This story contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4

With the release of its final two episodes on July 1, Stranger Things 4 has ended—and a couple of major characters meet their end by the finale, too. Netflix’s flagship sci-fi show has never been afraid to kill off characters before (RIP Barb), and the final feature-length episodes included a couple of big deaths—and some near-death moments sure to have huge ramifications for the show as it heads into its fifth and final season.

Here’s everything to know about the major—and devastating—deaths of characters in season 4, the characters who nearly died, and the few whose fates remain unknown. (A full recap of the ending of season 4 is available here.)
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Who died in Stranger Things 4?

Doctor Brenner

Fans have long assumed that Doctor Martin Brenner (Mathew Modine), the researcher in charge of Hawkins Lab who studied and abused Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the other telekinetic children, died when a Demogorgon attacked him in season 1. But in season 4, it’s revealed that Brenner survived his injuries and created the NINA Project—a top-secret lab in the Nevada desert designed to give Eleven her powers back.

While Eleven and her “Papa” maintain an uneasy alliance at first, and work together to unlock memories of Vecna’s origins and restore Eleven’s powers, Brenner eventually betrays her. Instead of allowing Eleven and Doctor Owens to leave for Hawkins, Brenner says Eleven isn’t “ready yet” and has his men handcuff Owens while he sedates Eleven and puts a power-inhabiting collar on her.

Just then, though, Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan (Sherman Augustus)—the leader of a rival governmental faction who thinks Eleven is a threat who should be killed rather than empowered—attacks the base. Brenner attempts to flee with Eleven, but he’s shot multiple times by a sniper in a helicopter. Despite the collar, Eleven is able to use her powers to bring down the chopper. It’s too late for Brenner, though, and in his dying moments, he unlocks Eleven’s collar. He was a megalomaniacal monster who abused Eleven and many other children, but he did have an earnest if extremely toxic and warped affection for Eleven. Likewise, Eleven’s complicated past with “Papa” meant it was still a touching moment when he died.

Eddie Munson

Continuing Stranger Things’ grand tradition of introducing a new main character only to kill them off by the end of the same season they debuted in (See: Bob Newby, Alexei), Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) does not make it to the end of season 4 alive.

Eddie and Dustin had an important role in the plan to defeat Vecna. While Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Steve (Joe Keery), and Robin (Maya Hawke) went after his body, the pair would create a distraction to lure his hordes of demobats away. Eddie, in the most metal moment of the series, does this by crushing a Metallica solo on the roof of the Upside Down RV. Despite their fortifications, the bats are able to break into the RV. Eddie tricks Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) into retreating into the real world for safety, but he stays behind to buy his friends more time. All season, Eddie had been plagued by guilt for just running away when Chrissy (Grace Van Dien) died, horribly, in front of him back in the premiere. In the end, he finds his courage, first luring the bats away from the RV and then making a fateful decision to charge right into battle with them. The bats fatally wound him, and Dustin makes it back to the Upside Down just in time for Eddie to die in his arms.

Eddie died a hero, but the people of Hawkins think he’s a villain. He’s still the prime suspect in all the brutal murders, and people think his love of metal and Dungeons & Dragons is actually part of some satanic cult—a reference to the real-life satanic panic in the 1980s. Only his friends know how brave he was in the end, but Dustin attempts to tell Eddie’s uncle the truth. He can’t tell the whole truth, of course, but at least Eddie’s family can take some solace in knowing that he fought (against an earthquake?) for his friends. RIP Eddie, you’re shredding with the angels now.

Whose fate remains unclear in Stranger Things?

Max Mayfield

Max (Sadie Sink) almost dies in the first half of the season when she becomes Vecna’s target. Thanks to her favorite song—Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”—that Max regains a tether to reality and escapes Vecna’s psychic realm. She spends the rest of the season with her Walkman nearby so she can blast the song again to keep Vecna at bay, but in order for the plan to fight Vecna to work, she needs to be bait. She forgoes the Walkman and makes a plan to avoid Vecna within her own memories since it’s her mind that he’s invading. The plan works—at first.

Disaster strikes when Vecna overpowers all of Max’s friends. His bats take out Eddie while his vine-like tentacles ensnare Nancy, Steve, and Robin. And, although Eleven comes to her rescue and projects into Max’s conciseness to battle Vecna, the villain is able to defeat Eleven. To make things worse, Chrissy’s psycho boyfriend Jason (Mason Dye) accosts Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) while he’s defending Max’s body, accusing him of being involved in Eddie’s “satanic” cult. Jason accidentally destroys the Walkman, which means Kate Bush can’t come to the rescue.

Max floats into the air, her eyes start bleeding, and her limbs begin to snap like twigs. Then, Eleven, with Mike’s encouragement, summons the strength to defeat Vecna while Nancy’s crew torches his physical body. Max falls to the ground before her eyeballs explode like past victims, but she’s been fatally wounded. She dies, scared, in Lucas’ arms. With her death, the fourth gate to the Upside Down opens.

Eleven won’t stand for this, though, and she uses her power to bring Max back to life. After a two-day time jump, we learn that Max is alive again, but barely. She’s in the hospital, all her limbs are horribly broken, and she’s in some sort of coma. The doctors don’t know if she’ll ever wake up, and when Eleven tries to go inside Max’s mind, nobody is there. Though Max is technically alive, it remains to be seen to what extent she’ll ever recover.

Doctor Sam Owens

It’s unclear if Doctor Owens (Paul Reiser) survives the season. We last see him handcuffed to a pipe after Brenner’s betrayal, begging Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan not to kill Eleven. While Sullivan’s men have no qualms about killing, it’s unclear whether he would have Owens executed when he’s already got him captive as a prisoner. Owens may or may not be alive, but even if he survives the season, he is going to be in a bad place when season 5 begins.

Who is definitely still alive in Stranger Things?

Venca

Eleven defeats Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in a psychic battle, Steve and Nancy light his body on fire, and Nancy shoots him several times with a sawed-off shotgun. But it’s not enough. Vecna’s body goes flying out the window of the Upside Down Creel house and he lands with a thud. However, the body soon disappears—almost certainly a direct homage to when Michael Myers does the same disappearing act at the end of Halloween.

Some of our heroes are hopeful that he died of his wounds after all and really is gone for good. But Will (Noah Schnapp), who was possessed by the Mind Flayer (revealed to have been a servant of Vecna) in season 2, has a connection with the Upside Down, and knows Vecna isn’t gone. His theory seems to be proven correct when, in the closing moments of the finale, ash starts falling from the sky as the Upside Down invades the real world.

It’s as Vecna warned: His defeat wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning of the end. He’s almost certainly still alive and our heroes will have to finish the fight in season 5. Let’s hope they all survive.

This story contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4: Part Two

The final two episodes of the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things have arrived. With runtimes of one hour and 25 minutes and two hours and 30 minutes, respectively, the episodes feel more like a pair of movies than the end of a TV season. Needless to say, a lot goes down in Hawkins and in the Upside Down in the season’s conclusion.

Here’s everything to know about the events of the final part of Stranger Things season 4, including how the first part of the season fits into the plot, details on the plans to defeat Vecna, an in-memoriam for the characters who died, updates on where various love triangles and relationships stand, and a look forward at where Stranger Things could go from here.
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How did Stranger Things 4: Part One end?

An in-depth recap of the first part of season 4 is available here. But in short, here’s where part one left things: Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Murray (Brett Gelman) go to the Soviet Union to rescue an imprisoned Hopper (David Harbour) and his turncoat gulag guard ally Dmitri (Tom Wlaschiha) from a Demogorgon fighting pit. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Nevada desert, Eleven trains with Doctor Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) and the still-alive Doctor Brenner (Matthew Modine) to get her powers back. Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Argyle (Eduardo Franco) are on the run from a faction of the army that wanted Eleven eliminated and in search of their friend. Back in Hawkins, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Max (Sadie Sink), Robin (Maya Hawke), Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and Eddie (Joseph Quinn), investigate a new threat from the Upside Down, a creature they called Vecna (after the Dungeons & Dragons villain) who is possessing and killing people. He targets Max, but Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” saves her life by tethering her back to reality.

The mid-season finale concludes with intertwined revelations. Eleven, who has been revisiting her past in a sensory deprivation pit, remembers that a young man she knew in the facility where she had been trained had misled her so that he could get a chance to go on a rampage and boast about his plans to reshape the world with his power. Eleven engages in a psychic duel with him, casting him into a gateway to the Upside Down where he becomes the creature we know of as Vecna. Nancy and the Hawkins crew, meanwhile, had ventured into the Upside Down to rescue Steve but Vecna psychically kidnaps Nancy’s consciousness right before she’s about to escape and reveals that he is Pennhurst Asylum patient Victor Creel’s son, and that he was responsible for the infamous killings before Doctor Brenner took him in and dubbed him “001.” The season ends with Hopper and Joyce reunited but still in Siberia, Eleven re-powered but still in an uneasy alliance with Brenner, and Nancy in danger.

What happens with Hopper, Eleven, and Nancy?

The penultimate episode of season 4 resolves some plot points introduced in part one, while laying out the stakes for the finale. Vecna torments Nancy, revealing more of his backstory and laying out his evil plan before letting her go. Every time Vecna kills, he opens a gate to the Upside Down, and when he opens four he’ll be able to wreak havoc on Hawkins (and the world). Max realizes that she is still Vecna’s fourth and final target, so they come up with a plan to fight back by using her as bait. For it to work, they’re going to need weapons, so Eddie hotwires an RV and they go on a little road trip to a gun store. Inside, Nancy encounters Jason (Mason Dye), the captain of the Hawkins High basketball team. Jason is still out for revenge because he believes Eddie is responsible for his girlfriend Chrissy’s death, and the fact that he’s also armed is ominous.

Back in the U.S.S.R., Hopper and Joyce get a better look at the prison/Upside Down research lab, and learn that the Soviets also have a bunch of Demodogs and a swirling mass of Mind Flayer-like particles. While the Demogorgon attacks the guards, our heroes escape through some sewage tunnels. Yuri, the pilot who was supposed to smuggle Hopper out but instead betrayed them before being taken hostage himself, has a DIY helicopter that can help them escape to America—if he can get it working.

Eleven, having recovered her powers, learns that Max and her Hawkins friends are in danger. She wants to leave to go help them, but while Owens agrees, Brenner betrays her, saying she’s not yet strong enough. He has his men handcuff Owens and puts a power-inhibiting collar on Eleven rather than let her go again. At just this time, though, the other faction of the government raids the facility, and Brenner is shot several times while trying to escape with Eleven. Despite the collar, Eleven takes down an army helicopter before she too can be killed, and Mike and his cohort arrive just in time to get her to safety. In his dying moments, Brenner deactivates Eleven’s collar. Ultimately, on some deeply messed up and fundamentally irredeemable level, he did care for her. Although Brenner was an abusive monster, it’s still traumatic for Eleven to see her “papa” die.

What happens in the battle against Vecna?

The fight against Vecna comes to a head in the season finale. The Hawkins gang has a plan: When Vecna possesses people, his physical body has to be somewhere, just like with Eleven’s powers. Max goes to the Creel house and stops listening to Kate Bush so that Vecna will make another attempt to kill her, and Lucas and Erica (Priah Ferguson) go with her. The rest of the gang will go to the Upside Down. Eddie and Dustin will cause a distraction to lure Vecna’s creepy bats away from his body while Nancy, Steve, and Robin will go to the house and kill him.

Eleven, having realized they can’t get from Nevada to Indiana in time to help their friends, realizes she can “piggyback” into Max’s consciousness. Argyle creates an impromptu sensory deprivation tank in a Surfer Boy Pizza, and Eleven goes into Max’s head so that she can psychically battle Venca when he shows up.

Hopper and Joyce have the least to do, but they make a risky phone call to the States and learn what’s going down. In an effort to help, they break back into the prison so they can kill the particles, because those particles are part of the Upside Down, and eliminating them should help all the kids in their struggle.

Hopper and Joyce succeed in their mission, and Hopper gets to decapitate a Demogorgon with a sword before Yuri comes through with his helicopter to get them to safety. The rest of the characters have a worse time.

Vecna appears to be prepared for the Hawkin’s crew’s assault. Although Eddie draws the attention of all the bats with an extremely metal bit of guitar playing, the bats overwhelm him and Dustin. Eddie sacrifices himself to buy his friends more time. Nancy, Steve, and Robin make progress, at first, but they’re soon ensnared by Vecna’s gross tentacle-vines. Max is able to evade Vecna for a while once she’s been possessed, but eventually, he gets to her. Perhaps worst of all, Jason has found Max and Lucas, and he accuses Lucas of being in cahoots with Eddie’s satanic club, prompting the two of them to get in a brutal fistfight.

Eleven wanders through Max’s memories before coming to her psychic rescue just in time, but Vecna is able to overpower her after they duel. Vecna tells Eleven that she’s responsible for creating him and that she enabled his plan to take over the world and reshape it in his twisted image. He also explains that he is the brains behind the Mind Flayer, having come across its potential while wandering the Upside Down’s wastelands after Eleven first cast him here. He resumes his assault on Max, and Lucas watches in horror as her limbs snap in the real world. But, Mike, acting on advice that Will gave him earlier, acts as the group’s “heart” and tells Eleven to keep fighting. The encouragement gives Eleven what she needs and she bursts free of Vecna’s restraints, giving Nancy and Steve, and Robin an opening to assault his physical body.

At first, it seems like a victory, but all is not what it appears, and Vecna even warns Eleven that this is only “the beginning of the end.” Eddie has died from his injuries, and he and Dustin share an emotional moment before he passes. Vecna has been set on fire and shot multiple times, but he disappeared, Halloween-style, after falling out a window, so he’s not necessarily dead. And, worst of all, although Eleven stopped Vecna before he could make Max’s eyes explode, she still succumbs to her many injuries, dying in Lucas’ arms. Her death opens up the fourth gate, and four massive crevasses leading to the Upside Down streak across Hawkins to create a mega-gate. (One of the crevasses bisects and kills Jason, the only upside to the disaster).

Eleven is not willing to let her friend die, though, and she tries to use her powers to save Max’s life. The screen goes to black, and cuts to “two days later.”

The Upside Down comes to Hawkins

At first, it seems like Eleven was able to undo most of the damage, but we learn that’s not really the case. She saved Max (or brought her back to life) but Max is hospitalized and the doctors don’t know if she will ever wake up. More troublingly, Eleven can’t find any sign of Max when she tries to psychically reach out to her.

Though many Hawkins residents are leaving the town in the wake of the deadly “earthquake” (nothing overtly supernatural has emerged from the cracks… yet), the California crew has arrived. They work on fixing up Hopper’s old shed in the woods so Eleven can stay there, but their cleaning is interrupted when Hopper and Joyce—with the help of one of Doctor Owens’ allies—arrive. Hopper and Eleven have an emotional reunion. Will, however, having been possessed by the Mind Flayer before, is uneasy. He knows Vecna isn’t dead. Sure enough, ash starts raining from the sky and a gray wave of death consumes the nearby vegetation. The Upside Down has come to Hawkins.

Does anyone die in Stranger Things 4: Part Two?

Two fairly major characters die in the last two episodes of season 4, one nearly dies, and one character’s fate remains unknown. Brenner dies in episode 8. It’s not too shocking, given that fans were under the assumption that he had already died (and since he’s a pretty horrible person), though it is surprisingly affecting. Eddie also dies, and although he was only introduced this season, he’s a natural addition to the crew and it’s sad to see him go—especially since all of Hawkins thinks he’s a satanic murderer instead of a hero who just liked playing Dungeons & Dragons with his fellow weirdos.

Max was technically dead before Eleven revived her, though it’s unclear if she’ll ever actually get better. The TV-savvy viewer can assume that Sadie Sink probably won’t play a comatose body for all of season 5, so it seems reasonable to think Max will recover in some form. Even so, Vecna really did a number on her.

It’s unclear if Doctor Owens survived or not. Last we saw him, he was handcuffed and begging for Eleven’s life. Would his rivals in the military summarily execute him? Maybe, but we didn’t see a body.

We also didn’t see Vecna’s body, but Will confirmed that he is indeed still alive.

Read More: The 51 Most Anticipated TV Shows of the Summer

Where do all the love triangles stand?

While it may seem kind of petty given all the death and the potential Upside Down-ification of the world, season 4 also shook up the love lives of many of the characters. Joyce and Hopper are back together, which is nice. And, it appears that Robin and her bandmate/crush Vickie (Amybeth Mcnulty) might be playing for the same team after all.

Lucas and Max reconcile their relationship by the end of the season, but Max is in a coma.

Nancy and Steve—who you may recall were dating way back in season 1—spent a lot of quality time together this season, and it seemed like they were rekindling their romance. However, once Jonathan was back in Hawkins, he and Nancy played the boyfriend and girlfriend part together again even though it’s very clear that there are problems in their relationship that predate Vecna. Steve is being a good sport about the situation, but the love triangle will probably come into play in the fifth and final season, so get ready, shippers.

There appears to be one more love triangle. Though Will’s sexuality has never been explicitly confirmed, the series has implied that he’s gay. Will’s crying after his talk with Mike about he’s the “heart” of the group seems to imply that he might have feelings for his best friend. It doesn’t appear that Mike has any idea and Will doesn’t seem like he’s going to act on those feelings just yet, but this could be a potential plot point in season 5.

Where does this leave us for Stranger Things season 5?

Between the gateway to the Upside Down and all the various bits of personal drama, there’s a lot that Stranger Things needs to tackle in the next season, which the Duffer Brothers have said is the final one of the series (However, the end of the show is unlikely to mark the end of the would-be Stranger Things franchise—Netflix has hinted there could be spin-offs in the pipeline).

It’s unclear what will happen in the final season, which doesn’t yet have a release date. The Duffer Brothers previously said they were looking into a time jump between the fourth and fifth seasons (in large part because the child actors are growing up). But since the season finale ends with the imminent incursion of the Upside Down into the real world, a big time jump seems a little less likely.

Nonsense is underrated, particularly as we struggle to make sense of the soul-grinding wheel of torture known as the news cycle. Minions can help—a little. Nonsense is their brand of logic, and to key into their little yellow brains for a few hours can help recharge our own gray matter, for a short time at least. Minions: The Rise of Gru is hardly the best of the Despicable Me movies or spinoffs. (That dual honor goes to the first film in the franchise, from 2010, and its equally silly-delightful sequel, from 2013, Despicable Me 2.) But the ridiculousness quotient of The Rise of Gru—directed by Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val—is still high enough to spark at least mild rejuvenation. And whether you have one eye or two, six hairs sprouting from your pate or none at all, you could probably use a little of that right now.

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The Rise of Gru is, as you might guess from the title, an origin story, though unlike most recent origin stories it comes with a minimum of expository throat-clearing. It’s 1976 and 12-year-old Gru (voiced, as usual, by Steve Carell) already has his sights on becoming a supervillain. He’s sent off an application to join the Vicious 6, a crew of evildoers with a top-secret lair in the basement of a local record store. He’s delighted when he’s asked to come in for an interview, only to be rebuffed when they realize he’s just a kid. Disgruntled, he vows to show them he has what it takes to be truly evil by stealing one of their recent, and highly prized, acquisitions, an extremely powerful jade-studded pendant known as the Zodiac Stone. They’ll be so impressed by his wiles, he believes, that they’ll surely welcome him into their gang.

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It doesn’t work out that way. Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson), a comely baddie in a fuchsia satin jumpsuit, has recently become the leader of the Vicious 6 after overthrowing its founder, the aging hipster Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin, with his marvelous Brooklyn lilt), ironically just after he’s risked his life to procure the Zodiac Stone for the group. That’s why she and her fellow gang members—Jean Clawed (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who comes equipped with a lobster-pincer arm, musclebound wrestler Stronghold (Danny Trejo), Nordic hothead Svengeance (Dolph Lundgren) and my personal favorite, Nun-Chuck (Lucy Lawless), who brandishes a crucifix that unfolds into a you-know-what—find themselves with an opening for a sixth villain. But even though Gru successfully boosts the Zodiac Stone, his loyal and eager-to-help servants, the Minions (all voiced, in trademark gibberish-speak, by one of the franchise’s masterminds, Pierre Coffin), aren’t as meticulous. In a moment of weakness, Minion Otto, who has been entrusted with the precious thingie, trades it for a pet rock. The rest of The Rise of Gru shows how Gru and his little yellow helpers scramble to reclaim the Zodiac Stone, with Belle Bottom and her gang in pursuit.

The Minions, delightful as they are, can’t carry a movie by themselves, as they proved with their dismal 2015 self-titled standalone. They’re much more appealing when they can bounce their madness off Gru: his affection and exasperation are the dual motors that keep the plot mechanics whirring at optimal levels. This time around our chattering, peripatetic heroes swing through San Francisco’s Chinatown, where they’re schooled in the ancient art of Kung Fu by Master Chow (Michelle Yeoh). They host a Tupperware party, taking great pleasure in the highly realistic farting sound of the famous Tupperware seal. Rather than whistling while they work, their squeaky voices rise in unison to bring a wordless version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” to life. (The movie’s soundtrack, curated by Jack Antonoff, features a number of 1970s covers by the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Gary Clark Jr.) In Minions: The Rise of Gru, they have their work cut out for them, and mess it up at every turn. But the chaos they bring to bear is nothing compared with the madness of the real world. Their entropy is its own kind of order, one sure thing in a universe spinning out of control. Now, as always, let’s thank them for their service.

Virgil Abloh knew how to get people talking. In 2012, when he launched his first fashion brand, Pyrex Vision, Abloh bought deadstock flannel shirts from Ralph Lauren for $40 a piece, screen printed them with the word “Pyrex” and the number 23 (an homage to Michael Jordan), priced them at $550—and sold out his stock in minutes. The shirts became an instant lightning rod, setting the internet ablaze with debates about design ethics, streetwear’s bootlegging tendencies, and the profitability of hype—and making Abloh a figure of major interest in fashion.
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For Abloh, the controversy was part of the point. For the 2016 runway show for Off-White, Abloh’s cult brand, the designer enlisted graffiti artist Jim Joe to emblazon a rug with a quote from a menswear blog about the infamous Pyrex shirts: “It’s highly possible Pyrex simply bought a bunch of Rugby flannels, at retail no less, slapped ‘PYREX 23’ on the back and re-sold them for an astonishing markup of about 700%.” Brandishing the quote was a fitting metaphor for Abloh’s design philosophy, in which he contended that everything, even dissent from the haters, was an opportunity to create. The late Ghanian American designer, who died at age 41 in November 2021 from ​​cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer, was always less concerned with past critiques than he was with making something new. The rug from that early show is now prominently displayed in the Brooklyn Museum as a part of Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” a new exhibit, opening on July 1, that bears witness to the dizzying expanse of Abloh’s work and creativity, from his early creations through the designs he produced as the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton.

During his lifetime, Abloh wore many hats: fashion designer, artist, DJ, civil engineer. He refused to limit his work to a singular medium or genre, famously rejecting labels like designer or artist, and instead preferring to describe himself simply as a “maker.” For Abloh, creation was about re-imagining the possibilities of what something could be, bridging the gaps between high and low, between the institutional and the underground. In his world, art could be commercial, streetwear could be high fashion, and a civil engineer-turned-DJ could be a world-renowned creative.

Read More: 15 Times Designers Trolled the Fashion World With Ridiculously Expensive Designs

“Figures of Speech” exemplifies that breadth and sense of possibility. The show, which spans the first floor of the museum, features two decades of Abloh’s work, from high school architecture assignments and college sketchbooks to selections from his Off-White and Louis Vuitton fashion collections. Like Abloh, the exhibit defies convention, skipping standard wall hangings in favor of displaying colorful sneakers and visual collaborations with artists like Kanye West and Takashi Murakami on unfinished wooden tables designed by Abloh himself. To some, the exhibit may feel more like a studio or streetwear convention—a gift shop filled with Abloh-branded merch adds to this sense—but for curator Antwaun Sargent, breaking with tradition feels fitting for a show about Abloh.

“He was creating space for himself—but within those within creative spaces, he was creating space for other people,” Sargent says. “The fact that we’re having this exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, in an encyclopedic institution, is a testament to how boundaries were reshaped by Virgil in a way that allowed for Black creativity and concerns within spaces of architecture, fashion, and art to be fully recognized.”

While a prior version of the exhibit was shown in 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Abloh’s hometown, the new show builds significantly on its predecessor, with additions like the imposing “Social Sculpture,” a large-scale wood cabin-esque gathering space in the center of the museum that Abloh and Sargent envisioned as a “museum within a museum.” “Social Sculpture” is meant to be a place for performances, DJ sets, lectures, community events, and other gatherings that might not typically be held in a museum. For Sargent, “Social Sculpture” speaks to Abloh’s spirit as a person who blazed a trail for a new type of artist, refreshingly free of institutional gatekeeping or pretension. Throughout his career, Abloh came to be known as much for his collaborations with emerging artists as for working with established people and brands, and was often lauded for his investment in young talent.

Read More: 5 Ways Virgil Abloh’s Influence Went Beyond the Sphere of Fashion

Though the exhibit is technically the first posthumous survey of Abloh’s work, Sargent insists that it is not a retrospective, because Abloh was an active collaborator on the curation and execution of the exhibit over a three-year period, even sending Sargent a checklist and notes just days before his passing.

“His legacy is still being made,” Sargent says. “Things are still coming out.” Another new addition to the exhibit is “Functional Art,” a huge chrome sound system that’s a reimagining of Braun’s iconic Wandanlage wall stereo. Abloh designed the piece in collaboration with the brand, but never got to see it materialize. Making its public debut, the stereo is mounted on the wall at the start of the exhibit, set to greet visitors with mixes of jazz and rap. It’s emblematic of Abloh’s appreciation for art that is not only beautiful but also useful, a value that was echoed in his collections with IKEA and the Swiss furniture company Vitra.

For Sargent, the exhibit is ultimately a testament to the ways in which Abloh continues to inspire and empower a new generation of creatives. “His legacy is one of example,” Sargent says. “His work gives a lot of people permission to do the work that they need to do.”

The highly anticipated second volume of the latest season of Stranger Things is one of several new programs coming to Netflix this month. Other new arrivals include Bill Burr’s latest stand-up special Bill Burr: Live at Red Rocks, where the comedian sounds off on cancel culture and feminism and Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, an animated series featuring panda Po’s latest adventure. And Street Food: USA is joining Netflix’s food docuseries catalog, taking viewers to various food destinations in cities like Portland and Miami.
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Here’s everything coming to Netflix in July 2022—and what’s leaving.

Here are the Netflix originals coming in July 2022

Available July 1

Stranger Things 4: Volume 2

Available July 6

Control Z: Season 3

Girl in the Picture

Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

King of Stonks

Uncle from Another World

Available July 7

Karma’s World: Season 3

Available July 8

Boo, Bitch

Capitani: Season 2

Dangerous Liaisons

How To Build a Sex Room

Incantation

Jewel

The Longest Night

Ranveer vs Wild with Bear Grylls

The Sea Beast

Available July 11

For Jojo

Valley of the Dead

Available July 12

Bill Burr: Live at Red Rocks

How to Change Your Mind

My Daughter’s Killer

Available July 13

Big Timber: Season 2

D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?!

Hurts Like Hell

Never Stop Dreaming: The Life and Legacy of Shimon Peres

​​Sintonia: Season 3

Under the Amalfi Sun

Available July 14

Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight

Resident Evil

Available July 15

Alba

Country Queen

Farzar

Love Goals (Jaadugar)

Mom, Don’t Do That!

Persuasion

Remarriage & Desires

Available July 18

Live is Life

My Little Pony: A New Generation: Sing-Along

StoryBots: Laugh, Learn, Sing: Collection 2: Learn to Read

Too Old for Fairy Tales

Available July 19

David A. Arnold: It Ain’t For the Weak

Available July 20

Bad Exorcist: Seasons 1-2

Virgin River: Season 4

Available July 21

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous: Season 5

Available July 22

Blown Away: Season 3

The Gray Man

Available July 25

Gabby’s Dollhouse: Season 5

Available July 26

DI4RIES

Street Food: USA

Available July 27

Car Masters: Rust to Riches: Season 4

Dream Home Makeover: Season 3

The Most Hated Man on the Internet

Pipa

Rebelde: Season 2

Available July 28

A Cut Above

Another Self

Keep Breathing

Oggy and the Cockroaches: Next Generation

Available July 29

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: Season 2

Case Closed: Zero’s Tea Time

The Entitled

Fanático

Purple Hearts

Rebel Cheer Squad: A Get Even Series

Uncoupled

Here are the TV shows and movies coming to Netflix in July 2022

Available July 1

A Call to Spy

Big Daddy

Blue Jasmine

Boogie Nights

Catch Me If You Can

Deliverance

Falls Around Her

Final Score

GoodFellas

I Am Legend

Insidious

LOL

Mean Girls

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous

Natural Born Killers

Old School

Police Academy

Semi-Pro

Seven

Snatch

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dirty Dozen

The Pursuit of Happyness

The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Terminal

Vampires

Wyatt Earp

Zero Dark Thirty

Available July 3

Blair Witch (2016)

Available July 4

Leave No Trace

Available July 7

The Flash: Season 8

Vinland Saga: Season 1

Available July 10

12 Strong

Available July 22

One Piece: New Episodes

Available July 26

August: Osage County

Shania Twain: Not Just a Girl

Available July 31

The Wretched

Here’s what’s leaving Netflix in July 2022

Leaving July 1

The Social Network

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Seasons 1-7

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Leaving July 6

Brick Mansions

Leaving July 7

Home Again

Midnight Sun

Leaving July 11

The Strangers: Prey at Night

Leaving July 14

The Brave

Leaving July 15

Radium Girls

Leaving July 19

Annabelle: Creation

Leaving July 21

Chicago Med: Seasons 1-5

Leaving July 23

Django Unchained

Leaving July 25

Banana Split

Leaving July 31

21

30 Rock: Seasons 1-7

The Edge of Seventeen

Forrest Gump

Friday the 13th

The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia

Lean on Me

Little Women

Love Actually

My Girl

Poms

Texas Chainsaw 3D

You’ve Got Mail

It’s not TV, it’s HBO Max, which means instead of mindlessly flipping channels, TV lovers are now endlessly scrolling to find their next great series. For those who feel as if they spend more time looking for TV shows to watch rather than watching TV itself, this list should help make things a little easier.

HBO’s two-year-old streaming service has plenty of recent additions that are worth checking out, especially if you are all caught up on up on Succession or Euphoria, and have already watched every season of The Sopranos and Big Little Lies. From HBO Max Originals to shows that have found new life on the streaming service, like TBS castoff Search Party, these are the 21 best HBO Max shows to watch right now.
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Barry

SNL alum Bill Hader stars as the dark comedy’s titular hitman who longs to be a professional actor. Unfortunately, even with the help of his acting teacher Gene Cousineau (played by a very against type Henry Winkler), he can’t seem to quit his day job.

Hacks

When legendary standup Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) needs to freshen up her material, her manager enlists Ava (Hannah Einbinder), a struggling millennial comedy writer, to help her. Think The Odd Couple for hardcore humorists.

The Flight Attendant

After a night of hard partying, flight attendant Cassie (Kayley Cuoco) wakes up to find herself in bed with a dead man. Now, she must figure out how he got there and how much she has to do with his murder. Girls’ Zosia Mamet, Grey’s Anatomy’s T.R. Knight, and Rosie Perez also star in this darkly funny mystery.

Station Eleven

The dystopian thriller based on Emily St. Mandel’s 2014 novel of the same name stars Mackenzie Davis as Kirsten Raymonde, a survivor of a flu pandemic that led to the collapse of civilization. Twenty years after the global catastrophe, she’s the leader of a traveling theater group. When the troupe is asked to perform for a mysterious new community, Kirsten encounters a person from her past, who has definitely changed, but not for the better.

Our Flag Means Death

Get ready to ship Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) in this queer rom-com that wrestles with the toxic masculinity that comes with being a pirate.

The Baby

If you thought Rosemary’s baby was a problem, then you haven’t met the devilish little star of this horror-comedy about an infant that goes on a murdering spree.

The Sex Lives of College Girls

The wholesome co-ed comedy co-created by Mindy Kaling follows four students at a Vermont college as they try to navigate their studies, friendship, and, yes, sex lives.

We Own This City

David Simon’s new series, described as a spiritual sequel to The Wire, delves into the corruption behind the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force. What makes this miniseries starring Jon Bernthal even more chilling is that it’s based on Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton’s book of the same name.

Starstruck

The delightful British rom-com stars creator Rose Matafeo as a cinema loving Kiwi living in London who has a one-night stand with a famous movie star, played by Nikesh Patel. For fans of Notting Hill, who wish that Julia Roberts movie was way sexier.

Industry

The anxiety-inducing drama about a group of recent college grads competing for a job at a prestigious investment bank in London might just convince you to hire a personal financial advisor.

Somebody Somewhere

Following the death of her sister, Sam (Bridget Everett) finds herself back in her Kansas hometown struggling to process her grief. Luckily, she’s not the only one in town who’s in need of a little cheering up in this dramedy about middle-aged ennui.

The Other Two

What if your kid brother became an overnight pop sensation? The comedy starring Drew Tarver and Hélene Yorke as the siblings of a Bieberesque teen star dares to answer that question with a lot of heart, humor, and straight-up bangers.

It’s a Sin

The emotional limited series from creator Russell T Davies (Queer as Folk) follows a group of gay men living in London during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

Los Espookys

The surreal Spanish-language comedy centers on three friends, played by Julio Torres, Cassandra Ciangherotti, and Bernardo Velasco–who decide to start a spooky new business in which they provide scares for anyone who needs it.

Peacemaker

Those looking for a different kind of superhero show will find it with The Suicide Squad-spinoff series that follows John Cena’s comically patriotic hero as he attempts to eliminate a swarm of parasitic butterflies that are taking over people’s bodies.

A Black Lady Sketch Show

Robin Thede’s sketch comedy series features a who’s who of funny women–Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’s Ashley Nicole Black, Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson, Gabrielle Dennis, and Skye Townsend–skewering the culture.

Search Party

After a college friend goes missing, Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat) becomes a modern day Nancy Drew in this dark comedy that satirizes the millennial experience.

Harley Quinn

Harley (voiced by Kaley Cuoco) is single and loving it in this animated series for adults. After breaking things off with The Joker, she heads to Gotham City looking to make a name for herself as the metropolis’ newest girl boss.

Julia

This delicious comedy is inspired by the life and career of cooking teacher Julia Child (played by Sarah Lancashire), who pioneered the concept of a TV chef with her long-running series, The French Chef.

The Staircase

From Inventing Anna to The Dropout and everything in between, 2022 has been the year of the docudrama. But if you only watch one of these based on a true story series, it’s this one, which delves into the story of Michael Peterson, an author who was charged with murdering his wife Kathleen after she died on the staircase of their Durham, N.C. home in 2001.

How To With John Wilson

Whether John Wilson is learning to make the perfect risotto or why cities need scaffolding, his charming DIY documentary series is bound to make you smile. Honestly, in 2022, is there a better recommendation than that?

There are a million ways to tell even very old stories. Beauty, directed by Andrew Dosunmu and written by Lena Waithe, riffs on a classic theme, the idea of a gifted artist being torn her between career and her family, scrambling to find a balance between her own ambition and the demands of the people closest to her. A scheming parent who sees his offspring as a big dollar sign, a wily manager who tries to force a burgeoning talent into the most lucrative mold, a lover who doesn’t fit easily into the plan for fame and fortune: Beauty has it all, including a winsome young star, Gracie Marie Bradley, as the Beauty of the film’s title, a woman who’s naively sure of her destiny despite all the forces holding her back.

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Yet Beauty—set in the 1980s and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the real-life story of Whitney Houston—never quite gels. The movie’s opening introduces us to Beauty and maps out her family’s dynamic: Her father (Giancarlo Esposito) is domineering and verbally abusive toward her two brothers, but adores her—though his love for her comes with certain expectations, and a price. Her mother (Niecy Nash) is a gifted performer who has spent her life singing backup, never daring to reach for stardom herself. She knows how extraordinarily talented her daughter is, and is trying to guide her properly, though her envy sometimes muddies the message. She and Beauty’s father have had stern disagreements about the hard-as-nails manager (Sharon Stone) who’s angling to sign Beauty as a client: Beauty’s father is all for it, but her mother hesitates, fearing that her daughter might be destroyed by the system, and by fame.

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There’s another complication: Beauty is deeply in love with Jas (Aleyse Shannon), and the two want to build a life together. But Beauty’s father hates Jas and sees her as a deterrent to Beauty’s success. Meanwhile, Jas tries to get Beauty to think for herself, urging her to get a lawyer before she signs any contract, which only fuels her father’s ire.

Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek

Through it all Beauty is something of a ghost, a point that’s made repeatedly by Dosunmu, who treats us to many, many shots of Beauty watching taped performances of her idols—chief among them Mahalia Jackson and Ella Fitzgerald—as we see her face, rapt yet somehow featureless, reflected in the glass of the television tube. This is a device with a capital D, a style choice that comes to feel rote. We never hear Beauty sing, another stylistic choice but one that does make some sense: at one point Beauty’s brassy manager, as portrayed by Stone, urges her to sing “Over the Rainbow” on her first TV appearance as a way of ingratiating herself with white audiences. She also admonishes Beauty to keep her relationship with Jas in the background, seeing it as a major stumbling block on Beauty’s road to stardom.

The point is that to most of those around her, save Jas, Beauty is more a vessel than an actual person, an idea that’s poignant if you know anything about Houston’s story and how her life was orchestrated by those around her, at the expense of her own happiness. But Waithe and Dosunmu—the filmmaker behind the 2013 indie film Mother of George, a beautifully wrought drama about infertility—flirt with tense dramatic developments only to shrug them off without exploring them. It’s often hard to tell exactly what’s happening in a scene and why; certain characters behave in ways that are convenient to the plot but don’t wholly make sense. Dosunmu favors oblique camera angles and swimmy soft-focus views, again, perhaps, to mimic Beauty’s smudged sense of herself as a person. But Beauty ends before it has really dug into anything of consequence. Its heroine, whom we know is headed for trouble, is left stranded in the middle of her own story. When she opens her mouth to sing, no sound comes out, and she’s stuck in that cycle of voicelessness for eternity.

June should probably be the weakest month of the year for TV. Not only have the handful of network shows worth watching gone on summer hiatus, but also, because Emmy eligibility ends on May 31, June has become the television equivalent of January’s movie-release wasteland. A lot of the titles we’re getting now are ones that platforms didn’t see the point of rushing out in the spring for awards consideration—which makes it kind of unnerving that this has turned out to be my single favorite month of 2022, to date, when it comes to new series. Below, you’ll find two excellent British character studies, an immersive crime drama set in Navajo country, an inspired update of a ’90s arthouse favorite, and the only superhero show since Jessica Jones that I wholeheartedly endorse. They may not be bombarding you with For Your Consideration ads, but they certainly deserve your consideration nonetheless. For more recommendations, here are my top 10 shows from the first half of the year.
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Chloe (Amazon)

Becky Green doesn’t want to be Becky Green anymore. And who could blame her? The protagonist of Chloe, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is a study in abjection. Played with protean inscrutability by Erin Doherty (The Crown’s Princess Anne), Becky works a demeaning temp job and lives in a shabby apartment with a mother (Lisa Palfrey) who’s sinking into early-onset dementia. Social media is her escape. She scrolls endlessly through posts by a childhood friend, Chloe Fairbourne (Poppy Gilbert), who lives a glamorous life surrounded by her ascendant-politician husband (Billy Howle) and a tight clique of photogenic bourgeois-bohemian pals. Then Chloe dies, in an apparent suicide, and Becky discovers that one of the last things her estranged pal did was try to call. [Read the full review.]

Dark Winds (AMC and AMC+)

Dark Winds, the latest crime drama from AMC, opens with a heist scene worthy of a summer blockbuster. The year is 1971. Two uniformed guards emerge from Gallup Savings & Loans, in the small city of Gallup, New Mexico, lugging padlocked bags stuffed with cash, which they load into an armored van before driving off. Suddenly, a helicopter descends, blocking the road in front of them. One of its occupants hops out and throws a bomb under the van; the explosion lifts the vehicle’s back end into the air like the hind legs of a bucking bronco. A gunfight ensues, the masked bandits make off with the money, and as the helicopter ascends, the generic cityscape gives way to panoramic shots of the golden, butte-studded vistas surrounding Monument Valley.

We won’t find out, right away, where the helicopter ends up. But the journey has taken us to the show’s true setting: the Navajo Nation. This isn’t a common backdrop for the kind of TV epic whose elaborate action sequences run up a tab of $5 million per episode; neither do its overwhelmingly Native American cast and crew fit the profile of the typical storyteller Hollywood sees fit to bless with such a generous budget. Dark Winds would be a remarkable crime drama—at a time when unremarkable ones dominate television—even if it wasn’t a groundbreaking showcase for Native talent. The fact that it is gives the show resonance far beyond its overcrowded genre. [Read the full review.]

Irma Vep (HBO Max)

Film-to-TV adaptations aren’t exactly rare in this era of television as insatiable content maw, but I promise you’ve never seen one like this before. In his cult-classic 1996 feature Irma Vep, French auteur Olivier Assayas—who created an indelible portrait of Carlos the Jackal in his three-part epic Carlos and gave Kristen Stewart her two best roles in Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper—traced the mutually destructive connection between a director (New Wave legend Jean-Pierre Léaud) obsessed with remaking the silent serial Les vampires and the international star (Hong Kong icon Maggie Cheung, playing a version of herself) he casts as its bewitching lead. The film lingered over other tortured, symbiotic relationships: art vs. celebrity, famous actors vs. fanboy reporters, inspiration vs. madness. A quarter-century later, it’s also an artifact of mid-’90s indie cool, with Cheung sneaking around in her Irma Vep catsuit to the spiraling guitars of Sonic Youth.

The new 8-episode series, also helmed by Assayas and featuring music from Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore, strikes the right balance between honoring the gritty original and updating it to better reflect the entertainment industry of today. (How could Irma Vep, in 2022, be anything but a TV show about people making a TV show?) Alicia Vikander steps into the Cheung role, though in this telling her name is Mira, she’s an American actor fresh off the set of a soulless superhero, and her persona feels closer to that of Stewart than to Vikander’s own. The elongated runtime gives Assayas the opportunity to expand the cast of characters, yielding an ensemble piece that spends time with everyone from Mira’s vengeful former assistant and ex-lover (Adria Arjona) to an actor who vacillates between nihilistic provocateur and drug-addled mess (Lars Eidinger). The looseness feels like a luxury. So, if the devolution of Netflix has you scared for the future of TV as an art form, watch this to hang on to some hope. [Read Stephanie Zacharek’s review.]

Ms. Marvel (Disney+)

Despite all the fanfare that has surrounded them, most Disney+ original series are competently made, mildly clever Marvel or Star Wars brand extensions—necessary viewing for fans who don’t want to miss a beat between movies but easily skippable for the rest of us. Ms. Marvel is different. A coming-of-age tale that centers on Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American, Muslim teenager with overprotective immigrant parents who lives in Jersey City and worships Captain Marvel, the six-episode action dramedy takes off when our hero sneaks out to an Avengers convention wearing an heirloom bangle from her grandmother that activates Kamala’s own latent superpowers. The series has a playful visual style, boasts a lovable lead performance from Iman Vellani, and draws on its characters’ ethnic and religious backgrounds in fascinating ways. If superheroes are contemporary American gods, then Ms. Marvel is a delightful reminder that modern American culture is rooted in traditions imported from around the globe. [Read Sanya Mansoor’s feature on how Ms. Marvel celebrates Pakistani and Muslim culture.]

This Is Going to Hurt (AMC+ and Sundance Now)

You might, at first, take the protagonist of this British medical drama, OB-GYN Adam Kay (the wonderful Ben Whishaw) for the kind of badass maverick doctor that TV produces in bulk. But he’s not a Gregory House or a Cristina Yang. Nor is he incompetent. Based on a widely read 2017 memoir by the real physician Adam Kay, which drove an international conversation about health care, he’s a more-or-less regular guy struggling to build a sustainable career in the UK’s inspiring but underfunded National Health Service. Hurt is the best medical drama in years because, instead of celebrating idealized superhuman doctors, it observes how broken systems force real doctors to attempt superhuman feats. And it weighs the impact, on providers as well as patients, of setting up public-health programs to fail. [Read the full review.]

V is for vaccine.

Elmo got a COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, according to Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind “Sesame Street.”

Read more: A Parent’s Guide to COVID-19 Vaccines for Kids

In a public service announcement posted to YouTube, the beloved 3-and-a-half-year-old “Sesame Street” star talked with his dad about what it was like to get the shot.

“There was a little pinch, but it was OK,” Elmo said in the video.

Elmo’s dad said he had a lot of questions for the pediatrician, who assured him that vaccinations are safe and effective for children.
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Read more: Which COVID-19 Vaccine Should Your Young Kid Get? That Depends, Doctors Say

“Was it safe? Was it the right decision?′ I talked to our pediatrician so I could make the right choice,” Louie said in the PSA. “I learned that Elmo getting vaccinated is the best way to keep himself, our friends, neighbors and everyone else healthy and enjoying the things they love.”

COVID-19 vaccinations for the youngest Americans started last week. That means U.S. kids under 5 — roughly 18 million youngsters — are eligible for the shots.

U.S. regulators authorized shots from Moderna and Pfizer. The Moderna vaccine is two doses and the Pfizer shot is three.

Read more: My Toddlers Already Had COVID-19. I’m Still Getting Them Vaccinated Right Away

Last November, Big Bird got vaccinated — sparking criticism from some conservative politicians. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, called it “government propaganda.”

The CDC advises vaccination even for those who already had COVID-19 to protect against reinfection, and says it is OK to get other vaccines at the same time.

When the Grammy Award-winning rapper Young Thug, real name Jeffery Lamar Williams, was arrested May 9 on conspiracy and street gang activity charges, the indictment heavily cited his lyrics, music videos, and social media posts—and reignited a controversial debate on the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases.

Williams, a veritable hip-hop superstar from Atlanta with three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, has been credited with shaping the contemporary sound of rap. His distinctive flow and sound are often heralded as the preeminent example of “mumble rap,” a microgenre named for the unclear or slurred vocal delivery of its artists. Young Thug’s music is rife with emotions, freestyles, and ad-libs, and draws on a dizzying range of influences, from psychedelia and punk to Lil Wayne. His lyrics are both familiar and absurd, referencing the realities of the world in which he grew up as a Black man in Atlanta and his own capricious flights of fancy.
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Williams, along with 27 other people associated with his record label Young Stoner Life (YSL Records), including his protegé, the rapper Gunna (real name Sergio Kitchens), was named in an 88-page indictment. The document lists 56 counts of racketeering charges dating back to 2013, including accusations of possession of drugs and illegal firearms, armed robbery, assault, and attempted murder.

The indictment, which cites lyrics like “I’m prepared to take them down,” and “I never killed anybody but I got something to do with that body,” alleges that Williams is a founder of Young Slime Life, a criminal street gang started in 2012 that’s affiliated with the national Bloods gang. Williams’ record label refers to its artists as the “Slime Family,” and he is often referred to as “King Slime.” The label has also released two collaboration albums featuring the Slime Family: 2018’s Slime Language and last year’s Slime Language 2.

Williams, who was denied bond twice, is currently being held at Cobb County Jail in Marietta, Ga. His lawyer Brian Steel did not respond to a request from TIME for comment. In a May 9 interview with the New York Times, Steel said the rapper is innocent: “Mr. Williams came from an incredibly horrible upbringing, and he has conducted himself throughout his life in a way that is just to marvel at,” he told the paper. “He’s committed no crime whatsoever.”

At Hot 97’s Summer Jam in mid-June, Williams made a pre-recorded audio statement, thanking fans for their support and urging them to sign a Change.org petition started by music industry executives Kevin Lilles and Julie Greenwald that condemns the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases.

“You know, this isn’t about just me or YSL,” Williams said in the clip. “I always use my music as a form of artistic expression, and I see now that Black artists and rappers don’t have that freedom. Everybody please sign the Protect Black Art petition and keep praying for us. I love you all.”

The racial implications of using rap lyrics in criminal cases

Williams’ case is a pivotal example of a controversial legal trend where rap lyrics are used as evidence against defendants—a tactic that has been critiqued for disproportionately targeting Black and other BIPOC men as the predominant groups in rap, relying on racist stereotypes, and infringing on First Amendment rights. In his 2019 book, Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics and Guilt in America, co-authored with Andrea L. Dennis, University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson identified about 500 criminal trials over the past decade in which rap lyrics were used as evidence—many more cases than during the ’90s-era war on crime, when the practice originated.

Nielson argues that the focus on the issue shouldn’t center on free speech as much as on systemic racism, emphasizing that artists in other genres like country or heavy metal hardly see their work being used to prosecute them. In a March 30 opinion piece for Type Investigations and the New York Times, journalist and researcher Jaeah Lee, who worked with Dennis, noted that her research uncovered only four examples of artistic works like fiction or lyrics being used as evidence of assault or violent threats in mediums and genres aside from rap dating back to 1950.

Meanwhile, rappers, whose art form often relies as much on figurative language and hyperbole as it does on rhymes and beats, are disproportionately fighting against their work being taken literally. “This is almost exclusively something affecting young Black or Latino men,” Nielson says, “so this practice is sort of emblematic of the much larger, more systemic inequalities that we see throughout the criminal justice system.” These cases have become more common as hip-hop has grown to become the most popular genre of music in the U.S., eclipsing rock in streaming consumption in 2018.

This year in Atlanta, the city that many consider to be the capital of rap, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis has said her “number one focus” is targeting street gangs. She contends that street gangs are responsible for the majority of violent crime in her city—a line of reasoning that led to Williams’ indictment. And earlier this year in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams seemingly blamed the deaths of two aspiring rappers on the drill rap music scene, recommending that music videos for the genre not be allowed on social media. (Following a meeting with a group of drill rappers, Adams later clarified that he does not want to ban drill music, but would like to work with the artists to prevent gun violence.)

For Nielson, this paradox of rap becoming mainstream while continuing to face legal and societal scrutiny is a telling metaphor for larger issues surrounding race in America—and one that isn’t going away anytime soon. “This is a newer and alarming practice on one hand, but it also resides in a centuries-long tradition in the United States of law enforcement suppressing and often punishing Black expression,” he says.

The origins of the legal trend

According to Nielsen, the first cases where rap lyrics were used as criminal evidence emerged in the early ’90s amid a moral panic about the influence of gangster rap, which was associated with radical politics (examples such as NWA’s “F-ck Tha Police”), explicit content, and violence. The case most commonly cited as the first to use rap music as evidence in a criminal trial was 1991’s United States v. Foster, where a 7th-circuit appeals court upheld the conviction of Derek Foster, whose prosecution relied on rap lyrics he wrote about drugs and narcotics trafficking.

An early, high-profile example was Snoop Dogg’s 1993 murder trial, in which he was acquitted. The prosecution used lyrics from his track “Murder was the Case” during closing arguments. But it was People v. Olguin in 1994 that has arguably had the biggest influence on the use of this tactic. For the case, in which Cesar Javier Olguin and Francisco Calderon Mora, a part-time DJ, were convicted of second-degree murder for the killing of a rival gang member who had defaced their gang-related graffiti, the prosecution submitted rap lyrics found in Mora’s home that made reference to violence and gang culture generally. While the defense argued that it couldn’t be proven that Mora wrote the lyrics and that their use as evidence could mislead the jury, the prosecution successfully used them. The case is largely considered the seminal precedent for citing lyrics as evidence.

As recently as 2018, the late rapper Drakeo the Ruler (real name Darrell Wayne Caldwell) was arrested on murder charges, and his lyrics were used in an effort to connect him to a shooting and to posit that his rap collective the Stinc Team was a criminal street gang. (Caldwell was acquitted in 2019; he was killed in 2021.)

How artists might be impacted in the future

Despite the increase in cases citing lyrics as evidence over time, Williams’ stands out because of his level of fame. The majority of cases have involved amateur or emerging rap artists. Since Williams’ lyrics and social media presence were used heavily as evidence in his indictment, Nielsen argues that if prosecutors are successful, it could set precedent on how other prominent artists in the industry will be tried in the future.

“​​What’s important about this case is that it could signal to other DAs across the country that the artists you thought were once out of reach are now within reach, including really well-known artists,” he says. “That’s really concerning, for not just rappers and rap music, but for popular culture and criminal justice reform.”

Williams’ case coincides with legislation that’s been in the works to combat the practice of using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases; in November 2021, Democratic New York State Senators Brad Hoylman and Jamaal Bailey introduced the “Rap Music on Trial” bill, backed by the likes of Jay Z, Meek Mill, and Fat Joe, which would ban “the use of art created by a defendant as evidence against them in a courtroom” in most cases. The bill, which has so far passed in the New York State Senate, is currently awaiting approval from the State Assembly and Governor Kathy Hochul.

What’s next for Young Thug and the other artists in the lawsuit

Williams and Kitchens are both currently being held without bond in Cobb County Jail in Marietta, Ga. Williams was denied bond twice; his first request for bond was denied on May 12, following a raid on his home after his arrest that resulted in seven new felony charges. A second emergency request for bond, filed after Williams’ attorney Steel claimed the rapper was facing “inhumane” conditions in jail, was denied during a hearing on June 2, under concerns from Judge Ural D. Glanville that bond would result in potential danger to the community and witnesses, as well as flight risk. Kitchens was also denied bond during a May 23 hearing.

According to WXIA-TV, both Williams and Kitchens’ trials will begin on Jan. 9, 2023.

NEW YORK — R&B star R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for using his superstardom to subject young fans — some just children — to systematic sexual abuse.

The singer and songwriter, 55, was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking last year at a trial that gave voice to accusers who had once wondered if their stories were being ignored because they were Black women.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly imposed the sentence after hearing from several survivors who attested to how Kelly’s exploitation reverberated across their lives.

“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” said one unnamed survivor, directly addressing a Kelly who kept his hands folded and his eyes downcast. “Do you remember that?”
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Kelly did not address the court.

Read More: A Full Timeline of Sexual Abuse Allegations Against R. Kelly

The sentence caps a slow-motion fall for Kelly, who was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.

Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct didn’t come until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the docuseries Surviving R. Kelly.

Kelly’s lawyers had argued he should get no more than 10 years in prison because he had a traumatic childhood “involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence.”

As an adult with “literacy deficiencies,” the star was “repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him,” his lawyers said.

The hitmaker is known for work including the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and the cult classic Trapped in the Closet, a multi-part tale of sexual betrayal and intrigue.

Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008, and he settled the lawsuit.

All the while, Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.

The Brooklyn federal court jury convicted him after hearing that he used his entourage of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation that prosecutors said amounted to a criminal enterprise.

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, used his “fame, money and popularity” to systematically “prey upon children and young women for his own sexual gratification,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing earlier this month.

Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.

The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as “Rob’s rules.”

Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.

According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD, coerced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a shaming video that showed one victim smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.

Kelly has denied any wrongdoing. He didn’t testify at his trial, but his then-lawyers portrayed his accusers as girlfriends and groupies who weren’t forced to do anything against their will and stayed with him because they enjoyed the perks of his lifestyle.

Evidence also was presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.

Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number. She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.

An earlier defense memo suggested prosecutors’ arguments for a higher sentence overreached by falsely claiming Kelly participated in the paying of a bribe to a government official in order to facilitate the illegal marriage.

The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted or abused, unless they come forward publicly. The women who spoke at Kelly’s sentencing were identified only by first names or pseudonyms.

Kelly has been jailed without bail since in 2019. He’s still facing child pornography and obstruction of justice charges in Chicago, where a trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 15.

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Associated Press journalists Jennifer Peltz and Ted Shaffrey contributed.

Exactly what constitutes a beach read has inspired much debate—but perhaps the answer is no more complicated than whether a book is easy to get lost in. Under that definition, the best new books coming in July are ideal for the beach (or the couch, the airplane, or the hammock). Isabel Kaplan’s novel NSFW, for example, is an intoxicating exploration of male-dominated workplaces, and Bolu Babalola’s Honey & Spice will steam up your sunglasses. Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield, is a claustrophobic story centered on a queer couple’s fraying marriage after an undersea expedition goes wrong. These books and more will transport, distract, and absorb you this summer. Here, the nine best new books to read in July.
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Honey & Spice, Bolu Babalola (July 5)

Kiki Banjo is a young Black woman running a college radio show about women’s empowerment, dating, and relationships—a tad ironic, since she tends to avoid romantic attachments herself. After condemning a new student as a playboy over the airwaves, Kiki accidentally—and very publicly—ends up kissing him. To save their reputations, the pair take the only obvious course of action: fake a relationship. Look forward to sizzling chemistry and well-developed characters in this debut novel from Bolu Babalola, a pop-culture scholar who previously authored the short-story collection Love in Color.

Buy Now: Honey & Spice on Bookshop | Amazon

Fellowship Point, Alice Elliott Dark (July 5)

Agnes and Polly are octogenarians who have been best friends for their entire lives, though they’ve each made different choices: Agnes is a popular author who never married, while Polly’s identity revolves around being a wife and mother. They come together at Fellowship Point, a retreat in Maine—but the future of that land is now in limbo, and the women don’t agree on what should happen to it. When a pushy editor urges Agnes to write a memoir, long-buried secrets are unearthed, further testing Agnes’ and Polly’s friendship. Fellowship Point is long—nearly 600 pages—but an utterly engrossing, sweeping work.

Buy Now: Fellowship Point on Bookshop | Amazon

NSFW, Isabel Kaplan (July 5)

The unnamed female narrator in Isabel Kaplan’s adult debut—following the YA novel Hancock Park—recently graduated from Harvard and landed a coveted job at a TV network. Readers are dropped into the protagonist’s life as she realizes that her workplace exemplifies misogyny, and sexual misconduct is rampant. As she weighs what to do, she’s also balancing unhealthy relationships with food and with her mother. NSFW is gripping, with a lot to unpack, making it excellent book-club fodder.

Buy Now: NSFW on Bookshop | Amazon

Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty (July 5)

Morgan Talty grew up as part of the Penobscot Indian Nation, a small community in Maine—and that’s where the 12 stories in his debut collection are set. Night of the Living Rez offers a hypnotizing glimpse into the lives of people figuring out what it means to survive in the wake of inherited tragedies. There’s pain and addiction in these stories, but there’s also friendship and family, beautifully tinted with both sadness and humor.

Buy Now: Night of the Living Rez on Bookshop | Amazon

Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield (July 12)

Marine biologist Leah’s submarine recently sank—and though she survived, she’s irreparably changed. Leah’s wife, Miri, who had assumed herself a widow, is desperate to understand what happened in that vessel. As the relationship between the two women deteriorates, Julia Armfield—the author of the short-story collection Salt Slow—alternates between two voices: Leah’s, in the form of journal entries she wrote while stranded in the deep, dark sea, and Miri’s, in the present day. Our Wives Under the Sea is a haunting, evocative novel that juxtaposes the horrors beneath the waves with the life and love that exist on land.

Buy Now: Our Wives Under the Sea on Bookshop | Amazon

Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence, Kevin Auletta (July 12)

Two decades ago, and long before the MeToo movement took off in 2017, journalist Ken Auletta wrote a New Yorker profile that exposed some of Harvey Weinstein’s violent and volatile tendencies. In this nearly 500-page biography, Auletta goes even deeper into the Hollywood mogul’s life, examining the forces that allowed him to become a convicted sexual abuser. Hollywood Ending—Auletta’s 13th book, following titles like World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies—is a difficult but important read.

Buy Now: Hollywood Ending on Bookshop | Amazon

Any Other Family, Eleanor Brown (July 12)

Three sets of parents adopted four biological siblings and pledged to keep their kids as connected as possible. It’s as complicated as it sounds. In Eleanor Brown’s novel, each of the adoptive mothers is dealing with her own insecurities and expectations about parenting when the group goes on a summer vacation to Aspen. While there, the kids’ birth mother calls with the news that she’s pregnant again, so the parents begin sorting through applications from potential adopters to figure out who will join their makeshift family. Brown, who previously wrote The Weird Sisters and The Light of Paris, delivers a character study that digs into boundaries and belonging.

Buy Now: Any Other Family on Bookshop | Amazon

Big Girl, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (July 12)

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s debut novel transports readers to 1990s Harlem, where Malaya—an 8-year-old, obese Black girl—is longing for lots of things: to be able to eat what she wants instead of being dragged to Weight Watchers meetings; to fit in at her predominantly white Upper East Side prep school. To be accepted no matter what she looks like. Over the course of about 10 years, Malaya grows up, all the while seeking freedom from the constraints of her body.

Buy Now: Big Girl on Bookshop | Amazon

Calling for a Blanket Dance, Oscar Hokeah (July 26)

Each chapter in Oscar Hokeah’s debut novel is told through the point of view of a family member—one of several generations of Native people whose lives are deeply intertwined. At the center of it all is Ever Geimausaddle, an angry young man with a propensity for violence. Hokeah skillfully recreates the years leading up to and following Ever’s birth, capturing the traumas and complexities that shaped him into who he is and may determine who he becomes.

Buy Now: Calling for a Blanket Dance on Bookshop | Amazon

There’s a reason why the fake relationship has had such longevity in fiction. The trope, in which two people feign being a couple before falling in love for real, is a predictable journey. But just because a happy ending is guaranteed doesn’t mean the story isn’t worth telling—as the old adage goes, getting there is half the fun.

That’s the case in Bolu Babalola’s debut novel, Honey & Spice, to be published July 5. It’s a dishy romp that gives a fresh update to the phony-relationship narrative with a charming and wholly contemporary romance between an ambitious college radio host and the campus playboy.
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For Kikiola “Kiki” Banjo, a smart, self-possessed British Nigerian student at Whitewell College, there’s no time for trifling men. She’s focused on her studies and running her student radio show, Brown Sugar, where, between R&B ballads, she crusades against the “f-ckboy endemic” and doles out spicy but sage relationship advice to the women of Blackwell, the university’s African-Caribbean society. She’s got a clear vision of what her future looks like—and it doesn’t include any of the players or, as she calls them, “wastemen,” on campus.

But, for all her planning, Kiki did not anticipate handsome transfer student Malakai Korede, a talented filmmaker and notorious heartthrob with whom she shares a very public kiss before realizing who he is—and discovering that she’s already derided him on air as the ultimate wasteman of Whitewell. After begrudgingly pairing up with him for an academic project at the behest of her favorite professor, Kiki realizes that a fake relationship with Malakai could salvage both of their reputations on campus and help them achieve their professional goals. That is until, inevitably, their slow-burn flirtation forces them to confront whether there might be something more to their relationship.

Read More: Reading Anti-Racist Nonfiction Is a Start. But Don’t Underestimate the Power of Black Fiction

The subject of romantic love has proved rich territory for Babalola; this novel follows her first book, 2021’s Love in Color, a collection of short stories that drew inspiration from myths and fairy tales from around the world and even her own parents’ relationship. Babalola, who began her career as a screenwriter at BBC Comedy, later writing and executive-producing the show Big Age, is a self-professed “romcomoisseur”—and it shows in her storytelling. Honey & Spice begins with a meet-cute in a dorm hallway and doesn’t skimp on steamy, swoon-worthy moments.

But that’s not to say that the novel deals in clichés. While the romance genre has long been critiqued for its lack of inclusivity when it comes to featuring books by and about people of color, Babalola’s writing refuses to acquiesce to the white gaze, firmly centering the details of the story in the experiences of Black and African students at a predominantly white institution. The author’s sharp sense of humor (which fans of her social media accounts will recognize), slick pop culture references, and keen sense of the zeitgeist ensure that though her story launches off from a tried-and-true trope, it ultimately offers a refreshing portrait of what modern love really looks and feels like.

With its first season, Hulu’s hit series Only Murders in the Building satirized true-crime podcasts and their obsessive fans. In season 2, premiering June 28, the comedy starring Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short pokes fun at how hard it is to follow-up a successful first season. Especially when you become the lead suspect in the crime your popular podcast is now investigating.

Season 2 picks up right where the first left off: with another murder in the Arconia building. Aspiring artist Mabel (Selena Gomez) is found covered in blood, cradling the dead body of the building’s cranky president, Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell). The murder weapon? Mabel’s knitting needles. Now, her septuagenarian co-hosts—former TV star Charles-Haden Savage (Martin) and self-absorbed theater director Oliver Putnam (Short)—must help her clear her name by putting it all to tape. Short knew it was a risk to return to the scene of the crime, but even he wanted answers. “He’s such an optimistic character despite so many setbacks,” he tells TIME. “You’re kind of rooting for him to succeed.”
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The same could be said for Short. For the last 50 years, he’s managed to do big things with small parts. (Father of the Bride certainly comes to mind.) Only Murders feels like a breakout project for a performer who has had many: his stint on SNL, the 1994 cult classic Clifford, and playing the oversized celebrity journalist Jiminy Glick. Not that he’s letting it go to his head. “I used to have a great manager named Bernie Brillstein who’d always say, ‘It’s only showbiz kid.’ In other words, don’t take it so seriously,” he says. “The only thing you can absolutely be in control of is the process of doing it. You can’t be in control of whether the audience will like you or not.”

Below, Short talks about his friendship with Steve Martin, his love for Selena Gomez, and why he won’t be tuning in to actual true-crime podcasts anytime soon.

You’ve been working with your Only Murders in the Building costar Steve Martin since the 1986 film Three Amigos! and are once again going on tour with him this summer. What makes him such a great comedic partner?

There are so many things. We’re very, very close friends so that makes it fun on stage. But what’s also great about working with Steve is you’re working with someone with literally perfect timing. We actually don’t even have notes for each other. We don’t say, ‘Oh Steve, I think you should say that a little bit faster or a little bit slower,’ because he’s already made that decision.

Since you do know him so well onstage and off, has there been anything that has surprised you about working with him on Only Murders?

After 35 years of knowing him, working with him, there are no surprises. But I guess I’m always a little surprised at how deeply important it is for him to get it perfect. He is a perfectionist. If he doesn’t hit it, he wants to do another take.

You’ve said that when you first met your other Only Murders costar Selena Gomez, you didn’t really know what to expect. After two seasons, what has delighted you most about working with her?

I’m always delighted to watch the show and see how the camera just adores her. There are some brilliant actors who the camera doesn’t care about, but Elizabeth Taylor was someone that the camera adored. Meryl Streep, too—and Selena. The camera just loves her.

I think there are many people who watch the show and wonder if the dynamic between you, Steve, and Selena is similar to what they see on screen. Do you see similarities in the relationship between the three of you onscreen and off?

The show plays into the millennial aspect, but the reality is Selena—and I think actors tend to be like this—is a little more timeless. It’s amazing that people 40 years apart in age can be friends, but I don’t think [age] even comes into our conversations. We’re just three people who really dig each other.

Only Murders does a great job at parodying true-crime podcasts. Were you a fan of Serial or anything like that before the show?

None, zero. Steve and Selena, absolutely. She’d been to CrimeCon and Steve’s always, for years, obsessively listened to true-crime podcasts. But not for me. I would rather see an old Dick Van Dyke Show, something light. I want to escape the horrors of life, not delve into a murder.

You have played more than a few self-absorbed narcissists in your career, Oliver included. What makes those kinds of guys so funny?

Anyone who is self-absorbed, but doesn’t think we’re aware of it is always funny. To me, one of the funniest images was when Richard Nixon looked into the camera and said, ‘I’m not a crook,’ but above his lip was sweat so we knew he was lying, and he knew we knew he was lying. I find those scenarios funny.

Oliver is a dips guy. He basically subsists on hummus and little else. What are your personal thoughts on dips?

I hate dips. I’m not a dipper. I would never say, ‘Oh, I’m just dying for some hummus.’ That wouldn’t be me.

You got to work with screen legend Shirley MacLaine this season, who is known for her stories. Was there any story that she told on set that stuck out to you?

She told an adorable story about falling madly in love with Dean Martin and him inviting her to his beach house on Saturday. And she’s like this young 22 or 23-year-old thinking, ‘Ah! Does Dean want to have an affair with me?’ And she got there and he said, “Here’s my wife Jeanne and this is my eldest.” He was just inviting her to a lovely Saturday afternoon BBQ.

You’ve been working in the entertainment business for half a century. Are there things on your Hollywood bucket list that you’d still like to accomplish?

Well, there’s certainly people I’d love to work with; Meryl Streep comes to mind. But as far as something like, would I ever want to direct? I kind of think with bucket lists, if you haven’t done them yet, then maybe there’s a reason you haven’t done them. Either you don’t want to do them or maybe you shouldn’t.

How do you turn a short story about a sadistic child murderer into a horrifying, but hopeful coming-of-age film? If you’re director Scott Derrickson, you use your own traumatic childhood as inspiration.

Derrickson’s latest film, The Black Phone, based on Joe Hill’s short story of the same name, is about a 13-year-old boy named Finney (Mason Thames), who is abducted by a serial killer known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke, in his first villain role). In the room where Finney is being held captive he finds a mystical black phone, which allows him to communicate with the masked kidnapper’s other young victims from the great beyond in hopes of making it out alive. When Derrickson first read Hill’s 2007 story he was struck by how the author—who is also the son of Stephen King—“combined a serial killer tale with a ghost story” to make something “with such an empathetic point of view that there was something inspirational about it,” the director of Marvel’s Doctor Strange tells TIME.
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It wasn’t until nearly a decade later that Derrickson realized he could use his own middle school experience growing up in Denver, Colorado, in the late 1970s to expand the 30-page story into a full-length feature. The youngest of the 13 boys that lived on his block growing up, Derrickson recalls omnipresent violence. “The bullying was constant,” he says. “But I didn’t have it the worst.” He remembers a friend of his showing up to play with “red bleeding welts on the back of his leg.” The boy’s dad had whipped him with an extension cord. “We were all like, ‘Wow, dude. Bummer.’ You know? And then we went and played Nerf football,” he says. “That was just the neighborhood. That was just how it was.”

While The Black Phone deals with the trauma of childhood, Derrickson knew he didn’t want to go too far with the violence. “There were things in my childhood that were too dark to put in,” he says. “I think you have to have a sensitivity of what an audience can tolerate without really being turned off or turning on the film itself.” Instead, he wanted to show the resiliency of children by confronting some of the real horrors of his own adolescence through his young characters. “For me, making these movies is always a cathartic experience,” he says. “It’s always a way of dispelling anxiety and fear, never creating it.”

Below, Derrickson explains how childhood trauma, anti-nostalgia, and Ethan Hawke’s speaking voice helped him turn The Black Phone into one of the scariest movies of the year.

A ‘70s throwback without the nostalgia

The feeling Derrickson associates most with his childhood is fear. “I’d been in therapy for three years and talking almost exclusively about my childhood and the more extreme things that I’d gone through,” he says. The details of The Black Phone are based on the director’s lived experience growing up in North Denver: the chain link fences, the overcast skies, and the violence that exists both inside and outside the home. Derrickson wanted those intimate details to feel universal. “The universality of childhood is, it’s traumatic for everybody,” he says. “It’s hard for everyone. There’s real value in taking a good gaze at that.”

In bringing a 1970s-era story to screen, Derrickson fought any urge to fetishize the era. “Bob Dylan said, ‘Nostalgia is death,’ and I tend to agree with that,” he says. Instead, he pulled what he calls a “reverse Amblin” with the supernatural horror movie, referring to the production company founded by Steven Spielberg. “I grew up on those Spielberg movies, but his way of looking back at preadolescence is just very different from anything I would do.”

The Black Phone is certainly not E.T., Spielberg’s seminal 1982 sci-fi movie, which was the director’s way of working through his parents’ divorce. Derrickson’s way of reckoning with his childhood trauma is far less cuddly. He forces Finney to literally fight for his life by turning a disconnected phone into a much-needed lifeline, which shows him he is stronger and smarter than his kidnapper. “It’s really valuable to go back and take a look at things that you have probably denied about your own experience and how they impacted you,” he says. “It was very freeing and very cathartic to then be able to channel that into something positive.”

Casting a villain with a killer voice

The villain in Hill’s original story was patterned after serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men and boys in the 1960s and ‘70s. The first draft of The Black Phone script, which Derrickson wrote in six weeks, included a clown killer that was intended to be a reference to Gacy, who regularly performed as a children’s clown. “Joe [Hill] read the script before anybody and It had just come out,” Derrickson says. “He was the first to say, ‘The Grabber can’t be a clown.’” Hill suggested they turn him into a “classic old style magician” instead, which allowed Derrickson to rethink the look of the movie’s bad guy.

“There were no masks in Joe’s story, but I liked the idea of The Grabber wearing a mask and not being able to be himself without the face covered,” he says of the terrifying Tom Savini-designed masks in the film. Once Derrickson made that decision, he realized he needed an actor with a “distinctive voice that could penetrate that mask.” His first thought was Ethan Hawke, who starred in his 2012 horror film Sinister, which marked the actor’s first scary movie role. “I feel like he’s underutilized as a voice actor,” the director says. “I don’t know why he’s not doing expensive commercials and being the lead in Pixar movies.”

Hawke wasn’t so sure he wanted to play a villain—a role he had never attempted before—but Derrickson knew he would do something fearless and completely original with the masked psychopath. And he was right. “When Ethan saw the masks, the one thing I do remember him saying to me was, ‘These are so scary and they’re so effective, which is great because I can let the mask do the mask’s work.’” Hawke’s version of this villain becomes something completely unexpected and unhinged. “He really buries his moods behind the mask and, to me, there’s almost some kind of multiple personality disorder going on there,” Derrickson says, “Which, I think, is all the more unsettling.”

In the second season of Only Murders in the Building, the investigators become the investigated. Fresh off of cracking the Tim Kono case, the unlikely trio of has-been actor Charles-Haden Savage (co-creator Steve Martin), financially strapped theater director Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and mysterious millennial Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) have become heroes in the true-crime podcast community. But just as they’re celebrating their success, Charles and Oliver walk into Mabel’s apartment to find her kneeling over the dead body of building board president Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell), white sweater soaked in blood.

After an initial round of questioning yields insufficient evidence to make an arrest, Detective Williams (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) releases the trio under orders to stop podcasting. “Get a new hobby—now,” she tells them. “I do not give a damn what it is, just as long as it doesn’t land you in jail.” Do they obey? Of course not. Because Only Murders, which returns to Hulu on June 28, is a hugely popular series about three oddball amateurs who, yes, investigate murders in their posh Upper West Side building, the Arconia, and document their progress in the eponymous, accidentally hugely popular podcast. Unless Martin and his co-creator, John Hoffman, were looking to blow up a winning formula, a new season of the show would necessitate a new season of the podcast. It’s mostly for the best that they’ve decided not to fix what wasn’t broken.
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So, aside from the fact they’re now trying to clear their own names—and Mabel’s in particular—fans can expect more of the same charming, intergenerational citizen-detective stuff they fell hard for last summer. Most episodes are framed by the emergence and dismissal of a suspect. Each of the podcasters gets their own season-long emotional arc. Fatherhood becomes a theme, as Charles is reunited with his sort-of-stepdaughter, Lucy (Zoe Colletti), and Oliver’s relationship with his son, Will (Ryan Broussard), is tested. Peppered with flashbacks that explore her childhood bond with her own dad, Mabel’s story line flirts with violence and dissociation, occasionally going darker than Only Murders’ droll tone can support. She’s saddled with the nickname “Bloody Mabel” when paparazzi photos of her from the night of Bunny’s murder land on the covers of every tabloid in town, and her art and mythos attract the attention of a glamorous English gallerist, Alice (played by Cara Delevingne).

It’s the addition of new characters, along with the development of peripheral ones (Adina Verson’s Poppy, as the loyal assistant to Tina Fey’s imperious murder-pod queen, gets a fun arc) and a deepening of the show’s immersion in the history of the Arconia, that keeps the new episodes from merely repeating season 1. We meet Bunny’s equally fearsome successor as board president, Nina (Christine Ko), who is extremely pregnant and has her own ideas about the building’s future. (Of course there are Rosemary’s Baby jokes. Did you even have to ask?) Shirley MacLaine makes a splashy appearance, though I’ve been asked not to describe her character. Amy Schumer is this season’s Sting—the good-sport celebrity appearing as herself—who moves into the Arconia with hopes of adapting the podcast for TV. This meta side plot is low-hanging fruit, but at least it doesn’t detract too much from the main story.

For anyone enamored of 20th-century New York (find me an Only Murders fan who isn’t, I dare you), Martin and Hoffman’s forays into that era will surely be the highlight of the season. Charles gets a ’50s-set origin story; we learn about his father, too. A look back at Oliver in his ’70s glory, leading parlor games at house parties, is pure delight. A deep dive into the intertwined biographies of Bunny and the Arconia? Yes to that, and an emphatic yes to all the self-aware Gotham kitsch of a season that revels in diners and blackouts and Son of Sam lore.

None of this is going to twist your brain or challenge your expectations. And maybe some will see Only Murders’ modest ambitions as a flaw, in an era when many expect TV to take the same creative risks as any other art form. But narrative formulas can be deeply satisfying when executed well—and none more so than that of the cozy mystery. Take an ensemble of eccentric suspects, a victim with lots of enemies, and a trail of distinctive clues, and you get Agatha Christie’s classic whodunits. You get the endless playable combinations of Clue. And you get Only Murders, which at this rate is sure to keep us entertained for seasons to come.

LOS ANGELES — Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae and Jazmine Sullivan were some of the big stars using the BET Awards stage to strongly criticize the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strip away women’s constitutional protection for abortion.

Henson took the stage as the show’s host on Sunday with an uplifting message about “Black excellence” before she launched into the court’s overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling last week. The actor took the stage after Lizzo opened the show with a flute solo in a glittery-gold outfit performing her single “About Damn Time.”

“It’s about damn time we talk about the fact that guns have more rights than a woman. It’s a sad day in America,” said Henson, thanking Lizzo who along with Live Nation recently donated $1 million in tour proceeds to Planned Parenthood. “A weapon that can take lives has more power than a woman that can give life – if she chooses to.”
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Read more: After ‘Devastating’ Supreme Court Decision Overturning Roe v. Wade, Women Athletes Worry About Their Future

Janelle Monae held up her middle finger toward the Supreme Court before she introduced nominees for best female R&B/pop artist. Her speech earned a standing applause at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

“These artists are making art on our own terms, owning our truths and expressing ourselves freely and unapologetically in a world that tries to control and police our bodies, my body and our decisions, my body,” said the singer, who also paid homage to the LGBTQ+ community. “(explicit) you Supreme Court. I know we’re celebrating us right now as we should. We absolutely deserve to celebrate — especially now we should celebrate our art by protecting our right and our truths.”

Afterwards, Monae introduced Sullivan as the category’s winner — who made a plea to men for their support of women.

“It’s a hard time for us,” Sullivan said. “I want to speak directly to the men: We need y’all. We need y’all to stand up, stand up for us, stand up with us. If you’ve ever benefitted from a woman making one of the toughest decisions of her life, which is to terminate a pregnancy, you need to be standing. This is not just a woman issue. This is everybody’s issue. We need your support more than ever.”

Read more: By Overturning Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Makes Abortion a Top Election Issue

Latto gave an emotional speech after she won best new artist.

“It’s giving pro-choice,” said the rapper, who later performed her smash hit “Big Energy” with Mariah Carey. “It’s never giving a man policing my body.”

Singer Tems dedicated her best international act award to the many women who “dare to dream.”

“Where I’m from, things like this don’t happen,” said the Lagos, Nigeria-born singer who won best collaboration with Justin Bieber and Wizkid for their song “Essence.” “This is a dream. If you’re watching me, I want you to imagine yourself as me because you are meant to be here too.”

Read more: With Roe Gone, Here’s How to Save Abortion Rights

Doja Cat entered the show as the leading nominee with six. The chart-topping performer is up for best female R&B-pop artist, best female hip-hop artist, album of the year for her No. 1 hit “Planet Her” and BET Her for “Woman.” Her “Kiss Me More” with SZA is nominated for video of the year and best collaboration.

Sean “Diddy” Combs will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award — one of the highest honors at the ceremony. The music mogul is the founder of Bad Boy Records, has his own television network, fashion line and is a three-time Grammy winner who has worked with a slew of top-tier artists including Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil Kim, Faith Evans and 112.

Drake and Ari Lennox were the second-most nominated acts, scoring four nods each. Three nominations went to several others including Baby Keem, Silk Sonic, Chloe Bailey, Future, H.E.R., Jazmine Sullivan, Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), Kendrick Lamar, Lil Baby, Mary J. Blige and Tems.

Jack Harlow performed “Poison” alongside Lil Wayne before Brandy hit the stage with him for his hit “First Class.” While Harlow and Brandy performed, the camera turned to her brother, Ray J, who was seen dancing in the audience.

Chance the Rapper and Joey Bada$$ performed “The Highs & the Lows.” In her pink gown, Muni Long opened her set with a snippet of “Time Machine” before her jam “Hrs & Hrs.”

The winners in the 19 categories, including film and sports awards, are selected by BET’s Voting Academy, comprised of entertainment professionals and fans.

With the autobiographical documentary BEBA, filmmaker Rebeca Huntt crafts a story that feels universal while remaining all hers. The movie, Huntt’s debut feature, explores her identity through an intimate moving self-portrait.

Huntt, whose mother is Venezuelan and father Dominican, walks viewers through a coming-of-age tale in BEBA. The film follows her life as an Afro-Latina child growing up in New York as one of “the poorest people on the Upper West Side.” Through BEBA (“Beba” is Huntt’s nickname) she explores the universal truths that connect us, and the intimacies most families try to keep secret. As she navigates everything from love and death to mental illness and violence, Huntt anchors the story of searching for a path forward.
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Nominated for the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, BEBA is out on June 24. Below, Huntt speaks with TIME about her identity, family, and what’s ahead for her career.

BEBA is a cinematic memoir that chronicles your life—from childhood to early adulthood—detailing both the intimate life experiences of you, and your loved ones, while also exploring your identity as an Afro-Latina growing up in New York City. What initially made you want to tell this story?

The space and time I was in, it was a very specific moment in New York and I felt very isolated. And I just wanted to really connect with people. That was like the main drive for making a film like this. You feel more loved when someone loves you, when you can be your honest self. And I felt like if I could, maybe if I could be honest, that other people would be able to feel like they could be too.

At 32-years-old, why did you decide to release BEBA now? Why not continue to chronicle your life for years to come?

Because it’s torture. But also because it serves a specific purpose, the fact that it’s a sort of existential coming of age, in this moment, where we’re thrust into adulthood, and to an absurd society. We live in absurdity at all times. To go from that moment in your early 20s, when you’re constantly going through quantum leaps, but also having to navigate being fully responsible for yourself is fascinating.

The film does not shy away from detailing incidents many people, and families, might try to hide from the world—especially as it relates to mental health and physical violence. Did you have any reservations about sharing specific stories?

I did. But every single thing that is shared in the film has an intention. And that is what helped me move past anything that I was like, ‘Oh, no, I’m embarrassed.’ Doing all of it with as much love as possible made it so that those kinds of reservations felt small.

Interviewing family and friends can be incredibly challenging. What was it like interviewing those closest to you?

My mother was very challenging. Like you saw on the film, it wasn’t even an interview. And actually, we did it twice. And that was the better interview. The first time it was so hard for us to communicate. That was a very, very complex moment in our relationship. So communication wasn’t at its best. My father actually surprised me. He was a natural on the camera. He answered all the questions. He was really easy to interview, my sister as well. She’s great on the camera. She has a great chemistry with it.

The one thing that has stuck with me since watching the film is your apology to your family at the end where you promise not to snitch again because you reveal so many personal details about them. Did you have to have difficult conversations with your loved ones before the film’s release?

I thought throughout the entire making of the film that they would just never talk to me again. But, in a way, it was a driving force, because it made me make the film the best it could be. Then, I finished the film. The last day, I’m in sound mix, watching it, and I found out that we got into the Toronto International Film Festival. I hadn’t even told my parents yet. Of course, I wanted them to come to the premiere. So eventually, I told them and it was incredible. [When they saw the film] I was able to witness such a vast spectrum of human emotion with two of the people I love most in the world in such a short time. There was, in both of them, a sense of betrayal, anger, pride, unconditional love, happiness, gratitude, freedom—all these things at once.

Did you see a shift in the dynamic of your relationships?

It’s very subtle. I just got back from Peru. I liked hiking through the Andes and I called my dad on the last day. I was thinking about our relationship on the hike and I called him and talked to him about it. I love my father, we have a great relationship, we’re very close, but it’s also a complex relationship. And so I told him something that was really true, and something he probably even two years ago before the film wouldn’t have been able to hear. And he heard it. I don’t know what he’s gonna do with it. But he heard it.

What has the reaction been like from those closest to you in making this?

My parents’ reaction is a freedom and pride. My dad’s family did see it in Miami. My uncles and aunts and cousins, and they loved it. My cousins felt like it was super cathartic, because they were like, ‘Our parents can be like that, too.’ I was nervous about what my family would think.

Aside from the beautiful story it tells, BEBA is quite aesthetically pleasing. Why did you decide to shoot the film on 16mm and were there any unique challenges, or opportunities, that came with this decision?

The very nature of 16 mm is limited, it’s limited what it can actually capture. When I visualize the concept of intimacy, it’s a limited and pulsating view. That’s what intimacy is. And when you’re shooting on 16 millimeter, it has this pulsating quality to it.

This film is eight years in the making—and for eight years only a handful of people have seen it at various stages. With the film’s release, I am curious if, in some ways, the hardest part has just begun. How does it feel knowing so many people are going to see these very intimate parts of you, and your story?

Other filmmakers, they weren’t really able to do the festival circuit last year, the way I was able to do it this year. I feel very grateful to have had those experiences, because I was able to see how people reacted to the film. This film is bigger than my fear and what I think people are gonna think of me. People are coming up to me and telling me really intense and intimate stories about themselves and their lives. They will start talking to me about their relationships with their parents, or things that we are ashamed of in society. Having people come and talk to me about these things that otherwise would be shameful is like, that’s why I did this. What is my fear in the face of that?

What did you learn about yourself, your family, while making BEBA?

We are infinitely complex, and that people love and do their best in the different capacities that they are able to do. Childhood is really the seed of everything for like any one human being. And that family patterns are real, like generational patterns are very real. It is something that we definitely as human beings should pay attention to.

I really [learned] that I’m a lot stronger than I could have ever imagined. I have a very profound capacity for love. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Being a film director this is where I’m supposed to be. I am very, very grateful and very humbled.

You recently stated “In BEBA, I’m not asking for you to like me, or even for you to identify with me.” What do you ultimately hope people take away from the film?

That it’s okay to be authentic

The Man From Toronto, a Netflix action-comedy starring Woody Harrelson and Kevin Hart, is the kind of movie you forget almost the minute the end credits have rolled, two hours of moderate laughs rolled up in a tissue-thin plot that just barely qualifies as a distraction from the dreariness of life. This isn’t the sort of movie you would, or should, go out of your way to see. But if nothing else, it’s a showcase for one small blessing: the minor modern miracle of Hart’s timing.

Hart plays Teddy, an average guy from a place the movie calls Yorktown, USA, who just can’t get a break. He adores his wife, Lori (Jasmine Mathews). But he’s one of those men who can just never follow through on anything; he always neglects some minor but essential detail. His latest scheme is a fitness regimen he calls no-contact boxing, a discipline that’s heavy on cardio but doesn’t actually involve punching anyone. It’s not such a terrible idea, but Teddy has almost willed himself into failure, and he fears that Lori, as much she loves him, is losing patience.
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For her birthday, he books a getaway weekend in Virginia. But he screws up even that: when he prints out the location of the Airbnb cabin he’s rented, the ink is so faint he can’t read the address. This leads him to the wrong cabin, and causes him to be mistaken for the ill-tempered hitman we’ve already met in the movie’s first scene, the killer-for-hire who goes by the moniker the Man from Toronto (Harrelson). When the FBI bursts onto the scene, Hart stammers his feeble excuse: “It was a low-toner situation.”

What follows is a nearly impossible-to-follow caper in which the two men, adversaries at first, are forced to work together to bring down a Venezuelan baddie who’s trying to sabotage his own country. Harrelson’s character, who strides through the movie in trim black assassin’s gear, is one of those cartoonishly enigmatic loners whose prized possession is a 1969 Dodge Charger. He takes his orders from a handler he’s never met in real life, a mystery woman with an ice-white bob (Ellen Barkin). He adores 19th-century poetry and hopes to leave the hired-killer life to open his own restaurant. He and Teddy have nothing in common, of course. But after they’ve been dangled from airborne planes and shot at by various thugs, they reach an uneasy truce, and almost learn to like one another. Which should hardly come as a surprise.

The action in The Man from Toronto—directed by Patrick Hughes (The Hitman’s Bodyguard and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) and written by Robbie Fox and Charles Bremner, from a story by Jason Blumenthal—is really just an excuse for Hart and Harrelson to spar and banter as they’re getting knocked around. These two actors are seasoned enough to generate some sparks, even if much of the dialogue they’re given to work with is, for lack of a better word, lame. Hart, especially, has a gift for doing the most with the least. When Toronto snarls, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” Hart’s Teddy launches into a nervous soliloquy whose stops and starts constitute a kind of staccato symphony. “Dogs,” he informs Toronto solemnly, “don’t eat dogs. Now, naturally, a dog may sniff another dog’s butt.” He waits a beat. “He may lick some poop—occasionally—but he won’t eat another dog.”

There is absolutely nothing funny about those lines as written. But Hart is something of a stocky comic iron man, a scrappy pro with the ability to twist and bend even the lousiest dialogue into a pretzel shape that can make you laugh despite yourself. Afterward, you may be laughing more at yourself than anything. How does Hart get away with chatter that’s so unequivocally dumb? To dissect his method too clinically would only crush its modest splendor. At least, in The Man from Toronto, he’s a life force that prevents the whole enterprise from being dead on arrival.

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Twelve years ago, the internet fell instantly in love with Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, the adorable stop motion mollusk voiced by Jenny Slate. The little shell with one googly eye and a pair of pink tennis shoes was the creation of Slate and her then romantic partner, director Dean Fleischer-Camp (The two got married in 2012, but divorced four years later). Marcel was an early YouTube sensation for his can-do attitude and his remarkable resourcefulness. (He uses a Dorito to hand glide, for example). After two equally popular YouTube videos and as many best-selling children’s books, Marcel is now making his long-awaited big screen debut in Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, in select theaters on June 24. (The A24 film will get a wider release on July 15.)
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The world has changed a lot since Marcel first went viral in 2010, but so has the anthropomorphic shell. “When Dean and I first created Marcel, we were kind of stunned by his confidence in his own smallness,” Slate tells TIME. “The novelty of that has worn off. Now we see his life philosophy.”

Marcel’s ability to soldier on, even through the most difficult of times, is at the center of his rather poignant full-length feature. “I tend to use him as an example for myself of what to believe in during times that are unsettling or strenuous or stressful,” Slate says.

The heavily improvised documentary-style film, which took seven years to make, follows Marcel on his journey to find his family, who disappeared while Marcel and his grandma, Nana Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini), were watching their favorite show, 60 Minutes. That show’s legendary anchor Lesley Stahl plays herself in the movie and becomes an important player in his search for his lost loved ones. Below, Slate discusses how they got Stahl to agree to be in the film, the surprising familial inspiration for Marcel, and why a divorce couldn’t stop her from finishing this movie.

TIME: In 2014, when you started working on the Marcel the Shell with Shoes On movie, you and Dean Fleischer-Camp were married. Two years into the process, you separated and later divorced. What effect did that have on your working relationship?

Slate: Strangely, I don’t really feel that our working relationship changed very much. That was something we both really needed [at that time]. Working together was our best bet to have a healthy relationship. It was such a long process, one that neither one of us wanted to give up on. Everyone’s different, but I think in terms of our own disconnection, it was not acrimonious or salacious. It was two people who were like, “Well, one thing does not work, but this other thing does and we don’t have to give up on the other thing because this one thing doesn’t really function.” Marcel was the thing that kept us connected and I’m really proud of it.

I read that your grandfather was an inspiration for Marcel. How so?

Marcel’s ability to be resourceful, to make all of these inventions that help him and Nana Connie survive, you know, part of that is in my family. I went and visited the farm where my grandmother hid during the Holocaust. Her first cousin told me that when they went into hiding they were people from the city and they didn’t know how to farm. By the time the war was over, this farm that had basically been pretty fallow was plentiful. They didn’t need to make the farm actually function, they could have just tried to get by, but instead they did more. All of my grandparents have a little bit of that resourcefulness. It’s something that I really admire. I’m interested in how you become something that you really don’t know how to be, but need to be in order to stay alive.

Isabella Rossellini, known for David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, plays Marcel’s grandma Nana Connie. How did you go about pitching this film to her?

We were pretty bashful about it—what a long shot that we’d get this incredible legend to sit around in a rental and have a microphone taped to the middle of her head and do this crazy project with us. She said she wasn’t aware of who Marcel was, but that her children knew [who he was] and were like, “Oh, you have to do this!” That’s why she ended up doing it. She was also very curious about the improv process and just had a lot of enthusiasm for the newness of it all. I think you do really need that if you’re doing something like what we’re doing here.

You also got 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl to play herself in your film. How did she become such an integral part of Marcel’s story?

I think we always knew that Marcel and his grandmother were on a trip to the TV when their family got moved, but we hadn’t really planned for what they were watching. I also believe that it was an improvised moment [to include 60 Minutes], but I can’t exactly remember how it came up. What I do know is we were like, “Oh no, now we actually have to get Lesley Stahl.” Our producer, Elisabeth Holm, ended up knowing [60 Minutes producer] Shari Finkelstein and Liz just on her own time talked with Shari and convinced her to join in. Luckily, Lesley was into it, which was just incredible.

She said that doing the movie made her very popular with her grandkids.

I think with Isabella and Lesley we wouldn’t have them if it weren’t for their kids telling them they should meet with us.

There is such a kid-like innocence to Marcel, but he’s not a child.

He’s definitively not a child, but you can’t really describe him as an adult. He’s really in his own zone. He’s just so straightforward. He doesn’t perform his identity for anyone, which is something children tend to do and even though he’s not a child, I think it’s incredible to watch him do it. He manages to show people he exists just by existing and it’s touching, but it’s also really sad. I think he can remind you of what you lose by trying to fit in.

How did your experience with social media influence Marcel’s journey in this film?

Marcel experiences what is and is not available [through social media] and how random that is, but how impactful that is. Dean and I were really keen on showing a version of that without making other people feel ashamed. Our intention isn’t to be like, “You’re gross! You’re being bad on the internet!” But more like, “The internet actually is complicated and we all know it, but are we really talking about it?” So this movie is at least how we want to discuss it.

To switch to a very different topic for a moment—the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, striking down the constitutional right to an abortion. Your 2014 rom-com Obvious Child, in which your character chooses to get an abortion following a one-night stand, may feel rather quaint given the Supreme Court’s decision. What does that film mean to you at this moment?

That film is really personally significant to me because it was the first time I was ever handed a part that was driving the film. I felt really empowered as an artist. I had a sort of feminist awakening—I realized I hadn’t really been taught to be a feminist before that. When we made that movie I never would have thought that we would be in the situation that we’re in now. I thought it was bad enough already back then for women and their access to abortion. It’s just nightmarish now.

In a world that can be nightmarish, what do you hope viewers take away from Marcel the Shell With Shoes On?

I think once you make art and you put it out, you give it away. It belongs to everyone now and it kind of takes a weight off my shoulders. It’s done, it’s complete. You can see it, you can be with it as much as you want. Even though I’ll be with you in spirit as the person who helped to create it, it’s for you. It’s about you.