight set to a hip-hop soundtrack.

Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist

Available on: FunimationNow, Hulu

The series’ introduction (and even its lengthy title) gives you a pretty good idea of what’s going on here. In a world where pornography, lewd language, and even crude humor are made illegal, a certain group of freedom fighters try to insert sexuality back into the world. This mash-up of Bradbury with bawdy humor turns out to be an ingenious pairing. You’d have no idea that flashy terrorist acts involving nude photos raining down on the population could not only be so hilarious, but also saying something poignant at the same time. 

read more: Voltron: 10 Hilarious Ways the Original Show Censored Death

There’s some exceptionally smart, informed humor coming out of this show (even their heavy “censorship” towards their language and gratuitousness is very funny while also servicing the story) and a delicious What If? scenario like nothing else. It’s also just nice to see the rampant sexuality that can so often dominate anime being portrayed in such an empowering light, too.

Space Dandy

Available on: Adult Swim (Random Episodes), FunimationNow, Hulu

This might be the greatest television show that I’ve ever seen—not just anime, but television, as a whole. The incredibly complex show has one of the simplest premises as the series follows a bounty hunter, Dandy, and his unusual crew on the hunt for rare alien species. Masterminded by Shinichiro Watanabe (a name that will pop up a lot here), each episode takes Dandy and company to a different planet, ostensibly making it a new show each time. One episode it’s a zombie story, the next a romantic comedy, and then an intergalactic dance competition. Another installment is focused entirely on the idea of a robot trying to learn and comprehend how to love. The show’s narrator is just as much a character on the program as any of the actual cast.

read more: Space Dandy: 5 Essential Episodes

Space Dandy goes the extra mile by having a different art director and character designer in use for each planet they visit, giving the locations and their inhabitants all a distinctly unique look. On top of that, the animation and music is just a gorgeous, psychedelic avalanche for the senses. It’s over-the-top aesthetic is very much something to get excited about. When combining that with truly avant-garde, unpredictable storytelling, Space Dandy becomes a series like no other. It demands watching and refuses defining.

Tatami Galaxy

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow

I’m going to rave a lot about Masaaki Yuasa because he’s just that damn amazing and groundbreaking. Even if the storyline in Tatami Galaxy was utter trash it would still be worth watching for Yuasa’s one of a kind animation style, but this series actually tells a rather profound story. The series centers around an unnamed protagonist who’s a freshman at college and is hungry for a “rose-colored campus life” of wonders. Each episode sees the character join a different campus club (tennis club, film club, cycling club…) and explores the disastrous, hilarious results of this decision and how reality doesn’t meet expectation. However, what’s great about this show is that each episode literally rewinds through time back to the beginning so that in the next episode a different club can be chosen. 

The series explores the similarities and differences that take place based on these decisions and it’s a creative take on parallel universes and the hand of fate. Then Yuasa also goes and breaks every rule that exists for animation and delivers such an orgasmic display of color and movement. At only eleven episodes, how can you really refuse such an anime?

Trigun

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu

As all sorts of flashy new anime hit the scene, there’s something to be said for an action classic from the ‘90s like Trigun. Vash the Stampede is your mysterious “Man With No Name” gunslinger archetype. The series bills him as one of the most destructive forces in the nation and while he is an impeccable shot and gunfighter, he’s also an incredibly sensitive individual who’d much rather preach the gospel of “love and peace” than empty out his chamber. With an obscene bounty of sixty billion double dollars on Vash’s head, there is never a shortage of assassins and derelicts out there who are looking to take him down.

read more: The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Hulu

Trigun offers incredible gunplay and action set pieces that are amazing to watch, but also highlight Vash’s extreme skills and ability to avoid death, whenever possible. The series only becomes more complex and fascinating when Vash’s spotty past gets explored and he attempts to fill in the blanks surrounding his retrograde amnesia. 

Trigun provides an emotional, suspenseful story about a man who wants to reject his violent talents and reclaim his past, but it’s also full of memorable villains and intense weapons that make the show even more impressive. Many chivalrous archetypes have come after Vash the Stampede’s time, but there’s a reason that he’s still such a classic character from anime (there will definitely be someone dressed up at him at the next Comic-Con you attend).

Urahara 

Available on: Crunchyroll, FunimationNow

Urahara is a strange little serious that is more about style over substance. It follows a group of girls obsessed with Harajuku culture who find themselves in battle against an invasion of aliens who want to steal their adorable culture. It’s a very weird idea that features things like a live-action talking tempura shrimp, but this anime still works even if you have no Harajuku knowledge. In fact, it’s genuinely surprising that this is an anime with a dub counterpart since it seems so intrinsically linked to Japanese culture. Then again, Dagashi Kashi also had a dub and maybe it’s a testament to just how popular Harajuku culture has become in America. Or maybe they’re just that confident in the animation.

When it begins it might feel like Urahara is just Harajuku fan service and “cuteness porn,” but the seriessurprises and whips out a compelling arc by the time that it comes to its conclusion. These plucky characters begin to turn into the very aliens that attack them and some real decisions need to get made. That being said, this isn’t an anime that you come to for its story, this is a show that’s a marvel to look at and every episode takes advantage of that and shows off in a different way. Urahara is far from the deepest series of the year, but it is the most beautiful.

Violet Evergarden

Available on: Netflix

Violet Evergarden tells the delicate kind of sci-fi friendly story that would feel at home as the plot in a Phillip K. Dick or Isaac Asimov story. The anime presents a thoughtful spin on the science fiction genre as it attempts to turn the sometimes cold, distant environment into something incredibly emotional and human. Violet Evergarden is an Auto Memory Doll—a person whose purpose revolves around writing letters for others or conveying the emotions that they cannot—and she attempts to find purpose and figure out who she is as she carries out these personal tasks for others.

read more: Ultraman Anime Coming to Netflix

Violet Evergarden is also a former soldier who’s part robot and she struggles to function after the war is over. The series fluctuates between glimpses of Violet’s PTSD and her various Auto Memory Doll jobs for others. The series adopts a structure that’s almost anthology-like in nature as Violet helps a new individual whose words have gotten away from them. Violet Evergarden’s script can occasionally be wonky and its presentation of gender roles is absolutely problematic, but it’s also one of the most gorgeous shows to come out of Kyoto Animation and its grasp on small-scale storytelling hits such heights.

Yu Yu Hakusho

Available on: FunimationNow, Hulu 

Yu Yu Hakusho is a shonen contemporary to the likes of Dragon Ball and even though the series saw a lengthy run on Adult Swim, the spirit-fighting adventures of Yusuke Urameshi never quite caught on the same way that Goku’s journeys did. That being said, now is the perfect time to sit down and binge on all 112 episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho because it’s a great example of a series that knows when to quit, rather than needlessly drag things on and dilute the brand (I’m looking at you, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece…).

Yusuke Urameshi, the show’s hero, gets hit by a car and killed in the show’s opening minutes. After demonstrating a proficiency in the afterlife, he returns to Earth and eventually engages in battle with some truly creative demons. Yusuke and every member of his team offer a unique style to battle and the show makes each of its major arcs feel like the best one and have real stakes.

Daniel Kurland is a published writer, comedian, and critic whose work can be read on Den of Geek, Vulture, Bloody Disgusting, and ScreenRant. Daniel knows that the owls are not what they seem and his perma-neurotic thought process can be followed at @DanielKurlansky.

Wondering when your favorites are coming back and what new series you can look forward to? We've got you covered with the Den of Geek 2019 TV Premiere Dates Calendar, where we're keeping track of TV series premiere dates, return dates, and more for this year and beyond. 

We'll continue to update this page as networks announce dates. A lot of these shows we'll be watching or covering, so be sure to follow along with us! 

Please note that all times are EST. 

TV Premiere Dates 2019 

If we've forgotten a show, feel free to drop a reminder in the comment section below!

This American Gods articles contains spoilers for Season 1.

"A Prayer For Mad Sweeney" was one of the standout episodes of American Gods Season 1, and what Neil Gaiman called at this month's TCA presentations, "one of my favorite deviations from the book."American Gods Season 2 will see a similar "deviation," with another Mad Sweeney-centric episode telling the history of the Old God to an even more expansive degree.

In Season 1, we got to see Mad Sweeney as he was a few hundred years ago. In Episode 7 of Season 2, we will learn about the last 6,000 years of Mad's history.

"That's a lot of years," noted Pablo Schreiber, who plays Sweeney in the show.

"It's a long episode," added Emily Browning, who plays American Gods' Laura Moon and had a substantial role in Season 1's Mad-centric ep. 

read more: American Gods Season 1 Recap

Gaiman spoke to Den of Geek about having the opportunity to further expand on his novel in Season 2 with the expanded history of Mad Sweeney.

"I do have 6000 years of Mad Sweeney backstory all there and it wasn't need for the book so, it gets implied, but it's yours if you want it," said Gaiman. "And then sitting down in Toronto in a trailer with Heather [Bellson] and just taking her through the history of Mad Sweeney and the ups and the downs of him as a god and as a saint and his battle with the saint and the madness of Mad Sweeney and what he was and how that ties in and everything and I think they pulled that off and it became something bigger and better than I hoped."

Speaking more generally to Den of Geek about Mad's journey in Season 2, Schreiber said: "My arc this season, or Sweeney's arc this season, is an arc of revenge I guess, or retribution. There was a lot of themes through the first season of him feeling misused and abused and a lot of guilt that he had to make up for and the process of this season is his journey toward clearing his own conscience."

One of those sins is the murder of Laura, which we learn in Season 1 was carried out by Mad Sweeney on Wednesday's orders. Mad spends most of the first season trying to get his coin (and therefore his luck) back from Laura, but, when the opportunity presents itself, he lets Laura keep it (unbeknownst to her) so that she can survive.

read more: American Gods Season 2 — Meet the New Gods

"Mad could've walked away," said Gaiman of that moment. "He could've just taken his coin and he didn't. He gave it back and it kept on. It's like, okay, there's something really wonderful happening and watching both Laura and Mad Sweeney have their own arc in Season 2, and watching where that takes them, I think it would be fair to say that [the shape of their arc is] probably my favorite thing in the whole of Season 2."

In general, the Mad and Laura dynamic is the best-developed relationship of Season 1, and one that was mostly built for the TV series. 

"I don't think anybody quite expected it," said Gaiman of the Laura/Mad dynamic. "It was very much a thing of, in terms of the moving people from point A to point B. Going, 'Well in the novel, at this point, both Mad Sweeney and Laura are off-screen so wouldn't it be great if they're traveling with each other?' That just seemed like a lovely and efficient way to do so."

Schreiber gave Den of Geek insight into the aesthetic "updates" his character got when making the jump from the page to the screen.

"We talked about that in design in terms of the [fact that the] book was written 20 years ago, so what does the Mad Sweeney of today look like?" Schreiber told Den of Geek. "Because it was really important that all of the characters, you could conceivable find them in today's world. So rather than the trucker hat, which felt '90s, it made it's way to what it was, which is more of that modern-day kind of hipster vibe that you would find in Silverlake, or Williamsburg, or something like that."

read more: Everything We Know About American Gods Season 2

"So there were small updates like that. And it was for me kind of important that the Sweeney that's in the book is very ... he's incredibly put upon. And his tone can be very whiny in the book. Put upon was really important, and we didn't want to lose that because it's this idea of the leprechaun who's lost his luck that is the humor of the character, so he has to be put upon in order to be funny."

"But, I wanted the whiny tone that kinda comes off in the book to be transformed a little bit in order for him to be a character that would last," continued Schreiber. "You just don't want to listen to somebody whining like that all the time."

I kind of love this take on Mad Sweeney, who really is one of the highlights in the TV series in a way he wasn't in the book. 

"It was a bit of a total change for him to be a character that would stick around and capture hearts," noted Schreiber of the different role the character plays in the adaptation. "That was a little bit different than the tone of the book with that character, if any of that makes sense. That was my journey."

American Gods Season 2 will premiere on Sunday, March 10th, 2019 at 8 p.m. ET on Starz and will be available the same day on the Starz App.

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

Alec Bojalad is TV Editor at Den of Geek and TCA member. Read more of his stuff here. Follow him at his creatively-named Twitter handle @alecbojalad

The Locke & Key TV series project has had a rough time, but its troubles finally appear to be over, thanks to Netflix.

Back in July 2016, THR revealed that Hulu gave the show adaptation of writer Joe Hill's IDW horror comic book series a pilot order, with Carlton Cuse (Lost) set to serve as showrunner. Auspiciously, Andy Muschietti (It, Mama) was on tap to direct the pilot after Doctor Strange's Scott Derrickson had to withdraw.

Unfortunately, after all that, Hulu passed on the project! However, Netflix eventually came in for the rescue... even if said rescue involved scrapping Hulu's pilot. Regardless, the Locke & Key TV series is finally happening, officially greenlit as a 10-episode series for Netflix!

Locke & Key TV Series Cast

Felix Mallard is the latest Locke & Key cast acquisition, reports Variety. The up-an-coming Aussie actor of TV shows Happy Together and Neighbours will play Lucas Caravaggio, described as “a charming teenager in the town of Matheson whose exposure to magic leads to serious complications.” Mallard will next be seen, opposite Elle Fanning, in the Netflix film, All the Bright Places.

He joins recent supporting cast additions such as Petrice Jones (iBoy, Stan Lee’s Lucky Man), Griffin Gluck (American Vandal, Red Band Society) and Laysla De Oliveira (The Gifted, iZombie).

Darby Stanchfield (Scandal, NCIS, Castle) is set to star in Netflix’s Locke & Key, reports Deadline. She will play Nina Locke, the widowed single mother of the three Locke children, who moves the family into their ancestral home, the Keyhouse, in Maine. However, the property has centuries of connections to the supernatural – and the circumstances of her husband’s death – and acts as a dimensional portal through which malevolent demons wish to cross. Nina was played by Frances O'Connor in Hulu's pilot, and by Miranda Otto in the nixed 2011 version.

Netflix revealed, via Deadline, the young cast who will portray the Locke siblings in the streaming giant’s reworked version of the Locke & Key TV series.

Connor Jessup (American Crime, Falling Skies) will play Tyler Locke, who, as a teenager, is the oldest of the siblings.

Emilia Jones (Wolf Hall, Utopia) will play Kinsey Locke.

Jackson Robert Scott (It– as Georgie Denbrough) was previously added, set to play the youngest of the trio, Bode Locke. Interestingly, Scott was cast as Bode in the nixed Hulu iteration and, for now, stands as the only cast member retained by Netflix.

Sherri Saum (The Fosters) recently joined the cast as reported by TVLine. Saum will play Ellie Whedon, "a teacher at Matheson Academy who has a mysterious history with the Locke family."

Locke & Key TV Series Details

While the streaming giant rescued the wayward project, the move involved crucial caveats: Netflix’s series order came with the confirmation that Locke & Key will go back to the drawing board, re-casting while redeveloping the scripts, essentially scrapping the Hulu pilot, which was directed by It helmer Andy Muschietti (who’s too busy with the sequel to handle the mulligan).

Interestingly, Netflix is opting to keep the Hulu iteration’s creative fulcrum, Joe Hill, who remains onboard as creator/writer/executive producer. The same goes for showrunner Carlton Cuse, known from Lost, The Strain, Bates Motel and Amazon’s upcoming Jack Ryan series. Cuse is now joined in that capacity by Meredith Averill, who’s worked on Jane the Virgin, Star-Crossed and The Good Wife, along with Netflix’s upcoming TV series horror reboot The Haunting of Hill House.

In 2016, IDW Entertainment released news that Locke & Key writer Joe Hill (he wrote the story for the comics, with art by Gabriel Rodriguez) was on board to write the pilot and executive produce the TV show adaptation as a straight-to-series project. It's unclear how Hulu and Cuse's involvement might change that plan, but Hill had previously said in a statement:

I love this story. The seven years I spent working on Locke & Key was the happiest creative experience of my life, and there still isn’t a day when I don’t think about those characters and miss visiting with them. The six books of the series are very like six seasons of a cable TV series, and so it feels only natural to bring that world to the little screen and to see if we can’t scare the pants off viewers everywhere.

Locke & Key begins with the story of three siblings returning to their family's ancestral home following the brutal and mysterious murder of their father. As they explore the house and its surroundings, it becomes clear that there are wonderful and terrible things lurking on the grounds. It is a comic book horror classic.

Hulu's scrapped Locke & Key pilot consisted of the following cast:

Frances O’Connor (The Conjuring 2, A.I. Artificial Intelligence) as Nina Locke. Sam Robards (Twisted, Gossip Girl) as Rendell Locke. Jack Mulhern (Walking to the Waterline) as Tyler Locke. Megan Charpentier (It, Mama) as Kinsey Locke. Jackson Robert Scott (It, Fear the Walking Dead) as Bode Locke. Nate Corddry (The Circle, The Marvelous Ms. Maisel) as Duncan Locke. Owen Teague (It, Bloodline) as Sam Lesser. Lastly, Danny Glover was to play a cameo role as teacher Joe Ridgeway. Of course, there's another failed Locke & Key TV endeavor that predate Hulu's version.

Previously, a TV show adaptation made it all the way to the pilot stage, but never garnered a pick-up. The TV adaptation had Josh Friedman as a showrunner (The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Avatar 2) and an all-star cast that included Miranda Otto, Sarah Bolger, and Ksenia Solo. Check out the trailer...

Sadly, this version of Locke & Key never made it past a pilot, but the pop culture world seems better poised to embrace an onscreen version of this horror comic now. Not only are there way more comic book adaptations on TV and film, but Joe Hill has attained a better industry foothold, especially with the recent film adaptaion of Horns. Hopefully, the Netflix adaptation is good and garners enough of an audience to ensure its continuation. Universe, you owe us this.

Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.

Deep State made its U.S. debut back in June 2018 on cable channel Epix, showcasing a slick small screen spy thriller headlined by the ever-capable (Shazam! villain) Mark Strong, who played Max Eaton, an ex-spy who becomes thrust into a covert intelligence war. The series, an internationally distributed product of Fox Networks Group, received a quick Season 2 renewal, but the status of its domestic deal was left uncertain for months until Epix's renewal announcement arrived that August.

Not only would fears over the show's status prove unwarranted, but the renewal would come with the reveal of a brand-new star in Walton Goggins. Moreover, it appears that Season 2 will see the show live up to its titular term, “deep state,” which has become a potent concept in the increasingly partisan political arena, manifesting as a take on traditional shadow government conspiracy theories.

Deep State Season 2 Trailer

The first trailer for Epix's Deep State Season 2 is here!

Deep State Season 2 Release Date

Deep State Season 2 premieres on Epix in the U.S. on Sunday, April 28 at 9/8c.

Deep State Season 2 Cast

Walton Goggins replaces Mark Strong as series headliner on Deep State Season 2, as first reported by THR. Goggins will play Nathan Miller, who returning showrunner Matthew Parkhill describes as “an ex-CIA agent, who now acts on behalf of the deep state.”

Goggins, a veteran actor, has been riding a wave of momentum in recent years off acclaim garnered from his FX television runs on The Shield and Justified. He recently appeared in a string of blockbusters such as Ant-Man and the Wasp, Tomb Raider, Maze Runner: The Death Cure and The Hateful Eight, as well as prominent TV runs on History’s Navy SEAL action series, Six, and made comedic magic opposite Danny McBride on HBO’s Vice Principals.

He’ll be joined on Deep State Season 2 by a gaggle of newcomers:

Victoria Hamilton (The Crown, Doctor Foster) will reportedly play Meaghan Sullivan, who Deadline describes as “a Republican U.S. senator who is determined to bring the illicit activities of the deep state to light.”

Lily Banda (The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind), a just-breaking actress, will play Aicha Konaté, who’s described as “a Malian aid worker intent on improving things for her country.”

Shelley Conn (Liar, Heartbeat) will plays Miller’s ex-wife.

Additionally, Season 2 will see the return of Season 1 cast members such as Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones), Karima McAdams (Fearless), Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager) and Anastasia Griffith (Once Upon a Time). 

Deep State Season 2 Story

Showrunner Matthew Parkhill resumes his duties, rejoined by co-creator and executive producer Simon Maxwell. As Parkhill first teased of Season 2’s approach:

“Our aim for the show is to move beyond the first season, expanding the shadowy world of the deep state and encourage viewers to delve deeper into how it goes about ruthlessly achieving its goals.”

In more recent comments, via Deadline, Parkhill elaborates on the Season 2 story, stating:

“My ambition for Deep State was to create an intelligent, cinematic and political thriller; a modern-day story that reflects the turbulent times we are all living in. This year, we build on the established worlds of London and Washington from season one, and take our audience further behind the curtain of the deep state, introducing new characters and new territories – notably Mali and the epic landscape of the Sahara Desert, the land of the Tuareg people.”

Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.

There is uncertainty in some corners of the Marvel TV universe, but one constant has been ABC’s Agents of SHIELD. With Netflix making a surprise move to cancel Luke Cage and Iron Fist, throwing doubt into the future of Marvel and Netflix’s partnership, and Disney commissioning high-profile limited series for Loki, Scarlet Witch, and Winter Soldier and Falcon on its Disney+ streaming service, fans were left to wonder what might become of Agents of SHIELD, a show that is typically on the ratings bubble.  

Thankfully, no one has to turn in their badges just yet. ABC has picked up Agents of SHIELD season 7, and the season has already begun production, despite Season 6 having yet to premiere yet. The news came from cast member Ming-Na Wen via Instagram...

Agents of SHIELD season 6 and 7 will consist of 13 episodes, a decrease from the 22 episode orders of seasons one through five. 

Agents of SHIELD premiered on ABC in 2013 as a spinoff of The Avengers and has run for 110 episodes. The series was co-created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen. It stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons and Natalia Cordova-Buckley.

Currently, Hulu is the streaming home for Marvel Television’s Agents of SHIELD and Runaways. There have been no reports of those shows moving over to Disney+ when it launches in 2019. The SHIELD renewal means the show will remain on ABC likely through 2020. 

The Agents of SHIELD season 5 finale shook things up. We wrote about the implications it might have for season six here.

Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Release Date

With season six arriving in mid-2019, the earliest we could possibly see the Agents of SHIELD Season 7 premiere will be in early to mid 2020.

Chris Longo is the deputy editor and print editor of Den of Geek. You can find him on Twitter @east_coastbias. 

The Expanse season 4 will be coming to Amazon, which has made a deal with Alcon Entertainment to continue the series for a fourth season and perhaps beyond. The move is one that was hoped for and in many cases expected by fans and those within Alcon given its overwhelming critical success and its consistent ratings on Syfy, which chose not to continue to distribute the series.

“We couldn’t be more excited that The Expanse is going to continue on Amazon Prime," Alcon Entertainment Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said in a press release. "We are deeply grateful that Jeff Bezos, Jen Salke, and their team at Amazon have shown such faith in our show.  We also want to thank Laura Lancaster, head of Alcon Television for her tireless efforts. We are fully aware that this wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the staggering outpouring of support from the most creative, hardest working sci-fi fans around the world. From reddit campaigns to airplanes, we say thank you. It worked!”

“The Expanse transported us across the solar system for three brilliant seasons of television,” said Chris McCumber, President, Entertainment Networks for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment after the cancellation “Everyone at Syfy is a massive fan of the series, and this was an incredibly difficult decision. We want to sincerely thank The Expanse’s amazing cast, crew and all the dedicated creatives who helped bring James S.A. Corey’s story to life. And to the series’ loyal fans, we thank you most of all.”

The Expanse Season 3 Reviews| The Expanse Season 2 Reviews

As for where The Expanse season 4 is headed, showrunner Naren Shankar says, “One of the things that seems pretty clear: it’s going to be another blood-soaked gold rush that’s about to happen, because you’ve got an entire species and several societies that have defined themselves on the fact that the solar system is all they’ve got, that those resources are what they have.” (via EW)

The Expanse Season 4 Cast and Characters

The new cast member announcements for The Expanse Season 4 keep coming! The latest? According to Deadline, Rosa Gilmore (The Handmaid’s Tale), Keon Alexander (Tyrant) and Jess Salgueiro (Mouthpiece) will all be joing The Expanse in Season 4.

Gilmore will play Lucia Mazur, "one of the Belter refugees who have staked their claim to a new Earth-like planet on the other side of the Ring Gates. Trained as a medic, Lucia doesn’t hesitate to help friend and foe alike when disaster strikes."

Alexander will play "a wily and charismatic Belter faction leader," and Salgueiro is signed on in the role of "a cynical corporate security officer."

Sleepy Hollow alum Lyndie Greenwood just announced via her Instagram that she will be playing Dr. Elvi Okoye on Season 4.

Also, Burn Gorman (Torchwood) will be playing the role of security chief Adolphus Murtry, who is first seen in Cibola Burn, the fourth book of the James S.A. Corey series.

Check out the announcement via Twitter...

Elsewhere, Shankar has confirmed the return of the regular cast along with Cara Gee as Camina Drummer, Frankie Adams as Bobbie Draper, and David Strathairn as Klaes Ashford.

Shankar also told EW that The Expanse season 4 would follow the events of Cibola Burn, book 4 in the James S.A. Corey novels. We'll avoid spoilers here, but suffice it to say the opening of the gates in the season 3 finale will lead to new worlds to explore.

"We are going to tell that story in season 4, sure, but we’re not leaving Earth and Mars and the Belt behind," Shankar says. "They’re part of the story, and both fans of the books and fans of the show are going to see something really interesting and new in season 4."

Other Cibola Burn characters we hope to see this season include Basia Merton, the Belter who finds himself embroiled in an insurgency he never intended to be a part of, and Elvi Okoye, the UN scientist whose desire to study what is beyond the gates is frustrated by political and financial concerns. 

The Expanse Season 4 Release Date

Right now, there's no exact date for The Expanse season 4's premiere on Prime Video, but Amazon assured us via Deadline that it will happen in 2019. The same article also mentions that, while seasons 1 and 2 have been available on the streaming service for quite some time, season 3 will be available on February 8, 2019 in the U.S. That same date will see the international debut of all three seasons to Prime subscribers overseas as well.

Season 4 is wrapping up production this week, which certainly signals the possibility of a release date announcement soon.

The Expanse Season 4 Episodes

The Expanse season 4 will have ten episodes when it makes its debut on Amazon Prime Video, three fewer than in previous seasons, which should translate to a quicker pace for the action. We'll keep track of episode titles, descriptions, and air dates in this section as we learn them, and our reviews of each installment will also be linked here.

Further Reading: The Expanse Season 3 and the Challenges of Adaptation

More news forthcoming as we learn it...

Michael Ahr is a writer, reviewer, and podcaster here at Den of Geek; you can check out his work here or follow him on Twitter (@mikescifi). He co-hosts our Sci Fi Fidelity podcast and voices much of our video content.

Disney may be pulling all of its Marvel shows from Netflix in preparation for the upcoming launch of its subscription streaming service Disney+, but what does that mean for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Up until now, the Marvel TV shows—from ABC's Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter to Netflix's pantheon to randoms Runaways and Cloak & Dagger—have become increasingly loosely connected to the larger MCU. With the launch of Disney+, that trend has the potential to change.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said: "These will be Marvel Studios productions. They will be entirely interwoven with both the current MCU, the past MCU, and the future of the MCU." 

This means that all of the announced Disney+ Marvel projects—which includes series based around Loki, Vision and Scarlet Witch, and Winter Soldier and Falcon, respectively—will actively take place in the MCU. The big follow-up question to this, of course, being: When in the timeline of the MCU do they take place?

We'll know the answer soon enough. While we are still months away from the launch of the Disney+ platform (fall 2019 seems to be a popular guess), the shows are all moving forward: Rick and Morty's Michael Waldron has signed on to showrun the Loki series. The Vision And Scarlet Witch show has snagged Captain Marvel scribe Jac Schaeffer, and the Falcon And Winter Soldier series has brought aboard Empire's Malcolm Spellman.

In addition to the Marvel shows, Disney+ now boasts two Star Wars live-action series: The Mandalorian and the Diego Luna-led Rogue One prequel series.

More news on these new Marvel TV series and Disney+ as it arrives, of course.

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.