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It’s the end of January, so Valentine’s Day is just a few short weeks away. What better way to spend Valentine’s Day with your gal pals than to stream new and returning shows, especially ones like the iconic The Bachelor? I compiled a list of six new shows streaming on various platforms that will set the mood for the perfect Galentine’s Day party.

The Bachelor season 29

The Bachelor is back with season 29 and Grant Ellis is the man all the ladies are going after. Ellis was part of Jen Tran’s journey on The Bachelorette season 21, but ultimately she said goodbye to him. Now, he’s making a comeback as the titular Bachelor this season!

Director Rashad Frett brings us a poignant and incredibly emotionally-driven narrative about a man named Ricky (Stephan James) who is released shortly after being incarcerated at the age of 15 for armed robbery and attempted murder. His harsh 15-year sentence takes a toll on his mental state which is what we, the audience, experience through Ricky’s journey in this film.  As he navigates acclimating himself back to life outside of the four walls of prison cells and experiences life as an adult Frett’s film challenges you to ponder why the American justice system tosses and discards their inmates without any regard for their mental health or preparation for career opportunities. 

This film is about second chances. But what happens if the second chance isn’t good enough? That’s truly what the film Ricky explores.

In a year where we currently have the leader of our country, a convicted felon, afforded the opportunity to have a second chance to become President of the United States, watching Ricky became all the more infuriating to watch. As more Black men are imprisoned for crimes and are racially profiled the American justice system truly is stacked against people of color. 

Ricky has missed key milestones like navigating relationships, adapting to technology, and finding his footing in a fast-evolving world.  In one scene, he needs help using a cell phone.

He meets a girl named Jazz (Imani Lewis) who helps him with this cell phone.  There’s an instant connection between the two and he offers to cut her son’s hair. We also meet Terrence (Sean Nelson) who is a childhood friend of Ricky’s who helps him find work. We learn throughout this story there is a connective thread between these two which is quite compelling.

Ricky’s brother James (Maliq Johnson) has a complicated relationship with him and the two are trying to rebuild what was lost while Ricky was away. 

Ricky’s journey is as much about self-discovery as it is survival. As he struggles to meet his parole officer Joanne’s (Sheryl Lee Ralph) strict requirements, Ricky must also navigate the tension of returning to his devout Caribbean mother’s home (Simbi Khali) in Hartford, Connecticut — a setting where faith and love clash with past betrayals. His strained but yearning exchanges with Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Joanne reflect a man desperate for guidance but unsure how to ask for it. Similarly, his scenes with his mother reveal an undercurrent of pain and hope, as James captures the complex emotions of a son trying to reconcile love and resentment. As Joanne, Ralph embodies a tough-love mentor, someone who sees Ricky’s potential but isn’t afraid to challenge him. Her stern demeanor is never overbearing; instead, it’s rooted in genuine care. In one of the film’s standout scenes, where Joanne confronts Ricky about his failure to meet expectations, Ralph skillfully balances frustration with compassion, making it clear that her demands come from a place of belief in his ability to succeed.

Stephan James delivers a raw, heartfelt portrayal of Ricky, blending the vulnerability of a betrayed boy with the strength of a determined man. His performance is gutwrenching. The hesitant body language, awkward pauses, and searching glances illustrate Ricky’s discomfort with a world that feels alien and overwhelming. Sheryl Lee Ralph is magnetic as Joanne, bringing layers of toughness and compassion to her role. She is the anchor in this story and not the antagonistic parole officer you would expect in a situation like this. 

One thing that still haunts me about James’ performance were the emotional outbursts Ricky would experience when a situation got too stressful for him.  It was like he didn’t know how to handle it.  During the Q&A for the film Stephan James mentioned how he was inspired by the life of Kalief Browder. James beautifully depicts the sadness of how vulnerable this character is who is still trying to figure it all out to someone who is also brimming with anger at how he got an unfair advantage in life. We learn in his backstory about how he ended up involved in armed robbery which is a tragic story in and of itself. 

I went on an emotional rollercoaster throughout this journey in Ricky.  I laughed, I cried, and I was angry. And while there are stories like this that are very common, especially stories centered on Black men, I think telling them is important, especially now in this climate.  If it is now precedent to have a convicted felon have the highest job in land, then every convicted felon who is bestowed their freedom, should be allowed to have any job they want without any repercussions. They should be able to find steady work with no conditions.

It’s a story that lingers, not just for its heartbreaking realism but for its resounding awareness of what’s wrong with our justice system. Rashad Frett’s feature debut is an unforgettable exploration of what it means to truly start over and why everyone deserves a second chance.

Ricky is currently screening at the Sundance Film Festival and will be available to screen online.  

The post Sundance 2025 Review: ‘Ricky’ is a Journey of Second Chances and Redemption appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

Donald Trump won his MAGA voters over with promises of a better economy and a secured border. Yet, despite voting for him, some of his MAGA voters do not believe that Trump can truly mass deport undocumented migrants, as he claimed he would.

Kyung Lah, a CNN correspondent, interviewed Greg Moes, a dairy farmer from South Dakota. Half of Moes’ workforce is comprised of undocumented migrants. He claims he needs the workers year-round but still voted for Trump and Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem. Lah asked him, “Are you worried, like some of your other farmers, that if there were a mass roundup of undocumented migrants, you might lose workers?”

One of the best things about Superman is just how distinctive all his villains look, as each and every one of them has an unmistakable appearance. Bizarro is an inverted duplicate of Superman with gray skin and massive muscles, Doomsday is a spikey monstrosity, and Ultra-Man is a totalitarian version of the Kryptonian. However, almost everyone who heard of Superman would agree that Lex Luthor is one of Superman’s most recognizable adversaries.

Lex Luthor is often portrayed as the greatest bald-headed criminal mastermind of all time, and throughout different iterations of the comics, two things have remained constant: his hatred of Superman and his recognizable bald head. Except that the latter isn’t true, and Lex wasn’t always bald. The villain himself blames his lack of follicles on Superman, and many believe that the criminal mastermind would’ve chosen a different path in life had he retained his hair. But is that true? Does Lex Luthor have “follicle rage” because of Superman?

To really understand whether or not that’s true, we have to dive into Lex Luthor’s history both within the panels of comic book pages and beyond them. The real reason Lex Luthor is bald is simply because the artist that drew probably mixed him with another villain, thus omitting his hair. The original Lex Luthor appeared in Action Comics #23, and unlike his modern counterpart, he was actually depicted with a full head of hair and was only addressed by his last name, Luthor. Subsequent stories revealed his full name (Alexei) and established him as an evil genius.

Sometime later, Leo Nowak, the artist of the Superman comic strip in the newspaper, accidentally drew Luthor as a bald man. Nobody actually knows why Leo Nowak did that, and his reasons remain debatable among the fandom. Fans believe that he confused Luthor with Ultra-Humanite, a villain that was originally drawn as a bald man by Superman co-creator Joe Shuster. Others believe that Nowak confused one of Luthor’s bald henchmen for the evil genius himself.

Whatever the case may be, Shuster preferred bald villains, so he quickly approved of Nowak’s mistake, and following approval from Siegel (the other co-creator), the subsequent stories adopted the more striking appearance that became Luthor’s trademark. In-comics origin of Luthor’s bald head is then retconned in Action Comics #271, providing an explanation for Luthor’s lack of hair as well as his outright hatred for Superman. And no, his dense brain didn’t push the follicles out, and he doesn’t hate Superman because of Kal-El’s perfect hairline.

The story stated that Luthor, a brilliant scientist with a head full of hair, moved to Smallville, and when Clark Kent — then Superboy — went to meet the new Smallville resident, a Kryptonite meteor struck him. The meteor’s radiation would’ve killed him were it not for Lex. As a true Superboy fan, Lex used a nearby tractor to push the meteor away and save Superboy. Driven by a sense of gratitude, Clark helped Lex build a state-of-the-art lab and filled it with some rare and volatile chemicals that even Superboy couldn’t discern.

Some of Lex’s early scientific discoveries were quite amazing: he generated a new form of protoplasmic life and even came up with an antidote for Kryptonite. However, he knocked down the rare and volatile chemicals in his lab, causing a massive fire. Superboy saved him, but the chemical fumes from the fire caused all of Lex’s hair to fall out. Unfortunately, the fires and Superboy’s intervention destroyed the protoplasmic life, the antidote for Kryptonite poisoning, and Lex’s luscious follicles.

This prompted Luthor to blame Superboy and claim that the Kryptonian destroyed his work deliberately out of jealousy. One thing led to another, and the two ended up becoming enemies, with later stories hinting at the possibility that the hair loss drove Lex to become criminally insane. This story was, for a long time, accepted as canon, but later reboots of the DC Universe stated that Lex lost all his hair due to male pattern baldness, which he briefly alleviated when he created a clone for himself and gave it shoulder-length hair.

The fact that he added hair to his clone indicates that Lex has some personal issues with his self-image while also offering a glimpse into his psyche and why he really hates Superman. Despite his 12th-level intellect, which makes him the smartest person on the planet and quite possibly the entire DC Universe, Lex believes he’s humanity’s greatest mind and its rightful savior. He exhibits perfectionism and an obsessive drive for control, and his ambitions go beyond ordinary narcissism into megalomania, a delusional obsession with power and domination.

Thus, he hates Superman due to their ideological differences. The Man of Steel is everything Lex can’t control, can’t achieve, and can’t be. Superman’s existence challenges Lex’s identity, ideology, and ambition on every level, turning the Kryptonian into an irresistible and perpetual target for Lex’s hatred. Honestly, the very idea of Lex’s hatred for Superman stemming solely from jealousy and insecurity over his appearance is an insulting oversimplification of one of DC Comics’ most complex villains. Lex is much more vain than that.

The post Does Lex Luthor Really Have Follicle Rage Because of Superman? appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.