Breaking down the ‘Wicked: For Good’ ending

Watching

• Wicked: For Good. The sequel from Jon M. Chu was released in theaters on Friday. We break down the film’s surprising ending and its new spin on classic characters from The Wizard of Oz. Read more.

• Murdaugh: Death in the Family. On June 7, 2021, Maggie Murdaugh and her son Paul were murdered by husband and father Alex Murdaugh in South Carolina. That’s the inciting incident of this true-crime series starring Patricia Arquette, Johnny Berchtold, and Jason Clarke. Read more.

• Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. How exactly did a movie about magicians, of all things, become a true Hollywood success story? Nearly a decade after the second film, cinema’s most unlikely blockbuster franchise is back with its third entry. And it’s ridiculously fun. Read more.

Reading

• The Dry Season. After taking a temporary vow of celibacy, Melissa Febos discovered a form of independence she’d never felt before. The Dry Season filters this revelatory experience through the stories of other women who famously sacrificed sex for freedom, from the pious beguines of medieval Europe to Virginia Woolf. Read more.

• Good Dirt. After being stood up at her wedding, Ebby is starting over in France. In a scene straight out of a romantic comedy, her ex and his new girlfriend show up to the house where she’s staying. They quickly leave, but old traumas resurface—and soon Ebby is revisiting another heartbreaking part of her life story: an unsolved crime from her childhood. Read more.

• Tilt. Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at an IKEA when a devastating earthquake hits. Miles away from her home and her husband, she has no choice but to start walking. Amid the chaos, Annie talks to her unborn child, reflecting on her struggling marriage, her stalled career, the sudden loss of her mother, and her anxieties surrounding impending parenthood. Read more.

Talking About

• The new film Hamnet, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning 2020 novel, imagines how William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in a haze of grief over the death of his son. Director Chloé Zhao chose brothers to play the doomed child and the actor portraying his on-stage avatar. Read more.

• Ken Burns' latest project is an expansive documentary about the history of the American Revolution. TIME spoke to Burns about highlights from the documentary and what people get wrong about that time period. Read more.

• The plot of Rental Family reads almost like science fiction: An out-of-work American actor living in Tokyo takes a job as a rental companion, and the position requires him to fill in as whatever the person employing him may need to accomplish a goal in their personal life. But rental companion services are real, and a considerable industry in Japan. Read more.