A focused conversation about why Cameron's underwater spectacle feels startlingly real.
Avatar: The Way of Water gives Slate's Spoiler Specials a clear question to follow: how does a long sequel make its underwater world feel worth staying in?

Criticism after the ending is fair game.
Slate's Spoiler Specials treats the ending as the starting line. Slate critics and editors talk through releases with the plot fully on the table, from James Cameron's underwater spectacle to Patricia Highsmith snails and superhero franchise logic.
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Slate's Spoiler Specials starts where ordinary reviews usually stop. The ending can be named. The twist can be inspected. The silly subplot can be dragged into daylight. Across the sampled episodes, the show works less like a recommendation engine and more like a lively post-screening conversation among people who notice how movies are built. Dana Stevens and guests weigh big-release spectacle, franchise machinery, adaptation choices, and the stray details that lodge in the mind long after the credits. Avatar: The Way of Water gives the discussion room to consider James Cameron's underwater obsession, the force of 3D depth, and the strange hyper-real effect of computer-generated ocean worlds. The Suicide Squad leads into James Gunn, reboot logic, and the odd business of making a sequel that is also a correction. Godzilla vs. Kong is treated with a plainspoken sense of proportion: it promises giant monsters fighting, then has to be judged partly on that promise. Deep Water opens a different door, toward erotic-thriller history, Patricia Highsmith, exposed jealousy, and a memorable detour through snails. The show can be amused without being glib. It can be exacting without sounding sealed off from ordinary moviegoing pleasure. The best moments come when a guest turns a throwaway image or action sequence into the key to the whole work. There is also a Slate-house familiarity to the exchanges, with sidebars about other podcasts, books, and writing lives folded into the criticism. That looseness gives the show a conversational texture. Still, the format stays disciplined by its central permission: spoilers are not a hazard here, they are the material. Listeners get plot mechanics, performance reactions, genre context, and verdicts that do not have to dodge the final act. It is a strong fit after watching a buzzy movie and wanting the full argument, not the spoiler-free version.
Made for: For viewers who have already watched the movie or show and want a smart, spoiler-ready conversation afterward. It especially suits listeners who enjoy criticism that notices both craft and absurd detail.
What sets it apart: The show treats spoilers as critical evidence, not hazards to avoid. Its Slate conversations move comfortably between blockbuster spectacle, genre history, adaptation quirks, and the tiny choices that reveal a movie's logic.
On Slate's Spoiler Specials, Slate critics, such as Dana Stevens and Willa Paskin, discuss new movies and TV shows in spoiler-filled detail. We dissect twist endings, plot holes, and other secrets you won't read in reviews. WARNING: This podcast contains spoilers (duh). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused conversation about why Cameron's underwater spectacle feels startlingly real.
Avatar: The Way of Water gives Slate's Spoiler Specials a clear question to follow: how does a long sequel make its underwater world feel worth staying in?
A focused spoiler discussion of Deep Water's exposed marriage, strange snails, and slippery Patricia Highsmith connection.
Deep Water gets a compact spoiler treatment as Dana Stevens, Jeffrey Bloomer, and Dan Coyce look at Melinda's visible relationships and Vic's just-as-visible reaction.
A skeptical, funny look at monster spectacle, ocean logistics, and one very literal movie promise.
Slate's Spoiler Specials treats Godzilla vs. Kong as a movie almost entirely defined by its title: Godzilla fights King Kong. Allegra Frank and Matt Dessim measure that blunt promise against the odd machinery built around it, especially the ocean sequence where Godzilla…

Tiny Harry Potter moments, fully argued.

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant explain one topic per episode, from the bicameral mind to Boeing's MCAS.

Multi-part dramatized retellings of scandals like OceanGate's Titan and the Lehman Brothers collapse.

Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins dissect Oscar races, new releases, and Hollywood news.


Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen debate new releases, classics, and their own film rankings.
Slate critics Allegra Frank and Matt Dessam spoil 'Godzilla vs.
Slate critics Dana Stevens, Jeffrey Bloomer, and Dan Coyce dissect the 2022 erotic thriller 'Deep Water,' starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas.
Dana Stevens and Karen Han discuss movies and TV shows with full spoilers, dissecting twists and plot holes.
Dana Stevens and Sam Adams assess James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, a three-hour-and-10-minute sequel built more around Pandora’s environments than intricate plotting.
Dana Stevens and Dan Kois debate Todd Field's 2022 film Tár, centered on Cate Blanchett's conductor Lydia Tár and her 20-minute Adam Gopnik interview.
Lydia Tár uses a Juilliard master class to defend Bach, then humiliates the student she has persuaded.
Dana Stevens and Nadira Goff examine Wakanda Forever's Chadwick Boseman memorial as an act of mourning.
Slate's Dana Stevens and Nadira Goff review Ryan Coogler's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, released four years after the 2018 original and Chadwick Boseman's death.
Sam Adams and Jeffrey Blumer disagree on Halloween Ends, with Blumer, a self-described 'long-suffering Halloween fan' who has seen all 14 films, crediting its change of direction and Adams saying flatly 'It stinks.' The movie spends its first hour on babysitter Corey Cunningham, whose accidental killing of a child in a 2019 prologue turns him into the town's scapegoat.
Slate's Dana Stevens and Marissa Martinelli open with the gossip around Olivia Wilde's 2022 film, including the rumored Wilde-Florence Pugh feud and a 40-member crew statement denying a screaming match.
Slate critics discuss new movies and TV shows in spoiler-filled detail, dissecting twist endings and plot holes.
Slate critics discuss new movies and TV shows in spoiler-filled detail, dissecting twist endings and plot holes.
Hosts Karen Hahn and Sam Adams spoil the 2021 film The Suicide Squad, discussing its plot, characters, and James Gunn's direction.