The Kilkenny Observer Friday 08 October 2021
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kilkennyobserver.ie
TV & Streaming
We’re made up about this Maid WHILE the Netflix charts have been dominated by Korean thriller series Squid Game for the past few weeks, there’s a brand-new show that is coming up fast on its heels. Maid is the newest limited series from the streaming giant, and it has quickly become the No. 2 show on the site. The series is based on a New York Times best-selling memoir by Stephanie Land, titled Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, And A Mother’s Will To Survive. This adaptation tells the story of Alex, a single mother who tries to make ends meet by working as a housecleaner. The lead role is filled by Margaret Qualley (pictured), who you might recognise for her parts in The Leftovers and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She is the daughter of actor Andie McDowell who stars in Maid as the main characters mother. “We don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight...I had a home, and then we left it,” Qualley says in the trailer. In the clip, we watch as the character of Alex tries to build a life for herself and her daughter, but it’s not so easy when she’s dealing with an abusive ex-boyfriend (played by Nick Robinson) and a mother struggling with undiagnosed bipolar disorder (portrayed by Qualley’s real-life mother, Andie MacDowell). “When I think about the house I want for my daughter and me, it’s not big and full of stuff,” Alex says. “Our space is a home because we love each other in it.” Along with Qualley, Robinson and MacDowell, Maid features Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls), Tracy Vilar (Partners) and Billy Burke (The Twilight Saga). The series also features executive production from names like John Wells (Shameless) and Tom Ackerley (Promising Young Woman). It’s the best shown since The Queen’s Gambit.
The Baby-Sitters Club is an ideal adaptation of Ann M. Martin’s beloved books in that it updates its protagonists, stories, and focus to speak to modern audiences — who, to be clear, includes everyone — without losing the classic camaraderie, all-ages storytelling, and character specificity that made reading each story so meaningful. Not only are the young adult performers all providing strong character work, but looping in Alicia Silverstone, Marc Evan Jackson, and Mark Feuerstein as the stand-out parents is inspired. Creator Rachel Shukert has crafted a world you never want to leave, and after Season 2 drops on October 11 for a good five hours, you won’t have to — enjoy!
In need of a serial killer show this Halloween? Look no further than Sera Gamble’s diabolically dark thriller You, Season3 of which lands on October 15. An antihero tale with an extra emphasis on the ‘anti’, You follows Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) through a number of ‘love’ stories that see the one-time bookstore owner fall for a woman, assign her a role he needs filled, and then snap when her actual personhood breaks from his preconceived expectations. Addictive in its pacing and twists.
An under-the-radar gem buoyed by passionate fan support, On My Block wraps its fourth and final season this month. After starting as a coming-of-age comedy about a group of high school teens living in the (fictional) Los Angeles neighbourhood known as Freeridge, Season 4 takes a two-year time jump into the future, after the friends have gone their separate ways. Wouldn’t you know it, but they find a reason to come back together — this time, in response to a once-buried secret threatening to come out.
Squid Game: brutal but compelling THE violence of Squid Game (Netflix), the psychological warfare, the haunting realworld feasibility of something seemingly so outrageous: it pierces you, but then it stays there. It’s the show’s own brutal gameplay with the audience. A metaphorical stabbing. Few series in the age of streaming have ever become word-of-mouth phenomena at
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to see on Netflix
the scale and speed with which the South Korean thriller has since its September 17 debut. Especially in this last week, that peculiar title—what the hell could a Squid Game possibly be??!—has been everywhere, spreading its tentacles, so to speak, to news headlines, social media feeds, and group texts, where friends and family debate each episode’s twists
and commiserate over the trauma. Proving both how clever and exquisitely cinematic the series is, but also maybe how desperate people are not to be left out, Squid Game is currently the No. 1 show on Netflix in 90 different countries. The streamer is on record saying it is on track to be its most-watched series ever.
So here we have this interesting dichotomy: Squid Game may be the most upsetting series ever seen, and it also may be the most globally popular series in modern times. The less a person knows about Squid Game, the better for their enjoyment. Or, um, the intensity of their waking nightmares after watching. Enough said....
For sport and for crime fans, the six- part documentary series tells a separate story in each hour-plus episode, all of which meet at the intersection of sports and crime. Featuring interviews with athletes, coaches, and law enforcement officials, Bad Sport investigates each tale with first-hand accounts and a studious eye.
There are a dozen different reasons why now is a good time to revisit nine seasons of one of America’s best sitcoms, and frankly, you don’t need a reason other than you just can. Jerry is always about one curled lip away from breaking the whole time.
