Divorced parents. Housewives getting high in the restrooms of the restaurant. Actresses in emotional misery because of an industry that didn't know how to take care of them. People capable of bleeding from the nose after tasting a drop of alcohol. Friendships that make you a better person and sisters that make you a monster. Entire humanities closed in a bunker of more than a hundred floors without an elevator. And superheroes who have the ability to create at will with a sphincter that works like a 3D printer. It cannot be said that, taking stock of the first half of the year, television has not had the ability to surprise, fascinate, disturb and make the viewer fall in love.
A hot and humid summer in New York. A doctor (Jesse Eisenberg) who, after getting divorced, believes that he will live a few months of sex with no strings attached and no obligations. But, when his wife (Claire Danes) doesn't pick up her children, this new bachelorhood is complicated. The creator Taffy Brodesser-Akner tries to transfer her own literary language to the audiovisual with sophistication and an adult look at human relationships that it is impossible not to compare with Woody Allen with Manhattan as a setting and the Judaism of her protagonist. Fleishman's unexpected reflection on empathy is in trouble caps off an astonishing piece of work that could land Danes her fourth Emmy.
Claudia Costafreda and Ana Rujas had the impossible mission of maintaining the level with the second season of Cardo, the series about María, an actress fallen from grace and addicted. Now, after being released from prison, the character must face the anxiety of rebuilding a life that was already in ruins before the motorcycle accident in the first season. The creators complement each other to convey existential anxiety, working from color, music, metaphor, Rujas' look as an actress, a recognizable society and using Catholicism both conceptually and aesthetically. What a trip.
When taking a look at the first few episodes of Everybody Loves Daisy Jones, your instinct is to blurt out, "Not bad." No more. It doesn't help that the title Daisy, played by Riley Keough, remains plot-wise separate from Sam Claflin's character Billy Dunne's gang. But this story about musical creation in the seventies and how the sexual tension between two artists serves both for creation and destruction conquers episode after episode due to the construction of characters and a Daisy as magnetic as the character played by Camila Morrone, the another woman in Billy's life. The music of the fictional Daisy Jones and the Six is the perfect treat to keep you from getting out of an admiration loop.
The Mantle sisters are two brilliant gynecologists. Beverly treats pregnant women exemplary, making sure not to treat them as if they are not pregnant while offering them the best medical service, and Elliot achieves miracles in the field of assisted reproduction in the laboratory, even if it means defying the laws established by the medical community. But when they decide to open a revolutionary women's care center and Beverly finds a partner, their dependency-based relationship falters with unpredictable consequences.
The merit of Alice Birch is to take David Cronenberg's Inseparable film as a reference and give it layers and more layers of reflections around women's health, obstetric violence and the claim of women beyond the role of caregiver that a sector of the world assigns to them. current feminism. The aesthetic look, moreover, is total: the red wardrobe, the cold home of the Mantles, the sound, the shots of meat essence, a montage that conveys the despair of the characters in the final stretch until taking the viewer himself to the limit. It is a feast for both the senses and the brain.
Mireia and Joana Vilapuig, who became known in productions such as Herois and Polseres vermelles, discovered that starting strong was not synonymous with having the industry's doors open. This spring they returned with an exercise in autofiction where the viewer cannot know to what extent they are talking about themselves or the versions that they themselves have written. They very well play the card that they are well known enough to have their faces ring out to the audience but not so well known that they know their private lives.
The result of Selftape is a calm, emotionally raw work that exudes truth with each episode and, against all odds due to the tone of the story, a hopeful ending for the Vilapuigs: after being ostracized as they grow older, it is their turn to shine.
To see Somebody somewhere, as we publish, is to love yourself. In a television landscape where stories and production values feel that they must surprise due to their supply and competitiveness, this HBO Max comedy proposes two charismatic but very ordinary people in a seedy town. And, with this starting point, naturalness, friendship, affection for small things, admiration for mundane existences, the pain of mourning and the need to have people with whom to cope with it, the vindication of the rare in a normative society, overflows. . It is a song to life.
Camille Léger (Fleur Greffier) is traumatized by a childhood in which her father trained her nose and palate to be the best winemaker in the world, like him. Due to circumstances to be determined, however, she has not seen him for twenty years when she dies. If Camille wants to inherit her father's mansion and winery, valued at more than 150 million, she will have to face Issei Tomine (Tomohisa Yamashita), Mr. Léger's best student, in a tense competition: they must guess three wines selected by the deceased in three tests.
Describing God's Drops as a family drama, as both Camille and Issei must come to terms with their past and their parents' actions, would be an understatement. Above all, it is a psychological work, which finds an agile way of translating the universe of smells and flavors into audiovisuals, and which does not renounce entertainment resources while developing two characters to frame. A work for all palates.
Carlos Montero, author of Elite, must be recognized for his gift of entertainment and of being in contact with that drama of youthful feelings. In All the Times We Fall in Love, after exploring his more frivolous spirit with the students of Las Encinas, he becomes nostalgic for the university stage. Here Irene (Georgina Amorós) and Julio (Franco Masini) are two people with an unmistakable sexual and romantic tension who, despite falling in love almost at first sight, will spend decades crossing each other, beginning, leaving but above all understanding each other.
The secret of the series, for the record, is the portrayal of the characters and the dynamics between all of them, highlighting Carlos González and Blanca Martínez in a cast completed by Albert Salazar. To know them is to love them and, taking into account that Netflix has not renewed the series, it also means cursing the platform for not producing more encounters for them.
Sylvia (Rose Byrne) enters a crisis when she realizes that her role as a mother is no longer as rewarding and, instead, she gave up her professional career to care for them. So when he reconnects with his lifelong best friend, Will (Seth Rogen), who has no obligations beyond producing craft beer, the perfect storm breaks out: the two motivate each other to get out of your comfort zone, giving a hilarious result. Not since My Best Friend's Wedding, which Byrne just happened to be on, hasn't seen such a fun stoned scene on the screen.
From half an hour to half, Platonic wins you over with its humorous take on a mid-life crisis.
And, speaking of the conflicts of adult life, Bronca is another comedy that portrays them perfectly. Danny (Steven Yeun) struggles to get his contracting business off the ground, and Amy (Ali Wong) is overwhelmed by having to maintain a facade of success as she closes a deal with a wayward millionairess. When their paths cross in a parking lot, a stupid and superficial enmity is born that both use to exorcise all the anger, anxiety and frustration they dare not express in their own lives.
Lee Sung Jin writes a series that, without ever abandoning comedy, feeds on tension: it is the rage of the characters looking for any excuse to send everything to hell. And, if someone watches the first episodes and thinks that this level cannot be maintained throughout the season, they can rest easy. The ending is extraordinary, coherent and even provokes one of the most honest and angry laughs that the viewer will remember. It is ideal for those who feel run over by life.
On British soil, the surprise comes from Extraordinary, a superhero comedy. Jen (Máiréad Tyers) is the only person without special abilities in her environment where literally everyone has something that makes them special, be it extraordinary strength, going back in time for a few seconds or the ability to shit objects as if the sphincter were a printer. 3D. It is an absurd plot with some very well written character arcs, which knows how to build episodic plots and jokes, and which moves cunningly due to the sometimes unrealizable desire to feel special.
Graham Yost, who wrote Justified, this time goes underground to tell the day to day of a humanity that lives without seeing the light of day. There are around 10,000 people in a bunker: they have no idea why the outside is uninhabitable, who built that underground fortification or what the history of their community is. For reasons that are soon understood to have to do with the control of society and not with technological possibilities, they don't even have an elevator to move around the 144 floors.
Silo, which serves as a reading of the vulnerability of society when knowledge is controlled and the teaching of history itself is prevented, surprises with its narrative courage in the first episodes by deceiving the viewer. And, once he stabilizes, he takes on an aroma of a dystopian western with Rebecca Ferguson as an improbable sheriff and who, when appropriate, shocks the viewer with the brutalist imaginary.
