This week’s top picks include a juicy and completely ludicrous new Netflix drama; the return of one of HBO’s most exciting TV series; and another season of Abbott Elementary, the best American sitcom of the decade.
His & Hers ★★★½ (Netflix)
Intermittently in this murder-mystery, Tessa Thompson’s Anna Andrews delivers solemn, narration. “The most dangerous thing we do is lie to others,” she notes, pausing for maximum effect before adding, “and ourselves”. These contemplations, expertly laced with regretful menace, are a smokescreen, as are the nuanced performances of Thompson and co-star Jon Bernthal.
His & Hers is Prestige Trash – juicy, ludicrous, and not especially airtight. I had a good time with this limited series, but it is righteously unhinged.
Tessa Thompson stars in His & HersCredit: Eli Joshua Ade/Netflix
Moving the rural town setting from England to Georgia in the American south, this adaptation of Alice Feeney’s 2020 novel intermingles mysteries. How does a mother recover from an unimaginable loss? What truly breaks a marriage? Why are newsreaders such devious competitors? And who stabbed Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale) 40 times in the woods late one night and left her body arranged on her luxury sedan’s bonnet? The literary and the pulpy are thoroughly intertwined, although the balance soon starts to favour the latter.
The subsequent investigation is told through two different investigators, who are married but estranged. Anna is the television news reporter looking to reignite her career after a painful leave of absence, while Bernthal’s Jack Harper is the lead police detective. They both knew the victim. And they both suspect the other is more involved than they’re letting on. Should either of them be working on this? Probably not, but questionable decisions are a kind of currency here, spent until they’re exhausted – and it does allow you to second-guess both his and her intentions.
Jon Bernthal as Detective Jack Harper and Tessa Thompson as Anna in His & Hers.
This concise six-parter was developed by English filmmaker William Oldroyd, who specialises in psychological thrillers and helmed Florence Pugh’s 2016 breakthrough Lady Macbeth. He writes and directs multiple episodes, and his touch is notable in discreet ways: the framing of figures in certain shots, for example, has an edge that’s sharp to the touch. But I’m not sure he has a commanding feel for the lurid that surges though His & Hers. The working model is Alfred Hitchcock laced with some Rachel Kushner. The result? A 1990s potboiler.
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Still, it’s clever with its dumbness. You will think you have cracked this long before the rainy night finale, but you are wrong. Plus Thompson and Bernthal sell the relationship between Anna and Jack with more finesse than the set-up allows. They deliver anger, regret, and suspicion so dense that you understand both their former bond and their current estrangement. The story feeds off their compromised reactions – Jack, in particular, is soon out of his depth as a detective with much to hide and a suspicious partner. His & Hers smartly never idles.
Myha’la as Harper in Industry.
Industry ★★★★ (HBO Max)
Despite three impressive seasons, Industry remains the dark horse of HBO Max’s franchises. Set in the brutal world of London high finance, the show’s pleasures have a pessimistic awe. You’re shocked by the lengths some characters go to make it, and you’re shocked by the means some are felled by. It’s emotionally Darwinian: survival of the psychologically toughest. The show’s creators, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, who previously worked in investment banking, use money, sex and betrayal as a means of 20something illumination.
Each season has blown up the foundations it was built on, steadily digging deeper into the show’s fundamentals. The five young graduates introduced in the very first episode are essentially down to two: budding corporate sociopath Harper Stern (Myha’la) and now society wife Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela). Even though both are connected to demanding men – Harper’s corrosive mentor Eric (Ken Leung) and Yasmin’s privileged husband Henry (Kit Harington) – their complex bond has become Industry’s heartbeat.
Even as they add new characters, such as Kal Penn and Max Minghella’s start-up founders, Down and Kay are getting close to the show’s bedrock. Five seasons might be the show’s limit. But even without the claustrophobia of a trading floor physically uniting the characters, Industry marches on. These new episodes are hard-charging and still mostly shorn of sentimentality. This show knows exactly what it’s doing.
Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of Abbott Elementary.Credit: AP
Abbott Elementary ★★★★ (Disney+)
I will just keep banging the drum: Quinta Brunson’s Abbott Elementary, a mockumentary about the staff of a primary school in West Philadelphia, is the best American sitcom of the decade. The fifth season’s first eight episodes are streaming in Australia and the show, like The Office before it, is in the sweet spot of possessing a terrific character mix that allows for flexibility in plotting and interaction. The stakes of teaching in an underfunded public school system always linger behind the cost-cutting gags, adding a touch of defiance to the workplace shenanigans.
Martin Compston and Jing Lusi return in season two of Red Eye. Credit: Laurence Cendrowicz/Bad Wolf/Sony Pictures Television
Red Eye ★★★ (Stan)
What it lacks in depth and plausibility, this British espionage thriller makes up for in sheer velocity and (literal) ticking bomb dilemmas. The second season brings back London police detective Hana Li (Jing Lusi), reluctantly teaming her with protection officer Clay Brody (Martin Compston) in a plot that once again involves a time-sensitive airplane flight. The first season of Red Eye was the Herman’s Hermits to Hijack’s Beatles, but the show’s dedication to its twisty goals, which are now also folding in some 24, is almost sweet. No pretentiousness here.
Dave Bautista and Bobby Cannavale in Trap House.Credit: Prime Video
Trap House ★★½ (Amazon Prime)
American wrestler turned actor Dave Bautista regularly features in science-fiction blockbusters, including Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, but he can’t escape his bread-and-butter gig of familiar action-thrillers. This latest effort has a certain ludicrousness, with a plot involving DEA agents, led by Bautista’s Ray Seale, having to stop their vengeful teenage children taking down drug cartel safe houses, but this is very much a film defined by its competently staged action sequences. Bautista gives his all, but the same cannot be said for Bobby Cannavale as Ray’s partner, Andre Washburn. His performance is boilerplate.
Part Coneheads, part Third Rock from the Sun, this science-fiction comedy is pleasurably absurd.Credit: Disney+
Solar Opposites ★★★½ (Disney+/Netflix)
The vagaries of rights licensing mean that all five seasons of this animated sitcom about an alien family trying to get by on Earth after crash-landing here are available on both Disney+ and Netflix. With its echoes of Coneheads and Third Rock from the Sun, this science-fiction comedy has a pleasurable absurdity and a sly dedication to the bonds of the family unit. The refugees from planet Shlorp are either fascinated with or disgusted by American society, which makes for both a valuable lens for commentary and a starting point for loopy hijinks.
