Warning: This post contains spoilers for the ending of Our Unwritten Seoul.

For a K-drama series that begins with a somewhat outlandish twin-swap conceit, Our Unwritten Seoul remains surprisingly grounded throughout its 12-episode run. The clues were there from the beginning, of course. Underachieving 30-something Mi-ji (Melo Movie’s Park Bo-young) offers to switch places with her identical twin sister, burnt out office worker Mi-rae (also Park), because Mi-rae is distressed enough to injure herself by jumping out of a third-story window to avoid returning to her toxic workplace. Hijinks, these are not.

In writer Lee Kang’s slice-of-life script, the melodrama-like set-up is merely an excuse to jumpstart the exploration of some heavy, complex, and relatable themes, including learning to live with disability, workplace harassment, and moving past the kind of grief that gets its claws into you. The Netflix series released its final episode on June 29, bringing to a close one of the most quietly affecting Korean dramas of 2025. Let’s break down Our Unwritten Seoul’s heartfelt ending…

Read more: The 15 Best Romantic K-Dramas on Netflix

Mi-ji finally leaves her room

When Mi-ji was a teen, she dreamed of using her athleticism to carve a life path for herself—and, in the process, to finally get the kind of attention from her mother, Kim Ok-hui (Love Next Door’s Jang Young-nam), that Ok-hui always seemed to reserve only for Mi-rae.

However, when an ankle injury abruptly ends Mi-ji’s track career, she falls into a deep depression, only graduating from high school because Mi-rae attends classes for her. Mi-ji develops a severe agoraphobia, and spends three years in her room. It’s not until her grandmother falls and injures herself in their family home that Mi-ji forces herself to leave, walking miles to get her halmoni help.

Years later, when Our Unwritten Seoul begins, Mi-ji still feels stuck in that room. She may go out and about, visiting her grandmother at the nursing home, working odd jobs around town, and hanging out with neighborhood friends, but she’s still afraid to take a chance. She stays in her rural hometown because it feels safe. Because, in many ways, she’s still afraid to leave her room. Her decision to swap places with Mi-rae is driven by sisterly concern, but it also pushes Mi-ji out of her comfort zone for the first time in years.

Heading into the final few episodes of Our Unwritten Seoul, Mi-ji and Mi-rae have already switched back. But Mi-ji is still in Seoul, and is starting to ask herself what she truly wants to do with her life. It helps that she has someone there to support her…

Mi-ji and Ho-su choose to stay by each other’s side

Mi-ji and Lee Ho-su have loved one another since high school. Their classmates and parents always assumed it was bookworms Mi-rae and Ho-su that clicked, but it was actually polar opposites Mi-ji and Ho-su. Mi-ji brought Ho-su out of his shell when he was the intense new kid in school who, unbeknownst to his classmates, was learning how to live with the disabilities he developed after the car accident that killed his father. Mi-ji and Ho-su meant a great deal to one another, but through a series of miscommunications, they never realized their love was requited. Ho-su left for Seoul to go to school and become an elite lawyer, and Mi-ji stayed in their hometown.

When Mi-ji comes to Seoul years later, Ho-su is one of the first people who realizes that Mi-ji has swapped places with Mi-rae. Even before that knowledge is revealed, Ho-su becomes Mi-ji’s closest confidante. Mi-ji eventually admits who she is, and the two confess their feelings to one another. For a while, everything is great. However, when Ho-su realizes his hearing loss is accelerating, he breaks up with Mi-ji, convinced that he will become a burden to her.

Ho-su’s issues with relying on loved ones didn’t start with Mi-ji. After Ho-su’s parents died, he was raised by his stepmother, Yeom Bun-hong (Crash Landing On You’s Kim Sun-young), and he never truly dealt with his survivor’s guilt. That guilt is compounded by the fact that the car accident that killed Ho-su’s father left Ho-su with disabilities that require accommodations. 

When Bun-hong finds out about Ho-su’s additional hearing loss from his doctor, she confronts her son for not telling her. When he confesses he has always assumed Bun-hong resented having to take care of him, Bun-hong sets him straight. After her husband’s death, Ho-su is what kept her going. She loves Ho-su, and love means staying by someone’s side through the wins and the losses.

The conversation helps Ho-su realize that he wants Mi-ji by his side, if she wants to be there. Meanwhile, Ho-su’s initial decision to push Mi-ji away has Mi-ji reflecting on how it must have felt for her loved ones when she isolated herself during her depression. The two reunite, and commit to one another. They want to be together, through it all.

Read more: The Netflix Korean Dramas to Look Out For in 2025

Mi-rae brings her company to justice

Like Mi-ji, Mi-rae has been struggling in adulthood. She has always felt a pressure to be the smart, successful twin, and has prioritized living up to those expectations above all else. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t come easily to her; she works hard for every success. After failing to pass the civil service exam several times, Mi-rae gives up and finds a solid job working at a state-owned financial management company called KFMC. 

Mi-rae may not love her life, but she is surviving. Then, a married manager makes an unwelcome advance one night. She tries to move on without fanfare, but rumors about her promiscuity are encouraged by the manager, leading to further workplace bullying. Inspired by her supportive colleague Kim Su-yeon (Park Ye-young), who has also faced workplace bullying, Mi-ji files an official complaint. Then, Su-yeon leaves, and Mi-rae begins to feel truly alone.

Mi-ji’s offer to temporarily swap places with Mi-rae, like they did when they were young, gives Mi-rae a much-needed break. She starts a seasonal job Mi-ji has lined up: as a worker on a strawberry farm owned by successful investment entrepreneur Han Se-jin (Ryu Kyung-soo). Se-jin has taken over the farm from his late grandfather, but has no idea what he is doing. With Mi-rae’s help, the two get the farm running, and heal some of their unresolved trauma in the meantime. 

With Se-jin’s support, Mi-rae feels able to return to Seoul and face the toxic management she left behind. Not only does Mi-rae file the harassment claim again, but she uses evidence gathered by Tae-i (Hong Sung-won) to expose KFMC’s corrupt deal with a construction company. Tae-i is the younger brother of Mi-rae’s former colleague, Su-yeon. He began working at the company to find a way to get justice for his sister, who has sequestered herself in her room after being bullied out of KFMC. 

While the plot’s conclusion feels a bit rushed, especially knowing how much Mi-rae suffered at her office, Mi-rae gets her justice. The manager who sexually harassed loses his job and gets a suspended sentence in court. The department head who prioritized his corrupt, money-making scheme over a safe office for his workers is transferred to the regional office no one wants to work at. And Su-yeon leaves her room, much to her brother’s relief. 

Kim Ro-sa and Sang-wol’s love story

One of the major subplots in Our Unwritten Seoul concerns Kim Ro-sa (Won Mi-kyung), an older woman who runs a restaurant in the block KFMC wants to develop. When Mi-ji first replaces Mi-rae at the company, she is tasked with convincing Kim Ro-sa to sell her restaurant for the development deal. Ro-sa, who has been running the restaurant for 35 years, refuses. 

However, Kim Ro-sa has been hiding a major secret. As we learn in Episode 10, Kim Ro-sa’s real name is Sang-wol. She and the real Kim Ro-sa grew up together in an orphanage and it is implied that they were in love. Temporarily torn apart by life’s circumstances, Sang-wol finds Ro-sa again when Ro-sa is married with a baby. Her husband has abused her, leading to her son being born with developmental disabilities. Sang-wol takes Ro-sa and her son and they build a life together. 

When Ro-sa’s husband catches back up with them, Ro-sa and Sang-wol kill him in self-defense.

Because of the baby, Sang-wol takes the fall. When they are reunited again after Sang-wol’s release, Sang-wol struggles to find work because of her label as a murderer. Ro-sa convinces Sang-wol to use her name. They share it, really, until Ro-sa’s death from cancer. Before she dies, Ro-sa admits her son to a facility, and asks Sang-wol to keep using her name. Officially, Sang-wol dies and Kim Ro-sa lives on.

Sang-wol, who is illiterate due to her dyslexia and poor upbringing, plans to bring this secret to her grave. But, when the KFMC lawyer tasked with getting Kim Ro-sa to sell her restaurant uncovers the truth, he frames Sang-wol as a killer and an identity thief. It doesn’t help that Sang-wol has not only been using Ro-sa’s name to run the restaurant, but also taking credit for Ro-sa’s poetry, which has gained recognition after the real Ro-sa’s death. 

With Mi-ji and Ho-su’s help, Sang-wol is finally able to tell the true story of her life with Ro-sa. Sang-wol has been using the money garnered from Ro-sa’s poetry book sales to fund a college scholarship. Over the years, dozens of kids, including Lee Ho-su, have benefitted from the fund. Mi-ji and Ho-su read the documents Ro-sa left for Sang-wol. They include an official letter making it clear that everything Ro-sa had belongs to Sang-wol. 

Later, Mi-ji and Ho-su encourage Sang-wol to learn how to read. By series’ end, she is able to read Ro-sa’s poetry, some of which is about Ro-sa’s love for her Sang-wol. 

Mi-ji and Mi-rae’s grandmother dies

To Mi-ji, Kang Wol-sun (The Potato Lab’s Cha Mi-kyung) isn’t just her grandmother. She is the person who helped raise Mi-ji and Mi-rae after the death of their dad. She is the person who saw an act of survival in Mi-ji’s three-year isolation. She is the person who understood Mi-ji when no one else seemed to be able to. So, when Wol-sun has a serious heart attack in the final episode, Mi-ji is devastated. At first, she refuses to accept that her grandmother is dying, but Wol-sun’s request that Ok-hui, Mi-ji, and Mi-rae bring her home is granted. 

When Wol-sun dies, Mi-ji is sleeping next to her. She dreams of her grandmother saying goodbye. In the dream, Wol-sun is able-bodied and clear of mind in a way that she hasn’t been in the years since her fall. She speaks excitedly to Mi-ji of the adventures she is planning to go on, but tells Mi-ji that she will hold on longer, if Mi-ji needs her to. Mi-ji lets her go. 

Mi-ji finds her way forward

Sang-wol offers to pass on her restaurant to Mi-ji when she retires, but Mi-ji decides she wants to take on a different career path. She goes to college to become a therapist, perhaps inspired by her own struggles with agoraphobia and depression. Meanwhile, both Ho-su and Mi-ji are learning Korean sign language. Ho-su uses the language ability to serve clients with hearing loss. 

Do Mi-ji and Ho-su end up together?

Yes. Following a one-year time jump in the series finale, we learn that Ho-su has bought an engagement ring for Mi-ji. However, when Mi-ji accidentally finds it, the two discuss not getting married until after Mi-ji finishes her graduate degree and gets her first paycheck. In the meantime, however, they play on moving in together. But don’t tell their mothers.

Do Mi-rae and Se-jin end up together?

The relationship status of Mi-rae and Se-jin is less conclusive at the end of Our Unwritten Seoul. They remain “business partners,” with Mi-rae running Se-jin’s grandfather’s strawberry farm and acting as an investor in Mi-rae’s financial investment advice blog. 

In the final episode, Se-jin returns from his time in America and immediately goes to find Mi-rae in Seoul. Mi-rae blows off her plans with Mi-ji and Ho-su to travel back to the strawberry farm with Se-jin. It is implied the two will start a romantic relationship, but never confirmed. The viewer can choose for herself.

Does Our Unwritten Seoul have a happy ending?

Yes, Our Unwritten Seoul has a happy ending—and a pretty realistic one, too. The characters face their share of hardship in the final episode, most notably the death of Wol-sun, and the story recognizes that there will be more reasons to grieve in the future. However, the series main character, Mi-ji, has been able to move past the depression that kept her from chasing her ambitions for years. She has plans to start grad school to become a therapist. She is in a happy and healthy relationship with boyfriend Ho-su. She is loved by her family and friends, including her mother, sister, and Sang-wol. She is no longer afraid of what’s next.

The last three entries in the Jurassic Park movie franchise—Jurassic World (2015) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), both directed by Colin Trevorrow, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), from J.A. Bayona—may have been big money-earners at the box office, but they all lacked one essential ingredient: affection, or at least respect, for the very creatures who made them possible in the first place. All three movies are packed with dinosaurs—dinosaurs running, dinosaurs being sad and winsome, dinosaurs showing ruthless disregard for human life. And still, these poor behemoths came off as little more than an afterthought, thunderous, costly background noise for the movies’ boring human stars. Somehow, Chris Pratt playing an ace dinosaur whisperer was supposed to be more interesting than the magnificent, mysterious creatures to whom he was whispering—they were left to stumble around in a fog of stiff dialogue and stupid plot twists. What choice did they have? They’d been out of work for years, since 2001’s Jurassic Park III. Unlike munchworthy foliage, good roles for dinosaurs don’t just grow on trees.

But once again these forlorn losers of the extinction lottery have a Hollywood vehicle worthy of them: Jurassic World Rebirth, directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp (adapted, of course, from ideas originally generated by novelist Michael Crichton), features likable humans as well as some pleasantly cartoonish distasteful ones, and lots of dinosaurs just doing their thing. The movie takes place in a future, or a present, where humans have lost interest in dinosaurs and the theme parks they used to inhabit. Dinosaurs are now just nuisances, doing things like wandering into city traffic at inconvenient times. Most of the remaining beasties now live on remote islands near the equator, and most humans would conveniently like to forget them.

But not Rupert Friend’s big-pharma schemer Martin Krebs, on a mission to extract dino DNA which will be used in a revolutionary life-saving drug. The DNA can’t come from the small, cute, harmless dinosaurs; it must be extracted from the big, drooly ones with the massive choppers, while they’re still alive. Krebs hires covert ops specialist Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to help with that dirty work, offering her a salary with so many zeroes tacked onto it that she can hardly refuse. Plus, she’s still reeling from the recent traumatic loss of a colleague. What better way to recover from heartbreak than to get back to work? As Johansson plays her, Zora is pleasingly smart and ruthless, eager to get the best deal for herself. She’s also fearless about facing down seemingly insurmountable circumstances, which is why she makes the big bucks.

And she knows the right people: she enlists old friend and cohort Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), who owns a boat that can get the group to the island where the three hulking dino breeds, bearing the DNA necessary for Krebs’ miracle drug, live in relative peace. Krebs and Zora have also secured the services of Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), a dreamy paleontologist who loves dinosaurs so much it hurts—at one point, he has the chance to touch the crinkly leg of a live brontosaurus, and it brings tears to his bespectacled eyes. You may be tempted to laugh, but Bailey plays it straight, and is somehow adorable.

The adventures of these mercenaries-on-a-mission will dovetail with those of a small family, who were sailing around in the ocean for kicks when an unpleasant prehistoric sea beast overturned their boat. (Dad Reuben is played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo; Audrina Miranda plays his younger, dino-fearing daughter—she’s cute without wearing out her welcome.) Edwards (director of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the 2014 Godzilla) and Koepp (who wrote the scripts for the first two Jurassic Park movies) know what they’re doing here: they locate the perfect ratio of human business to dinosaur antics, favoring the dinosaurs when in doubt.

And the dinos are great: there are swimming ones, slicing through the water with their gorgeous, seashell-speckled spines, only to emerge from the surface as scary-looking hulks with angry faces; flying ones, swooping from the sky to capture prey in their merciless talons; a harmless, adorable baby dino with a penchant for licorice (E.T. lives on); and one very upset mutant giant who peers from his melon-shaped head through a set of way-too-small eyes—he’s a Barney gone wrong, with nothing to do with his anger but stomp around his island prison on a rampage. But Jurassic World Rebirth isn’t all terror and mayhem. Moments of glorious beauty abound: the family of brontos that so enchant Dr. Loomis are particularly regal, their tails swirling around them like ribbons as they graze in a sunlit field.

There is some moderate child endangerment in Jurassic World Rebirth, and though I and perhaps you could do with less of that, it wouldn’t be a Jurassic Park movie without it. And the warnings of humankind’s imminent demise are perhaps more pronounced here than they were in the previous installments. At one point Dr. Loomis, the wisest of all these characters, pronounces solemnly, “When the Earth gets tired of us, she will shake us off like a summer wind.” That’s movie language for sure—real humans don’t talk like that. But then, movie language is part of what we go to the movies for, and sometimes it presents the unruly truth of things we’d rather not think about. Meanwhile, we do have some time—time to stem at least some of the damage we’ve done as a species, and time to indulge in the fantasy of prehistoric creatures big and small, carnivore and veg, deadly and friendly, resurrected from the sleep of extinction. That, too, is something the movies can give us, at least until they themselves go the way of the dinosaur.

We’re going to need a bigger boat for Netflix’s July lineup.

For the 50th anniversary of Jaws, find Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws 3, and Jaws: The Revenge on Netflix July 15.

On July 4, Netflix is releasing its own shark movie All the Sharks, a documentary series about shark experts photographing sharks around the world.

And speaking of oceans: catch Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Thirteen, and Ocean’s Twelve before they leave the streaming site on July 1.

Here’s everything coming to Netflix in July 2025—and what’s leaving.

Here are the Netflix originals coming in July 2025

July 1

Attack on London: Hunting the 7/7 Bombers

Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel

July 2

The Old Guard 2

Tour de France: Unchained (Season 3)

July 3

Countdown: Taylor vs. Serrano

The Sandman: Season 2, Volume 1

July 4

All the Sharks

July 5

The Summer Hikaru Died

July 8

Better Late Than Single

Nate Jackson: Super Funny

Quarterback (Season 2)

Trainwreck: The Real Project X

July 9

Building the Band

The Gringo Hunters

Under a Dark Sun

Ziam

July 10

7 Bears

Brick

Leviathan

Off Road

Too Much

July 11

Aap Jaisa Koi

Almost Cops

Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano 3

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Destination Wedding

July 14

Apocalypse in the Tropics

Sakamoto Days: Season 1 Part 2

July 15

Trainwreck: Balloon Boy

July 16

Amy Bradley Is Missing

July 17

Catalog

Community Squad (Season 2)

Untamed

July 18

Almost Family

Delirium

I’m Still a Superstar

Superstar

Vir Das: Fool Volume

Wall to Wall

July 22

Trainwreck: P.I. Moms

July 23

Critical: Between Life and Death

Letters from the Past

July 24

A Normal Woman

Hitmakers

My Melody & Kuromi

The Sandman: Season 2 Volume 2

July 25

Happy Gilmore 2

Trigger

The Winning Try

July 29

Dusty Slay: Wet Heat

Trainwreck: Storm Area 51

WWE: Unreal

July 30

Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes

Unspeakable Sins

July 31

An Honest Life

Glass Heart

Leanne

Marked

The Sandman: Season 2 (Special Episode)

Here are the TV shows and movies coming to Netflix in July 2025

July 1

17 Again

Annie (1982)

Blow

Born on the Fourth of July

Captain Phillips

The Deer Hunter

Friday Night Lights

Here Comes the Boom

The Hitman’s Bodyguard

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Horrible Bosses

The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid Part II

The Karate Kid Part III

Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible II

Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Mom: Seasons 1-8

The Notebook

Pacific Rim

PAW Patrol: Seasons 2-3

Portlandia: Seasons 1-8

The Sweetest Thing

Tangerine

V for Vendetta

White Chicks

Yellowjackets: Season 2

Zathura: A Space Adventure

July 3

Mr. Robot (Seasons 1-4)

July 8

A Star is Born

Sullivan’s Crossing: Seasons 1-2

July 9

Mad Max: Fury Road

July 10

Sneaky Pete (Seasons 1-3)

July 15

Entitled (Season 1)

Jaws

Jaws 2

Jaws 3

Jaws: The Revenge

July 16

Mamma Mia!

Wanted

July 19

Eight for Silver

July 21

The Hunting Wives (Season 1)

The Steve Harvey Show (Seasons 1-6)

July 23

Hightown (Seasons 1-3)

House of Lies (Seasons 1-5)

July 28

The Lazarus Project (Season 1-2)

Here’s what’s leaving Netflix in July 2025

July 1

13 Going on 30

28 Days

3 Ninjas: Kick Back

Annabelle

Colombiana

Constantine

Couples Retreat

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Do the Right Thing

Draft Day

Dune: Part Two

Friends with Money

Geostorm

Get Him to the Greek

Hotel Transylvania

Hotel Transylvania 2

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Loudermilk: Seasons 1-3

The Net

The Nun

Obsessed

Ocean’s Eleven

Ocean’s Thirteen

Ocean’s Twelve

Resident Evil: Retribution

Runaway Jury

Sicario: Day of the Soldado

Sisters

Twilight

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2

The Wonder Years: Seasons 1-2

July 3

Insecure: Seasons 1-5

July 4

80 for Brady

July 5

The Addams Family

July 8

This Is Us: Seasons 1-6

July 13

Life or Something Like It

July 15

Barbie

July 16

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

July 22

Call My Agent!: Seasons 1-4

July 25

Scream VI

July 26

Wynonna Earp: Seasons 1-4

July 28

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

July 30

The Kingdom

British punk-rock and hip-hop duo Bob Vylan will not be able to perform in the U.S., where they were scheduled to open for American singer grandson’s tour in October and November, after a controversial performance at the Glastonbury Festival in England over the weekend.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau posted on X on Monday that the Department has revoked the duo’s visas “in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants.” Landau added: “Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.” 

At the Glastonbury Festival, which is aired annually on BBC, one of the group’s members, Bobby Vylan, led the crowd on Saturday to chant, “Death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, to the shock of organizers and onlookers.

The duo has faced a firestorm of criticism in the U.K., and British police said they are examining videos of the incident for possible criminal violations.

The Israeli embassy in the U.K. said it was “deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage” and that “when such messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festivalgoers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalisation of extremist language and the glorification of violence.”

“We are appalled by the statements made from the West Holts stage by Bob Vylan yesterday,” Emily Eavis, the co-organizer of Glastonbury and daughter of the festival’s founder, said in a statement. “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the Festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned Vylan’s actions on the Glastonbury stage, saying, “There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech.” He also demanded that the BBC answer questions about streaming the controversial remarks.

In a statement, the BBC said Vylan’s expressions “were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.” It explained that the performance was aired on its channels because the BBC team was dealing with “a live situation” but added that “with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance.”

Starmer had previously said that it was “not appropriate” for Irish rap trio Kneecap, who have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and accused the U.S. and U.K. of enabling it, to be performing at the festival, and the BBC had decided in advance not to broadcast Kneecap’s performance live to “ensure that our programming meets our editorial guidelines.”

Bob Vylan performed before Kneecap’s set, where festival attendees had gathered in anticipation with Palestinian flags. Singer Bobby Vylan first led the crowd to chant, “Free, free, Palestine!” Then he interjected: “Alright, but have you heard this one though?” before leading a chant of “Death, death to the IDF!”

The chant recalled the phrasing of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” chants by Iranians as well as “Death to Arabs” chants by Israelis.

Following the controversy that ensued, Bobby Vylan wrote “I said what I said” on Instagram, where he shared a statement that explained: “Teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place.”

Here’s what to know.

Who is Bob Vylan?

Bob Vylan is composed of singer-guitarist Bobby Vylan and drummer Bobbie Vylan, and they collectively refer to themselves as “the Bobs.” The two have used stage names reportedly to maintain privacy, but some U.K. media have since identified Bobby Vylan as 34-year-old Pascal Robinson-Foster.

The duo, which formed in Ipswich in 2017 and has more than 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, is known for its politically charged music and performances.

According to the Independent, their songs “often speak out against racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity and far right politics,” and in past performances Bobby would preface their song “Pretty Songs” by saying “violence is the only language that some people understand.” The paper also said that Bobby has been deliberately provocative in past performances, such as by swinging a baseball bat at the crowd or wearing the soccer jersey of the rival team of where they were performing.

Last year, Bobby told the Irish Times that he was infuriated by bands that didn’t speak up more about Gaza. The U.K. and U.S. governments’ response, he said, “but also the people’s response – the people of these countries … will be remembered forever. It will be documented throughout history. If you’re asking yourself, ‘Oh, what would you have done during slavery? What would you have done throughout the Holocaust?’ You’re doing it now – right now. With what it is happening over there in Palestine, you’re doing it.”

Since the Glastonbury performance, the duo was reportedly dropped by United Talent Agency.

What are the reactions in the U.S.?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R, Texas) reposted video of the incident on X, and commented: “Truly sick. Thousands of people screaming ‘Death to the IDF.’ This is the base of the Democrat Party.”

StopAntisemitism, an advocacy group in the U.S., flagged on X that the duo has scheduled performances in the U.S. later this year and said of Bobby Vylan: “This antisemite must have his visa denied/rescinded – his hate is not welcome here.” 

Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida responded to the post, saying “On it.”

Leo Terrell, who chairs the Justice Department’s task force to combat antisemitism, also responded to StopAntisemitism’s post, which he was tagged in.

“These abhorrent chants, which included calls for the death of members of the Israeli Defense Forces, are abhorrent and have no place in any civil society,” Terrell posted on X. “We understand that Mr. Vylan is planning to travel to the United States as part of the Inertia Tour. In response, Mr. Terrell’s Task Force will be reaching out to the U.S. Department of State on Monday to determine what measures are available to address the situation and to prevent the promotion of violent antisemitic rhetoric in the United States.”

After Landau’s announcement, Terrell thanked the State Department for “moving so fast on this.” Bobby Vylan “is a person who wants to incite violence and we’re not going to allow that under the Trump Administration,” Terrell said on Fox News. “The Trump Administration is not going to allow antisemitism to exist in this country.”

A State Department spokesperson told TIME before Landau’s announcement that it does not publicly discuss the details of individual cases but that the Department “is committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety.” The spokesperson added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been clear that “a U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right.”

Trump Administration immigration officials announced in April that they would screen visa applicants’ social media accounts for “antisemitic” content. “There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” said Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin at the time.

The Administration has also claimed to reject censorship at home and abroad, with the State Department announcing visa restrictions in May for foreign officials who restrict “protected expression” in the U.S. “Free speech,” Rubio said in the announcement, “is among the most cherished rights we enjoy as Americans.”

Jamie Lee Curtis manifested her role on The Bear. She remembers watching the show’s first episode—specifically a scene between Carmen “Carmy” and Natalie, when the chef doesn’t have enough money for his restaurant’s food supply, so his sister brings him his jacket to sell. Before she leaves, she asks him a question. “Have you called mom?” He hasn’t. “You should,” she tells him. At that moment, sitting at home inside what she calls her “witness protection cabin,” Curtis began envisioning what their mother might be like. “Oh, I think I’m going to be her,” she thought.

It didn’t take long. In “Fishes,” the sixth episode of the second season, she debuted as Donna Berzatto, embodying Carmy and Natalie’s mother whose alcoholism and mania has turned her home—and large family gatherings—into a mental trauma zone. Though very different from her character, Curtis could relate to Donna’s substance abuse issues and mothering challenges, and leaned into her most toxic traits. By the end of the electric and overwhelming episode, for which Curtis won an Emmy, Donna has drunkenly left the Christmas dinner table and crashed a car into her house, effectively fracturing her relationship with her son.

But in Season 4, Donna gets a chance to make amends. About five years after the disastrous holiday, she spends the majority of the ninth episode, “Tonnato,” sharing her regrets with Carmy inside her home. While looking at old family photos together, Donna admits she’s been sober a year and then reads an apology letter, acknowledging the pain she’s caused and explaining the reasons for her poor choices. Carmy eventually reciprocates, sharing his guilt for leaving the family and expressing his love for her. It’s a powerful, emotional exchange that crystallizes the season’s redemptive, healing themes. Then, as an act of reconciliation, Carmy prepares for his mother a chicken dinner that he learned to make while training as a chef at The French Laundry.

Here, Curtis unpacks that emotionally charged sequence as she talks about the experience of playing Donna, and how her own life informed parts of the character. 

I’ll be honest, I get anxiety every time your character appears on the show—and I think it’s mostly because we’ve only really seen you through Carmy’s perspective.

What was genius from the beginning was you don’t meet Donna for 16 episodes. The anxiety is built up through hearing about her from other people and the amount of anxiety Carmen carries. 

She’s designed to create instability. What I found beautiful is that in episode 10 of Season 2, when they’re opening the restaurant and Donna’s out front chain smoking—I said to [creator Chris Storer], “I think [Donna] is sober four months. She has enough self knowledge now to know that she has an effect on people, particularly when she’s drinking. And so the pacing in front of the restaurant is the “Do I? Don’t I?” push and pull of addiction, which, when you’re newly sober, you’re very fragile.

You show up in a couple episodes this season, specifically for Episode 9’s conversation with Carmen. How does it feel for you to parachute in and out of Donna’s headspace every year? 

We shot Season 3 and 4 simultaneously. So the truth is, I did the scene with Sugar in the hospital, which was an entire episode. And two days later, I did my part at the wedding. And then the next day, my scene with Jeremy at the house. So it was a lot of Donna, which was not dissimilar to the Christmas episode where I came in for like a three-day bombardment and then was gone.

I’ve been an actress since I was 19. I’ve done a lot of different work. Some of it good, some of it great, some of it awful—much of it awful. Everybody works differently. I also didn’t know how Chris worked before we met on the Christmas episode. Our entire relationship was a text relationship where he said, “So excited you’re coming!” And I said, “How do you want her hair to look?” And he sent me a picture of Monica Vitti. And then I said, “What about her nails?” And he sent me a picture of the desperate housewives of New York and that was the entirety of the background that I got from him before I walked in the kitchen the day we shot “Fishes.” I got a sense that he understood that I was going to show up fully-loaded ready to shoot. That gave me a lot of confidence and a lot of freedom because I knew, having seen the level of intensity, what the show was like.

What was your initial impression when you read this scene between Donna and Carmy, and how did you want to approach it?

People forget that she hasn’t seen Carmen since Christmas five years earlier. It’s not like there’s a chyron that’s under the screen that reminds the audience at the wedding. And obviously she has seen the rest of the family. She attended the birth of her granddaughter. She goes to family birthdays. She sees Lee. She sees Jimmy. So there’s an indication that she is a part of this interesting melting pot family, but she hasn’t seen Carmen. So that moment when she sees him at the wedding—and the way all his friends come around him and are like, “Hey, they need you in the kitchen right now.” Donna knows what’s going on. She’s very smart so she understands that this is a big moment for both of them. And then she has that lovely scene with Sydney and then she gets the f-ck out, because she understands. In recovery, there’s a phrase, “We suit up and show up.” So Donna is suiting up and showing up. And of course who does she run into? Michelle.

And Michelle says, “Are you good?” And we all know that question is Donna’s fire starter.

Right. That is the fire starter, one of those clicking flame things that we all have in our houses to light matches. It’s that click. And her response, which is, “I’m good.” And then get the f-ck out. I’m not going to play Michelle. I’m going to go. And so we’ve teed it up beautifully. 

Yep.

I’m sober. I’ve been sober a long time. I talk to a lot of sober people. Part of being sober is acknowledging the past. There is a process within being a sober alcoholic or sober drug addict that in order to move freely into the future, you have to acknowledge the past. I don’t think Donna wanted to acknowledge it with him for a long time. I think she’s been working on that for the better part of a year. She’s had that little piece of paper in her desk drawer, and when he comes over, I think the intention was to see him and keep it light and polite—another phrase we use in recovery. And I think that was her plan until she started going through the pictures and saw Mikey.

Yeah, I wondering if you wrote that letter yourself.

It was from the script, but of course I did! 

Was that a cathartic experience—thinking about what that symbolizes generally for a mother to a son, but then also specifically for Donna to Carmy?

Very much cathartic. We both knew what we’re doing. The script is beautiful. I learned that having a kid who you don’t know how to help is one of the most powerless experiences as a parent. I personally have a child with special needs. I have a child who has a learning difference. And the powerlessness you feel when you can’t actually help them—you can find people who can help them, but you can’t. So the part of that scene that gets me every time is when she talks about Mike. Because clearly Mike had that problem since he was a little boy. And being a parent and not being able to help your kid and not knowing what to do to help them—and finding that alcohol just made it all more palatable and easy—to play a woman who has struggled with that, and then to have the beautiful writing that articulates that exact powerlessness and turmoil, and resulting shame and self-hatred, and then the addiction on top of it—I just thought it was a beautifully constructed.

The line that hits me the hardest throughout your interplay is when you tell Carmy, “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, and I did that.” Was there a line or a moment in this conversation that impacted you the most?

Oh yeah—what I just said about Mike. I did that as a statement of fact. I have to live with that. She also says it to Sugar in the hospital when Sugar says, “You scared me and I don’t want my baby to feel scared.” I said, “I scared you?” Hearing that you have that effect on a human being’s life is powerful. And so I can totally accept that we’re operating as strangers in this family. That is when she really is showing the pain and suffering of her own childhood, her marriage, her being a mother to three. That is when Carmen really softens and says, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t there for you.” What does Leonard Cohen say? “There has to be cracks because that’s where the light comes in.” That’s the moment when you understand that Carmen is now understanding the multitude of Donna and what she has struggled with.

What was it like working with Jeremy that day?

I feel very motherly toward all three of these kids. I’ve stayed a little in contact with them in the most cursory way. I’m not pretending we’re buddies, but I also reach out occasionally. So he and I have that. Again, not with any supposition that it’s more than it is. He’s just a beautiful performer. We use the term scene partner a lot in actor talk, but he’s a scene partner. We don’t rehearse it. We don’t talk about it. We stay away from each other until it begins, and then it begins. And he has beautiful eyes, and they are expressive and soulful and sorrowful and very alive at times and very emotional at times. And I think you see all of that in this whole season, but in that scene in particular. And then the coup de grace, which is him cooking for her.

I really love that he goes back to his time at French Laundry where he learned to make roast chicken. Do you feel like a meal is one of the kindest gifts you can give somebody?

For sure. I’m not a foodie. I was raised by a very skinny woman. Food was not a friend in a generation of women in her industry who starved themselves under the tutelage of the studio system. My mother was incredibly beautiful and she held it all the way through her life. While many of her other friends succumbed to middle age, she starved it away. So I was raised around cereal and a grilled cheese sandwich, which would be like gold for me. But apparently I make really good penne with butter, garlic salt and a little parmesan cheese and my elder daughter, Annie, was talking with her friends about memories in their high school years of having me make that penne. Hearing that that is a memory for my daughter is something comforting.

I’m kind of embarrassed by it because it’s not a French Laundry chicken. And yet the act of making it and the act of receiving it as something special is very moving to me. Of course Carmy is going to truss and baste and bake and broil a beautiful chicken for his mother. It’s a wordless moment and, needless to say, very moving. It’s very clear that there’s a path forward through that act that is him basically saying, “I’m sorry that I didn’t kind of meet you, that I stayed away from you and that I didn’t face this.” It’s pretty powerful to end a series on a full-circle moment.

He also tells you not to wash chicken in the sink. 

Yeah, because, of course! What he’s saying is that the salmonella goes all over the place. You think it’s just going down the drain, but in fact, you’re polluting your sink.

This season felt very redemptive and healing in a lot of ways. What it was like to have a moment of reconciliation with Donna, as opposed to playing such a vicious antagonist? 

I’m the child of alcoholics. I’m a sober drug addict and alcoholic. I have lost so many friends to alcoholism and drug addiction. My baby brother died at 21 of an accidental heroin overdose. We’re also living in a world that doesn’t feel redemptive. When you talk about an antagonist, it feels like there are antagonists running the world right now. So from a spiritual place, if we’re not healing, we’re dying. And I didn’t know if Donna was going to heal or get a chance to. I saw it in Season 3, but as I said to you, I already knew that Season 4 was coming. I don’t know the origin stories necessarily, but if we’re not healing, what are we doing? And so I’m beyond grateful that Chris gave everybody a moment of grace—every single person’s story! 

The end of Season 3, Carmen says that in his vision for the restaurant, “to make it good, you have to filter out the bad.” And I think this whole season was in line with that mission statement. 

It’s just gorgeous work. The grace note at the end—you know those sandwich shops are going to be successful. We know what the numbers are going to be. They’re going to blow the place up. But Carmen also knows he has to step away from this and let these people do it. And the fact that that’s the gift that he’s giving everybody, and that he’ll now go figure out who Carmen is.

And he’ll be able to do it with a mother in his life now. 

Yeah, and Donna is sober now. Can Donna stay sober? I hope so. I’ve stayed sober. What was wack to me—the same day that this season of the show dropped, I woke up in the morning and a friend of mine in Los Angeles sent me a picture of a billboard on Sunset Boulevard. It’s the Foundation for a Better Life, a program they run called “Pass It On.” Inspirational people and ideas. And there’s a billboard with my picture that says, “My Bravest Thing? Getting Sober. Recovery. Pass it On.” And for Jamie and Donna, who had different stories but the same disease, to have that happen simultaneously was kind of another grace note.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity

Warning: This post contains spoilers for M3GAN 2.0.

M3GAN became a surprise hit in early 2023, earning nearly $182 million worldwide against a budget of just $12 million, due in part to the balance the movie managed to strike between creepy horror and campy comedy. Here was an AI-powered doll who came pre-loaded with meme-worthy dance moves and the ability to spontaneously burst into an a cappella rendition of Sia’s “Titanium,” but who was also capable of chasing school children into oncoming traffic and fatally wielding a machete. Over two years later, M3GAN 2.0 brings its sassy titular android back for a sequel that delivers on the comedy front, but strips M3GAN of her horror appeal in favor of a more action-centric plot.

When a horror sequel featuring the same big bad as the first movie gets the green light, there’s generally one of two routes it can go: a new and improved (or, more often, not so impressive) take on the original story or a Terminator 2-style installment in which the villain comes up against an even greater threat. M3GAN 2.0, written and directed by Gerard Johnstone, opts for the latter, a decision that sends the franchise in a new direction by giving M3GAN (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) a redemption arc following her previous murderous rampage.

“For me, it was just so obvious, because the reaction to the first film happened on this global scale,” Johnstone told Variety of the reason for the tonal shift. “The technology that M3GAN has is being fought over by various nations. At the moment, everyone’s in this race to be the first to get AGI. It felt like a story that needed to play out on a much bigger canvas.”

In the two years that have passed since the events of the first film, roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) has become a staunch advocate for government regulation of AI, while her now-preteen niece Cady (Violet McGraw) has thrown herself into computer science and the martial arts practice of aikido to work through her trauma. But when a team of FBI agents breaks into their home one night, Gemma learns that not only did M3GAN’s digital consciousness survive the destruction of her body, but her underlying tech was also stolen to create a military-grade AI super-soldier named AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno). Oh, and AMELIA has gone rogue and wants to destroy humanity.

Naturally, this development forces Gemma to team up with M3GAN and build her a new and improved body in order to try to save the world alongside her colleagues Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps), and fellow tech activist Christian (Aristotle Athari)—a potential love interest who, surprise, actually turns out to be the person behind AMELIA’s creation. While we won’t get into the somewhat convoluted details of how exactly AMELIA intends to bring her goals to fruition, just know the movie reads as a satirical cautionary tale about the evolution of AI. Johnstone, however, has said he views the sequel as more of a parenting allegory. “We’re not saying, ‘Don’t build AI.’ We’re asking, ‘What happens when you don’t train it right?'” he told Creative Screenwriting. “You don’t train kids like dogs. You raise them. That’s the same with AI.”

In the end, an action-packed showdown at a Palo Alto tech campus culminates in M3gan proving she has developed true empathy by sacrificing herself in order to save Cady and Gemma, and eliminate the threat of AMELIA and the mysterious all-powerful Motherboard AI she’s after. But worry not, M3GAN 2.0‘s final moments reveal M3GAN’s source code is still alive and well, leaving the door open for future sequels that could fall under a variety of genres.

According to Johnstone, the sky is apparently the limit. “I would not be surprised if there’s another five of these movies,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “So, who knows, maybe I’ll come back for the fifth one.”

When you think about BritBox, if you think about it at all, it’s likely you imagine an endless library of interchangeable cozy mysteries and Victorian costume dramas. But the BBC-owned Anglophile streaming service has much more to offer. To wit: among the very best new TV shows I encountered in June are BritBox titles about the fascinating Mitford sisters and an older gentleman living a closeted double life. Also worth watching this month are a frothy Bravo debut, a speculative drama about the end of Denmark, and a golf comedy starring Owen Wilson.

Families Like Ours (Netflix)

What if your government made the calm, rational decision that your country must cease to exist, then set about shutting it down in stages, as the currency became worthless and the population scrambled to emigrate? This is the terrifying thought experiment that propels the Danish drama Families Like Ours, which opens with the news that Denmark will be slowly but permanently evacuated before rising waters can swallow the small, low-lying nation. It’s a premise that might seem to lend itself to dystopian sci-fi, but, as the title suggests, creator Thomas Vinterberg—a superstar of Danish cinema best known in the U.S. as the director of Another Round, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Hunt—filters the cataclysm through the sieve of family drama. 

Amid the panic, we meet teenage Laura (Amaryllis April Maltha August), who’s just falling for a classmate (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt) bound for Finland as she sets her sights on the Sorbonne. While her architect father (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) makes plans to work in Paris, his ex, Laura’s mom (Paprika Steen)—a science journalist who is on public assistance following an extremely understandable nervous breakdown—must face the prospect of living dorm-style in Bucharest, among other Danes who lack relocation funds. Vinterberg has convincingly thought through not just the political, environmental, and financial aspects of this near-future crisis, but also how it might strain or strengthen familial relationships. The acting is superb. And although the show avoids preachy comparisons between its well-off, white climate refugees and their less privileged present-day counterparts, there’s plenty to notice about the international community’s indifference to the plight of the stateless. “I’m really sorry to hear about your country,” a Frenchman tells new Danish acquaintances, with all the solemnity of someone commiserating over a bad vacation. “Everybody in my family’s talking about it.” 

Mr. Loverman (BritBox)

Barrington Walker has made the most of his 75 years on Earth. Born in Antigua, he immigrated to Britain as a young man, found success in business, raised two daughters with his wife, Carmel (Sharon D. Clarke), and can now afford to pay his grandson Daniel’s (Tahj Miles) tuition at an elite private high school. But, for upwards of half a century, Barry (Lennie James) has been keeping a huge secret: his romantic relationship with his lifelong best friend, Morris (Ariyon Bakare). Now, as he realizes he’s running out of time to live authentically and Carmel’s suspicion that he cheats on her with women strains their already troubled marriage, Barry resolves to get a divorce and spend the rest of his days with the man he has always loved.

This is the emotionally layered premise of Mr. Loverman, a tight half-hour drama adapted by Nathaniel Price (The Outlaws) from Bernardine Evaristo’s novel of the same name. James, Clarke, and Bakare are spectacular; Carmel may initially come off as a generic church lady, but Price has empathy for each of his characters, and she eventually gets the humanizing backstory she deserves. The series feels grounded in the Walkers’ immigrant milieu. And while there are harrowing moments—the closet doesn’t always offer Barry and Morris the protections they seek in it—Mr. Loverman balances them out with a massive heart and a wicked sense of humor.

Next Gen NYC (Bravo)

OK, so Bravo’s latest soap doesn’t exactly fit the traditional definition of “good.” If you can’t get on board with the Real Housewives franchise, this probably will not be the show that converts you. But for those of us who crave featherweight drama, Next Gen NYC hits a fabulously frivolous spot that the network has been missing amid its increasingly trauma-driven reality programming. Among the 20-somethings at its center are the Bravo-famous offspring of breakout Housewives Kandi Burruss, Kim Zolciak, Meredith Marks, and Teresa Giudice. Their wider “friend group” consists mostly of influencers (Emira D’Spain) and nepo babies (Damon Dash and Rachel Roy’s daughter Ava); crypto bro Charlie Zakkour’s claim to fame is his tangential connection to a notorious crypto-related kidnapping.

In early episodes, the storylines have been supremely silly: Charlie taunts Brooks Marks about wanting to sleep with Brooks’ sister! Contrarian New York native Georgia McCann scandalizes the group by refusing to wash her hands after going to the bathroom! (When will the NYC slander end?) The struggle to find an apartment for under $6000 a month is real! If the idea of spending time with these people makes your skin crawl… fair. But if immersing yourself in rich-people problems is your idea of a summer vacation, don’t miss it.

Outrageous (BritBox)

If you think your family gatherings have been poisoned by political polarization, imagine being one of the Mitford sisters. In the 1930s, these six young women of irrepressible spirit, noble birth, and in some cases deranged beliefs claimed historic roles at opposite ends of a spectrum stretching to unprecedented extremes. Glamorous Diana left her husband for British fascist leader Oswald Mosley; her younger sister Unity went full Nazi, moving to Germany and insinuating herself into Hitler’s inner circle. Inspired by the Popular Front in the Spanish Civil War, Jessica became a communist and, later, a journalist. Eldest daughter Nancy wrote incisive comic and romantic novels about her social set—as well as a sendup of fascism, Wigs on the Green. (Pam and Deborah also lived fascinating, if not quite as public or politicized, lives.)

An adaptation of Mary S. Lovell’s book The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, the lively and thoughtful Outrageous dramatizes life on the cash-strapped Mitford estate in the ’30s, when Europe was ablaze with conflict and the girls—then teenagers and young adults—burned to be a part of it. Fittingly, it’s Nancy (Bridgerton’s Bessie Carter, excellent) whose wry voice narrates her family’s fracturing, as she navigates her own romantic woes. Icy yet impulsive Diana (Joanna Vanderham) blows up her relationship with Nancy over the satirical novel. Jessica (Zoe Brough, suitably intense) and Unity (Shannon Watson, persuasively selling her character as an unhinged fangirl) start out as oddball kids play-fighting in their shared bedroom but soon find themselves at war over Unity’s very real antisemitic vitriol. Few true stories could be more timely than this one, which asks whether it’s possible to keep loving a close relative whose beliefs you find appalling. And creator Sarah Williams does a remarkable job transitioning from early storylines about a big, warm, eccentric family to later episodes that weigh Diana and Unity’s monstrous choices without succumbing to doom and gloom. 

Stick (Apple TV+)

The third episode of the new Apple TV+ golf comedy Stick is called “Daddy Issues,” but that might as well be the title of the show. Created by Ford v. Ferrari writer Jason Keller, it stars Owen Wilson as a former top golfer, Pryce Cahill, who publicly flamed out 20 years ago. He’s been mired in the past ever since, from his job at a sporting goods store to his refusal to finalize the divorce initiated by his long-suffering wife (Judy Greer), move out of their old house, and accept that he’s no longer a husband, a father, or a pro athlete. When he spots a surly teen at a driving range, Santi (Peter Dager), who has the makings of a major talent, Pryce sees in this potential protégé a shot at redemption. But Santi, whose now-estranged dad used to push him too hard on the golf course, doesn’t exactly relish the prospect of having a new father figure to satisfy.

It sounds hackneyed and heartstring-yanking—another comedy that uses sports as a cover to talk about men’s feelings and relationships from the platform that brought us Ted Lasso. There are indeed elements of Stick that come off as pandering…Yet within the limitations of its formula, Stick works. [Read the full review.]

Correction, June 28

The original version of this story misstated the ownership of BritBox. It is no longer a venture of the BBC and ITV; it is wholly owned by the BBC.

F1 The Movie, which is out in U.S. theaters and IMAX on Friday, has summer blockbuster potential, given the huge budget—north of $200 million—and star power—Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, cameos by Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and other Formula 1 drivers—involved. So if you’re an F1 newbie looking to spend a few entertaining hours in an air-conditioned theater, or you’ve seen the film but don’t totally understand all those terms about tires and safety cars and DRS, we’ve got you covered. Below, some of your questions, answered. (With an assist from Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, an executive producer on the film who also makes an appearance in the movie).

Can a 61-year-old man who hasn’t raced in Formula 1 in more than 30 years actually be a competitive driver? 

It’s a movie, people. And while Pitt is indeed a 61-year-old actor, we never find out the age of his character, Sonny Hayes, the journeyman washout whose promising F1 career was derailed by a horrific accident at a race in Barcelona in 1993. Pitt could be portraying a younger man. “I don’t think Sonny is 61,” says Wolff. 

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, Hayes was an 18-year-old rising star at that race in Barcelona. That would put him at about 50 in the movie. Middle-aged drivers were more common in olden times: Luigi Fagioli, at 53, is the oldest F1 driver to win a race; he shared the 1951 French Grand Prix title with another driver. Fernando Alonso is the oldest driver on the current grid: the two-time world champion, who currently drives for Aston Martin, turns 44 at the end of July. But Alonso hasn’t won a race since 2013.

Hayes still has driving talent: at the beginning of the film, we see him help his team win the 24-hour endurance race at Daytona. Transitioning to F1 soon thereafter is a bit of a stretch, but not, according to Wolff, utterly impossible. “Racing cars is like learning to ride a bicycle,” says Wolff. “You don’t unlearn that.”

What is DRS? 

It’s a term that pops up in the film, and in actual races: DRS, or Drag Reduction System. During F1 races, at designated areas of the track—particularly on straigtaways—drivers can can open up a flap on the car’s rear wing to reduce aerodynamic drag, and overtake opponents. A car must be within one second of the racer it’s trying to catch in order to use DRS.   

What do all the tire terms mean?

Grip, Wolff explains, “is a tire sticking to the ground. The more sticking to the ground you have, the quicker you go through a corner.” Simple enough. “Here comes the caveat,” Wolff says. “Going beyond that limit of sticking, or sliding, creates overheating of the tire. So what you want to achieve is actually the optimum grip, the optimum sticking to the ground without it giving up and sliding.” 

Tires for dry race conditions—the slick tires—come in three classifications: soft tires offer the most grip but last the shortest period of time before degrading, so they’re ideal for qualifying runs, or when a driver needs a burst of speed. Hard tires last longer—saving pit stops—but have less grip, and result in slower lap times. Medium tires split the difference between the two. 

In damp conditions, teams employ intermediate tires, which are grooved to allow drivers to navigate tracks with no standing water, or drying surfaces. The deeper grooves of the wet tires can disperse more water and are best for the rainiest days.  

So what’s the deal with F1 “teammates?” 

Each of the 10 Formula 1 teams consist of two drivers, who are all fighting for two championships in every race: the Constructor’s title, in which the combined performance of both drivers helps the team assemble points and trophies, and the Driver’s title, in which a single driver is designated as world champion. Racers often put more stake in the individual title, which builds their legacies and brands. So while they’re supposed to be working together on the track, they often want to beat each other to the checkered flag.

F1’s tension revolves around the aging Hayes and his teammate on the fictional APXGP race team, Damson Idris’ Joshua Pearce, a young talent from Great Britain. Drivers at loggerheads is quite common in F1. “Tension is always existing, which you’ve just got to accept,” says Wolff. “That’s how it is.” 

Wolff would know: as Mercedes boss, he had to manage the competition between Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time F1 champion, and Nico Rosberg, who won the 2016 title over Hamilton before retiring. There was hostility between the duo, especially after Rosberg used an engine mode banned by the team to gain an advantage over Hamilton during the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix. Hamilton returned the favor in Barcelona a month later. 

Drivers are calibrated to win at all costs. “You can’t expect the lion in the car and the puppy outside,” says Wolff. “They drive with the knife between the teeth. It’s the team’s principal’s role to say, ‘no more.’ And that’s what we did.’” Mercedes drivers won every title between 2014-2020 (Hamilton in 2014, 2015, 2017-2020, Rosberg in 2016), and eight straight Constructor’s championships from 2014-2021.  

Can they actually redesign the car like that between races? 

In F1, APXGP technical director Kate McKenna, played by Oscar nominee Kerry Condon, tweaks the car design: the fix helps boost the team’s results. Yes, this actually happens in the real Formula 1. While a set of strict technical regulations guides the makeup of an F1 car, teams can come up with innovations within these rules to give themselves an edge. Before the 2020 season, for example, Mercedes made a change to the steering column: its drivers could push and pull the wheel to change the alignment of the tires. The steering advantage was so effective, it was banned the next season and beyond.

What’s the difference between a virtual safety car and an actual safety car? 

On-track accidents and dust-ups slow down the race. For less serious incidents, officials send out a “virtual safety car”—no physical car is deployed onto the track, but cars must reduce their speed by 30-40% of the normal racing pace. So the gap between racers remains the same before the restart. 

For the more severe crashes, which require more time to remove debris from the track, an actual car—the safety car—enters the track. Cars file behind the safety vehicle: while drivers can’t overtake one another on the track while a safety car is deployed, they can bunch up closer. So a driver who was way behind the leader, or the car in front of him, can effectively erase such a deficit. “It kind of resets the race,” says Wolff. 

Which all begs the question: could one F1 teammate crash on purpose to give another an advantage? This is unlikely to happen for several reasons. First, a driver risks injury or worse in a crash. And second, a 2008 incident in Singapore, in which Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. said he was asked by his team to deliberately crash to allow his teammate, Alonso, to gain position during the safety car period as other cars made pit stops for gas, led to an embarrassing scandal. Alonso won the race. But the resulting “Crashgate” fallout resulted in bans for Renault team leaders. Renault was threatened with disqualification from F1. 

The risk just isn’t worth it. 

Given the 200 m.p.h.-plus speeds we see in F1, how often do drivers get hurt, or worse? 

According to a 2025 study that appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 264 total injuries and 43 deaths were reported in F1-related events between 1950 and 2023. The analysis included 865 F1 drivers. While a 5% death rate for F1 drivers seems frighteningly high, there’s a crucial caveat: a majority of the fatalities took place in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. No F1 driver has died in the 2020s. “The evolution of safety regulations in F1,” the study concludes, “appears to have successfully reduced total injuries, total deaths, and most injury classifications.”   

Are all F1 races the same number of laps? 

No, since each track, or circuit, has different designs and laps lengths. F1 races must cover a minimum of 305 km (or about 190 miles). Each race is about that length: but while the Belgian Grand Prix, for example, requires just 44 laps to reach that distance on the long track at Spa, the shorter circuit in the Netherlands requires 72 laps.

One exception to this rule is the street circuit in Monaco: that race covers just 260 km (162 miles). Due to the narrow roads and sharp turns on the Monaco track, lap times are slower, so the distance is shorter to allow it to be finished within F1’s two-hour time limit for races. (A race can take up to three hours in the event of suspensions due to bad weather; most are done in about 90 minutes). 

What did the drivers think of the movie? 

The feedback seems to be positive from the actual F1 drivers; they saw it at a screening before the Monaco Grand Prix in May. In the audience was Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old Mercedes rookie driver who finished his final high school exams right after earning his first podium with a third-place showing in Montreal in June. Perhaps not surprisingly, what stood out to Antonelli was the 2 hour, 36 minute run time. “It’s freaking long,” he said afterwards.  

When Mariska Hargitay was 3, she and two of her brothers survived the car accident that killed their mother, bombshell movie star Jayne Mansfield. The kids were asleep in the back seat; the three adults in the front—Mansfield, her companion at the time, and the car’s driver—were killed instantly. Mariska’s two brothers, injured, were carried away from the scene. It wasn’t until later that one of them, 6-year-old Zoltan, realized Mariska wasn’t with them: she was pinned beneath the passenger seat, with a head injury. If Zoltan hadn’t spoken up, Mariska might not have been found until it was too late.

That’s just one of the details revealed in Hargitay’s touching documentary My Mom Jayne, in which the actor, now 61, summons scraps of facts and remembrances to piece together the truth about her own identity, and in the process make peace with the mother she never knew. Hargitay has known since her 20s that the man who raised her, and loved her deeply—actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay—was not her real father. Only now is she reckoning with the scope of that truth. My Mom Jayne hopscotches through Mansfield’s early life and career: She became a mother at age 16, and lived in Texas with her young daughter and her first husband until she could stand it no longer—she wanted to be a movie star so badly that she was drawn to Hollywood, where she eked out a living with small film parts. Then, in 1955, she landed a starring role on Broadway, in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? That opened the door to bigger film roles, but like the star she obviously emulated, Marilyn Monroe, Mansfield wanted desperately to be considered a serious actor. With her moonbeam-colored hair and exaggerated, breathy speaking voice—which her children recall as seeming strange and upsetting, so different from the mom they knew at home—she settled, somewhat unhappily, for being a curvaceous sex symbol.

Hargitay, who would build her own career as an actor on TV’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, never felt comfortable with either her mother’s persona or her life choices. Mansfield was only 34 at the time of her death, in 1967. She and Mickey had divorced shortly after Mariska was born, though he and the woman he married after the divorce, Ellen Siano, would end up raising Hargitay and two of her brothers after Mansfield’s death. (Hargitay’s two other half-siblings also appear in the documentary, helping her cover some gaps that her research couldn’t fill.)

Though Hargitay makes it clear that the life her father and stepmother made for the family was a happy one, she also explains how unsettled she had felt for most of her life, unable to comprehend her mother’s motivations and feeling resentment about truths that were hidden from her. Yet by the end of My Mom Jayne—by which time we’ve also met Hargitay’s biological father, onetime Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli, in a sequence that’s not likely to leave a dry eye in the house—Hargitay’s catharsis is complete. When Hargitay finally, and tenderly, tells her mother, “I see myself in you for the first time,” we, too, know more about this charming, ambitious performer whose star never burned as brightly as she’d hoped. She wasn’t our mom. But her unruly secrets reflect the uncomfortable truths that are so often hidden in our own histories. Families are made of fallible humans. That’s their tragedy, and their glory.

Smoke gets off to an insufferable start. Freighted with procedural clichés, the Apple TV+ thriller follows a mismatched law-enforcement duo tracking two prolific arsonists. Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton) is an arson investigator with a standoffish stepson and literary ambitions. His new partner: police detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett), an ex-Marine who’s sleeping with a superior. Initial tension gives way to drunken bonding. Pretentious stylistic choices exacerbate the lazy setup. Episodes open with dictionary definitions of thematically appropriate words like transmogrification and, for some reason, fury on title cards. There are arty shots of billowing infernos. A mournful Thom Yorke song soundtracks the credits. In voiceover, Dave expounds, hackily, on the annihilating power of fire.

After two interminable episodes, a bombshell resets the show, eliminating some of its worst excesses and contextualizing others. Smoke becomes watchable. Yet in its swerve away from one egregious set of tropes, it embraces others that are, if less irritating, almost as tired. An emerging critique of aggrieved white machismo comes off, mostly, as a shallow topical hook.

Like so many disappointing Apple TV+ projects, from Nicole Kidman’s Roar to Billy Crystal’s Before, the series substitutes marquee names for quality control. Loosely based on the true crime podcast Firebug, it was developed by one of Hollywood’s favorite authors, Dennis Lehane (Shutter Island, Mystic River), who was also on the writing staff of The Wire and helmed Apple’s well-received 2022 miniseries Black Bird. The cast includes John Leguizamo, Greg Kinnear, and Anna Chlumsky. Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, a standout in The Chi and Treme, brings a fragile authenticity to the tricky but pivotal role of a maladjusted fast-food worker.

But the actors are poorly served by the material. Kinnear is miscast as the detectives’ folksy, complacent boss. Leguizamo’s character is too broadly sleazy, Chlumsky’s too bland. At the story’s forefront, Michelle is a dated Strong Female Character with a maudlin history of trauma. Egerton, an executive producer, has taken on a role so elastic, and so clearly shaped by the need for nine episodes’ worth of cliffhangers, it barely holds together.

Populated by unhinged men and masochistic women, and punctuated by fiery, increasingly histrionic set pieces, Smoke fails to reconcile its mood of noirish nihilism with its efforts at social commentary. Despite feinting towards subversion, Lehane has produced a typical—overlong, caricature-laden, easy to watch but also to forget—streaming crime show.