📺 True Detective: Night Country, Tracker, Constellation...

plus The Vince Staples Show, 4 new shows & 3 new movies

Happy Almost Friday. Watched the finale of True Detective: Night Country and have thoughts? We do too. In addition to the review in this newsletter, you can also listen to us discuss the final two episodes in more detail in our most recent podcast episode (available on Apple/Spotify).

Also, just a reminder that you can use the “Share Double Take” link below to share us with 3 friends and get access to future premium Double Take content when they sign up! It’s a win-win <3

In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
The Vince Staples Show (Netflix)
Constellation (Apple TV+)
True Detective: Night Country (HBO/Max)
Tracker (CBS/Paramount+)

— Jess Spoll and Jenni Cullen

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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.

• Avatar the Last Airbender (Season 1) — After waking from a hundred-year sleep, a young boy discovers that he alone can stop a century-long war between four elemental nations. This fantasy adventure is a live-action remake of the popular Nickelodeon animated series of the same name. Let’s hope it fares better than the 2010 film, which was panned by fans.
  Watch on Netflix: February 22 (all 8 episodes)

• Drive-Away Dolls (Movie) — Ethan Coen directs this road-trip comedy about an uninhibited free spirit (Margaret Qualley) and her demure friend who embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals.
  Watch in Theaters: February 23

• Mea Culpa (Movie) — Prolific writer and director Tyler Perry brings us this crime thriller starring Kelly Rowland as a defense attorney who has to uncover whether her cagey-yet-seductive client is telling her the full truth.
  Watch on Netflix: February 23

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (Season 1) — Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira reprise their Walking Dead roles in the latest spinoff from AMC's zombie franchise. This post-apocalyptic installment is all about Rick and Michonne’s continuing love story.
  Watch on AMC/+: February 25 (1 of 6 episodes, then weekly)

• Shogun (Season 1) — This fictionalized version of real events follows two ambitious men from different cultures and a mysterious female samurai in 1600s feudal Japan.
  Watch on Hulu: February 27 (2 of 10 episodes, then weekly)

• Code 8: Part II (Movie) — Real-life cousins Robbie and Stephen Amell star in this sci-fi/action follow-up to 2019’s Code 8. In a city where people with powers are policed and oppressed, an ex-criminal must turn to a drug lord he despises to protect a teen from a corrupt cop.
  Watch on Netflix: February 28

• Elsbeth (Season 1) — Carrie Preston reprises her character from The Good Wife, Elsbeth Tascioni, an unconventional attorney who uses her singular point of view to help the NYPD corner brilliant criminals.
  Watch on CBS/Paramount+: February 29

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Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.

The Vince Staples Show

Photo: Netflix

Keywords: dark comedy, semi-autobiographical, surreal
Watch if you like: Atlanta, Master of None, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Jenni’s Rating: B

The Vince Staples Show is a cheerfully weird and meta dark comedy in which “kind of famous” and “sort of rich” rapper Vince Staples (whom you might also recognize from Abbott Elementary) plays a version of himself navigating everyday life. Consisting of only five, twenty-minute installments, the series is short and sweet and feels almost like an EP of a television series, which is fitting for a musician-turned-actor.

With something as brief as an EP, though, you want the quality to be high throughout even if the pieces are totally diverse. I don’t know that The Vince Staples Show fully achieves that. I absolutely loved the first three episodes. They read like goofier sibling vignettes to Donald Glover’s Atlanta — a little Twin Peaks-y and surreal, but with a cheeky lightness and without the tension. In an interview, Staples once described his life in Long Beach, California as “ghetto Leave it to Beaver,” and the first half of the season totally embodies that energy: Vince is a happy-go-lucky guy even in the face of absurdity, undesirable circumstances, and casual racism.

Unfortunately, the final two episodes don’t share the same rhythm as the rest and succumb to a heightened bizarreness that feels a little off-putting and out of place. It’s a jarring tonal shift that may be purposeful, but also makes the episodes seem like they belong in a different series. There’s more tension, a darker quality, and violence that certainly makes you think, but mainly because of how narratively irregular it is.

There are a lot of great ideas in this show, but these first episodes feel like a mis-matched or unfinished set. Despite a slightly baffling and disappointing end to this season, I would still love to see what Staples can do with another one.

— Jenni

Length: 20-min runtime, 1 season / 5 episodes
Watch on: Netflix

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Constellation

Photo: Apple TV+

Keywords: sci-fi, psychological thriller, puzzle box
Watch if you like: The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, The OA
Jess’s Rating: B-

Apple TV+ has proven itself as the streamer to watch for glossy, high-budget sci-fi shows. Joining the ranks of Severance, Silo, and Foundation (among others), Constellation is a somewhat-promising outer space thriller with elements of psychological horror. The series follows an International Space Station astronaut named Jo (Noomi Rapace) who returns home after surviving a near-death incident in orbit, only to find herself plagued with memory loss and disturbing hallucinations.

As is often the case with ATV+, they’ve chosen to release only 3 of the 8 episodes of this season so far, with the remainder premiering weekly. I think that’s typically a questionable move, but it is especially here, with a puzzle-box series that takes 3 episodes to even establish what questions we’re searching for answers to. With a plot that bounces between two timelines and is led by multiple unreliable narrators, there’s a lot to wrap your head around.

Despite keeping me in a near-constant state of confusion, there is enough intrigue and suspense in these episodes to keep me wanting more. The scenes in space are tense and thrilling, the horror elements keep you on edge, and there is clearly a conspiracy to unravel. While I wish these introductory episodes had done a little more to show why we should care about Jo and her plight, I have hope that this series will strengthen over time.

— Jess

Length: 55-min runtime, 1 season / 3 of 8 episodes available, new on Wednesdays
Watch on: Apple TV+

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True Detective: Night Country

Photo: HBO

Keywords: crime drama, horror, supernatural
Watch if you like: Twin Peaks, Fargo, Mare of Easttown