Entertainment
Unrated, Unauthorized Netflix Rockumentary Is Equal Parts Trippy, Triumphant, And Tragic
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Before John Frusciante joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers and solidified the “classic lineup,” quit the band in 1992, was replaced by Dave Navarro for One Hot Minute, rejoined in 1998, quit again in 2009, was replaced by Josh Klinghoffer, and returned yet again in 2019, the band’s sound had already been molded by another guitar genius: Hillel Slovak. Netflix’s latest rockumentary, The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel, looks back at those early days when Anthony Kiedis and Michael “Flea” Balzary were just kids from broken homes, and how their best friend and spiritual brother Hillel offered them a lifeline through art, music, and, most tragically, drugs.
The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tells a heartbreaking story about the band’s early, turbulent years as kids running amok through Los Angeles in the 1980s, shaped by their environment and an unbreakable friendship. Through beautifully composed segments featuring archival photos brought to life with striking animation, the documentary feels kaleidoscopic at times, like a drug-induced fever dream, and brutally sobering at others. We hear from band members past and present as they reflect on their soul brother Hillel Slovak and how instrumental he was in shaping them into the musicians they became.
While a healthy amount of time is spent on the thrill of starting a punk-funk hybrid band in 1980s Los Angeles, Slovak’s life, impact, and lasting legacy takes center stage, doing the impossible by making an ending fans already know still land like a gut punch that makes you want to call up an old friend and check in.
From Triumph To Tragedy
While I’m fighting every urge to wax poetic about the band whose frontman once sang “Say what? You got a pumpkin in yo pants,” I can’t understate the emotional weight of The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s a look at the band’s early days, when both Flea and Kiedis felt completely lost as teenagers. They abused drugs, got into all sorts of trouble, and, thanks to unstable home lives, were mostly unsupervised and searching for something to hold onto.
They went from lost to found when they met Hillel Slovak in high school, not yet realizing how chaotic their lives would become as they bonded over art, music, and their freewheeling youth, something that they thought would last forever.
Flea spends a healthy amount of time talking about how he might never have picked up a bass if Hillel hadn’t needed someone to play for one of his earlier projects, Anthym. Around this time, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were conceptualized, though scheduling conflicts created tension between Flea, Kiedis, then-drummer Jack Irons, and Slovak, who was committed to his other band, What Is This?
Their debut album featured Jack Sherman on guitar, but things didn’t click. By the time they were preparing to record their 1985 sophomore effort, Freaky Styley, Slovak had returned to the fold, and everything started to take shape on an almost cosmic level. That momentum carried into 1986’s The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, but by then, things were already starting to spiral.
Drugs had taken hold of both Kiedis and Slovak. Flea managed to stay relatively grounded, but the band dynamic was constantly on the verge of collapse just as they were finding their footing. Kiedis got sober, for the first time of many in the band’s documented history, but Slovak couldn’t escape his heroin addiction, which ultimately claimed his life in 1988.
Known as a constant source of positivity and inspiration, it almost feels like Slovak gave his light to the people who mattered most while his inner darkness slowly closed in.
The documentary closes on a somber but reflective note. John Frusciante speaks about Slovak’s legacy and how it shaped his own early playing with the band. Flea and Kiedis get visibly emotional as they remember their best friend, taken far too soon, even after all these years. A true artist and a deeply sensitive soul, Hillel Slovak was one of those rare musicians who radiated authenticity without ever trying. With his life cut short just as the band was beginning to take off, there’s no telling how differently things might have turned out if he had overcome his demons.
It’s A Great Watch, Even If You’re Not A Fan
Listen, whenever I talk about how much I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the first thing people bring up is how Anthony Kiedis openly discusses some pretty troubling behavior in his 2004 memoir, Scar Tissue. And yes, that book has aged terribly, and yes, Kiedis probably has some explaining to do when he arrives at the pearly gates. But that’s not what The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is about.
This documentary is focused on the life and legacy of Hillel Slovak.
For casual fans, that might seem like an odd choice, especially since most of the band’s classic albums feature Frusciante’s guitar work. But it’s worth remembering that Frusciante was only 18 when he joined the band, and Slovak was already his biggest influence. Slovak ran so Frusciante could sprint.
What makes the documentary especially compelling is how it uses archival material to tell its story. As someone who nerds out over old band photos and music history, I was genuinely surprised by how many images from those early days I’d never seen before. They capture the band at their youngest and most naive and explosive, and then those same images are brought to life through trippy, psychedelic animation that makes them jump off the screen and straight into your living room.
It’s a visually visceral way to show youth running wild, and the early days of a band that would eventually take over the world at a time when they were still figuring out where their next meal was coming from.
It’s heavy, heartfelt, and feels like it could be the first chapter of something larger. Maybe I’m reading too much into the title, but I’d love to see a follow-up documentary that picks up around the Mother’s Milk era, when Frusciante’s first stint with the band propelled them into superstardom. Until that happens, this is more than enough to keep me at bay.
In the meantime, I’ll be spending the weekend slapping the bass and revisiting those early records, because if nothing else, this documentary is a reminder of where it all started for a band that shaped my own early musical identity in more ways than I could ever reasonably articulate.
The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel SCORE
The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel is a Netflix Original and is available to stream with an active subscription.
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 19, 2026
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.
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If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
The edge.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
BRINK
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Hurdle Word 2 hint
Moody.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
POUTY
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
Hurdle Word 3 hint
America’s bird.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
EAGLE
Hurdle Word 4 hint
A platform.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
FORUM
Final Hurdle hint
Cheapskate.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
MISER
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Star Trek’s Most Ambitious Villain Helped Create The Franchise’s Most Complex Hero
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When Star Trek: Voyager first came out, the most fascinating character was the Doctor. While Robert Picardo’s performance was superb, it’s fair to say this character was mostly fascinating on a conceptual level. We had seen things like hypercompetent Starfleet captains and exotic aliens before, but what we hadn’t seen was a fully holographic chief medical officer. Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram seemed like the perfect embodiment of the Star Trek ethos. He’s a technological strange new world and new life, all rolled into one.
However, what casual audiences didn’t realize is that the Doctor wasn’t completely unique. Long before Picardo’s character ever sawed bones in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Picard dealt with another extraordinary hologram: Moriarty, the brilliant foe of the famous investigator Sherlock Holmes. Over on The Next Generation, Geordi LaForge accidentally created this villain as a sentient hologram when he asked the holodeck to create a challenge worthy of the android Data. Later, Star Trek: Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor revealed that, in-universe, the holographic Doctor was created because Starfleet took advantage of the same accidental breakthrough that created Moriarty!
It all started in “Elementary, My Dear Data,” the Next Generation episode in which the titular android and Geordi LaForge recreated Sherlock Holmes’ adventures on the holodeck. Thanks to his positronic brain and his encyclopedic knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes novels, Data is able to easily solve every mystery that is thrown at him. That’s when Geordi makes a seemingly simple request. He asks the Enterprise computer to develop a holodeck foe that could actually defeat Data, one of the smartest beings in the entire galaxy.
The computer obliges and creates a sentient version of Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’ greatest foe. Following Geordi’s instructions, the Enterprise computer included much of Data’s vast programming, which resulted in the holographic character becoming self-aware. Moriarty ended up threatening the Enterprise on two different occasions, and Picard eventually got rid of him by trapping the unknowing villain in a simulation where he thought he had left the holodeck and could explore the stars. This was meant to be a happy ending for Moriarty, but in the show’s typically bleak fashion, Star Trek: Picard later showed us a different, more hostile version of this character created by a malevolent Section 31 AI.
How A Villain Created A Hero
What does all of this have to do with Robert Picardo’s holographic Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager? Elementary, my dear reader! Very early in Voyager’s development (the show didn’t even have a name yet), executive producer Jeri Taylor was inspired by Moriarty to create a new character. As reported in A Vision of the Future-Star Trek: Voyager, Taylor wrote down notes for a holographic doctor “who, like Moriarty, has ‘awareness’ of himself as a holodeck fiction. He longs for the time when he can walk free of the Holodeck.”
A few days later, she wrote down additional notes that contain a startling bit of Star Trek lore. “The Holo-Doctor represents a new, state-of-the-art technology which has capitalized on the serendipitous incident which created Moriarty, and has programmed a holographic character which has self-awareness of his situation and limitations.” While Moriarty is name-dropped on Voyager a couple of times, the show never mentioned what Taylor’s notes seem to confirm: that Lewis Zimmerman could never have created the Emergency Medical Hologram program if not for Geordi LaForge accidentally creating Moriarty on the holodeck.
From Villain To Leading Man?
If that’s not strange enough, there was a period of time when Voyager’s producers were considering making Moriarty a mainstay character on the show. As reported in Star Trek–Where No One Has Gone Before, Taylor’s notes mentioned that “everyone agreed that was a little too broad, and we couldn’t figure out why anyone would take him along.” After dismissing the idea, they decided “that having a holographic doctor with the full consciousness of being a hologram might be fun, and we’d never done anything like that before, except for Moriarty.”
There you have it, gentle reader. Without the character of Moriarty on Star Trek: The Next Generation, we’d never have the Doctor on Voyager. In this way, Trek’s most ambitious villain helped create the franchise’s most complex hero. Thanks to Jeri Taylor’s notes, we also know that, in-universe, Lewis Zimmerman would never have been able to create the Doctor if not for Geordi accidentally creating a sentient Moriarty so Data could have fun. In retrospect, this does make Zimmerman’s arrogance that much weirder. After all, he has a lot of attitude for someone who owes his entire career to the two biggest book nerds in the galaxy!
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 19
After days of almost (and complete) darkness, the Moon is finally starting to reappear. We’re currently in the Waxing Crescent phase of the lunar cycle, which means each night until the Full Moon we’ll see it get more illuminated from the right side.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Sunday, April 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 5% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Despite more of it now being illuminated, the percentage of surface is still too little to be able to spot any surface details. Check again tomorrow.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
NASA states that the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit Earth, during which it passes through eight distinct phases. We always see the same side of the Moon, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes as it moves along its orbit, creating the familiar pattern of full, partial, and crescent shapes. We call these the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Hurdle hints and answers for April 19, 2026
Corbin Carroll grand slam extends D-Backs' win streak, Blue Jays' skid
