
Nothing in this world is as enjoyable as getting home, opening the Netflix app, and binge-watching a favorite show after a long and hard day at work or in college. But sometimes you might face a major problem – not knowing what to watch or having just too many plans. Fear not, dear reader, as this article will help you solve this problem by picking out some great shows for you.
The Night Agent
The CIA-based action thriller has garnered more than 660 million hours of streaming since its March 23 debut. Unlike many conspiracy-by-numbers shows, which get forgotten almost immediately, this one has plenty of supporting characters (as well as star Gabriel Basso) that give it heft.
Along with Basso, the series features a cast of familiar faces like Homecoming’s Alexi Hawley, Yellowjackets’ Sarah Desjardins, Riverdale Season 4’s Phoenix Raei, and The Whale’s Hong Chau. But it’s the latter who really brings the series to life, giving an even-tempered problem solver a sense of depth and vulnerability that elevates her above the stereotypical.
In addition to the main plotline about a mole in the White House, The Night Agent has several subplots involving corrupt officials and covert operations. And while it doesn’t quite hit the stopwatch urgency of 24, it’s still fast-paced enough to keep hard-core thriller fans on their toes. So if you still have not watched this series, be sure to finish all your chores, deal with study issues with the help of a trusted free paper writing service and have some spare time for yourself to do it.
Schitt’s Creek
The show’s creator, Dan Levy, describes it as “a queer fantasy,” a story of a family that loses everything and finds warmth, meaning, and love in an unexpected place. It’s also a riches-to-rags narrative, but one with the added bonus that each character in the Rose household inspires their own foil—a local businesswoman, a struggling soap opera actor, a sleazy publicist—to become better.
After losing their fortune in a fraud scheme, Johnny and Moira Rose (Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara) are forced to move from their luxury mansion into a roadside motel called Schitt’s Creek, which Johnny once bought on a lark for his daughters. From there, the comedy follows their attempts to make this tiny town a home. The result is a funny, poignant series that swept the 2020 Emmy Awards. You can watch all six seasons on Netflix. The first season is a little shaky, but things pick up quickly in next ones.
Black Mirror
Charlie Brooker’s sci-fi anthology series has earned critical praise and a cult following with its dark, thought-provoking stories about the perils of technology. Each episode is like a modern take on The Twilight Zone, with its own unique twist. Black Mirror’s messages aren’t always subtle, and its characters tend to be slightly more flawed than we might think.
For instance, in season two’s “Be Right Back,” a woman regrets her decision to let AI reconstruct her deceased partner, revealing the yawning gap between human flaws and the uncanny ability of technology to try and mimic them. Other episodes examine the dangers of social media and the pitfalls of virtual reality.
And then there’s the season five episode “Bandersnatch,” which resembled one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books and allowed viewers to chart the fate of its characters. It was a creative and well-suited gimmick, but it also underscored the fact that we might not be ready for some of the futures depicted in this series.
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale is a futuristic dystopia set in a totalitarian theocracy that has overthrown the United States and whose government controls women through a narrative that combines religious authority with traditional values. The series focuses on Offred, the narrator and one of many “handmaids” employed to produce children for the commander class in exchange for their basic economic survival.
The show features a range of characters, from the oppressed to the complicit, each suffering for their own reasons. For example, the aunts and Serena Joy are horribly corrupt, while Offred is largely complicit because she loves her commander and wants to keep her daughter.
Even so, Offred finds some form of resistance within herself. Her sex with Nick and her trip to Jezebel’s are examples of this. The show also depicts an organized resistance movement against Gilead and a network of women that smuggles escaped handmaids into Canada, much like the Underground Railroad did for runaway black slaves in the 1800s.
The Good Wife
Whether it was a procedural that transcended its genre, a drama that tackled real-world issues with nuanced aplomb, or a complicated woman who wouldn’t apologize for the way she lived, The Good Wife made a lasting mark not just on network TV but on the greater landscape. The show tackled everything from drones and their effect on privacy to the complications of Bitcoin with aplomb. It humanized the NSA’s eavesdropping while demonstrating that Chicago’s Homan Square was more than just a backdrop. The Good Wife also gave Alicia a powerful relationship with her firm’s stoic investigator Kalinda, who was openly bisexual and had a cynical, misanthropic outlook on human behavior.
The Good Wife’s story is rooted in political corruption and personal redemption. Alicia’s husband, Peter, was convicted of soliciting prostitutes but was eventually cleared and returned to politics, where he ran for governor of Illinois. The series also explored the doubts that plague systems of law and morality.
House of Cards
Since its debut in 2013, Netflix’s slick political potboiler has pushed boundaries and shocked viewers. Its ruthless duo of Frank Underwood and Claire conspire to lie, manipulate, and murder their way up the ladder. The show eschews the sappy, sanctimonious feel of most Beltway dramas and instead focuses on raw, nihilistic politics that are as sexy as brutal.
But after the series’ star Kevin Spacey was fired from the role of Frank after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced, House of Cards had to shift gears to keep its audience engaged. Showrunners Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson opted to turn the spotlight on Claire, played by Robin Wright, who carries on with the Underwoods’ cutthroat, venal politics.
While the series hasn’t lacked controversy or acclaim (including multiple Emmy nominations), some of its machinations can get a little repetitive. Rampant redundancies in the plot — from baseless kink to skyrocketing political assassinations — make the show harder to take seriously, and failed attempts to ground the narrative in our current political reality keep it from searing topicality.