📺 Watching: Boy Swallows Universe, Death and Other Details
plus 3 revisited picks, 1 new series, and an upcoming movie
Hi again. A lot of folks are expecting snow this weekend, which means plenty of time to cozy up with your hot beverage of choice and make a dent in January’s latest releases. Take your pick of dark comedies, murder mysteries, monsters, and more — there’s a lot to check out these days!
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
Boy Swallows Universe (Netflix)
Death and Other Details (Hulu)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Apple TV+)
The Curse (Paramount+ with Showtime)
Fargo - Season 5 (Hulu)
— Jess Spoll and Jenni Cullen
First time reading? Subscribe to receive Double Take weekly.
We keep an eye on all of the new streaming content that is set to premiere. Here’s a list of new shows and movies to watch this week.
The Woman in the Wall (Limited Series) — Starring Ruth Wilson (His Dark Materials) and Daryl McCormack (Bad Sisters), this psychological thriller follows an Irish woman who wakes one morning to find a dead body in her house with no recollection of how it got there or if she’s responsible.
Watch on Showtime: January 19 (1 of 6 episodes, then weekly)The Kitchen (Movie) — Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) directs this sci-fi drama set in a dystopian future in London in which the gap between the wealthy and poor has grown unfathomably wide.
Watch on Netflix: January 19
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
Boy Swallows Universe
Keywords: nostalgic, dark, coming-of-age drama
Watch if you like: The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Reservation Dogs, Blood & Water
Jenni’s Rating: B+
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel, this Australian limited series follows precocious Eli Bell and his selectively mute brother on their suburban odyssey to find love and retribution after their family is torn apart by a drug lord.
While I am very familiar with Australian comedies at this point, I am not well-versed in the dramatic repertoire from “down under.” I should’ve guessed that a country that produces such poignant, heartbreaking comedies would provide darkly emotional gut punches in spades for its dramas, but I was not fully prepared for this gripping, authentic, at times hard-to-watch series.
Boy Swallows Universe features scene after scene of violence, abuse, drug dealing, and addiction, but through the eyes of young Eli almost everything seems like a thrilling part of a sun-drenched adventure. He’s so upbeat and pure in his love for his mother (played by Phoebe Tonkin) and brother Gus (Lee Halley) that watching the harsh realities of life filtered through his innocent lens is all the more tragic.
But while there is certainly darkness throughout the series, there is also light — most notably in the ways the Bell family sticks up for one another and in the way the boys hold fast to each other and their friends. Felix Cameron as young Eli is exceptional, but the entire cast handles the story’s balance beautifully and had me laughing, crying, and nervously hiding my eyes from one minute to the next. I was fully sucked into the shabby suburbs of 80s Brisbane by these fantastic portrayals and an excellent production to match.
I can’t say Boy Swallows Universe will be for everyone, but if you’re willing to stomach a bit of grit and have your heart broken a time or two, this series is an electric, unpredictable experience that I definitely recommend.
— Jenni
Length: 60-min runtime, 1 season / 7 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
Death and Other Details
Keywords: murder mystery, drama, locked room
Watch if you like: Knives Out, Death on the Nile, Only Murders in the Building
Jenni’s Rating: B-
The latest locked-room murder mystery to hit your streaming services stars none other than national treasure, Mandy Patinkin (The Princess Bride)! But instead of vengeance from a six fingered man, this time he’s seeking clues as the world’s once greatest — now disgraced? — detective.
Death and Other Details follows a young woman who winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time aboard an ocean liner filled with the wealthy and powerful. Suddenly the prime suspect of a grisly murder, she must partner with a man she despises, Detective Rufus Cotesworth (Patinkin), to prove her innocence.
This series is for the Agatha Christie lovers, no doubt about it. Patinkin’s underlying narration throughout the first two episodes practically begs viewers to grab a pen and paper and form theories themselves. Suspicious coincidences about the ship’s crew and passengers as well as an obvious divide between two wealthy families on board lay early groundwork for fun investigative dynamics. Everyone on the ocean liner is hiding something and virtually anyone could be the culprit.
While a catchy hook is good, it’s not enough. So much of my enjoyment of locked-room mysteries relies on those gripping and convincing twists and turns that lead to a satisfying reveal by the end. Too often a promising start is squandered when the rest of the story is bogged down by messy misdirects and I’m hoping that won’t be the case with Death and Other Details. So far, I’m intrigued enough by the cast of characters and the mysterious murder motive to want to watch more of this case unfold, but with only two episodes available, it’s difficult to gauge how entertaining and successful the series will be as a whole.
— Jenni
Length: 60-min runtime, 1 season / 2 of 10 episodes out, new on Tuesdays
Watch on: Hulu
We reviewed a show in its early days on air. Now that we’ve watched more of it, would we change our initial rating?
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Keywords: monsters, mystery, action, adventure
Watch if you like: Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla vs. Kong
Jess’s Original Rating: C+ (Read original review here)
Jess’s Updated Rating: B
At first, this was as enjoyable as a mindless monster movie — a decent way to pass the time, if nothing else. As things progressed, though, the series became more compelling, with an ensemble of interesting characters and some very cool world-building.
One of my issues initially was that the series introduced many players, but didn’t do a lot to make the viewer care about them. I just needed to trust the process. The two timelines interweave in an unexpected way, creating emotional complexity that I never could have predicted. The last episode had me legitimately weeping. Casting Kurt and Wyatt Russell as past and present versions of the same character was an inspired bit of casting that doesn’t feel gimmicky, and Mari Yamamoto delivers probably the best performance that I’ve ever seen within monster-centered entertainment. Monarch isn’t life-changing television, but it’s a lot better than I originally gave it credit for.
— Jess
Length: ~45-min runtime, 1 season / 10 episodes
Watch on: Apple TV+
The Curse
Keywords: Nathan Fielder, faux documentary, cringe humor, satire
Watch if you like: The Rehearsal, Uncut Gems, Mulholland Drive
Jess’s Original Rating: B+ (Read original review here)
Jess’s Updated Rating: A-
Originally, I’d described The Curse as peak cringe comedy; it is, but this series contains multitudes. What Safdie and Fielder have created is entirely original, experimental, and genre-bending. By delving into the psyches of its deeply flawed central characters, Whitney (Emma Stone) and Asher (Nathan Fielder), the series holds up a mirror to a myriad of societal afflictions: the home renovation industrial complex, gentrification, virtue signaling, appropriation, and more.
Eschewing a traditional plot structure, the series flits between a handful of focuses, all orbiting Whitney and Asher. This character-driven nature gives Stone and Fielder the chance to flex their acting abilities, and they both knock it out of the park. The ending is exceptionally strange, and is left open to interpretation, and I love it for taking that risk. I fully recognize that this show won’t be for everyone, but I found it mesmerizing and refreshing.
— Jess
Length: 60-min runtime, Limited Series / 10 episodes
Watch on: Paramount+ with Showtime
Fargo - Season 5
Keywords: dark comedy, absurdism, anthology series
Watch if you like: Fargo (the movie), Twin Peaks, Barry
Jess’s Original Rating: A (Read original review here)
Jess’s Updated Rating: B+
From the beginning, the best thing about this installment of Fargo was the performances, and that remains true. Juno Temple is both vulnerable and kick-ass as a housewife with a secret, Jennifer Jason Leigh is hilarious as a scenery-chewing matriarch, and Jon Hamm draws on his years of playing cocky assholes to portray a sheriff who thinks he’s above the law. They’re joined by an equally talented supporting cast, with not a single person phoning it in.
Fargo (the movie) is known for its darkly comedic tone, and the show has always sought to emulate that. The first scene in this season, as I described in my original review, is peak dark comedy. As this season goes on, though, it becomes something more straightforward and predictable, less comically offbeat. The not-so-subtle themes — Trump’s America is scary and the patriarchy is dangerous — take front and center, with the Coen-esque bits mostly shoved aside. But the back half of the finale returns to form; the last scenes are as wonderfully bizarre as ever. While I wish a few of the middle episodes had been less somber, in the end we get something that more closely resembles the “Fargo-verse” that we’re accustomed to.
— Jess
Length: 45-min runtime, 5 seasons / 10 episodes in each (Each season is a standalone story)
Watch on: FX/Hulu
If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so that more people can discover us on Substack :)