News What to Watch What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Midwinter Blues Call for Dark Winds and Books About Cats Plus: Charles Darwin and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days By Molly Templeton | Published on February 20, 2026 Photo: AMC Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: AMC Studios Some weeks, long weekends—if you are fortunate enough to have them—are more discombobulating than others. Anyone else confused by the fact that it’s Friday? I’m confused. But not mad about it. It feels like a very odd Friday, a mid-winter, mid-month, mid-time sort of nowhere land. No big movies, no big new shows. Unless I’m forgetting something, in which case, feel free to tell me so. These weeks are good for catching up—and also for resting! Rest is important! Put your feet up, call your reps, and pretend you’re somewhere warm. Or deadly, depending on the vibes you personally desire. Let’s Watch Dark Winds and Think About All That Southwestern Sunshine I must be honest: I am not caught up on Dark Winds, which just had its fourth season premiere. In fact, I just started season two, after taking a length of time to get through the first season. It was a very long time. In my defense, I did not realize that this series has six-episode seasons. That is not a season. I came up on Buffy, you know? I’m not saying we have to have 22-episode seasons again, but I am saying that three seasons of Dark Winds add up to fewer episodes than one full season of anything that was on in the ’90s, and that’s a shame, because Zahn McClarnon should be on all of our televisions at all times. He has always been wonderful, but his turn on Reservation Dogs cemented him as an actor I will watch in anything. Including a mystery show that deserves a bigger budget, but makes up for its apparent lack of money via brilliant casting. If you have AMC+—which you all do, right, to watch Interview with the Vampire?—you could make very good use of it to hang out with Lt. Joe Leaphorn and his colleagues. This Week’s New Books Feature Books, Cats, More Books, More Cats It is, by and large, a week for quite serious books, including Gisele Pelicot’s memoir and Namwali Serpell’s incredible-sounding work on Toni Morrison. (I’m saving this Wesley Morris piece for when I can focus. Always read Wesley Morris.) But there’s more—including not one but two books involving cats, one about a library, and one about a bookstore. These are some of my favorite things; they appear to be some of many people’s favorite things. Helen Phifer’s The Vanishing Bookstore combines a story of the Salem witch trials with a young woman’s modern-day discovery of her long-lost mother; Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter comes from Heather Fawcett, the author of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Fairies, and the title seems fairly self-explanatory (though additional delightful details include “set in Montreal 100 years ago” and “there’s a magician in her basement”). In Kate Quinn’s The Astral Library, a librarian discovers a strange door in her employ and meets a very different sort of librarian who guides lost people to new lives in the pages of their beloved books. And—because one can never encounter too many cats—there’s Nagi Shimeno’s Messenger Cat Café (translated by M. Jean), in which a cat who has, er, “passed into the afterlife” and applies for a job at a café that coordinates connections between the two worlds. I write this with a cat in my lap. I might not be strong enough, emotionally, for that last one. Charles Darwin Was Very Grumpy Sometimes Last week, for Charles Darwin’s birthday, someone posted a selection of his best hater quotes on Bluesky. They are so good that I cannot pick a favorite, though if forced, I might choose “I am languid & bedeviled & hate writing & hate everybody.” As it turns out, there’s more where that came from. The Darwin Correspondence Project has a page called Darwin’s Bad Days. “Despite being a prolific worker who had many successes with his scientific theorising and experimenting,” it notes, ”even Darwin had some bad days.” Did he ever. Even NPR has covered Darwin’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. There is something quite lovely about reading about his misery. “I am the most miserable, bemuddled, stupid Dog in all England, & am ready to cry at vexation at my blindness & presumption.” Sir. Do you need a hug???? If grumpy Darwin is not your thing, might I suggest some excellent photos of goats? Predator and Pals Is a Huge Hit on Hulu If you did not see Predator: Badlands in a movie theater, you can now watch it on Hulu, where it is a smash hit, with more than 9 million worldwide views in five days. I am a baby and I cannot watch it, but I enjoy hearing about people enjoying it. I also discovered recently that some people missed the whole “the Predator wears Elle Fanning as a backpack” buddy-comedy (perhaps this is the wrong word) team-up aspect of the film, so I wanted to remind you: The Predator wears Elle Fanning’s half-destroyed synth self kind of like a backpack. How else would she get anywhere? Also, they make an alien friend who is small and fierce. It’s essentially a found family film, as I understand it. Just with a lot of things that want to kill our lil’ family. Perhaps I will watch it after all. Just, you know, through my fingers. While flinching.[end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Midwinter Blues Call for <i>Dark Winds</i> and Books About Cats appeared first on Reactor.