It’s amazing how much ability one can have to make one’s way through the logjam of decent streaming TV when one combines a rare day off and a bout of constipation and muscle spasms to go along with one’s seemingly chronic insomnia. But for someone like moi that actually provided me an opportunity to make like a honest to goodness “prestige junkie”, or at least one who aspires to be one one, and catch up with three such animals who dropped finales this week on their respective platforms.
I had been following HACKS almost religiously since I finally got around to it last month after far too long being in my Marc Antony mode–you know, the “king of denial”. You might remember how appreciative and apologetic I got all at once. Well, its fourth season came to an end last night after a truly shocking penultimate installment that had me both anticipating and skeptical as to how they would follow it up. As it turns out, they more than met the challenge. So with SPOILER ALERT honking as loudly as the forklift in my place of business, DEADLINE’s Matt Grobar explains how that happened:
After blowing up her late-night dreams, she finds herself under a network non-compete in Episode 10, “Heaven,” which states that she can’t perform as a comedian for 18 months. Ava (Hannah Einbinder) encourages her to make the most of her mandated time away from the spotlight, in the writing of a new act, but Deborah instead sets out to find a legal loophole that will allow her to skirt the agreement. Deborah has found her loophole: She’s negotiated a limited run in a casino, where she’ll perform through a translator, circumventing the terms of her late show contract. Over time, the run extends into a residency, and Deborah lives the high life, partying too much as Ava becomes increasingly disillusioned.
Ava accuses Deb of having given up — after all, she hasn’t written new material in months — and is sent packing following yet another big argument with her boss. But when Ava wakes on the morning of her flight, it’s to frantic texts and calls, letting her know that TMZ has reported Deborah dead. Fear not, though, as she’s very much alive. This was just a case of an obit being prepped in advance and accidentally published. In any case, the moment serves its purpose for Deborah, lighting a fire under her to get back to the U.S. and have the final say in the writing of her story.
If your reaction to all of that was one of my favorite words in the English language–WHEW!–you’d be in line with me and a great deal of other pundits who have weighed in already. Apparently enough to convince MAX to indeed renew the show for a fifth season, an admitted rarity in this day and age, particularly at any company run by someone named Zaslav. And as an otherwise grateful co-showrunner/creator Lucia Aniello teased in the victory lap sitdown she did along with Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs, much like Deborah they might not necessarily be heading into the sunset just yet.
(W)e have a lot of things we want to do this season. A lot of stories we want to pay homage to and a lot of characters we want to do right by. So that being said, there’s always a world where it’s more than the amount that we can turn out in a year. Because we really like having the show out every year. But we are really in the middle of figuring it out. If it’s not done in five, it’s close to it. But we shall see.
Nowhere near as established or secure is Apple TV’s YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, which chose to end its debut season with a ninth episode that more than a few experts, including the increasingly uppity combination of Rob Mahoney and Joanna Robinson at The Ringer’s PRISTIGE TV PODCAST, felt was anything but satisfying. Motivated by my increasing gall at Robinson’s annoying chastising of dialogue and plot that all but confirms her own levels of frustration for being, in her words, merely a podcaster, I checked it out myself, along with some more objective recaps to at least bring me up to speed, as I confess this was yet another one I was going to get around to. What I landed upon both from my own experience and those of more than a few out there who don’t happen to work for The Ringer was that it was better than expected, though admittedly nowhere near the level of HACKS or even its platform-mate TED LASSO. That said, I found myself in pretty much the same space as READY STEADY CUT’s Jonathon Wilson:
The ending of Your Friends & Neighbors hinges on one key question — is Coop going to prison? From the very beginning of Episode 9, contemplatively titled “Everything Becomes Symbol and Irony”, he certainly thinks so. Fittingly, his friends and neighbors do, too. And his family. Coop’s incarceration seems to be a foregone conclusion, which means that a good chunk of the finale isn’t so much about what happens but what everyone is worried might happen.
This is an interesting angle to take, as it addresses something essential about the show’s thematic underpinnings. It’s about image. That’s what Coop has been trying to preserve all this time; why he turned to petty theft to sustain his lifestyle just so his ex-wife and his side-piece and his friends didn’t think he was the kind of guy who could no longer afford a Maserati. Now that the Maserati has been taken away, and the murder charges seem impossible to shake, the image is out the window. All that’s left is honesty. And that seems to be new to everyone.
Coop is perhaps the Tom Cruise of prestige TV, Jon Hamm, and that alone makes the show worthy of any attention. But although his fate is determined by episode’s end, other questions about his castmates open up which FANDOMWIRE’s Siddhika Prajapati addressed:
We got confessions masquerading as strategy, lies that came gift-wrapped in martyrdom, and a protagonist who chose burglary over a six-figure job offer. This finale wasn’t a redemption arc. It was a thesis on why self-inflicted wounds hurt the most. What’s left is ash, ego, and potential jail time.
And as fate would have it, DEADLINE’s ever-intrepid Nellie Andreeva just happened to drop this nugget about the show’s actual popularity and my former colleagues’ faith in the mind behind the series yesterday:
Apple TV+ has renewed its exclusive television overall deal with Jonathan Tropper, who has emerged as the streamer’s most prolific writer-creator across both TV and film…The multi-year deal extension comes as Tropper’s Your Friends and Neighbors, starring Jon Hamm, has become the most watched new Apple drama series per Nielsen sampling data of viewers watching at least one minute of the show over the first 38 days. This is the third consecutive overall deal at Apple TV+ for Tropper who was originally signed by the platform in conjunction with his role as executive producer and showrunner on one of its first original series, the 2019 drama See starring Jason Momoa.
“From the moment we heard Jonathan Tropper’s brilliantly entertaining and witty pitch for Your Friends and Neighbors we were enthralled, and it has been so rewarding to watch as global audiences have become addicted to the series in record numbers,” said Matt Cherniss, head of programming, Apple TV+. “To witness the charismatic Jon Hamm and the rest of this ensemble cast bring these beautifully crafted characters to life in a show that is both wildly enjoyable and deeply resonant has been an absolute pleasure.”
For Cherniss to even sign off on gushy and likely ghost-written praise of this order this had to be pretty darn good, so I finally drifted off last night to the show’s first episode which indeed was quite well received and set up the premise for Hamm’s two-timing and conflicted character. Besides, I needed some relative levity after I joined the many who checked in with Hulu as perhaps the show that put them on the prestige map in the first place came to a merciful end, as the intrepid one’s more opinionated colleague Rosy Cordero reported with SPOILER ALERT again emblazoned and honking when her piece dropped late Sunday night:
Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale concluded its run tonight after 8 years and 6 seasons, following June Osbourne (Elisabeth Moss) in her fight to rid the world of evil. While there were wins for the rebellion, Gilead lives on with many of June’s strongest allies trapped there at the start of the episode, like Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Janine (Madeline Brewer). Her beloved daughter Hannah isn’t free, but she learns she will be closer to her.
Moss is brilliant in this finale, showing a woman who was tortured and terrorized, whose heart was broken over and over, but survived. She is seeing the fruits of her sacrifice come true one by one, and it’s glorious. Her emotions and facial expressions capture something that mere words could never. Everything June has gone through has led her to this moment.
But as LEGAL UNITED STATES revealed earlier this week, while this book has indeed closed, another is about to open:
The much-anticipated conclusion of The Handmaid’s Tale has finally aired, bringing a powerful close to June Osborne’s six-season battle against Gilead. But the story doesn’t end there. Hulu has officially greenlit The Testaments, a direct sequel set 15 years after the original series. The next installment dives deeper into the chilling world of Gilead through fresh perspectives, promising a compelling expansion of the dystopian universe fans have followed for years.
The Handmaid’s Tale ended with a powerful message about resistance, survival, and storytelling. The Testaments is poised to take that message further—showing how one woman’s revolution becomes a legacy others must carry.
Rather than retread old ground, the new series will ask tougher questions. Can evil be reformed from the inside? How do young people reclaim their future when the past still looms? And what happens when those raised in oppression learn to fight back?
Fortunately, as production only began on April 7th, we’ll be getting a respite from this gripping dystopia until sometime late next year at the earliest. Given THE HANDMAID’S TALE’s parallels and overlaps with the issues raised by the eventual overturning of ROE V. WADE, one can only hope Hulu might at least wait until after the midterms to debut its followup. Maybe by then my stomach, let alone the world, will be better equipped to deal with it.
Until next time…