Welcome to Now See This, THR chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg’s weekly viewer guide newsletter dedicated to cutting through the daunting clutter of the broadcast, cable and streaming TV landscape! Comments and suggestions welcome at daniel.fienberg@thr.com.

Pitter Patter

Fans of quirky Canadian slang, fast-talking double entendres and hockey rejoice… Letterkenny is back on Hulu (or Crave, I suppose)! Last winter I wrote about my love for this oddball gem, which was one of the binges that got me through 2020. The 10th season is a little bit strange. There are points, especially late in the season, where the show's desire to establish its upcoming spinoff based around Jared Keeso's still-faceless Shoresy supersedes any sort of Letterkenny  throughline. There are still highlights, including the semi-PSA "Prostate" episode, that are as good as anything the show has ever done and there are sparkling bits of puerile wordplay throughout. 

Silly Architect! 'Matrix' Are For Kids! 

Still perplexed as to whether you should be avoiding movie theaters for the public good or patronizing movie theaters for the capitalist good? Fortunately, you have many in-home choices. While I found it irritating at every turn (and oddly, if somewhat intentionally, visually bland), our John DeFore was at least intrigued by the very meta The Matrix Resurrections, now on HBO Max. David Rooney was less enamored with Amazon's  Being the Ricardos , which he thought was more about writer-director Aaron Sorkin than Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. At least Rooney liked the performances in Being the Ricardos, as opposed to in Netflix's Don't Look Up, which he criticizes on nearly every level. Whether you choose to go out or stay in, be safe and take care of each other!

Let's List Again, Like We Did Last Week

If you're still searching for viewing options, though, check out Rooney and the rest of the THR film critic team's respective lists of the year's best films, several of which — Passing, Power of the Dog, CODA, Summer of Soul — are already streaming, with a few more coming in the weeks to come. And on the TV front, after we did our respective Top 10s last week, this week Angie Han and I broke down 10 great TV episodes from 2021, as well as cobbling together a list of cheeky TV superlatives for the year.

Watch Hard, With a Vengeance

You have your traditions, I have mine, and the three movies that represent Christmas to me are Die Hard, Gremlins and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It feels like a bit of a crime that Shane Blank's Hollywood holiday action-thriller isn't available for easy streaming, but that's what physical media is for! Meanwhile, I feel like there were fewer "Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?" think pieces this year, probably because we've determined that anybody who doesn't think Die Hard is a Christmas movie is a Scrooge. It's available on Peacock and Amazon. Gremlins is on HBO Max. Happy holidays, everyone!

Why Oh Why Do I Love 'Paris'?

Looking for more TV? Other than the feigned Western brutality of Paramount+'s 1883, networks tried going light and frothy with their pre-Christmas offerings. Like with season two of Emily in Paris? Sure, it may be awful but the fashions are great! Our Robyn Bahr makes a case for other elements as well. And over at HBO Max, even the year's umpteenth documentary about a scam/cult —  Beanie Mania — is much more about cute plushies. Don't worry, though, once you get past Christmas, it'll be time for gnarly stuff like Discovery+'s The Hillside Strangler: Mind of a Monster, Netflix's Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer and Peacock's 2021 and Done With Snoop Dogg & Kevin Hart.

This Week's THR Staff Pick 

THR.com managing editor Kimberly Nordyke is looking forward to some HBO finales this Sunday. She raves, "Will Issa pick Lawrence or Nathan (…or neither)? Will Larry get the 5-foot-pool-fence ordinance repealed (and stop the act of extortion against him)? I'll be tuning in to HBO this Sunday to find out the answer to both questions, when Insecure and Curb Your Enthusiasm air their season finales. It's a bittersweet event, though: For Insecure, in fact, it's a series finale, as we will be bidding adieu to Issa Dee & Co. for good, while Curb  hasn't been renewed yet for another season, so who knows how long it might be before we see Larry return with his cringe-inducing antics (David, who works on his own schedule, has given us only 10 seasons in 21 years). So get the kids to bed, silence the phone and curl up for what promises to be a prett-ay, prett-ay good hour of entertainment."