NOC Week in Review #15: 10/10-16/2026

Didn’t plan it this way, but it’s wild how often the coverage lines up without anyone trying — witches keeping secrets from their moms, whales grieving their calves, a bottle episode about learning when to let your kids go. Apparently that’s just what was in the air this week.

On the review side, Mike checks out Ray Gunn, Brad Bird’s first film since 2018’s Incredibles 2 — flying cars and jet packs included. Swara, Lauren, and special guest Neebz from the Salaam Nerds Podcast got the Roundtable together for a full spoiler review of the first three episodes of Avatar: Seven Havens. And Michael dove into VisionQuest, which reunites Paul Bettany and James Spader as Vision and Ultron for a cyberpunk fugitive thriller.

On the junket side, he also brought back two dispatches from Disney Animation’s Hexed — an early preview of the witches-and-family-secrets story, plus a filmmakers’ roundtable on visual storytelling, favorite jokes, and the Blink-182-inspired scene names the team almost didn’t admit to. Nikita sat down with the cast of Street Fighter — Andrew Koji, Noah Centineo, and Callina Liang — and ended up getting quoted right back at us: the studio pulled her line calling the movie “an action-packed ride that holds no punches” in their promotion.

She also turned in a pair of pieces on Whalefall: one with stars Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin, director Brian Duffield, and author/co-writer Daniel Kraus, and a second with real-life whale biologist Shane Gero on whether the film’s premise could actually happen. Finally, Sophia spoke to Genden Phuntsok and Tom Hiddleston about the brotherhood at the center of Tenzing, now playing in select theaters and streaming on Apple TV.

And in case you missed it, my own Dark Matter recap column hit episode eight this week, pairing Margo Martindale’s newly-revealed backstory as Laurel with Pearl Jam’s “Something Special” — an episode that turned out to be about parenting in ways that caught even me off guard.

That’s the week — go hug somebody you love, then come back for episode nine. See you next Friday.