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More than three years since the Orion capsule's inaugural voyage, NASA is about to shoot the capsule into space again — but this time four astronauts will ride it to the moon.

Artemis II — which mission leaders say could happen as early as two weeks from now in February — is a crucial practice run for NASA's hardware that turns Artemis I's uncrewed success into a fully human mission.

"While Artemis I was a great success, there are new systems and new capabilities that we will be demonstrating on Artemis II, including the life support systems, the display capabilities, software, and et cetera," said Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA's acting deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development. "This is a stepped approach, and all that we learned from Artemis II, we will build upon that to prepare us for our first crewed landing on the surface of the moon for Artemis III."

Though the crew won't ever leave the confines of the spaceship during their 10-day mission, the four members will hold a place in history as the first space travelers of Artemis, the new exploration program named after Apollo's goddess twin. It's the beginning of NASA's ambitious plan to send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s, preparing for a world far less hospitable than Earth.

This second Artemis mission — the first crewed lunar flyby in over 50 years — raises the stakes. Instead of just proving that the Space Launch System rocket and capsule can survive, NASA must show that the vehicles can keep people alive on a 10‑day trip around the moon and back. The mission will test crew controls and emergency options that future astronauts will rely on when NASA tries to land on the lunar surface and eventually push on toward Mars.

SEE ALSO: Artemis 2: Next steps for NASA's moon rocket after historic roll to pad

Artemis II will carry Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Hansen, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, will be the first international crewmate on a lunar mission. 

The astronauts will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop the 322-foot mega moon rocket, loop around the moon on a roughly four‑day outbound trip, fly about 4,600 miles beyond it, and return to a splashdown off the coast of California.

The Artemis II mission will take four astronauts on a 10-day voyage around the moon. Credit: NASA infographic

That distance could set a new human spaceflight record, exceeding the one set by Apollo 13, which traveled 248,655 miles from Earth in 1970. Whether Artemis II reaches its planned 257,000 miles depends on when exactly the mission launches.

Koch said she had recently met Fred Haise, now in his 90s and the last surviving Apollo 13 crew member. 

"He said, 'I heard you're going to beat our record,' and it made me realize maybe he's paying attention to it more than we are. I think that sometimes when we talk about superlatives, we may inadvertently ignore the real story of what's going on in our mission," she said. "It's not about farthest, first, fastest, longest. It's about the teamwork."

A major change from the 25-day Artemis I mission in 2022 is the path the crew will take. Artemis II will use what NASA calls a "free return trajectory," which means once Orion heads toward the moon, gravity from Earth and the moon will naturally bend the spaceship's course back home, even if later engine burns fail.

Another big difference comes right after launch. Before committing the astronauts to deep space, NASA will park Orion in a high Earth orbit that takes about a day to complete. That gives the team time to thoroughly check the spacecraft while it remains relatively close to home.

"When we get off the planet, we might come right back home, we might spend three or four days around Earth, we might go to the moon," Wiseman said. "That's where we want to go, but it is a test mission, and we are ready for every scenario."

During this phase, the crew will perform a test of how Orion handles when astronauts steer it — practice for later missions that must dock with a lunar lander. Once the ship separates from the upper stage, they'll turn Orion around and manually fly near the spent propulsion section, using cameras and windows to approach and back away. 

From left, NASA pilot Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch, and NASA Commander Reid Wiseman climb the crew access arm at the launchpad for an Artemis II test. Credit: NASA / Frank Michaux

For the return home, NASA has tweaked its original re-entry plan after discovering damage to Orion's heatshield following Artemis I. Engineers have since adjusted the flight path so the capsule doesn’t plow through the atmosphere as hard or as long. By aiming closer to San Diego, California, versus Baja California, Mexico, they can shorten the hottest part of the ride. 

While the agency has committed to launching Artemis II no later than April 2026 and is working toward a possible February window, which opens Feb. 6, mission leaders stressed that schedule will never outrun safety.

"I've got a good eye for launch fever," said John Honeycutt, head of the mission management team. "I'm not going to tell the agency that I'm ready to go fly until I think we're ready to go fly."

Long before social media feeds or targeted ads, my mother used to say that life tends to show you the thing you're looking for. Or the thing you're afraid of. Or the thing you keep insisting you don't want.

If you were trying to get pregnant, suddenly everyone around you was pregnant. If you wanted out of your relationship, magazines on the grocery store rack were filled with tips on "spicing up your marriage." If you were single, you noticed couples everywhere.

SEE ALSO: TikTok's algorithms knew I was bi before I did. I'm not the only one.

At the time, it felt like a kind of folk psychology, an observation about attention, projection, and the stories we tell ourselves during moments of transition. Nothing mystical. Just the mind's tendency to organize the world around its current preoccupations.

But today, that feeling is no longer just in our heads — it's computational, built into the systems we use every day. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Google don't just reflect what we notice; they actively infer who we are and what comes next, based on demographics such as age and gender, as well as behavioral patterns. And once they decide what life stage you're in, they keep showing it to you, whether it fits or not.

Across social platforms, users describe being quietly ushered through a narrow, linear life script, one that often resembles something like dating → engagement → wedding → pregnancy → parenting. These systems assume users are progressing along an expected trajectory. When lives diverge from that path, for instance, after a breakup, during infertility, following divorce, or by choice, the algorithm often fails to recalibrate.

What looks like a coincidence or annoyance is something more structural: platforms building a version of identity that won't update, even as a person's life changes.

Trapped in a life phase you never chose

On social platforms, users may still encounter content they don't want, despite repeatedly muting keywords or clicking "not interested." Research shows that recommendation algorithms often rely far more on implicit engagement, such as watch time and clicks, than on explicit feedback signals, like hiding or muting, meaning the system can continue serving the life someone once searched for — or was assumed to want.

Elizabeth Losh, a media theorist, digital rhetoric scholar, and professor of English and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, said this persistence is rooted in how recommendation systems are built.

"Sites like TikTok and Instagram depend on targeted advertising and data harvesting models that emphasize demographic segmentation," said Losh, who is also the author of Selfie Democracy: The New Digital Politics of Disruption and Insurrection. "[They] slice and dice audiences by gender, age, political loyalties, and other categories, manufacturing needs and desires for each stage of life."

Those stages often reflect cultural expectations rather than real user diversity. Advertisers treat transitions like marriage, fertility, and parenting as high-value consumption moments, incentivizing platforms to sort users into life-phase categories that are difficult to exit once assigned.

"You can see how those assumptions get locked in," Losh said. "The persuasive power of the recommendation algorithms themselves continues to reinforce standardized life trajectories."

How the algorithm decides who you are

Platforms rarely explain how they infer a user's "life phase," but scrolling itself is data.

TikTok has acknowledged that time spent watching a video is weighted more heavily than most other signals in its recommendation system. Even a pause due to curiosity, confusion, or discomfort can be interpreted as interest. Once a system associates a user with a category, similar content can quickly snowball.

Lauren Klein, professor of Data & Decision Sciences and English at Emory University and co-author of Data Feminism, says these inferences reflect historic gender norms far more than neutral "user data."

"In many cases, age and gender are the only data points companies know about their users," Klein said. "In the absence of [a] meaningful signal, designers default to what they assume someone of a particular age and gender would want to see."

Those assumptions are shaped by long-standing cultural expectations about users' lives, including those around beauty, partnership, reproduction, and caregiving.

Because recommendation and ad systems are profit-driven, Klein added, there is little incentive to challenge defaults that appear to perform well.

"These companies are motivated by their own bottom line," she said. "If default life-phase content seems to generate engagement or purchases, there's no obligation to consider other desires or preferences."

When the TikTok feed contradicts reality

Emerging research suggests that algorithmic systems do more than match users with content; they're also shaping people's identities. 

Researchers describe this phenomenon as "algorithmic persistence," in which systems continue to serve content tied to a presumed identity long after it is no longer applicable. Klein notes that because recommender systems are optimized for engagement rather than accuracy, they have little incentive to recalibrate unless user behavior changes significantly, something many people don't know how to do, or even realize is necessary.

"There's an added social reinforcement mechanism," Klein said, adding that users already receive constant messages about what they should care about. "The algorithm amplifies that pressure."

Over time, this creates a kind of ambient discipline, technology nudging users toward a version of adulthood they might not want, can't access, or have already outgrown.

"The isolation of personal scrolling is a kind of 'technology of the self,'" Losh said. "It subtly encourages people to regulate themselves according to dominant social scripts."

Performance, play, and structural limits

If algorithmic persistence explains why users get "stuck" seeing irrelevant content, performance helps explain why pushing back doesn't necessarily free them.

Short-form video platforms are built around visibility and play. Users duet, stitch, parody, and perform alternative selves. Queer creators experiment with gender; others engage in what Losh calls "generation-swapping," performing exaggerated versions of parents or elders. Comedy and remix culture offer highly legible ways to critique dominant life scripts.

That visibility is not meaningless. Losh notes that these platforms have created space for experiences once considered rare or invisible: intersex parents documenting their lives, people speaking openly about ectopic pregnancy or asexuality, sex workers sharing the unglamorous realities of their labor. Other forms of relational storytelling — like content about lavender marriages or the rise of "guncles" — quietly challenge heteronormative family scripts through humor and affection rather than argument.

But visibility, Losh cautions, is not the same as structural change. Even as platforms become increasingly adept at identifying and amplifying counter-narratives, they continue to circulate within algorithms optimized to sort users into marketable categories. That means wedding content becomes queer wedding content, or family content becomes nontraditional family content. The identity may shift, but the life-phase logic remains intact. In that sense, personalization doesn't eliminate the script so much as adapt it.

SEE ALSO: Spotify's Prompted Playlist lets you micromanage your own algorithm

Within recommendation systems, critique does not reliably trigger corrections. Because engagement itself is the primary signal — watch time, interaction, repetition — even content meant to challenge a life-cycle narrative can be absorbed as evidence of interest in it. A parody of wedding culture may still be logged as engagement with wedding content; a rebuttal to parenting norms may circulate alongside the very material it critiques.

Why is it so hard to reset your algorithm?

Algorithmic identity is not something users can update with a single click. Training data reflects the past. Profit incentives favor broad categories. And recommender systems are built to optimize engagement loops, not to reflect the complex, nonlinear lives of their users.

Designing for people who don't want children, who co-parent, who are queer or polyamorous, or who move in and out of relationships requires time, care, and a willingness to challenge default assumptions.

"It takes more work to design for users at the margins," Klein said. "But those users often reveal where systems break down."

When asked what a more feminist or equitable recommender system might look like, Klein was skeptical.

"I'm not sure there's such a thing as a feminist advertising mechanism," she said. "But one feminist principle we can take seriously is refusal."

For platforms, that would mean letting users opt out of targeted ads, allowing them to withhold their age or gender without penalty, avoiding punitive privacy defaults, and giving users ways to signal life changes without automatically triggering new assumptions.

For now, most platforms offer limited transparency and little meaningful control.

Living with the algorithmic lag

The algorithm lags behind real life. It clings to who someone was — or who it decided they were — because updating that identity is less profitable than nudging it forward.

For users, that lag often mirrors the same narrow life script society has long imposed. What's new isn't the pressure, it's the infrastructure delivering it.

The feed doesn't reflect reality. It reinforces a familiar script — whether it fits or not.

TL;DR: Live stream Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

This week's NBA action includes a replay of the 2025 NBA Finals as the Indiana Pacers go on the road to face the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Oklahoma won those games but the more interesting story was Indiana's incredible playoffs run, which defied the odds. But the Eastern Conference champions have had a tough 2025-26 season so far — they're currently sat at the bottom of the conference, while Thunder are at the top of the Western Conference with the best record in the league. Can the Pacers pull off another improbable result? Or is their season a write-off?

If you want to watch Pacers vs. Thunder in the NBA for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Pacers vs. Thunder?

Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA starts at 7 p.m. ET on Jan. 23. This game takes place at the Paycom Center.

How to watch Pacers vs. Thunder for free

Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA is available to live stream for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.

This free live stream is geo-restricted to the U.S. and UK, but anyone can secure access with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the U.S. or UK, meaning you can access free live streams of the NBA from anywhere in the world.

Stream the NBA for free by following these simple steps:

1. Sign up for a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime (if you're not already a member)

2. Subscribe to a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

3. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

4. Open up the app and connect to a server in the U.S. or UK

5. Watch the NBA from anywhere in the world on Prime Video

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Learn More

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees or free trials. By leveraging these offers, you can watch NBA live streams without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch select games from the NBA before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for the NBA?

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• Servers in 105 countries

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A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 61% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.95 (with money-back guarantee).

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TL;DR: Live stream Houston Rockets vs. Detroit Pistons in the NBA for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

This week's must-watch NBA action sees the Houston Rockets visit Eastern Conference leaders the Detroit Pistons. The Rockets will have their work cut out — the Pistons have an excellent win-loss record and have impressed b-ball fans with their robust defense. That said, Houston are considered an on-the-up franchise and a playoffs contender.

The game is also featured as part of Rivals Week, a recent NBA concept that highlights key rivalries across the conferences. This one's particularly interesting because it features a brotherly rivalry, with twins Ausar and Amen Thompson playing on opposite teams — Ausar for the Pistons, Amen for the Rockets.

If you want to watch Rockets vs. Pistons in the NBA for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Rockets vs. Pistons?

Houston Rockets vs. Detroit Pistons in the NBA starts at 7 p.m. ET on Jan. 23. This game takes place at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, MI.

How to watch Rockets vs. Pistons for free

Houston Rockets vs. Detroit Pistons in the NBA is available to live stream for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.

This free live stream is geo-restricted to the U.S. and UK, but anyone can secure access with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the U.S. or UK, meaning you can access free live streams of the NBA from anywhere in the world.

Stream the NBA for free by following these simple steps:

1. Sign up for a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime (if you're not already a member)

2. Subscribe to a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

3. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

4. Open up the app and connect to a server in the U.S. or UK

5. Watch the NBA from anywhere in the world on Prime Video

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Learn More

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees or free trials. By leveraging these offers, you can watch NBA live streams without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch select games from the NBA before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for the NBA?

ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing free live streams on platforms like Prime Video, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to 10 simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 61% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.95 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream the NBA for free with ExpressVPN.

From the first musical moments of The Testament of Ann Lee, I was enraptured. Admittedly, I went in knowing nothing of its subject, an 18th-century religious figure who led the Shakers, a sect also known as the "Shaking Quakers" because of the physicality of their worship. However, the opening thrums of music and the graceful yet powerful thrust of bodies in an inexplicable dance number in a dark forest entranced me and made me eager to know more. 

From this intriguing opening, The Testament to Ann Lee stretches beyond the bounds of historical drama by embracing the music and movements that define the Shaker religious practice. In that, wonder is born onscreen, reflecting their faith in a God that honors such performance as exaltation. 

Written by The Brutalist's screenwriters Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet, this is a sweeping American tale of love, faith, community, and creativity that is challenging, enchanting, and awe-inspiring. 

The Testament of Ann Lee reveals the birth of a religious community in America.  Credit: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Helmed by Fastvold, The Testament of Ann Lee charts the life of the eponymous religious leader, not only through dramatic scenes of hardship and joy but also through musical numbers that reflect the Shakers' culture. 

As a young girl in England, Ann is horrified by her vicious father, in both his prohibiting the speech of his many children, but also in his dominion over his wife's body for his own sexual desires. Still, as a young maiden, Ann (Seyfried) strives to be a good wife to her rugged husband (Christopher Abbott), giving in to his demand for sex despite her own lack of interest. That is, until a series of miscarriages convinces her that chastity, hard work, and song is a better way for her to serve God. 

This belief will earn her devoted followers, including her brother William (Thunderbolt*'s Lewis Pullman), the resolute Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), and an American preacher (Tim Blake Nelson). However, as this boundary-pushing woman preaches of God and these tenets from England to New York, she will earn her the ire of her lusty husband and the violent rejection of those unmoved by the Shakers' song. 

Amanda Seyfried is a marvel in The Testament of Ann Lee.  Credit: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Seyfried is no stranger to musicals, but this one is very different from the Broadway adaptations she's starred in before. Forget the bouncy glee of Mamma Mia! or the resounding theatricality of Les Misérables. The motions here feel more akin to modern dance, the song more mantra then belted or cheered.

Limbs of conservatively dressed Shakers shoot forth sharply, pausing in the air as if awaiting a signal or a sign, then plunging in a new direction. Their bodies rise and fall in a rhythm they create through their shared song. In the film's opening, they move through a forest, dancing in unison, throbbing together like one living organism. Through this connection in movement, Fastvold instantly and effectively communicates that this is a community that lives, loves, and suffers together. 

This sentiment of union through hardship is bolstered with every successive song-and-dance number. For instance, when Ann endures a series of miscarriages, a song, deep-throated and aching, pulls her through one to the next, the motions of sex, birth, and loss connecting across scenes to create a sense of flow and growing agony. For it's not just her loss. Others' arms embrace her across scenes of conception and birth, expressing a physical connection, but also ones that scar her. Thus, Seyfried is not just the film's center, but the core of its company. 

As Ann is resolute in her faith, Seyfried carries a certainty, whether working to construct a colony, the sect's signature chairs, or a better bond with her "children" — meaning her followers, who call her "Mother." Yet certainty doesn't make for stoicism. Seyfried's portrait is awash in jubilation, agony, and earnestness. Her eyes echo this fervor, even in climactic moments of violence. But it's in the song and dance that this role becomes extraordinary. In every motion and note, Seyfried leads the cast as Ann leads her people in the film, resolute and radiant. 

Mona Fastvold's vision in The Testament of Ann Lee is rapturous.  Credit: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Like The Brutalist, The Testament of Ann Lee tackles decades of an immigrant's life in an America that welcomes their labor and violently rejects their culture and autonomy. Set in different eras, the films work together as a timeless and dynamic diptych of this country's melting pot, sometimes warm, often scorching. But beyond America, Fastvold's film sings the song of a woman who fought without raising a fist for the sanctity of community and glory of art. 

Choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall creates movements that feel modern yet don't clash with the period piece's production design. Her dances evoke passion but not sexuality, reflecting Lee's tenets of faith. Alone, one dancer might seem strange — creating some understanding of the suspicion of the neighboring New Yorkers. But joined by the company, they become glorious, a reflection of what wonders our simple mortal figures can manifest, through work and the embrace of our souls. 

The music by composer Daniel Blumberg was inspired by Shaker hymns. Their lyrics, deceptively simple and repetitive, draw us in through the rounds. The music around them strange, experimental, yet inviting. Thus, we are welcomed in — not only to their story but to the feeling of their exuberance. 

Told in movements, broken up by title cards quoting Bible verses like "The Woman Clothed by the Sun With the Moon Under Her Feet," The Testament of Ann Lee swells and swoons like an orchestra playing an epic opera. Less an investigation into her testament and more a reveling in its passion and resilience, this drama is dynamic and dreamy. It may not make you a believer, but it may well leave you awestruck.

The Testament of Ann Lee opens in wide release Jan. 23.

UPDATE: Jan. 22, 2026, 1:46 p.m. This review was first published on Sept. 21, 2025, as part of Mashable's coverage of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been updated in anticipation of its wide release.

American cinema has long been fascinated by professional fighters. Rocky, Raging Bull, The Fighter, The Wrestler, Cinderella Man, Creed, Million Dollar Baby, Girlfight, Ali, The Hurricane, Warrior — the list goes on and on. Within this sports subgenre, actors like Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Russell Crowe, Will Smith, Hilary Swank, Michael B. Jordan, and many more have made their mark, with rave reviews, big box office, award nominations, and big wins. So, it's a shrewd move for Dwayne Johnson to prove he's ready to leap from smoldering action-comedy star to dramatic heavyweight with The Smashing Machine. 

The pro wrestler formerly known as The Rock has spent decades building broad appeal as a movie star, ranging from the lip-curling machismo in the Fast and Furious franchise to the bouncy bravado of his voicework as Maui in Moana to a swath of half-baked action movies that coast on his broad shoulders and signature smile. But with The Smashing Machine, Johnson sheds his larger-than-life persona to disappear into the role of UFC fighter Mark Kerr.

The ways he does this are laudable, but the results are mixed because of writer/director Benny Safdie's challenging choices in constructing this narrative and reconstructing his leading man's face. 

The Smashing Machine reveals the out-of-the-ring struggles of Mark Kerr.  Dwayne Johnson plays Mark Kerr in "The Smashing Machine." Credit: A24

Picking up in 1997, the Safdie-scripted drama follows the beginning of Kerr's MMA (mixed martial arts) career within the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Set across several years, The Smashing Machine ushers audiences to Japan, where Kerr would compete in Pride FC, then back to the U.S., where he trained while carrying on a tumultuous romantic relationship with Dawn Staples (played here by Johnson's Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt). 

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Rather than centering his narrative around a particular goal — like winning a belt or defeating a particular nemesis — Safdie chooses a more scattershot approach. A smattering of scenes across Kerr's highs and lows aim to capture the contrast of "The Smashing Machine" in the ring, where he was mighty and intimidating, to the man behind the persona, who was gentle, even when battling his own demons. However, without a driving narrative, the film feels meandering, lacking momentum.

The Smashing Machine shies away from sports drama cliches, with mixed results.  Benny Safdie, writer/director of "The Smashing Machine," holds a camera in the film's final sequence. Credit: A24

Elements of Kerr's story are pretty common within the pro fighting industry. Take a look at Dark Side of the Ring for many examples. The incredible demand put on a fighter's body and the ruthless training regimen can encourage abuse of painkillers and other drugs to cope with the physical strain. However, Safdie's so matter-of-fact about Kerr's intravenous drug use that it almost seems harmless. There's a casualness to how Mark is shown readying an injection, doing so while getting dressed and carrying on a conversation, that almost suggests his drug use is not a problem, but part of a routine. But a vague but vicious argument with Dawn shortly after suggests Kerr's losing his grip. 

It might be lauded that Safdie and Johnson (who is also a producer on The Smashing Machine) aren't interested in making Kerr's real-life low points into a gaudy spectacle. But little is given to otherwise illustrate his battle here. Safdie's script reveals a near-fatal overdose through a phone call between Dawn and Mark's friend/colleague Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader). His time in rehab happens entirely offscreen. Thus, much of his struggle with addiction is limited to strained jokes about doctors who offer him over-the-counter painkillers and his passive-aggressive comments to Dawn, when she returns from a boozy meal with friends. Essentially, the punches feel pulled, outside the ring and inside too. 

The Smashing Machine won't let audiences get close to Mark Kerr.  Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt embrace in "The Smashing Machine." Credit: A24

Safdie rejects the standard of Hollywood boxing movies by keeping his cameras firmly outside of the ring. A cavalcade of other directors have used close-ups to give audiences an unblinking look at everything from the fear or confidence flashing on the fighter's face to the sweat and blood streaming down their muscles. But Safdie won't let us any closer than the fans in the film, stuck behind the ropes. It's a choice that echoes his aim of authenticity over Hollywood razzle-dazzle. But it literally and emotionally keeps us at a distance. 

Other forms of authenticity work better. Handheld camera lends energy and a hazy excitement to everything from Mark striding to the arena to his grappling with a hysterical Dawn. A soundtrack of late '90s/early '00s songs (like Sublime's "Santeria" and Sugar Ray's "Every Morning") played in the background help audiences time-travel back to his heyday. But most impactful is Safdie's unconventional casting choices.

As he's done in past films like Uncut Gems, he peoples The Smashing Machine with nonactors. In this case, to play Mark's friends and rivals, the director brought in fighters Ryan Bader, Oleksandr Usyk, Satoshi Ishii, James Moontasril, Cyborg Abreu, and Marcus Aurélio, many making their acting debuts. They bring an earthiness and earnestness to the film, with Bader being a terrific standout, seemingly effortless in scenes of professional drama and domestic bliss. 

In terms of Johnson's performance, authenticity meant asking the actor to bulk up and to wear facial prosthetics and meticulously detailed wigs to resemble Kerr. And here's where Safdie's choices hurt Johnson most. 

Dwayne Johnson is incredible in The Smashing Machine, but the prosthetics are a problem.  Dwayne Johnson plays Mark Kerr in "The Smashing Machine." Credit: A24

Props to the make-up team — the prosthetics are seamless and do the job of erasing the familiar face of The Rock. This transformation gives Johnson the space to create a performance that is distinctly separate from his own personas in pro-wrestling and as the leading man of many an action franchise. Do they make him look like Mark Kerr? I'm less convinced. But we've seen plenty of thespians get Oscar gold for hiding their famous features to better inhabit a character. (That includes Charlize Theron in Monster, Brendan Fraser in The Whale, and Nicole Kidman in The Hours, just to name a few.) 

The problem is that while these prosthetics erase The Rock, they also inhibit Johnson's face. Sure, his performance here is more nuanced than in his splashy blockbusters. An early scene where Kerr, bruised and battered, gently explains his work to a little boy and a judgmental grandmother is gracefully done. The softness in his tone is reflected in a gentle physicality as he insists there's camaraderie outside the ring. Later, this gentleness reemerges as he talks to his fellow fighters and as he pleads with a spiraling Dawn. (Blunt gives her best to a role that is achingly archetypal, painting Dawn as a volatile drunk with a Jersey Shore thirst for fashion and fighting). However, this performance is often cut off by the brow bone of the prosthetic. 

Creating a ledge that throws a dark shadow, the make-up too often makes it hard to see Johnson's eyes. So, much like being pushed out of the ring in the fight scenes, we're pushed out of Mark's experience by not being able to see how he's feeling. In a showier Johnson performance, this might not be an issue, as he can ooze emotion out of big gestures and bellowing line delivery. But here, nearly every aspect of the film is aiming for subtlety, to better explore the shades of gray of Kerr. And without seeing his eyes, we're too often left in the dark. 

In the end, Johnson gives a career-defining performance that should well prove he can handle meatier, even artier fare. Blunt gives her all in a thankless role, and Safdie, in his feature-length directorial debut without his brother/Uncut Gems co-helmer Josh Safdie, takes some big swings. It's a shame he didn't have a sharper eye on what was hitting, and what was leaving his audience needing more.

The Smashing Machine is now streaming on HBO Max.

UPDATE: Jan. 22, 2026, 2:41 p.m. EST "The Smashing Machine" was reviewed out of its North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in this article, originally published on Sept. 20, 2025. It has been updated to include the latest streaming information.

I fell in love with Arco from its very first frames.

In these opening moments, a flock of birds soars towards a cluster of towers jutting into the clouds, each holding up platforms covered in greenery and wind turbines. The image is utopian, yet there's a slightly foreboding to it. What led humanity to move to the sky? What lies below the clouds? The answer, unsurprisingly, is ecological disaster of our own making.

SEE ALSO: 2026 Oscar nominations: Full list of nominees

That tension between beauty and hard truths fuels the entirety of Arco, as French director Ugo Bienvenu pairs a charming tale of friendship with a sobering look at the realities of climate change. It's a glorious sci-fi journey, one told through the most remarkable animation you'll see this year.

What's Arco about?

The people who live on the platforms from Arco's opening scene are able to time travel. They fly to the past with the help of colorful cloaks and light-refracting crystals, bringing rainstorms and rainbows as they go.

Kids under the age of 12 are not allowed to use this technology, which doesn't sit right with 10-year-old Arco (voiced by Juliano Valdi in the English-language dub). So what does this aspiring adventurer do? He steals his sister's cloak and jets off to 2075, only to find himself stuck there. Thankfully, he has a newfound friend in Iris (voiced by Romy Fay), who is determined to help him get back to his own time.

Arco is another formidable animated film about climate change. Credit: Courtesy of NEON

While Arco's future is an idyllic one, fueled by renewable energy and a deep connection to nature, Iris' version is far more troubling — and hits closer to home.

Iris lives in a suburb that would seem right at home in our current moment, apart from a few changes. Her robot caretaker Mikki (voiced by Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo), as well as her town's hordes of robot laborers, speaks to significant technological advancements. So, too, do the holograms her workaholic parents (also voiced by Portman and Ruffalo) use to communicate while they're away at work.

But the most telling difference between our present and Iris' future is that of the protective bubbles that pop up around people's houses during ever-frequent destructive weather events. The threat of severe storms looms over the town, while kids talk casually about their families preparing for disaster in the face of encroaching wildfires. Clearly, this is a society that lives with the impacts of climate change, yet makes no large-scale attempts to mitigate its effects for future generations. (Sound familiar?)

SEE ALSO: 'The Wild Robot' and 'Flow' are quietly revolutionary climate change movies

Arco knows that climate change — and humans' acceleration of it — is what led his ancestors to make their way above the clouds. Through his eyes, everyday elements of Iris' world become accelerants of oncoming ecological collapse, such as the town's cars, or the excess of grocery stores, as opposed to his family's homegrown approach.

Bienvenu is never too heavy-handed in his messaging around climate change. Still, each of these world-building details combine to build a growing background sense of dread, one that only makes Iris and Arco's friendship all the sweeter by comparison. They offer up hope in a rapidly deteriorating world.

Arco's treatment of climate change recalls two of 2024's most outstanding films, Flow and The Wild Robot. Like Arco, each present worlds impacted by ecological calamities. However, these are not grand, sweeping stories of saving the world, but rather stories of the innocents — like Flow and The Wild Robot's animals, or Arco's young Iris and Arco — who have no choice but to endure these storms. In addition to Flow and The Wild Robot, Arco is further proof of animation's ability to communicate the realities of climate change to younger and older audiences alike.

Arco is a downright stunner.

And what animation is on display in Arco! A comic book artist himself, Bienvenu translates his 2D illustrative style to the big screen. The effect is glorious, reminiscent of the fantastical works of Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius) and the films of Studio Ghibli.

In addition to the rainbows and solarpunk sky towers of Arco's future, Bienvenu finds wonder in the 2075 timeline. The forests of Iris' town are lush wonderlands, while her school provides unexpected opportunities for escapism. Each classroom can transform into a variety of environments, from galaxies to underwater landscapes, offering Bienvenu and his team opportunities to flex their animation muscles and take Iris and Arco's adventure to new heights.

Another highlight of the animation is the mysterious trio of men (voiced by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, and Flea) who are tracking Arco down. They each rock colorful suits, bowl cuts, and rainbow glasses, and their bumbling attempts to find Arco are among the funniest and most visually distinct moments of the film.

In a mainstream animation landscape dominated by 3D-animated films, Arco's visuals are a testament to the enduring power of 2D work, as well as French filmmakers' commitment to the medium. If you love animation, run, don’t walk — or better yet, fly by rainbow — to catch it.

Arco opens in NYC and L.A. on Jan. 23, after an awards-qualifying run in 2025. It will open nationwide Jan. 30.

UPDATE: Jan. 22, 2026, 12:04 p.m. This review was first published on Nov. 14, 2025. It has been updated to reflect theatrical availability.

TL;DR: The Pokémon TCG: Unova Heavy Hitters Premium Collection is on sale for $134.87 at Amazon. That's $25 off its usual $159.99 list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: The Pokémon Company Pokémon TCG Unova Heavy Hitters Premium Collection $134.97 at Amazon
$159.99 Save $25.02   Get Deal

Premium Pokémon TCG collections rarely see meaningful discounts around their launch window, but we’re starting to see discounts on the Black Bolt and White Flare expansions more regularly. As of Jan. 23, the Pokémon TCG: Unova Heavy Hitters Premium Collection is available for $134.87, making it one of the better-value large-format Pokémon releases you can pick up right now.

The last expansions of the Scarlet and Violet set, this Generation Five Unova-based collection gives you a generous amount for just under $135. If you’re an avid trading card collector who missed out when both these expansions launched in July 2025, it’s a perfect set to help you catch up. 

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Inside the Pokémon TCG’s Unova Heavy Hitters Premium Collection, you’ll get 12 boosters total — six Black Bolt packs and White Flare packs, a code card for Pokémon TCG Live, four foil promo cards — Zekrom ex, Reshiram ex, Victini, and Zoroark — and an oversized Kyurem ex foil promo card designed for display. 

In terms of raw value, that pack count alone makes this deal more than worth your money. On Amazon right now, individual packs of both White Flare and Bolt Bolt are being sold for around $15. Based on the Heavy Hitters Collection’s 12 packs alone, this deal is saving you $45 compared to buying them separately. The added promo cards essentially feel like a great bonus prize on top.

For more multi-pack bargains, you can still buy an eight-pack lot of the Pokémon TCG’s Journey Together expansion at $16 off. For another high-end collection, the Pokémon TCG: Mega Charizard X ex Ultra-Premium Collection is still $100 off at Amazon.

SAVE $34: As of Jan. 23, the Apple Pencil Pro is on sale for $94.99 at Amazon. That's a 26% saving on the list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple Pencil Pro $94.99 at Amazon
$129 Save $34.01   Get Deal

The Apple Pencil Pro is back on sale at Amazon and if you use your iPad for anything more than casual scrolling, this is a solid time to grab one. The Pro is the most advanced in the range, designed for people who regularly write, draw, or do anything creative on their iPad. So if that's you, you'll love this deal. As of Jan. 23, the Apple Pencil Pro is down to $94.99, a saving of $34 on list price.

This Apple stylus is designed for iPads, giving a low-latency performance with tilt and pressure sensitivity for more accurate drawing, writing, and navigation. It even has gesture controls such as squeeze and barrel roll for switching tools or adjusting settings, along with haptic feedback.

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There's no cables involved or complicated pairing either, the pencil just attaches magnetically to the iPad for wireless pairing and charging. It also supports Apple Pencil hover on compatible models, a feature that lets you preview marks before actually placing them. And if you're worried about losing it, not to worry, it is compatible with Find My so you can track its location.

Get this Apple Pencil deal at Amazon and save over $30.

FREE BOOKS: The latest Stuff Your Kindle Day takes place on Jan. 21-24. Play Game, hosted by Indie Author Collective, is offering free sports fiction books for Kindle e-readers.

Welcome back, Stuff Your Kindle Day. We missed you over the festive period.

Play Game, hosted by Indie Author Collective, is offering readers the chance to download heavily discounted or free sport fiction ebooks. And the books that you download are yours to keep forever. So stop what you're doing and take this opportunity to stock up. The Stuff Your Kindle Day schedule is pretty busy in 2026, but we don't see a lot of sports fiction in these giveaways.

SEE ALSO: I tested the best Kindles to help you find the perfect e-reader

Looking to make the most of the latest Stuff Your Kindle Day? We've lined up everything you need to know about this popular event.

When is Stuff Your Kindle Day?

Play Game takes place on Jan. 21-24. Stuff Your Kindle Days often take place over 24 hours, this event runs for four days. That gives you time to check out everything on offer, assess how much you can actually read, and then download a sensible number of ebooks. OK, there's no need to be sensible here.

Who can take part in Stuff Your Kindle Day?

One of the great things about Stuff Your Kindle Day is that everyone can participate. Kindle, Kobo, and Nook readers can download these books for free. You can even download these books on your preferred app and read them straight from your phone.

Which ebooks are free?

Indie Author Collective is running the show, and has a helpful hub page for Play Game. This has a bunch of filters for major tropes, spice level, content level, and representation. By utilizing these filters, you camn head directly to what you want to read most.

Is Stuff Your Kindle Day the same as Amazon Kindle Unlimited?

Everything you download on Stuff Your Kindle Day is yours to keep, and there's no limit on the number of books you can download. Stuff Your Kindle Day downloads don't count towards the 20 books that Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow at the same time, so there's no need to hold back. This is the time to be greedy.

The best Stuff Your Kindle Day deal Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Kindle (16GB) + Kindle Unlimited (3 Months) $109.99 at Amazon
  Get Deal Why we like it

These popular e-readers help you take your entire library on the go. With weeks of battery life and an anti-glare display, you can read anywhere and anytime with the Kindle. Plus, you can get three months of Kindle Unlimited for free with your purchase.

SAVE $1,320: As of Jan. 23, the Jackery HomePower 3000 Portable with DC-DC Alternator Charger is on sale for $1,499 at Amazon. That's a 47% discount on the list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Jackery Jackery HomePower 3000 Portable with DC-DC Alternator Charger $1,499 at Amazon
$2,819 Save $1,320   Get Deal

There are some great deals on portable power stations at Amazon right now, and if you're looking for a whole home power unit, the Jackery HomePower 3000 Portable with DC-DC Alternator Charge is nearly half off.

As of Jan. 23, this stacked model is down by 47%, now priced at $1,499. That's a saving of $1,320 on list price. And this isn't just for the power station unit on its own. No, this includes an alternator charger, a high-power car charger designed to rapidly recharge compatible Jackery power stations while you’re driving.

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The unit itself is designed to power your whole home when required. It has a 3,600W output (7,200W surge) and a large 3,072Wh capacity that can keep all your essentials running during an outage. It can power a home setup for up to 15 hours, or keep a refrigerator running for one to two days. It has a range of outlets too, including AC, USB-C, USB-A and DC ports, as well as dual 100W PD ports for fast charging.

Charging is flexible too, and you won't need days of notice to prepare it. In fact, it can fully recharge in around 1.7 hours using the hybrid AC and DC, 2.2 hours via AC alone.

Get this Jackery deal from Amazon now.

TikTok will officially remain in the U.S. for the foreseeable future. A new, majority U.S.-owned company had been established to continue running the popular video-sharing app in the country, and has announced some very U.S.-centric changes coming to your For You feed.

SEE ALSO: Why pro-Palestinian content is at the center of the TikTok ban

U.S. politicians pushed for TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell to American owners for years. These lawmakers claim that the Chinese government spies on American users via the app (though there is no evidence that this is actually happening), and accuse TikTok of manipulating its algorithm to present content that is sympathetic to Palestine and China.

Now it seems these politicians have gotten their way. Called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, the new company will take over ownership of TikTok in the U.S., as well as the American operations of other ByteDance apps such as CapCut and Lemon8.

"TikTok USDS Joint Venture's mandate is to secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures," read TikTok USDS Joint Venture's announcement. 

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is owned by a plethora of different investors, most of which are American. While TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance retains 19.9 percent of the U.S. joint venture, 45 percent is evenly split among three managing investors: U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake, U.S. IT company Oracle, and UAE investment firm MGX. 

A string of predominantly American investors own smaller chunks of the remaining 35.1 percent, including investment firm Dell Family Office and Susquehanna International Group affiliate Vastmere Strategic Investments.

How TikTok's new U.S. owners will impact your For You feed

TikTok USDS Joint Venture stated that U.S. user data will be held in Oracle's U.S. cloud servers, indicating that this will ensure it is secure. TikTok previously did the same, investing $1.5 billion to quarantine U.S. users' data with Oracle in an initiative dubbed Project Texas. Even so, this wasn't enough to reassure U.S. lawmakers and stave off the sale.

TikTok USDS Joint Venture will also use U.S. user data to retrain and update the app's famous content recommendation algorithm, also keeping this new version in Oracle's cloud. Other countries will presumably continue to use the TikTok algorithm without these U.S.-centric updates.

It seems fair to assume that this retraining may attempt to address politicians' aforementioned concerns regarding the type and tenor of content that people in the U.S. see on TikTok. The company further noted that it will "safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem" by taking control of TikTok's U.S. content moderation and trust and safety policies.

Fortunately, these changes don't mean that TikTok users in the U.S. will be completely cut off from the rest of the world. TikTok USDS Joint Venture states that content from U.S. creators will still be shown to users in other countries. However, it remained silent on whether U.S. creators would similarly continue to see content from the rest of the world.

As such, it wouldn't be surprising if U.S. users saw fewer pro-Palestinian TikToks on their For You feeds in the future. 

TikTok U.S.' new owner is led by CEO Adam Presser and CSO Will Farrell (not to be confused with actor Will Ferrell), both of whom previously worked at TikTok. The company will also have a seven-member, majority-American board of directors, including TPG Global senior advisor Timothy Dattels, Susquehanna International Group managing director Mark Dooley, Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban, Oracle executive vice president Kenneth Glueck, and MGX chief strategy and safety officer David Scott. Famously Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Chew will also serve as a director at TikTok USDS Joint Venture.

We've previously learned that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S26 smartphones would feature an innovative Privacy Display, and now that seems to have been confirmed — by Samsung itself.

Sammy Guru grabbed an animation showing Privacy Display earlier this month. And this week, in an official update on the One UI 8.5 arriving with the new S26 phones, Samsung included a screenshot that clearly shows a Privacy Display mode in the settings menu, all but confirming its official existence.

Mobile insiders have also spotted references to Privacy Display in the code of early versions of One UI 8.5.

Privacy Display is something like a frosted screen protector, blocking other people from seeing what's on your phone's screen. By activating Privacy Display, the Galaxy S26 phones will be able to do this natively, which is a neat trick. iPhones definitely can't do it (yet).

Everything we know about Privacy Display

Veteran Samsung leaker Ice Universe posted a video showing privacy screen technology in action. Filmed at Mobile World Congress in 2024, the video shows a device called the Flex Magic Pixel with the technology. See it for yourself on X.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

In addition, the animation first spotted by Sammy Guru has also started making the rounds on X and Reddit.

Reddit

"Prevent others from seeing what's on your screen," reads a description of the feature. "Privacy display makes the screen less visible when viewed from a side angle. You can turn it on when you need it or set conditions for turning it on automatically."

Credit: Samsung Credit: Samsung Is Samsung copying Liquid Glass for the S26?

With the next Galaxy Unpacked event rumored to take place in late February, we're in the midst of a wave of pre-launch leaks — many of which confirm long-rumored new features such as Privacy Display. The rumor mill also suggested that One UI 8.5, and by extension the whole S26 lineup, will also adopt a more Liquid Glass-like aesthetic.

Liquid Glass is Apple's new design language, and debuted with iOS 26. It features translucent elements, more customization, and animations that bend and refract light. So far, iOS 26 and Liquid Glass have been controversial, with many design nerds criticizing the new look. Nevertheless, it appears Samsung is set to follow suit.

One UI 8 has already features some translucent elements — and a new preview of One UI 8.5 posted to the Samsung-affiliated Good Lock website shows even more Liquid Glass-style features. The widgets screen in particular looks very similar to the widgets screen in iOS 26.

A promo image from Samsung's One UI 8 overview Credit: Samsung A preview of the widgets screen in One UI 8.5. Credit: Samsung / Good Lock

Today’s change isn’t linear or predictable. It’s chaotic, overlapping, and largely outside of your control. Traditional leadership strategies fall short. To lead effectively now, you need to make change feel routine for your team. Here’s how.  Reframe how you talk about change. Instead of selling a future-state vision, communicate change as an ongoing journey. Emphasize the risk of doing nothing, and help employees focus on steady progress. To avoid overwhelming them with […]

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TL;DR: Live stream Tiafoe vs. de Minaur in the 2026 Australian Open for free on 9Now. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

Alex de Minaur is one of the names to watch 2026 Australian Open. The Australian tennis star is looking to claim his first Gland Slam title on home soil. As the No. 6 seed, he's looked sharp so far and only dropped a single set in the first two rounds.

But a tougher challenge awaits in the third round in the form of American No. 29 seed Francis Tiafoe. Can de Minaur get one step closer to his first Grand Slam? Or will Tiafoe take the tennis glory for himself?

If you want to watch Tiafoe vs. de Minaur in the 2026 Australian Open for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

How to watch Tiafoe vs. de Minaur for free

Tiafoe vs. de Minaur in the 2026 Australian Open is available to live stream for free on 9Now.

9Now is geo-restricted to Australia, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These handy tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Australia, meaning you can unblock 9Now from anywhere in the world.

Access free live streams of the 2026 Australian Open by following these simple steps:

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Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.99 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading services do tend to offer deals such as free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these deals, you can live stream Tiafoe vs. de Minaur without actually spending anything. This isn't a long-term solution, but it gives you enough time to watch the Australian Open before recovering your investment.

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ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live tennis on 9Now, for a number of reasons:

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Look, we love Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle), even with his flaws. But this latest episode of The Pitt has us urgently worried about our favorite ER doc, all because of a few little words that call back to some fan theories out of episode 1.

The hit show's complicated attending physician kicked the second season off with a controversial move that had tongues wagging. Now, with Season 2, episode 3, titled "9 A.M.," he's lying about it. What does this mean for Dr. Robby's Season 2 arc and beyond?

Let's dive into it.

What did Dr. Robby lie about in "The Pitt"? Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby in "The Pitt." Credit: Warrick Page / HBO Max

He lied about his motorcycling habits. Here's how it went down:

In this episode, along with a grief-stricken burn victim, a kiddo with a "zebra" of a medical condition, and a mercurial patient with a mind-bending diagnosis, The Pitt also featured a squabbling married couple whose petty argument was interrupted by a motorcyclist colliding into their car.

While the episode followed the husband and wife through treatment and regrets over their fight, the motorcyclist was basically dead on arrival, with a shocking amount of his brain's gray matter on display. Usually stoic medical student Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) reacted in shock, asking, "No helmet?"

To this, the police officer in the room says, "Nope." While looking at the patient's ID, he notes, "He took the PennDOT motorcycle safety course." (PennDOT is short for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.)

Dr. Garcia (Alexandra Metz) quips, "Isn't that what you took, Robby?"

Dr. Robby responds sharply, saying, "Yes, but I still wear a helmet."

There's the lie.

The Season 2 opening sequence echoed the start of Season 1, following Dr. Robby into the emergency room of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. But where in the first season he was on foot, in the second, he's riding a motorcycle across one of Pittsburgh's signature yellow bridges. And he's — say it with me — NOT WEARING A HELMET.

What does this helmet lie mean? Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby in "The Pitt" doesn't wear a helmet while motorcycling in "The Pitt" Season 2. Credit: Screenshot: HBO Max

When fans of The Pitt first saw Dr. Robby riding without a helmet in the Season 2 sneak peak, many called this behavior out on social media. Some declared it "unrealistic" for an ER doctor to behave this way, while others suggested such recklessness is a sign of Robby having a death wish.

Season 1, we saw him going to the edge of the hospital's rooftop, potentially considering jumping. Now he's riding without a motorcycle helmet on July 4, a holiday notorious for a spike in Emergency Room visits.

However, Robby will tell anyone who listens — even his loathed, returning colleague Langdon (Patrick Ball) — how he's going on a three-month sabbatical to motorcycle his way to an aboriginal UNESCO World Heritage Site in Alberta. So maybe he's taking the advice of night shift attending physician Dr. Abbot (Shawn Hatosy) and finding a hobby to help him relieve the stress of working at "The Pitt." But there are some worrying signs about his trip already.

Consider all this: He's riding without a helmet on busy city streets, an act some fans have called "passively suicidal." Of all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world, he's headed to one with the name "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump." Then there's a motorcyclist with his head smashed in right before Dr. Robby's very eyes. And instead of considering how he opened himself up to such an injury just two hours before, Robby lies to assuage the concerns of his co-workers.

Are all these clues suggesting that Robby going on this particular sabbatical could mean we won't see him in Season 3? Could that planned long ride be his last?

On the one hand, with a third season of The Pitt confirmed, it's unlikely that Wyle, who is also a writer, director, and producer on the series, will be written off. But remember, Wyle did come up on ER, which saw popular leads like George Clooney and Julianna Margulies leave long before the show wrapped. So we're not feeling totally confident about Dr. Robby's fate.

What has Noah Wyle said about Dr. Robby not wearing a helmet?

Asked about this on the Golden Globes red carpet, Wyle told the AP, "There's nothing arbitrary about the way we do the show. Everything is pretty specific. And that was a very specific decision that we made to have him riding with the helmet on his backpack but not on his head — telling everybody he wears one, but we all know he isn't."

On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Wyle spoke about the decision to have Robby ride without his helmet. Turns out it wasn't in the script, and it was his idea.

He told Kimmel, "The night before [we shot the scene], I had dinner with John Wells, who directed the [first] episode [of Season 2]...And I said, 'I don't know that Robby wears a helmet. I think he tells people he wears a helmet.'"

He then compared the motorcycle season opener to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's iconic introduction to Willy Wonka. The Pitt star explained how the film's leading man, Gene Wilder, agreed to play Wonka "if he could make his character introduction, where he comes out with a cane and a limp and then he walks up to the gate and then he falls forward and comes up into this very elegant sort of bow. And they asked him why he wanted to do that, and he said, 'Because from that point forward they won't know if I'm telling the truth or not.'"

For Wyle, Wonka and Dr. Robby have this uneasy allure in common. He continued to Kimmel, "We're talking about a guy who's on a mental health journey, who's resistant to getting the help he probably should get. What better clue can we give the audience that he's playing a little fast and loose with his life than to let them in on this detail that he's not telling the people that he works with, that love him."

So, yeah. We've been worried since that no helmet scene first hit, and our concern is only growing.

The Pitt Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes being released every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.

If you want to talk to someone or are experiencing suicidal thoughts, text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. For international resources, this list is a good place to start.

Brace yourselves, Pitt Fiends! (Is that what we're calling ourselves?) Because episode 3 of Season 2 just dropped a major cliffhanger. As if Dr. Robby's lie doesn't have us stressed enough, now we've got a code black to deal with!?

Spoilers and speculation below for Season 2 of The Pitt.

For those unfamiliar with hospital terminology, a "code black" in this case means the nearby hospital will be diverting all its emergency room patients to Dr. Robby's trauma center until further notice. In Season 1, the day shift had to deal with the PittFest massacre. So, what calamity are they going to be grappling with now?

Well, while episode 3, titled "9 A.M.," drew to a close with only possibilities of what could cause the code black, The Pitt's Season 2 trailers gave us hints of what's ahead.

What does the code black mean for The Pitt Season 2?

Poor Dr. Robby. It's his last day at work before a hard-earned sabbatical. And just as he looks at the computer board to see that there's relative calm in his ER, charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) gets a call that changes her gruffly cheery demeanor (it's a yinzer thing) to all business as she asks of the caller, "Is this a drill? Is this a joke? It's the fourth of fucking July!"

With Dr. Robby and his eager replacement Dr. Al (Sepideh Moafi) alert for news, Dana explains that "Westbridge has a code black and is closing to internal disaster. Central's diverting all their ambulance traffic to us."

This means a problem has hit a neighboring hospital. But how serious is it? Robby and Al quickly offer several possibilities:

• Flooded toilet

• Power outage

• "A couple of doctors probably got the holiday flu, and they're understaffed."

Immediately, security guard Ahmad Zidan (Johnath Davis) starts a new betting grid on a white board, asking would-be gamblers to guess why the code black was called, how long the code will last, and how many patients will be diverted their way.

So, are you ready to place your bet? Before you do, let's look back at the trailers HBO Max has already released for Season 2.

What do The Pitt's trailers tell us about the code black?

On Dec. 16, 2025, the above trailer set up the returns of Langdon and Dana, as well as Dr. Robby's impending time off. Then, we see Dana on that red phone, asking, "Is this a drill?"

From there, an unknown voice says, "Westbridge has shut down all their computer systems." Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden) asks, "Are we next?" And then Dr. Robby warns, "We're about to go analog," as the computer screens switch to offline.

Now, at a glance, it might seem Robby was right with his power outage guess. But notably, the unidentified voice said Westbridge "shut down all their computer systems," not lost power to them. So, this could suggest a cyberattack.

What will going analog mean for The Pitt crew? Well, for one, they'll be doing things more like doctors and nurses did in the '90s, aka Noah Wyle's ER era.

In the trailer released earlier this month, we got a better sense of Dr. Robby and company in disaster mode.

In the start of this trailer, you can see the doctors and nurses gathering around a large white board, which seems to be used to track patients without computers. But nothing about the source of the code black is revealed.

So, what's your bet for Ahmad's grid?

The Pitt Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes being released every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.

The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult to solve if you're good with measurements.

Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

SEE ALSO: NYT Pips hints, answers for January 23, 2026 Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Distinguishable characteristics

• Green: Car placements

• Blue: Measurements

• Purple: Illumination

Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Facial features

• Green: Kinds of parking

• Blue: Imperial units

• Purple: Words before "Light"

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today's Connections #957 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Facial features: CHEEK, EYE, LIP, STONE

• Kinds of parking: GARAGE, METER, STREET, VALET

• Imperial units: ACRE, BUSHEL, FOOT, STONE

• Words before "Light": FLOOD, LIME, PILOT, TRAFFIC

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for January 23, 2026

Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today's puzzle.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.

Today's NYT Strands hints are easy if you're unknowing.

Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game, requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for January 23, 2026 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for January 23, 2026 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: None the wiser

The words are related to innocence.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words describe being inexperienced.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is vertical.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is Born Yesterday.

NYT Strands word list for January 23

• Credulous

• Artless

• Born Yesterday

• Naive

• Callow

• Gullible

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, and if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!

Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Strands.

TL;DR: Live stream Zverev vs. Norrie in the 2026 Australian Open for free on 9Now. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The 2026 Australian Open continues to serve up big action from the world's top tennis stars — names such as Alexander Zverev, who entered the Melbourne-hosted tournament as the No. 3 seed and now faces British hopeful Cameron Norrie.

Zverez reached the final last year and is now laser focused of winning his first ever Grand Slam title. But Norrie, the No. 26 seed, won't be an easy opponent. His best ever performance in the Australian Open is the fourth round, so you can be sure he'll want to match — or better still, beat — that personal record.

If you want to watch Zverev vs. Norrie in the 2026 Australian Open for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

How to watch Zverev vs. Norrie for free

Zverev vs. Norrie in the 2026 Australian Open is available to live stream for free on 9Now.

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