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Opens in a new window Credit: FileRule FileRule Cloud Storage: Lifetime Subscription (2TB) $69When OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the world in November 2022, it lit the fuse that ignited the generative AI era.
But Karen Hao, author of the new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI, had already been covering OpenAI for years. The book comes out on May 20, and it reveals surprising new details about the company's culture of secrecy and religious devotion to the promise of AGI, or artificial general intelligence.
Hao profiled the company for MIT Technology Review two years before ChatGPT launched, putting it on the map as a world-changing company. Now, she's giving readers an inside look at pivotal moments in the history of artificial intelligence, including the moment when OpenAI's board forced out CEO and cofounder Sam Altman. (He was later reinstated because of employee backlash.)
Empire of AI dispels any doubt that OpenAI’s belief in ushering in AGI to benefit all of humanity had messianic undertones. One of the many stories from Hao’s book involves Ilya Sutskever, cofounder and former chief scientist, burning an effigy on a team retreat. The wooden effigy "represented a good, aligned AGI that OpenAI had built, only to discover it was actually lying and deceitful. OpenAI's duty, he said, was to destroy it." Sutskever would later do this again at another company retreat, Hao wrote.
And in interviews with OpenAI employees about the potential of AGI, Hao details their "wide-eyed wonder" when "talking about how it would bring utopia. Someone said, 'We're going to reach AGI and then, game over, like, the world will be perfect.' And then speaking to other people, when they were telling me that AGI could destroy humanity, their voices were quivering with that fear."
Hao's seven years of covering AI have culminated in Empire of AI, which details OpenAI's rise to dominance, casting it as a modern-day empire. That Hao's book reminded me of The Anarchy, the account of the OG corporate empire, The East India Company, is no coincidence. Hao reread William Dalrymple's book while writing her own "to remind [herself] of the parallels of a company taking over the world."
This is likely not a characterization that OpenAI wants. In fact, Altman went out of his way to discredit Hao's book on X. "There are some books coming out about OpenAI and me. We only participated in two... No book will get everything right, especially when some people are so intent on twisting things, but these two authors are trying to."
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.The two authors Altman named are Keach Hagey and Ashlee Vance, and they also have forthcoming books. The unnamed author was Hao, of course. She said OpenAI promised to cooperate with her for months, but never did.
We get into that drama in the interview below, plus OpenAI's religious fervor for AGI, the harms AI has already inflicted on the Global South, and what else Hao would have included if she'd kept writing the book.
Order 'Empire of AI' by Karen Hao 'Empire of AI' by Karen Hao $28.80 (save $3.20 at Amazon) Shop Now Mashable: I was particularly fascinated by this religious belief or faith that AGI could be achieved, but also without being able to define it. You wrote about Ilya [Sutskever] being seen as a kind of prophet and burning an effigy. Twice. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on that.Karen Hao: I'm really glad that you used religious belief to describe that, because I don't remember if I explicitly used that word, but I was really trying to convey it through the description. This was a thing that honestly was most surprising to me while reporting the book. There is so much religious rhetoric around AGI, you know, ‘AI will kill us’ versus ‘AI will bring us to utopia.’ I thought it was just rhetoric.
When I first started reporting the book, the general narrative among more skeptical people is, 'Oh, of course they're going to say that AI can kill people, or AI will bring utopia, because it creates this image of AI being incredibly powerful, and that's going to help them sell more products.'
What I was surprised by was, no, it's not just that. Maybe there are some people who do just say this as rhetoric, but there are also people who genuinely believe these things.
I spoke to people with wide-eyed wonder when they were talking about how it would bring utopia. Someone said, 'We're going to reach AGI and then, game over, like, the world will be perfect.' And then speaking to other people, when they were telling me that AGI could destroy humanity, their voices were quivering with that fear.
The amount of power to influence the world is so profound that I think they start to need religion; some kind of belief system or value system to hold on to. Ilya Sutskever (pictured here at a 2023 event in Tel Aviv with Sam Altman) burned a wooden effigy at a company retreat that represented AGI gone rogue. Credit: Photo by Jack Guez / AFP / Getty ImagesI was really shocked by that level of all-consuming belief that a lot of people within this space start to have, and I think part of it is because they're doing something that is kind of historically unprecedented. The amount of power to influence the world is so profound that I think they start to need religion; some kind of belief system or value system to hold on to. Because you feel so inadequate otherwise, having all that responsibility.
Also, the community is so insular. Because I talked with some people over several years, I noticed that the language they use and how they think about what they're doing fundamentally evolves. As you get more and more sucked into this world. You start using more and more religious language, and more and more of this perspective really gets to you.
It's like Dune, where [Lady Jessica] tells a myth that she builds around Paul Atreides that she purposely kind of constructs to make it such that he becomes powerful, and they have this idea that this is the way to control people. To create a religion, you create a mythology around it. Not only do the people who hear it for the first time genuinely believe this because they don't realize that it was a construct, but also Paul Atreides himself starts to believe it more and more, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Honestly, when I was talking with people for the book, I was like, this is Dune.
Something I've been wondering lately is, what am I not seeing? What are they seeing that is making them believe this so fervently?I think what’s happening here is twofold. First, we need to remember that when designing these systems, AI companies prioritize their own problems. They do this both implicitly—in the way that Silicon Valley has always done, creating apps for first-world problems like laundry and food delivery, because that’s what they know—and explicitly.
My book talks about how Altman has long pushed OpenAI to focus on AI models that can excel at code generation because he thinks they will ultimately help the company entrench its competitive advantage. As a result, these models are designed to best serve the people who develop them. And the farther away your life is from theirs in Silicon Valley, the more this technology begins to break down for you.
The second thing that’s happening is more meta. Code generation has become the main use case in which AI models are more consistently delivering workers productivity gains, both for the reasons aforementioned above and because code is particularly well suited to the strengths of AI models. Code is computable.
To people who don’t code or don’t exist in the Silicon Valley worldview, we view the leaps in code-generation capabilities as leaps in just one use case. But in the AI world, there is a deeply entrenched worldview that everything about the world is ultimately, with enough data, computable. So, to people who exist in that mind frame, the leaps in code generation represent something far more than just code generation. It’s emblematic of AI one day being able to master everything.
How did your decision to frame OpenAI as a modern-day empire come to fruition?I originally did not plan to focus the book that much on OpenAI. I actually wanted to focus the book on this idea that the AI industry has become a modern-day empire. And this was based on work that I did at MIT Technology Review in 2020 and 2021 about AI colonialism.
To really understand the vastness and the scale of what's happening, you really have to start thinking about it more as an empire-like phenomenon.It was exploring this idea that was starting to crop up a lot in academia and among research circles that there are lots of different patterns that we are starting to see where this pursuit of extremely resource-intensive AI technologies is leading to a consolidation of resources, wealth, power, and knowledge. And in a way, it's no longer sufficient to kind of call them companies anymore.
To really understand the vastness and the scale of what's happening, you really have to start thinking about it more as an empire-like phenomenon. At the time, I did a series of stories that was looking at communities around the world, especially in the Global South, that are experiencing this kind of AI revolution, but as vulnerable populations that were not in any way seeing the benefits of the technology, but were being exploited by either the creation of the technology or the deployment of it.
And that's when ChatGPT came out… and all of a sudden we were recycling old narratives of 'AI is going to transform everything, and it's amazing for everyone.' So I thought, now is the time to reintroduce everything but in this new context.
Then I realized that OpenAI was actually the vehicle to tell this story, because they were the company that completely accelerated the absolute colossal amount of resources that is going into this technology and the empire-esque nature of it all.
Sam Altman, under President Donald Trump's administration, announced OpenAI's $500 billion Stargate Project to build AI infrastructure in the U.S. Credit: Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images Your decision to weave the stories of content moderators and the environmental impact of data centers from the perspective of the Global South was so compelling. What was behind your decision to include that?As I started covering AI more and more, I developed this really strong feeling that the story of AI and society cannot be understood exclusively from its centers of power. Yes, we need reporting to understand Silicon Valley and its worldview. But also, if we only ever stay within that worldview, you won't be able to fully understand the sheer extent of how AI then affects real people in the real world.
The world is not represented by Silicon Valley, and the global majority or the Global South are the true test cases for whether or not a technology is actually benefiting humanity, because the technology is usually not built with them in mind.
All technology revolutions leave some people behind. But the problem is that the people who are left behind are always the same, and the people who gain are always the same. So are we really getting progress from technology if we're just exacerbating inequality more and more, globally?
That's why I wanted to write the stories that were in places far and away from Silicon Valley. Most of the world lives that way without access to basic resources, without a guarantee of being able to put healthy food on the table for their kids or where the next paycheck is going to come from. And so unless we explore how AI actually affects these people, we're never really going to understand what it's going to mean ultimately for all of us.
Another really interesting part of your book was the closing off of the research community [as AI labs stopped openly sharing details about their models] and how that’s something that we totally take for granted now. Why was that so important to include in the book?I was really lucky in that I started covering AI before all the companies started closing themselves off and obfuscating technical details. And so for me, it was an incredibly dramatic shift to see companies being incredibly open with publishing their data, publishing their model weights, publishing the analyses of how their models are performing, independent auditors getting access to models, things like that, and now this state where all we get is just PR. So that was part of it, just saying, it wasn't actually like this before.
And it is yet another example of why empires are the way to think about this, because empires control knowledge production. How they perpetuate their existence is by continuously massaging the facts and massaging science to allow them to continue to persist.
But also, if it wasn't like this before, I hope that it'll give people a greater sense of hope themselves, that this can change. This is not some inevitable state of affairs. And we really need more transparency in how these technologies are developed.
The levels of opacity are so glaring, and it's shocking that we've kind of been lulled into this sense of normalcy. I hope that it's a bit of a wake-up call that we shouldn't accept this.They're the most consequential technologies being developed today, and we literally can't say basic things about them. We can't say how much energy they use, how much carbon they produce, we can't even say where the data centers are that are being built half the time. We can't say how much discrimination is in these tools, and we're giving them to children in classrooms and to doctors' offices to start supporting medical decisions.
The levels of opacity are so glaring, and it's shocking that we've kind of been lulled into this sense of normalcy. I hope that it's a bit of a wake-up call that we shouldn't accept this.
When you posted about the book, I knew that it was going to be a big thing. Then Sam Altman posted about the book. Have you seen a rise in interest, and does Sam Altman know about the Streisand Effect? Sam Altman (pictured at a recent Senate hearing) alluded to 'Empire of AI' in an X post as a book OpenAI declined to participate in. Hao says she tried for six months to get their cooperation. Credit: Nathan Howard / Bloomberg / Getty ImagesObviously, he's a very strategic and tactical person and generally very aware of how things that he does will land with people, especially with the media. So, honestly, my first reaction was just… why? Is there some kind of 4D chess game? I just don't get it. But, yeah, we did see a rise in interest from a lot of journalists being like, 'Oh, now I really need to see what's in the book.'
When I started the book, OpenAI said that they would cooperate with the book, and we had discussions for almost six months of them participating in the book. And then at the six-month mark, they suddenly reversed their position. I was really disheartened by that, because I felt like now I have a much harder task of trying to tell this story and trying to accurately reflect their perspective without really having them participate in the book.
But I think it ended up making the book a lot stronger, because I ended up being even more aggressive in my reporting… So in hindsight, I think it was a blessing.
Why do you think OpenAI reversed its decision to talk to you, but talked to other authors writing books about OpenAI? Do you have any theories?When I approached them about the book, I was very upfront and said, 'You know all the things that I've written. I'm going to come with a critical perspective, but obviously I want to be fair, and I want to give you every opportunity to challenge some of the criticisms that I might bring from my reporting.' Initially, they were open to that, which is a credit to them.
I think what happened was it just kept dragging out, and I started wondering how sincere they actually were or whether they were offering this as a carrot to try and shape how many people I reached out to myself, because I was hesitant to reach out to people within the company while I was still negotiating for interviews with the communications team. But at some point, I realized I'm running out of time and I just need to go through with my reporting plan, so I just started reaching out to people within the company.
My theory is that it frustrated them that I emailed people directly, and because there were other book opportunities, they decided that they didn't need to participate in every book. They could just participate in what they wanted to. So it became kind of a done decision that they would no longer participate in mine, and go with the others.
The book ends at the beginning of January 2025, and so much has happened since then. If you were going to keep writing this book, what would you focus on?For sure the Stargate Project and DeepSeek. The Stargate Project is just such a perfect extension of what I talk about in the book, which is that the level of capital and resources, and now the level of power infrastructure and water infrastructure that is being influenced by these companies is hard to even grasp.
Once again, we are getting to a new age of empire. They're literally land-grabbing and resource-grabbing. The Stargate Project was originally announced as a $500 billion spend over four years. The Apollo Program was $380 billion over 13 years, if you account for it in 2025. If it actually goes through, it would be the largest amount of capital spent in history to build infrastructure for technology that ultimately the track record for is still middling.
Once again, we are getting to a new age of empire. They're literally land-grabbing and resource-grabbing.We haven't actually seen that much economic progress; it's not broad-based at all. In fact, you could argue that the current uncertainty that everyone feels about the economy and jobs disappearing is actually the real scorecard of what the quest for AGI has brought us.
And then DeepSeek… the fundamental lesson of DeepSeek was that none of this is actually necessary. I know that there's a lot of controversy around whether they distilled OpenAI's models or actually spent the amount that they said they did. But OpenAI could have distilled their own models. Why didn't they distill their models? None of this was necessary. They do not need to build $500 billion of infrastructure. They could have spent more time innovating on more efficient ways of reaching the same level of performance in their technologies. But they didn't, because they haven't had the pressure to do so with the sheer amount of resources that they can get access to through Altman's once-in-a-generation fundraising capabilities.
What do you hope readers will take away from this book?The story of the empire of AI is so deeply connected to what's happening right now with the Trump Administration and DOGE and the complete collapse of democratic norms in the U.S., because this is what happens when you allow certain individuals to consolidate so much wealth, so much power, that they can basically just manipulate democracy.
AI is just the latest vehicle by which that is happening, and democracy is not inevitable. If we want to preserve our democracy, we need to fight like hell to protect it and recognize that the way Silicon Valley is currently talking about weaponizing AI as a sort of a narrative for the future is actually cloaking this massive acceleration of the erosion of democracy and reversal of democracy.
Empire of AI will be published by Penguin Random House on Tuesday, May 20. You can purchase the book through Penguin, Amazon, Bookshop.org, and other retailers.
Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and grammar.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
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If you thought the death of Joel (Pedro Pascal) would be the most heartbreaking part of The Last of Us Season 2, you'd be wrong.
That honor falls to Season 2, episode 6, a flashback episode all about Joel and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) years in Jackson — and why they grew apart.
SEE ALSO: 'The Last of Us' Season 2: How does that big death compare to the game?The episode's heartbreak comes in waves. Early sequences of Joel and Ellie's happiest memories become tragically bittersweet with the knowledge of what's to come. And of course, watching the two fall out is a surefire recipe for sadness. By the end of the hour, your eyes will be damp and your heart will have shattered into a million tiny pieces. But hey, at least we got Joel back for a bit!
Here, in chronological order, is every time The Last of Us Season 2, episode 6 broke our hearts.
When young Joel's father gets vulnerable about parenting.Episode 6 opens with a flashback to Austin in 1983, when young Joel (Andrew Diaz) tries to protect Tommy (David Miranda) from a beating from their father (Tony Dalton). But instead of physically punishing either of his sons, Joel's father decides to tell him about the warped blueprint of fatherhood he inherited from his own abusive dad, and how he hopes to improve upon it, bit by bit.
"I'm doing a little better than my father did," he tells Joel. "When it's your turn, I hope you do a little better than me."
That line proves to be the thesis of the episode, with Joel trying to do a little better than his own father during his time with Ellie. Knowing how limited that time is — and how the two ended things — kickstarts episode 6's heartache. And guess what? It's not about to let up anytime soon.
When the opening credits change to bring back Joel.After Joel's death, The Last of Us' opening credits made a devastating change. Instead of ending on the image of two fungal silhouettes, meant to represent Ellie and Joel, they ended with just the Ellie silhouette, highlighting her new loneliness. In episode 6, however, the Joel silhouette is back! It's both a welcome return and a reminder that we're on borrowed time with this pair. Who knew a shadow of a fungus could make me so emotional?
SEE ALSO: 'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 3's opening credits has a heartbreaking change When Joel sings "Future Days" to Ellie. Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOSo many elements of Ellie's 15th birthday tug at the heartstrings, from Joel's reaction to her burning her arm to hide her bite mark to him customizing a guitar for her. But the moment that opens the floodgates is undoubtedly Joel's rendition of Pearl Jam's "Future Days" (teased by Ellie herself back in episode 5).
The song's lyrics — "If I ever were to lose you / I'd surely lose myself" — are a resounding reminder of how much Ellie and Joel have come to mean to each other. (It's also a dark portent of how Ellie may be losing herself on her revenge quest.) But the performance is also a payoff of a story thread from all the way back in Season 1, when Ellie asked Joel to sing for her and teach her to play guitar. Well, it's finally happened, and I wouldn't blame you for getting teary-eyed.
When Joel and Ellie visit the museum. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOAfter a full season and a half of watching Joel and Ellie run from Infected and human enemies alike (and in Joel's case, you know, dying), any scene where these two can just relax and enjoy themselves is a blessing. And what a blessing Ellie's 16th birthday is!
Joel brings Ellie to a museum, where she spends the day clambering on dinosaur statues and blasting off to space in an old capsule. In one of the season's most poignant moments, her imagined space flight becomes reality, with the light of the real world fading around her until she's drifting in the dark void of space.
SEE ALSO: Watch 'The Last of Us' star Young Mazino try to recover after dropping a huge spoilerThe entire sequence is Joel and Ellie at their happiest. She gets to actually be a kid for once, and Joel revels in her joy, knowing he's doing a good job as a father.
Of course, the scene also serves as the calm before the storm. Ellie's insistence that she goes on patrol is a reminder of the dangers Jackson faces, as well as the fateful patrol that will one day rip Joel from her forever. For now, though, we get to enjoy Joel in dad mode, attempting to give Ellie "the talk," all while being clueless about her sexuality. Talk about bittersweet.
When Ellie moves out of their house.If Ellie's 16th birthday celebration is Joel's dream, then her 17th birthday is his nightmare. He walks in on her smoking pot, getting a tattoo, and hooking up with Kat (Noah Lamanna). "All the teenage shit all at once," as he puts it.
While Joel's exasperated dad act seems funny at first — what's worse, dodging Clickers or teenage rebellion? — it moves into upsetting territory pretty fast. Dismissing Ellie's relationship with Kat as an "experiment" is awful, plain and simple, as is his assertion that Ellie isn't currently herself. No wonder Ellie wants to move into the garage: Having her own father figure refute her identity like that marks a major blow to their bond.
Thankfully, Joel recognizes the error of his ways and tries to help by giving Ellie more space, but this fight and subsequent move mark the beginning of the end for Joel and Ellie. You want to grab them through the screen and yell at them to communicate with each other, that they only have a few years left. Instead, all you can do is watch the tragedy snowball.
When we learn what Ellie's moth tattoo means. Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOOne of Joel's attempts to bond with Ellie post-fight is to ask her about her moth tattoo. It echoes her drawings, which he used as inspiration when decorating her guitar. Ellie says she chose the moths because of what they represent in dreams. Joel mistakenly believes they're symbols for change and metamorphosis, but therapist Gail (Catherine O'Hara) reveals the truth: They represent death.
SEE ALSO: 'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 5 drops a big hint about a terrifying Infected enemyThat means Ellie has been carrying around the deaths of everyone she's lost, like Riley (Storm Reid), her mother (Ashley Johnson), and more. As seemingly the only person in the world who's immune to Cordyceps, there's also a layer of survivor's guilt here. Ellie's surrounded by death, yet protected from it too. That's a crushing burden to bear, one that's defined her entire coming-of-age — and one that Joel will never truly understand.
When Ellie questions what happened in Salt Lake City. Bella Ramsey in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOOn Ellie's 19th birthday, she gets what she's wanted since moving to Jackson: to go on patrol with Joel. But now, she wants something else, too: answers about what really happened in Salt Lake City at the end of Season 1.
Before she and Joel head out to patrol, she sits in her room, rehearsing questions she has about Salt Lake City. "If the Fireflies spotted us a mile from the hospital, how did they get surprised by an entire group of raiders?" she wonders. "If the raiders could kill all those soldiers and Marlene, and you had to carry me the whole time, how did we get away?"
These brief moments signal how much Ellie has replayed that pivotal day, how these discrepancies have been eating at her for years. Deep down, she knows that Joel lied to her. Perhaps that subconscious knowledge influenced her need for space from Joel, further widening the rift between them that Joel may have just attributed to teenage rebellion. Based on episode 1, we know that that rift is about to get a whole lot wider, so the inclusion of Ellie's questions here suggests the other shoe is about to drop.
When we finally learn what happened with Eugene. Joe Pantoliano in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOThis is the big one, folks. Ever since episode 1, The Last of Us has been talking about Joel killing Gail's husband Eugene (Joe Pantoliano). Now, we finally get to see it play out.
Eugene is marked for death from the moment he gets infected on patrol. He accepts that, but man, do his final moments sting. It all starts when Ellie insists that Eugene has enough time to make it back to Jackson and say goodbye to Gail before he fully turns, and she makes Joel promise that he'll help. But Joel, thinking to protect Ellie and Jackson, goes back on his promise and shoots Eugene anyway. It's a brutal betrayal not just of Eugene, who gets a few seconds of false hope before reality sets in, but also of Ellie, who realizes that Joel's promise mirrors the very promise he made to her after the events of Salt Lake City.
"You swore," she says, all the weight of years of pain and questioning coming through in just two words.
Ellie's discovery of Joel's lie plays out differently in the show than in the game, where Eugene is already dead from a stroke. Still, watching her put the pieces together — and watching Joel betray her even after their relationship seemed to be tentatively mending — is nothing less than devastating.
When Joel and Ellie take steps towards healing in the porch scene.Up until now, episode 6 has revealed why Joel and Ellie aren't on speaking terms by the start of Season 2, as well as what happened with Eugene. There's only one major question left to answer: What happened the night before Joel's death to make Ellie say she and Joel were "better now"?
The answer plays out in episode 6's gorgeous final scene, a continuation of the porch scene from episode 1. Here, The Last of Us reveals that Ellie didn't just turn in for the night after seeing Joel out on the porch. Instead, she came back to ask him, point blank, about what he did to the Fireflies. Her line of questioning serves as a direct parallel to Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) interrogation of Joel right before his death: The two both know the role Joel played in the massacre, but they want to hear him confess it for himself.
The conversation that follows is full of lines that double as gut punches. Upon learning that making a Cordyceps cure would have killed her, Ellie says, "Then I was supposed to die! That was my purpose. My life would've fucking mattered. But you took that from me, you took that from everyone."
Joel's response? "Yes, and I'll pay the price."
Little does he know he'll pay the ultimate price the very next day. In fact, the whole scene hurts even more knowing that the journey of forgiveness that Ellie hopes to embark on will be cut short in a matter of hours. Episode 6, you've already made me tear up several times before, but this might take the cake.
Adding salt to the wound is one last callback to the Austin flashback. "If you should ever have [a child] of your own, well, then, I hope you do a little better than me," Joel tells Ellie.
The line hits especially hard after Ellie's reaction to Dina's (Isabela Merced) pregnancy: "I'm gonna be a dad."
With that, The Last of Us comes full circle, making episode 6 a stunning, heartbreaking story of parenthood — and a season highlight.
New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
Ever since The Last of Us killed off Joel (Pedro Pascal), my complaints with The Last of Us Season 2 have been twofold.
First, the series finds itself with the unenviable task of filling the void left by the lack of Joel and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) dynamic. As sweet as Ellie and Dina's (Isabela Merced) blossoming romance is, it simply doesn't hold a candle to Ellie and Joel's relationship. (Nor has The Last of Us given it enough time to merit its placement as the show's focal pairing.) Second, Seattle's factions are so thinly drawn that it's almost impossible to latch onto anything in that world, doubly so when that storyline is moving at a glacial pace.
SEE ALSO: Did 'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 6 break your heart? Us too.Enter Season 2, episode 6, an installment of The Last of Us that alleviates my season-long quibbles for one heartbreaking hour. The episode reunites Joel and Ellie in a series of flashbacks spanning years, reminding us of both how impeccable Pascal and Ramsey's chemistry is and how much more well fleshed-out Jackson is compared to Seattle.
Really, the whole episode feels like a reminder of everything Season 2's been missing — sometimes literally, as it fills in gaps about the rift in Joel and Ellie's relationship. The effect is undoubtedly a season high, but also frustrating proof of how great The Last of Us can be amid an otherwise underwhelming season.
This episode shows us Joel and Ellie at their happiest — and Pascal and Ramsey at their best. Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOWhen it comes to Joel and Ellie, much of The Last of Us Season 2's focus has understandably been on the rift between them. Pascal and Ramsey both do an incredible job playing the pain of this divide, with Pascal skewing more melancholy and Ramsey channeling a simmering rage. But the flashback format of episode 6 allows them to switch course and play some of the lighter moments Joel and Ellie have shared over the years — and the show is better for it.
After spending all of Season 1 and most of Season 2 watching Joel and Ellie deal with peril after peril, it's a gift to watch them enjoy normal, happy lives. We've gotten glimpses of this joy in moments like Season 1's giraffe scene, but episode 6 gives us years' worth. From birthday celebrations to Pearl Jam singalongs to awkward talks about the birds and the bees, episode 6 provides catharsis following so many episodes of relentless suffering. Joel gets to embrace being a father again, and Ellie finally gets the opportunity to be a normal kid.
SEE ALSO: Josh Peck breaks down his 'pinch-me' guest role on 'The Last of Us'Even tough scenes like their argument about Ellie's "teenage shit" — smoking, getting a tattoo, and hooking up with Kat (Noah Lamanna) — have a bittersweet quality to them. These are the kind of growing pains any parent-child relationship goes through. Ellie and Joel's safety in Jackson allows them this normalcy, something they never had during their dangerous cross-country trip.
These sequences give Pascal and Ramsey new shades of their characters to explore, from Joel's dorky dad energy to Ellie's teen rebellion. They also serve as proof of how perfectly matched they are as performers. Pascal's only been out of the picture for three episodes, but even those three hours feel too long after you witness him back in action with Ramsey. Their chemistry is the foundation on which The Last of Us was built, so seeing it back onscreen is both a joy and a reminder of just how much the show's lost without it.
This episode answers our biggest questions about Joel and Ellie's relationship. Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOWhile The Last of Us Season 2 has presented Seattle's Washington Liberation Front and Seraphites as mysterious new factions for viewers to interrogate, the season's most pressing and intriguing questions have not been ones of world-building, but of character. What caused Ellie and Joel to stop speaking? And what happened on the night before Joel's death to make Ellie believe they had a chance of reconciliation?
Episode 6 answers both questions in devastating fashion, first showing how Joel's final betrayal of Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) proved to Ellie that he'd been lying about what happened in Salt Lake City. It follows that heartbreak up with the quiet pain of the pair's porch discussion on New Year's, where Joel tells Ellie the truth, and Ellie admits that while she's unsure she can ever forgive Joel, she's willing to try.
In a kinder world, that discussion would be the start of a long healing journey for Ellie and Joel. But the world of The Last of Us is rarely a kind one, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) murders Joel the very next day. With that, The Last of Us traps us in a heartbreaking mire of "what ifs." What if Joel had told Ellie earlier? What if he hadn't killed Eugene? Would the pair have gotten more time for more happy memories? We'll never know, and that's the lingering pain episode 6 leaves us with.
This flashback episode raises questions about TLoU Season 2's pacing. Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOOn top of leaving us with general heartbreak, episode 6 of The Last of Us prompts anxieties about what the show is going to do next. Yes, Ellie remains on the hunt for Abby, but with Abby MIA since episode 2, and with the Seattle storyline spinning its wheels, the chances of the Season 2 finale delivering anything as meaningful and satisfying as episode 6 are slim. Really, in providing some kind of closure to Joel and Ellie's broken relationship, episode 6 feels more like the climax of the season.
The placement of episode 6 as this season's penultimate installment is also troubling from a structural standpoint. Unlike Season 1's flashback episodes, which paired Bill and Frank's love story with Joel and Ellie's present-day visit to their house, or Ellie's failure to save Riley with her frantic scramble to heal Joel, this flashback episode remains fully in the past, with nothing to anchor us to the present. (No, that flash of Ellie heading back to the theater doesn't cut it.)
That choice is a double-edged sword: It allows us to fully immerse ourselves in Joel and Ellie's lives, but it also slows what little momentum has been built in Seattle. We get a gorgeous resolution to the questions brought up in the season's early episodes, at the cost of the latter half of the season. And with just one episode left in a seven-episode season — too damn short for one of the biggest shows on TV! — The Last of Us Season 2 has set itself up for a touch act to follow. How do you come back from an episode that's so heartfelt and so grounded the rest of the season already pales in comparison?
New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections?The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for May 19 Here's a hint for today's Connections categoriesWant a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Yellow: Charity sale
Green: Seen on a popular board game
Blue: Found on a large sea animal
Purple: Body parts
Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:
Yellow: Fundraising event
Green: Spaces on a Monopoly board
Blue: Features of a toothed whale
Purple: Homophones for parts of the foot
Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today's Connections #708 is...
What is the answer to Connections todayFundraising event: BALL, BENEFIT, FUNCTION, GALA
Spaces on a Monopoly board: AVENUE, CHANCE, RAILBOARD, UTILITY
Features of a toothed whale: BLUBBER, FLIPPER, FLUKE, MELON
Homophones for parts of the foot: BAWL, HEAL, SOUL, TOW
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 19Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.
Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.
If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for May 18 Where did Wordle come from?Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
What's the best Wordle starting word?The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.
Is Wordle getting harder?It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.
SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for May 19, 2025 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:To toss a ball.
Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?There are no recurring letters.
Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...Today's Wordle starts with the letter P.
SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. The Wordle answer today is...Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to today's Wordle is...
PITCH.
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 19Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.
SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hintA spritz.
SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air is $300 off at Amazon. And yes, I’m tempted. Hurdle Word 1 answerSPRAY
Hurdle Word 2 hintCommotion.
SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for May 19, 2025 Hurdle Word 2 AnswerBABEL
Hurdle Word 3 hintTo overcome.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 19 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 19, 2025 Hurdle Word 3 answerWHELM
Hurdle Word 4 hintA regulation.
SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for May 19 Hurdle Word 4 answerBYLAW
Final Hurdle hintA Biblical book.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answerPSALM
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
The Last of Us Season 2, episode 6 packs such an emotional punch that it's difficult to see past Joel (Pedro Pascal) finally playing "Future Days" for Ellie (Bella Ramsey), or the teary scene in which he comes clean about what really happened at the Firefly hospital.
But woven throughout the flashbacks that span the five years between Season 1 and Season 2 is some subtle symbolism, which may have bigger implications for the characters and the story going forward.
We're talking, of course, about the moths. Why do they feature so strongly in this episode, and what exactly do they mean to Ellie? Let's break it down.
SEE ALSO: 'The Last of Us' Season 2: What are the differences between the game and the HBO show? Where do moths feature in episode 6?Moths feature strongly in the first three birthday flashbacks in episode 6. On Ellie's 15th birthday, just two months into their stay in Jackson, Joel uses the many moth drawings on Ellie's bedroom wall as inspiration for a pattern that he carves into the neck of the newly restored guitar he gives her as a gift.
A year later, as they're walking back from the delightful museum visit Joel takes her on for her 16th birthday, he tells Ellie that they should do this more often. "In!" Ellie responds, before something off the path catches her eye. She stops and stares, her expression blank, before Joel asks if she's okay. Ellie replies, "Yeah," and keeps walking. The camera then pans and we see light glinting off the wings of several moths that are flying around a dead tree stump.
Another year on, on her 17th birthday, Ellie gets a tattoo of a moth to cover up the self-inflicted burn on her arm, which she gave herself two years earlier in order to conceal her bite mark.
"Never did ask, what is it with the moths?" Joel asks her that night, after agreeing to let her move into the garage.
"Um, nothing," responds Ellie. "I just read about them in a book on dreams and stuff. It's kind of symbolic."
"Oh, right," says a clearly confused Joel. "Yeah, like change and growing and such."
But as we find out shortly, that's not what moths symbolise at all.
What do the moths really symbolise?Not long after the conversation with Ellie, Joel ambushes his therapist, Gail (Catherine O'Hara), and asks her about what moths symbolise in dreams.
"So a moth... That probably means change and growth?"
"No," she replies. "That would be a butterfly."
"Oh. So, what's a moth?"
"Death," comes the response. "If you believe in that shit."
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOIn the next scene, when Ellie is clearing out her bedroom, we see a piece of paper covered in moth drawings. "You have a greater purpose" has been written across it.
So what exactly do the moths, and this idea of a greater purpose, mean to Ellie?
What do the moths mean to Ellie?The first thing to bear in mind is that Ellie's entire life has been dominated by death. As she says at the end of Season 1, when she's telling Joel about the first person she killed: "Her name was Riley, and she was the first to die. Then it was Tess, and then Sam."
If the moths symbolise death, then it makes sense that Ellie would have a fascination with them — because death follows her everywhere she goes.
It's also possible that, as a result of this, Ellie is suffering from survivor's guilt. Why is she still around when so many of her loved ones aren't? Why is she the one with the immunity to becoming Infected? This links to the line woven through her moth drawings about a "greater purpose," which suddenly makes more sense during the final conversation she ever has with Joel, right at the episode's end.
"Making a cure would have killed you," Joel tells her, after admitting that he murdered the Fireflies in order to save her life.
"Then I was supposed to die!" Ellie responds. "That was my purpose, my life would have fucking mattered, but you took that from me! You took it from everyone."
Ellie is clearly haunted by the responsibility that she carries, just as she's haunted by all the people she's lost along the way. Drawing the moths is perhaps a way of processing, and taking some control over, the death that shadows her everywhere she goes.
Watching The Last of Us and want to play the games? Here's how.
Since he was first mentioned in episode 1 by his widow, Gail (Catherine O'Hara), The Last of Us fans have been asking: Who is Eugene?
In Joel's very unorthodox therapy session with Gail in the first episode of Season 2, we learned that 1) Eugene was her husband. 2) He's been dead for less than a year. And 3) He was shot to death by Joel — presumably because he'd been infected.
Episode 2 revealed Eugene was a former Firefly who did patrols in Jackson with Jesse and had a secret marijuana grow in an abandoned 7-Eleven outside of town. In that episode, when Jesse spoke of Eugene's death at Joel's hands, Ellie seemed dismayed, but it was unclear why. I mean, maybe it just sucked to lose a beloved member of the community. Maybe, as the proposed cure for the Cordyceps infection, Ellie felt somehow responsible for Eugene's death? Well, turns out it's more than that.
Eugene's death began the rift between Ellie and Joel. Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us," Season 2, episode 6. Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOEpisode 6 takes audiences back across five years of birthdays (15 to 19) for Ellie in Jackson. Joel aimed to make each of them special. He bartered to get her a cake. He made her a guitar in his wood shop, the one she surveyed in episode 3 as she grieved for him. He took her on a day trip to a forgotten museum. And when she turned 19, he gave her what she wanted most: her first patrol.
Joel had been keeping Ellie off patrol to protect her. Sure, she can take a bite from the Infected and not be affected. But getting bit would risk her safety in Jackson, as no one but Joel and Tommy know her secret. She even burned her arm to cover the bite mark left by that ill-fated mall date with Riley ("I wanted to wear short sleeves again"). But part of growing up is taking risks. And risks like getting a tattoo, doing drugs, and hooking up with Kat have been causing friction between Joel and Ellie since she turned 17.
In a bid to reconnect on her 19th birthday, Joel agreed to allow her on patrol with him, but it was a fateful decision. While they were out, they came across Eugene, who'd been bitten by the Infected. How Joel handled this infuriated Ellie, who called him out in front of Gail when they gave her the bad news back in Jackson.
What did Joel do to Eugene? Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us," Season 2, episode 6. Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOEveryone in Jackson knew the protocol. Joel had to kill Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), because once the infection took over, the man would be a mindless, rampaging threat to the community. But — as Gail put it in episode 1 — "it's how [Joel] did it" that stings.
When Eugene came across Ellie and Joel in the woods, he admitted right away he'd been bitten. Joel kept him at a distance by aiming his gun at the old man. From this point, Eugene pled, "Please. I figure I've got about an hour. So this is what we do. We go back to the gate," referring to the large protective wall that surrounds Jackson. "We get Gail out, keeping her at a safe distance of course, and I say goodbye."
Joel immediately shot down the idea, pardon the pun. Eugene became increasingly desperate, declaring, "I need to see her. I've got things to tell her. You don't understand."
Joel replied, "I do. But we have rules, and it can't happen."
Ellie tried to reason with Joel, asking Eugene to do the counting test she had to do before Joel in Season 1 to prove she wasn't transforming. "He has time," she insisted. "We tie him up, and we bring him back. Joel, let him see his fucking wife. Please."
Joel reluctantly agreed and urged Ellie away to gather the horses. He looked her in the eyes, and he promised. But he was lying.
No amount of pleading or rationalizing would change Joel's mind. To bring Eugene back to Jackson would be a risk he couldn't take. He shot Eugene in the wilderness, as the man cried out to see his beloved wife one more time. "I need her last words," Eugene yelled, "For me!"
It was to no avail. Joel executed him where he stood, overlooking a picturesque view, but pining only for his last sight to be his wife's face.
Why did Eugene's death hit Ellie so hard? Joe Pantoliano is Eugene in "The Last of Us," Season 2, episode 6. Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOOn one level, Eugene's death was traumatizing to Ellie because it proved Jackson is not entirely safe from the plague raging outside its walls. On another, Joel lied right to her face.
Earlier in the episode, Ellie practiced asking the burning questions she had for Joel about their escape from the Fireflies. She suspected something was off. Joel making a promise to her face, then breaking it as soon as her back was turned, seemed proof.
As they rode back to Jackson following Eugene's execution, Joel told her, "When we get there, I'll tell Gail what she needs to know and nothing more. It's the right thing to do." Ellie didn't respond, even when Joel said, "I had no choice."
Catherine O'Hara and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us," Season 2, episode 6. Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOEllie could see Joel applying the same logic to the Fireflies' slaughter. So when she called him out in front of Gail and Tommy as they brought Eugene's body back to camp, she was acting out in rage, because of what she suspected about Joel's lies to her.
Many in Jackson, including Tommy and Gail, see Ellie and Joel as the same. But she set herself apart by telling Gail the hard truth. "That's not what happened," she said, denying Joel's story of a fearless surrender to execution. "He begged to see you. He had time. Joel promised to take him to you. He promised us both. And then Joel shot him in the head."
It's little wonder that Gail hates Joel. And with this scene, as Ellie hissed, "You swore," we understand better than ever what drove these two apart. Not what Joel did, exactly, but that he lied about it.
For nine months, Ellie stewed on this. The night of the New Year's dance, she confronted him. And in a season full of heartbreaking moments, Joel finally confessed to all he'd done, saying, "And I'll pay the price because you're gonna turn away from me."
Little did either of them know the price would be so much higher for both of them.
The Last of Us Season 2 airs weekly, Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
Just when we thought the wound of episode 2 might be healing, The Last of Us picks at the scab with episode 6. A flashback episode shows Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) in happier times, specifically, with a series of Ellie's birthdays in Jackson.
With the two of them finally safe and settled, Joel relishes giving Ellie a home and happy memories sprinkled with cake, handmade gifts, day trips, and even a song — which was teased in episode 5. And it's not just any song. Like the haunting cover that plays at the end of episode 2, Joel's tender ditty has a connection back to the game and beyond.
What song does Joel sing to Ellie on her birthday? Joel (Pedro Pascal) builds a guitar for Ellie in "The Last of Us." Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOAfter Joel presents Ellie with the guitar he crafted with his own hands, she asks him to sing. He initially declines, but then reluctantly plays the instrument while singing softly:
"If I ever were to lose you
I'd surely lose myself
Everything I have found dear
I've not found by myself
Try and sometimes you'll succeed
To make this man of me
All my stolen missing parts
I've no need for anymore
I believe
And I believe 'cause I can see
Our future days
Days of you and me"
The song is "Future Days," released by Pearl Jam in 2013.
Last week, Mashable's UK Editor Shannon Connellan broke down how the song played in the game The Last of Us Part II. You can watch it below, where Joel is voiced by Troy Baker.
Earlier in the season, the TV adaptation included a cover of Ellie (voiced by Ashley Johnson) singing "Through the Valley." Both songs were released by Sony Music Entertainment as part of the digital album The Last of Us Part II: Covers and Rarities on Sept. 17, 2021.
What's the meaning of "Future Days" in The Last of Us? Ellie plays her guitar in "The Last of Us," Season 2, episode 5. Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBOThat's multilayered. Both in the game and in the show, Joel singing this song seems to speak to his devotion to Ellie. His reason to exist is her. And in episode 6, even ever-joking Ellie recognizes this in her own way, responding to the song by saying, "Well, that didn't suck."
Beyond Pearl Jam's lyrics, however, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann added more meaning by naming the first episode of Season 2 after the song. "Future Days" kicks off the season to reveal that there's a rift between Joel and Ellie, one so deep he's going to therapy and she's living in the garage.
Joel is seeking professional help to find how he might get back to the time shown in this flashback episode, the happy days when Ellie would joke with him and smile at his efforts. And the tragedy that he won't and she can't cuts deeper in this episode, as we're forced to recognize all the future days that were lost to Abby's vengeance.
New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
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Opens in a new window Credit: Acethinker PDF Converter & Editor: Lifetime License AU$37After a long wait and a struggle for better working conditions, visual effects (VFX) artists with Marvel and Disney voted to ratify their first union contract.
The contract reportedly gives workers the sorts of rights, protections, and rules often offered by a union: things like overtime pay, access to pension plans, minimum wage increases, and rest periods, to name a few.
SEE ALSO: Unionized Apple Store workers in Oklahoma secure tentative agreementThe Disney/Marvel contract under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) also includes raises of 4 percent in the first year and 3.5 percent in the second year, Variety reported. The VFX team for the Avatar franchise also struck a deal, under a separate agreement.
"I want to congratulate the member of these VFX bargaining units on negotiating fair contracts that earned such strong support. From when they started this process until today, the leadership and determination shown by these members has been an inspiration,” ATSE International President Matthew D. Loeb said in a statement.
VFX workers at the shops voted to unionize over the last few years amid reports of long hours and wildly tight deadlines.
"This is not just a victory for Marvel/Disney, but a much-needed win for the entire VFX industry," Cael Liakos-Gilbert, a VFX data wrangler at Marvel, said in a statement. "We’ve proven what is possible through determination and willpower, and don’t have to speculate or be shrouded in cynicism and doubt any longer."
Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update closed the 50th season with its relatively newfound tradition: Hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost trading jokes.
If you've never seen the bit, it's both funny and wildly uncomfortable. Che typically forces Jost, who looks like the white villain in an '80s skiing movie, to tell jokes about Black people. Jost, in turn, typically tries to make Che uncomfortable, too.
This joke swap was especially personal, however, as Jost took the opportunity to let his wife, host and actress Scarlett Johansson, exact some revenge on Che. It's definitely a joke swap Weekend Update to remember.
The final episode of Saturday Night Live's 50th season began with a cold open featuring, what else, a sketch about Donald Trump.
Cast member James Austin Johnson fired up his spot-on impression to recap Trump's recent trip to the Middle East. And the sketch hit the points you might expect. Most notably, it touched on the $400 million plane gifted by Qatar and Trump's seeming adoration of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The sketch is pretty funny and centers on how much Trump seemed to be enjoying himself during his trip away from the States. And we won't spoil the end, but it takes a turn you might not see coming before we get the "Live from New York..."
The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.
With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.
So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on MashableHere are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Sunday, May 18, 2025:
AcrossGolf shot that's also a piece of computer hardwareThe answer is Chip.
The answer is Drive.
The answer is Aaron.
The answer is Inert.
The answer is See ya.
The answer is Crane.
The answer is Hiree.
The answer is Ivory
The answer is Penta.
The answer is Stein.
The answer is Dais.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Featured Video For You The Wordle Strategy used by the New York Times' Head of GamesAre you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Mini Crossword.
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