Column Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Movements of Fire and Shadow” By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on June 22, 2026 Credit: Warner Bros. Television Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Television “Movements of Fire and Shadow”Written by J. Michael StaczynskiDirected by John C. Flinn IIISeason 5, Episode 17Production episode 518Original air date: June 17, 1998 It was the dawn of the third age… Lochley records a log entry bringing everyone up to speed on how ugly the IA-Centauri war is going. Of note is that Centauri citizens on B5 are being targeted for retaliatory assault by, basically, everyone. Sheridan arrives to bring her up to speed: the Centauri are targeting jumpgates. This is an insane strategy, as it’ll hurt the Centauri also, but here we are. Sheridan also tells her that he’s mobilizing the White Star fleet to supplement the IA forces, which means that B5 will now be a target. Sheridan and Delenn discuss the White Star fleet, which has been diminished by three conflicts in two years. They need to build more. President Luchenko has agreed to the possibility of a joint Earth-Minbari venture to construct Destroyer-class White Stars, but only if the Minbari are agreeable. Delenn agrees to travel to the Grey Council to discuss it. Vir meets with Franklin and Alexander in his temporary quarters, as his real quarters aren’t safe. The Drazi haven’t returned the bodies of Centauri who’ve been killed in action. He’s concerned that they’re not actually dead and being held prisoner, or that maybe something else is going on. Franklin agrees to go in his capacity as a doctor; Alexander agrees to go as telepathic backup for 500,000 credits. Vir blanches, but agrees to her higher-than-usual fee. On Centauri Prime, G’Kar urges Mollari to leave the cell, but Mollari thinks that him being in the cell is more useful as a propaganda tool. Once the people learn that he’s been imprisoned, there will be outrage. Credit: Warner Bros. Television A bright light renders them both unconscious, and Mollari is wheeled to a lab where he’s operated on by aliens. Then he wakes up—apparently, it was a dream. However, Centauri often have prophetic dreams, and now he feels he does need to get out of the cell—but he can’t just demand it, he needs to save face. G’Kar helps him out by inducing vomiting, thus creating an intolerable nasal situation in the cell. On B5, Sheridan, Lochley, and Garibaldi meet with generals from the Brakiri, Drazi, and Narn. They are all grateful for the White Star support. However, they all reject the notion Lochley proposes of them consolidating their forces. When Sheridan asks about the Centauri’s tactics, with Garibaldi adding that they seem to have a two-pronged strategy: one set of ships on offense, one set of ships on defense, and the two fleets don’t seem to be coordinating or even communicating. Na’Tok, the Narn general, says that this is very atypical of the Centauri, and further admits that the goal of their strategy is not at all clear. Sheridan then rejects Na’Tok’s suggestion of striking Centauri Prime, as that’s a civilian target, not a military one. Lochley is summoned to CnC, and is told by Corwin that there’s a lone Centauri cruiser in hyperspace with no life signs, and no weapons active. Lochley orders the Starfuries they have parked in hyperspace to destroy the ship, which happens right before the Centauri ship was going to self-destruct, destroying B5’s jumpgate. Observing this, Daro, the Drazi general, approaches Na’Tok about ignoring Sheridan’s directive and attacking Centauri Prime. Na’Tok agrees. On Centauri Prime, Mollari meets with several ministers, Cholini among them, insisting that the Regent is unreliable and endangering Centauri lives. Cholini, however, continues to toe the party line that the Centauri are not responsible for the attacks, and they have only been defending themselves. On B5, Garibaldi learns of the planned Drazi-Narn invasion of Centauri Prime. When he informs Sheridan of this, the president hops into a White Star to try to stop them. On Zhabar, the Drazi homeworld, Franklin and Alexander meet with a doctor who insists there are no Centauri bodies. They’re then jumped by two other Drazi, but Franklin takes down one, and Alexander rather nastily takes down the other. She then gets a location from the now-frightened doctor’s mind and demands that they be taken there. They find a room full of pods that Alexander recognizes as being Shadow tech that can remotely control a ship—you wouldn’t even need a crew. They report this to Sheridan, who realizes that there may be a third party involved here, one that is setting up the Centauri for a fall. Credit: Warner Bros. Television In hyperspace, Delenn’s White Star is ambushed by four Centauri warships. The ship is badly damaged, with all of the crew killed save for Delenn and Lennier, because they’re opening-credits regulars. They’re drifting, Lennier isn’t sure if the distress call is working, and eventually they’ll drift off the beacon and be lost in hyperspace. On Centauri Prime, Mollari finds the Regent waiting for him in his quarters. He confirms that he ordered the attacks “after a fashion,” without informing the Centaurum, which is why Cholini believes that they’re being framed. Cholini is only partly right. The Regent says that he is looking forward to death, saying that it’ll be Mollari’s time soon. Mollari insists that the Regent has a long life ahead, but the Regent says he’ll be dead the following day. And one of his final acts has been to send the fleet defending Centauri Prime off on a fake emergency and shutting down the planetary defenses—just in time for the Narn/Drazi fleet to start firing on Centauri Prime… Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan finally is able to put together what’s happening, and also proves to be completely ineffectual as the leader of the IA, as the Drazi and Narn ignore his orders with impunity and malice aforethought. Never work with your ex. Lochley has been conspicuous by her absence the last few episodes, so it’s good to see the actual commander of the fershlugginer station here. If nothing else, she should’ve been part of the council meetings as representing Earth, which Sheridan can’t do, as he’s president of the whole alliance—besides which, B5’s structure has had its CO also be Earth’s rep on the council from day one. But that would’ve required paying for another actor these past few episodes… The household god of frustration. Garibaldi manages to stay awake for the whole episode. Bully for him. If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn apparently got a gift from Sheridan that she refuses to wear, as we’re informed in one of those patented hey-look-it’s-funny! attempts at humor that J. Michael Straczynski occasionally tortures us with. Credit: Warner Bros. Television In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… The Drakh are setting up Centauri Prime for a fall, in part by making them think that they’re not responsible for the attacks when they totally are (kind of). Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. Apparently, G’Kar can induce vomiting and said vomit is very stinky. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Alexander isn’t screwing around—she needs capital to help her fellow telepaths out, so she’s charging a lot more for her services. She does, however, try to soften the blow with Vir by saying he can view it as a charitable donation. The Shadowy Vorlons. The Drakh are using Shadow tech to manipulate the Centauri, which is also a classic Shadow strategy of divide and conquer. Welcome aboard. We’ve got recurring regulars! Damian London is back from “In the Kingdom of the Blind” as the Regent, next (and last) to appear next time in “The Fall of Centauri Prime.” Joshua Cox is back from “Day of the Dead” as Corwin, next to appear in “Objects at Rest.” And Thomas MacGreevy is back from “And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder” for his last appearance as Cholini. We’ve got actors in one of their many roles! Wayne Alexander plays his fifth role as the Drakh, a role he’ll return to next time in “The Fall of Centauri Prime.” He previously played Sebastian in “Comes the Inquisitor,” G’Dan in “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place,” the Drazi “prisoner” in “Intersections in Real Time,” and the recurring role of Lorien in the first half of season four. Robin Sachs plays his third role as Na’Tok, a role he will also return to next episode. He previously played Hedronn in “Points of Departure” and “All Alone in the Night” and Na’Kal in “The Fall of Night” and “Walkabout.” Bart McCarthy plays his second role as Daro, having played Shakiri in “Moments of Transition.” Josh Clark plays his first of two roles as Kulomani; he’ll play Kendarr in Crusade’s “Visitors from Down the Street.” Trivial matters. The Regent had promised Mollari that they’d talk once more before the end in “In the Kingdom of the Blind.” This episode establishes that Luchenko—who was made acting president in “Rising Star” after Clark’s suicide in “Endgame”—is now the really-o-truly-o president of Earth. Just as in prior seasons, the final four episodes were held until the fall. This episode ended on the rather nasty visual of Centauri Prime being bombarded, with what was happening next not to be shown for four months. However, to tide viewers over, the movie Thirdspace—which takes place during the fourth season—was aired in July. (We’ll cover all four of TNT’s B5 films after season five is complete, and before we start with Crusade.) The echoes of all of our conversations. “You picked a terrible moment in your social evolution to develop principles. Perhaps you can start with something simpler—the moral equivalent of the opposable thumb, for instance?” —G’Kar on Mollari insisting on staying in the cell with him Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “The last thing I will ever have to do for them.” It’s been fascinating going through season five of the show, because while I have pretty clear memories of what happened in the first four seasons, I recall damn little of season five. (Amusingly, two things I have kept in my head clearly are Byron’s singalong at the end of “Strange Relations” and Garibaldi drunkenly singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” at the end of “Meditations on the Abyss.”) So I was genuinely caught off-guard when I realized that Cholini’s outrage at the Centauri being accused of attacking defenseless cargo ships wasn’t manufactured. He genuinely believed that his people were being framed and that this was all propaganda—which it was, but from inside rather than outside. Cholini’s still a slimy piece of work, but the revelation that the ships that have been attacking have been remote-controlled by the Drakh hits beautifully. It explains why those ships never communicated with their victims, and also why they seem to have independent offensive and defensive strategies. (It doesn’t explain how there’s no record of what happened during those attacks, as apparently black-box technology has disappeared from the entire galaxy over the centuries between the present and B5’s future. Also, why didn’t Lennier notice that there were no people on board the ship he attached himself to like a leech in “Darkness Ascending”?) Sheridan continues to suck at his job, as it’s obvious that none of the three generals he meets with have any respect for him as a leader—they just humor him because he controls the White Stars, and they need those. While there is sometimes a tendency on this show to insist to us that characters are competent when they’re not, I think that Sheridan’s impotence as president of the IA is a deliberate—and impressive, given that this is our lead we’re talking about—choice on the part of J. Michael Straczynski. Bruce Boxleitner also sells the character’s annoyance and frustration, both with his allies and his enemies. The stuff on Centauri Prime continues to be the show’s best material, due in part to the usual brilliance of Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik, but mainly this time around because of how Damian London absolutely kills it. London’s Virini has had to be many things on this show, generally being whatever flavor of obdurate bureaucrat and/or aristocratic toady is required of him. But his talk with Mollari at the end of the episode is devastating. It’s the same high-pitched squeal that London has been using for the character all along, but it’s slower, more intense, more monotone, and scary as hell. London perfectly shows the character’s helplessness and awareness of how pathetic and broken he is. Plus, if you need a character who can show tremendous emotion and nastiness just by tilting his head, you can always count on Wayne Alexander, who quietly imbues the Drakh with total menace. Next week: “The Fall of Centauri Prime.”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “Movements of Fire and Shadow” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV House of the Dragon House of the Dragon Roars Back to Life in Its Season 3 Premiere A spectacular sea battle and a major character death set the stage for all-out war. By Tyler Dean | Published on June 22, 2026 Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO It’s been almost two full years since season 2, with months of behind-the-scenes drama and an entire season of a very different Game of Thrones-related series in between, House of the Dragon is finally back. And this first episode is a real doozy… If you’re new to my coverage of House of the Dragon, these weekly articles are a little bit of everything—part review, part recap, and mostly an exploration of the ways in which the show adapts its source material: Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin’s 2018 history of the Targaryen dynasty as recounted by a highly unreliable narrator, Archmaester Gyldayn. (Note: There will be spoilers for the episode from this point on.) The Title The title of episode one is “Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood.” While this phrase is clearly an apt description of the events of this episode and the Battle of the Gullet, it’s also an echo of Corlys Velaryon’s struggle with his legacy from last season. He attempts to name Baela his heir after the death of his wife Rhaenys, but she turns him down, insisting that his heir must be “salt and sea” where she is “fire and blood.” “Fire and Blood” are, also, of course, the motto of House Targaryen, as well as the title of the fictional history from which this series draws its source material.  The episode itself embodies an elemental clash between fire and water, between hasty burning tempers and cooler strategic heads, between the life-giving sea and the destruction promised by fire. And with it, the season is off to an explosive start, filled with contradictions that can only end in violence. Unraveling the Opening Credits I will admit that I was a little bit disappointed to see that we are getting the same visual style of credits as last season (given that season 1 and season 2 had radically different opening sequences). That said, I do like the tapestry theme and I will try to rationalize its reuse as indicative of a divide between the season that serves as prologue to the Dance of the Dragons and the seasons that detail the specific events of that conflict. What season 3 does add is a deafening, warlike drumbeat to Ramin Djawadi’s iconic Game of Thrones theme, finally giving House of the Dragon its own remix. This first episode has, more or less, the same sequence of tapestries as the end of last season, with panels representing historical events—the creation of the dragons, the Doom of Valyria, Aegon I’s conquest, Maegor’s death on the Iron Throne, the reign of Jaehaerys I and good Queen Alysanne, the Great Council 101 AC—and events specific to the Dance of the Dragons—the death of Prince Lucerys, the murder of Prince Jaehaerys, the Battle of Rook’s Rest, and the rise of the Dragonseeds. Instead of showing the Iron Throne at the very end of the titles, the sequence now ends with the Targaryen sigil (and, specifically for our purposes, Rhaenyra’s sigil—the three-headed black dragon) sewn into the end of the tapestry. Down the Gullet Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO There was a contingent of House of the Dragon fans last season who hated the end of season 2, claiming that nothing really happened during the finale. I was not among them but I do understand that, in many ways, the second season seemed to be building to the Battle of the Gullet only to leave off just before we reached it. Rumors swirled, in the wake of that decision, that the reduced episode order for season 2 had messed with the original pacing of the scripts and forced the Gullet to be moved to the next season. Whether or not that is the case, I will say that the Battle of the Gullet makes for an incredibly exciting season 3 opener, even if it does feel like it is tying off some loose ends from season 2. It’s been nearly twenty years since the (excellent) HBO series, Rome, opened its final episode with the aftermath of the Battle of Actium, completely eliding the need to show an expensive naval battle. For those last twenty years, a part of me has been itching to see what an HBO prestige TV budget might do with an epic scene of historical ship-to-ship combat. The Gullet does not disappoint (even if it’s not real-world history). So let’s start with a little Westerosi geographic history: The Gullet is one of two straits that connect Blackwater Bay (and, thereby, King’s Landing) to the Narrow Sea. It is formed by the islands of Dragonstone (Rhaenyra’s seat and the ancestral home of House Targaryan) and Driftmark (the seat of House Velaryon and their castle, High Tide) on the northern end and Massey’s Hook (which we saw briefly, last season, when Aemond and Vhagar burned the town of Sharp Point) to the South. The Northern pass that Corlys and Lohar move through is discussed in the show as a part of the Gullet but seems to refer to the other strait between Dragonstone and the peninsula that ends in Crackclaw Point. In the books, there is no mentioned narrow route but hey, it makes for an awesome set piece and a chance for the Sea Snake (Steve Toussaint) to live up to his nom de guerre. We get some fantastic and compelling ship-to-ship combat and chaos but a lot of the best parts happen after Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn) boards Corlys’ flagship. Thorn was one of the most engaging elements in the season 2 finale and she doesn’t disappoint here, chewing the scenery and credibly playing Lohar as unhinged and audaciously fun in a way that these Song of Ice and Fire shows sorely need to keep from being too grim. It’s a shame to lose Lohar and Thorn for that reason but what a fun ride it’s been while it lasted, and the last shot of her head sinking beneath the waterline, incredulous that she could be killed, was great.  Gyldayn’s description of the battle claims that there are five dragons present—Vermax, Sheepstealer, Vermithor, Silverwing, and Seasmoke. The show cuts the latter three and adds Moondancer to the mix, but that works well to highlight the younger generation of the Blacks and their lack of preparedness for war. There is no mention in the original text of Sheepstealer going rogue and indiscriminately attacking friend and foe but it definitely helps to heighten the tension and set up future strife between Baela and Rhaena. Gyldayn also provides a number of scenarios for how Vermax may have been killed. The show chooses to confirm his theory that he was killed with grapnels, though the choice to attach them to an anchor and drown the dragon is absolutely inspired. Every once in a while, a Song of Ice and Fire show comes up with a really cool, slightly anachronistic piece of tech (that giant scythe blade that swings across the Wall?) and this might be my favorite so far…  And, of course, we end the battle with Jace’s death, accurate to Gyldayn’s description that he clung to driftwood after Vermax’s death but was slain by Triarchy crossbow bolts. Harry Collett always had a bit of a thankless job—portraying Prince Jacaerys as a stereotypical fantasy hero whose job, like Robb Stark before him, was to die in a classic Martin twist and leave Rhaenyra’s future uncertain. But he played the character well and gave us just a hint of that Targaryen madness at the end when he imprisons his mother and convinces Baela to join him. Uncharted Waters Photograph by Theo Whiteman/HBO While I expect the show to continue to follow the plot of Fire & Blood for the most part, there is now such a critical mass of deviations and adumbrations that a lot of this season will likely involve material that is somewhat new to readers of Martin’s books. In this episode, that includes the following elements: Rhaena, the Fire Witch — As I wrote in my article on the season 2 finale, the show has cut (fan favorite) character, Nettles, and given her plot to Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell). There are probably multiple reasons behind that decision. For one, Nettles is involved in an infidelity plot with Daemon later in the book and the show seems to have wrapped up the “Will Daemon betray-Rhaenyra?” question at the end of last season. Secondly, Nettles is the only major character in the Dance of the Dragons portion of Fire & Blood who is, canonically, a person of color. By making the Velaryons (Corlys, Alyn, Addam, Baela, and Rhaena) Black, the show has less of a need to follow Martin’s blueprint when it comes to representation, and Rhaena has very little to do throughout the original narrative. Whatever your thoughts about the Nettles-erasure, the show makes better use of Rhaena—a character that could not be cut from the story. What we see in this episode is a little nod to the denouement of Nettles’ story in the book. According to Gyldayn, Nettles leaves Daemon and the Targaryen court towards the end of Dance of the Dragons, taking Sheepstealer with her. While her fate is only ever hinted at, Gyldayn suggests that she may have been responsible for rumors of a “fire witch” living in the Mountains of the Moon at the edge of the Vale of Arryn. This episode shows the haggard, starving Rhaena alone in the Mountains of the Moon with only Sheepstealer for comfort. That, combined with the ways in which Sheepstealer nearly kills Baela and Moondancer at the Gullet, points toward an arc that is going to be very different from both Nettles’ and Rhaena’s original ones.  Aegon II, AWOL — Season 3 is covering a portion of the Fire & Blood in which (the always fantastic) Tom Glynn-Carney’s Aegon II is missing from the historical record. Combined with Archmaester Gyldayn’s musing on the strangeness of Larys Strong’s actions and the unknowability of his motives, the show is choosing to fill in both gaps, starting with an intriguing interlude where the plan to ferry Aegon to the Citadel goes awry, leading to both men being captured by Rhaenyra’s bannermen. While I know where Aegon has to resurface (a plot point that I assume they will not alter, in part because it’s part of the history that the original Game of Thrones show already spoiled when discussing Targaryen history), how he gets there is going to be a mystery, and there are numerous possibilities for the way in which Aegon might or might not intersect with other concurrent plots.  Rhaenyra’s Imprisonment — Ending Rhaenyra’s relationship with Jace on such a sour note is also an invention of the show. Seeing as the death of Lucerys ended season 1 and kicked off the Dance of the Dragons in truth, one might wonder how the death of her eldest son and heir will affect her going forward. But the betrayal prior to his death feels like it will significantly alter her trajectory throughout this season. Gyldayn tells us that Rhaenyra is remembered extremely unkindly by history—something that’s supported by the way she’s been characterized in later ASoIaF novels and shows. Already she has been given the sobriquet “Rhaenyra the Cruel” (the show’s version of Martin’s title, “Maegor with Teats”). And while previous seasons have argued that the title is largely undeserved—the result of Westeros’ sexism—it remains to be seen if the show will have her live up to that title. Changes and additions to her original story—in this case, the circumstances under which she and Jace parted ways—may well be the key to justifying the writers’ arc for her. DragonWatch Credit: HBO Sheepstealer — We caught a glimpse of him at the very end of last season but this episode has a glut of Sheepstealer glamour shots. He represents one of the show’s best and most unique designs. The Sheepstealer of Fire & Blood is described as being ugly and brown but not much beyond that. He is one of three feral dragons living on Dragonstone; the other two, the Grey Ghost and the Cannibal, are not nearly as important to the story and are probably going to be cut entirely so that leaves Sheepstealer as the only glimpse we are likely to have of what a feral dragon looks like. They’ve really gone all out with the strange, crocodilian snout, the untrimmed, unruly nails at the end of his wings, mismatched and hoary back scales, and a vitiligo patterning across his body—all of which places the dragon far outside the careful aesthetic that the Targaryens have cultivated with the dragons they’ve controlled and caged for generations. He regurgitates sheep for Rhaena to eat, and has an awkward, loping gait that is singularly unpleasant for his rider. It’s really charming. I’m definitely a Vhagar stan, but Sheepstealer is a close second.  Vermax — RIP to Vermax, Jace’s dragon whose egg was placed in his crib in infancy. Vermax has always looked to me like the most unadorned and standard issue of dragons—the rock hyrax of the Targaryen brood. It’s sort of a fitting design for his rider, since Jace is also a little generic. But we are really truly in the Dance now, with dragons dying left and right. Moondancer — We get a little bit of Baela’s Moondancer in this episode. Last season the production team described the creature as a David Bowie-inspired punk rock dragon, which is pretty great. The mohawk-shaped crest flattening out when Moondancer goes into a dive is awesome. …and the Rest! — We get brief shots of Daemon’s Caraxes, Addam’s Seasmoke, Hugh’s Vermithor, and Ulf’s Silverwing. A nice little close-up of Silverwing shows the silvery scales along her back that presumably inspired her name. We also get a brief shot of Tessarion, the Blue Queen, the dragon ridden by the as-yet-unseen Daeron Targaryen (Alicent’s third son, the younger brother of Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond). She looks stocky and pugnacious, which is fun. Hopefully we’ll see more of her in the weeks to come. Odds & Ends Photograph by Theo Whiteman/HBO There is a truly terrifying bust of Rhaenys serving as the figurehead on the prow of Corlys’ flagship (renamed, in the show, to The Queen That Never Was). It’s a fun but unsettling detail. The aftermath of the Battle of the Red Fork opens with Riverlands soldiers decapitating the regimental mascot lion. I do enjoy the way that the historical ASoIaF shows lean into the lords and ladies of Westeros having ridiculous over-identification with their sigils. It’s much more in-line with how Martin writes them in the books and probably a sign that, after 15 years of Game of Thrones on TV, Ryan Condal and Ira Parker trust audiences to be on board with the more fantastical touches that Benioff and Weiss largely eschewed. The head that Stark bannerman and leader of the Winter Wolves, Lord Roderick Dustin (Sons of Anarchy, Braveheart, and Gladiator actor Tommy Flanagan), flings at Daemon’s feet is that of Jason Lannister, current Lord of Casterly Rock and twin brother to Aemond’s Master of Ships, Tyland Lannister (both are played by Jefferson Hall). We last saw Jason at the end of last season, marching towards the Red Fork. RIP to the drunker and less sympathetic of this era’s Lannister twins. Casterly Rock now passes to his son, Loreon.  Given the original show’s offensive tendency to wield sexual assault as a kind of narrative cudgel, it’s interesting to note when House of the Dragon mentions it at all. Here, it’s a source of tension between Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) and Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) where the former feels a rapist soldier in their battalion should be punished while the latter, in his despondent haze, remains apathetic. I’m not a fan of sexual violence being discussed or portrayed in any casual context, but I’m always relieved to see a ASoIaF show reiterate that a healthy kingdom punishes rapists. The conversation between Ulf (Tom Bennett), Hugh (Kieran Bew), and Addam (Clinton Liberty) about the distinction between knights and lords mirrors one in Gyldayn’s account where, after the Battle of the Gullet, Hugh remarks “we are knights now, in truth” to which Ulf replies “Fie on that. We should be Lords.” Rhaena sings a bit of the High Valyrian lullaby that we hear Daemon singing to Vermithor in the season 1 finale. This show really loves indulging the depths of its dragon lore. (Same!) Corlys’ bottle of Ibbenese liquor has a bronze relief of a whaling scene on its body. Ib is an island far north of Essos, famous for its whalers, vaguely Inuit in culture, and populated by this world’s equivalent of evolved Neanderthals. We get our first look at Ser Ormund Hightower and Bold Jon Roxton, Alicent and Gwayne’s cousin and his bannerman lieutenant, respectively. Ormund is played by James Norton, who you’ve likely seen in a ton of BBC period pieces but who I know best as the voice of Cole in the Dragon Age games. Roxton is played by Joplin Sibtain who is probably most recognizable as Brasso in Andor. As stated above, we still haven’t seen Daeron Targaryen, Ormund’s ward who is marching with the Hightower host. Another fleeting glimpse of the satyr-like Green Man, heralding the arrival of Harrenhal’s resident witch. This time it happens in broad daylight and it’s getting harder to dismiss it as a weirwood paste-inspired hallucination. There was always a ton of room for this show to explore Westeros’ pre-Andal Druidic roots and I hope they continue to do so. I’m a huge fan of Alys Rivers and the actor portraying her, Gayle Rankin. Her announcing “I’m a witch” in absolute deadpan is great. She’s this show’s Patricia from Widow’s Bay. Lohar’s flagship is called the Bitch Fist. Perfect. No notes. If you haven’t yet, go check out the red-carpet events for the season premiere. This is, far and away, the most stylish cast on television. In Conclusion Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO This really feels like it’s going to be the war season, and a brutal and bloody one at that. Part of what people seem to have disliked about previous seasons of the show (again, I am not among them) was the way in which it complicated both Rhaenyra and Alicent and made them into less stereotypical villains—ones viewers couldn’t enjoy rooting against. Or, at least, that’s what a bevy of other reviewers have said. Personally, I think that reaction to these characters and their conflict feels steeped in more than a little misogyny. I’m so happy to have my messy, tragic House of the Dragon back, and to see what comes next. Having reviewed all of (the mostly great) A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for Reactor earlier this year, I’m glad that ASoIaF shows can be something other than grim and violent—Martin’s world is capacious and allowing room for levity and friendship is important—but House of the Dragon remains what it has always represented to me: a version of Game of Thrones whose creators clearly love the source material and want to recreate the magic of the original series without the more unpleasant, rapey, and exploitatively shocking vibes. A lot of the show’s success in accomplishing this is tied to the number of women it has put in the writers’ room and director’s chair. This episode, in many ways, did seem like the culmination of season 2: the Gullet, the finale of Jace’s storyline, the result of Rhaena’s season-long search for a dragon. Obviously, it sets up many more plot lines that will likely dominate the season—a new threat to Rhaenyra in Ormund and the Hightower host, a new threat to the Greens in Roderick and the Winter Wolves, the fallout between Alicent and her children for betraying them to the Blacks, the mystery of wherever Otto Hightower is after the end of last season showed him in chains—but it’s a bit of a transition at the halfway mark of the series and, as an episode, you can feel it pulling in both directions.  At the same time, it also featured one of the most spectacular battles every depicted on any ASoIaF show. And it did so without compromising its characters or emotional through-lines for the sake of cool moments, preserving the classic Martin trope of no one being safe, and managing to both present a spectacle of entertaining violence while also offering a harsh and unyielding critique of war. I loved it!  But what did you think? Are you as thrilled as I am to be back in House of the Dragon’s warm, bloody embrace? Did you think this premiere episode provided a decent payoff for the lack of fireworks at the end of last season? What are you excited to see more of this season? Let me know in the comments.  Man, it’s great to be back![end-mark] The post <i>House of the Dragon</i> Roars Back to Life in Its Season 3 Premiere appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary Dat Wascally Wabbit: Bugs Bunny and His Dearest Frenemies Like all great comic characters, Bugs is more than a set of gags or a laugh line… By Judith Tarr | Published on June 22, 2026 Credit: Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Warner Brothers on YouTube has performed a great service to the world: It has posted multiple mega-compilations of Looney Tunes cartoons. Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck. Porky Pig. Sylvester and Tweety Bird. They’re all there, along with Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam and a constantly shifting roster of special guests. Talk about rabbit holes. The number-one character, the greatest star, especially if you ask him, is a grey-and-white, long-eared rabbit (or hare) with a wisecracking personality and a serious carrot habit. Bugs Bunny first evolved in the 1930s; by 1940 he’d taken the form we all know and love. He was the second cartoon character to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after Mickey Mouse, and like Mickey for Disney, he became the spokesbunny for Warner Brothers. He’s still going in multiple forms, from comic books to feature films to games and, of course, cartoon shorts on television. Bugs is the epitome of cool. Very little fazes him. With carrot in hand, he’s always ready to deliver his signature line, “What’s up, Doc?” Late-era Bugs lives in a regular house, but for decades he inhabited a rabbit hole, complete with mailbox with his name on. The hole can crop up anywhere. When he stops for the night in a remote mansion that turns out to belong to a group of gangsters, he drills a hole in the floor and makes himself comfortable. Bugs’ original and frequent adversary is Elmer Fudd. Elmer takes various forms over the decades, but ur-Elmer is a hunter, and he wants you to be very, very quiet, because he’s hunting rabbits. Hunting is Elmer’s passion. He doesn’t even eat what he hunts. “I’m a vegetarian,” he says. “I hunt for sport.” Bugs gives him all the sport he’ll ever want or need. So does Bugs’ best frenemy, Daffy Duck, who vies with him to convince Elmer that it’s hunting season for the other’s species. Rabbit season? Duck season? Poor Elmer collapses in confusion. Confusion is the way of this world, and Bugs is the king of the tricksters. There are no rules that can’t be broken, except one: The rabbit always wins. He’s smarter than anybody else, and there’s no obstacle he can’t find a way around, over, under, or through—or that he can’t talk himself out of. The only time he’s even close to flummoxed is when the fourth wall comes down and The Artist takes control. The moving finger writes, the pencil draws and then erases, and even Bugs’ ingenuity can’t stop The Artist from taking sometimes violent liberties. That’s only fair, we learn, when we see who The Artist is: none other than Elmer Fudd. Finally, he says, I got even with that wascally wabbit. But tomorrow is another day, and another cartoon, and Bugs is back, triumphant as ever. He extends across worlds. He steps in for the Roadrunner as the quarry for Wile E. Coyote, self-proclaimed Genius. He stars in takeoffs on the classics: “The Scarlet Pumpernickel.” “Mutiny on the Bunny.” “A Star Is Bored.” And to my mind the greatest of them all, “What’s Opera, Doc?” Like all great comic characters, Bugs Bunny is more than a set of gags or a laugh line. He’s an archetype. No matter what you throw at him, he always has a comeback. You can’t beat him. You can’t even damage him—unlike his friend/rival/adversary, Daffy Duck, who all too often catches the flak that’s aimed at Bugs. The heart of Bugs’ power is incongruity. Rabbits in myth and lore are timid and shy. They’re prey. They don’t hunt; they’re hunted. Nor are they known for their ability to outsmart their hunters. The one thing they really are good at is making more rabbits. And here’s a rabbit who outsmarts everybody. Hunters can’t catch him. Predators can’t touch him. He’s afraid of nothing. He’s everything a rabbit is not supposed to be—but there he is. Long ears. Big teeth. Crunching his carrot. Cracking wise. Owning the world and everything in it.[end-mark] The post Dat Wascally Wabbit: Bugs Bunny and His Dearest Frenemies appeared first on Reactor.

Books Five Books About Five Books That Make History Fantastic When we make history fantastic, we remind ourselves that the future has not already been written By Andrea Hairston | Published on June 22, 2026 The Adventures of Mary Darling cover art by Elizabeth Story Comment 0 Share New Share The Adventures of Mary Darling cover art by Elizabeth Story A few weeks ago a colleague and friend told me to be realistic about Generative AI. In fact, he insisted we all needed to be realistic. Generative AI is the Reality, the Inevitable Reality. Nothing to do but accept this and figure out how to live with it. Many people have told me that AI and other (heinous, unjust, abusive, destructive, stupid) systems are the Inevitable Reality. This Resistance-is-Futile mindset has ratcheted up recently in the face of Gen AI, Neo-Fascists, Climate Change, Forever Wars, etc. Don’t waste time fighting, figure how you’re going to deal! Only a few of us make history. This from the privileged and the dispossessed. Realism is often the default setting of acquiescence—empire normal, keeping us in line. As a writer, as a person in the world, I want to be fantastic, not realistic. I’m an Afrofuturist in league with Indigenous Futurists. Stories that have been erased, stolen, warped, or hidden call to me. Characters, particularly women, who got left out of the action, raid my mind. I don’t want to comply with the Inevitable Reality or just make the best of a colonized future. I want to make a way out of no way. I want to conjure a wonderous future. This is a serious challenge, but history offers hope. In all my novels, I get the ancestors talking to the future. History is fantastic, full of people not being realistic in the face of heinous crap going down. Instead, folks get on the Underground Railroad—not a railroad, not underground—and ride to Freedom—nowhere they’ve been before! I told my colleague and friend, Harriet Tubman was not realistic and her escape was fantastic. My novel, The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays (out now), is an extra-dimensional murder mystery with romance, adventure, alien tricksters, and a dog detective who navigates an Underground Railroad of sorts. The novel features characters who don’t want to be realistic in the face of heinous crap. They believe history is fantastic and insist the future has not already been written. They are agents of change who plot a way out of no way toward a world they imagine. Their adventure is creating a future they want to inhabit. These five fantasy adventures also make history fantastic—literally and figuratively. Ballad & Dagger by Daniel José Older Daniel José Older creates an island nation in the Caribbean, San Madrigal, that for centuries offered sanctuary to Santeros, pirates, Sephardic Jews, and others running from persecution, despotic Caribbean empires, or pogroms in Europe. Fifteen years ago, the island nation sank under mysterious circumstances. The diverse population relocated to Brooklyn and reinvented their community—a fragile enterprise. The main character, Mateo, was born just as San Madrigal was slipping under the sea. Almost sixteen and of the island, but never living there, Mateo must recover lost history, discover his own powers, and heal the lethal rifts in his diverse community. He’s got to do this while maybe falling in love. As always Older writes in the vernacular of our spirits. He turns dreams into maps. The questions that haunt Mateo and all the characters, also haunt the readers: Who do you want to be? Who do you mean to be? What is that shadow on your soul? How can we be different, together? How do we make a world that can hold us all? The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy Pat Murphy sets her swashbuckling tale of mystery and magic in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century fictional world of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes. This is a time of brutal colonialism, a time when intelligent, spirited women were locked up, a time when exotic “natives” spiced up adventure narratives or comedy routines. A dashing Victorian housewife turned detective faces off against literal-minded skeptics, bad boy spirits, and blood-thirsty fairies and mermaids. Her allies include a pirate from the Solomon Islands; people from the Kanien’kehá:ka nation who joined the circus to save their children from being kidnapped and sent to an Indian school; a community of women who run a pirate haven on a desert island. Like Older, Murphy offers startling perspectives on history and the heroes we think we know. She uncovers the powerful characters who had to hide in plain sight while saving their world. As I turned the page to get to the next delightful reversal, revelation, surprise, I had to laugh out loud and do a little dance. Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark In P. Djèlí Clark’s horror novella set in the 1920’s, the Ku Klux Klan are literal monsters. D. W. Griffith’s film, The Birth of Nation (which glorifies the Klan, infantilizes white women, and proclaims Black inhumanity) is a magic spell used to recruit folks for the Klan’s plot to let Hell loose on Earth. The main character, Maryse Boudreaux, combats Griffith’s and the Klan’s sorcery with the collective power of Gullah ancestors, manifest in a magic sword, conjure roots, and the ring shout—African American call-and-response singing and dancing to call down the spirits. Maryse also has help from her girlfriends. These include: a foul-mouthed sharpshooter, a Harlem Hellfighter (World War I veteran), a scientist whose family was enslaved by the Choctaw, and a German Jewish socialist revolutionary. In addition to fighting Klan monsters, Maryse has inner demons to face—a shadow on her spirit. She must heal herself to save the world from drowning in the cruelty and hate that would consume us all. The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman Alice Hoffman’s fairy tale novel is set in 1941, in Germany and France. Hanni Kohn, rather than lose her daughter, Lea, to the Holocaust, decides to create an artificial being, a golem to protect the girl. When no one else will help her, Hanni works with Ettie, a rabbi’s disobedient daughter. Ettie shouldn’t know this magic. Together they conjure Ava from mud, tears, menstrual blood, and the secret names of God. Golems are powerful and unpredictable, initially helpful but possibly dangerous. But the Nazis are about to raid Hanni’s home, so she sends Lea, Ava, and Ettie to France, to a future she will not live to see. The characters journey from Berlin to Paris and finally to the French countryside and a convent that shelters Jews. They face soul-crushing brutality and horrific indifference. Desperation is rampant. And yet the three also encounter dazzling courage and inspiring self-sacrifice and love. They carry Hanni’s love and sacrifice with them. This love is fuel and sustenance as they make a way in a world that would crush them. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due Tananarive Due’s horror novel, set in the Jim Crow South of the 1950’s, was impossible to put down. Like Older, Murphy, Clark, and Hoffman, Due uses brilliant dramatic structure, elegant characterizations, and lyrical language. She roots her tale in specific history. The Dozier School for Boys in Florida was a model for her fictional Gracetown School for Boys. Two young protagonists, Robbie and Gloria, must deal with haints, restless spirits wandering the blood-soaked ground of our history. They must fend off monstrous men who torture and kill children with impunity. Hoodoo relatives and ancestors help out. There are also allies hiding in plain sight, ordinary folks who surprise themselves with courage in the face of a mighty, repressive regime that declares itself invincible and inevitable. Robbie and Gloria face the horrors of our world and resist despair. As they try to imagine a way out of no way, their determination is thrilling. Refusing to settle for the illusion of their insignificance, they gave me hope. Hope is very entertaining.[end-mark] Buy the Book The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays Andrea Hairston Buy Book The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays Andrea Hairston Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The post Five Books That Make History Fantastic appeared first on Reactor.

News Spider-Man: Brand New Day Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s Body-Hopping Villain Could Be One of These Marvel Characters A few likely candidates for the identify of the unseen threat By Matthew Byrd | Published on June 18, 2026 Photo: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Marvel Studios It’s not just that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is going to feature a ton of villains. The far more interesting thing about the movie is that it’s going to seemingly feature a veritable army of somewhat “lesser” villains who will emphasize the street-level themes the story is reportedly built around. Not since the Spider-Man animated series have we seen Peter Parker battle such an array of antagonists (if only for a scene or two). We actually still don’t even know how many villains will be in the movie. However, the latest trailer for Brand New Day focused a little less on the quantity of the upcoming villains in order to hone in on an unseen and unnamed threat that can seemingly hop between bodies at will. Who is that mysterious malice? Marvel isn’t saying and, to be honest, nobody is entirely sure. That being said, there are really only a handful of candidates the unidentified new villain could realistically be. So unless Marvel throws a considerable curveball our way, here are the likely identities of the new threat. Jean Grey Buying into this theory requires you to look at the Brand New Day trailer from a slightly different perspective. Maybe the “villain” that we see hopping between bodies isn’t a villain at all. Maybe Damage Control is trying to frame Jean as a villain when they’re really just trying to capture what they consider to be a rogue mutant. This also forces you to consider the possibility that some of the scenes featuring that supposed new villain may have been edited in a specific way to make Jean look more villainous than she actually is. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s certainly the most popular theory. While body (and/or mind) hopping isn’t necessarily one of Jean’s primary powers, it’s certainly well within her considerable capabilities. Perhaps more importantly, it feels like an open secret that Jean Grey is going to appear in the film (and will reportedly be played by Sadie Sink). What has turned out to be a fairly reliable series of rumors and leaks has also long suggested that Jean will initially be somewhat at odds with Spider-Man, as she sees him as a potential threat and asset of Damage Control. Mister Negative If Jean Grey isn’t the mysterious new figure hinted at in the Brand New Day trailer (which still certainly seems like the most likely possibility), then determining their identity requires us to dig a bit deeper into Spider-Man’s roster of rogues. So far as that goes, though, Mister Negative is an interesting candidate. Mister Negative has risen in popularity over the years (thanks partly to his memorable appearance in Insomniac’s Spider-Man games), and he certainly has the ability to corrupt and bend people to his will. As a part-time philanthropist with a Jekyll/Hyde thing going on, it’s easy to imagine that Negative could fit into the street-level story Brand New Day is setting up. The big problem with this theory is that Mr. Negative’s powers create a distinct visual effect that is notably absent from the trailer. Editing a trailer to obscure certain information is one thing, but completely removing such a distinct visual effect feels like a bit of a stretch. Still, it’s an option. Shadow King Like Mr. Negative, the biggest argument for the Shadow King theory is the character’s abilities. As one of the most powerful telepaths in the X-Men universe, Shadow King certainly has the ability to take people over in a manner similar to what we see in the Brand New Day trailer. And yes, those looking for an X-Men connection could argue that a Shadow King appearance would help pave the way for more of those characters to make their MCU debut. That said, this feels like a significantly less likely possibility. There looks to be a lot going on in Brand New Day, and introducing a character like Shadow King just seems like it would be a plot point too many. Given the X-Men/Jean Grey connection (it’s easy to imagine that Jean could be blamed for Shadow King’s actions), though, you can’t rule out the chance we get a Shadow King appearance. Krahllak Right off the bat, it’s fair to say that the biggest argument against Krahllak is the character’s relative obscurity. An ancient demon that has rarely ever crossed paths with Spider-Man would be a strange primary antagonist for the biggest Spider-Man movie yet, to say the least. However, Krahllak is the driving demonic force behind The Hand: the ninjas we’ve seen prominently featured in the Brand New Day trailers released so far. He’s also had many run-ins with Daredevil and Punisher in the past, which is certainly noteworthy when you consider that at least one of those characters appears in Brand New Day and both have been integral parts of the build up to the movie. Krahllak is also capable of possessing people, though he rarely does so in the same free-wheeling body-hopping style we saw in the latest trailer. Madelyne Pryor Right, so this is a bit of a cheat given that Madelyne Pryor is a clone of Jean Grey. She’s also closely associated with some X-Men characters and plotlines that would be incredibly awkward to squeeze into a new Spider-Man movie with little established X-Men MCU presence. If you allow yourself to believe that the MCU would be willing to rewrite the Pryor origin story, though (which is hardly unheard of), then there’s a strong argument to be made for the possibility of the character’s debut. It’s a little cheap, but an “evil” version of Jean Grey, who is the result of some kind of experiment, would explain some of the things we seem to see in the trailer. If you’re really into the conspiracy of it all, this could also help explain some of Sink’s coy statements regarding her upcoming role.[end-mark] The post <i>Spider-Man: Brand New Day</i>’s Body-Hopping Villain Could Be One of These Marvel Characters appeared first on Reactor.