The Take

The Take

This is the Take. It's where you come to understand more about your favorite movies, shows and culture. Our video essays make the story worlds you enter richer and deeper. Think: Endings Explained, Character Studies, Hidden Messages and Symbols Revealed, Actor and Director Profiles, and more. We want to share our love of visual culture with the world. So here's our Take.

Episodes

January 2, 2026 10 mins
Go to http://factormeals.com/thetake50off and use code thetake50off to get 50% off your first Factor box PLUS free breakfast for 1 year! After The Hunt was poised to be the provocative drama of this year’s Oscar’s race – but it didn’t get the reception everyone was expecting, and has ended up dividing audiences for very different reasons. This prestige drama from a renowned director starring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars shou...
Mark as Played
How did Heated Rivalry, a hockey romance drama, become such a huge cultural phenomenon?! The unexpectedly mega viral hit combines humor, sports, love and self-discovery in a way that's captured audience's hearts and minds. So, let's take a closer look at Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov's stories, their relationship, the truth about Heated Rivalry's alleged fanfic origins, why the show's ending is so important, and what might be co...
Mark as Played
On Friends, Rachel Green’s life was so aspirational in many ways – but would it be totally impossible to have now? From the giant apartment she splits with Monica, to her rocketing career trajectory, to the fashion and lifestyle she’s able to have in one of the most expensive cities in the country – it’s definitely interesting to imagine how things might be quite different for Rachel today (and how watching her story might have set...
Mark as Played
Go to http://greenchef.com/thetakegraza and use code THETAKEGRAZA to get started with 50% off Green Chef + FREE Graza Olive Oil Set in your 2nd and 3rd boxes! Have we passed the point of no return with AI Slop and bland content? We’re going to dive into the four major aspects of this issue: businesses like Disney and Coca-Cola embracing AI (and possibly destroying their own brands), the financial reasons behind the blandness epide...
Mark as Played
Go to http://uncommongoods.com/thetake for 15% off your next gift! Money can solve a lot of problems, but… what happens when nearly every character seems to be protected by a bubble of invisible wealth (even ones that are meant to be “just like us”?!) While “Rich Girls” have always had a certain amount of plot armor (on screen and in real life,) in movies and TV shows even average, supposedly down-to-earth characters can feel like ...
Mark as Played
Wicked: For Good, the sequel to last year’s hit film starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, has smashed box office records – but even though it’s winning at the box office, for many viewers some of the magic seems to be missing in this installment. Bringing the stage musical’s second act to the screen was always going to be an uphill battle. The question now is: is the film really a miss, or is it just not what some people were ...
Mark as Played
Go to http://monarch.com/thetake and use code THETAKE for 50% off your first year! Stranger Things is finally back, so what have we learned from these first episodes of season five? We're taking a look at the story so far, the symbolism, and deeper meanings to begin to get an idea of what it all means and where things might be headed in the finale! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mark as Played
One Battle After Another, Explained || Go to http://www.groundnews.com/take to make sure you're getting the full picture of every story while also supporting The Take! Subscribe through our link to get 40% off unlimited world wide coverage for less than the cost of a single month of a streaming service. || Paul Thomas Anderson’s new action thriller One Battle After Another has already become one of the most talked-about films of ...
Mark as Played
Head to https://Greenchef.com/50THETAKE and use code 50THETAKE to get 50% off your first month, then 20% for two months with free shipping! Rewatching Sex and the City, we can’t help but wonder… is it even possible to live like Carrie Bradshaw nowadays? Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda’s stories were all aspirational (to varying degrees…) but of the core four, Carrie’s life (especially in the beginning) seems to be the mo...
Mark as Played
Go to http://uncommongoods.com/thetake for 15% off your next gift! Bugonia, the new Oscar-contender from director Yorgos Lanthimos starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, is simultaneously out of this world and very of our world. Effortlessly shifting between hilarious and horrifying, the film constantly keeps you guessing, and uses its zany story to raise some complex questions around our place in the world (and the cosmos) and i...
Mark as Played
Go to http://monarch.com/thetake and use code THETAKE for 50% off your first year. When does being a fan go too far? And could these intense attachments actually secretly be making us miserable? It’s actually a surprisingly complex problem, because while being a fan can undoubtedly bring joy into our lives, there’s also a dark side that’s been growing more and more intense in recent years. How do we know where the line with paraso...
Mark as Played
Let's take a deeper look at Netflix's update to Wednesday Addams! || Use THETAKE2 to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird https://sbird.co/3WVyN4j This month I received... Daring by Victoria's Secret https://sbird.co/47EJL4t Nude Skin by Skylar https://sbird.co/4qvwthY Hypnotic Musk by M.Micallef https://sbird.co/4oEzUBt Lightscape by Ulrich Lang https://sbird.co/3Jj3UE0 Wednesday Addams has always been subversively cynical ...
Mark as Played
Go to http://www.groundnews.com/take to make sure you're getting the full picture of every story while also supporting The Take! Subscribe through our link to get 40% off unlimited world wide coverage for less than the cost of a single tub of popcorn at the movie theater per month. Everyone likes to talk about themselves every once in a while, but what is it that compels some people to make it their entire career? To get a better ...
Mark as Played
TRON: Ares, the newest entry into the Tron franchise starring Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Evan Peters, has flopped in a big way and looks like it’s going to be an over $100 million loss for Disney. So, what actually went wrong here? Let’s break down the real reasons why TRON: Ares just didn’t quite work (and why that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a total failure forever.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...
Mark as Played
Go to http://greenchef.com/50THETAKE and use code 50THETAKE to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off for two months with free shipping! Some say that the ‘it factor’ is something that you either have or you don’t, that ‘coolness’ is something that’s just innate within some people, and something the rest of us can never truly hope to capture. But the truth is quite different: coolness is pretty much always cultivated to some ...
Mark as Played
Go to http://uncommongoods.com/thetake for 15% off! The Summer I Turned Pretty has become one of the biggest teen dramas of our current era, and one of the most contentious aspects of the show has actually ended up being the girl at the center of it all: Belly Conklin. She is quite the polarizing figure; while many find her to be relatable, others have had a very hard time connecting with her at all (and some have even come to se...
Mark as Played
Thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video! Get 2 extra months free with annual plans for a limited-time only: http://storyblocks.com/TheTake K-Dramas have been growing in popularity across the world for decades now, but they’ve seen a particularly huge growth in interest in the 2020s. While some might just chalk this up to the success of Netflix’s Squid Game, it’s actually a lot deeper and wider ranging than that. So what i...
Mark as Played
Get 50% off your first year at http://monarchmoney.com and use code THETAKE Parks and Recreation’s April Ludgate is known for her cynical, sarcastic demeanor. But, underneath that moody exterior, she was actually a surprisingly positive thinker – it’s just that optimism looks a little different on April. Though it might not seem like it at first, April provides a really relatable example of how to figure out your sense of self an...
Mark as Played
Go to http://www.groundnews.com/take to make sure you're getting the full picture of every story. Subscribe through our link to get 40% off unlimited world wide coverage for less than the cost of a single movie ticket per month! Everything from faking dating profiles to Netflix's Unknown Number: The High School Catfish and beyond has us questioning how we can *ever* really be sure who to trust online at this point... So let’s take...
Mark as Played
Go to http://greenechef.com/50thetake and use code 50THETAKE to get fifty percent off your first month, then twenty percent off for two months with free shipping. Abbott Elementary’s Principal Ava Coleman is many things: outlandish, vain, selfish, hilarious. Ava’s narcissistic nature has caused many problems over the course of the show, for herself and others (mostly others…) But as time has gone on, we’ve also gotten to see how,...
Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    The Burden

    The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.

    SmartLess

    "SmartLess" with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.