2022 Summer Preview: TV shows, movies, books, and music of the season

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The Boys

Amazon Prime Video's irreverent superhero series returns for season 3 on June 3 — and we've got an exclusive peek at Tomer Capone's Frenchie and Karen Fukuhara's Kimiko in a musical sequence from the upcoming episodes. Read our interview with the actors about the unexpected moment.

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Thor: Love and Thunder

"What I didn't want to do is just make Ragnarok again, because that's been done," Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi tells EW of helming the third Thor film. "I needed to do something more interesting for myself to keep the whole thing ignited and to make sure that I'm feeling creatively stimulated. I thought, 'What's the least expected thing with this franchise?'" Find out what that is in our full interview with Waititi ahead of the film's theatrical debut on July 8.

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The Terminal List

On Prime Video's eight-episode adaptation of Jack Carr's 2018 conspiracy-thriller The Terminal List, Chris Pratt plays a Navy SEAL whose platoon is wiped out when a mission goes disastrously awry. After returning to the US, his memory of events is contradicted by evidence presented to him by the military. Pratt's costars include Riley Keough, who plays his wife, and Friday Night Lights alum Taylor Kitsch, who portrays a former Navy SEAL and his closest friend. Check out more images and read our interview with its creative team. The series premieres July 1.

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Grown-ish

You've seen Andre Johnson Jr., a.k.a. Junior (Marcus Scribner), grow up over the years on Black-ish, but get ready to see a whole lot more of him now that he's heading to college on Grown-ish. When Freeform's spin-off series returns for season 5 (on July 20), Junior enrolls at Cal U to embark on his own journey to being "grown" on the heels of big sister Zoey's (Yara Shahidi) graduation. Read our interview with Scribner and see exclusive images from the upcoming season.

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Hustle

Adam Sandler is playing a different game in Hustle. This is no Happy Gilmore for basketball: The Netflix film stars the comedian — and sometimes highly-praised dramatic actor — in an emotionally charged story set against the backdrop of the NBA. "I knew this movie was a different feel for me," admits Sandler, "but it's kind of a combination of stuff I've done in the past and a newer version of who I am." Read our full interview with Sandler ahead of the film's premiere June 8 on Netflix.

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Nope

"Nope is nothing like Get Out or Us," says Keke Palmer who stars Jordan Peele's third (and very hush-hush) movie along with Daniel Kaluuya and Minari's Steven Yeun. "It's a totally different vibe, it's about something different — the themes are totally different, and the tone is totally different. This has a lot of '70s tones, which I think is exciting." Read our full interview with Palmer ahead of the film's June 22 theatrical release.

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Peaky Blinders

In 2012, the Peaky Blinders cast gathered for the first time to start shooting what they thought would be a niche 1920's-set gangster series following Birmingham's Shelby family. A decade later, the show is bigger than ever — with a movie and potential spin-offs in the works — as it prepares to air its sixth and final season (on Netflix June 10). Read our full preview of what's to come as the British drama draws to a close.

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The Gray Man

Ryan Gosling is going undercover. The 41-year-old Oscar nominee stars in Netflix's upcoming thriller The Gray Man, playing a reluctant CIA agent named Court Gentry, a.k.a. Six, who finds himself tangled in a deadly conspiracy. Anthony and Joe Russo are directing The Gray Man, their first blockbuster since Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. The two brothers tell EW that when casting their shadowy hero, they knew Gosling was the perfect actor to tackle the role and all its shades of gray. Read our interview with the Russos ahead of the film's theatrical debut on July 15 and Netflix drop on July 22.

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Stranger Things

Joe Quinn joins season 4 of Netflix's Stranger Things as Eddie Munson, a total metalhead and leader of the Hellfire Club, Hawkins High's diehard Dungeons & Dragons crew that includes Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo). "I don't think it's a part-time gig," Quinn says of Eddie. "It's a real lifestyle." Read our full interview with Quinn for more insight into season 4 (premiering May 27).

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Jack White's Entering Heaven Alive

"I was challenging myself to sort of see what I could get away with!" Jack White says of crafting his upcoming album Enterting Heaven Alive. "If you went back when I was 25 and said, 'Would you write lyrics about buttering toast?' I would say, 'Never, I would never do that!'" Read our full interview with White ahead of Heaven's July 22 release.

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Only Murders in the Building

The new season of Hulu's Only Murders in the Building, which begins June 28, finds the Murders crew digging deeper into the secrets of the Arconia while challenging about their own bonds. "There's a growing familiarity among them, for sure, now in season 2, which also brings tests to the trust they've built, and a deeper reliance on each other as their main sources of support," series creator John Hoffman tells EW. "Can they step up for each other, when doing so may risk something they really want for themselves?" Get a peek at a script page from the new episodes and more insights from Hoffman.

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Ms. Marvel

Sana Amanat has been with Kamala Khan since the beginning. The longtime Marvel comics editor helped create Ms. Marvel back in 2014 in collaboration with writer G. Willow Wilson, editor Steve Wacker, and artist Adrian Alphona. Now, Kamala is making the leap to the screen, and Iman Vellani will star as the Pakistani-American hero in the upcoming Ms. Marvel series on Disney+. Read our interview with Amanat and get an exclusive look at the new show (premiering June 8).

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Lightyear

Angus MacLane has a long history with Buzz Lightyear. The Pixar veteran has been working at the studio for more than two decades, and not only did he serve as an animator on Toy Story 2 and 3, but he even directed the CG portions of the intro for the animated Buzz Lightyear cartoon. So, when it came time to direct his first solo feature film, MacLane already had a certain Space Ranger in mind. "I've been tethered to this character for so long," MacLane says. "It just keeps coming back to me." Read our full interview with MacLane ahead of Lightyear's theatrical release on June 17.

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Sizzling beach reads

Sizzling Summer Reads American Royalty, Husband Material, Heartbreaker, Carrie Soto is Back, and After Hours on Milagro Street — EW Illustration

As you pack those summer getaway bags and roll out the beach towels, you're going to need some great books to complete that vacation vibe. EW has you covered, with 12 great beach reads coming out between May and August, all of which will have you reaching for a cold drink. Whether you prefer to dip into the past or are all about contemporary rom-coms, there's no shortage of swoony, sizzling books to add to your TBR pile.

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P-Valley

Meet Whisper and Roulette. P-Valley creator Katori Hall hails the new dancers at the critically acclaimed series' Pynk strip club as "two of the best female characters I've ever come up with" — and they're about to shake things up on the Starz drama. Read our full interview with Hall and see more exclusive images from season 2 (premiering June 3).

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The Chicks' Gaslighter tour

It's never a dull moment when the Chicks hit the road. The country trio love to take their music to stages across America, and they're not afraid to speak their minds while doing it — they famously drew intense ire after criticizing President George W. Bush while touring in 2003. But if it's been well over a decade since they've performed new tunes live, that's about to change this summer. Read our interview with the band ahead of the tour, which kicks off June 14.

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Top Gun: Maverick

One of the many fascinating things about Tom Cruise is his tradition of gifting white-chocolate coconut bundt cakes from Doan's Bakery in Los Angeles to hundreds of friends and collaborators every Christmas. But after the star worked with actor Glen Powell on the much-delayed, much-anticipated sequel Top Gun: Maverick, he gave his fellow cast member an even tastier holiday gift: flying lessons. "He did," says Powell, 33. "I would be updating him about my progress and he would check in with me." Read our full interview with Powell ahead of the movie's May 27 premiere.

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Tom Swift

"It's rare that you get to see a show that feels Black, is culturally Black, and is authentically Black, but is about Black people doing some other cool thing and being happy and falling in love," co-creator Cameron Johnson tells EW of Nancy Drew spin-off Tom Swift, premiering May 31 on The CW. Read our full interview with Johnson and showrunners Melinda Hsu Taylor and Noga Landau.

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Fire Island

Fire Island has all the bearings of an instant gay classic: a modern reimagining of Pride and Prejudice with an entirely LGBTQ main cast, including Margaret Cho, Bowen Yang, Matt Rogers, Tomás Matos, and Torian Miller. The film follows Joel Kim Booster's Noah, the Elizabeth Bennett figure, as he tries to get his depressed bestie laid, while becoming endlessly frustrated — and maybe a little intrigued — by an awkward-but-sexy Mr. Darcy-type, played by How to Get Away With Murder's Conrad Ricamora. Check out behind-the-scenes Polaroids from the set and an interview with Booster ahead of the film's Hulu debut on June 3.

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Iron Chef

"If Netflix had taken a shot at Iron Chef without me, that would have broken my heart," says Alton Brown, who left Food Network after 20 years to star on the streamers verison of the juggernaut reality cooking competition. Read our full interview with Brown ahead of Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend (premiering June 15).

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The Sandman

Of all the questions the creators of Netflix's upcoming Sandman show had to answer, one loomed above the rest: Who will play Morpheus? The character at the center of the sprawling comic series created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg goes by many names. He is, of course, the titular "sandman" who is capable of putting people to sleep, but he is more formerly known as Dream, one of the Endless who embody eternal concepts (his siblings include Death and Desire, among others). And in this new series, he'll be played by Tom Sturridge. Read our interview with Sturridge and Gaiman ahead of the series premiere later this summer.

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Bodies Bodies Bodies

Looks like the horror pendulum is swinging back toward Scream and funny — always a nice respite from too much "elevated-ness." A24's zoomers-in-peril comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, starring Maria Bakalova and Pete Davidson, is riotous and nerve-shredding in equal measure. Read our interview with the cast and crew ahead of the film's theatrical release on Aug. 5.

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For All Mankind

Following a finale that made EW's list of best TV episodes of 2021, For All Mankind is blasting into the 1990s for the third season of the alternate-history Apple TV+ drama. "It was really gratifying to see how much people responded to the ending in season 2," Matt Wolpert, who co-created the series with Ben Nedivi and Ronald D. Moore, tells EW. But don't expect fan reaction to those big finale deaths and reveals to impact what's to come as Mankind's timeline begins to diverge further and further from what happened in ours after we bested Russia to the Moon. Check out our set of exclusive first-look images from season 3 (premiering June 10) and our exclusive interview with Wolpert and Nedivi.

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Marcel the Shell With Shoes On

Hearing the tiny voice at the heart of A24's Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, an animated adventure with indie instincts, makes you want to lean in and pay attention. It's the sound of an imaginative five-year-old boy, constantly in a state of show-and-tell, and blooming into confidence, but not quite there. To learn that it's Jenny Slate who voices Marcel, a talkative shell, shouldn't be such a surprise: She's the vocal wizard who, on Kroll Show, turned the slurry whines of publicists into high art. Her career as a stand-up comedian, actress and animation MVP extends to movies such as Obvious Child, Zootopia and Gifted. But when we ask Slate where Marcel came from, way back in 2010, she goes to some of her earliest professional successes — and setbacks. Read our interview with Slate ahead of the film's theatrical release on June 24.

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The Umbrella Academy

"The way I thought about about season 3 is, the Umbrellas are a family that didn't know how to be superheroes. The Sparrows are superheroes who never knew how to be a family," The Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman says. "That is the fundamental difference in how they go about being superheroes." Get exclusive images from season 3 and read our full interview with Blackman ahead of the new episodes (premiering June 22 on Netflix).

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Bullet Train

"The response was really amazing and makes us feel good," stuntman-turned-director David Leitch says, having screened the 15-minute opening sequence to Bullet Train, his star-studded film about seven assassins thrust together on the same high-speed train. "It felt like people were understanding the movie we set out to make, and that's exciting." So what is the film that Leitch, known for juicing up Hollywood action blockbusters, set out to make? After the harsh start to the COVID-19 pandemic, he wanted only one thing: "something worthy to go back to the movies for." Read our full interview with Leitch ahead of the film's theatrical release on Aug. 5.

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Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin

The upcoming HBO Max series from co-creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) is a reimagining of the Pretty Little Liars story (premiering later this summer). Along with tracking the events of our five teenage Liars — Bailee Madison (Imogen), Minnie (Malia Pyles), Noa (Maia Reficco), Tabby (Chandler Kinney), and Faran (Zaria) — in present day, the show also gives viewers a glimpse into the past. Specifically, it follows their parents back when they were teens in 1999. And let's just say high school has always been complicated in Millwood, Pa. EW has an exclusive first look at the drama starters themselves: the parents.

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A League of Their Own

Batter up: The Rockford Peaches are back. The long-anticipated A League of Their Own TV series is finally stepping up to the plate, debuting on Amazon Prime Video this summer. Abbi Jacobson (Broad City) and Will Graham (Mozart in the Jungle) co-created the show, which reimagines Penny Marshall's iconic 1992 film about the trailblazing women who fought to play professional baseball in the 1940s. Read our interview with Jacobson and Graham ahead of the series premiere later this summer.

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The novels we're excited about

For some, it's strictly the season of SPF and Summer Fridays. But for dedicated book lovers, the weeks between May and September are golden for another reason: the rush of great new fiction. Whether you choose to stay cool indoors or stuff them all in a sandy tote bag and go, EW has collected 16 novels that promise sweet escape.

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Evil

Have you been feeling a little too comfortable lately? A little too calm and confident about the state of the world? Michelle and Robert King are ready to change that. Evil, the Kings' delightfully unnerving drama series, is returning June 12, and the new season will once again follow Katja Herbers' Kristen, Mike Colter's David, and Aasif Mandvi's Ben as they investigate a new batch of supernatural mysteries. Read our interview with the Kings ahead of the new episodes.

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Queer as Folk

Peacock's Queer as Folk, a reimagining of the original British series and its American counterpart from creator Stephen Dunn, stars mostly newcomers — with two very notable exceptions. Kim Cattrall and Juliette Lewis lean into their camp icon credentials as two very different mothers to two very different kids who find themselves suddenly drawn together. Check out a slew of first-look images of the actresses in the series ahead of its premiere June 9.

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Where the Crawdads Sing

As a novel, Delia Owens' swampy mystery-thriller was enormously popular, and for good reason; its satisfactions snuck up on you. The movie version stars Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones, graduating into deeper nuance and, hopefully, tons more work. Read our interview with Edgar-Jones ahead of Where the Crawdads Sing's theatrical release on July 15.

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Father of the Bride

Nearly 30 years after the last incarnation of Father of the Bride comes the latest update, with Andy García and Gloria Estefan filling the parental shoes previously worn by Steve Martin and Diane Keaton in 1991 (not to mention Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett in 1950). But don't expect this version to simply be a retread of the beloved story with a Latin twist — today's Father of the Bride has some pretty 2022 complications. Check out the film's trailer and read our interview with García and Estefan ahead of its premiere June 16 on HBO Max.

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Everything's Trash

In Phoebe Robinson's version of Sex and the City, the rom-com heroine isn't living a life of luxury with a closet full of expensive shoes. Her thirty-something protagonist may be buying expensive dresses, but she's wearing them with the tags still on and then returning them the next day, because she's living a realistic penny-pinching New York City experience in Everything's Trash. Read our interview with Robinson ahead of the series premiere (July 13 on Freeform).

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Chad

School is back in session for Chad, and this season the show's namesake has a big ol' crush: Mona (Sara Malal Rowe). But it's not all love at first sight. "No one is more surprised by Chad and Mona's charming dynamic, let alone his debilitating crush on her, than Chad himself. Mona is cool, confident and totally at peace with being the Persian foreign kid — so, the complete opposite of Chad," reveals series creator Nasim Pedrad, who also stars as Chad. Read our full interview with Pedrad and see exclusive images from season 2 (premiering July 11).

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Our kids' movie guide

DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS — DC Comics/Warner Bros. Pictures

With the upcoming releases of a Toy Story prequel, Lightyear, a Jurassic Park legacy cast reunion in Jurassic World: Dominion, and even the A24 indie Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, kids are in for a treat, with a wider variety of film choices than they've had for the past two pandemic-affected summers. EW compiled a list of five more movies that'll appeal to the kids in your life.

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The Orville: New Horizons

The Orville Season 3 — The Orville: New Horizons. Hulu

The Orville is (finally) back, with its sights set on a New Horizon: Hulu. After its season 2 finale aired on FOX in April 2019, the hour-long comedy has landed its spaceship on the streamer for season 3 with a zhuzhed-up title: The Orville: New Horizons. Series creator Seth MacFarlane is back at the helm as Captain Ed Mercer alongside Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson and Scott Grimes as Lt. Gordon Malloy. See EW's exclusive trailer of the new season (premiering June 2).

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Pistol

Danny Boyle's six-part limited series Pistol tracks the formation, rise, and disintegration of the Sex Pistols, who entranced some and appalled others with tracks like "Pretty Vacant" and "God Save the Queen" as well as their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. The show is based on the 2017 memoir Lonely Boy by Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, who is played on the series by Toby Wallace. Read our interview with Boyle ahead of the series premiere May 31 on Hulu.

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Black Bird

Black Bird is a six-episode, gritty, suspenseful psychological thriller developed and executive produced by Dennis Lehane. Inspired by a real story, and based on the memoir In with the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption by James Keene and Hillel Levin, it follows Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton) as he begins a 10-year prison sentence. Jimmy is promptly handed an incredible offer: If he can elicit a confession from suspected killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser), he will be freed. Completing this mission becomes the challenge of a lifetime. Read our interview with Hauser ahead of the series premiere (July 8 on Apple TV+).

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Cha Cha Real Smooth

There's already charm to spare in Cha Cha Real Smooth. The winningly scrappy coming-of-age dramedy — which Cooper Raiff wrote, directs, and stars in as Andrew, a recent college graduate who crash-lands back in his New Jersey hometown as a reluctant hype man on the local bar mitzvah circuit — begins streaming on Apple TV+ June 17, lifted by a raft of glowing festival reviews and the potential to match the crowd-pleasing promise of another high-profile Apple buy from Sundance, the recently minted Oscar winner CODA. Read our interview with Raff ahead of the film's premiere.

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The Bear

After playing Lip Gallagher for 11 seasons on Shameless, Jeremy Allen White returns to the world of Chicago for FX's new half-hour comedy series The Bear (all eight episodes premiere June 23 on Hulu). White stars as Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, a brilliant young chef from the fine-dining world who is forced to return home to run his family sandwich shop — the Original Beef of Chicagoland — after a heartbreaking death in his family. To play the highly talented chef, White went full method in the restaurant world. Find out how in our interview with White and co-showrunner Joanna Calo.

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Elvis

"I was a fan when I was young," Baz Luhrmann says of Elvis Presley, who is played by Austin Butler in the director's new film which also stars Tom Hanks. "We had a little movie house in my hometown [Herons Creek, Australia] for a short period and we used to have the Elvis matinees, so I came to know Elvis through the movies. I loved him as a child. But I'm not doing a biopic of Elvis Presley..." Read our full interview with Luhrmann ahead of his film's theatrical release on June 24.

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The Black Keys' Dropout Boogie tour

Two guys, 20 years, 11 studio albums: It's been a long road from Akron, Ohio, to the gold records and fistfuls of Grammys that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have earned since their scrappy blues-rock act the Black Keys first emerged from the basement bowels of their Midwestern hometown in 2002. These days they're respectable Nashville residents, husbands and fathers in their 40s with a new album, Dropout Boogie (out May 13), and a months-long summer tour launching July 9 in Las Vegas, with support by Band of Horses. On the cusp of Boogie's release, the duo look back at the haunted tire factories, Captain Beefheart records, and cans of Kmart pomade that shaped their catalog.

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Jurassic World Dominion

Jeff Goldblum must've had very cool parents. In honor of audiences returning to movie theaters after a two-year hiatus, the Jurassic World Dominion star takes us through the films that made the biggest impression on him as a kid, including The Apartment, The Graduate, The Last Picture Show, and Psycho. (He does clarify that he saw The Graduate "towards the end of my stint as a child.") Watch our full interview with Goldblum ahead of Dominion's theatrical release on June 10.

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Rutherford Falls

"We really put everything we had into that first season, especially it being the first Native American sitcom," Rutherford Falls co-creator Sierra Teller Ornelas tells EW. "I was like, 'We're doing everything because who knows if this is going to happen again.' For season 2, I was so nervous and thought, 'Oh god, what do we do?' Michael Greyeyes was like, 'Well, there's an infinite amount of Indigenous stories. The one thing we don't have to worry about is stories.'" Find out what stories they decided to tell — and get a look at exclusive images from the upcoming episodes (premiering June 16 on Peacock).

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Carrie Soto Is Back

Across seven novels now, Taylor Jenkins Reid has become a one-woman industry of books you want to sink into: Plush, character-driven stories of Golden Age movie stars (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo), '70s rock sirens (Daisy Jones & the Six), and '80s surf goddesses (Malibu Rising). Her eighth, the tennis-pro saga Carrie Soto Is Back (Aug. 30), she promises, "will be the last in this series of books about famous women," though you haven't seen their final acts yet: Malibu arrives in paperback May 17, and Daisy is currently being adapted as a limited series for Amazon, starring Riley Keogh and Sam Clafin. In the meantime, read all about the books that shaped Jenkins, from tales of bad bunnies to stories of American Psychos.

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Our kids summer reading list

Summer Kid's book preview — Book Illustration by EW

The challenge: Keep the kiddos reading once school's out for summer. The solution: Find stories to enthrall them. EW has curated the best tales for young bookworms, from the first children's books by the Scarlet Witch herself, Elizabeth Olsen, and acclaimed novelists (and spouses) Zadie Smith and Nick Laird, to sequels to bestsellers Shady Baby and Amari and the Night Brothers.