Slate's Spoiler Specials
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).
Episodes
October 16, 2020 • 60 min
Slate staffers Sam Adams and Laura Miller spoil The Haunting of Bly Manor.
An American governess (Victoria Pedretti) signs on two care for two orphaned children in a remote English mansion. But she finds the house is haunted by a malevolent presence, and the children may be as well. Sam Adams and Laura Miller break down Netflix’s followup to The Haunting of Hill House, which takes its inspiration from Henry James’ The Turn of the ...
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October 2, 2020 • 40 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate’s Marissa Martinelli and Laura Miller spoil Enola Holmes.
Enola, who likes to remind people that her name spelled backwards is ‘alone,’ wakes up to find her mother missing. While Enola is determined to investigate her mother’s disappearance, it’s up to Myc...
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September 18, 2020 • 78 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail.
This week, Slate’s Sam Adams and Vox’s Film Critic Alissa Wilkinson spoil Tenet. Christopher Nolan’s time-bending thriller is visually spectacular yet incredibly confusing.
The main character, played by John David Washington, simply referred to as the Protagonist is a CI...
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September 4, 2020 • 67 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate’s Dana Stevens and Matthew Dessem spoil I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Charlie Kaufman starts the film following a young couple, Lucy (Jessie Buckley) and Jake (Jesse Plemons) driving on a snowy evening to meet and have dinner with Jake’s parents. Lucy is al...
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August 25, 2020 • 53 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate’s Television Critic Willa Paskin is joined by Vulture Staff Writer Angelica Jade Bastién to spoil I May Destroy You. Michaela Coel is at the heart of this series. Besides writing and producing the show, she directed many episodes and plays the main character...
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August 7, 2020 • 43 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic, is joined by Isaac Butler, writer, theater director, and co-host of Slate’s podcast Working, to spoil An American Pickle. Seth Rogen stars as Herschel Greenbaum, a man who wakes up after being preserved in pickle brine for a cen...
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July 24, 2020 • 52 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate’s movie critic Dana Stevens is joined by Willa Paskin, Slate’s television critic, and Sam Adams, a senior editor at Slate and the editor of Slate’s culture blog, Brow Beat, to spoil Palm Springs. At first, Palm Springs seems like a fun wedding rom-com until ...
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July 17, 2020 • 45 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic, is joined by Sam Adams, a senior editor at Slate and the editor of Slate’s culture blog, Brow Beat, and Tom Scocca, Slate's politics editor. They dive into Jon Stewart’s comedy starring Steve Carell as an out-of-touch politi...
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July 10, 2020 • 56 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. For a very special LIVE episode of Spoiler Specials, Slate’s Dana Stevens was joined by Sam Adams, Rachelle Hampton and Rebecca Onion to spoil the Hamilton movie that’s streaming on Disney+. They discuss how well the show has aged, historical inaccuracies, colorblind cas...
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June 26, 2020 • 56 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic, is joined by Aisha Harris, writer and editor for The New York Times’ Opinion section to spoil Da 5 Bloods.
Spike Lee’s newest film follows a group of Black Vietnam War veterans as they reunite years later. The group returns to ...
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June 12, 2020 • 65 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. We have a very special episode this week! Sam Adams is joined by Laura Miller to discuss the new Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Suzanne Collins’ new novel explores President Snow’s origin and descent into one dimensional villainy seen in the Hunger...
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May 29, 2020 • 43 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate’s Sam Adams is joined by Willa Paskin and Rachelle Hampton to spoil The Lovebirds, a romantic comedy starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani. Leilani (Issa Rae) and Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani) are a couple on the brink of a break up when they find themselves caug...
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May 15, 2020 • 53 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate’s Sam Adams, Matthew Dessem, and Daniel Schroeder spoil Hollywood. Ryan Murphy and co-creator Ian Brennan reimagine a more inclusive golden-age of filmmaking. While the first couple episodes of the Netflix series stay relatively grounded in reality, the seri...
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April 17, 2020 • 52 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate podcast producer Daniel Schroeder and Slate staff writer Rachelle Hampton discuss Netflix’s new reality dating show: Too Hot to Handle. Ten attractive contestants are thrown together on an island to compete over a $100,000 prize. To win the money, they need ...
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April 3, 2020 • 44 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Sam Adams is joined by Slate’s Television Critic Willa Paskin to spoil Netflix’s hit documentary series Tiger King. The hit series is an increasingly sordid tale of wild characters conning each other out of zoos. The show’s standout character is Joe Exotic, whose ...
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March 27, 2020 • 72 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate staffers Marissa Martinelli, Daniel Schroeder, and Megan Kallstrom spoil Star Trek: Picard, which picks up years after Admiral Jean-Luc Picard has separated from Starfleet over ideological differences. The Star Trek legend has retreated into retirement on Ea...
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March 22, 2020 • 78 min
Flashback is usually available only to Slate Plus members. Sign up now to listen to the archive and future episodes.
In the new episode of Flashback, movie critics Dana Stevens and K. Austin Collins discuss the psychological drama What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), directed by Robert Aldrich.
Other titles mentioned in the episode:
Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder
Limelight (1952), directed by Charlie Chaplin...
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March 17, 2020 • 51 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Slate Senior Editor Sam Adams is joined by Slate Staff Writer Rebecca Onion to spoil Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic movie. Not dissimilar to the coronavirus, the fictional virus, MEV-1, started off transferring from infected animals to humans. MEV-1 ...
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March 6, 2020 • 46 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Forrest Wickman is joined by Sam Adams and Marissa Martinelli to discuss Onward. Ian and Barley Lightfoot are elf brothers in a modernized magical realm. On Ian’s birthday he receives a gift that will allow him and his older brother to bring back their father for ...
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February 21, 2020 • 58 min
On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Marissa Martinelli and Heather Schwedel discuss Emma. Though certainly not the first adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, director Autumn de Wilde’s film humanizes the familiar characters and departs at times from the source material to bring a certain freshness to ...
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