Writings - Articles

The Boys: All 6 Times Hughie Gets Covered In Blood

The Boys is a pretty gory show, but no character has unintentionally gotten covered in blood as many times as Hughie, and here are all six times that it has happened. Throughout the four seasons of The Boys, Hughie has found himself in all sorts of terrifying situations, with many scenes often involving characters exploding, getting ripped apart, or otherwise dying in an incredibly gory fashion. These frequent deaths have left Hughie covered in blood and guts far more times than any normal perso...

How GoT Would've Ended Differently If Jon Snow Was The "Mad" Targaryen

Game of Thrones' final seasons would have been very different if Jon Snow, also known as Aegon Targaryen, was the Targaryen to "go mad" instead of Daenerys. Game of Thrones' final season was met with outrage from fans of the show. The writers' character assassinations of beloved players, such as Tyrion Lannister, the dropping-the-ball plot maneuvers with Missandei, Arya, and Bran Stark, and the good/evil simplification of Jon Snow and Cersei Lannister rendered Game of Thrones' season 8 disappoin...

Every Battlestar Galactica Cylon Model Explained

Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica re-imaging was a big hit, and it owed a lot of that success to the mystery around humans and the Cylons. The Battlestar Galactica of the early 2000s took what had been a heavily mechanized sentient race of robots in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series and turned them into humanoid Cylons that were indistinguishable from human beings. This led to dramatic reveals when the humans learned that someone they previously thought to be one of them was actually a C...

The 100-Year-Old Movie That Inspired A LOT Of Your Favorite Directors

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a silent German film from 1920, was completely innovative for its time and continues to influence filmmakers to this day. Emerging out of German Expressionism, a modernist movement in which reality was distorted for emotional effect, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari utilizes a set made of painted canvases positioned at improbable angles. Every element was crafted to bring about a feeling of threat and impending doom. It was the first movie to create a mindscape, a subject...

Hannibal Wouldn’t Have Worked Without One Small Real-Life Detail

NBC's series Hannibal set itself apart in the way it used visual world-building to accentuate its story. Many viewers may not have noticed these subtle details, but they elevate the show by adding an extra level of nuance and care to the overall series. Showrunner Brian Fuller drew from Thomas Harris' gothic, psychological novels rather than the well-known movies The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, and Hannibal. The result was surreal horror, layered with a multisensory, stylized beauty. Th...

House Of The Dragon Brutally Broke 1 Major Game Of Thrones Character Rule

House of the Dragon brutally broke a major Game of Thrones rule with the death of Lucerys Velaryon. The Game of Thrones showrunners took great pains to avoid placing its young actors, and thus characters, in violent or sexually-charged situations. It largely accomplished this by aging up the characters from the books to the show, whereas House of the Dragon employed four strategic time jumps to move the story forward, and more importantly, age the characters to where they needed to be at the tim...

Ring Of Power's Huge Timeline Retcon Was Unnecessary (& HOTD Proves It)

The Rings of Power has condensed thousands of years of Tolkien's canonical timeline in sweeping retcons that could have been handled the way House of the Dragon managed time jumps. Both shows are based on written source material that covers quite a bit of time, but their approaches to dealing with this couldn't have been more opposite. The Rings of Power showrunners avoided time jumps in season one and introduced the major players immediately, so everyone was in place for the action. House of th...

The Rings Of Power's Canon Changes Mean Legolas CAN Appear In S2

The Tolkien canon changes in The Rings of Power have been massive, which makes an appearance by Legolas in season two a possibility. Of course, the show won't add characters who physically could not be alive, but the writers have been stretching the meaning of "could." Given that The Rings of Power only has so many hours of programming to work with and that Tolkien didn't flesh out the Second Age as the First and Third Age, dramatic license is understandable, but retconning the birthdates of key...

Kelli Giddish's Law & Order Exit Will Hurt SVU In 5 Big Ways

Law & Order: SVU is losing Kelli Giddish, the actress who plays Amanda Rollins, and this will affect the show in five big ways. When Amanda Rollins came to SVU, she was a young detective from Atlanta, Georgia, who was impetuous and had a short fuse. Throughout her time in the SVU, she battled a gambling addiction, dealt with toxic family members, juggled a complicated love life, and stood up for herself in the face of sexual harassment and sexual assault. The relationships between the charact...

Who Every Stark Is Named After In Game Of Thrones & What It Really Means

In Game of Thrones, Lord Eddard Stark named his children, including one the viewer initially believed was his bastard son, after people who were important to him or the history of House Stark. When writing his epic fantasy novels, George R.R. Martin drew names from mythological and historical transitions, largely from Celtic and Greek mythology. However, some names were drawn from Hebrew and Sanskrit. With the Starks, he directly borrowed from Old English and the word "strearc," which became the...

BCS Proved Just How Evil Walter White Became In Breaking Bad

With the conclusion of Better Call Saul, the true villainy of Walter White in Breaking Bad was cast in stark relief. Walt's appearance in the series finale of Better Call Saul highlighted just how much he'd changed. His first cameo, in season 6, episode 11 was at the beginning of his relationship with Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill. Walt and Jesse Pinkman kidnapped Saul, and through the course of this, Walt was fumbling and awkward. He was not yet Heisenberg. However, in the series finale, Walt had c...

Why Frodo Was Perfect To Destroy LOTR's One Ring

In The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit Frodo Baggins was the best choice as the Ring-bearer to take the One Ring into Mordor to be destroyed. In The Hobbit, Frodo's cousin Bilbo went with Dwarves to face down a dragon, while Frodo, who at the beginning of the epic trilogy by JRR Tolkien and later the Peter Jackson films, wanted nothing more than a quiet life in The Shire with his friends. He turned out to be Bilbo's heir in more ways than one. When adventure came calling, Frodo rose to the challen...

The Rings Of Power Created A Big Season 2 Problem For Adar

Adar has a big problem going into season 2 of The Rings of Power. The Elf/Proto-Orc who led his children, the Orcs, into the Southlands has found a home for them in the newly dubbed and created Mordor. Up until the 6th episode of season 1, there was much speculation that Adar could be Sauron, but this was dispelled when Adar claimed that he had killed Sauron. An antagonistic connection has been established between the two, and a clash in season 2 is inevitable. Halbrand and Adar encountered o...

How The Godfather’s Best Pacino Scene Saved The Movie

One key scene in The Godfather saved Al Pacino's job and the movie itself. Francis Ford Coppola's film, based on the Mario Puzo novel of the same name, is commonly ranked as one of the greatest films ever made. It tells the story of one man's transformation from "good guy" to "bad guy." Michael Corleone, played perfectly by Al Pacino, was the second-youngest son of Vito Corleone and the main protagonist of the epic story. Pacino's performance, along with Coppola's direction, are two key elements...

Why The New Battlestar Galactica Series Will Have To Be Very Different

Filling the shoes of two previous series under the same name, a new Battlestar Galactica show will have to be different to distinguish itself. Both the 1978 original and the early 2000s version have the same backstory: Cylons as the main antagonists, an attack on the 12 Colonies, a search for a new home on Earth, and a battleship named Galactica protecting a fleet of civilian ships. The shows diverge in their handling of deeper issues such as the nature of the Cylons, the relationship of humans...

How Aemond Targaryen Dies In House Of The Dragon (& When Will It Happen?)

WARNING! This article contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for George R.R. Martin's book, Fire & Blood! Aemond Targaryen's death is set to be one of the most climactic moments in House of the Dragon, with the source material providing details on when it could happen. House of the Dragon is based on the book Fire & Blood, an extension of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice & Fire book series examining the history of the Targaryen dynasty in Westeros. Aemond's arc has been teed up on the show through sever...

The Witchers' Different Necklaces Explained (What They Really Mean)

The Witcher series on Netflix covers a vast fantasy world full of monsters and hunters, and great care was taken in ensuring small details, like the medallions worn by some of the cast have deeper meanings. The Witcher, a highly successful Netflix series, is primarily based on a book series by Andrzej Sapkowski, but it also draws, in part, from a videogame series by CD Projekt Red, which has, in turn, spawned a comic book series by Dark Horse Comics. With plenty of material to work with, it's no...

All Wizards/Istari In Lord Of The Rings

Throughout Tolkien's Middle-earth, in The Lord of the Rings and beyond, several mysterious figures appear called Istar, and these Wizards have extensive back stories. In the finale of Amazon's Prime Video series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Stranger is called "Istar," or Wizard, and "the other." Several important clues to The Stranger being Gandalf, the most famous of the five Wizards named in Tolkien's legendarium.
In The Lord of the Rings books and associated writings, th...

By Ending, Umbrella Academy Can Start Netflix's Biggest Franchise

The Umbrella Academy is rife with characters and plot lines that could be expanded into numerous spinoff series, and Netflix has made noise about making the show into a wider franchise. Steve Blackman, The Umbrella Academy's showrunner, has gone on record saying that he is open to the idea based on fan demand. "If there's an appetite," he said, "I think the actors would be up for it, we would all be up for it because we love working together." After The Umbrella Academy season 4, there is plenty...

It's Really Weird HOTD Hasn't Mentioned Alicent & Viserys' FOURTH Child

House of the Dragon, based on George R.R. Martin's novel Fire and Blood, details the history of the Targaryen family, specifically the civil war between factions divided by the line of succession. Fans will recognize many of the characters. They were referenced in Game of Thrones as part of the backstory to both Westeros and Essos and contributed greatly to Martin's world-creating lore. However, there is one pivotal character who was featured in the book, but has not yet been mentioned in House...

Every Time Marvel Insulted The MCU In She-Hulk

Disney Plus' She-Hulk is an intentionally silly, fourth-wall breaking show that pokes fun at itself and the MCU overal using tongue-in-cheek, lighthearted insults. With themes culled from almost 200 She-Hulk comic books, the show portrays Jennifer Walters, an attorney who is transformed into a Hulk when she gets her cousin Bruce Banner/Hulk's blood in her system after a car wreck. What ensues is an irreverent send-up of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its various characters. Some fans are u...

Saul Goodman Proved Walter White Wrong In 1 Huge Way

In Better Call Saul's series finale, Walter White of Breaking Bad made an observation that Saul Goodman would prove wrong in the end. As Walt and Saul awaited relocation, they hid in an underground bunker owned by Ed "The Disappearer" Galbraith. Seemingly at random, Saul asked Walt what he would do if he had a time machine. After he belittled Saul for the impossible logistics of time travel, Walter said that he'd go back to the time before he was forced out of Gray Matter, the company he co-foun...

Yes! NCIS Season 20's Abby References Will Fix A Show Injustice

Since she left NCIS in 2018, there has been no mention of Abby Sciuto, the much-loved forensic scientist often seen sporting platform boots and ponytails, dancing in her lab, and guzzling Caf-Pow. With her Gothic fashion sense and hyperactive energy, Abby's eccentric nature made her a popular character on NCIS, and after appearing for 15 seasons, it was an injustice to not refer to her again — though NCIS season 20 may be fixing that. Leroy Jethro Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, was the lead ch...

Umbrella Academy Season 4 Might Actually Give Luther A Good Ending

Umbrella Academy's Luther Hargreeves (Tom Hopper) has been put through a lot, but season 4 might actually give him a good ending. His de facto role as the leader of the group, largely due to the codename Number One, put him at odds with his siblings. Several unfortunate life experiences left him insecure and socially awkward. Coupled with his, at times, bumbling and childlike demeanor, he was a misunderstood character who deserved a happy ending, which season 4 might provide. Luther's giant p...
Load More