Yellowjackets Seasons One & Two (Showtime)
I initially skipped over this one because I thought it was something else. For some reason, I thought this was another show streaming on Prime about teenage girls trapped on an island. When I finally did watch Yellowjackets, I was greeted with one of the best cold open teases from the first episode I’d seen. Using a mix of flashbacks and present-day plot beats, the show tells the story of a girls’ soccer team from New Jersey whose plane crashes over the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies in the 1990s. Only one adult survives, and he’s seriously injured, so these young women have to band together.
However, there is something evil in this world, a pervasive sense of evil manipulating all of them. In the present day, we see some of these women have survived, but the experience definitely warped them. Season one is stronger than season two, but it still has excellent moments. I’ve always loved Melanie Lynskey, so it’s great to see her finally get a major role and show the world what a fantastic actress she is.
Read my full reviews of season one and listen to our review of season two.
Paul T Goldman (Peacock)
I’m not going to guarantee you will like Paul Goldman by the end of this wild ride, but I did feel tremendous sadness for him. Framed by director Jason Woliner as a quirky true crime docuseries, by the middle, we suddenly find this is a different story entirely. Paul really likes telling stories, and he’s lived a life that is fraught with mistakes & failures. To compensate for this, he’s taken a traumatic event from his life and turned it into a story where he’s the hero.
This show becomes a reflection on how we are all engaged in building false narratives to justify what we do and why our life is the way it is. It seems very plausible to me that Paul is neurodivergent, and in the interviews with his father, the way he speaks about his own son struck close to my own experiences. I don’t think Paul is justified in the harm he does to people through his lies, but he’s a woefully human character in his own life. This one will stay with you.
Read my full review here.
How To With John Wilson Season Three (HBO, final season)
I started watching this series in its initial season when it debuted amid the pandemic in October 2020. I had never heard of Wilson, but his unique documentary style quickly won me over. The filmmaker has shot a lot of footage, primarily candid person-on-the-street observations. He’ll choose a topic, go out, and interview people related to it, allowing himself to go off on tangents if he meets someone interesting. The glue that binds these things is his voiceovers, where he always manages to come back to his starting point and make a conclusion about the journey he’s gone on.
Season Three was his final bow, and Wilson went out with some of his best episodes ever. This series is about how much you can love New York City despite its seemingly endless flaws. It’s also a show about how interesting everyone can be if you know how to ask questions. The show’s final episode, “How to Track Your Package,” is incredible and manages to subvert so much of what the show had done up to that point in a very satisfying way.
The Venture Brothers Seasons One through Five (Adult Swim)
I adored this show when I was in my early 20s. Revisiting it made for a rocky start. The jokes about Dr. Girlfriend and the liberal use of the r-word were rough. I hoped there would be an improvement once I got past my original ending point (Season 2). I knew Venture Brothers grew in popularity before it came to a close with its TV movie finale, so I couldn’t imagine they would keep with the problematic shit. Thank god, they did get better. I’ve always had trouble connecting emotionally with animated fare, but season four of this show is incredible. The creators clearly started listening, and the transphobia is gone.
By the end of season five, there are still some places to be improved, but overall, it feels like an incredible pulp/comic book world where the people making the show love everyone on screen. The season four finale, a prom that goes in the way you might expect for this show, is a masterpiece. The themes of the whole season are tied up so wonderfully, and the feel of that final sequence scored with Pulp’s Like a Friend is perfection. The complexity of the Venture Universe is quite impressive, and the animation quality has improved by leaps and bounds. In 2024, we’ll finish our watch, and I’m already starting to feel a bit sad about saying goodbye.
Read my reviews for seasons one, two, three, four, and five.
I’m a Virgo Season One (Amazon Prime)
I didn’t click with Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You. I can’t explain it, but despite being completely on board with the themes & ideas, the film was a dud for me. I felt the opposite about Riley’s series I’m a Virgo. I think this is because Virgo revisits the same ideas in a more decompressed format, which worked better for me. It has one of those openings that can overwhelm a viewer with information, but stick with it.
The story follows Cootie, a 13-foot-tall teenager raised in secret by his aunt & uncle in Oakland. He’s accidentally discovered by a group of young activists and quickly becomes involved in their lives. Cootie also falls in love with a fast food worker who has special abilities of her own. Riley has delivered his twist on the glut of pro-establishment superhero fare being fed into our brains in the media. Cootie is forced to take on The Hero, an arrogant white billionaire who uses his powers to protect the systems that do harm to Cootie and his community. I won’t be disappointed if there isn’t a second season because this feels like a perfect package.
Read my full review here.
Reservation Dogs Season Three (FX/Hulu)
Reservation Dogs ended its fantastic three-season run by reflecting back on the grandparents’ generation of our protagonists. This was done to draw a line from the traumas of the past to the present day’s struggles. Sounds heavy, and it did get like that, yet Rez Dogs never loses its ability to remain humorous and create evocative, surreal moments. The core four’s elopement to California is cut short, and by the second episode of this season, they are back in Oklahoma.
Bear must wrestle with a new understanding of his estranged dad, which becomes a shared experience with Elora, who learns her absent pop is closer than she realizes. Everyone gets a hopeful wrap-up, though life on the reservation is still a struggle. The key to making it is community, and the final episode shows these youngsters being embraced by their elders, who look on as they take up the responsibilities that were always waiting for them. Even William Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth), Bear’s less-than-serious spirit guide, gets a great send-off that brought a tear to my eye.
Read my full review here.
Scavengers Reign Season One (HBO)
As I said about the Venture Brothers, animation has never been a thing that pulled me in, but Scavengers Reign hit all the right buttons. A small number of survivors of a crashed spaceship try to make their way to its remains while braving the unique flora & fauna, which, more often than not, is trying to kill them. The scope & scale of this alien world is everything I wanted from the show. Each new lifeform introduced is an excellent mix of the familiar and the alien, so you are entranced and would be happy to just sit there observing it for hours.
The story here is also good and feels intertwined with the show’s focus on alien biology. Elements on this planet adapt and interact with their visitors, forming new life and evolutionary paths. The show has a palpable vibe, a chill ambient tone that lulls the viewer in. The season ended with several plot hooks for the story to continue. I’m hoping we get to see more from these creators, whether it’s Scavengers or another project I’m in.
Read my full review here.
Barry Season Four (HBO, final season)
No show I’ve watched in the last decade has transformed as incredibly as Bill Hader’s Barry. This has been his most significant project since leaving Saturday Night Live and serves as a reminder about what a fan of cinema the actor/director/writer is. The premise feels like a shitty mid-tier comedy you’d skip over: a hitman comes to Los Angeles in pursuit of a target and falls in love with acting.
Hader takes this and, through the development of Barry and the characters surrounding him, turns the series into a meditation on guilt, violence, and love. Each episode of this fourth season had me struggling to catch my breath. It ultimately becomes about more than the title character, giving Noho Hank and Fuches final solid moments. No one gets a better send-off than Sally. Sarah Goldberg delivers a stunning performance, and her character gets the closure we need: a glimpse into a future without Barry in it.
The Bear Seasons One & Two (FX/Hulu)
I tend to shy away from TV shows that get a lot of hype early on. I tell myself I’ll wait until the show ends and see if the goodwill remains before I invest. However, I got curious about The Bear and decided to give it a view. I’m so glad that I did. I see this show as the anti-Cheers. Where Cheers was at its core a profoundly cynical program where characters make snarky digs at each other non-stop, The Bear wants to make a show about people who start out that way but realize they have to grow to function.
Season one was spectacular, but season two was one of the best pieces of television I have ever seen. “Honeydew,” “Fishes,” and “Forks” are three of my all-time favorite episodes of television. They showcase incredible performances and some of the best current writing on television. These characters are so profoundly flawed, but aren’t we all? The Bear is a show about trying to follow your passion while being a human and how difficult that is, muddled up by trauma & dysfunction.
Read my review of season one & season two.
My Brilliant Friend Seasons One through Three (HBO)
I’d seen this pop up a few times while scrolling through HBO Max. I’d noticed it on annual lists of best shows, but I think my internalized misogyny thought from a brief glance that it was “just a show about some girls.” How wrong I was. My Brilliant Friend may be the best coming-of-age story I have ever seen. Lenu & Lila are complex, nuanced, complicated protagonists, and your feelings about them will fluctuate with every episode.
Set against the backdrop of post-WWII Naples, the series follows these characters as girls to womanhood, realizing things about the working-class neighborhood that has always been their home. With age comes the attention, desired & unwanted, from both the boys they grew up with and the men who were always much older. Education is something fought for, and only some get it. This is a show everyone needs to see and should be just as popular as the rest of the shows on this list. I can’t help but think the same foolish mindset that kept me away is what is keeping so many others, too. Do yourself a favor and start watching My Brilliant Friend today. The final season comes out in 2024.
Read my reviews of season one, season two, and season three.
Deadwood (HBO)
The American West doesn’t loom as large as it once did, but the specter of it still hangs there over the fantasies of so many deluded supremacists. After watching the films of Sergio Leone in 2022, I wanted to continue my exploration of the Western as a genre and decided to watch all of Deadwood. I’d seen the first six episodes a decade ago but got busy with life. Now I had the time and sat down with it again. What an incredibly written television show! We have never had the privilege to experience a beautifully crafted dialogue of this level in this medium.
David Milch and his co-writers crafted an incredible portrait of the end of the Wild West when Deadwood had to become a functioning community or go extinct. This can be a show that is very difficult to get into; the language alone is something we’re not used to hearing, closer to what you might find in Shakespeare. The people are also abrasive, grotesque, and horrible to each other at times. Yet, this is the reality of where American society emerged from, all this ugliness. People are forced to either learn to accept each other or not be a part of something larger. There’s also no other show so profane yet spins these profanities into poetry.
Read my reviews of season one, season two, season three, and Deadwood: The Movie.
Better Call Saul (AMC)
I had waited for this series to wrap up before I dove in. I’m glad I did. We watched one season a month for six months, and it was an incredible experience. Bob Odenkirk had always been Bob of Mr. Show with Bob & David to me. Seeing him on Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman didn’t break that framing for me. Better Call Saul showed me what an incredible actor he is.
The story of Jimmy McGill is centered around guilt & responsibility, and for six seasons, Jimmy wrestled with how guilty he felt and what he should be responsible for. The guiding light for his character and the actor who had their breakout performance here was Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), a fellow lawyer and Jimmy’s partner who was going through an ethical/spiritual odyssey of her own.
Better Call Saul is a show that can be absolutely hilarious in one episode and pivot to become the most chilling nightmare. It always works, too. The showrunners & writers allow the series to evolve over time so that what you have in season one differs from where we are tonally by the end. While Odenkirk’s follow-up, Lucky Hank, was a complete dud, he can hang his hat proudly on this television masterpiece.
Read my reviews for season one, season two, season three, season four, season five, and season six.
Succession Season Four (HBO, final season)
I binged the last three episodes of Succession late into the evening in early June. What unfolded over these chapters, and the ones that preceded them in season four, was one of the best storytelling experiences I’ve ever had. Every character, whether primary or supporting, felt completely realized & alive.
I already invoked Shakespeare for Deadwood and will do it again here; this is its modern equivalent. The petty squabbles of the princes & princess of a terrible kingdom, all hungry for power but none deserving it. All around them are the royal court, all with their own agendas, choosing sides & commenting on the action as it unfolds. With each episode of this season, we were given an incredible piece of television that elevated the form, while Warner Discovery, the company that released this, slid into utter mediocrity.
It was fitting that this was one of the last shows released under the HBO Max brand before it switched to Max. We will not get anything this good from this place again for a long time, if ever. Succession managed to articulate just how awful the American ruling class is, how petulant, how rancorous, and how brimming to the edges with guile these people live. They are incapable of love; everything is a transaction, a power move, a pivot. Their tragic fall, the loss of their father’s kingdom, was poetic & just, while not hopeful. Nothing on television moved me more than this.
Read my full review here.
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