📺 Watching: The Decameron, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder...
'Industry' and 'Shoresy', plus 2 new movies & 3 series to watch this week
Happy August! It’s been a wonderful week for watching the Olympics, what with the the rise of a new superhero in Pommel Horse Guy as well as big wins for U.S. teams in gymnastics, rugby, and swimming. There was also that Brazilian athlete who got a nearly perfect score in surfing and this insane photo of the “dismount”!? I love the Olympics, I hope it never ends.
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
The Decameron (Netflix)
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (Netflix)
Shoresy (Hulu)
Industry (Max)
— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll
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Below is a selection of new shows and movies premiering this week. Our full list of August releases, including theatrical releases and streaming debuts, is available here and published monthly for our premium subscribers.
Tarot (Movie) — Avantika stars in this supernatural horror film about a group of friends who violate the sacred rule of Tarot readings and unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards.
Watch on Netflix: August 1 (Streaming Premiere)Unstable (Season 2) — In this workplace comedy, the son of an unstable biotech CEO joins his father’s company to save it and his father from ruin. The series stars Rob Lowe and his son John Owen Lowe.
Watch on Netflix: August 1 (all 8 episodes)A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (Season 1) — Based on the novel of the same name by Holly Jackson, this YA mystery-thriller revolves around a 17-year-old girl who investigates the disappearance of a fellow student.
Watch on Netflix: August 1 (all 6 episodes)Batman: Caped Crusader (Season 1) — Set in the 1940s, this new animated series is the latest to tell the story of Bruce Wayne and his masked vigilantism. Hamish Linklater voices the titular superhero and is joined by McKenna Grace, Jamie Chung, and Christina Ricci.
Watch on Prime Video: August 1 (all 10 episodes)Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Movie) — Set nearly 300 years after the events of the previous Planet of the Apes trilogy, this new installment follows the continuity of its predecessors but sets up a new story about a chimpanzee hunter on a harrowing journey to determine the future for apes and humans alike.
Watch on Hulu: August 2 (Streaming Premiere)
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
The Decameron
Keywords: medieval, dark comedy, farcical
Watch if you like: The Great, Into the Woods, Miracle Workers
Jenni’s Rating: B+
Loosely based on Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century collection of short stories, The Decameron takes us back to the time of the Black Death in Florence, where a group of young nobles and their servants escape to the Tuscan countryside to wait out the plague in luxurious isolation. It’s chaotic, joyful, and rude, and probably the most interesting content I’ve seen on Netflix this year.
While inspired by a classic medieval text, this series is quite irreverent and shrewd, playing fast and loose with the source material. Blending historical drama with dark comedy that often borders on farce, The Decameron is both thought-provoking and entertaining. Early on, the show cleverly juxtaposes the opulence and frivolity of the nobles' lives with the grim reality of the plague outside — highlighting the absurdity and fragility of human existence in a way that feels resonant with current events.
Adding to the series’s zany, genre-hopping energy is a capable cast and a killer soundtrack. Zosia Mamet (Girls), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), Tony Hale (Arrested Development), and Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls) in particular give standout performances, but there’s really not a dud to be found in the whole ensemble. Meanwhile, the music choices are bold and unexpected, much like the series itself, and an upbeat mix of rock and electronic pop works to great effect in setting the mood and amplifying emotional beats.
Though I clearly love the vibe and premise of this series, the show is not without faults. Toward the middle of the season, the pacing begins to drag a lot and the episodes feel long and lacking in focus. Rather than eight, hour-long episodes,The Decameron might have benefitted from a higher volume of shorter installments to tighten up the story beats. Despite the sluggish midsection, though, I remained invested enough to push through and enjoy the ending, however esoteric and open-ended it was.
Ultimately, The Decameron is a must-watch for those who appreciate smart, irreverent storytelling and are desperate for something different. If nothing else, the series will remind you that no matter how much you try to distance yourself from reality, death comes for us all! It’s both terrifying and freeing, no?
— Jenni
Length: 45-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
Keywords: mystery, thriller, suspense
Watch if you like: Cruel Summer, Riverdale, Fool Me Once
Jess’s Rating: B-
Holly Jackson’s bestselling novel, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, is one of the few thrillers that I’ve rated 5 stars. While not transcendent literature, it delivers what many mysteries fail to: unpredictable twists and interesting characters. As a lover of the source material, I consider it a compliment that I found this series adaptation serviceable. While I experienced no real suspense or surprise — as I remembered all the coming twists from the book — I think someone new to the story would find it compelling enough to watch through.
For the uninitiated, Emma Myers (Wednesday) plays Pip Fitz-Amobi, a precocious high school student who decides to reinvestigate the five-year-old murder case of a peer for a school project. As she dives deeper into the mystery, she uncovers a web of secrets that threatens to disrupt her small town’s idyllic facade. Along the way, she befriends Ravi, the brother of the original murder suspect, as they work to clear his name.
The best part of the novel is the characterization of Pip, and while Myers is certainly a talented actress, some of Pip’s sparkle is lost in translation. Ravi, too, is blander here and has less chemistry with Pip on screen. While the characters and setting aren’t far from what I pictured while reading, it all seems slightly dimmed, as though the high-key teenage emotions of the book’s characters have been sanded down.
As far as pacing goes, the series does a good job of revealing new twists along the way to keep viewers hooked. It’s hard for me to weigh in on the execution of the twists objectively, but the plotting seems impressively tight and the revelations impactful. Even knowing what was going to happen, I happily binged all 6 episodes in one sitting.
While not the most impressive or ground-breaking whodunit series, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is decently crafted and compulsively watchable. It’s a mature take on the teen detective story, with enough grit and complexity to satisfy older viewers while still appealing to the target demographic. Be prepared to watch this all at once — it’s sure to grip you.
— Jess
Length: 40-min runtime, 1 Season / 6 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
Where we choose a recent-ish show that we enjoyed (or a show that is returning soon) to review and feature.
Shoresy
Keywords: sports, underdog comedy, crass but wholesome
Watch if you like: Letterkenny, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Schitt’s Creek
Jenni’s Rating: B+
Shoresy is an underdog sports comedy, both in-world and out. Never did I think I would be charmed by such a foul-mouthed, eccentric sitcom about hockey, but this Letterkenny spinoff may be converting me. The premise is simple: a crass and big-talking hockey player who goes by the name of Shoresy (Jared Keeso, also the show’s writer and creator) has just started playing for the Sudbury Bulldogs, a struggling semi-pro team in Ontario. When the owner Nat (Tasya Teles) threatens to fold the team, Shoresy begs for another chance, claiming that with a few changes, they will never lose again.
Thus we have our underdogs: a team of misfit players cobbled together with Shoresy-approved “ringers”. But unlike sympathetic sports dramas that immediately get viewers on the team’s side, the style of this series takes some time to settle into. It comes out swinging — crass, silly, repetitive, and a bit manic in a way that is initially annoying. I even found the main character’s voice unbearably grating at the start. But then around episode 4 of the first season, something magical happened. All of a sudden, I found myself grinning at the characters’ idiosyncrasies and laughing out loud at cleverly maneuvered callbacks. With the addition of a light romantic subplot, growing camaraderie between the new teammates, and underlying themes of redemption and community, Shoresy reveals surprising heart beneath its rough exterior.
So far, I’ve only seen the first two seasons, but I’ve really come to appreciate and admire the masterful mix of high- and low-brow humor that Shoresy balances episode after episode. The banter, if profanity-filled, is quick and clever, like if the Gilmore Girls spent a season huffing glue and getting concussions from fights on the rink. Against all odds, the show has managed to hook me and keep me engaged with its blend of absurdity and genuine emotion.
If you’re in the mood to give a new sitcom a chance (and you're not easily offended by crude language and humor), Shoresy is definitely worth a watch. It may take a few episodes to fully appreciate its charm, but once you do, you'll find yourself eagerly rooting for this ragtag team of hockey players and the oddball world they inhabit.
— Jenni
Length: 25-min runtime 3 seasons / 18 episodes
Watch on: Hulu
Industry
Keywords: drama, finance, high stakes
Watch if you like: Succession, Skins, Euphoria
Jess’s Rating: B+
With the third season premiering next week, I finally got around to binge watching Industry, the British-American series about young financial analysts in London. If you haven’t already seen it, there are only two seasons to catch up on, and it might just fill the Succession-sized hole in your heart.
Set in the cutthroat world of investment banking, Industry is a fast-paced, sex-and-drugs filled look at the lives of young grads vying for permanent positions at a prestigious company in London. Each harboring their own motivations and secrets, this cohort is unrelenting (and frequently two-faced) in pursuit of their goals. At the center of the storm is Harper (Myha’la Herrold, Bodies Bodies Bodies), an American outsider with a questionable pedigree.
Drawing from their own experiences in finance, creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay capture the chaos and egotism of that workplace with an authenticity that’s both fascinating and slightly terrifying. The trading floor scenes are a cacophony of unintelligible financial jargon and high-stakes decisions, and while the specifics of the deals are lost on me, the gravity of each win and loss is clear.
While the plot and setting are reminiscent of Succession, the vibe of the series reminds me more of Skins or Euphoria in that it doesn’t shy away from the excess and debauchery that comes with being young and having access to wealth and power. Sex, drugs, and alcohol flow freely — sometimes in over-abundance — but it all serves as a depiction of life behind the glossy facade of high finance.
If you’re looking for a straightforward financial drama, this isn’t it. But if you’re willing to invest in a series that’s a raw and gritty and sometimes uncomfortable look at he price of ambition, Industry might pay off.
— Jess
Length: 60-min runtime, 2 seasons / 16 episodes total
Watch on: HBO / Max
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