Taylor Sheridan‘s grip on the streaming habits of Paramount+ subscribers is hugely impressive. On all streaming sites, there is a constant battle between the top titles for first place. On Paramount+, that battle is often fought between several projects all under Sheridan’s name, as the master producer oversees his streaming kingdom ahead of his exit. However, whilst Landman and Tulsa King continue to prove popular, another of his shows is showing signs of fatigue following recent devastating news.

Although Paramount+ has officially renewed the series following a bloody Season 4 finale, it was also confirmed that Mayor of Kingstown Season 5 will be the show’s last. Jeremy Renner is set to return as Mike McLusky for one last time in the fifth season, alongside Edie Falco‘s Nina Hobbs, with the final installment being reduced from the usual ten-episode order to just eight. Following the announcement of Sheridan’s departure from Paramount, Mayor of Kingstown is the first of his shows to announce an end date, with more sure to follow suit.

This confirmed ending and no sign of a release date for the fifth season have combined to leave Mayor of Kingstown struggling to keep up with its sibling series on the streaming charts. At the time of writing, the series ranks just tenth in the Paramount+ top ten in the U.S., with it expected to drop entirely from the charts in the coming days. Of course, when the fifth season debuts, this will change, and it will likely rocket back to the top as fans spend one last season with MCU alum Renner‘s Mike McLusky.

How Did Jeremy Renner React to the ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ News?

Image via Paramount+

Many were quick to express their sadness on social media following the news that Mayor of Kingstown would be coming to an end. Among these posts was one from the series’ star Renner, who addressed the news with grace and optimism. “Season 5. Rebirth. Renewed, here we go. Back to work this year, we’re excited, and I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to everyone, and I love you,” Renner said, following with a note of gratitude, saying:

“I find myself in deep gratitude this gorgeous morning. After a rebirth, today, announcing a renewal of Mayor of Kingstown Season 5… what a blessing… and it’s all because of the amazing, dedicated fans. Thank you.”

Mayor of Kingstown is streaming on Paramount+ now.

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Release Date

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November 14, 2021

Network

Paramount+

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Showrunner

Dave Erickson

Directors

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Stephen Kay, Guy Ferland, Christoph Schrewe, Clark Johnson, Paul Cameron, Tasha Smith, Taylor Sheridan

Writers

James Arcega Tinsley

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Roomies… looks like Moneybagg Yo isn’t playing this Valentine’s Day. The rapper went all out for Ari Fletcher, gifting her a six-figure gift, and Ari made sure the timeline got every single angle. And you already know, Roomies… folks are in their feelings over this major Valentine’s Day flex.

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Ari Fletcher Shows Off Her Valentine’s Day Rolls Royce Flex

In a series of photos and videos posted to Ari’s social media, she’s seen standing in front of the luxury ride with a massive red bow on top and a sticker that says “SOLD.” She’s also holding a sign that reads, “SPECIAL DELIVERY EXCLUSIVELY FOR… Ms. Ari Fletcher,” serving all the bougie vibes. According to reports, the all-white Rolls Royce truck reportedly cost around to $500K, making this Valentine’s Day flex extra extravagant.

Ari’s look? An all-black matching fit that hugged every curve, a curly half-up, half-down hairstyle, flawless makeup, black sandals, and what appears to be a black Birkin bag — clearly out here living her best Valentine’s Day life. She also included the caption, “Thank you daddy ❤️,” and yes, Roomies… we know that wasn’t from her dad.

The Comment Section Is Clearly In Their Feelings

Fans ran straight to Ari’s Instagram comment section and laid their thoughts all the way down. Many were hyping her up, saying big mama is finally getting the love she deserves, while a few kept it simple with heart emojis. And you already know… some Roomies were hitting her with the “Ari, not today” energy, hinting at their own V-Day vibes, while a few tried to be slick and drop a casual “you’re welcome,” clearly pretending they were the ones who bought the truck.

One Instagram user @realstarrgyal said, “Them : 0 Ari: 100“

This Instagram user @badgyalshanshan added, “Come on 😍😍😍 you deserve it all honey 🍯”

And, Instagram user @trelittt shared, “You did say you wanted a new one 😍😍😍”

Meanwhile, Instagram user @badgirljanelle wrote, “He love him some YOUUUUU 😍😍😍 👏👏👏👏 We love to see it ❤️”

While Instagram user @bitchimfattrell said, “You’re welcome boo 🔥😘”

Finally, Instagram user @nejaweja commented, “Ari please not rn😭💔”

Just So You Know… Ari & Bagg Are Still Good

In case you were wondering, Ari Fletcher and Moneybagg Yo seem to still be going strong. The internet went wild after Ari posted a video showing her cruising with Bagg, all smiles as he drove. At one point, Moneybagg rapped along to the song playing, and Ari jumped in on the verse too, clearly having a blast together. Decked out in matching all-black fits and icy jewelry, the duo looked like a couple living their best life on a mini date night. The clips dropped right in the middle of the Lil Baby rumors, but Ari and Bagg are clearly unfazed, showing off their chemistry and proving they’re locked in, unbothered, and thriving together.

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One Instagram user @ mzangelbaby said, “😂😂 Too cute 🥰! For both of us!! She’s definitely included 😂”

This Instagram user @kallion26_ added, “Man she look just like her daddy. 😂😍 crazy how genetics work.“

And, Instagram user @lakaysharedd commented, “Emmy said we both his Valentine’s 😂😂😂”

Meanwhile, Instagram user @leeee__saint_laurant wrote, “Too sweet 😍😍😍”

While Instagram user @keba.cas said, “god bless her beautiful personality“

Finally, Instagram user @crownedblvckqueen added, “She’s too cute😍”

Jealous… But Still Team Mommy & Daddy

Real-life love can’t ever be like the movies, but that’s what makes it so much fun to live vicariously through movie characters.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we’re thinking about our favorite movie couples. But not just any movie couples: sexy movie couples. The ones whose chemistry makes you positively soon.

Watch With Us combed through all of movie history, and we picked out what we believe are five of the sexiest movie couples of all time.

From the black-and-white world of Casablanca to the sci-fi dystopia of The Matrix, these couples make us go crazy.

Neo and Trinity — ‘The Matrix’ Movies

Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) don’t actually have sex until the second Matrix movie, during which their lovemaking is juxtaposed against an infamous orgy sequence. But the two manage to make things feel hot and bothered while barely touching each other in the first of the Matrix trilogy — and when they finally do kiss, sparks literally fly.

It’s a combination of how objectively hot Reeves and Moss are, sure, but it’s also how passionate and pure their love is for each other, and how over the course of the franchise that undying devotion somehow endures in that crazy world. By The Matrix Resurrections, we understand they are fated to each other, they would die for each other, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Chiron and Kevin — ‘Moonlight’ (2016)

Though Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) and Kevin (André Holland) never actually become a couple, their lasting, aching connection makes their dynamic both powerful and heartrending. Moonlight follows Chiron from childhood to adulthood through three pivotal moments in his life, in which he comes to understand his identity as a gay man.

As a teenager, he had a sexual encounter with Kevin that they never explored further or spoke of until years later. As adults, they reconnect, now living two very different lives but forever touched by what the other one meant to them. The truth and tragedy of unrealized passion is sometimes more beautiful and more intimate than visualized intimacy.

Jack and Rose — ‘Titanic’ (1997)

Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose Dewitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) may seem like the epitome of cringeworthy blockbuster melodrama, but if you just take three hours out of your day to actually watch Titanic, you’ll realize that “Paint me like one of your French girls” isn’t even really the sexiest moment between them.

The culmination of their patiently constructed romance is a deliriously erotic (if brief) scene in which Jack takes Rose in the back of a car in the ship’s cargo hold, whose windows fog up from how passionate and intense their lovemaking is. But that scene wouldn’t be what it is without the scintillating, slow-burn lead-up to their consummation — a culminating release felt by both the characters and the audience.

Elizabeth and Will — The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Franchise

It’s crazy to think that one of the sexiest movie couples ever came from a Disney movie, but the Mouse House doesn’t really make movies like Pirates of the Caribbean anymore, either. At the time, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom were considered two of the hottest young actors in Hollywood, and putting them together for a romance anchored by emotional longing and a mutual transformation made for scintillating movie magic.

Will Turner is a blacksmith haunted by his father’s pirate ways, while Elizabeth is a governor’s daughter yearning to break free and harboring a lifelong fascination with pirates. In the end, Will basically becomes a pirate for her, and the two head off to have sexy little adventures together.

Rick and Ilsa — ‘Casablanca’ (1942)

“We’ll always have Paris” is one of the most emotionally ruinous lines of all time, from one of the classic movie couples that would never be. Humphrey Bogart once lit up screens with his weirdly sexy charm, and Ingrid Bergman was the woman everyone wanted (and wanted to be). Rick (Bogart) and Ilsa (Bergman) had a love affair that predated the events of Casablanca, but Ilsa reemerges in Rick’s life when she desperately needs his help.

Reconnecting, Rick and Ilsa find themselves not quite finished with one another, their love having never quite flamed out. But the fact that they can never really be together only makes their doomed affair more ardent, especially because Rick sacrifices their love for a greater cause. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Cue swooning.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 40 seconds ago

Starfleet Academy has proven divisive to fans in large part because it is a strange brew: great actors and top-notch special effects mixed with weird characterization and writing straight out of an early aughts boner comedy. Defenders of the show have maintained that everyone just needs to give the series more time to find its space legs, and the latest episode may have effectively proved them right. “Come, Let’s Away” drops the awkward, forced humor of earlier episodes to deliver a tale full of action, romance, and higher stakes than Starfleet Academy has ever had before.

Part of what makes this particular Starfleet Academy episode so effective is the misdirection baked directly into its plot. “Come, Let’s Away” starts out with scenes of our characters hooking up, and it wisely leverages the solid chemistry between Caleb and Tarima before jumping into the main plot: a joint training exercise where Academy and War College cadets must restart a derelict starship. But when those cadets are kidnapped by killer cannibals, Chancellor Ake must turn to her old nemesis, Nus Braka, for help in saving her students’ lives. 

Somehow, Star Trek Returned

For Star Trek fans wanting Starfleet Academy to be more like the Golden Age of Star Trek, this is the episode you’ve been waiting for. First of all, it employs tropes and story beats very familiar to The Next Generation: for example, the cadets having to restart an old starship feels a lot like Riker having to get the USS Hathaway working for war games in “Peak Performance.” Speaking of Number One, “Come, Let’s Away” leans into Caleb and Tarima being the new Riker/Troi by giving them an Imzadi-esque mind link and having their shared romantic connection be a major key to resolving this plot.

While some Star Trek fans have enjoyed the show’s often lowbrow humor, I felt that this Starfleet Academy episode was much stronger for ditching the jokes and giving us an episode that plays out like a tense action thriller. From the moment they are captured, it is clear that our heroes are in mortal danger from bad guys (the Furies) who simply don’t play around. This is made abundantly clear when they partially eat a charismatic War College instructor (!) and then shoot his body out of the airlock to send a message to Starfleet. 

The New Big Bad Is Finally Scary

The Furies are so dangerous that Chancellor Ake, at the urging of Admiral Vance, requests the help of Nus Braka, a notorious space pirate who has dealt with these foes before. This is definitely a stronger performance from Paul Giamatti than we saw in the first Starfleet Academy episode, and it helps that he is written much better. While his dialogue still has a few rough edges (like when he describes himself as “wanked” and “spanked”), he mostly comes off as genuinely dangerous, and his weirdly intimate interactions with Ake make him seem less like a Scooby-Doo villain and more like a flamboyant Hannibal Lecter.

Nus Braka is actually the personification of this episode’s greatest strengths: that it’s not afraid to raise the stakes by putting likable characters in mortal danger. In addition to offing the fun new War College instructor (and beware some major spoilers from here on out), they also kill B’avi, arguably the most likable of the War College cadets. Thanks to Nus Braka completely outwitting the Federation, his buddies were able to destroy a Starfleet vessel and ransack a starbase, giving this episode a shockingly high body count.

By Their Powers Combined

“Come, Let’s Away” is a far cry from the more carefree adventures of Starfleet Academy, but the grim subject matter also lends the show something it has desperately needed: some narrative weight. Previously, the show’s constant need to undercut tension robbed various episodes of their power, like filling the big, emotional Sisko episode with jokes about flatulence and genitalia. Also, it was tough to take SAM (a fairly solid character in her own right) very seriously in that Sisko episode because she spent most of her time onscreen talking and acting like a deranged TikTok skit come to life.

But SAM really shines in “Come, Let’s Away,” utilizing her powers in a logical way to restore power to a derelict vessel. Tarima uses her powers in a similarly logical way, and once she fully unleashes her abilities to pop some dude’s heads (Scanners-style!), we see how dangerous a Betazed warrior can be. Caleb also shines, both as Tarima’s partner in telepathic crime and as someone more resourceful than the average member of either the Academy or the War College.

The Ensemble Cast Finally Shines

While the plot involved sidelining some of the main characters (Darem and the Doctor mostly do little more than twiddle their thumbs), this episode of Starfleet Academy did a great job of highlighting most of the ensemble cast. The youngsters got to finally stop being quippy cadets and put their training to use in a life-and-death situation, and they all brought unique strengths to the table while working as a team. In this way, this is probably the most traditional Star Trek episode we have seen so far, and to my surprise, it really left me wanting more.

From the beginning, I have been one of Starfleet Academy’s harshest critics, but it’s not because I want the show to fail; the cast is talented, the SFX are beautiful, and the writers (especially Tawny Newsome) are passionate about the franchise. However, episodes are frequently hampered by bad comedy and low-stakes, teenage drama. To make matters worse, the show occasionally makes huge changes to the lore (like making most Klingons extinct in an offscreen event) that inevitably upset old-school Star Trek fans.

However, “Come, Let’s Away” ditches both the forced comedy and the teen drama, and we get to see these young characters deal with the most Star Trek situation of them all: an Away Team mission that goes catastrophically wrong. The characters are competent, the stakes are high, and the new villains are generally loathsome, adding to the show’s own lure rather than (ahem) cannibalizing older lore. Speaking of loathsome, Giamatti’s Nus Braka establishes himself as the guy you love to hate, and the combination of his master manipulation and his casual cruelty has made this former joke of a character as chilling as Gul Dukat ever was.  

Is The New Star Trek Series Finally Worth Watching?

Only time will tell if Starfleet Academy can keep up the breathtaking momentum of this episode: Vance promises that capturing Braka is now Starfleet’s highest priority, and I can only imagine Chancellor Ake (who was uncharacteristically subdued for most of this episode) is itching for payback. This (plus Tarima being in critical condition) certainly implies that the rest of the season will be relatively serious, which is a relief to fans like me who have hated the hokey humor. Of course, the show has been wildly uneven from the beginning, so we may very well be back to goofy shenanigans in the very next episode.

Optimistically, though, I want to believe that Starfleet Academy writers have successfully pulled the rug on our expectations, pivoting the show from a goofy YA comedy fest to something more in line with the golden age of Star Trek. This would be a great way to thread the needle of appealing to older and younger fans, and it would even match the general arc of most YA stories (which inevitably pit their young protagonists against serious, seemingly unstoppable foes). If (and it’s admittedly a big if) that happens, Starfleet Academy could do what NuTrek has been failing to do for nearly a decade: bring generations of fans together in their love of the greatest sci-fi franchise ever made.

Like salt and pepper or peanut butter and jelly, Kevin Costner and the West go together. Since the early days of his on-screen career, the actor has had an affinity for traveling back through time to the days when folks were attempting to claim property up to the Mississippi and beyond. His obsession with all things cowboys and pioneers was even the primary drive behind his jump from working in front of the camera to behind it when, in 1990, Costner gave filmmaking a shot for the very first time with his critically acclaimed epic Western, Dances With Wolves, in which he also starred. Since then, his love for cowboy hats and cattle wranglers has continued to grow tenfold and nowadays, it seems that every project he’s involved with has some sort of Western flair.

At the height of his Western fascination, Costner starred in the hit series Yellowstone, which saw him appear in the role of John Dutton — a family man, ranch owner, and cold-hearted killer — who will do anything to hold onto his power and ensure his family’s ranch reins supreme. During his tenure on the Taylor Sheridan-created production, the performer landed numerous nominations and wins on the awards season circuit, including a Golden Globe. But, eventually, he grew bored with the series and suffered a falling out with Sheridan, which sent him packing and onto the next thing.

As one could have seen coming a mile away, the next thing was a Western, but this time Costner wanted to play by his own rules. Returning to a position that he feels increasingly comfortable in, Costner set out to not only star in but also direct his passion project, a movie called Horizon: An American Saga, which is meant to span four movies in total. Unfortunately, the only one that managed to see the light of day (so far) is the first installment, which came out back in 2024. As elusive as the rest of the films in Costner’s costly film series, time is running out for audiences to stream the first part of Horizon, as it will soon ride off into the sunset and leave HBO Max in the dust on February 28.

Will ‘Horizon’ Ever Continue?

Set against the backdrop of the great American West, Horizon focuses its lens on a handful of different characters all fighting for survival during some of the country’s deadliest years. Despite having plenty of hope and sinking a massive amount of his funds into it, Costner’s first chapter in his hopeful franchise faltered at the box office. And, while the second movie is said to be completely done, it hasn’t yet been released. In the two years since the first installment galloped into cinemas, the director and his team have faced plenty of scrutiny and scandal. From financial troubles to allegations of sexual harassment, it seems like the wheels have completely fallen off this covered wagon.

Head over to HBO Max before February 28 to see Costner’s passion project come to life.

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Release Date

June 28, 2024

Runtime

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182 minutes

Producers

Howard Kaplan, Mark Gillard

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