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Apple TV+ Delays Release of Jessica Chastain Show 'The Savant' in the Wake of Charlie Kirk Assassination

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  September 23, 2025 6:45 PM

"South Park" isn't the only show to make changes to its schedule following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Comedy Central temporarily dropped an episode featuring the show's character Eric Cartman as a parody of Kirk from its rotation (the episode, which Kirk found amusing, remained available for streaming with a Paramount+ subscription). The show also delayed last week's episode for undisclosed reasons.

At the end of August, Apple TV+ announced a new show, "The Savant," starring Jessica Chastain. Chastain would play an "undercover investigator" looking into "online hate groups."

The trailer was soundly roasted on social media, and a still from that trailer quickly became a meme.

Now Apple TV+ has announced it's postponing the release of "The Savant," citing the September 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah.

Here's more from Variety:

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Apple TV+ has postponed the release of “The Savant,” its upcoming thriller series starring Jessica Chastain as an investigator working to prevent domestic extremism. The move comes amid the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

“After careful consideration, we have made the decision to postpone ‘The Savant,’” reads a statement from Apple. “We appreciate your understanding and look forward to releasing the series at a future date.”


The official logline for the series says that it “follows an undercover investigator known as ‘The Savant’ as she infiltrates online hate groups in an effort to stop domestic extremists before they act.” In it, Chastain plays Jodi Goodwin, a military veteran who works at the Anti-Hate Alliance. There, she secretly visits 4Chan-like message boards and tries to draw out possible terrorists. Early in the series, while posing as a white nationalist, she stumbles upon the planning of a large-scale domestic attack, and attempts to infiltrate the group to thwart it.

From the moment the trailer dropped, people on social media knew exactly who the bad guys in "The Savant" would be: White men and "toxic masculinity," in keeping in line with the present wokeness coming out of Hollywood. It's reminiscent of Netflix's series "Adolescence" -- also about the rise of online extremism -- which addressed increased crime and online radicalization in the UK by portraying the perpetrator and main character as a young White male, ignoring the rising crime from immigrants.

We have to wonder if Apple TV+ is using Kirk's murder as an excuse to pull a show that would not only be wildly unpopular but thoroughly mocked and criticized. As mentioned above, this image from the trailer became a viral meme:

Apple TV+ might be trying to avoid such online excoriation.

However, we must also consider whether the show's content would be inflammatory in light of the past two weeks. The Left's narrative is that political violence comes from the Right, after all, and that could ruffle more than a few feathers, given the fact that it's wholly untrue. Even The Atlantic admitted today that Left-wing violence is on the rise, which tells us they can no longer deny reality.

Apple TV+ has not indicated when "The Savant" would be available for streaming.