YELLOWJACKETS S2 | First on Showmax | Stream the first episode, with more every Tuesday

 

Yellowjackets follows a high school girls' soccer team that survives a plane crash in the 90s. The Yellowjackets barely made it through summer, but now, as winter begins to bite, we'll see if hunger and desperation turn into full-on psychosis. Meanwhile, 25 years later, each survivor must determine if the darkness is coming for them or from them.

 

Yellowjackets' first season was named Best Horror at the 2022 Critics Choice Super Awards and Best Drama at the 2022 Critics Choice Awards. It was also nominated for seven Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. 

 

The new season sees Melanie Lynskey (Candy, The Last of Us) back in her Critics Choice and Critics Choice Super-winning role as Shauna, alongside Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) as Natalie, Christina Ricci (Wednesday) in her Emmy-nominated role as Misty, multi-award winner Tawny Cypress (The Blacklist: Redemption) in her Black Reel-nominated role as Taissa, and Jasmin Savoy Brown (Scream, The Leftovers) in her GALECA- and Queerties-nominated role as the young Taissa. This season also introduces Critics Choice winner Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) as Walter, a citizen detective who seems to know more than he should. 

 

Season 2 is again a hit with the critics, with a 96% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As The Guardian says, "Juliette Lewis is sublime, Christina Ricci finds her perfect co-star [Elijah Wood], and you're constantly kept on your toes with parallel timelines and tons of creepy thrills. What a follow-up!... This wonderfully imaginative sequel is even better than last time."

 

 

 

SUCCESSION S4 | First On Showmax | Binge the first two episodes, with more every Monday

 

Created by Oscar nominee Jesse Armstrong (Veep), Succession has already won over 100 awards, including the Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series in both 2020 and 2022.

 

In Season 4 of HBO's smash hit series, the sale of Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson (Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård from Big Little Lies) is looming ever closer. It's a prospect that provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate their diminished cultural and political influence once the deal is completed.

 

Matthew Macfadyen and Jeremy Strong return to their Emmy-winning roles as Tom Wambsgans and Kendall Roy respectively this season, alongside Brian Cox as Logan Roy, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin as Roy siblings Shiv and Roman, Nicholas Braun as Greg Hirsch, and J Smith-Cameron as Gerri Kellman - all Emmy-nominated performances. 

 

Season 4 has a rare 100% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Vulture calling the family drama series "a shining example of the best qualities of TV" and Indiewire hailing it as "the end all, be all of TV." 

 

 

 

BARRY S4 | First on Showmax | Mondays from 24 April

 

In the fourth and final season of HBO's dark comedy Barry, Cousineau is hailed as a hero as Barry's arrest has shocking consequences.

 

Bill Hader has already won two Emmys and two Critics Choice Awards as conflicted hitman-turned-actor Barry Berkman, the title character. As his acting coach Gene Cousineau, Henry Winkler has also picked up an Emmy and two Critics Choice Awards. Anthony Carrigan, Sarah Goldberg and Stephen Root also return in their Emmy-nominated roles as Noho Hank, Sally and Fuches. 

 

Hader directs all episodes this season, with his co-creator, 23-time Emmy nominee Alec Berg (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Silicon Valley), once again co-executive producing.

 

Barry has won nine Emmys and 50 awards for its first three seasons. Variety hailed Season 3 of Barry as "a masterpiece...funnier and sharper than ever," with "a remarkable performance by Hader'." The Daily Beast called it, "the best show on TV," and L.A. Times, "a masterclass... one of TV's best suspense-filled thrillers."  

 

 

 

GANGS OF LONDON S2 | Mondays from 10 April

 

London is for the taking. Who will rise?

 

In the second season of Gangs of London, a new, darker era of chaos and turbulent power struggles comes to London. One year after the death of Sean Wallace, the surviving Wallaces are scattered, the Dumanis broken and estranged, and ex-undercover cop Elliot Finch (Critics Choice Super nominee Sopé Dìrísù from His House) is now being forced to work for the Investors. As the Investors look down on a city sliding into chaos, they decide enough is enough and bring in reinforcements to restore control. Old favourites and new players fight back against the new order, forcing sworn enemies to work together and family members to betray each other.

 

Nominated in Season 1 for Best Drama at the BAFTAs and an Emmy for its stunts, Gangs of London is created by Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery (The Raid) and stars BAFTA nominees Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), and Lucian Msamati (His Dark Materials, Game of Thrones), as well as multi-award winners like Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark in Game of Thrones). BAFTA nominee Waleed Zuaiter (Baghdad Central, Altered Carbon) joins the cast this season.  

 

Gangs of London has an 85% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In their four-star Season 2 review, The Independent (UK) says, "The series' pleasures are unchanged by the years: impeccably choreographed fight scenes, quick-twitch pacing, and clever, immersive direction that takes suspense as its watchword."

 

 

 

IRMA VEP | Binge from Friday, 7 April 

 

Winner of Rotten Tomatoes' Golden Tomato Award for the best limited series of 2022, Irma Vep stars Oscar winner Alicia Vikander as Mira, an American movie star disillusioned with her career and recent breakup who travels to France to star as Irma Vep in a remake of the French silent film classic, Les Vampires.

 

"The Golden Tomato Award here goes to creator Olivier Assayas' sophisticated entertainment-industry satire that is a remake of his film about a remake," says Rotten Tomatoes, calling the series "catnip for cinephiles and a welcome spotlight for the spellbinding Alicia Vikander." Irma Vep has a 95% critics' rating on the site. 

 

Directed by Cannes and Venice winner Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria), the eight-part limited series is based on his 1996 French film of the same name, which starred Maggie Cheung.

 

 

 

THE CLEANING LADY S2 | Binge from Thursday, 6 April 2023

 

The Cleaning Lady follows a whip-smart Cambodian doctor (Elodie Yung from The Hitman's Bodyguard and The Defenders), who comes to the US for medical treatment to save her son. When the system fails and pushes her into hiding, she becomes a cleaner for the mob and starts playing the game by her own rules. 

 

The Cleaning Lady won the 2022 Women's Image Network Award for Drama Series and was nominated for a 2022 Hollywood Critics Association Television Award for Best Broadcast Network Series: Drama. The series has been compared to Breaking Bad, with Paste saying, "The Cleaning Lady is a fast-paced portrayal of a woman pushed to the edge and forced to contend with hard decisions for the wellbeing of her family... Yung's central performance is filled with warmth, determination, and grit."

 

Adan Canto (Designated Survivor) and Teen Choice Award winner Oliver Hudson (Nashville) return, with Emmy nominee Naveen Andrews (The Dropout, Lost) joining the cast this season.

 

Based on the Argentine series La Chica que Limpia, the Warners Bros. Television production has already been renewed for a third season by Fox.