Mildred P.I.erce Gritty small-town crime dramas with female protagonists are essentially a genre of their own. Think Broadchurch or Happy Valley. HBO's new Mare of Easttown is a strong entry, with Kate Winslet giving a spectacular performance as a grandmother — she's young, but also you're old — investigating a murder that hits close to home. THR's Inkoo Kang — read her great Minari cover story! — praises the suspense and small-town world-building, especially in early episodes. I loved the cast, from Winslet and Jean Smart and The Nice Guys breakout Angourie Rice to Evan Peters, who looks positively liberated outside of Ryan Murphy's familiar arch tones. I Like to Wawa-Watch Winslet attempts an epic Philadelphia accent in Mare. If you're looking for the real thing, check out the Tuesday premiere of Independent Lens' eight-part Philly D.A., a PBS docuseries about Larry Krasner's 2017 election as district attorney in Philadelphia and his struggles to enact an outsider agenda within the city's entrenched bureaucracy. The first two episodes were among the best things I watched at this year's virtual Sundance Film Festival, and they use impressive access to give a smartly pragmatic perspective on why it can be so hard for mavericks to dabble in establishment institutions. You Had to Stream 'Big Shot,' Didn't Ya? None of the rest of this weekend's premieres counts as "necessary." I liked how Disney+'s Big Shot avoids a lot of underdog sports comedy clichés and appreciated the casting of John Stamos as a Rick Pitino-style disgraced basketball coach, but thought it felt more like an outline for a show than an actual TV series. I was even more mixed on brothers Brian and Domhnall Gleeson's Amazon series Frank of Ireland, which is either an all-too-familiar and not particularly good series about an insufferable man-child or a spotty parody of that genre. If it's that hard to figure out, maybe it isn't worth it? Unearthed From the 2019 Vault If none of this week's new contenders strikes a chord, perhaps you want to check out the first season of The Other Two, finally available for streaming at HBO Max, where the long gestating — we're talking elephant gestation here — second season will eventually premiere. Heck, even if you watched the quirky comedy from creators Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider when it premiered, you might need a refresher, since the series launched back in early 2019. Seriously, how does a show in 2019 premiere to positive reviews — especially for stars Drew Tarver and Helene Yorke — get renewed almost immediately and then vanish for more than two years? I Live My Life a Two-Minute Trailer at a Time Like the rest of the internet, I spent a chunk of the week agog at the "Oh dear Lord, they're driving into OUTER SPACE!" audacity of the trailer for the upcoming ninth Fast & Furious film, and I joked on Twitter about how what I really wanted was a Muppet Babies-style animated series in which Baby Dom and the gang pulls off nursery heists on Big Wheels. Several people reminded me that there actually is a Fast & Furious animated series, Spy Racers, on Netflix. While it's not actually the thing I'm looking for, the fourth season, Fast and Furious Spy Racers: Mexico, actually premieres this week! This Week's THR Staff Pick THR reporter GAnon — actually senior writer Gary Baum — writes, "Q: Into the Storm’s final episode offers the most satisfying caught-on-camera moment in an investigative documentary since The Jinx. Director Cullen Hoback may have arguably identified an even more dangerous monster than Robert Durst. Which is why despite the six-part HBO series’ many strengths — and there are many, including colorful characters, a propulsive plot and lucid context — I still wish he’d spent more time digging deeper into the florid psychological strangeness of Jim and Ron Watkins, and how it informed what they wrought."
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