Great TV to kill your late-summer ennui

'This Fool', 'The Resort', and 'Paper Girls' prove the sun never goes down on streaming

Usually I kick off one of these… at this point *clockwork* absences with some long-winded apolog-ation (that’s an apology x explanation, the ultimate collab) but in a stab at “self-care,” which everyone from Jonah Hill to Ezra Miller is promoting this week, I’m just going to skip it. Anyway, no one cares!

Hark. Dost thou heareth?

‘Tis the faint chimes of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” about to make its triumphant/horrifying return to the speakers of CVS, Target, and Wal-Mart. That’s right, fam! Fall is JUST around the corner, which means the end of summer. And what a summer it’s been! From monkeypox to ‘Top Gun’, historic drought to Dirty Shirleys, Summer 2K22 had something for everybody.

But with the Hypehouses covering their pools and Europe closing its borders to Instagrammers for the season, we’re all beginning to ponder our hibernation routines. And you know what that means: TV, and copious amounts of it!

‘House of the Dragon’ has of course flown onto HBO and everyone you know, including your grandmother’s live-in boyfriend, has now told you to watch ‘The Bear’. But maybe you’re looking for something a little less think-pieced to death? Something with more off-the-beaten path energy? My friend… I have gone down that path, and I return bearing RECS.

This Fool (Hulu)

Funniest show of the summer, hands-down, and that includes ‘Harley Quinn’ and ‘What We Do in the Shadows’, both of which more than hold their own in their advanced seasons (three and four, respectively) but feel to some extent like they’ve now read, absorbed, and weaponized the cultural conversation they’ve generated to the point that you’re not just watching a show, you’re watching a show conversing with itself about what shows are. ‘This Fool’ on the other hand arrives with no meta-textual baggage, just impeccable joke-writing and a window to the LA Mexican-American experience that never sacrifices story for political points.

The gist: Julio (show creator Chris Estrada) works for Hugs Not Thugs, an LA prisoner rehabilitation program much like Homeboy Industries, and becomes his cousin Luis's (Frankie Quinones) case manager upon his parole. Julio is an uptight control freak, by his own admission a “punk-ass bitch”; Luis is a blustering man-child, emotionally stuck in 1997, desperate to prove his masculinity wherever possible. Would you believe that this odd couple pairing gets into wacky hijinks??

On top of Estrada and Quinones’ effortlessly funny dynamic, the show managed to snag Michael “Christufah” Imperioli for a surprisingly meaty role as Minister Payne, the head of Hugs Not Thugs. Does he scream “muuuuttthhaaaa fuccckkaaaa!” at some point? Of course he does, he’s the Once and Forever Chrissy Moltisanti. Expertly deployed here, alongside one or two other guest stars who only add to the South LA¹ world without distracting from it.

The Resort (Peacock)

In a perfect world, this would have premiered on NBC (not Peacock) in early July, heralding the glorious intersection of ‘Palm Springs’, ‘High Maintenance’, and ‘Mr. Robot’ (not to mention the wildly undersung acting chops of Cristin Milioti and William Jackson Harper). But that didn’t happen! I will attempt to correct NBC-Universal’s marketing mistakes now.

‘The Resort’ is nominally about a young married couple on vacation, spark dwindling, whose relationship is reinvigorated when they stumble on an old cell phone in the jungle that re-opens a missing persons case. You’ve got a little ‘Only Murders in the Building’ there, a little ‘White Lotus’. (Like I said, this should have been easy as shit to market!)

The show manages to take high-concept stuff — multi-timeline mysteries! A character suffering from “memory leakage”! — and ground it in the beautiful mundanity of life, which if you’ve seen ‘Palm Springs’ will feel very familiar (‘The Resort’ was created by that movie’s writer, Andy Siara). I can understand not getting on this show’s very particular wavelength, but if any of the references above do work for you… fire this one up.

Paper Girls (Amazon)

Amazon is possibly the worst mainstream streamer (mainstreamer), so it’s understandable if not only have you not watched this show, you’ve never heard of it in the first place. Based on a Brian K. Vaughan comic book series² about four time-traveling 1980's newspaper delivery girls, 'Paper Girls' is... about four time-traveling 1980's newspaper delivery girls. It's a science-fiction show, to start, as the girls jump to 2019 and then back to 1999, interacting with their older selves all while trying to right the timeline they've flubbed by jumping through it. But it's ALSO a sometimes heartbreaking story of dashed expectations, contending with life's obstacles and revelations, and the degree to which we have any agency over who we become.

It’s not a perfect show, even in an eight episode first season. Three-dimensional characterization gives way to occasional girl-boss speechifying, and the sci-fi elements — from CGI that makes an already cheap-looking show look even cheaper to a terribly miscast Jason Mantzoukas — feel at this point perfunctory at best. Still, the core humanity rings true, and there’s enough going right here to imagine a tighter, more confident season two.

Better Call Saul (AMC / Netflix)

This one’s a cheat because 1. it’s completely over now and 2. could hardly be considered “off-the-beaten-path,” descended as it is from one of the most celebrated (and memed!) shows of the mid-aughts, but ‘Better Call Saul’ stuck the landing in a way few others have of late — with such narrative and emotional clarity that I’m tempted to begin an immediate, almost grad study rewatch of the whole series.

It’s just so thoughtful, this show, and I don’t mean that in the strict thematic sense. ‘BCS’ has… lighting, shot composition, visual references no one’s beating you over the head to acknowledge but whose presence only deepens the story they’re supporting. Every camera move is considered; every frame adds up. It’s a TV show that makes you feel smarter watching it, something really highlighted for me when I tried to watch the latest episode of ‘Industry’, a show that makes you feel dumber (and hornier!), right after. It’s possible ‘BCS’ has ruined me for all “prestige dramas” to follow.

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So there you go! Four unique shows, all stamped with the Hendog Seal of Approval™️ and ready to binge provided the right combination of logins. If you happen to think these TV recommendations are ass, let me know in the comments! But I’ll only engage if you watched remembering to do these three things:

1. put your phone away

2. pay attention

1. Thank you reader @omgbren for correcting my geography here!! I’d originally written East LA when ‘This Fool’ very clearly takes place in SOUTH LA

2. Most reviews will tell you ‘Paper Girls’ is “based on a graphic novel,” which I suppose is not technically incorrect but misses the distinction between “monthly installments, now collected” and “released from the jump as one story.” I will not let nerd-dom be gentrified so easily!