Explained - Season 2
Season 2
The billionaire boom. Athleisure wear. The lure of cults. Explore current events and social trends with this compelling, celebrity-narrated series.
Episodes
Cults
How do cults lure people in and exert control? Learn a cult's telltale signs, and how loneliness and life online makes indoctrination easier than ever.
Billionaires
There are more billionaires than ever. But how does this vast accumulation of wealth affect the world? Mark Cuban and Bernie Sanders offer insights.
Animal Intelligence
What goes on inside an animal's mind? Figuring out how they think and feel might just be the key to understanding our own place in the world.
Athleisure
It began with bloomers. Then came spandex. Now we sport leggings and other activewear everywhere. How did comfy, casual clothing go mainstream?
Coding
Computer code now controls how we live. But how did these programming languages evolve? And how can they be used to build a new and better world?
Pirates
In pop culture, pirates are often depicted as booty-looting rogues, but their history is far more complicated. See how they became enemies of humanity.
The Next Pandemic
If you're not worried about a looming global pandemic, you probably should be. Are we prepared for an outbreak? Bill Gates and other experts weigh in.
The Future of Meat
The planet's current rate of meat consumption is unprecedented -- and becoming unsustainable. In the future, will meat alternatives be the answer?
Beauty
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but what exactly makes things such as art and architecture aesthetically pleasing, and why do we like looking?
Diamonds
A diamond is forever. But why is that? Dig into how these mined pieces of carbon became both a status symbol and a sparkly sign of everlasting love.
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The Librarians: The Next Chapter
The Librarians: The Next Chapter centers on Vikram Chamberlain, a "Librarian" from the past who time traveled from 1847 and now finds himself stuck in the present. When Vikram returns to his castle in Belgrade, Serbia and discovers that it is now a museum, he inadvertently releases magic across the continent. With the help of a new team of eclectic heroes, including a savant in world history, a scientific genius, and a highly skilled Guardian, Vikram has only six months to clean up the mess he made.
The Gilded Age
The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.
Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.
In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?