All articles tagged with #tv recap
Vulture crowns Stephen Colbert this week’s late-night winner after his post-Emmys appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he shaved his head, gifted Jimmy a Captain America shield, and even staged a sketch with his son doing a Kiwi accent, as part of a heat-filled round of late-night moments including Have I Got News for You, Watch What Happens Live, and more.
Dancing With the Stars Season 35 devoted Night Two to Ladies’ Night, with eight female celebrities — Tatyana Ali, Amber Glenn, Ciara Miller, Giada De Laurentiis, Julia Stiles, Maura Higgins, Sarah Jane Nader, and Jenna Dewan — dancing to No. 1 hits from the year they were born. Highlights included Maura Higgins’s surprisingly sleek Foxtrot, Giada De Laurentiis's emotionally charged moment about women’s self-belief, and Julia Stiles’s energized Quickstep, all amid nerves and heartwarming moments that brought tears. Scores ranged from the teens to the low-20s, but the night ended with a brutal reminder that eliminations are coming: Sarah Jane Nader and Hailey Bills were sent home as the field narrows toward next week’s single-night, all-couples-dance phase.
Vulture’s recap of The Shards’ Season 1 finale, Stairway to Heaven, starts with a glimmer of momentum but collapses into incoherence and an anticlimactic ending: Debbie blackmails Terry, Spirit the horse is gruesomely killed, and at a Halloween party the big revelations never land, as Bret and Robert’s confrontation heats up only to leave the mystery unsolved and the show teeing up a second season.
On Ted Lasso's Season 4 Episode 6, a New Year’s Eve boat party drives multiple romantic and ethical tensions: Roy injures his knee from jumping to House of Pain's Jump Around; Rebecca and Keeley grapple with uncertain romances while Alice navigates team dynamics with Camille; Ted contemplates dating as he and Michelle discuss their past. The episode blends sharp comedy with uneven arcs and leaves relationships strained but with hopeful beats.
The Season 3 finale reveals Silo 1’s sleek, newly revealed interior and a cryopod chamber where the Project’s founders sleep, as Daniel Keene is awakened to help quell a rebellion in Silo 17. The episode sets up seismic, century-spanning implications for the series and promises big revelations for next season.
In Lioness Season 3, Episode 5, “The Idiot Army,” Joe leads a shadowy side mission to expose a communist professor recruited by the CCP, while the team uses aggressive interrogations and contemplates bypassing civil rights in the name of national security. A tense debrief with the FBI exposes jurisdictional limits, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger as Joe is gagged and whisked away, signaling a troubling entanglement of power, ideology, and democracy.
Vulture’s recap of Ted Lasso S4E4, Greyhounds’ Day Off, follows Ted’s struggle to unlock the “I” in his new team as Trent Crimm’s The Richmond Way finds paperback success and Dr. Sharon Fieldstone releases Unlocking the I in Team, both acting as a Greek chorus. The episode centers on leadership and identity over celebrity, with the message that you lose the dressing room when you forget the players’ collective identity, a lesson Ted helps the team embrace—earning a four-star Editor’s Rating.
In Furious Season 1 Episode 7, Some Days It Don’t Come Easy, Catherine readies her final stand against Jay Easton as Danny reopens the Isabel Luna case and DNA links Emma Easton to the victim; Nora and Alice chase justice within a flawed system, while Rihanna’s We Found Love underscores Catherine’s motive, culminating in Catherine driving to Easton’s mansion to face her fate.
Vulture’s recap of The Shards (Glee Cast Version) notes Episode 3 shifts from the novel’s taut mood to a Glee-inspired high-school satire, introducing Really Rhonda and a Dance Off! subplot while Bret Ellis’s perspective drives the drama. The review praises the music choices but criticizes the abrupt tonal shift and questions how the disappearance of Matt and other students will drive the story, suggesting the show risks undercutting its stakes in favor of parody.
Vulture’s Lioness recap of No Sorrow Like the Survivor (Season 3, Episode 2) centers on Joe’s abduction and the team’s urgency to remove a tracker from her toe; a brutal cold open leads to a flash-forward, then six months earlier reveals how the Ukraine mission pulls the Lioness crew into clandestine counterstrikes that come at a steep cost on the home front, with the episode signaling a possible new Lioness but at great price.
FX’s The Shards adapts Bret Easton Ellis’s autofiction into a moody, graphic 1980s Los Angeles thriller. The pilot centers on Bret Easton Ellis (Igby Rigney) as his high‑school circle encounters a sadistic killer known as the Trawler, with looming threats intensified by a new, enigmatic student, Robert Mallory. We get Bret’s tangled loyalties to his friends, a push‑and‑pull with Debbie and Susan, and the unsettling dynamic withMatt, all against a backdrop of ’80s nostalgia. The premiere blends teen angst with Ellis‑style gore, and ends on a chilling phone call that hints the killer has Bret’s number. Overall, the episode stays faithful to the source material and earns a 4‑star nod from Vulture.
In House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 5, the drama leans into political theater over dragonfire: Alicent is scapegoated by powerful men, Criston Cole spirals in misogyny as his army marches toward a doomed clash, Aemond roars back into action while Aegon plots a safer hideout with Tyland Lannister and Larys, Mysaria tests loyalties, and Daemon and Rhaenyra contend with a mutinous City Watch amid a brutal killings spree. An attempted escape by Alicent and Helaena ends with them trapped, highlighting the episode’s central theme that the real blind spots are the people who think they can master a world built on secrets and violence.
In Episode 5, a sprawling conspiracy within King's Landing explodes into violence as the Gold Cloaks are killed and staged as a ‘feast for traitors,’ Criston Cole’s army falters under a cunning enemy, Aemond grapples with prophecy and trauma at Harrenhal, Alicent and Helaena get trapped in a hidden passage, Mysaria negotiates loyalties, and Tyland Lannister resurfaces to push new moves, signaling a darker turn for Rhaenyra’s grip on the realm.
Ormund Hightower lands in Tumbleton to seize territory and press a bid for the throne, prompting Rhaenyra to reassess strategy amid a thinning council; Daemon returns with gold and reveals Sheepstealer’s rider as Rhaena, while Aegon and Larys navigate danger in Harrenhal and Rook’s Rest; in a brutal climax, Daeron kills Ormund, signaling a bloodier, Green-vs-Targaryen phase as the episode sets up the war’s next act.
Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie premiere blends pastoral beauty with frontier hardship, as the Ingalls move to Kansas: they ford a dangerous river, face poverty and pregnancy, contend with Osage land tensions, and lean on Caroline’s steadiness and Laura’s resilience to cling to a fragile hope for a better life.