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WONDER WOMAN Brings Female Empowerment to the United Nations

Even for a cynic like myself, stepping foot into the Economic and Social Council Chamber at the United Nations brought upon something of an eye-widening rush. I arrived at the top of the colossal assembly room after tailing a crowd of fellow journalists through the UN headquarters’ buzzing thoroughfare, instantly losing footing when hit with the historical and ideological magnitude that such a room represented. But even the lifelong pacifistic discourse junkie inside me could not keep up with the passions exuded from the face of the dozens of young girls—and a few boys, too—who’d enter the ECOSOC Chamber soon after, all draped in bright blue Wonder Woman t-shirts and even brighter smiles.

You could chalk the elation up to a day saved from the elementary school classroom, or perhaps the excitement of meeting movie stars up close and personal. But there was more to it than that—a fact that became clear once the feature guests took the stage to accept their honor.

“Stories, whether from scripture, legend, or comic book, can educate and encourage. They can light a fire in our soul and guide us toward good.”

After 75 years of serving the planet Earth in comic books pages, on television, and right here in the real world, Princess Diana of Themyscira, better known as Wonder Woman, undertook the title of Ambassador of Female Empowerment, as officially bestowed by the United Nations. Present and accounted for on behalf of the timeless hero were Diane Nelson, President of DC Entertainment, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, as well as the foremost recognizable faces of Lynda Carter and Gal Godot: the actors who’ve brought Wonder Woman to life onscreen in the past and present.

Taking the mic first, Nelson laid out the historical significance of the DC Comics character for an audience of girls many decades the Amazonian queen’s junior. “For too long and too often, the comics, film, and television industries have portrayed women as damsels in distress,” Nelson said. “But thanks in large part to Dr. William Moulton Marston, who in the early 1940s created Wonder Woman—the greatest female superhero to date—this is becoming less often the case.”

She continued, “He knew that for Wonder Woman to be accepted in the male-dominated world of superheroes, she had to be a different kind of hero. Wonder Woman needed to embrace love over violence and value peace over war. She had to stand up for peace, justice, and equality for all people.”

Though Marston is credited as the principal creator of the Wonder Woman character, Carter was eager to point out that he was not alone in her conception. “It was the height of World War II, the world was at war, when William Moulton Marston was asked to come up with a new superhero to fight against the Nazis,” she said. “When he returned home that evening, his wife Elizabeth told him, ‘Honey, that’s a good idea. We can do that together. But this one is going to be a woman.’”

“…She lives in me, and she lives in stories that these women tell me…They saw that they could do something great.”

Carter cited William and Elizabeth Marston’s granddaughter Christie in articulating the latter’s contributions to Wonder Woman: “’For [my grandmother], it was all about intellect and attitude.'”

Nearly 35 years after her introduction to the DC Comics family, Wonder Woman found her way to the small screen, roping Carter into the mix to portray her. “This was a monumentous thing, for, at the time, there were very few women holding their own shows in television,” the Wonder Woman star said. “They didn’t think a woman could hold a television show. We started getting letters and phone calls and started hearing stories. This miracle of an idea that came from a 48-year-old woman named Elizabeth started to have an influence on some girls’ and women’s lives. That was when Wonder Woman became flesh.”

Ever since, Wonder Woman’s impact on young viewers and readers has made itself evident to Carter. “She lives and she breathes,” she said. “I know this because she lives in me, and she lives in stories that these women tell me. I see it in the tears that fall from the eyes of women who say that it saved them or inspired them through some awful thing. They saw that they could do something great.”

Despite the social progresses we have made in the decades since Wonder Woman’s creation, she is as relevant and necessary as ever today and beyond, a point Nelson hammered home by reminding the room of an issue of DC Comics’ Injustice: Gods Among Us in which Wonder Woman was named General Secretary of the UN and Lois Lane elected President of the United States of America.

“There are girls all over the world who don’t get to dream about what they want to be when they grow up,” Nelson said. “Inequalities faced by girls begin right at birth and follow them all their lives. In some countries, girls are deprived of access to health care and proper nutrition. They’re married at young ages and don’t have equal access to education.”

This is why we need not only real world heroes, but those on the page and screen. “We believe that in addition to the exemplary work that amazing real women are doing in the fight for gender equality, it’s to be commended that the U.N. understands that stories—even in comic book stories—can inspire, teach, and reveal injustices,” Nelson said. “Stories, whether from scripture, legend, or comic book, can educate and encourage. They can light a fire in our soul and guide us toward good.”

Nelson added, “Imagine what a figure like Wonder Woman means to [these girls and women]. Someone who takes no nonsense from any man—including Superman.”

“Wonder Woman is a fighter, better than most. But it’s what she fights for that is important.”

Throughout the ceremony, I’d look back up at the rows and rows of young girls, rapt in every word of the Wonder Womans standing before them. It became ever clearer to me that this wasn’t just excitement over spectacle; these words were sinking in.

“There’s a revolution already under way,” Nelson said, “and it needs to be put into action from women and girls and men and boys. The tough conversations we’re facing about assault and objectification, just like tough conversations about race and policing, will ultimately take us to a better place.”

Joining Nelson and Carter at the head of the room was Gal Gadot, who, in 2017, will become the first actor to take Wonder Woman to her own starring role in a feature film. Though Gadot insisted on making a much shorter speech than either Nelson or Carter did, her message was no less the powerful.

“Wonder Woman seeks to promote strength, wisdom, leadership, justice, and love,” she said. “Qualities that, combined, make us the very best that we can be. Her mission is simple, but as many people know from all around the world, it isn’t always so. Sometimes we need something or someone to aspire to. To help inform our choices and set an example.”

Gadot continued, “Wonder Woman is a fighter, better than most. But it’s what she fights for that is important. It is her vision of a future of peace and acceptance that makes her the right ambassador for everyone.”

But of all the ideas expressed that morning, perhaps Nelson summed it up best here: “Wonder Woman is already, in her mythology, an ambassador,” she said. “She’s an ambassador from the Amazons to man’s world with the role of uniting men and women, granting peace and equality to everyone. But what makes Wonder Woman empowering isn’t that she represents, ‘Look what girls can do,’ it’s that she represents, ‘Look what girls already do.’”

Nelson capped her speech by informing her audience that DC would be breaking ground in 2017 with a new Wonder Woman comic book: the first ever to publish across the world in multiple languages simultaneously.

Images: Warner Bros.; DC Comics

Michael Arbeiter is the East Coast Editor for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter.

BLACK MIRROR Recap: “Playtest” Explores Your Darkest Fears

Warning: The following recap contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know anything about the episode, “Playest,” or if you’re adversely affected by the thought of brain-machine interfaces, leave the page now! 

“Playtest,” as you’d guess from the title, is an especially creepy episode of Black Mirror revolving around a video game. But the video game du jour is an unholy augmented reality (AR) game that needs to be surgically implanted into your spinal column and uses a machine-learning “neural net” to figure out your deepest fears. (Note: our new deepest fear is this video game.)

The episode, which was written by showrunner Charlie Brooker, opens with the episode’s title written out in 8-bit video game text. From there, we meet Cooper, a young man who’s packing for an adventure. After passing by a picture of his family—young Cooper, his father, his mother—he quietly leaves his house and catches a cab. He gets a call from his mom, but he ignores it.

The next thing you know Cooper’s on a plane. After that, it’s a montage of everywhere a moderately wealthy 20-something would go on a whirlwind trip: Australia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and of course, Europe. In the UK, Cooper uses a Tinder-like app to meet up with a woman named Sonja. They get to know each other over a couple of beers—she’s a technology correspondent, he went on his trip to “get away from home”—and then Cooper asks her for some “suggestions on fun shit to do.” After some coquettish glances are shared, we cut to them snuggled up in bed the next morning.

The two get to know each other a bit more over a sexy breakfast full of Marmite—we learn that Cooper’s dad has a serious case of Alzheimer’s—and Cooper keeps ignoring calls from his mom. This becomes a big problem for him when he goes to the ATM and finds out he doesn’t have any money. After calling the bank, he realizes that his identity has been stolen. He wants to call his mom, but he can’t bring himself to do it, so he does the only thing he can do: return to Sonja’s and drink beer.

While hanging with Sonja, Cooper opens up an app called Odd Jobs, which, you guessed it, helps him find odd jobs. Sonja immediately recognizes a position for “Thrill Seeker.” Cooper—who had participated in the running of the bulls—seems like a good candidate. He says that the job is at a gaming company called Saito Gaming. Sonja pulls a magazine off a table and shows Cooper the CEO of Saito: Shou Saito. She says he should go because if he can get some BTS shots of Saito’s technology, that could mean big money.

Cooper rolls up to Saito, which is in an archetypal English manor, to some very awesome synth music reminiscent of Trent Reznor’s score in The Social Network. He’s greeted by a woman, Katie, who puts him in a room with some next-level gaming equipment. While she’s gone, Cooper quickly snaps a picture of the equipment with his phone, which he forgets to turn off (Katie turned the phone off originally). Then, after signing an NDA and having a “mushroom” implant shot into the back of his neck, Cooper is loaded into the AR game (which uses a headband that encompasses his forehead). Instantly a Whac-A-Mole type game pops up on the desk in front of him. The mole is incredibly realistic.

Katie then takes Cooper to see the man himself: Saito. Saito, who believes games “liberate you” and invoke a “release of fear,” invites Cooper to try a new creation: “The most personal survival horror game in history.” Katie explains that it’s a game that invades one’s brain, and it uses a neural net to find a player’s biggest fears. Coop signs up. (He did do the running of the bulls.)

After the game is initiated inside of his head, he’s taken by Katie to what is essentially an old haunted mansion. She then sits him down, puts an earpiece in his ear, and says later! (say “stop” if the game gets to intense). At first, the game seems mind-numbingly boring, and Cooper simply chills by the fire. But quickly, very creepy things start to happen. At first, it’s just a spider. Then it’s an old bully from school in a creepy witch costume. And soon, Cooper finds himself in the kitchen staring at the face of a gargantuan spider with the face of his high school bully on it. (Spider-Man gone so. Very. Wrong.)

Cooper thinks, even after the giant spider, that he’s got this; he’s not afraid. Then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Sonja, she’s come to rescue him from Saito, which is actually an evil corporation. Only, that’s not true. In fact, Sonja is just a simulation made by the game’s neural net—even though he can actually feel her. Not only can he feel her, he can also feel the knife she eventually puts through his shoulder. But wait, even though he could feel Sonja and the knife, they weren’t actually real!

That’s the last straw for Cooper; he says he wants out. Katie tells him that he must go to “the access point” in the house in order to end the game. But, twist again! The access point isn’t a real room, even though Cooper’s still locked inside of it.  He begins to fear that he’s losing his memory like his father. It’s all too much, so he takes a piece of broken mirror to the back of his neck to rid himself of the “mushroom.” Before he can remove it however, Katie and Saito enter and tell some guards to drag him away and put him with “the others.” Buuuut, twist again! It’s not really Katie and Saito. In fact, Cooper is still in the chair in Saito’s office. Everything is totally cool.

Cooper then flies home, and walks upstairs to his mom’s room. There he finds his mom sobbing. It makes sense at first, but it becomes apparent that Cooper’s mom is trying to call Cooper even though he’s right there. And that’s because THERE’S A FINAL BIG TWIST. Cooper is not actually at home with his mom, he is, in fact, in the very first Saito gaming room where he played virtual Whac-A-Mole. And he’s having a seizure.

The seizure, caused by a malfunction in the game’s initializing sequence—due to Cooper’s mom calling his cell phone—kills Cooper. When Saito asks Katie what happened, she says that his phone rang, which is bad news because the call interferes with the game. Finally, when Katie sits down to write her post-mortem report (do those happen a lot when testing games?), she puts down in the Observations section: ” CALLED ‘MOM'”

Who did you want to call after watching “Playtest”? Was it your mom? (We know it was your mom, but still, tell us about it, what are we, chopped liver?)

Images: Netflix

DOCTOR STRANGE Works a Kids Birthday Party on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE

In just two weeks, Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange, will appear on the big screen to defend humanity against the supernatural threats of the MCU. And while Stephen Strange is well-suited for fighting his own inner-demons and otherworldly threats, he may not be great with kids.

During Benedict Cumberbatch‘s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he appeared in-character as Strange for a comedy skit in which he was hired by Kimmel to entertain a children’s birthday party. Naturally, this gig is supposed to be beneath a true master of the mystic arts. Unfortunately, it seems that Strange committed a common sin: exaggerating your resume on Linkedin. But as the good doctor pointed out, it’s not like Kimmel isn’t guilty of the same offense.

Stephen Strange had a vice before his enlightenment: he only cared about making money. That side of Strange resurfaced here, as he accepted the job for a mere $150 rather than simply leaving any money on the table. However, that didn’t mean that he was ready to let the kids get away with anything. By the end of the clip, the birthday party was largely deserted, and not because the children went “home.”

The skit was actually a very clever way to show off some of Strange’s powers for new fans, and there was even a moment where Strange’s Eye of Agamotto came into play. We doubt that Strange will be quite this funny in the final film, but we loved seeing this!

What did you think about the Doctor Strange skit on JKL? Conjure up your thoughts in the comment section below!

Image: ABC

WONDER WOMAN ’77/BIONIC WOMAN and Coloring Book Exclusive Preview

Friday is Wonder Woman’s 75th anniversary, and not only did she become an official ambassador to the United Nations, with none other than Wonder Women Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot at the ceremony, but in the world of comics, she’s set to team up with another pioneering icon of ’70s feminism — The Bionic Woman! DC Comics and Dynamite Entertainment are bringing together the two icons  for Wonder Woman ’77 Meets The Bionic Woman, featuring the likenesses of actresses Lynda Carter and Lindsay Wagner, in a mini-series set during the runs of their classic television series.

The new comic is written by Andy Mangels (Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Files) with art by Jundit Tondora (Bettie Page). According to the official description from DC and Dynamite, “government agents Jamie Sommers and Diana Prince team their respective powers against a threat to national security in a series too big for the small screen! In this action-packed mini-series, the two television titans team up to fight a rogue cabal bent on wreaking havoc and stealing deadly weapons. Can CASTRA be stopped before their real targets are revealed and lives are lost? With super powers, bionic enhancements, surprise villains, and an invisible plane, just about anything is possible!

In a statement from writer Andy Mangels, he said “For forty years, fans have been wondering what would happen if their favorite television heroines got to meet. I’m thrilled to get to mix these two feminist icons into a massive story that respects not only the characters themselves, but also the magic that Lynda Carter and Lyndsay Wagner brought to their history-changing roles. The 10-year-old Andy would never have believed that instead of running around in his back yard making “wonder leaps” and “bionic runs,” he’d actually get the opportunity to craft stories that mix the best of these two worlds into one!”

Another way to celebrate the Amazing Amazon is with The Wonder Woman Adult Coloring Book from Insight Editions, which is now available everywhere. According to the official press release, “this stunning adult coloring book is filled with ready-to-color illustrations of one of DCs’ most iconic characters. From the bright red and blue of Wonder Woman’s costume to the rich greens and yellows of her homeland, Themyscira, the heraldry of this Amazonian Super Hero is yours to design and color. Featuring many of the greatest artists in DC history and their interpretations of Wonder Woman’s memorable adventures, this incredible coloring book offers hours of creative fun and relaxation.” Enjoy some exclusive images below!

Download (PDF, 3.78MB)

Wonder Woman 77 Meets Bionic Woman #1 hits comic books shops on December 7. You can see a preview of several pages, plus covers from series artists Jundit Tondora and variants from Alex Ross, Cat Staggs, as well as black and white character sketches, in our gallery below.

Are you excited about the long awaited meeting between these two feminist icons? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images: DC Comics / Dynamite Entertainment

Unreleased Prince Songs Will Be Released in November

The Purple One will always be full of magic. Prince has two new LPs on the way, and the posthumous releases promise unreleased material. If you want something you can listen to now, stick around. Trent Reznor said he’s working on Nine Inch Nails music, Cher did a duet with James Corden, Red Bull Music Academy has a new video game series with musicians, and Kim Gordon returns with Body/Head for a new live album.

The first posthumous release by Prince is on the way, and according to Prince’s estate, it includes never before heard music. Two albums are on their way, and both have new songs. The first is a 40-song greatest hits compilation called Prince 4Ever. The LP comes out on November 22. Lesser-known favorites like “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad” will be next to official releases of “Moonbeam Levels” and other songs that never got an official release. The second, a deluxe reissue of Purple Rain, comes out in early 2017. The plans for this one were approved by Prince before he passed away, including a second album of previously unreleased material. What that is has yet to be disclosed. Stay tuned here though for more information regarding The Purple One. [Rolling Stone]

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross just finished a score for Leonardo DiCaprio‘s climate change documentary, Before the Flood. Turns out that wasn’t the only thing they were working on. The musicians went on Zane Lowe Beats 1 radio for an interview and, when there, revealed they’ve been working on Nine Inch Nails material, too. “Things are going good and when we have something that we think is excellent, we will unleash it on the world,” said Reznor. To that, we say it’s worth the wait. [Rolling Stone]

James Corden‘s TV show gets celebrities to indulge in fun activities, and it makes you wish you were friends with them in the process. His newest episode didn’t let up on that. Corden spent his October 20 show singing a duet with the one and only Cher. The song? A spin on her classic 1965 hit “I Got You Babe” (remembered fondly in Groundhog’s Day), only now reworked to be “I Got You Bae.” It’s goofy, touching on everything from Netflix and chill to Facebook-official relationships. If you need a laugh, this video is for you. [Rolling Stone]

Red Bull Music Academy has a new series called Diggin’ In the Carts. The show explores video game music past and present with host Nick Dwyer, a writer and co-director of the Red Bull Music Academy documentary video series. The first season zones in on Japanese video game music to be exact. Expect 8-bit goodness, 16-bit revolutions, and arcade songs, all of which include a rich history about tones, melodies, and forms of appreciation. To expand on that, modern musicians like Thundercat come by to talk about what these soundtracks mean to them. It’s a big series that we’re already heart-eyed over. Episodes air every Thursday at 7pm EST. Head here to learn more. [Red Bull Music Academy]

Sonic Youth may be dead, but that band’s spirit lives on through Kim Gordon. She and Bill Nace create music together under the moniker Body/Head. They announced a new live album is on the way, and the record, called No Waves, sounds like the gut-busting rock we want to keep living in now that Sonic Youth is no more. They recorded it at Big Ears Festival in 2014. Surprisingly, the LP only has three tracks, but it clocks in around 40 minutes, drawing on experimental improvisation and drone-like work to offer fans a taste of their live shows. The whole thing comes out November 11 via Matador. Check out the album art above. [Consequence of Sound]

See you back here on Monday for another Music Dispatch!

Image: NPG Records/Warner Bros

A Super In-Depth LOGAN Trailer Breakdown

So here we are, folks. After a nearly two-decade run as our favorite Canucklehead, Hugh Jackman is hanging up the adamantium claws for good with one final outing as the Wolverine. And holy effing crap does it look like he’s doing so in style. The first trailer for Logan dropped yesterday and it has blown our fragile minds. Scored to the super-on-the-nose-but-still-really-emotional “Hurt” by Johnny Cash, the footage looks like a beautiful hybrid of a lonesome Western, a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic thriller, and, well, The Last Of Us. In other words, it looks like no superhero movie ever has before, especially, y’know, every other X-Men movie to date.

But we have so many questions! Which of the eleventeen X-timelines is this set in? How did Logan wind up palling around with Professor X and Caliban of all people (mutants)? Is Hugh Jackman really going to wrap up his Wolverine career without yelling “Moooooooooooorph!” even once?! Let’s break this sucker down and see if we can’t figure it out.

So first, lets talk about Logan’s setting. We’ve heard that this is farther in the future than any X-flick we’ve seen before, which is crazy since the last time we saw a futuristic X-Men movie it had neon prison camps lorded over by giant flying nanobots. Yep, this is even further into the future than Days of the Future Past’s dystopia — but is this the future of the Wolverine that ran off into the forest at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse? Or is this the future of the Wolverine who redacted the Days of Future Past timeline to return to a version of the Last Stand timeline where The Last Stand never happened? Or is this a totally separate timeline that isn’t connected to either?! Well, luckily, director James Mangold cleared all this business up, confirming that Logan sits at the end of the timeline we saw restored in Days of Future Past. So…the original X-Men movie timeline, if The Last Stand and The Wolverine never happened. Got it.

As the trailer itself kicks off, we hear Logan explain to a semi-senile Professor X that mutants have more or less died off. We see Logan standing outside a funeral chugging a bottle of whiskey, over this exposition…but whose funeral? We’re guessing the last of the original X-Men, though it feels too obvious for it to be Jean Grey. Perhaps Logan’s surrogate daughter, Rogue? That’d be pretty poignant and serve as a nice set-up for Logan’s new family dynamic.

And on that subject, it looks like the four-person Logan ensemble really is the focus of this movie, rather than one of those huge, sweeping, “save the world” premises we’re used to getting from superhero flicks. It looks like Wolverine has brought together his mentor, Professor X, his protege X-23, and, weirdly enough, Caliban. Kind of a random choice, but we’re guessing his ability to locate any mutant in the world will come in handy, particularly with tracking down x-23 and helping to draw her into the protective, clawed arms of our title hero. Then again, it also seems like Caliban gets taken advantage of at some point as we see Donald Pierce and his cyborg militia, the Reavers, torturing him inside the water tower, likely forcing him to locate Logan and friends.

But what about X-23? How does she factor in? Well, more than anything, this film seems to be a story of redemption, with Logan saving himself by helping his kinda-sorta-daughter X-23 escape the clutches of her creators, Transigen. In the comics, X-23 is a clone created with Wolverine’s genes to be the ultimate killing machine. And we’re guessing that’s the case here too, with the villainous Transigen stealing his DNA to create an army of mutants they can control. Heck, not to throw stones but they were probably behind the disease that wiped out the rest of mutantkind as well.

One way or another it looks like X-23 escapes Transigen and makes her way out to Wolverine’s water tower, drawing him into the conflict. In classic Western fashion, Logan has no interest in taking her under his wing, but it sounds like Professor X himself may have drawn her there intentionally to save his friend’s soul. And from the brief snippets of action we see in the trailer, it seems like X-23 has the same berserker rage issues her pseudo-daddy does. We see her hacking and slashing through Transigen goons, even lunging at Logan himself, who barely stops her with his own claws. So we’re guessing Logan’s journey involves helping her move past the darker instincts he’s struggled with his whole life, to give her a chance at peace and happiness that he never had.

As for the action, it looks next-level brutal, especially in the red-band trailer which gives us a gory effects shot that’s more horrifying than badass. That seems to be the vibe this whole movie is chasing; the violence isn’t fun or cool, it’s something painful and dramatic with actual stakes. When the Wolverine fights, it s now, his healing factor no longer what it once was. And when he hurts people he really hurts them. This feeling is never more evident than in the trailer’s last shot, where a bloodstained X-23 grabs Logan’s hand after they’ve seemingly buried someone. If we had to guess, we’d say that’s Professor X under the dirt, which really hammers home the fact that unlike literally every superhero movie that’s come before it, this is a drama first, and an action movie second. A bold move, and we’ve gotta say, we’re really impressed with what Mangold and company are doing here.

But what do you guys think? Do you dig the Logan trailer? Do you think we’ll meet another villain beyond Donald Pierce and the Reavers? Do you think Wolverine will die at the end of this thing? Certainly feels that way. Lets discuss!

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES’ Julie Plec Talks Redemption in the Final Season

There are going to be many “lasts” this season on The Vampire Diaries, as The CW’s long-running supernatural series approaches the conclusion of its eight-season run. When the season premiere airs tonight with “Hello Brother,” it will be the last time the show debuts a new season with a mystery. It will be the last time fans will have to suffer through the long summer hiatus after a crazy cliffhanger closes a season finale. In fact, one last has already happened, as the showrunners Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson, along with the main cast, took to the Comic-Con stage this past summer for one final panel as they tearfully announced the news that TVD would end after the current season.

While news of the series ending sent the fandom into a frenzy almost immediately, the mind behind one of TV’s biggest phenomenons is feeling the same mixed emotions as well.

“Tell me about it! I cry in random, little surprising moments in the writers room or on set or watching an episode,” Plec tells Nerdist with a laugh. “The floodgates are trickling already. It’s still bittersweet, because on the one hand you think, ‘Gosh, I could probably keep doing this forever.’ But on the other hand you think, ‘It’s going to end so well.’ And that’s been the goal since the very beginning, to make sure that we stayed with it as long as we could but not too long, before it fell apart. You feel like you’re taking a big leap in ending it but it feels so right. It doesn’t make it any less sad, though.”

While most shows don’t get the advantage of knowing when it’s in its final season, Plec is happy that she can craft this last year as a satisfying ending for the fans.

“We actually entered the season as writers in the writers room not having decided if it was the end or not,” Plec says. “Knowing that it was something I had talked about, knowing that it was something on my mind, I wanted to see where the story took us. Every direction it took us in thematically, and all the character journeys, it really felt like it was begging to be leading up to an ultimate conclusion. So then, once we made that decision, then it was a matter of: What’s everything that we haven’t had a chance to do yet?”

That’s right, the TVD writers have an ultimate wish list of things they want to accomplish on the show before it ends, and they’re making it their mission to cross them all off before the series finale.

“What are all the things on our list of ‘One day we’ll get to…’ story pitches, where do these characters need to go to resolve themselves completely?” Plec says. “It’s been so much fun because you’re working off this beautiful list of ideas that you’ve had over the years that you’ve been holding back from or waiting to use, and now we get to do whatever we want.”

While Plec hasn’t gotten to the development of the series finale just yet, she’s hopeful that she’ll accomplish everything she wanted to do in the final season.

“I think we’re going to hit most of it if not all of it,” she says. “I know there’s little details of things that we really want to figure out a way to answer, that we haven’t done yet but [which are] on our list of things to accomplish before it’s over. So you can ask me that same question when we get to the end and I might have a few that I’m sad that we didn’t figure out.”

When it comes to the final episode of the fan-favorite series, Plec has always been pretty outspoken about how she has had the same idea for the series ending since the very beginning. Is that still going to happen the way she imagined it, even eight years later?

“The content of it has definitely had to shift as a result of Nina [Dobrev] leaving the show and the disintegration of the Other Side as a story concept,” Plec says. “When we got rid of those two things, Kevin’s and my original pitch definitely had to adapt to the new world that we were working in. But thematically and emotionally, it’s still incredibly similar to what he and I always talked about.”

Series star Dobrev exited TVD at the end of season six, but Plec has previously said that Elena plays a role in that dream ending of hers and she hopes to have Dobrev come back for the milestone episode. Fans and critics alike have wondered if that means Dobrev will return for the season eight finale, but Plec has no news to share on that front just yet.

“The only thing I have been saying and will continue to say is that she is 100 percent committed to coming and we’re 100 percent committed to having her,” Plec says. “At this point, it’s just logistics and I don’t want to speak too soon because that would be crushing if we couldn’t figure it out, but we’re all extremely determined to.”

But before we can start freaking out about what the finale holds, we still have the entire final season to break our hearts, make us cry happy/sad tears and generally keep us on the edge of our seats as it has done for seven years so far. And it’s going to be an intense run, according to Plec, as the show deals with a new theme that they’ve never touched on before.

“The one big theme that we’ve never confronted head on is the idea of redemption in terms of it being a tangible need for our characters,” Plec says. “This season really deals with the theme of good vs. evil. Can you recover from the mistakes that you’ve made, can you make amends for the pain you’ve inflicted on others, is there hope for you or are you doomed to be punished for all eternity? We don’t really deal in specifics of heaven and hell on this show but we have always talked about peace, and we’ve never really explored what the opposite of peace might be. In that vein of it being a series ender, we finally felt like we could start exploring those issues.”

She pauses to laugh, then adds, “It’s dark.”

And the main villain for this season fits into that quite perfectly, as TVD introduces “evil herself” as the mysterious force that took over Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Enzo (Michael Malarkey) at the end of season seven.

“The ‘she’ in quotes is a fascinating entity because we start the season and no one knows what it is, our evil, how it works, what it wants. And part of the mystery of the first episode is actually trying to identify the villain,” Plec says. “Once we do and ‘it’ becomes ‘she,’ then she’s going to have a whole story of her own moving forward that is going to tie into all these things that we’ve been talking about.”

One of the biggest reasons that TVD became such a pop culture phenomenon is how it has told epic love stories between all the characters. And when it comes to all the fan-favorite relationships, Plec is going to make sure that each one gets a “satisfying” end. But note that she says “satisfying,” and not “happy.” That’s going to be very important to remember. In other words, get the kleenex ready now.

“I wanted to be able to take all the love stories to their best possible conclusion, whether it be a happy ending, a tragic ending, a sad parting, whatever it was that each relationship in my mind needed in order to properly resolve itself,” Plec teases. “I wanted to make sure we did that so there was nothing left unanswered.”

What are you hoping to see from the final season of TVD? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!

The Vampire Diaries airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

Images: The CWx

An Artist Just Watched and Drew a Movie Every Day for 365 Days

Exactly a year ago today, artist Greg O’Regan began an ambitious journey: For each of the next 365 days, he would watch a movie, and then sketch a drawing based on the film. We have a hard enough time eating breakfast every day, but finding the two hours (at least) to watch a movie and then draw every day seems downright impossible.

O’Regan has stronger will than we do, though, because Thursday marks the final day of his journey, one that he saw through to the end. 365 days later, he watched 365 movies, and has 365 sketches to show for it, chronicling his journey on Instagram the whole time. He really spread his wings in terms of the breadth of movies he watched, as he tackled everything from animation, like My Neighbor Totoro:

Day 343. 365 movies in 365 days. Totoro. My Neighbour Totoro (1988) #3flixty5sketches. Prints available on www.artpal.com/nerdroaring. All Prev #3flixty5sketches available soon.

A photo posted by Greg O’Regan (@nerdroaring) on Sep 27, 2016 at 6:21am PDT

…and Beauty and the Beast:

Day 349. 365 movies in 365 days. The Beast. Beauty and the Beast (1991) #3flixty5sketches. Happy Birthday @natles16

The Magic of Invisible Water Balls is Science

It’s hard to metaphorically put a finger on exactly why “invisible” polymer water balls are so appealing, but what we do know for sure is that we want our literal hands all over them right now and maybe we want to take a bath with them too a little (a lot).

Reddit user BlackBox recently posted a GIF of these wobbly bobbly jiggle balls, and even if you’ve seen them before—perhaps in the IncredibleScience video above which has a whopping 41 million views—it’s still important to stop for a moment and think about the science behind this optical magic.

First off, these balls are, as implied by their name, made of a polymer—a material with a repeating molecular structure (like plastic or even DNA)—that does a super good job of absorbing water. One pound of water beads can absorb up to 50 gallons of water, which is usually the kind of ratio reserved for Homer Simpson and a Squishee machine.

The reason the polymer balls disappear when placed in water is due to the fact that, as Reddit user TheEpicaricacy points out, they develop the same index of refraction as water. This means that lightwaves, which are refracted (or slowed down and thusly bent) in different mediums, treat the water and the watery jiggle balls as essentially the same substance. Both the polymer balls and the water have an index of refraction of 1.333, meaning that light travels 1.333 faster in a vacuum than it does in the balls or the water. And voilá, you have yourself some big disappearing balls.

And now, what you’ve all really come here for, GIFS of all the jiggling:

What do you think of these disappearing water balls? Do you want to jiggle and bounce them right now and maybe eat them? DO NOT EAT THEM. But do let us know what you think of them in the comments below!

Images: IncredibleScience

Audio Rewind: Remembering CBGB, the Birthplace of American Punk

In temporal New York City, venues come and go all the time, products of the pell-mell evolution of the NYC art scene. Those that do survive for any length of time stand tall in our history, because their survival is a measure of both steadfast resilience and profound distinction—not just anyone can weather this city. And of those storied New York venues, the most lionized remains CBGB, the grungy, intimate host to some of the earliest instances of punk, and the birthplace of many of New York’s most revered punk bands. This week marks the tenth anniversary of its closure, when Patti Smith, one of CBGB’s most eminent debuts, returned home to give the hallowed venue a fitting goodbye. This is the story of CBGB.

In 1973, two locals convinced club owner Hilly Kristal to start booking shows at his biker bar. Kristal agreed, and the now-consecrated address, 315 Bowery, soon became CBGB & OMFUG (Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers). It was intended, as the name alludes, as an eclectic feast for the ears. The nesting grounds for the aural gourmand—the “voracious eater of … music,” as the legend now stands on CBGB’s website.

One of the first momentous dates in the venue’s history was April 14, 1974. It was Television’s third gig ever, and in the audience were Patti Smith and rock archivist Lenny Kaye. The seminal punk rock band (and architect of the excellent “Marquee Moon,” a piece that remains one of the most timeless punk tunes of all time, in my humble opinion) must have rubbed off on the young singer-songwriter; less than a year later, her Patti Smith Group (with Lenny Kaye in tow) would make their debut at CBGB. And, as they say, the rest is history.

But for CBGB itself, there was still so much more history to be had. Angel & the Snake (soon to be renamed Blondie) arrived on August of 1974, and, later that same year, The Ramones played their first ever shows there. Soon thereafter the locale played host regularly to a bevy of talented young bands, one being the Talking Heads. And in April of 1977, the British punk band The Damned made an appearance, marking the first time a British punk band ever played in the United States (for context, New York and London were the epicenters of the punk movement, each with its own stylistic flavor and tone).

CBGB, en masse, was a bastion for the punk ethos. Its only two rules were that bands had to move their own equipment and that they couldn’t play very many covers. These guidelines fostered both originality and vigor, and they helped bolster its reputation within the music world—even outside of New York. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, it would become a haven for the incipient new wave movement, a style of music that injected elements of electronica, disco, and pop into the agitated contours of punk. Elvis Costello, for instance, opened for The Voidoids in 1978, and The Police’s first American gigs happened at CBGB (check out the clip below from the 2013 film, CBGB, starring the late, great Alan Rickman as Kristal). Among other names that graced the venue’s halls were Misfits, the Dead Boys, the B-52’s, and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. CBGB even had its own virtual house band, The Revelons, a veritable punk supergroup that consisted of Mark Suall (Squeeze), Fred Smith of Television, and JD Daugherty of the Patti Smith Group.

During the ’80s, hardcore punk became the MO of CBGB, and with it came violence—so much so that eventually Kristal had to stop booking hardcore bands. In its final days, though, there were no bans on any genre, and CBGB, though already decades removed from its hey day, kept at it until grinding to a rocky halt in 2005.

After lawsuits and allegations of unpaid rent, Patti Smith closed CBGB for good in the aforementioned farewell show. Alongside a cadre of guest stars like Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Flea and Television’s Richard Lloyd, Smith hurtled through her own tracks—including a version of “Gloria” whose chorus was seesawed with The Ramones’ smash, “Blitzkrieg Bop”—and the songs of other notable CBGB stars (“Marquee Moon” was one of them). I wasn’t there, but by most accounts, the evening was a proper send-off.

For CBGB, and for many institutions that strive to distance themselves from the mainstream, legacy is bittersweet. The building’s awning is deservedly on display in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the venue was included in the Register of Historic Places in 2013, but CBGB has also been vitiated by the eager hands of capitalism. CBGB Radio, for instance, became an ersatz resting place on the corporate radio network, iHeartRadio. And, in 2015, Newark Airport rebranded the venue and opened an unfortunate imitation called CBGB L.A.B. (Lounge and Bar).

Still, little these days is immune to corporatization; if something can make money, some intrepid entity will find a way to make that money. And when it does, we shouldn’t let that stand in the way of the past, those days when CBGB’s importance to music history was palpable, felt in the sweat-laden slogs of beer drenched mosh-pits and in the punk heroes that rose from its belly. Even today it hangs at the ends of tongues. It’s the ghost that remains as the paragon of what a punk venue—or any venue, for that matter—can mean to music. There will never be another like it, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still strive to retain its ideals. For punk’s sake, long live CBGB.

Images: Adam Di Carlo and Romanontheprowl, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons