Mitchel Broussard

It’s a show that resonates on the surface more than in any deeper well of mental thought, but there’s something effortlessly salacious and shocking about it that totally lives up to the likely page-turning nature of its source material.

That energy swells with tricky, topical realities of racism and sexism, but Insecure never feels like an exclusionary experience. The fundamental themes of bonds and sisterhood and friendship are too strong for the show to so blatantly wall off a segment of its audience. Issa and Molly are both in this together, and the simple beauty of Insecure is that it feels like you are too.

It’s not bad, it’s just a bit generic and not particularly engaging.

Nothing is as satisfying as a show in the confidence of its prime, and that’s where season 2 finds Preacher: laser-focused on the characters that we care about and teasing a ridiculously tantalizing treat on the road ahead.

Nothing ever feels forced or repetitive about the show and its confined setting. In fact, it feels like the restriction has spurred even more creativity from the writers this year. There’s a fear and a scrappy anger to the dialogue and interactions happening around the prison, even more so than before.

Its sparkly advertising and spastic, yet effective, humor belie a wit and poignancy that continues to resonate as largely peerless to this day.

The show’s second season continues to appropriately evolve this year, doing a good job of not only expanding upon--and answering--central questions raised by the end of season 1, but also not being coy with finally explaining the Big Mysteries and introducing new knots for viewers to unravel.

The shape of the shoe always changes, but Silicon Valley is as adept as ever in its ability to morph into what it needs to in order to be the biting, clever, and truly funny series it still is four years in.

The plot isn’t as dense or layered as previous seasons (yet), but Hawley’s unique touch shows up in just the right amount of places to compel, particularly in a disjointed, Tarantino-esque opening scene.

Love's most disappointing season 2 discovery is that it isn’t treating season 1’s pitfalls as faults, it’s treating them as features. You either love Love for its haphazard, sweeping dive into the cadence of modern romance, or you don’t. Nothing much is ever going to change about the show’s deepest, darkest imperfections.

It lacks urgency. One episode doesn’t represent an entire series, but as far as hooks go this one likes bite, and a winsome cast and pleasantly silly premise can’t make up for its shortcomings.

Murphy’s dramatization doesn’t feel like a shortchanged, faithless endeavor. The complete opposite is the case: his passion and pain for these women bleeds from the screen, and it’s only in the little moments in between that Feud‘s nitpicky shortcomings can be found.

It might not feel all that fresh anymore, but in Jones and Bee’s hands The Detour is still miles ahead of most other half-hour comedies on TV.

In a broad sense the show lives up to its name, but season 2 proves it can be as intricate, and intimate, as it can be expansive, and in those lovely details of its well-drawn characters embattled with deliciously complex moral choices, The Expanse soars.

There are moments of comedic relief, particularly thanks to Kirk’s just-the-right-amount-of-bitchy assistant character, but then there are times when Powerless feels like a total slouch. In terms of the set-up and payoff for each joke, visual gags, writing, directing, the works--the show is shockingly average.

It’s at its most fun and addictive when it completely surrenders itself to these steamy interludes, shirking the idea of needing to be anything more than it is and completely at home in the updated debauchery of such a classic set of characters.

The Path didn’t need to be a rollicking thriller, but it feels like it’s doubling down on its more sedentary nature in season 2 without growing or expanding the scope of a world that was successfully built in season 1.

In terms of the show’s abundant and well-executed sleights of hand, this one ranks high, as does the beautifully produced, multilayered, creepy, funny, and solidly acted season it arrives in.

Man Seeking Woman is a bit like the Black Mirror of rom coms. Even with the new season’s consistent story arc, each episode is laser-focused on a single issue at hand, and ties together with a thought-provoking, hilarious ending (okay so maybe not 100% the same as Black Mirror).

Emerald City is trying to be both, and also be better and different than the Once Upon A Times and Game of Thrones of the world, but despite some memorable visuals, it’s a master of none of its tricks.

Incorporated‘s by-the-books corporate espionage plot feels like a constant handicap on its more high-reaching notions.

If the final episodes continue the satisfying balance of creepy malice and easygoing drama exhibited in the season’s first two episodes, then Teen Wolf will be able to end not only with a plethora of fans missing it and sharing it with friends long after it’s over, but with the status as one of the most consistently gratifying, shocking, and downright clever supernatural gems on television.

Although it epitomizes some of MTV’s more egregious narrative and character-based burdens, the show’s call-to-arms, neck-throttling anger--which smacks you in the face in its opening scene and comes full circle by the end of episode 2--is performed with enough grit and affection as to justify the seedy morals Sweet/Vicious is daring enough to embrace.

Good Behavior is entertaining in its own shaggy way and, at the very least, a solid addition to a network whose one-hour drama track record has otherwise been somewhat spotty.

The show, in its best moments, is a perfect mix of pristine elegance and soap opera schlock, all while finding ways to string along its bingeing Netflix subjects through to the next slowly unfurling royal crisis.

It follows the tenets of each genre it tackles with little attempt at straying into its own cosmic path. That’s okay, because it does what it does well, and where it does feel original and worthwhile is in its total confidence to be unusual without trying to excuse its unusualness for a broader audience.

It’s a lack of humor that’s only more unbelievable the further you delve into it, and the more you realize no quality talent can make up for a lack of quality jokes.

It’s a contemporary, cozily familiar, modestly exceptional little show that is all the more impactful because it has the simple, intrinsically meaningful grace of its one syllable title.