A key thing my wife and I learned this past year is that the exhausting endeavor of the toddler bedtime routine left us with just enough time, energy, and brain space for a simple episode of television. Thankfully, the Age of Streaming provided a lot of options. There may be some spoilers. Here are some of my favorites:
10. Peacemaker (Season 1 – HBO Max)
James Gunn has made an entire career out of skirting expectations. While I enjoyed John Cena’s turn as Peacemaker in Gunn’s darkly playful The Suicide Squad, I didn’t fully understand how they were going to wring an entire TV show out of him.
What best signifies the fun of this show is the unmissable theme song. Gunn knew TV show themes were often skipped, especially when the streaming apps themselves offer the option to do so. So he picked a rad song and had a dance choreographed and performed by the entire cast. Skip this, you can practically hear him hollering. What makes the whole dance sing at first is seeing these actors of varying athletic ability pull off moves both sultry and awkward. But here’s the thing: you don’t know who all these people are yet. And you won’t know many of them until further into the show. Each consecutive time you watch the theme song, a particular actor and their character becomes more recognizable – sometimes hilariously so. And then as the show really roars along and the bodies pile up, the dance takes on different flavors of delight and melancholy. Gunn wants you to feel things while also having a bit of fun. And to do it with a completely game cast ready to perform each and every move.
I don’t know that Cena’s ever going to get quite the platform as he does here. We see him cry in his tighty-whitey underwear. We see him mourn the loss of an eagle. We see him bouncing on rooftops as he suffers a great fall. We also get to see him chew up Gunn’s dialogue with delight. Cena’s role here is the kind of thing a post-Guardians of the Galaxy Dave Batista long craves (someone get on that, please): an opportunity to show every shade of emotion and physicality, mixed and shot up with a heavy dose of fun and pathos. Any concerns you have of someone like Cena carrying a story will be quieted here. A complete blast from start to finish.
9. The Afterparty (Season 1 – Apple+)
It’s a pretty simple equation of what makes this show so much fun. You take a bunch of the most likable comedic actors alive (Sam Richardson, Zoe Chao, Dave Franco, etc) and match them with the concept of each episode being a “mind movie” as they try to explain to a determined Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) why they, in fact, should not be considered a murder suspect. Each episode allows these actors to play their characters in different shades – in the style of a 90s show, an action movie, or a musical, for example – and to wring consistent laughs out of the tension and emotional turmoil of it all.
What really makes this show sing, however, is how everyone is not quite where they want to be. They’ve come back to high school for their 15 year reunion – itself an awkward time between the better-known 10 and 20 year reunions – determined to make amends for the life they’ve lived up to that point. It adds an extra layer of delicious, hilarious tension to an already tense murder scene.
8. The White Lotus (Season 2 – HBO Max)
Season 1 of this show certainly had its charms. A gorgeous Hawaiian setting. Hilarious, dialed-in actors bringing characters with sharp, pokey edges. The occasional daring thought (before backing off or dropping it altogether).
Season 2 not only transported the setting to Italy, but found more to work with. There’s the generational philandering of the Di Grasso men; the lively, humorous hotel (mis)adventures of Mia and Lucia; the superawkward, ever-moving quadrangle of Ethan & Harper and Cameron & Daphne; Tanya’s increasingly bizarre misadventures with her overwhelmed assistant, Portia. The various stories going on here just seem to be working on a much more interesting level than the first season, playing off their conflicts in concert with each other.
What I keep coming back to, however, is Kate Aselton’s 2010 film, The Freebie. In it, a young couple decides to give each other a night off – they can pursue their crushes, they can do whatever – and come home with no questions asked. The greatest trick Aselton pulls is that we never see the end result of either Annie’s (Aselton) or Darren’s (Dax Sheperd) night. We don’t know what either of them went through with. So when they argue about it towards the end, fully convinced the other is being dishonest with them, we have nothing to stand on. We can only choose to believe them at face value, just like their romantic partner. Very quickly, you can see how even the sturdiest of relationships can collapse from the weight of the unknown.
There is something similar happening towards the end of this show when Ethan is consumed with what he believes Harper did behind closed doors with his buddy Cameron. We have no idea what actually happened. So when Ethan and Daphne, both bewildered by the actions of their spouses, decide to walk to a remote part of the coast together (after an incredible bit of acting from Meghann Fahy), we have no idea what they actually did. We just know both couples seem to be content with where they end up in the final episode. Maybe they’ll last forever. Maybe they’ll collapse under the weight of the unknown.
There is so much more going on in this show, but it all centers around this idea that we never truly know what’s happening behind closed doors. And when we do, we must choose whether to believe it or not. It positions The White Lotus – be it in Italy or Hawaii – as a purgatory of sorts, where characters must decide whether to appeal to the better or worse of their angels; there is no going back to the way things were.
7. Our Flag Means Death (Season 1 – HBO Max)
Filming on water is expensive. You gotta get the crew out there on multiple boats. You gotta coordinate. Light is precious and fleeting. Clouds may muck up the whole thing. You gotta hope no water animals are too eager for unexpected screen time. It’s a lot to deal with. So I completely get why Our Flag Means Death, even being an HBO show, would keep their pirate show on dry land.
I recognize the way they manipulate the light and sky in the show to try and hide the stageboundness of it all. At first, I found myself a little disappointed. I wanted the bluest of skies. I wanted to see the ocean surrounding them. But then I realized that was never the point. This isn’t a show about adventure as much as it’s about being forced to deal with who you really are. With the choices you’ve made. With the lives you’re running away from.
Even when they manage to get off the boat, the settings are just as claustrophobic. An island inhabited by people eager to send them back the direction from whence they came. A bar full of conflict and crossed paths. No matter where you escape to, the past will gain on your trail.
Every actor here seems to be utterly delighted to be on board, even as they do their best to show a soured soul. Rhys Darby, in particular, represents a lovely, goofy heart to build around. But what makes this show really sing is how creator David Jenkins and his team don’t show away from truth. These are delightful obtuse men at times, but they are also savage and cast a long shadow.
Taika Waititi hasn’t had a chance to act this deeply since his debut film, The Boy, where he played an alcoholic father unwilling to accept the the cost of his past lives. This is also some of the best acting I’ve ever seen from Darby – finally given a chance to really dig deeper into a character not yet ready to admit his own reality. I can’t wait to see what Season 2 has in store.
6. Succession (Season 3 – HBO Max)
Every season of this show seems to be a bit of a magic trick. There’s a lot of walking and talking, of phone calls aboard private jets and helicopters, of board room meetings in high-rise skyscrapers and expensive, hidden vacation spots. It’s a world many of us wonder about but have no access to. And we should wonder: these are the people who make decisions about our media culture and how the rest of us should feel about the world at any moment. The show’s co-creator, Jesse Armstrong, has made it clear their key influence are the Murdoch’s. Americans may not be familiar with them beyond Rupert Murdoch owning Fox News, but their story goes much, much deeper. They began in Australia, scooping up the media there. Then they came to America and England. They are everywhere. They have incredible influence on what is and isn’t covered. They are also a family prone to infighting, especially as the head patriarch continues to age.
As all of these things happen every season, I’m always amazed at how little narrative ground actually seems to be occurring while we get incredible scene after incredible scene with incredible actors, often punctuated with a bitter line or exchange. By the sixth or seventh episode, you start to wonder if the show is just repeating itself, stuck in motion. But then it shifts gears. And then you realize the gears were being built all along, as if they hid Checkov’s guns in every room in the house, and they were just waiting for the right moment to fire. And when it does, it is a bang to remember.
Season 2 ended with Kendall pulling quite the ballsy move – one we weren’t convinced he had in him – to draw his cannon on his own father. So I expected Season 3 to start off with the fire hose on full roar, only to realize this show is far smarter than me.
We hear inklings early on of an FBI raid, of the government being aware of just what Waystar Royco is up to, and yet it doesn’t feel for a while like anything is gonna happen. Considering our current political situation where we have a number of things going on – a Jan 6th commission still in play, classified documents being found everywhere they shouldn’t be – with few visible consequences, this tracks far more than I realized at the time. The IRS is not for the wealthy; it’s for us nonmillionaires, after all.
But I will tell you that I genuinely gasped when the Hidden in Plain Sight storyline finally came to fruition. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. So masterfully hidden. Yet the clues are all there. This is one of the best written shows on the planet and yet it takes a careful, watchful eye to fully appreciate it at times. I’m just glad we were paying attention.
5. The Dropout (Hulu)
Pun fully intended, I didn’t think any more blood could be drawn from this story. I had read John Carryou’s barnburner of a book. I had seen Alex Gibney’s documentary. And then here came a show, nearly two years after Theranos was such a hot topic, the resulting trial almost blurring into the background, looking like it would be too little, too late.
I could not be more wrong.
There are two facts you need know. That another Elizabeth Holmes movie, sheperded by Adam McKay and titled Bad Blood, was about to film with Jennifer Lawrence as the lead. Then Jennifer saw Amanda Seyfried’s electrifying, heartbreaking performance and thought: “Yeah, we don’t need to redo that. She did it.” The other thing you need to know is the showrunner is Elizabeth Meriweather, the New Girl creator. The alchemy of a terrifying, sobering true story about hubris and deception gone wrong on a scale of billions of dollars combined with Meriwether’s sitcom and character humor is a delight. She wrings laughs and pathos out of comedians and actors alike, infusing this oft-told story with new, revitalizing blood. The bad guys are still 100% the bad guys. But what I appreciate more about this version of the story is the way it restores the dignity of everyone around Holmes and her boyfriend. These were incredibly bright people around her doing their very best to make the impossible happen and yet being reminded each and every day they were utter failures. That they weren’t bleeding enough. They fought their hardest in a culture of cruelty – one we recognize all too well these days – and, in the end, the good guys won out.
I’m quite astounded at the way Meriwether and her talented team of writers and directors were able to add nuance to Holmes without letting her off the hook. Seyfried deserves all the awards for the way she sinks into this role, the way she shifts her voice and her mouth to wear a costume we know doesn’t feel as comfortable. She plays Holmes as someone determined to be someone at any cost, finding herself too deep in the woods to ever begin to recognize the writing was on the bark of every tree.
I keep coming back to every supporting actor and the way they acted as our audience surrogate, completely aghast at the game being played and struggling with their powerlessness to do anything about it. The show also shows to great effect how much the people around Holmes fed this death spiral of a mission. They found themselves so enamored with this young, blonde woman of ambition and, being older, white men, could not bear to admit they may have been wrong in their judgment. It’s a pretty hot thing in our media stories these days to villainize the tech billionaires, but The Dropout shows us there’s far more to it: there’s an entire onion of evil enabling that must take place for such an already-collapsing core to rise to such heights.
The show’s title refers to Holmes herself being a Stanford dropout as she went out to start Theranos. But then I think about the title another way, the way the circles protecting Holmes hardened so much it was possible for her to drop out from the middle, like a little battery you just gotta pop out and replace. We see this in the series final scenes, when Holmes returns to a completely empty Theranos office, a true ghost town, with her dog alongside her. The company’s lawyer (a low-key spectacular Mikaela Watkins) is aghast at Holmes not understanding the significance of what she’s done. It’s only later, after Holmes has left the building, just a suddenly-normal woman in yoga pants taking her dog for a walk, that she lets out a primal, shattering scream. Yes, she got away. But she also lost it all. And the worst – the trial, the money owed – is yet to come.
4. Andor (Season 1 – Disney+)
Star Wars to me is like basketball. I used to shoot hoops after school, one ill-advised 3-point after another. I played on a few teams in school before giving up after my freshman year of high school. I still enjoy dribbling and taking shots, feeling my way through the clunking misses on the way to the more seamless swishes. I enjoy basketball in doses. But what I really enjoy, I found, is the storytelling behind basketball. Specifically, the NBA. I loved learning about The Mailman (and Scottie Pippen’s immortal line to make him miss at the free-throw line: “The Mailman doesn’t deliver on Sundays). I loved following LeBron’s career from that first HS Sports Illustrated cover to his first championship in Miami, to his breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time points record on a Tuesday night in LA. My buddy Trey and I are always reminding each other that the best time of the NBA season is the off-season and the trade deadlines, when players get moved and career narratives radically change. It’s a blast.
Star Wars was the same way. I got into it when two of my best friends – or at least dudes I wanted to be best friends with – were playing with Star Wars figures. That led me to the VHS movies – at the time the longest movies I’d ever seen. That led me to buying an occasional Star Wars toy here or there, but never with enough interest to amass a collection. By the time I got to high school and college, I became far more interested in the story behind Star Wars, and even found myself deep into blog posts that made creator George Lucas out to be the worst thing to ever happen to Star Wars itself. I was convinced. I told the same stories myself. But here’s the catch: I never watched the prequels everyone made fun of. I saw one in a theater and remember only how the crosscutting made it seem like one character was holding its breath underwater an unreasonable amount of time (Obi-Wan, you should have drowned!).
When they brought back the sequels in recent years, it became much more fun to talk about everything outside of the films themselves. The casting. The directors and their aims. The directors fired off of Star Wars movies because of their aims. It was a lot of hot Hollywood gossip sticking itself to actual story-making on a grand scale. I found myself the most invested in Star Wars when one of my favorite filmmakers jumped up to the big leagues and made the best one of the films in many years.
So, of course, I did not care for most of the Star Wars shows that were coming out. The Volume sounded cool but immediately put me off – I could see the seams and the limitations too easily. I didn’t find the story interesting enough to pull me through the constant train of Easter eggs planted everywhere. It wasn’t for me.
But then the story behind the story became more interesting with Andor. Here was a guy in Tony Gilroy who, like me, had zero reverence for the franchise. He just wanted to tell a good story. And here he came, hot off of kinda-sorta fixing Rogue One, to tell another story.
Much has been made about how surversive it is for a giant corporation to allow an anti-giant-corporation series to be made. But they’re missing the point. Disney wants such a show to be made. It allows them to still be who they are while creating content they can monetize. It’s not as subversive as it seems.
However.
I am so glad this show exists. I still think about Luther’s line of “I made my mind a sunless space” at least once a week. I think about the way Gilroy and Team built those first three relatively quiet episodes as a subtle building block to kickstart the story. I think about the palace intrigue and the complete lack of anything screaming franchise or toys. This is a show that wants to tell a story about what it feels like to be under the foot of a growing empire and to feel powerless to push back and yet unable to quiet the growing, gnawing need to fight. In other words: a perfect show for our time.
3. Barry (Season 3 – HBO Max)
It says a lot about what a magic trick this show is when the first moments I remember make me laugh with glee: the bomb thwarted by a phone’s wifi connection; Barry voice-texting an increasingly violent message while wandering through a department store; the meeting with TV execs as they describe to Sally what they’re looking for in a TV show while also having no idea how their algorithm works; the shoot-out that happens over a Zoom meeting atop a building. I could go on. This is a show that never fails to find some darkly comic beat to lighten the more brutal storylines. And this season had some pretty brutal moments.
What I will remember most is how much Hader (and his team) upped their game even further than I knew possible. Just watch the way he has his team shoot, edit, and manipulate the sound design when Sally loses her shit in the finale’s sound booth scene. Watch how he somehow elevates the tension of a motorcycle chase scene that spills onto a crowded LA freeway without losing its humor. And then see how this all plays out before laying down his final winking Winkler card. This is a season that had Barry go as dark and terrifying as he’s ever been, where death not only seemed certain but perhaps the only way to release him of increasing guilt. They wrote themselves into a helluva corner by the end of the season and I cannot wait to see how they write themselves out. I have no doubt it will deliver. And I have no doubt I will miss this show as soon as it’s gone.
2. Severance (Season 1 – Apple+)
I am still, many months removed from seeing the season finale, in awe this show is not based on a book. It’s so deeply thought-through, so meticulous in its detail and design. The statues in the cavernous halls. The quotes that sound so much like someone who once lived, so rattling with truth and hubris, and yet are completely fabricated. This is a show with a long, difficult birth, one necessary to appear so fully-formed from the beginning.
The idea of a procedure that blocks life memories while you’re at work and work memories while you’re living life is such a haunting, perfect representation of the work-life balance we all talk about wanting to acheive. I still think about the scene in the pilot, when we find out Mark’s (Adam Scott) wife passed away before his procedure and his sister tells him, “I just feel like forgetting about her for eight hours a day isn’t the same thing as healing.” You know she’s right. And yet Scott absolutely sells how necessary this job at Lumon is for him, how there’s no escape to be found anywhere else.
I found myself delighted at every new detail of this show. The old-school approach to technology. The set design. The narrative gymnastics it pulls with seamless aplomb. The way it ends at just the perfect moment and just the perfect line. What a goddamn show. I just want to hug them all and tell them to take their time with this new season as I eagerly await its arrival.
1. Station Eleven (HBO Max)
Perhaps it was inevitable considering Patrick Somerville’s involvement. A writer on perhaps my favorite show of the last decade (The Leftovers), and a co-creator of some of my favorite recent shows (Made for Love and Maniac), his taste seems to align very closely with mine. But still. This knocked me flat in ways I didn’t expect.
Having not yet read the source material, Emily St. John Mandel’s eponymous novel, I went in knowing only it had a pandemic and the majestic acting powers of one Mackenzie Davis. But a common thread in Somerville’s shows, perhaps something he learned from his time on The Leftovers, is the way it plays with form, time, and memory. Even the ghosts walk among us like real people; it’s often only a well-timed cut and suddenly-empty space to alert us to the line between life and death.
There is so much about this show to love – the depth of the characters, the way the parallel timelines bring out heartbreaking colors in each other – but I feel like the penultimate episode sums up what makes a series like this so special. Titled “Dr. Chaudary”, it follows Jeevan (an exemplary Himesh Patel) as his ill-fated attempt to track down a young Kirsten in the woods leads him to an abandoned store full of pregnant women, all of whom are convinced he is a doctor who will help them bring their children into this mad world. On paper, it sounds insane, but it’s the little details and the performances that bring it together. This is something shows Somerville is a part of do so well: they take the absurd and give it all the emotional honesty it needs to make it sing. But when it seems Dr. Chaudary’s time is up, he returns to an empty cabin. Kirsten is long gone and he has no idea where she is. It is only then, for the first time in the story, he admits he is not okay. The time at the pregnancy center reminded him of how every day and every action since the outbreak of the pandemic has been to serve others. He hasn’t made one choice for himself. And it’s left him broken and alone. Then, his brother – a ghost amongst the living – comes to comfort him. Jeevan never intended to be Kristen’s surrogate parent. But he watched out for her and protected her as if he was her own. And now she’s lost in woods dangerous enough to make him the receiving end of a wolf attack. “I’m not okay,” Jeevan says. His brother, a ghost made flesh, if only temporarily, comforts him. “Hey. You got her here,” he says, “She’ll find someone. She’s good at it. She found you.” This absolutely killed me. It crystallized the fear every parent – surrogate or not – has for their child. We always worry about the time we won’t be able to save them. And we struggle against the knowledge that one day we definitely won’t be able to save them. But when Jeevan’s brother says she’ll find someone because she found him? That hit me in all the feels.
When Jeevan and Kristen do meet again (spoiler alert!), nearly 20 years after that fateful splitting in the snowy woods, the show had built my anticipation in an honest way. I wanted to see them together even as I wasn’t sure how I would feel. Davis and Patel play it masterfully – almost underplaying it – and everything floods to the fore. It reminded me of Kevin and Nora in The Leftovers, that moment when you see someone you’ve lost forever and want to hold them, if only for a moment, because you know you’ll have to let go of them again. There may have been flashier shows in 2022. But none made me believe in the power of people while breaking my heart and putting it back together again quite like this one. Somerville, you did it again.
