News Andor Disney Asked Andor Team to Avoid Using the Word “Fascism,” Says Creator Tony Gilroy Now that Andor is over, Tony Gilroy is going gloves off regarding the show’s political parallels By Matthew Byrd | Published on February 20, 2026 Photo: Disney+ Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Disney+ In a sweeping interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Andor creator Tony Gilroy directly discusses the show’s parallels to current U.S. politics under the Trump administration and confirms that Disney discouraged the Andor team from using the word “fascism” during the series’ 2025 promotional campaign. “Diego [Luna] and I had some early, super long-lead press, and we tiptoed out. We were like, ‘Oh my God, this is really electric,'” Gilroy says regarding how the team navigated that time with the restrictions that were suggested. “The actors have a broad spectrum of political ideas, and we didn’t want anybody to perjure themselves or violate their conscience. So we came up with a legit historical model, and it’s a version of what I’m telling you now.” That historical model Gilroy refers to involved studying the patterns in the rise of authoritarian regimes throughout history and identifying the common tactics that even an empire in a galaxy far, far away may also employ. “We were pretty much doing a story about authoritarianism and fascism, and the Empire is very clearly a great example of that,” Gilroy says. “So you get out your Fascism for Dummies book for the 15 things you do, and we tried to include as many of them as we could in the most artful way possible.” Despite the Andor team’s research and their efforts to express that research as artfully as possible via the show, the team was still discouraged from using the word fascism (and, reportedly, genocide) during the 2025 promotional campaign for Andor‘s second season. It is certainly no coincidence that said campaign coincided with the inauguration of Donald Trump and the start of his second term as President of the United States (as well as other global political events occurring at that time). So, even though Donald Trump had said “sometimes you need a dictator” in regard to his current administration, has threatened to imprison journalists, publicly attempted to discredit various intellectual institutions, has continuously spread false and disputed narratives regarding subjects like fair and free elections, and generally exhibited many of the traits historians commonly associate with fascist regimes, the Andor team was discouraged from using the word fascism during the early days of Trump’s second term. Mind you, many of those events occurred before Andor‘s season 2 premiere (and related press tour), so they do not account for actions such as the DHS occupation of the city of Minneapolis which has resulted in multiple civilian deaths or the imprisonment and deportation of children and U.S. citizens. And while it’s true that some scholars dispute the precise validity of the word fascism in regards to the specifics of the Trump administration’s broad political policies, Disney’s publicity fears concerning the use of that word are more likely related to the concerns regarding that administration’s possible political and legal retaliations. ABC and Disney controversially settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump in 2024 that resulted in a $15 million payout and have approved actions (including the brief suspension of Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel) that have left some Disney employees concerned about the company’s desire to appease the president. Now that Gilroy is finished with Andor, though, he’s allowed to be much more open regarding his thoughts on such matters. “How were we supposed to know that this clown car in Washington was going to basically use the same book that we used?” Gilroy says. “I don’t think it’s prescience so much as the sad familiarity of fascism and the karaoke menu of things that you go through to do it. You could list them from the show, or you could list them from the newspaper. In the beginning, it was very confusing. People were like, “Oh, you’re psychic,” or, “The show is prescient.” But in the rear-view mirror, it’s really a much sadder explanation than that.” As far as what may come next, Glory once again looks to history to make what feels like less of a prediction and more of an observation. “We were stunned [about the prescience] for a while, but we’ve really gotten to the point where it’s really sad. It’s just sad how predictable and lame and obvious and wrong it all is,” Gilroy proclaims. “Fascism is just a total fail in the end. It eats itself up in the end. So this will have been an incredible waste of time, an incredibly wasted opportunity and an incredibly dark period in America’s history that it may never recover from.” [end-mark] The post Disney Asked <i>Andor</i> Team to Avoid Using the Word “Fascism,” Says Creator Tony Gilroy appeared first on Reactor.

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.

Featured Essays The Legend of Zelda The Legend of Zelda Endures as a Piece of Modern Folklore In a culture obsessed with canon, The Legend of Zelda thrives on ambiguity and reinvention By Matthew Byrd | Published on February 20, 2026 Image: Nintendo Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Nintendo The Legend of Zelda turns 40 this month, but don’t let that fact trigger your anxiety over where the years have gone. It’s an ageless experience in many ways. It is a title that formed the basis for many modern games and kicked off a franchise that currently spans 21 mainline entries, a host of spin-off titles of wildly varying quality, and an upcoming movie that is sure to please everyone who has been dreaming of such a thing over the last few decades. Yet, The Legend of Zelda is not, chronologically, the first game in The Legend of Zelda franchise. At least it’s not according to a timeline that has come to define such an otherwise timeless series in recent years. First published in 2011 as part of the Hyrule Historia book, the official Zelda timeline was meant to address years of increasingly heated fan speculation regarding how The Legend of Zelda games were chronologically connected. That did not happen. Despite a note that mentioned the chart was based on a loose collection of internal documents and was only true based on information available at that time, it only fueled the fire. Some treat it as hard facts, and some believe it to be proof of how little Nintendo knows or cares about the series’ continuity. There is an almost religious fervor to the ways that people have interpreted this text and formed their own factions of belief based on its teachings. But the problem isn’t that Nintendo’s timeline is messy. The problem is the insistence that a living legend should be analyzed like a database. The Legend of Zelda franchise is better viewed as a modern folklore tradition built on repetition, variations, and retellings. And as a piece of modern folklore, The Legend of Zelda stands as a testament to the power of such stories in a world increasingly determined to suppress ambiguity, even as doing so robs us of so much joy. Granted, The Legend of Zelda is hardly a traditional piece of folklore. Its origins are well-documented, and it’s not exactly spread via word of mouth (at least not entirely) as so many folktales are. It is also, in fact, a series of video games, which is both an atypical medium for such stories and a fairly definitive piece of text. It’s hardly unusual for legends to be recorded and shared, though it’s rarely shared via something as rigid and definitive as cartridges and code. But we shouldn’t be so rigid when trying to define folklore. Especially not when the most substantial aspects of the storytelling tradition help us better understand Zelda as a franchise and a cultural phenomenon. By its very nature, folklore itself is messy. The historically informal nature of such stories makes them fragmented and often wildly inconsistent. The details of King Arthur’s birth and lineage vary from telling to telling. Robin Hood has been everything from an outlaw to an ousted former nobleman. Odysseus had the remarkable ability to be in many places at once. These irregularities sometimes arise from details buried in lost or incomplete text, but they are often also the result of the story changing slightly from telling to re-telling or even deliberately being altered to reflect broader societal and cultural shifts. For all their ambiguities and contradictions, such tales are also fundamentally fairly simple. Archetypal heroes battle snarling monsters for the love of fair maidens. Basic morals are spread across fragmented adventures that often follow deliberately repetitive formats. Seasonal cycles, recurring trials, and noble quests form plain but clear structures. Such stories rarely subvert the narrative expectations of their times, even if they are updated to reflect them. That is not necessarily a criticism. Folklore endures because of such qualities. Those missing pieces and recurrences afford fables a flexibility that not only allows for reinterpretations and reinventions but invites them. As long as certain pieces that are both core to the narratives and the reasons we are drawn to them remain in place, the rest of the board can be shifted remarkably easily. Perhaps an imperfect legend that lives on is better than a perfect story that dies. Consider The Lord of the Rings and the ways Tolkien struggled to maintain canonical consistency despite his meticulous nature. In a 1968 letter to a fan regarding the fate of Shadowfax, Tolkien confessed that he not only felt it was better to sometimes leave things unstated, but also argued that such tactics were more “realistic” to the ways we omit and forget details in various retellings. There’s wisdom to the idea of embracing imperfections when they barely interfere with grander ideas. Just ask the James Bond producers how much they would love to be able to ignore perfect continuity in favor of being able to simply tell a story. It’s in those ways that Zelda embraces folklore for the modern age. It is a fragmented story that jumps back, forward, and sideways between entries that are bound by loose logic, at best. An entire timeline containing the first four Legend of Zelda games seemingly only exists because the ending of Ocarina of Time created a paradox that had to be addressed via off-screen events. Major characters are reborn and revived when they are needed with little explanation as to why. We know Breath of the Wild takes place thousands of years after the other games, but we have no real idea how we actually got there. The power of vaguely referenced off-screen events keeps the whole thing from instantly falling apart, as does the wisdom of the occasional “Don’t worry about it” from the game’s developers. What few true constants exist in these games are often subject to fairly repetitive actions. A hero is awakened to gather the relics required to defeat a villain and restore balance to the world. You’re forgiven for failing to see the 40-year appeal of a series that features somewhat routine narratives spread across worlds that are sometimes just loosely connected enough to come across as frustratingly inconsistent. But The Legend of Zelda has remained consistently creative because of the ways it embraces the variations between folk tales told across (and for) wildly different generations. Each new title is often wildly different in terms of its style, setting, and other creative components with the more familiar elements being reserved for the structural components that keep the entries loosely bound together. As such, a new Zelda game often feels less like a sequel and more like a ritual. Those who have been with the series for years feel that they find comfort in returning to it, and those who hear the story for the first time get to share it with others while experiencing something that feels very much their own. Mention a phrase like “Water Temple” to a Legend of Zelda fan, and their minds will likely wander to one of several distinct versions of that same basic idea. Some are recalled fondly and others with malice. Tell them the order you progressed through A Link to the Past’s Dark World dungeons or which items you fused together to solve Tears of the Kingdom’s devious puzzles and prepare to be met with an alien stare that suggests you’re talking about wildly different things. There’s beauty in the confusion once you learn to embrace it. The fundamentals may be the same, but the ways we experience them, interpret them, and share them can be pleasantly different. Folklore is sometimes compared to a tapestry, and that is exactly what we weave when we experience these adventures and share our memories of them. It’s not the most cohesive form of collective storytelling, but it is among our most intimate and beautiful. It’s probably not a coincidence that Zelda games have used tapestries to convey the history of its complex world. This is, after all, a series inspired by the adventures of King Arthur with “legend” in its name. It is lineage, not linearity. Yet, we often fall victim to the temptation to characterize this series chronologically as so many other modern series often are. Why do we care so much? Perhaps it’s a symptom of growing “optimization” culture, which has left some paralyzed by the fear of wasting time on something “unofficial” (even if they enjoy it). Maybe it’s a response to the age of misinformation and the growing fear that we will be fooled even by something that is fundamentally trivial. It’s almost certainly part of the gatekeeping campaign waged by some fans who fundamentally oppose fan fiction, interpretations, re-imaginings, and other works that may, even for a moment, challenge the idea of “their” franchise. The sin is not found in discussing or even arguing about such interpretations. Folklore survives through discussions and reimaginings. Stories often cease to live when they cease to be debated and discussed. The real sin is in the insistence that such interpretations should be pushed aside in favor of one, indisputable canon. It’s easy to understand why such forms of storytelling have dissipated over the years. They’re illogical, chaotic, and run counter to the many ways we can separate the proven from the speculative. What’s more, our desire for inherent desire for such stories can be easily exploited. Look at how we so often turn to social media for communal narratives and information that harken back to public hubs, and look at how that desire can be easily exploited. But that desire remains a powerful force that is going nowhere and needs to be nurtured. And when it comes to our fables, folk heroes, and the stories we craft, romanticism has long been a better path to immortality than optimization. We only deny our passion for the fundamental art of storytelling when we try to put fantasies into neat little boxes. Things like a timeline can organize a franchise, but folklore keeps a legend alive. The Legend of Zelda endures because it embraces variations, inconsistencies, rituals, and communal retellings. It’s not orderly, but whoever said it had to be?[end-mark] The post The Legend of Zelda Endures as a Piece of Modern Folklore appeared first on Reactor.

News they know They Know: Horror Movie Written and Directed by Bill Hader Is Heading Into Production The movie will be his first project since Barry By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on February 19, 2026 Credit: Merrick Morton/HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Merrick Morton/HBO Bill Hader is diving into his first project since the series finale of Barry (pictured above), a dark dramedy that he co-created and starred in as a hitman trying to make it as an actor. According to Deadline, Hader has partnered with MRC (the company behind Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights) to make They Know, a horror movie penned by Hader and his Barry collaborator Duffy Boudreau that will also see Hader direct. Plot details are sparse for the film, though we do know it “centers on a divorced dad (Hader) who grows suspicious that his ex-wife is secretly dating a mysterious man who is having a strange influence on their children.” This may be a film that Hader has talked about before. Back in July 2025, Hader was on the A24 podcast with director Ari Aster, where he shared that he’d written a horror movie right after Barry wrapped. The initial reaction to his script, however, wasn’t what he was hoping for. “I had a meeting with a big producer—actually, a very smart, lovely guy,” Hader said (via The Playlist). “But his response to it was so bad.” The producer called it “mean-spirited,” “horrible,” “disturbing,” and “cynical.” “I was like, yeah, it’s a horror movie,” Hader recalled. “Did you not see my TV show?” In this podcast, however, Hader also said that seeing Aster’s Eddington gave him the motivation to take the script out again. Whether that script was They Know isn’t confirmed, but it seems likely. Production on They Know will start in Los Angeles this spring. [end-mark] The post <i>They Know</i>: Horror Movie Written and Directed by Bill Hader Is Heading Into Production appeared first on Reactor.

Books book reviews A Medieval Situationship in George Falls Through Time by Ryan Collett Jenny Hamilton discusses sceney London gays and time travel romance in Ryan Collett’s new novel By Jenny Hamilton | Published on February 19, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share What if millennial life became so acutely stressful that it caused a portal to open up in the middle of London and you tumbled through it into the 1300s? Happened to my friend George. As he’s navigating a breakup, utility bill logistics, and six dogs from his dog-walking gig, George falls through a portal in time and can’t get back. Unable to explain where he came from or why he’s dressed like that, George is imprisoned, beaten, and finally—after months—made into a sort of indentured servant. He manages to escape alongside another indentured servant, Simon, and they develop a cohabitating situationship that works pretty well for them until the king shows up ordering George to slay a dragon. Interspersed with George’s adventures being beaten up and indentured in 1300s England are his memories of his life before. He had a job he neither loved nor hated, a boyfriend with whom he was neither happy nor unhappy. Formerly a tech guy at an investment firm, he fell into the company of hot, ambitious, plausibly-deniably-straight hedge fund bros who traded their flirtatious approval for minor acts of financial dishonesty on George’s part. The job and the relationship were both ultimately empty, but the loss of both of them at once still engenders enough stress to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe. Though George Falls Through Time is not a traditional romance, the relationship between George and Simon is still central to the story, and to me easily the most interesting aspect of the book. These two men fall in love, and George never feels it’s a love he can fully trust. The gulf between each of their ideas about what it means to be two men who have sex and say I love you and make a life together is so, so vast. Simon understands his devotion to George in terms of fealty, a concept that has strong overtones of subservience. George worries that he’s taking advantage of Simon, and there’s a clear echo—although Collett wisely doesn’t make it explicit—of the exploitative flirting George remembers from his time with the hedge fund bros. The danger of intimacy still exists in medieval times, though it takes a different shape from George’s life before. Compared to George’s life before, medieval life is simple—which made me start to feel antsy. George is careful to note that medieval people are just people: But it was their faces—their bodies—that shocked and made me stop. Their faces were normal. I don’t know what I mean by normal, but that’s the best I can describe it. Their expressions, their eyes, how they darted, the way they breathed as any other human would breathe, how they blinked—they were like me, like anyone else. Buy the Book George Falls Through Time Ryan Collett Buy Book George Falls Through Time Ryan Collett Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget We easily fall into the idea that people in history were different in some fundamental way, that human nature was otherwise; and Collett rebuts this idea early and often. But I also felt anxious about the possibility that the book would stray into nostalgia for a “simpler” time. George does seem to find his medieval life an easier one to inhabit than his life before. Sure, he gets brutalized when he first appears and can’t speak a version of English anyone around him can understand. Yes, he and Simon have to hightail it away from the lord’s manor for him to have any hope of freedom from indenture. With those obstacles out of their way, though, Simon and George fall easily into a kind of pastoral idyll, living in a small shabby house outside of Scarborough. They have livestock. They have sex. They hold hands and say I love you, and everyone they meet in Scarborough seems fine with this. In his one and only demonstration of useful future knowledge, George even sets them up with some basic irrigation. (I did not understand the system, meaning that I would have literally zero useful skills to bring to bear on medieval life. Please, God, do not let a portal open up and dump me through time, for I will not survive.) Their pleasant, mostly easy, mostly affectionate life together is a pointed contrast against the interspersing flashback chapters, where George’s straight friends use him to get ahead professionally, and his gay friends lure him into Too Much Decadence. I was worried about it, is what I’m saying. This turns out, I think, to be an unfair read. George’s unhappiness in the present day proves itself to be a character note rather than a judgment on sceney queer guys. George is prone to simply letting his life happen to him, handing over the reins of his life to whoever’s willing to hold them. As a Londoner of the twenty-first century, he can do this and never feel that his choices have brought him crashing into the reality of consequence. Even the stress that dumps him into a time portal is redolent with unreality. He gets fired from his job, but the job never felt like his actual life. He fucks a stripper in front of his boyfriend, and they don’t talk about it, and they break up, and he can’t get the internet bill put in his name only, and he’s walking six dogs at once, and none of it feels real. When he’s ordered to slay a dragon, the task is impossible and imaginary, but no more imaginary and impossible than anything else about his life has felt. If I’ve given a lot of grace to a rather frustrating protagonist, I will now take a moment to be snippy. There are no women in this book. There just aren’t any. Not in George’s life before. Not in his life in the medieval times. None at all. The only named female character is an Afghan wolfhound called Matilda. Do women exist? Maybe one day science can find out the answer. I don’t have much to say about this writing choice by Collett, except that I am getting much much too old for this shit. What I am not getting too old for, and what I dearly hope to find again in Collett’s future work, is this book’s commitment to utter strangeness. Beyond the timey-wimey shenanigans, which are far stranger and involve far more garbage disposal logistics than I anticipated, Collett has a knack for writing equivocality, never sanding down his characters’ incompatible edges, nor allowing them to settle into certainty. When I rail against the cookie-cutter sameness of our present crop of SFF romance, books like this provide a respite.[end-mark] George Falls Through Time is published by William Morrow. The post A Medieval Situationship in <i>George Falls Through Time</i> by Ryan Collett appeared first on Reactor.