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Perfect Netflix Thriller Is Death From Above

By Robert Scucci
| Published

My favorite kind of psychological thrillers are bottle stories because they have to make good use of their limited surroundings to generate real suspense. More often than not, stories like this can be shot on a shoestring budget and lean heavily on dialogue. An exception to that rule, 2022’s Fall is technically a bottle story, and relatively low budget given the reported $3 million that went into its production, but our protagonists aren’t chit chatting over coffee and unpacking their trauma. They’re sitting atop a 2,000 foot TV tower.

They’re still talking about their past traumas on that tower, but at least they earned that trope here because they had to climb for it.

Fall 2022

While Fall spends most of its runtime unpacking grief at an extreme altitude, it never loses sight of what’s actually at stake. Two young women climb to the top of a decommissioned tower that becomes structurally compromised, and they have no way to get back down. Their friendship is tested, and so are their wills when they realize they have no reasonable way to contact their loved ones and let them know what kind of trouble they’re in.

Becky’s Grief And Shiloh’s Influence

The source of Becky’s (Grace Caroline Currey) trauma in Fall takes place one year prior to the TV tower incident. When her husband, Dan (Mason Gooding), falls to his death during what should have been a routine climb with her and her best friend Shiloh (Virginia Gardner), she becomes a husk of a human being, abusing her prescriptions and self medicating with alcohol. On the verge of suicide on the anniversary of Dan’s death, Becky is confronted by her father, James (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who desperately wants her to snap out of her spiral and continue living her life because Dan would have wanted her to.

Fall 2022

Becky is finally pushed to confront her fear of climbing when Shiloh pays her a surprise visit with what she frames as the opportunity of a lifetime. Now working full time as an online influencer and adventurer, Shiloh, always proudly sporting a tight tank top so she can get more eyes on her live streams (her words, not mine), urges Becky to tag along on her next adventure. The plan is simple in theory and insane in practice. Climb a decommissioned 2,000 foot TV tower and scatter Dan’s ashes from the top.

From here on out, we get the expected dynamic between Becky and Shiloh. Becky is trapped in and defined by her trauma, while Shiloh constantly misquotes Dan’s positive platitudes as a way to convince her this is exactly what she needs. Eventually, Becky agrees.

They make the climb without realizing how many structural faults the tower has due to being decommissioned. After they reach the top, the rusted ladder system collapses beneath them, cutting off their only clear route down. With no cell service because of the tower’s interference and limited supplies, Becky and Shiloh have no way to contact their friends, families, or even Shiloh’s followers, who are periodically seeing updates from the adventure, but are used to waiting for delayed posts when she goes off the grid.

Living Is More Than Just Survival

Forced to confront her renewed fear of heights, Becky has to make peace with her past if she wants any chance at a future. She’s pushed to confront her personal demons in the worst possible setting, with Shiloh’s resourcefulness acting as a temporary guiding light. Unfortunately, nearly every plan they come up with backfires. Swinging their cell phones out far enough to catch a signal proves futile, and their quadcopter drone has limited battery life, making it impossible to reach anyone nearby before it dies.

Fall 2022

As vultures begin circling the tower, the situation becomes more urgent by the hour. If they cannot find a solution, they will eventually succumb to dehydration, starvation, infection, or the elements. Both sustain injuries during their ordeal, and with no safe way down, their options shrink fast. At a certain point, all they can do is ration what little they have and hope that some miracle puts them back on solid ground.

Solid Twist, But It’s Been Done Before

Fall offers a couple of solid twists if you’re a psychological thriller tourist, but if you’ve been around the block a few times, you may find them less shocking than advertised. I was instantly reminded of 2018’s Adrift, which strands its characters on a sailboat in the middle of the Pacific, because the structural playbook is similar with its isolated setting, emotional trauma, and narrative reveal that reframes what you’ve been watching. 

Fall 2022

Still, if you’re a more casual fan of the genre and do not actively seek out every single entry, Fall absolutely delivers on its promises. The setup is simple, the stakes are obvious, and the execution is tense enough to keep you locked in. Sometimes that’s all you really need from a survival thriller. You know what the ride is going to feel like. The question is whether you’re willing to take it.

Fall is currently streaming on Netflix.


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Entertainment

Men are paying to have negative posts removed from Tea app

As reported by 404 Media, online service Tea App Green Flags will scrub negative posts from anonymous gossip app Tea and similar online forums where women post about negative experiences they’ve had with men they’ve dated.

According to 404 Media’s interview with Tea App Green Flags’ founder, simply identified as Jay, the company launched two years ago to tackle posts on the many Are We Dating the Same Guy Facebook groups. His focus has turned to Tea in the past year.

“We just want to take down posts about people who are being defamed,” Jay told 404 Media. “And when I say defamed, it means like, ‘this guy has a small penis,’ or ‘this guy smells.’ That doesn’t fit the mission statement of what the Tea app was for, which is to warn women against people who are harmful, who are abusive, who are cheaters.”

Tea App Green Flags’ site claims to have removed over 2,500 posts from the Tea App for over 759 clients. Most of the service’s clients are men, although Jay noted that occasionally the wives and girlfriends of men posted on the app will reach out.

Prospective Tea App Green Flags clients must provide their name, age, location, and photo to the service, as well links to specific posts targeting them. According to Tea App Green Flags’ FAQs, they can only remove posts with direct references to a client. On average, the site says, a Tea App “takedown campaign” will take 21 – 30 days. The lengths of other takedowns depend on the platform.

Price-wise, it costs $1.99 to report one Tea account and up to $79.99 to report 25 of them. The company also offers “24/7 Reputation Monitoring,” which costs $19.99 per month and alerts clients when they appear on Tea or Facebook.

Jay would not share the details of the takedown process with 404 Media. Tea does have a free form for takedown requests on its website, and says that it will “only reply to takedown requests submitted via the takedown portal.”

Jay emphasized to 404 Media that Tea App Green Flags does not extend its services to people who have been accused of sexual assault multiple times on Tea, or who have been accused by one person using their real name and photo in a Facebook group.

“Sometimes we find along the process that there are pedophiles or people who actually did what they did, and they’re very bad,” Jay told 404 Media. “So we say, ‘we’re not doing this.’ We can’t take a rap for that. We’re ethical. We just want to take down people who are being defamed.”

Tea markets itself as presenting “dating safety tools that protect women.” In July 2025, it was the target of a large-scale cyberattack that exposed thousands of user images including drivers’ licenses, leaving users vulnerable to doxxing and harassment. These images were provided as verification for accounts, although the app itself is otherwise anonymous.

Jay claimed to 404 Media that Tea’s anonymity “causes a cesspool of defamation,” and that he would prefer if women shared their faces, even if they are speaking out against dangerous men who have done them harm.

While Tea is meant to be a women-only app, Tea App Green Flags is proof of men’s infiltration of these online dating spaces. (Tea itself was founded by a man: Sean Cook.)

“I have a Tea app account. I’m a dude,” Jay told 404 Media. “All my reps have Tea app accounts. They’re men.”

Mashable has reached out to Tea for further comment.

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NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for February 28, 2026

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is for people who love golf.

As we’ve shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, 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 the latest Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections: Sports Edition?

The NYT‘s latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication’s sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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.

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.

Here’s a hint for today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

Here are today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories

Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:

  • Yellow: Golf Equipment

  • Green: Materials in a Baseball

  • Blue: SEC School Locations

  • Purple: First Names of Chicago Bears

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: Sports Edition #523 is…

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

  • Golf Equipment – CLUB, GLOVE, RANGEFINDER, TEE

  • Materials in a Baseball – CORK, LEATHER, RUBBER, YARN

  • SEC School Locations – ATHENS, AUBURN, LEXINGTON, OXFORD

  • First Names of Chicago Bears – CAIRO, CALEB, LUTHER, ROME

Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections 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.

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 today’s Connections.


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Anna Kendrick’s Perfect, R-Rated Netflix Thriller Turns Celebrity Dream Into Nightmare

By Robert Scucci
| Published

Serial killers in film are often synonymous with slashers or crime procedurals, leaving very little to the imagination when it comes to narrative structure. Typically, you get a killer whose crimes slowly escalate, a damsel in distress who either becomes one of many victims or the final girl, and an ending where good prevails over evil and everybody goes home saying, “That’s just about what I was expecting.” I’m not knocking slashers or procedurals because they’re still fun and, when done well, make for a great viewing experience.

2023’s Woman of the Hour, on the other hand, ignores those familiar beats and tells its story through multiple timelines that converge at just the right moment. The audience understands how everything connects while the characters take a little longer to catch up from their respective vantage points, which makes the payoff all the more satisfying.

Woman of the Hour 2023

Even if you’re familiar with the true crime story involving real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala that the film is based on, Woman of the Hour reshapes those events into something so uniquely structured that you’ll wish more stories were told this way. As a viewer, you feel omniscient. The thrills come from waiting for the characters to realize what you already know.

Set On A Game Show Lot, But So Much More Than That

Set between 1971 and 1979, Woman of the Hour introduces Rodney Alcala, depicted strangling a woman in 1977 after luring her to a remote location for a photo shoot. The film then shifts to 1978 Los Angeles, where we meet our primary protagonist, struggling actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick), whose agent convinces her to appear as a contestant on The Dating Game.

Woman of the Hour 2023

Reluctant because she believes the gig is beneath her, Sheryl shows up to the taping and turns on the charm with Bachelor #1 (Matt Visser), Bachelor #2 (Jedidiah Goodacre), and Bachelor #3 (Daniel Zovatto), who just so happens to be Rodney Alcala. By this point, Woman of the Hour has already shown Rodney murdering a flight attendant named Charlie (Kathryn Gallagher) in 1971 New York City, along with the woman from the opening sequence. Now dialing in the charm for the TV lights, Rodney quickly gains the upper hand on The Dating Game, putting himself in position to win a weekend getaway to Carmel-by-the-Sea with Sheryl.

During the taping, a studio audience member named Laura (Nicolette Robinson) recognizes Rodney as the man who murdered her friend, but was never found by police. Panicked, she flees the production floor and knocks over a camera in the process. Her boyfriend dismisses her claims, and security brushes her off as well.

Woman of the Hour 2023

Before we learn Sheryl’s immediate fate, the film jumps to 1979, where a woman named Amy (Autumn Best) encounters Rodney under circumstances similar to his earlier victims. He offers to take her photos in a remote area, his violent side begins to surface, and the scene cuts away as Woman of the Hour transitions back to the game show. There, Sheryl takes creative liberties with her flirtatious questions, winning over the audience, and ultimately chooses Bachelor #3 as the winner.

The Suspense Comes From Knowing

Even if you’re unfamiliar with Rodney Alcala’s real-life murder spree in the 70s, which eventually led to his capture and incarceration, Woman of the Hour still generates relentless tension. By the time Sheryl meets Rodney on The Dating Game, we already know exactly what he’s capable of. Nobody else does.

Woman of the Hour 2023

Laura’s suspicions are met with condescension. Her boyfriend reassures her that game show producers aggressively vet contestants and run background checks before allowing them to participate. They don’t. Complicating matters further, Rodney is a serial killer operating across multiple states over several years who has not yet been definitively identified by authorities.

We witness Rodney’s crimes across separate timelines and see how easily he evades consequences. We catch glimpses of his mental state both when he commits violence and when he’s questioned by authorities, narrowly slipping through their fingers before relocating. We see how sly and charming he can be before he escalates, which makes his presence on The Dating Game all the more unnerving. He’s amiable enough to lure victims in, but that facade drops the second he senses control slipping.

Woman of the Hour 2023

The result is a nail-biting thriller where you know the killer from the moment he appears in the opening scene. The tension doesn’t come from guessing who did it. It comes from watching him zero in on Sheryl, who is blissfully unaware and simply trying to carve out a career in Hollywood, while Laura struggles to convince anyone to listen.

Woman of the Hour is streaming on Netflix.


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