Last week, a commercial made by the producers of My So-Called Life and Thelma and Louise, the author of the Orphan X thriller series, and a left-leaning PAC went modestly viral. The commercial, “Built Not Bought,” is a highly polished, beautifully scored, Americana festooned four minute short film. By crafting an optimistic, pro-business-yet-anti-corruption message, the video aims to be a new mission statement for the branding-challenged Democratic Party. It features a diverse cast of factory workers, and a down-home rhetorical style and message best summed up by its opening line: “We stand for the working men and women. Always have, always will.”

It is, in short, exactly what you’d expect to get when you add Hollywood cinematic glamor to the political campaign ad. “After the 2016 election, my colleagues kept saying the same thing over and over,” says Mark Riddle, CEO of Future Majority, a PAC Riddle founded to support centrist Democratic politics. “‘We have a lot of very talented people in our party, the best storytellers in the world, and we don’t make good use of them. Why would you not be using those talents?’”

Fair question. But then again, Hollywood’s relationship with American politics has always been fraught. Though these days Hollywood is most often linked to Democrats, for the last 90 years both parties have made frequent use of LA’s glamor factory—often disparaging the other’s strategies as elitist and out of touch, then copying them immediately. By inserting itself into politics, Hollywood may think that it was doing something at worst benign and at best patriotic. But by giving choice candidates a broader, more attention seeking tool-set, in reality what they did was prime American audiences for a new kind of political voice—one that prioritizing grabbing and holding attention over anything else.

Hollywood may now be a bastion of liberalism, but it wasn’t always that way. In 1928, Louis B. Mayer, the cofounder of Metro-Goldwin-Mayer, “turned MGM into the publicity wing of the Republican party,” says Steven Ross, author of Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. (Mayer also got to spend a night in the Lincoln bedroom as a thank you for helping elect Herbert Hoover.) Hollywood didn’t make as strong a showing for progressive politics until the mid-‘30s and ‘40s—when movie stars like Orson Welles, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart worked to promote Franklin Roosevelt’s candidacy and social issues like ending segregation.

Both parties have been vying to capture Hollywood’s glitz ever since—but with very different strategies, in part because of the Red Scare. In the late 1940s, many of the actors investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee were advocating for Democrats. Creating close ties with individual celebrities backfired. Rather than acquiring glamor, political candidates acquired a whiff of communism at the worst possible moment. “That really shaped the way the Democratic party thought about Hollywood,” says Kathryn Cramer Brownell, author of Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life. “They got really nervous and moved towards looking to Hollywood primarily for fundraising instead.” In addition to campaign contributions, Hollywood liberals from Harry Bellafonte to Jane Fonda began backing movements more than they did candidates.

Republicans took the opposite tack. Though publicly, party leaders criticized Democrats for glamorizing politics with show business, internal memos reveal that, secretly, some conservatives wanted to resurrect the chummy relationships of FDR’s presidency. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower gave actor Robert Montgomery an office in the White House so he could coach the president on how to be more photogenic and media-friendly. Instead of giving politicians’ celebrity-style poise, the strategy snowballed until politicians began casting themselves as actual entertainers. Figures like Nixon (as advised by Roger Ailes) began to credit their campaign successes celebritizing stunts like Nixon appearing on Laugh In. Eventually, Republicans started recruiting entertainers to run for office themselves—beginning in the 1950s, but accelerating over the next two decades.

Enter Ronald Reagan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and President Trump. Despite the perception of liberal Hollywood’s political power, liberal Hollywood has actually produced vanishingly few political candidates—Al Franken and Cynthia Nixon being notable exceptions. Most ultra-successful Democrats like Presidents Obama and Clinton are politicians-first, and managed to celebritize and glamorize themselves with the help of Hollywood money and counsel.

But hang on—aren’t conservatives supposed to identify more with heartland fly-over states more than frivolous Hollywood? “Few voters, Democrat or Republican, are persuaded on who to vote for by an endorsement from a Hollywood star or group,” says Don Critchlow, an American political historian at Arizona State University. “As evidenced by many polls, they don’t see Hollywood as saviors of the Republic or protectors of working Americans.” Riddle noted that this dynamic is one of the reasons he’s sometimes hesitant to publicize Future Majority’s Hollywood collaborators.

So why do political operators, past and present, think buddying up with Hollywood is the way to go?

Because, in some ways, it works. Celebrity endorsements and appearances only go so far: “Voters aren’t idiots,” says Ross. “Oprah endorsing Obama didn’t get him elected. Celebrity endorsements just make people more likely to take a closer look at a candidate.” According to Brownell, the key benefit of working with Hollywood is celebrities’ ability to generate excitement for a person or issue. Think: Chance the Rapper leading Chicago voters to the polls, Beyoncé endorsing feminism to generate more mainstream acceptance, or President Trump tweeting about winning or witchhunts to rile up (and distract) his audience.

But in other ways, all that matters is that the people running campaigns believe their showbiz politics is working. “What politicians believe makes a successful campaign can really impact how the campaigns that come after it are run,” Brownell says. “Trump and Cynthia Nixon are both products of ideas like Richard Nixon’s—that political authority is firmly rooted in being able to get media attention.” Trump’s qualifications, as he often says himself, are that he’s able to get good ratings. The same idea powers some progressive’s longing for President Oprah Winfrey or President Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

The polish of projects like “Built not Bought” are good uses of Hollywood’s undeniable storytelling skills. But it’s important that Hollywood and average citizens alike be aware of movie magic’s role in fueling Trump-style politics. LA glitz and glam does capture attention, but ultimately, it’s a marketing technique with serious, country-shaping consequences.

Before it was even released, Homecoming was notable for many reasons. For one, it was the new project from Mr. Robot mastermind Sam Esmail. For another, it marked Julia Roberts’ first turn leading an episodic television show. And finally, the Amazon original series was one of Hollywood's first big bets on adapting podcasts for the screen.

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None of those things would matter if Homecoming fell flat. Yet, this Friday the series hit Amazon Prime and—voila—it very much soared. A little bit drama, a little bit noir, and a lot of suspense, Esmail’s new show proved to be a tense thriller that kept us pushing Play on each new installment—right up to the breath-holding ending.

Homecoming also gave viewers a lot to unpack: emotional turns, surprise twists, and a really trippy score. (Also, let’s hear it for Julia Roberts!) To dig into Amazon’s latest, we corralled WIRED’s biggest bingers—writers and editors Jason Parham, Brian Raftery, Peter Rubin, and Angela Watercutter—to break down everything they liked, or didn’t, about Amazon’s latest prestige series.

Angela Watercutter: I’ll be honest: If I start this off it’s just going to be one long Stephan James appreciation post and even though we should definitely talk about how amazing he is as returning Afghanistan veteran Walter Cruz, there’s a lot to discuss with Homecoming. What did you all think? When did the show click for you?

Peter Rubin: Even with the best shows, I’ve become accustomed to experiencing Pilot Syndrome—that wait-and-see generosity we deploy to forgive the exposition and worldbuilding contrivances that can overwhelm a first episode. Not Homecoming. From the opening sequence that zoomed out of an aquarium and into social worker Heidi Bergman’s office, to the typography and aerial shots that so define the show’s art direction, Homecoming felt like a cohesive thing, an assured and compelling fully formed entity.

The question, of course, is whether that’s due to Sam Esmail’s work adapting the original Gimlet podcast—something you talked to him about, Angela—or if it’s simply the podcast’s merits shining through. I came in having never listened to an episode of the podcast, which honestly felt like a bit of an advantage; I never thought about how Julia Robert’s Bergman stacked up to Catherine Keener’s, or how James as Walter Cruz matched Oscar Isaac’s portrayal of the soldier who entered the secretive “Homecoming” program for help integrating into civilian life. However, they both gave measured, naturalistic performances (as did Bobby Cannavale as Bergman's super-shady boss, Colin, and Shea Whigham as the magnetically bespectacled DoD official looking into what exactly happened at Homecoming), so it seems like a win-win.

Jason Parham: I think because TV, as a medium, has undergone a kind of bloat in the last half-decade—as it stands, there are simply too many TV shows to keep up with—I often look for small aesthetic flourishes in a series. More than plot or award-worthy acting, what can pull me in? The Good Place, Atlanta, Random Acts of Flyness, Pose—each show has its own particular set of aesthetic quirks. Where Homecoming excels in this regard, and to Peter’s point about it feeling like a fully formed entity, was Esmail’s visual vocabulary. All of it had the sheen of a Hitchcock noir-mystery—but it didn’t feel at all dated, or out of touch.

There's a particular sense of paranoia that runs through each episode and Esmail does a fantastic job—maybe even more so than on Mr. Robot; though I only made it through Season 1 of that show, so take this with a grain of salt—of translating that paranoia to the screen, and often without dialogue (an even more impressive feat given Homecoming is based on a podcast). The overhead shot of Carrasco (Whigham) descending into a maze-like stairwell. The hazy, hushed lighting that haunts just about every shot. The use of split screens, or of aspect ratios to delineate between the past and present, heightening the sense of claustrophobia. It felt like gazing into a petri dish and watching people’s lives play out in disastrous concert. I couldn’t take my eyes off any of it.

Watercutter: Jason, that’s absolutely it. I’ll admit, and I’m in the minority here, it took me a while to get into the Homecoming groove. I enjoyed Roberts and James’ chemistry, but I wasn’t gripped until the fourth or fifth episode. It was those flourishes, though, that kept me coming back. The show doesn’t give us a lot in the beginning—sure, Shrier (Jeremy Allen White) says he doesn’t trust Homecoming but the mystery doesn’t unravel until much later—but those notes of more to come made me want to keep digging. It is, as Jen Chaney noted on Vulture, the best of WTFTV.

Raftery: Like all of you, I admired Homecoming for its medium-bending stylistic flourishes; its intoxicating corporate-noir-meets-Hitchcock set-up; and its performances (I especially enjoyed watching Shea Whigham–who’s played so many memorably ball-busting alpha-males–sweat it out as a neutered middle-management lifer). But one of the reasons why the show had me hooked from the get-go came down to pure math: With each episode clocking in at around 30 minutes, I didn’t have to worry that I was throwing away time that could be better spent elsewhere.

My Wired coworkers know all too well my frustration with Netflix’s dramas, which are invariably in need of editing–with the exception of the excellent Mindhunter, I can’t think of a single Netflix series that didn’t overstay its welcome at one point, either with sloggy episodes, or with drawn-out episode orders. But a five-hour, fast-burning thriller like Homecoming? That seems doable, especially our way-too-packed prestige-streaming era, in which it feels like a half-dozen new offerings are being shoved down the internet’s tubes every week.

And even though Homecoming could have ultimately shed an episode or so and still not lost the plot–I’m not sure how much we needed Sissy Spacek’s character, as much as I love her performance–I think Esmail and his writing team did a fine job of stripping the story down to its high-end-pulp essentials. The streamers like long-playing, long-running series–it keeps viewers stuck within their eco-system. All too often, creators have abused that privilege. But Homecoming proves you can accomplish a lot in just a few hours.

Watercutter: Also, what did you all think of the music? It was intense. Also, I felt like I had Shazam open for quite a bit of my binge—just like, wait, what is this?? (Fun fact: During that scene where Heidi freaks out a little bit and pulls all of her desk tools under her head and lays down on top of them, the song playing is from The Conversation, which Esmail had mentioned was an influence on Homecoming.) And any show that ends its season with—spoiler alert!—Iron & Wine is OK by me. Any other musical queues strike you all?

Raftery: It took me a while to realize just how deftly Esmail and his music-supervision team were incorporating classic film scores into Homecoming, but once I did, it became a welcome spot-the-tune semi-distraction: I loved hearing John Carpenter’s haunted synth-score for The Thing being repurposed for a white-collar thriller, or catching David Shire’s classic All the President’s Men cue play out in one of its final episodes. Esmail is clearly a movie obsessive: Mr. Robot was loaded with references to everything from Kubrick to The Third Man to even Risky Business. But Homecoming takes it even further, with its soundtrack-swipes and numerous Hitchcock nods–all of which are so carefully grafted into the show, they never once feel like fawning homages. It’s a uniquely mixed-medium show: A drama that’s based on a scripted podcast; structured as a TV show; and shot and stylized like a patient, claustrophobic ’70s thriller.

Watercutter: And what did folks think of the show beyond its flourishes? Personally, once I felt invested in everyone I found it to be quite wrenching, really. I enjoyed the suspense questions—What are the goals of the Homecoming facility?, What’s that drug doing to the returning soldiers?, Why can’t Heidi remember what she did while she worked there?—but there was something about Walter and Heidi’s struggle to connect in such a sterile environment that just killed me. I know that’s a really obvious point to make, but at the same time I think those kind of core relationships are lacking, or very thin, in a lot of suspense thrillers, so I was glad to find them here. Also, the back-and-forth scenes as Heidi, Carrasco, and Walter’s mother Gloria (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) start putting the pieces together had me holding my breath at times. Carrasco

Parham: Beyond the visual and auditory highpoints, I found the series mostly compelling. It’s the breed of narrative that sits in that fragile corridor between truth and fiction—one that seems almost too ideal, too devastatingly ripe, for our fractured moment. It’s a story bizarre enough to be believable: Geist, a Fortune 500 corporation known for developing food and skincare products, wants to manufacture a drug that cures soldiers of PTSD. So they build a facility with the goal of transitioning veterans back into the real world—only the truer, darker aim isn’t actually to get these men ready for family and work life, but to rid them of their psychological war wounds so they can re-enlist. Of course, the other catch is just as gutting: the drug doesn’t just wipe clean symptoms of anxiety, social isolation, depression, or explosive bouts of anger, it erases whole memories.

What Homecoming becomes, then, is a sharp critique on systemic abuse, and how the corruption of such power infects everything, and everyone, it touches. For me, the saddest realization was how easy it remains for veterans—already discarded by the same government they so proudly served—to be exploited, and held captive. Stephan James brings humanity, if a bit of naivety, to Walter Cruz, but in doing so sheds light on how the system can, at every turn, fail people, even as they continue to believe in its good.

Watercutter: Yes, that’s it! Which is why when it all comes together in the end…

Parham: What made the closing scene so satisfying, for me, was all the brilliant stylistic work Esmail did in the lead-up to those last few minutes. The scene rejects the isolation, darkness, and near-violent panic that shadowed characters all season. We’re in a northern town, far from the swamps of Tampa, the skies are as radiantly blue as we’ve seen them, and the score that augments the shot—Iron & Wine’s “The Trapeze Swinger”—carries with it none of the soundtracked terror from earlier episodes. It’s as if this scene exists in an alternate universe. I won’t spoil the final shot, but how it culminates—for Walter and Heidi, at least—is just as surprising: with a flash of tangible, no-strings-attached hope that everything, for the first time in a very long time, might actually be OK.

The past seven days have brought another Democrat looking to be president, another Trump associate being called to testify before Congress, another potential escalation—and then de-escalation—in the tension between India and Pakistan, another sign that California is struggling more than many states with climate change, and another album from Solange. (It also brought another Oscars, but whether it's upset over Green Book's wins or gossip about Gaga, that already feels like a lifetime ago.) It's not all been re-runs, though; there have also been big developments in ongoing stories that people have been discussing for some time. What have people been talking about online this last week? We're glad you asked.

What Not to Say in Your Outside Voice

What Happened: You'd think that an attorney would know better than to attempt to intimidate a witness via social media, considering how much trouble it could get everyone in. You'd think.

What Really Happened: It was the (now deleted) tweet that got everyone's attention. Ahead of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's testimony to Congress last week, Florida Republican representative Matt Gaetz tweeted the following message: "Hey @MichaelCohen212 — Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot."

Well, that's certainly a thing. And one that got a lot of people's attention, not least of all the media, because of course.

Some had some theories about where this tweet actually came from.

We'll come back to that later. For now, let's be thankful that Gaetz seemed to appreciate see the gaffe here. Just kidding.

The tweet remained up until the Speaker of the House sent out a particularly pointed subtweet of her own.

That, in turn, prompted Gaetz to finally apologize.

Turns out, an apology wasn't enough to handle the fallout of the tweet. Not from Michael Cohen, who had more important things on his mind—we'll come back to that soon enough, too—but from the Florida Bar, which launched an investigation into Gaetz over whether or not he violated professional conduct rules with the tweet. It may not be the only investigation he faces; a Democratic lawmaker has asked for an House Ethics Committee investigation, too.

Oh, and remember the question about whether or not the president was involved with the tweet in the first place?

For his part, Gaetz denies this. But, really, what is true anymore?

The Takeaway: For those who thought that this entire story seemed too cliché to be true, you're not alone, apparently.

The Michael Cohen Hearing

What Happened: For those hoping for epic political theater, last week's public testimony from former personal attorney (and infamous “fixer,” although, says who?) Michael Cohen proved to be not only worth the price of admission, but everything anyone could have hoped for.

What Really Happened: So, how did that whole Michael Cohen testimony on Wednesday go, anyway? The answer, as might have been expected, was "particularly explosively." So much so that things started exploding as soon as his opening statement leaked to the press hours before the hearing itself.

The statement, which really should be read in full for the appropriate effect, is available in many places but this Washington Post annotated piece is perhaps the best primer. It was, to be blunt, pretty damning stuff, although of course there were those who simply brushed it off as the ravings of an admitted liar. The hearing itself, however, proved to be just as amazing. Some brief highlights:

Heady stuff, and enough to give the media a lot to pick over and analyze for days to come. (And not just how poorly the Republicans fared.) The president, who was out of the country at the time of the hearing—stay tuned, we're about to get to why—let his spokesperson do the talking for him, for once.

Well, OK; he waited a day before commenting directly, at least.

All other kinds of interested parties had a lot to say about Cohen's testimony, as well.

Still, at least the Republican Party had a plan to make sure that people didn't pay too much attention to everything that Cohen was saying.

Yes, that's right. We should all stay focused on the president's historic meeting with North Korea. There's no way that could go wrong, right?

The Takeaway: For those wondering just how bad this was for the president, you might want to read this Twitter thread. But, suffice to say: This was a historic event when it came to demonstrating just how bad things have become.

The North Korea Summit Goes South

What Happened: If the Trump administration had hoped to drown out any and all bad news last week with a successful summit with North Korea, reality took a very different turn. Really, it wasn't a good week for the president.

What Really Happened: Getting back to why President Trump was out of the country during the Cohen testimony: He was in Vietnam for the second US/North Korea summit, a prospect that worried some, not least because of concerns over how far the president would go to get a deal he could boast about. Despite attempts to silence the press, initially, hopes were high.

Late Wednesday, however, it suddenly became obvious that things weren't going according to plan.

The hastily-rescheduled press conference confirmed what people were suspecting: The talks had fallen apart.

There's something odd about this sticking point, however; while Trump said that he was willing to ease some sanctions but North Korea was asking for all sanctions to be lifted, that's not what North Korea is saying they asked for.

Some after-the-fact positioning so North Korea could save face, or a case of the president lying? It's genuinely difficult to tell. On social media, some were arguing against those calling the summit a failure for Trump, as the hashtag #TrumpFail started to trend.

Funny story about giving legitimacy to a dictator; even though the summit fell apart, that didn't mean that the president wasn't willing to find some way to bow to North Korean interests in a truly dangerous, damaging way.

It didn't escape anyone's notice, either.

All told, this trip really didn't go so well for the president. But there's always next time, right?

The Takeaway: You know the traditional thing where Donald Trump says something today, and there's usually a tweet from the past where he completely contradicts himself? This time, it's not a tweet; it's far longer.

Takers and Fakers and Talkers Won't Tell You

What Happened: Oh, don’t worry; as bad a week as it had been for Trump before Thursday, things actually got worse when news emerged that he'd overruled experts to help his son-in-law.

What Really Happened: As last Thursday afternoon rolled around, Trump was surely glad to get back to the United States, where everything was calm and … You know where this is going, don’t you?

As reported by The New York Times, President Trump ordered then-Chief of Staff John Kelly to grant top-secret security clearance to son-in-law Jared Kushner last year, despite concerns by intelligence officials and the White House's top lawyer. Kelly was so disturbed by the order that he quit in protest—no, sorry, he "wrote a memo about how it wasn't his fault." Potato, tomato. You know how it is.

The report was quickly picked up by other outlets. It's almost as if people care about who gets security clearances that they probably shouldn't have.

The fact that the president had overruled his own intelligence people was, unsurprisingly, very much at odds with the way in which the issue had been addressed by administration officials in the past.

But that's not to say they didn't know what was going on wasn't a problem, apparently.

The timing of this would appear to be an issue for the administration.

Meanwhile, it's the substance that's an issue for … well, everyone else in the United States, really?

For those wondering why this is such an issue, here's one explanation:

Here's another, arguably more speculative, definitely more serious, one:

Maybe we're all overreacting, though! Perhaps there was a really good reason for it.

The Takeaway: If only there was some sign that the man who advised Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman shouldn't be given top secret security clearances. If only.

Meanwhile, in Another Hipster Coffee Shop

What Happened: Let's wrap up this week with something lighter, of sorts. If you have ever thought to yourself, "Hey! Twitter doesn't seem to do anything about all the ideologues on the platform, what would it take to get one thrown off?" Congratulations; You got an answer this week, and it was perfect.

What Really Happened: Maybe you remember Jacob Wohl. He's a far-right activist, who you may recall tried unsuccessfully to create a sexual assault conspiracy against Robert Mueller. He is, shall we say, someone that is going places, as long as it’s understood that those places may include being a punchline.

His journey towards that destination went farther last week when he gave an interview to USA Today in what seemed to be an attempt to tout his genius and strength in the surreal electoral playing field that is 2019.

In said story, Wohl boasted that he planned to create fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to, quote, "steer the left-wing votes in the primaries to what we feel are weaker candidates compared with Trump." Funny thing about announcing your intent to essentially duplicate the Russian troll operation during the 2016 election in a national newspaper: People notice.

Yes, a man famous for using Twitter to report on how hipsters in hipster coffee shops were repeating right-wing talking points ended up being banned from the platform after declaring his intent to weaponize it. There's no small irony here, and as should only be expected, a lot of people couldn't pass up the chance to use a favorite Wohlian construct to talk about his banishment.

It wasn't all jokes about Wohl's former meme-worthy status, however. There were some other things to consider about his removal. Well, kind of.

Wohl responded to the news with an amazing YouTube video in which he declared that the ban was actually good news, really, because look how viral he'd become before heading to the conservative conference CPAC to push a new conspiracy theory about Democratic lawmaker Ilhan Omar. Guess how that went?

Once again: This man got a profile in USA Today where he claimed to be an important figure in national politics. Just in case you're wondering how 2019 is going.

The Takeaway: It’s worth considering this when it comes to Wohl getting banned from Twitter.

When Stephen Hillenburg premiered SpongeBob SquarePants in 1999, there’s no way he could’ve known what would become of his animated creation. Sure, he may have foreseen success: the cartoon's years on Nickelodeon, multiple feature films, even an eventual Broadway musical. What was less imaginable then, though, was the fact that Hillenburg's titular tetrahedral goofball and the rest of the gang from Bikini Bottom would cast such a sway over the meme-loving corners of the internet.

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The double helix of SpongeBob and the internet is so prevalent you don't even register it. Imagining the web without Hillenburg’s creation is like imagining it without Google or Facebook (where at least one post in your feed on any given day would feature SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward or another undersea character.) The show is simply part of online culture's fabric—a part that Hillenburg, who died today at age 57 after a battle with ALS, built whether he knew he was doing it or not.

“SpongeBob is one of the most significant television series in meme history,” says Know Your Meme managing editor Don Caldwell, noting that the show currently has 90 sub-entries and some 290 entry search results related to the show—that's more documented memes than either The Simpsons or My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. "SpongeBob clearly resonates with a large part of internet culture like no other, and I don't think this is simply driven by nostalgia.”

Figuring out why the internet grew attached to SpongeBob is like trying to figure out why the internet likes (or dislikes) anything. It just happens. But something about Hillenburg's show proved irresistible to memery. The show’s characters—and its titular hero specifically—are expressive enough to communicate a mood in a single frame. The show's wholesome, if slyly subversive, tone makes recontextualizing those faces all the funnier. (My personal fave: An image of SpongeBob making a rainbow with his hands juxtaposed with the words “Nobody Cares” in bold Impact font.)

The result is memes like Evil Patrick (aka Savage Patrick or Angry Patrick), which uses an image of the pink starfish making a slightly sinister face to convey anything remotely devilish, Tired SpongeBob, which can basically relay any kind of exhaustion, and Krusty Krab vs. Chum Bucket, which illustrates any kind of rivalry where one thing is superior to the other (Marvel vs. DC, etc.). There are many, many more—far too many to count—and each one is as familiar to internet users as the last.

There’s a reason for that familiarity. Although Hillenburg originally came up with the idea for SpongeBob (then SpongeBoy) a few years before his debut, his cartoon hit just as internet access began to get faster and easier. As the web grew, so did the show's popularity; its fans are some of the first digital natives. Add to that the show's cross-generational appeal and international reach—at one point, it aired in 170 countries—and you've got a majority of the internet covered. Put an image of any of the SpongeBob characters online, and more will get the reference than won't. Scenes from Bikini Bottom are the lingua franca of the meme world.

And while the bulk of the show’s popularity amongst meme-makers is due to the creators themselves, a lot of credit also goes directly to Hillenberg. He stepped away from the show’s day-to-day operations in 2004 after the first animated feature and, as Caldwell points out, SpongeBob’s early seasons provided a lot of the insightful commentary that the internet glommed onto. “The show's first three seasons, prior to Hillenburg's departure,” he says, “dealt with real issues in an authentic and clever way, which I suspect has a lot to do with its enduring cultural relevance online.”

Today, that is obvious. As news of Hillenberg’s passing hit the internet, social media, and the show’s subreddit filled with tributes, more than a few of which thanked the creator not just for his show but for the memes that came out of it. His character lived in a pineapple under the sea, but his legacy survives in a much bigger world.

Let's begin with family. With fathers and sons. Love and defeat. Forgiveness and redemption. The heart of Creed II, the sequel to Ryan Coogler's mostly perfect 2015 boxing flick, pumps with all the typicality of the sports movie canon, though director Steven Caple Jr. works tirelessly to mainline such themes with contemporary resonance. The result lands somewhere in the middle: a boxing epic trapped by the legacy of all that came before it—the generation-defining intensity of the Rocky saga; the visual poetry of Coogler's predecessor—even as it fights to ascend to their elevated planes.

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To hear Buddy Marcelle tell it, "Rumble in the Jungle didn't just manifest itself … You need a narrative. Something that sticks to the ribs." Marcelle (Russell Hornsby) is a boxing promoter, a sort of low-carb Don King, and every bit the shark. Still, his words are not without truth, and newly minted light-heavyweight champion Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) knows this. It's why he accepts the challenge from Viktor Drago (an imposing Florian Munteanu). The match isn't for fame, money, or adoration—all of which Adonis has in excess these days—but for family, his father, the reclamation of his birthright. The kind of narrative that sticks to the ribs.

If the name Drago sounds familiar, it should. In 1985's Rocky IV, the feared Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) beat Apollo Creed, Adonis' father, breathless in the ring, killing him. Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa later avenges Apollo's death, but the consequence of triumph comes at a cost. Those long-simmering furies is where Creed II commences.

Left to a working-class existence in the bleak tundra of Kiev, the elder Drago was ripped of everything in his loss to Rocky: "Country, love, respect." And so the son must exact retribution in his father's name. Ivan will do anything to return honor back to the former Soviet Empire, and thus himself, even as Viktor remains conflicted by his father's motivations. Ivan hungers for acceptance among the Russian elite, the very same people who disowned him after his headlining loss. This is where the lifesource of the film shows itself. More than anything else, Creed II is a film about fatherhood, its necessary failures and its hard-won victories.

Rocky and Adonis' relationship is also tested, the former seeing Apollo for what he was, the latter seeing him for what he wasn't. This, expectedly, causes a rift in their bond, and fuels the film's final acts. Fearful of the past, Rocky decides to forego training Adonis for the title match, which sends the young fighter down a path in which he must confront all that haunts him: death, defeat, and what he's ultimately fighting for.

For all its flash and emotional vibrancy, Creed II is largely an uneven experiment in boxing cinema, laced with the sweet footwork and lyrical bloodthirst of any great sparring match but predictable in all the ways sports flicks have become. Caple Jr.'s landscape is best understood through its onscreen relationships; they can hum with life, as is the case with Adonis and girlfriend Bianca (a magnetic Tessa Thompson), or they can flat-line completely. Stallone's Rocky feels less essential this time around; even as he tries to rebuild a connection with his biological son, his mentorship often presents itself through a series of simple, childlike maxims. "Sometimes when you want to make a change, you have to change things" might have worked on the page, but tautology can't cover triteness.

The genius of the original film was Coogler's ear for reinvention: He upended the Rocky franchise while still lending it an air of relevance. And Caple Jr. delivers a more than satisfying film (his 2016 feature, The Land, about four Cleveland teens trying to arise from their circumstances was utterly fantastic). It's not that Creed II wants for such reinvention, it's that moments of transcendence rarely arrive—either for the characters or for the film itself.

I think that's the most vital lesson I left with: that with precious few exceptions—among them, A League of Their Own, The Wrestler, and Oliver Stone's Shakespearean opus Any Given Sunday—a sports movie can only be, or do, so much. And this one is simply a product of history's parameters: impassioned and glazed with drama in all the right spots, but rarely venturing to higher planes. Creed II is a safe bet—not because it lacks heart, but because it does exactly what you expect it to.

Cry it out from the rooftops: we survived 2018. (At least as of press time, so, y'know, probably.) And in this long, complicated year, a few games stuck out as the best, the most interesting, the most surprising, of the year. Whether you're catching up over the holidays or just looking for fuel to argue with your friends, here are our picks for the best videogames released in 2018. And yes, they're ranked. And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you: a certain Western-themed open-world game isn't in here. (Nor is Celeste, which honestly should have warranted making this a Top 11 list.) Games are a vast and varied field, friends; so are opinions. Argue away!

10. Monster Hunter World (Capcom, PC/PS4/Xbox One)

Monster Hunter has, for a certain variety of player, been a big deal for years. The once-obscure franchise has garnered a cult following addicted to its obtuse but idiomatically playable rhythms of hunting monsters, crafting gear, and hunting tougher monsters. World takes those rhythms of play and expertly makes them accessible to a broader audience, one that might have an interest in Monster Hunter but never had the time and will to learn how to play it. Using all the power of the modern gen, Monster Hunter World strikes a perfect balance between being welcoming to new players while still being challenging and strange. Explore a vast island full of prehistoric wonders, learn them, and then fight them to the honorable death.
[Original review; buy now]

9. Into the Breach (Subset, PC/Switch)

Giant robots! Time travel! Horrible aliens! If Pacific Rim went into a VitaMix with that one time-travel arc of Heroes when that show was good, this would be the videogame smoothie that resulted. Travel back in time repeatedly to try to save humanity from a horde of alien bugs—building, and losing, dozens of small squads of mech pilots while you do so. This is the rare strategy game that sings because of just the right amount of story, a veneer of melancholy and grief over the repetition. You've let a lot of people die to get to this point. But this run? It's going to be different. It has to be different.
[Original review; buy now]

8. Minit (Vlambeer, PC/PS4/Switch/Xbox One)

What can a game accomplish in 60 seconds? Traditionally, not much—but Minit presents a strong argument to the contrary. Think a 2D Legend of Zelda game, only you die every minute. What this means is that everything in the game worth doing has been compressed into 60-second increments, a design conceit that grows beyond a gimmick and into something brilliant. Riffing on the original Legend of Zelda is a favorite hobby of gaming's commercial indie scene, and I usually have absolutely zero interest in it as a trend. But Minit brings something concise, and witty, and absolutely jovial to its deconstruction of the game that became a genre. Minit only asks for one minute of engagement at a time. But you're going to want to give it a lot more.
[Original review; buy now]

7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo/Bandai Namco, Switch)

This was something of an off year for the Nintendo Switch. Quality titles abounded, but first-party flagships were few and far between; the new Pokemon games this year didn't scratch that specific itch that Nintendo regularly crafts their games to scratch. That place of semi-nostalgic, simple wholesomeness. For that, the only game in town is really the multiplayer epic Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Far from a perfect entry in the series, it's still more playable than almost any other game released this year. Nintendo excels at building games that are just good, clean fun, and this is the best the company they put out this year.
[Original review; buy now]

6. God of War (Santa Monica, PS4)

The grimmer by far of the two PlayStation 4 exclusives on this list, God of War is a difficult game to anoint with cheerful superlatives—not because it doesn't deserve them, but because they don't really fit the mood. It is, after all, a game about a bad, violent man trying to raise a son only moderately less broken than he is. It's a game about butchering droves of monsters and supernatural warriors, for no other good reason than because they're standing in your way. It's a game about going too far and trying to dial it back, maybe just a little, maybe just until you can almost see something approaching decency. It's a great game. Just not exactly the sort you want to praise with a smile on your face.
[Original review; buy now]

5. Hitman 2 (Io Interactive, PC/PS4/Xbox One)

If I could take any game with me to a desert island, provided that island also had electricity and a compatible game console, it would probably be Hitman 2. Agent 47, the series star, is a murderous cipher in an infinite cycle of assassination and disguise, and this is his perfect outing. Io's latest refines the nontraditional stealth sandbox of earlier titles into a tightly wound, impossibly complex series of puzzle box levels that burst open with an explosive giggle. Sure, you can just run up and shoot your target before fleeing, but even if you survive, what fun is that? How about throwing them off a roof while dressed as a corporate mascot. Or pretending to be a tattoo artist and then taking them out when you're all alone. Hitman 2 rewards creativity and black humor, and it can be played pretty much forever. What a game.
[Original review; buy now]

4. Donut County (Ben Esposito, PC/PS4/Switch/Xbox One)

Donut County is not a long game, nor is it particularly complex. The puzzle premise, of sucking objects into a hole in the ground, never really gets more challenging than that, and the rhythms here are more those of a scenery showcase than a traditional puzzle game. But it's still a delight, bright and goofy, written with a shining wit and an effervescent joy. This is a comedy critique of capitalism disguised as a game about mischievous citygoing raccoons, and, like, honestly, I'm not sure what more you really want from your videogames. It ticks all of my boxes. I waited for this one for years, and it did not disappoint.
[Original review; buy now]

3. Dead Cells (Motion Twin, PC/PS4/Switch/Xbox One)

Dead Cells is an almost peerless action game. There, I said it. Within the framework of a simple roguelike structure—die, progress, die again, slowly eking your way toward an ultimate goal—Motion Twin has built one of the most satisfying 2D combat systems I've ever had the joy of getting my hands on. Every sword slash, bomb throw, and slammed door bristles with energy. The visual and auditory feedback, the speed, everything in this game's design is built to make the action absolutely soar. Dead Cells is a morbid, challenging game, which in 2018 isn't exactly a strong differentiating factor. But I've rarely, if ever, played a game that just feels so good.
[Original review; buy now]

2. Dragon Ball FighterZ (Arc System Works, PC/PS4/Switch/Xbox One)

Honestly, the only reason this didn't get my top spot is because fighting games are about as niche as they come. Still, this game is stunning. A distillation of everything that makes Dragon Ball one of the most influential and enjoyable pieces of Japanese comic media of all time, Dragon Ball FighterZ is also just one of the best fighting games ever. Responsive, surprisingly easy to learn, and predictably difficult to master, it turns the clear visual language of the anime it's based on into brilliant play. FighterZ (pronounced "fighters," to settle that bet) is also home to some of my favorite videogame moments of the year as a spectator. No other competitive game has such a fascinating sense of visual energy, or such clear mechanical drama. It absolutely slaps, is what I'm saying. Play it, watch it, pretend to be 13 again.
[Buy now]

1. Spider-Man (Insomniac Games, PS4)

2018 was a conservative year in videogames. There were some gems, and a few exceptionally innovative titles in the indie scene, but nothing earth-shattering happened. No paradigms shifted this year. Expectations were rarely, if ever, subverted. Spider-Man likely wouldn't have made the top of a list like this in a bigger, stranger year. It's a conservative title, a triple-A open-world game in a world full of them. But don't let that fool you: even if Spider-Man is a game well suited to a quiet year, it's still an excellent game. It's pure comfort food in a year where even the best stuff rarely provoked that warm, happy feeling. Insomniac Games has crafted a title that adores its source material, that shapes its entire form around celebrating it. Spider-Man loves Spider-Man, and Spider-Man is a welcome, fun, bright presence in 2018. This is a quintessential Peter Parker adventure, perfectly translated into game form, and my impression of it has only grown more fond with time. One of my big litmus tests for games is if I find myself going back to it after I'm done covering it for work, and this was one of the few this year to pass. If you have a PlayStation 4, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.
[Original review; buy now]

Last summer, the actor Jay Duplass found himself in the middle of a lush forest in Washington state, his body struggling under the weight of a giant space-helmet. The actor was filming scenes for the sci-fi drama Prospect, in which he plays a planet-scavenger hoping to get rich. Duplass' otherworldly get-up—like nearly all of the film's costume and props—had been designed and hand-made by a team of earthbound artists. But while his beat-up headgear looked cool, wearing it was "a goddamn nightmare," the actor says. "It was heavy. Those helmets are not designed to be worn all day, or walked around in. It messed my neck up for a good six months."

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Such sacrifices were a near-daily requirement on Prospect, which opens this Friday in select cities, and expands next week. It's a defiantly DIY indie, one that takes place in a richly designed sci-fi world, full of gonzo weapons, clunky spaceships, and lived-in locales—yet focuses largely on three primary characters. "The insane ambition was to try to capture the essence of huge movies like Dune, Star Wars, and Blade Runner," says co-writer and co-director Zeek Earl. "We tried to capture a slice of a world, but with a very low budget."

That task required Earl and his partner, Chris Caldwell—both making their feature-film debut—to spend much of last year in a Seattle workshop, where they constructed their own on-screen galaxy. The 31-year-old filmmakers had first produced Prospect as a short film, which drew attention after premiering at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival, ultimately becoming a hit on Vimeo. Afterward, the two former Seattle Pacific University students toured Hollywood, trying to sell producers on a full-length Prospect. "It was a startlingly long process," says Caldwell. "But we were pitching a very unique production plan." The duo wanted seven months to make the film's ships, costumes, and weapons—an almost unheard-of amount of prep time for an indie. "Most people were like, 'Oh. Cool,'" remembers Earl. "They were clearly thinking, 'This doesn't fit in to how things work.'"

Earl and Caldwell finally secured financing from Canadian company BRON Studios (the film's budget, Earl says, came in under $4 million). In late 2016, they got to work, moving into a former ship-building warehouse in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood, where they were sandwiched between an Episcopal bookstore and a marijuana dispensary. "We hired a lot of people who'd never worked on a movie before: industrial designers, carpenters, mechanics, cosplayers," says Caldwell. "They were working with us as the script was being written, and by the time we got the green light, we had this kind of art collective under one roof."

Working-Class Grunts of the Future

It was a fittingly hands-on environment for a sci-fi tale that focuses not on aerial battles or inter-world politics, but on the day-to-day life of the working-class grunts of the future. Prospect casts Duplass as Damon, a small-time explorer who lands his dinged-up spaceship on a gorgeous but toxic moon, accompanied by his young daughter, Cee (played by Chicago Med’s Sophie Thatcher). They've landed a contract to collect elusive, oyster-like gems, with a potential payday big enough to get their lives back on track. But the family's search is interrupted by a mysterious traveler (Game of Thrones and Narcos alum Pedro Pascal) who's just as desperate as they are. What follows is a slow-boiling showdown with hints of noir-westerns like Deadwood and The Treasure of Sierra Madre, albeit with bulky air-filtration devices and gnarly spear-guns instead of whiskey and pistols.

All of Prospect's exterior shots were filmed on a private land trust adjacent to Washington's Olympic National Park, where Earl and Caldwell had backpacked during college. "A few times," says Earl, "Fish and Wildlife officials would wander in and see a bunch of people in space helmets, and get really confused." They probably overheard some mild gasps from the actors, as well, as they were spending hours in the meticulously designed gear. "Their airflow was restricted, and we were making them hike all over the forest," says Earl. "It was pretty arduous."

CGI would have made everyone's lives easier, of course: In mega-budgeted sci-fi films like The Martian, the performers’ costumes—including helmet visors—are often created with digital assistance. But everything in Prospect had to at least appear fully functional, in order to amplify the film's realism. Back in the filmmakers' warehouse, which also served as a film studio and editing bay, the production team used a CNC (Computer Numeric Control) kit to create much of the ship's interiors. "We spent a week figuring out how to put it together," says Caldwell, "so that we could design all these sets digitally, and just cut them out." Even the particles of poisonous dust that flutter across the moon-forest were the result of practical effects: Earl threw dust around the basement of his home, filmed it, and overlaid the results into the finished movie.

That analog approach makes Prospect its own sort of satellite in the world of recent science-fiction films. It's a big-screen genre dominated by well-known properties and steroidal budgets: Solo: A Star Wars Story, Ready Player One, The Predator. But there's always been a place for cerebral, less showy tales of futures yet to come, from George Lucas’ dystopic THX-1138 to Shane Carruth’s time-traveling Primer to Duncan Jones’ far-flung Moon. After its premiere at SXSW this year, Prospect was picked up for distribution by DUST, a sci-fi-focused division of the indie company Gunpowder & Sky. The imagination found within next-wave sci-fi stories like Prospect—and the determination of studios willing to back them—hints at not only an alternative world, but also an alternative Hollywood, one where big ideas are just as important as big budgets. "I've never been a fan of large spectacle sci-fi, or large spectacle movies in general, because I feel like they almost always drop the ball on character and emotion," says Duplass. Growing up, the actor's sci-fi tastes gravitated toward movies like the scaled-back 1985 drama Enemy Mine. "It's a weird little chamber piece about two enemies who are stranded, and rely on each other to survive," he says.

Prospect has some of that same weird-little-movie vibe, though it hints at much larger stories just beyond the moon planet's horizon. After the movie's debut, Amazon approached Earl and Caldwell about developing a TV sci-fi series, one that would employ "the same apparatus" the duo used for Prospect, Earl says. They said yes, and a pilot is currently in the works. A piece of advice for prospective actors: Bring your own headgear.