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One of Marvel’s Best Heroes Finally Returns on ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ With a Major Twist

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Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Episode 6.When Netflix and Marvel Studios partnered to bring the comic giant’s vast array of street-level heroes to life in the MCU, the plan was always to expand beyond Daredevil. Matt Murdock’s (Charlie Cox) debut was just the beginning of a sort of miniature version of the MCU, one that solely focused on New York’s mightiest heroes in a grittier, TV-MA format, which was a big departure from the more family-friendly MCU movies at the time. After Daredevil‘s first season but long before Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher, Marvel’s second Defender entered the fray with Krysten Ritter‘s Jessica Jones.

With a detective-mystery vibe, a likable anti-hero, and one of the scariest villains in MCU history in David Tennant‘s Kilgrave, Netflix’s Jessica Jones was quickly able to catch the same lightning in a bottle as Daredevil. Ritter’s snarky, foul-mouthed private investigator with a hidden heart of gold quickly became a fan-favorite, which is why it was surprising when it initially looked like Disney‘s approach to the previous Netflix continuity was going to be ignoring it at best and outright decanonizing it at worst, despite Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio reprising their beloved roles. Thankfully, that decision was reversed before Daredevil: Born Again Season 1, and now, fans have finally been reunited with the character they’ve been waiting to see back on their screens.

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Jessica Jones Officially Returns in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 Episode 6

Before Marvel’s greatest detective returns, there’s one pretty important thing that Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 needs to address first — the death of Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer). Yes, any hope that Wilson Fisk’s better half somehow pulled through after being caught in the crossfire between Fisk and Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) is quickly dashed when her doctor confirmsshe didn’t survive her injury. It’s a shocking development for the Kingpin, as Vanessa has been a part of Fisk’s journey since the very beginning of Daredevil Season 1. Fisk is responding about as well as one would expect, as shown when he crushes the doctor’s spine before attending Vanessa’s funeral, setting the groundwork for an unpredictable future for the grieving Marvel villain.

After the doom and gloom comes the moment fans have been eagerly anticipating since Ritter was announced to be joining Daredevil: Born Again‘s cast, as well as a pretty big surprise. In a quaint suburb outside the hustle and bustle of New York, a crew of armed thugs descends upon a particular home, only to be thrown around like ragdolls by an unseen force. Meanwhile, a young girl is inside, gleefully unaware of what’s going on until her mom, who is none other than our beloved Jessica, checks on her after dealing with the gang of thugs. If the reveal that Jessica Jones has left her life as a PI to raise a daughter wasn’t already huge enough, the young girl’s name, Danielle, also drops a major bombshell for comic fans. In the original Earth-616 comicsverse, Danielle is the daughter of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage (played in the Netflix shows by Mike Colter, already confirmed to reprise his fan-favorite role in Daredevil: Born Again Season 3), so her appearance here all but confirms that Jessica and Luke rekindled their romance at some point during the Defender saga’s hiatus.

Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2


‘Daredevil: Born Again’s Ayelet Zurer Promises a “Devastatingly Bad” Future for Kingpin After Vanessa’s Fate

The actress also reveals what she definitely won’t miss about playing Vanessa.

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Mom or not, armed mercenaries showing up where Jessica and her daughter live isn’t ideal, and she dusts off her signature leather jacket to find out who’s responsible, reuniting with Daredevil for the first time in almost 10 years. Jessica doesn’t seem too surprised to see her one-time teammate, even though the last time she saw him (as far as we know), he sacrificed himself to stop a sinister plot from The Hand, but with Danielle’s safety at risk, she has bigger things on her mind. Thus, Daredevil and Jessica team up to track down and beat up some thugs while Fisk’s empire begins to fall apart at the seams. It’s a reunion that’s bound to please the fans, though right now Jessica’s return continues last episode’s problem of feeling more like a fun cameo than a necessary plot development.

Fisk’s Empire Starts To Crumble and Karen Almost Makes a Colossal Decision in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 Episode 6

Things aren’t looking good for Fisk, who has been largely keeping himself out of the public eye since Vanessa’s funeral. He’s not the only one having a hard time, either, as Matt’s worst-ever love interest-turned-worst-ever therapist, Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva), is devastated by the loss of the woman she grew to admire and respect. Fisk’s right-hand man, Buck (Arty Froushan), even goes to comfort Heather, only for her to start violently choking him in a moment that both furthers her progression toward becoming Muse’s (Hunter Doohan) successor and her weirdly charged tension with Buck. Speaking of will-they-won’t-they romances, Buck’s protégé, Daniel (Michael Gandolfini), is getting closer and closer to figuring out that BB Urich (Genneya Walton) is the one making those anti-Fisk propaganda videos, but still trusts her enough to drop a bombshell reveal — Fisk is not seeking re-election as mayor.

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Back at Daredevil HQ, Bullseye is now in Matt and Karen’s (Deborah Ann Woll) custody after the boxing match massacre. It’s the first time Karen has been face-to-face with the serial killer known as Benjamin Poindexter, and the torment of looking Foggy Nelson’s (Elden Henson) murderer in the eye is almost too much to bear. Karen may be in love with Daredevil, but in some ways, she does have more in common with the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), since she knows what it’s like to take a life. She almost does that very thing again with Poindexter before Matt stops her, leading to a fierce confrontation between the couple.

Matt and Karen have to put their trouble in paradise on hold, as City Hall currently has hundreds of protesters dressed in Daredevil gear waiting outside. As the AVTF predictably prepares to violate the protesters’ civil rights, Daredevil has his first face-to-face confrontation with Fisk this season, the latter of whom was just given even more bad news in the form of the New York governor pulling her support for him. Even after everything Fisk has done, Matt still tries to give his archnemesis the chance to do the right thing and shut the protest down himself. Of course, Fisk chooses the hard way, leading to another impressive scuffle between the foes that even damages Fisk’s beloved blank white painting, which he bought from Vanessa many years ago. Daredevil survives the encounter in what seems to be another sign that Fisk is losing control, but there’s just one problem: Karen was at the protest at City Hall, and she’s now been taken into custody by the AVTF.

The first six episodes of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 are streaming now on Disney+.


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Release Date

March 4, 2025

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Disney+

Showrunner

Dario Scardapane

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Directors

Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, David Boyd, Jeffrey Nachmanoff

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Writers

Jesse Wigutow, Jill Blankenship, Thomas Wong, David Feige, Grainne Godfree

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Pros & Cons
  • Krysten Ritter makes it feel like she never left with a dynamite performance as Jessica Jones.
  • Matt and Karen’s argument introduces an interesting dynamic to their relationship.
  • Fisk’s unpredictable behavior after Vanessa’s death makes him even scarier.
  • Jessica’s role in the plot doesn’t feel super relevant to Matt’s story (yet).
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The 31 best Netflix movies based on true stories streaming now

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Several of our picks are nothing if not stranger than fiction.

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Katie Holmes ‘Likes’ Joshua Jackson Dating Comment

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Katie Holmes is seemingly well aware fans want her to rekindle her romance with ex Joshua Jackson.

“We are so thrilled to be a part of the Tribeca Film Festival this June with our film Happy Hours,” Holmes, 47, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, April 16, alongside a photo of her and Jackson, also 47. “So many beautiful people worked on this project. And working with Josh again was a dream.”

In the snap, Holmes and Jackson, who previously played love interests on Dawson’s Creek and dated in real life during season 1 of the series, could be seen embracing in the photo.

Several fans of the pair quickly took to the comments section to gush over how great it was to see the exes together again, while others shared their hopes the twosome would get back together.

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Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson


Related: Did Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson Date? Revisit Their Relationship

Fans are thrilled that Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson are back together again — even if it’s just for a movie. The pair were spotted filming the upcoming trilogy Happy Hours together in New York City on July 21. Jackson was wearing a green button-top shirt while Holmes wore a pink flannel over black pants. […]

Holmes raised eyebrows by tossing multiple likes on messages referencing her past romance with Jackson.

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“Could you be anymore gorgeous together 😍😍😍❤️❤️❤️,” one user wrote, which Holmes liked, while another read, “My favorite couple of all time can wait to see you new film🔥.”

Holmes also liked a response that read, “They should be a couple.”

Another fan joked they wished “this was a hard launch,” which also earned a like from Holmes.

Holmes and Jackson portrayed Joey Potter and Pacey Witter from 1998 to 2003 on the beloved WB series, dating during season 1 from 1998 to 1999, two seasons before their characters got together on screen.

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“Katie and I did have a romance. Which is ancient history now, but I can’t tell you how much fun it is to have an actual romance, and then we broke up, and then a year later to have an onscreen romance,” Jackson said during a 2006 appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. “Because there’s nothing more fun than going to work with your ex-girlfriend every day.”

Despite their breakup, Holmes and Jackson have remained close and their friendship endured even when they found love with other people. Holmes was married to Tom Cruise from 2006 to 2012, and the exes share daughter Suri. Jackson, for his part, wed Jodie Turner-Smith in 2019. The duo, who share daughter Juno, split in 2023.

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Last year, Holmes and Jackson revealed they were reuniting on screen for Happy Hours. The film, which is written and directed by Holmes, follows two young lovers who reconnect and later rekindle their romance and will premiere during the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival in June.

“I am so very grateful to be working again with so many of my wonderful friends on this film HAPPY HOURS. And working with Josh after so many years is a testament to friendship,” the actress wrote via Instagram in July 2025.

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Ciara, West Share Intimate Summer House Moment Without Amanda

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Ciara Miller and West Wilson shared an intimate and emotional moment on the latest Summer House episode — all while Amanda Batula was back in the city.

After West, 31, apologized to Ciara, 30, on the Tuesday, April 21, episode of the Bravo series for kissing another girl while sitting right next to her, Ciara agreed to finally hash out their two years of drama without any outside voices.

“I’m almost scared to be nice to you or scared to be myself around you because I’m afraid of being embarrassed,” Ciara confessed to West as the pair waited for the rest of their friends to meet them at the docks for a boat day — except for Amanda, 34, who was in New York all weekend. (Amanda and West confirmed their romance in March after Ciara dated him in 2023 and vented to Amanda for years about her mixed emotions on their current relationship.)

Ciara explained during the heartfelt conversation, “The very thing that I was afraid of happened and you sat right next to me and didn’t see me. I feel like all of that is very triggering.”

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Where Ciara Miller Stands With Amanda Batula After Breaking Her Trust With West Wilson Romance


Related: Where Ciara Miller Stands With Amanda Batula After West Wilson Scandal

Ciara Miller is still sorting through her feelings after longtime friend Amanda Batula started seeing her ex-boyfriend, and their Summer House costar, West Wilson, earlier this spring. “Ciara has told friends that if they really are in love, she will accept it,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly, noting that if West, 31, and Amanda, […]

West acknowledged that “subjecting” Ciara to his makeout session one week prior with a random girl was “f***ed up” after he and Ciara dated in 2023 and were flirty throughout filming of season 10 in summer 2025.

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Ciara and West continued to have a heart-to-heart for the first time since he broke up with her ahead of the holidays in 2023 and she accused him of “playing games” with her heart after becoming famous.

“I did really consider you my best friend. I felt like we had such a great friendship. I think that’s what was so hurtful about it,” Ciara told West on Tuesday’s episode while wiping away tears. “I don’t call people my best friend lightly. I don’t have the type of relationship that I had with you with everyone. It really felt like I didn’t know you because I didn’t expect that from you.”

West confessed it was “really sad” to hear Ciara’s true feelings about their past. He admitted that talking about her and their breakup to the press before really speaking with her about it was something he deeply regretted.

Ciara Miller and West Wilson Share Intimate Moment on Summer House While Amanda Is Away Trio

West Wilson, Amanda Batula, Ciara Miller.
Courtesy of West Wilson/Instagram

“In that moment, I was under such an attack and you and I weren’t communicating. Naturally, I tried to defend myself,” he explained, for which Ciara took “accountability” and apologized for not being there for him either.

Both Ciara and West wiped away tears during the emotional exchange and acknowledged that going through their breakup in front of cameras didn’t help them heal.

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“I do miss you as my friend,” Ciara said through tears. West replied, “Yeah, me too, It’s really hard. How could I not?”

Ciara noted that she “never thought” West was a “bad person” but she wasn’t ready to let her guard down and “be normal” around him when they first called it quits.

Ciara Miller Is Betrayed and Heartbroken Over Amanda Batula and West Wilson


Related: Ciara Miller Feels ‘Betrayed’ by Amanda Batula and West Wilson

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In the wake of Amanda Batula and West Wilson’s confirmed romance, Summer House fans want to know how Ciara Miller is coping. “Ciara is heartbroken by this,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “She and Amanda were very close, and she feels more betrayed than ever by both of them.” The insider shares that Ciara, […]

“Even if we never talk again, I want you to know, one, I’m sorry for anything, everything that really hurt [you],” West said, before apologizing for the “mindf***” Ciara must have gone through after he introduced her to his family and then so soon after broke off their relationship.

West asked if they could “move forward according to whatever boundaries” she had, admitting, “I could be your best friend tomorrow” if Ciara let him.

“Can we just be best friends again?” Ciara asked as she started to cry harder.

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Ciara and West then held hands and she pulled him in for a big, long hug. “Good?” West asked, before pulling away and holding onto Ciara’s arm in a tender manner.

Ciara Miller and West Wilson Share Intimate Moment on Summer House While Amanda Is Away Season 10

Amanda Batula, West Wilson, Ciara Miller.
Courtesy of Kyle Cooke/Instagram

The exes sat side by side for a few minutes before West joked, “I knew you weren’t going to make out with Jesse [Solomon],” referring to Jesse’s desire to kiss Ciara earlier in the summer — despite “bro code.”

“I’m pissed that you said you didn’t care. Are you kidding?” Ciara said after laughing at West’s ability to break the ice.

West wiped Ciara’s tears from her face and replied, “What was I going to do?” to which Ciara laughed, “Stop it! Save me,” which caused West to burst into laughter as well.

While West and Ciara appeared to be on much better terms without anyone else running interference in their friend group, their heart-to-heart would be short-lived.

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Six months after they filmed that scene by the docks, West and Amanda sparked romance speculation after being spotted together in February and March in New York City. (Amanda and estranged husband Kyle Cooke announced their split in January.)

West and Amanda confirmed on March 31 that their platonic relationship had turned into something more, claiming they weren’t purposely hiding their romance. The backlash, however, came fast and in waves, as Summer House stars and fans questioned the timeline — and Ciara’s feelings.

West claimed during his and Sophie Cunningham’s “Show Me Something” podcast on Monday, April 20, “There was no overlap,” for him or Amanda when they started seeing each other.

Kyle, 43, however, took a jab at West on April 1 when he said in a TikTok interview, “West seems to be the kinda guy playing multiple women at the same time.”

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Ciara, meanwhile, broke her silence over the scandal on Friday, April 17, telling Glamour, “At the end of the day, a guy’s a guy. Whether or not West and I are working on a relationship, you just can’t put anything past a man.”

She added, “But I just never would think that it would come from someone like Amanda, who has been what has felt like in my circle and in my corner for so long. I think that’s the craziest part.”

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Summer House airs on Bravo Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.

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Artem Chigvintsev Pulls Curtain On ‘Unhealthy’ Marriage To Ex

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Artem Chigvintsev, Nikki Garcia attend the 9th Annual Variety Charity Poker & Casino Night

Artem Chigvintsev is opening up about the personal and professional fallout following his high-profile split from Nikki Garcia

The former “Dancing With the Stars” pro described the rapid collapse of his marriage and career as a surreal experience that forced him into a state of survival. 

Chigvintsev and Garcia tied the knot in 2022 and got divorced in 2024, after welcoming their son, Matteo.   

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Artem Chigvintsev Reflects On The ‘Bad Dream’ That Led To Survival Mode

Chigvintsev was arrested in 2024 for alleged corporal injury to a spouse and subsequently dropped from “Dancing with the Stars” after nine seasons. Although he did not face domestic violence charges, the impact was immediate, leading his wife of two years, Garcia, to file for divorce just one month later. 

Speaking on a recent episode of “The Penthouse With Peta” podcast, the dancer described the period as a “bad dream” that left him in survival mode, unable to fully process the loss of both his career and his marriage at once.

Despite the pain of the transition, Chigvintsev admitted to hosts Peta Murgatroyd and Sharna Burgess that the dramatic split “needed to happen” to end what he characterized as an “unhealthy” marriage, per Entertainment Weekly.

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He confessed that because of his upbringing and his parents’ long marriage, he likely would never have initiated the separation himself, preferring to work through issues. He further revealed he was willing to “sacrifice” his own happiness to keep both parents present for their five-year-old son, Matteo.

What Nikki Garcia Said About Her Marital Issues With Artem Chigvintsev

Artem Chigvintsev, Nikki Garcia attend the 9th Annual Variety Charity Poker & Casino Night
David Edwards / MEGA

Chigvintsev’s statements came over a year after Garcia shared her own side of the story on why her marriage to the dancer came to an end. 

During a podcast session in December 2024, Garcia reflected on the emotional patterns that defined her past year and likely contributed to the end of her marriage. 

As reported by The Blast, the 42-year-old shared that she has spent time researching the “divine feminine,” a concept that helped her realize she does not have a responsibility to fix, change, or improve the people in her life.

She admitted that it took her over four decades to understand that while she can offer support, she cannot be the one to solve someone else’s deeply ingrained issues. 

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“We aren’t here to fix other people, we just aren’t,” she explained, emphasizing that her role is to lead by example and nurture her children rather than trying to repair her partner.

The “Total Bellas” alum further encouraged her listeners to recognize these “fixing” patterns early and to set boundaries before they lead to emotional exhaustion. 

Nikki Garcia Previously Praised Her Co-Parenting Relationship With Artem Chigvintsev

Nikki Garcia and Artem Chigvintsev kissing
Snorlax / MEGA

As Garcia and Chigvintsev seemed to accept the necessity of the end of their marriage, the two were also able to find a balance in their co-parenting relationship. 

In September, the 42-year-old television personality revealed that she and her former husband have managed to build a surprisingly strong co-parenting dynamic despite their dramatic divorce.

Garcia credited this newfound stability for allowing her to return to her professional wrestling roots, per The Blast.

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The former “Total Bellas” star openly appreciated how Chigvintsev adapted to her demanding professional schedule. She shared that he has been “amazing” at coordinating their time with four-year-old Matteo, even allowing her to have extra time with their son to accommodate her weekly travel. 

July 21, 2025, New York, New York, USA: JOHN CENA and SHAY SHARIATZADEH attends Netflix’s Happy Gilmore 2 New York Premiere, Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC.July 21, 2025.Photo by …Happy Gilmore 2 New York Premiere, Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC.July 21, 2025.Photo by. 21 Jul 2025 Pictured: July 21, 2025, New York, New York, USA: NIKKI GARCIA attends Netflixâ??s Happy Gilmore 2 New York Premiere, Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC.July 21, 2025.Photo by …Happy Gilmore 2 New York Premiere, Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC.July 21, 2025.Photo by. Photo credit: ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA TheMegaAgency.com [email protected] (Mega Agency TagID: MEGA1341163_006.jpg) [Photo via Mega Agency]

Not long after gushing about her great co-parenting relationship with Chigvintsev, Garcia sparked dating rumors when she was spotted with Cooper DeJean. 

The 42-year-old WWE star shared a festive Instagram reel documenting her trip to an Eagles game, where she was seen smiling broadly while posing in front of the 22-year-old athlete’s locker. The video also featured a moment from a post-game celebration at a local bar, where the pair were spotted looking cozy together. 

Garcia captioned the post by expressing how “blessed” she feels for the new and old friends who make her life special, specifically thanking the city of Philadelphia for its hospitality.

According to The Blast, Garcia and DeJean follow each other on social media and frequently exchange likes and comments on their respective posts. 

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Nikki Garcia Denied The Romance Rumors

Nikki Garcia attends the 2023 ESPY Awards
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Despite the buzz surrounding Garcia and DeJean, the wrestler seemingly downplayed the romance rumors. On an episode of her podcast, “The Nikki & Brie Show,” Garcia confirmed that she hasn’t been intimate with anyone in a “really long time.” 

“It’s crazy because I actually haven’t been touched or done anything in so long,” Garcia told her sister, Brie, per The Blast

She expressed frustration with the public narrative, finding it ironic that she has faced harsh labels when she has actually been avoiding intimacy. 

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Who Is Maggie Sajak’s Boyfriend? Meet Jackson Olson

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Who Is Maggie Sajak's Boyfriend? What to Know About Savannah Bananas Player Jackson Olson

Jackson Olson has been making a name for himself long before his romance with Pat Sajak’s daughter Maggie Sajak.

Olson is best known for his role as a social media personality and player for the Savannah Bananas. Amid the Bananas’ growing online popularity, Olson has become a standout player on the team. The athlete has gone viral multiple times thanks to his Taylor Swift-inspired lip syncs and shameless ability to poke fun at his (once) lack of a dating life.

Last year, Olson posted a TikTok video saying he was tired of being “single for over five years,” adding that he’s ready for someone to call him “boyfriend.” Olson’s December 2025 post went viral, as thousands of women attempted to shoot their shot in the comments section.

Four months later, Olson’s wish came true when he and Maggie hard-launched their relationship.

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“Applications closed✅,” Olson wrote via Instagram in April 2026 alongside a photo of him and Maggie at Disney World.

Keep scrolling for everything to know about Olson amid his new romance:

Jackson Olson Played College Baseball

Olson was an infielder for the University of Hartford from 2017 to 2020. The following year, he attended Stetson University, where he played college baseball for one season. In his collegiate career, Olson earned a .288 batting average.

Upon graduation, Olson had dreams of joining the MLB but was not selected due to a shortened MLB draft caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Jackson Olson Has a Big TikTok Following

After putting his MLB dreams on hold, Olson started making videos on TikTok. He launched his page by creating silly — yet relatable — videos about delivering groceries via Instacart. Olson also posted clips of him traveling to various baseball stadiums. While posting his baseball-related content, he discovered the Savannah Bananas and ultimately caught their attention.

Olson has more than 2 million followers on TikTok at the time of publication.

Jackson Olson Has Played for the Savannah Bananas Since 2022

Who Is Maggie Sajak's Boyfriend? What to Know About Savannah Bananas Player Jackson Olson
Courtesy of Jackson Olson/Instagram

The Savannah Bananas are not your typical baseball team — instead, they play their own version of the game aptly titled “banana ball.” While the elements of America’s favorite pastime are ever-present, banana ball features a lot more dancing and singing compared to a typical MLB game. Olson joined the Savannah Bananas in 2022 after he went viral as a baseball influencer.

“I thought I was going to be this guy coming in [as] the TikTok kid [and] no one would like me [or] everybody would think ‘He’s just here to get views on his videos’ Hopefully the minds have changed,” he said in a 2024 YouTube video.

Olson is the team’s third baseman and has been nicknamed “The Greatest Showman” due to his love of musical theater and epic trick plays.

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Jackson Olson Is a Big Swiftie

Olson has made it very clear that he is the biggest Swiftie on the Savannah Bananas roster. He has walked up to several of the pop star’s songs including “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “The Fate of Ophelia,” “The Life of a Showgirl” and more. In a February 2026 video, Olson and Party Animals player Dalton Ponce got together to do the “Opailite” dance challenge.

Jackson Olson Went Viral For His ‘The Bachelor’ Prank

Before finding love with Maggie, Olson went viral for pranking his mom telling her that he was chosen to be the next Bachelor.

“I’m proud of you but it’s kind of weird,” Olson’s mom told her son in the May 2025 Instagram clip.

After some more teasing, Olson ultimately fessed up to his mom and shared he was “kidding.”

“She was NOT a fan of the marriage part 😭,” he captioned the video.

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Allison Kuch Gives Birth to Baby No. 2 With Husband Isaac Rochell

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Allison Kuch and Isaac Rochell have officially expanded their family.

The TikTok star and the former NFL player announced the arrival of their new addition on Tuesday, April 21.

“Our sweet baby girl is here!! Pepper Jo 🎀✨, ” the couple wrote in a joint Instagram post. “One of the best days of our lives and the vbac of my dreams!”

Alongside the caption was a carousel of photos featuring the couple — and 2-year-old daughter Scottie — holding their newborn in the hospital.

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Kuch and Rochell — who have been married since April 2021 — previously Scottie in December 2023. In November 2025, the couple announced they were expecting their second child, captioning a joint Instagram post, “We’re having a baby!!!! ✨👶🏼☁️.”

Allison-Kuch.jpg


Related: Celebrity Babies of 2026: Stars Who Gave Birth This Year

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The accompanying maternity photos showed Kuch’s bare baby bump and ultrasound images.

Throughout her pregnancy, Kuch shared her journey with her social media followers.

“First trimester ✨🥹🩷💙,” she wrote via Instagram in November 2025. “This pregnancy is so different / no nausea, reallly tired, extremely hungry and can cry on demand we already love you so so much.”

The following month, Kuch and Rochell revealed the sex of their second baby. Although she predicted their future child to be a boy, while he guessed it was a girl, the couple ultimately discovered they were having another girl, sharing the emotional moment they read the results in an Instagram video.

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“I knew we were having a little girl,” he exclaimed, while she said through tears, “I’m so excited.”

In a follow-up post, Kuch added, “IT’S A GIRL ✨🥹🩷 what a dream to be a mom to two little girls!!!”

Prior to announcing her pregnancy, Kuch and Rochell hinted at their plans to expand their family.

“It’s funny. A lot of people think that he wants a boy because, like, sports, which I’m like, ‘That’s toxic.’ Whatever. But he’s like, ‘Oh, if I didn’t have a boy, I wouldn’t be sad,’” Kuch said during a November 2025 episode of “Two Parents and a Podcast.”

Rochell added, “No. I’ve been around men my whole life. Like, it’s been straight men my whole life. Other than my wife. I have a brother. Football. It’s all men. So I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m cool with a girl.’”

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Kuch and Rochell knew they wanted to have two children — and “maybe a third,” since Kuch thought the “idea of two sounds lonely.”

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Related: Celeb Pregnancy Announcements of 2026: Stars Expecting Babies This Year

Many stars are expanding their families in 2026. Riverdale alum Charles Melton’s girlfriend, director Camille Summers-Valli, rang in the new year by confirming her pregnancy with their first baby. Two days later, Paradise star Krys Marshall debuted her baby bump at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards. Thank You! You have successfully subscribed. Subscribe to newsletters […]

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“Unless we get rocked by the second kid, I feel like we’re going to have easily three,” Rochell noted. “I mean, we love having a kid.”

After becoming a mom for the first time, Kuch spoke candidly about her “journey” of self-discovery, sharing that it’d “been tough” to find her identity as she navigated parenting and postpartum.

“There’s so many life changes [with] becoming a mom and also Isaac not playing football right now, I’m like, ‘Wait, whoa, what’s going on?’” she exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2024.

Amid her struggles, Kuch praised Rochell for being a “good partner.”

“I just try to give her space,” Rochell explained at the time. “I mean, my phrase is always like, ‘Whatever you need, we’ll do it.’ If she needs help with something, I’m like, ‘We’ll do it, it’s not a big deal.’”

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Amazon’s 10/10 Horror Thriller Becomes a Global Streaming Sensation

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Every network and streaming service has a project considered its most successful, and for Amazon’s smaller streaming service, MGM+, that show is From. The intense mystery thriller is the streamer’s most-watched program and has successfully crossed over to other streaming services. The series returned for a well-received Season 4 last Sunday, and as expected, it is seeing major streaming attention.

Data from FlixPatrol shows the series is not just the most-watched on its home platform; it has also captured attention globally on multiple other streaming services. From HBO Max to Paramount+ and Stan, the series is proving to be a global fan favorite. This attention extends beyond SVOD streaming services to PVOD ones like iTunes and Amazon’s own rental service. This success is not surprising, given the show’s cult following and strong word-of-mouth since its 2022 premiere.

From is a horror series that blends several other genres, including mystery, sci-fi, and thriller. The series takes place in an unnamed town in an undisclosed location. The residents found themselves here without any idea of how that happened, why, or if it’s possible to leave. The town keeps them busy with monsters who come out at night to tease, torture, and kill them. In Season 4, the show dives deeper into the mysteries surrounding the town and how the residents can escape it.

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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

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🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

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01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





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02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





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03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





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04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





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05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





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06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





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07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





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08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





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09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





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10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





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Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

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Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

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John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

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Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

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What To Expect in ‘From’ Season 4, Episode 2

The new season brings fresh mysteries and horrors. The Man in Yellow (Douglas E. Hughes) (or the teenage girl now) infiltrates the town and starts to destroy it from the inside. Remember, what happens next is his favorite part. No one is suspicious about her since they all remember what it was like when they first arrived. Meanwhile, the town has lost someone, with Jim (Eion Bailey) being murdered by the Man in Yellow. “A gruesome discovery sends shockwaves through the town as Jade (David Alpay) and Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno) struggle with the weight of their revelation,” the logline for From Season 4, Episode 2, “Fray,” teases. It’s as cryptic as the show, but one can deduce that Jim’s body will be found, and questions regarding what happened to him will arise. Season 4 also stars Harold Perrineau (Boyd), Hannah Cheramy (Julie), Simon Webster (Ethan), Ricky He (Kenny), Corteon Moore (Ellis), Elizabeth Saunders (Donna), and more.

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Catch new episodes of From Season 4 on Sundays on MGM+ and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


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Release Date
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February 20, 2022

Network

Epix, MGM+

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Directors

Jack Bender, Brad Turner, Alexandra La Roche, Bruce McDonald, Jeff Renfroe

Writers
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Vivian Lee, Kristen Layden, Brigitte Hales, Jeff Pinkner, John Griffin

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Forget ‘The Blair Witch Project,’ Prime Video Just Added a Forgotten Horror Nightmare to Its Library

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Found-footage horror has always depended on one trick above all others: making the audience feel like they have stumbled onto something they were never meant to see. Grainy video, awkward interview fragments, dead air, and procedural details can make invented terror feel uncomfortably close to reality. That is why Prime Video reviving John Erick Dowdle’s 2007 found-footage horror film matters. Not to mention that there has been a genuine lack of horror films in this genre, so it perfectly fills a gap.

A handful of titles like this mockumentary carry a warning-label reputation years later. They do more than scare and create the queasy feeling of witnessing cruelty in a form that looks half-archival, half-documentary. And in this case, the film’s legacy has long been tied to how convincingly it stages torture, stalking, coercion, and psychological breakdown inside a faux-investigative framework. Its interviews with police and victims’ families give the material a procedural shape, while the recovered tapes push the experience into something harsher and more intimate. For horror fans, that combination turned it into one of the genre’s most infamous dare-to-watch movies, the kind people discuss almost as often as they actually finish.

The title Prime Video has added is The Poughkeepsie Tapes. John Erick Dowdle’s 2007 mockumentary that spent years being treated like a buried artifact of extreme horror, helped by the fact that MGM shelved it after its Tribeca premiere and its release history stayed messy for years afterward. Now that it is easier to stream again, the film gets a fresh chance to unsettle a new wave of viewers. Its reputation remains earned: this is a deeply unpleasant, hyper-realistic serial-killer nightmare built around humiliation, manipulation, and sustained dread.

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Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz
Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving?
Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky

Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.

🏕️Jason

🔪Michael

💤Freddy

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🎈Pennywise

🪆Chucky

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01

Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do?
First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.





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02

Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong?
Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.





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03

What is your most reliable survival asset?
Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?





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04

What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through?
Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.





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05

You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role?
Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.





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06

What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make?
Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.





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07

What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means?
Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.





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08

It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it?
The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?





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Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated
Your Best Chance Is Against…

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

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Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th

Jason Voorhees

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

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  • He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
  • Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
  • The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
  • You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.


Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween

Michael Myers

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

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  • But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
  • Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
  • Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
  • You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.


Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street

Freddy Krueger

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

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  • You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
  • The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
  • Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
  • Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.


Derry, Maine · It

Pennywise

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

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  • The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
  • You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
  • That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
  • It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.


Chicago · Child’s Play

Chucky

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

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  • You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
  • Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
  • Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
  • Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

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‘The Poughkeepsie Tapes’ Features Extremely Detailed, Disturbing Scenes But It’s Fictional

The Poughkeepsie Tapes gets under people’s skin because it presents cruelty with an almost documentary plainness, but it is still a fictional mockumentary, not real recovered footage. Because of that distinction, the footage’s power comes from how carefully it imitates true-crime structure: interviews, police framing, degraded VHS textures, and long stretches of humiliating, psychological abuse that feel horribly plausible. The film is disturbing less because of gore alone and more because it studies control, stalking, and degradation in such an intimate way. Viewers should approach it as extreme horror built to simulate reality, which is exactly why so many people find it difficult to finish.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is available to watch on Prime Video. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


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Release Date

January 2, 2009

Runtime

86 minutes

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Director

John Erick Dowdle

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Writers

Drew Dowdle, John Erick Dowdle

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7 Most Universally Beloved Musical Movies of All Time, Ranked

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Emma Stone dancing with Ryan Gosling in La La Land.

The films in this list all understand that music can make pain more intimate rather than less. Hope sounds brighter when it is under threat. Romance cuts deeper when the world outside the lovers is already tightening into something cruel. And musicals last when the songs are doing more than decorating the story.

That’s only when I’m unable to sit through a musical and this list here ensures that. The greatest ones turn emotion into movement at the exact point ordinary dialogue would fall short. Longing gets bigger, fear gets stranger, joy gets almost unbearable, and heartbreak finally has the scale it deserves. They kind of drag you into the feeling until your own nerves start moving with the rhythm. At least that’s how it is with me but I understand for some, musicals might be more immersive. Either way, the movies below will sit with you.

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7

‘La La Land’ (2016)

Emma Stone dancing with Ryan Gosling in La La Land.
Emma Stone dancing with Ryan Gosling in La La Land.
Image via Lionsgate

La La Land lands hard on people who know what it is like to want two beautiful things that do not fit in the same life. It starts with that traffic-jam blast of color and motion, a city declaring itself as a place where fantasy might still break through routine, then narrows into two people carrying private disappointments like bruises. Mia Dolan (Emma Stone) keeps walking into rooms that measure her and dismiss her. Sebastian Wilder (Ryan Gosling) keeps clinging to an idea of artistic purity that sounds noble until you notice how much loneliness is hiding inside it. Their first meetings have spark, friction, ego, flirtation, all the things that make romance feel like it might actually rearrange a life.

Then the movie deepens. They become each other’s witness. Her one-woman play matters since he believes in it when nobody else does. His club dream stays alive since she treats it like a future instead of a fantasy. That is what hurts later. The film does not wreck them through betrayal and instead lets ambition, timing, compromise, and ordinary adult momentum push them onto different tracks. The final fantasy sequence devastates people since it lays out the whole emotional crime scene in one sweep: the tenderness, the missed version of the future, the knowledge that love can be real and still lose. That is why La La Land became so big after its release and keeps hitting long after the first watch. In fact, no musical since then has come close in fame.

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6

‘Cabaret’ (1972)

Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret Image via Allied Artists

Cabaret unsettles in a way few musicals even attempt. It pulls you in through seduction first. Berlin feels alive, permissive, nocturnal, full of flirtation and danger that still looks glamorous from across the room. Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) sweeps in as pure appetite and performance, someone turning instability into style with such force that people around her start mistaking self-invention for freedom. The Kit Kat Club makes that confusion feel intoxicating. Everything is a show, every desire has lighting, every fear gets dressed up before it walks onstage. That is exactly why the film lingers under the skin. The pleasure is part of the trap.

As the plot keeps moving, the air changes. Brian Roberts (Michael York) brings reserve, Sally brings reckless hunger, and Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) carries the wealth and ease that make the whole arrangement feel more decadent and more doomed. It all starts to feel less like romantic complication and more like people dancing on ground that is quietly giving way beneath them. The songs stop functioning as cheerful release and start behaving like coded warnings, taunts, or mirrors held up to moral collapse. On a macro frame, the movie tears at a very human weakness: our talent for confusing charm with safety. The personal mess and the political nightmare have fused so completely in it that you feel sullied by the glamour you once enjoyed.

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5

‘Fiddler on the Roof’ (1971)

Chaim Topol as Tevye and Norma Crane as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Chaim Topol as Tevye and Norma Crane as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Image via United Artists

Fiddler on the Roof goes straight into one of the deepest human fears there is: the fear that the world which shaped you will not survive the lives of your children. It’s so weird and discomforting to think about in real life and the movie makes you sit with it. It follows Tevye (Chaim Topol), who is a man anchored by rhythm, routine, prayer, poverty, family, and the fragile dignity of tradition. His opening reflections are warm and funny, though the humor already carries strain. He is trying to hold together a life where structure keeps chaos from swallowing everyone whole.

Then the daughters begin forcing change into the house one choice at a time. One marriage bends custom, another breaks it further, another tears into the deepest boundary of all. The film’s power comes from how carefully it walks Tevye through each emotional stage: pride, shock, bargaining, anger, hurt, helpless love. He keeps trying to negotiate with a world that is no longer interested in slow negotiation. That is why the ending cuts so deep. Exile is not presented as one dramatic blow. It feels like the final removal of whatever was left standing after history, modernity, and private heartbreak had already done their work. Fiddler on the Roof lasts since it understands that tradition can be both shelter and burden, and losing it can feel like losing the grammar of your own life.

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4

‘The Sound of Music’ (1965)

Maria singing in the Alps The Sound of Music
Promotional image for ‘The Sound of Music’
Image via 20th Century Studios

The Sound of Music lives in people’s memory as comfort, and it absolutely is comfort, though that only explains half its hold. The other half comes from how expertly it lets warmth grow in a house that initially feels airless. Maria (Julie Andrews) enters the von Trapp full of energy, clumsiness, uncertainty, and instinctive tenderness. Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer), the titular character, on the other hand, has turned grief into order, the children have been disciplined into stiffness, and the whole household moves like a place trying very hard not to feel anything uncontrolled. Then the songs start reopening the windows.

That process is why the film grips generations. The curtain-clothes outing, the singing lessons, the boat scene, the gradual thaw between Maria and the children, then between Maria and the Captain, all of it is paced with enormous emotional intelligence. Joy returns first as play, then as connection, then as love, and finally as resistance. The second half darkens The Sound of Music beautifully. Fascism moves closer, innocence gets cornered, and the family’s music turns into an assertion of identity under threat.

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3

‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952)

Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in Singin in the Rain
Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in Singin in the Rain
Image via MGM

Singin’ in the Rain follows the story of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), a silent-film star whose entire image has been manufactured, right down to the fake romantic publicity around him and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). Then talking pictures arrive, and suddenly the whole illusion is in danger. Lina has a shrill, grating voice that does not match the glamorous persona audiences have been sold, and the studio’s prestige picture collapses in front of everyone once sound exposes the lie.

That is where Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) matters. She is not just the love interest who softens Don but becomes the actual solution to the movie’s central crisis. She can sing, she can speak properly, and she has the professional ability Lina lacks. When Don falls for her, the romance works since it grows inside a plot where he is finally forced to value substance over image. Then Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) steps in and helps turn disaster into invention by pushing the movie-within-the-movie toward a musical. Singin’ in the Rain is a musical fully locked onto its deepest pleasure: the talented person doing the real work in the shadows finally being revealed in front of the crowd. It’s a lovely film.

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2

‘West Side Story’ (1961)

Richard Beymer as Tony and Natalie Wood as Maria embracing and singing while standing on a balcony in West Side Story (1961) Image via United Artists

West Side Story gets people at a gut level since it does not treat the romance as some dreamy idea floating above the plot. Instead, Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) fall for each other inside an active street war between the Jets and the Sharks, and the film never lets you forget that every tender moment is surrounded by people ready to ruin it. Tony used to run with the Jets and is trying to step away from that life. Maria is Bernardo’s (George Chakiris) sister, which means the relationship is already explosive before it even has time to breathe. Their first connection at the dance is thrilling precisely since the room is full of bodies, noise, rivalry, and watchful hostility.

Then the plot starts tightening around every hope they build. Tony tries to stop the rumble instead of feeding it, but he arrives too late to prevent Bernardo from killing Riff. In panic and grief, Tony kills Bernardo, and from there the film never really lets the lovers recover. Maria still chooses Tony, which is part of why the movie hurts so much. The love remains real even after blood has entered it. There’s more to the story but the point is — West Side Story makes hatred feel like a system ordinary people keep helping to operate even while it destroys the only good thing in front of them.

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1

‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939)

The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) confronts Dorothy (Judy Garland) while Dorothy looks frightened in The Wizard of Oz Image via MGM

The Wizard of Oz works so deeply since its fantasy never loses contact with Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) and her original emotional problem. Dorothy starts in Kansas feeling powerless. Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton) can take Toto (Terry), the adults around Dorothy are distracted, and every attempt she makes to explain how upset she is gets brushed aside. When she sings about somewhere over the rainbow, she is a scared girl imagining a place where trouble cannot reach into her life so easily. Then the tornado comes, and the film transforms that wish into a literal journey through a world where every fear and desire gets enlarged into storybook form. Once she lands in Oz, the plot keeps giving Dorothy a clear objective: follow the Yellow Brick Road and ask the Wizard (Frank Morgan) to send her home.

Along the way she meets the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), each of them convinced they are missing the one thing that would make them complete. The Scarecrow thinks he lacks intelligence, the Tin Man thinks he lacks a heart, and the Lion thinks he lacks courage. The film’s emotional trick is simple and brilliant: every one of them keeps displaying the exact quality they believe they do not possess. Dorothy sees that before they do, which is why the friendship feels so comforting. The Wicked Witch (Margaret Hamilton) then gives the story real menace by turning the journey into something more than a cheerful quest. Dorothy, in the disguise of exploring a magical world, is being hunted through it. By the time the Wizard is exposed as a fraud and Glinda (Billie Burke) tells Dorothy she had the power to return home all along, The Wizard of Oz lands on a truth people never outgrow: we spend so much time chasing authority figures, distant places, or grand solutions, only to realize the thing we needed most was already tied to love, home, and the people who actually see us. That’s simply why this movie is amazing.













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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
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Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

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🪙No Country for Old Men

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01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.





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02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?





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03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.





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04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?





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05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?





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06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.





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07

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.





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08

What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.





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09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.





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10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?





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The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

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Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

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Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

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Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

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No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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The Wizard of Oz

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Release Date

August 25, 1939

Runtime
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102 minutes

Director

Victor Fleming

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Writers

Edgar Allan Woolf, Florence Ryerson, Noel Langley, L. Frank Baum

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  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Judy Garland

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    Dorothy Gale

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Ray Bolger

    “Hunk” / Scarecrow

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FBI’s Zeeko Zaki Will Be Absent Ahead of Season 8 Finale

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FBI is about to lose a main cast member — temporarily — ahead of the highly anticipated season 8 finale.

CBS released a synopsis for the Monday, May 11, episode of the show, which read, “Following the assassination of a major corporate executive, the team races to find leaders of a dormant terrorist organization that has reemerged.” The sneak peek went on to tease how Zeeko Zaki’s fan-favorite character, OA, is “temporarily reassigned after refusing to follow orders but is paired up with a familiar face.”

Based on the first look images, Agent Zara Ushruf (Pardis Saremi) is the familiar face. The duo originally met in episode 17 while on a case before they went out to dinner. OA was then noticeably absent from the Monday, April 20, episode of FBI and is expected to go missing again in the penultimate episode.

It is still unclear how long OA could be separate from the FBI. This comes after the procedural faced another surprise shakeup when a March episode of the hit show had Maggie’s (Missy Peregrym) first arrest — serial slasher Ray DiStefano (Matthew Rauch) — kidnap her sister, Erin (Adrienne Rose Bengtsson). Maggie spent the episode trying to save her sibling, only to find her dead in the back of DiStefano’s truck.

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Which FBI Stars Are or Are Not Returning for Season 8 Feature


Related: Which ‘FBI’ Stars Are — And Aren’t — Returning for Season 8?

The FBI universe experienced a massive shakeup at the end of the 2024-2025 TV season — but how was the flagship series affected? CBS shocked fans in March after announcing that FBI spinoffs FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted were cancelled ahead of their respective season 4 and season 6 finales later that spring. While […]

While Peregrym, 43, was missing from one episode, she has denied plans to leave the show entirely.

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“I’ll be honest. I’m on a procedural show, and I wonder what impact this is possibly making? And sometimes I get freaked out because I think we’re just highlighting some of the horrors of humanity every week,” Peregrym told Deadline. “And what is this? What are we doing this for? What am I investing a lot of my life in to do this for?”

The actress expressed gratitude for the show’s decision to address such a topic, adding, “I think it’s really important what we’re doing, because we’re highlighting how to move forward.”

“Everybody experiences loss. Everybody goes through the depths of emotions in life,” she continued. “You have an opportunity to show connection, relationship, intimacy and growth. And this is exactly why I do what I do. I hope this makes people feel seen and that they want to keep going after such a horrific experience, and that they don’t give up.”

At the time, Peregrym remained hopeful about the plans for the show.

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“To go so far. I was like, ‘What are we doing after this?’ You know, I’ve been playing the same character for eight years, and we’re going so far,” she noted. “What’s the plan? How are we going to move through the next steps of getting back on your feet and being able to be in the world again? We’re not a drama where we sit around in our underwear and chat on the couch. We’ve got to get back to work.”

She concluded, “So at what point are we going to address the reality of this scenario, and we are, we are doing it in the best way that we can with our show, like the way we do it on a procedural. But you know, as much as it scared me, I was terrified to go into that space at the end. I’m finding it really interesting to play my character now and finding these beats of when I can insert this stuff and when to work. And it’s just a challenge. It just feels like we’re doing a new show again. Do you know what I mean? And maybe that’s a gift.”

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FBI airs on CBS Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.

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