The 5 Best TV Shows To Binge Right Now

M.I.A. (Peacock)

Jeff Daly/Peacock

The casting director on this show deserves an award for finding an incredible lesser-known talent to play alongside The Princess Bride’s Cary Elwes in this female-driven drama set in the crime rings of Miami. Shannon Gisela is spectacular as Etta Jonze, who has strong reasons why she turns herself from an idiosyncratic boat tour guide into a gun-wielding killer. Fair warning: the violence in this show is brutal. I personally used the fast-forward button because the show underneath is genuinely full of heart and story. It’s got originality, wonderful characters and a complexity that makes your own life seem a little more manageable by comparison. The women are depicted as strong and capable with layered backstories. M.I.A. elevates the cops-and-robbers trope with quirky, comedic characters woven between high-stakes moments. The side stories are as satisfying as the main one.

The House of the Spirits (Prime Video)

Courtesy Prime Video

This eight-episode Spanish-language series is based on Isabel Allende’s beloved novel and tells the story of three generations of women in an unnamed Latin American country, weaving together history, mysticism and the kind of epic storytelling that makes characters feel timeless. It’s gorgeous to watch and holds your interest with a great plot rather than gimmicks. It brings the book to life beautifully and intimately. Part of that intimacy makes sense when you know the book began as a letter Allende wrote to her dying grandfather, drawing from her own family history. Don’t let the trailer’s emphasis on the supernatural make it seem like that’s all it is. At its core, this is a story about women who live boldly and refuse to be erased, despite the men who consistently underestimate them. That feels more relevant than ever right now.

Privilèges (HBO Max)

Caroline Dubois/MAX

If Emily in Paris is your idea of France, this one will be a useful corrective. Privilèges is dark, tightly wound and shot with an almost deliberate lack of glamour, which is interesting given it’s set entirely inside one of Paris’s most luxurious hotels. Adèle, a young woman still technically incarcerated, takes a job as a bellhop through a prison day-release program. She arrives thinking it’s a last chance at a fresh start, only to discover her criminal past and her disposability are exactly why she was hired. Manon Bresch is believable in the role, holding her own inside a world crawling with manipulation, class warfare and people using each other with a smile. This is for viewers who like their European dramas slow-burning and morally complicated. It’s a grittier Paris than on any postcard. There is sex, drugs — and snakes.

The Testaments (Hulu)

Disney

The Handmaid’s Tale felt less like fiction and more like a warning you’d been waiting for someone to say out loud. And The Testaments is the follow-up worth coming back for. Based on Margaret Atwood’s sequel novel, the series picks up several years later, shifting the lens to the young women who have grown up inside Gilead as the privileged daughters of its ruling class, now being groomed to become the wives of its most powerful men. What gives this one its particular sting is the generational weight: these girls are inheriting a world shaped by everything the women before them couldn’t stop. Ann Dowd returns as the deeply complicated Aunt Lydia, a woman who has made her compromises and lives with them. Seeing her from this new angle may be the most unsettling thing the series has to offer. If Atwood’s world still haunts you, this one earns the return trip.