How I Learned to Stop Worrying About ‘Star Trek’ Canon and Enjoy the Big Dumb Mystery

As we are halfway through our return to the 25th Century, we can pretty much settle into the rhythm of Star Trek: Picard. It’s a bit of a clunky narrative but a lot of fun character work for new and returning players. Most discouraging but perhaps least surprising is for all the things Season 3 has done to get us those wonderful character moments, it can’t escape the Kurtzman of it all and has at its center a big dumb mystery around Jack Crusher.

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‘Euphoria’ Recap: Cal Me By Your Name

Let’s get one thing straight, Nate and Cal Jacobs are the worst. Between the patriarchal leader of the Jacobs clan and his sinister offspring, the duo have managed not only to cause the entire town trouble, but also managed to make an enemy out of each other. The list goes on and on, blackmail, bribery, threats, adultery. And those are just the offenses I feel comfortable mentioning. Nate and Cal are downright supervillains at this point.

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‘Euphoria’ Recap: Maybe You Should Go And Love Yourself

Euphoria is currently three episodes in to its second season. If you’ve been keeping up with it, you’ll understand why that just doesn’t sound right. I’m just under three hours, Euphoria has already delivered some truly crazy moments in TV history.

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‘Euphoria’ Promises More Drama and Trauma This Season


Directed by show creator Sam Levinson, the season 2 premiere, “Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door,” transports viewers into another night of Euphoria. That title does more than reference the show’s heavy inclusion of sex, drugs, and more sex and drugs, it’s a nod to its most central theme — that feeling of euphoria is a treasure sought out by most everyone in the series.

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NOC Recap: ‘Riverdale’ Hits Its 100th Episode Milestone with a Bang

Time to leave Rivervale and head back to our prime universe, Riverdale. “Chapter One Hundred: The Jughead Paradox” marks the series’ 100th episode as well as the end of the special five-episode Rivervale event, and its filled with answers, emotion, death, twists, and so much more! For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers; so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 6×05.

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NOC Recap: ‘Riverdale’ Will Make You Fall in Love With The Pussycats All Over Again

In “Chapter Ninety-One: The Return of the Pussycats,” Ashleigh Murray, Hayley Law, and Asha Bromfield are back to give our favorite musical trio the closure they deserve! The series stars KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes, Cole Sprouse, Madelaine Petsch, Mӓdchen Amick, Casey Cott, Mark Consuelos, Charles Melton, Vanessa Morgan, Erinn Westbrook, and Drew Ray Tanner. For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers; so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 5×15.

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NOC Recap: ‘Riverdale’ Serves Up This Season’s Triptych Episode

“Chapter Ninety: The Night Gallery” begins the road to healing for a trio of characters. The series stars KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes, Cole Sprouse, Madelaine Petsch, Mӓdchen Amick, Casey Cott, Mark Consuelos, Charles Melton, Vanessa Morgan, Erinn Westbrook, and Drew Ray Tanner. For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers; so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 5×14.

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NOC Recap: ‘Riverdale’ Returns With All Its Glory

Wednesday nights were definitely not the same without Riverdale‘s craziness. Luckily, the show has finally returned with “Chapter Eighty-Seven: Strange Bedfellows,” which kicks off the second part of season 5. The series stars KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes, Cole Sprouse, Madelaine Petsch, Mӓdchen Amick, Casey Cott, Mark Consuelos, Charles Melton, Vanessa Morgan, Erinn Westbrook, and Drew Ray Tanner. For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers; so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 5×11.

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NOC Recap: The ‘Cruel Summer’ Season Finale Wraps Everything Up and Then Blows It All Up Again

“Hostile Witness” shows events from (approximately) October 3rd, 1993, 1994, and 1995. For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers; so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 1×10 of Cruel Summer.

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NOC Recap: ‘Cruel Summer’ Episode 5 is a Tangled Web of Twisted Games

“As The Carny Gods Intended” shows events from (approximately) July 29th, 1993, 1994, and 1995. For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers; so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 1×05 of Cruel Summer.

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NOC Recap: ‘Cruel Summer’ Episode 3 Brings Fireworks and New Revelations

“Off With a Bang” shows events from (approximately) July 4th, 1993, 1994, and 1995. For the remainder of this recap, we will be getting into heavy spoilers, so only continue reading if you’ve seen episode 1×03 of Cruel Summer. This episode also gives a warning for images of domestic violence that may be triggering so this will apply to this review as well.

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NOC Recap: ‘Cruel Summer’ Will Have You Hooked With its Captivating Premiere

Cruel Summer just premiered with two back-to-back episodes — “Happy Birthday, Jeanette Turner” and “A Smashing Good Time.” While many can just chalk this two-hour introduction to the series as a way to truly get fans hooked, it seems to almost be done in a way to really drive all of the storytelling aspects that the series is doing home, basically dedicating one episode each to introducing the two main characters, which you will find yourself torn between as you are forced to pick a side.

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The NOC’s Watch: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Welcome back, it’s your humble steward , ever serving in the NOC’s Watch and ready to live tweet episode 2 of ! I’ve read A Song of Ice and Fire twice and have a dog named so I swear by the old Gods and new that I am INVESTED in this show.

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?

So that happened.

We’ve been singing the praises of Into the Badlands all season, but man, that death was disappointing. I’ll keep the spoiler about which character(s) met their ultimate demise until after the jump. Just know that it has made me reevaluate how I feel about this show.

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Disciplined Dissidents

In a fateful example of perfect timing, the airing of Into the Badlands episode nine, titled “Nightingale Sings No More,” coincided with Mother’s Day. So how does the Badlands writing crew celebrate mothers? By ripping their babies away from them, locking them in solitary confinement, and having them duel their daughters in deadly sword-to-sword combat, of course! More on that in a minute…

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Equal, Opposite Reactions

There are few nerdy pursuits that bring me a lot of pure joy anymore.  Hamilton, of course, is one, and Into the Badlands is the other. And like what the homie Shawn Taylor said, sometimes it just feels better to big up a thing you love than to tear down something you don’t. That’s why I love giving these HamLands recaps to you, the people. One, unwarranted Hamilton references is kinda my thing — just ask my poor family. And two, the hashtag Into the HamLands — which was initially designed to house Badlands-specific Hamilton puns, IS BEING USED BY THE CAST AND WRITERS OF THE SHOW! (Badlands, that is. Still waiting for Lin to chime in.)

So when Veil herself tweeted this gem below, I knew it had to be the title of this week’s ‘cap!

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: What is a Legacy?

Apologies for the delay in getting this weeks Badlands recap out1. I know how much you anticipate my weekly Hamilton references! It was probably a good thing that I didn’t watch this episode live though. Not sure I would’ve been able to sleep had I seen Artemis haunt my television right before going to bed!

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: A Winter’s Brawl

Despite my better judgement, I went with a Hamilton pun this week rather than straight up lyrics from the show. Couldn’t help it. The fight scene between the Abbots and Sunny’s old and new sidekicks — juxtaposed against a Christmas-y backdrop, no less — was a highlight! Before settling on “A Winter’s Ball” wordplay, the other obvious number to reference was Jasmine Cephas-Jones’ showstopper “Say No to This,” thanks to twitter user @Bespectacled_Cy!

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