The second season of Marvel’s revived Daredevil series found the vigilante and his arch-nemesis battle in the court of law. The result was a tenuous crossfire of the installment’s long-running themes.

“The Southern Cross” sees Karen Page’s trial erupt into a fight for New York City. Boldly summoning the mayor to the stand, Murdock unhinges his Ace card, revealing himself to be the sole living witness of Fisk’s criminal undertaking and outs himself as Daredevil.

Proving the court on which they stand is based on a fallacy, Karen’s case is dismissed and Fisk is urged to resign. However, he doesn’t take no for an answer. When a staged attack goes awry, he and his goons take over the courthouse, prompting a showdown between the resistance.

The writers take it there with Kingpin’s bloodied rampage, before he eventually surrenders to Matt’s plea for peace. Matt’s infallible stance for justice sees Kingpin evade persecution while he is taken to prison.

The second season was strong, with a solid balance of action and accurately toned drama. The final moments replicated our own political strife of the last few years, and the absurd villainy disguised as good-faith governing. My only gripe was wishing they subverted some narrative expectations. I feel Bebe’s early reveal limited her agency. For the rest of the season, the audience and Daniel were forced to play dumb as if she wasn’t behind the parody account. A greater arch would have been to make Bebe a red herring, and lose Daniel as he was the mastermind behind the video series. And while I enjoyed Heather Glen’s descent into the mask, it would have felt more connected if we had witnessed more of her and the original Muse’s sessions in season one.

The breadcrumbs trail for season three set up some great expectations. Mike Colter’s long-awaited return as Luke Cage will expand our universe for what’s to come. And I hope we get more of Wilson Bethel’s Bullseye in a solo series.

All eight episodes of Daredevil: Born Again season two are available on Disney+.

Park Chan-wook directs Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun as a man murderously climbing the corporate ladder. After 25 years at a paper milling plant, he exhausts lethal methods to regain employment and his dignity in a study of male loneliness’ relation to capitalism.

Filling to the rim its 2-hour and then some running time, No Other Choice is an assertive satire that knows its voice. From comedic happenstance to earnest emotional touch points, the film is a snapshot of men identifying their worth within a system where nobody wins. As a participant in the machine, you work long enough to become the oppressor until, the wheel evolves returning you to a place of servitude.

No Other Choice is available to stream on Hulu.

If Stephen King and Cabot Cove had a baby, it would be Matthew Rhys’s new comedic supernatural thriller. Rhys plays the straight-man mayor of a New England town seeking the rejuvenating power of tourism. However, efforts to transform Widow’s Bay into the next Martha’s Vineyard seem fruitless as townie superstitions threaten his sanity.

The show is hilarious with a supporting cast that includes Stephen Root, Dale Dickey, Kevin Carroll and Jeff Hiller. The horror is palpable, making it feel like a modern yet terrifying The Ghost & Mr. Chicken. Lore building echoes of Apple's sci-fi corporate drama, and its host of quirky characters would all be acquaintances of Jessica Fletcher.

New episodes of Widow’s Bay arrives Wednesday on Apple TV.

AMC+ in association with Shudder has released a third installment of its 2018 horror anthology series, The Terror. Each season explores semihistorical events with a tinge of supernatural happenstance. The first envisioned Captain Sir John Franklin’s arctic expedition. The second focused on a tainted spirit in the Japanese American internment camps after Pearl Harbor.

The third season follows Dan Stevens as a New Yorker whose brush with the law finds him unlawfully committed to a psychiatric hospital. Based on the novel Devil in the Silver, the series explores the fractured mental healthcare system and one’s personal demons. Along with Stevens, the show’s cast includes Judith Light, John Benjamin Hickey, Stephen Root, CCH Pounder and Aasif Mandvi.

The six-episode limited series releases new episodes every Thursday.

As Mya readies her 10th studio album, Retrospect, she invites die hards and new fans to take a stroll down memory lane with the 80s-infused track featuring Too Short. The new album is available May 15.

After his victorious Grammy run with last year’s BLOOM, Durand dropped BERNARR with fervent fanfare. The singles “Wild Ride” and “Am I Okay?” so his growth and the power of the project’s production partners. My favorite so far is the funky track below.

When 2021’s reboot was announced, I was ready for them to shift the magic on gaming consoles to the big screen. What should have been a majestic reintroduction to this deep lore was undercut by a woefully unnecessary character in Lewis Tan’s Cole. We didn’t need to be hand-walked into this 30-year-old franchise by a fighter who wasn’t even a hidden character via a special code.

It happened. We dusted ourselves off, and got primed for the sequel. The trailer proposed the actual tournament, new characters and epic fight scenes. After a year delay (it was supposed to drop Oct. 2025), Mortal Kombat 2 arrived this weekend, suffering from its original sin. It’s all. Cole’s. Fault.

The film, in all its enhanced glory, fails to establish and maintain a strong plot. Some may say ‘It’s Mortal Kombat, there is no plot.’ And those someone’s would be lying. The first film borrowed heavily from Scorpion’s backstory, making it more important than the actual film. Here, they attempt to do the same with Princess Kitana’s tale of Edenia under Shao Kahn’s rule. All the makings of a Gladiator-esque story out-shadowed by the same fish-out-of-water trope with Johnny Cage of all people. No hate to Karl Urban, but what in the anti-DEI was that bullshit? Why do we have to by guided by an outsider for the second movie?

The story we are given — Kahn seeking immortality to plunge all realms into darkness — is given no time to breathe due to its Kabal-level pacing. Sixty minutes in, a highly anticipated fight between two beloved characters transpires without a drop of emotional depth or narrative stakes. We’re forced to move to the next round.

The only time the film delivers anything deeper than the Dead Pool are our moments with Kitana and Jade. Adeline Rudolph is excellent executing the blue femme fatale onscreen. The heart of our story, her scenes with Tati Gabrielle’s Jade are warm and grounded. Of course, Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim deliver as MK’s Ken and Ryu. The effects of Bi-Han’s undead Noob Saibot were spot on and deserved much more than the rushed conflict produced. Max Huang’s Kung Lao was also excellent.

Outside of these characters, everyone else is horribly boring. The script fails every Test Your Might trial with some of our favorite characters reduced to plot devices. Raiden is 90s movie Zordon; Sindel screams for a round-and-a-half; Baraka, a masterful character, is weakly integrated. Even Kano, a highlight of the first film, is nothing more than Crocodile Dundee comic relief. They forget he’s Sonya’s opp, who delivers her lines with the worse 90s era cringe they try to point fun of in Cage’s backstory.

The film even opts to rectify its past misstep — Cole Young. But in doing so, emphasizes why the character’s existence is the sole issue with the new franchise. If they had cast Tan as Scorpion from the beginning, we could have entered this world with Cage in the first film, leaving this movie to concentrate on Kitana’s fight to save her people.

TOASTY hot take: We should have gone the MKCU route, with the first film being a Scorpion movie, and the second about Kitana. The third (yes, they set up MK3) would have been the full-out tournament.

Overall, what should have been a nostalgic tornado turned out to be a breeze of poorly written fan service. No, I do NOT want to continue.

Rating: 2.5/5

I never watched Power because I didn’t have Starz. And even when I got Starz, i was never tempted to press play. However, I don’t want to miss the train for the new series from Courtney A. Kemp. The new series dropping May 14 follows a cop and criminal in a cat-and-mouse game of guns and gumption. Y’lan Noel and Matthew Law star.