dramas - page 8

Apple TV+ dark comedy Bad Sisters regroups and strikes back harder this week. The Irish series about five sisters and their common enemies keeps winning — by losing.

After the untimely death of Grace’s no-good husband John Paul, Becka won’t let potential new boyfriend Thomas take “no” for an answer. And Thomas’ brother, Matthew, does the same in opening an insurance investigation into the death of Becka’s brother-in-law. In the past, Ursula gets on board with the murder plot as Bibi and Eva reassess after their first botched effort.

Apple TV+ thriller Five Days at Memorial enters its tragic endgame this week, with the Coast Guard forcing everyone out of the hospital. That means some patients will be left alone to die by themselves after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught. Extraordinary measures must be taken — some ethical, some not.

The show’s cast all do their best work this week, and writer/director/producer John Ridley holds their hand every step of the way, doing right by this amazing assortment of talent.

Apple TV+ medical drama Five Days at Memorial, about the terrible misfortune of the staff of an abandoned hospital during Hurricane Katrina, hits the fourth day of disaster this week.

The power is still off, and the A/C is a distant memory. Helicopters are coming to evacuate, but the elevator to the roof is broken. Things are going to get worse before they get better. The gripping drama stays madly compelling and deeply tragic.

New Apple TV+ dark comedy Bad Sisters follows a family of Irish women who vow to help each other through thick and thin. Thick comes in the form of a miserable brother-in-law, who’s lying in a coffin and represents loose ends for all of them.

Can they outmaneuver a desperate insurance investigator and keep from turning on each other? This is good TV. Let’s just watch it cook.

Chickie Donohue had a great idea: He wanted to bring some beer to his friends fighting in the Vietnam War. Surprisingly, it didn’t go well.

What is truly amazing is that Chickie’s story is based on real events. And it’s being turned into a coming-of-age tale called The Greatest Beer Run Ever, starring Zac Efron, which will debut September 30 on Apple TV+.

A trailer previewing Chickie’s crazy experiences premiered Wednesday.

Hurricane Katrina has come and gone and there are 45 unexplained deaths in a hospital in New Orleans. That’s the hook for new Apple TV+ limited series Five Days at Memorial. The titular hospital is a crowbar used to examine the carelessness of U.S. disaster-relief infrastructure, health care and our attitudes toward one another.

This all actually happened. And show creators John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Carlton Cuse (Lost) mean to take us uncomfortably close to the truth of what happens when Americans are faced with unprecedented situations … because we are running out of those.

Apple TV+’s second season of Physical draws to a merciful close this week. Though she’s finally gotten John Breem out of her bedroom, Sheila still has to deal with him. He’s still making Danny crazy — and he’s still the only man in town with power enough to satisfy Sheila’s needs.

Wouldn’t it be funny if she had to wind up trapped with him in a business agreement? Well, no, it wouldn’t, and it isn’t, but that’s where we’re headed.

Apple TV+ murder mystery Black Bird draws to a pulse-pounding close as jailhouse informer Jimmy Keene’s last-ditch efforts to stay alive are being threatened at every turn.

Serial killer Larry Hall is inches from confessing, Jimmy’s about to get shanked — and nobody’s coming to help either of them. Plus, Jimmy’s dad Big Jim is dying in a hurry outside prison walls.

The limited series saves its best mechanics for last as the clock runs out on all of our heroes.  Black Bird concludes on a high note indeed.

Black Bird is the latest hit for Apple TV+. The prison drama has been one of the top 10 most watched streaming shows for three weeks straight now, according to a company that tracks viewership.

The series is not only popular, it’s getting rave reviews from critics.

Apple TV+ miniseries Black Bird finally reveals the killer this week, along with the evidence that might hang him … or might not be enough to do anything but frustrate the people working to expose him.

Superlative work from actors Paul Walter Hauser, Ray Liotta and Laney Stiebing in the episode, titled “The Place I Lie,” pulls the show into greatness just before its final installment.

Black Bird covered a lot of ground in a little time — and now it’s time to bring it home.

Apple TV+’s Physical, the story of would-be workout icon Sheila Rubin, is in recovery this week. Can Sheila finally combat her inner critic? Can she make Danny forgive her? Will she make friends at a retreat? Can she finally be honest with herself about her life and her problems and her image of herself?

The answers probably won’t shock you in this perfectly ordinary episode.

Black Bird, the Apple TV+ drama about a bad guy sent to ferret out a worse guy in the rottenest jail in America, takes a turn for the confessional this week. Probable serial killer Larry Hall and police informer Jimmy Keene tell each other some truths and some lies as they clean up the mess after a prison riot.

Larry starts to see the hidden side of Jimmy. And Jimmy starts to recognize the worst parts of himself — the ones that remind him of Larry. Black Bird’s been in a good place for two and a half episodes, and this latest one finds the show indulging in its strengths for an extended conversation between the two leads.

This week on Physical, Sheila goes on the lam with Vincent Green in a drug-fueled, disco-scored bonding session.

The wheels on the Sheila Rubin’s aerobics train are clearly about to fall off — and she’s not even going to have the voice in her head to comfort her when all is said and done. It’s another annoying week filled with failed attempts at humor and humanity on Apple TV+’s fizzling ’80s flashback show.

Apple TV+’s newest limited series Black Bird hits its stride in a strong third installment.

Prison guards and inmates hound undercover informer Jimmy Keene as he tries to get close to suspected serial killer Larry Hall. McCauley and Miller search for harder evidence as time slips away from them. And outside prison walls, Big Jim is in a bind that affects little Jim.

Black Bird still has a little ways to go to be truly great, but so far this is a promising look at guys at the end of their ropes looking for a way out of very bad circumstances that they brought on themselves.

In this week’s episode of Physical, Apple TV+’s death trip in spandex pumps the brakes to reconsider its priorities.

Aerobics star Sheila breaks her contract, reconnecting with Danny and Greta as she plots her next big move. But she remains selfish at heart, so nothing goes quite the way any of them had planned. Meanwhile, John and Maria plot one last attempt at salvation.

This week’s episode, titled “Don’t Try This at Home,” delivers some of the highest highs of the season, but still manages to blow a commanding lead in the home stretch.

Released Wednesday, the first trailer for Five Days at Memorial depicts the agonizing decisions Hurricane Katrina forced on staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in 2005. The storm itself was just the first of many horrors.

The drama series lands on Apple TV+ on August 12.

Apple TV+’s Physical has an incurable itch to break free this week. Both Sheila’s and John’s spouses know something is up. They try to help, but they can’t — because there’s no cure for being blackmailed by a vindictive Bunny.

John stares a new life in the face, a real one and an imaginary one. Sheila contemplates becoming an even worse version of herself. And Danny’s out of luck in every way he can be.

Brace yourself for more of the same bad behavior in this week’s episode, entitled “Don’t You Have Enough.”

Black Bird, the new Apple TV+ series about an inmate tasked with cozying up to a suspected serial killer, begins as a blustery and entirely too familiar tale of bad men doing bad things, without much to distract from the cliches.

However, armed with an impressive cast and crew — and one of the last performances by the great Ray Liotta — it eventually slots itself into good procedural habits.

The limited series, based on James Keene’s memoir In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption and developed by crime novelist Dennis Lehane, premieres Friday on Apple TV+. The first two episodes start off wobbly, but then chart a path toward true-crime greatness.

From Irish folklore to ’60s New York, from culture clashes to meteors, here is a list of the very best films on Apple TV+ so far.

You can divine the company’s best impulses by seeing the best films it acquired, from arcane, auteurist curiosities and thoughtful genre pieces to documentaries that attempt to break free from the usual niches.

1980s aerobics nightmare Physical goes in circles this week as Bunny and Tyler engage in surveillance for subterfuge, John and Sheila seek outside help, and Danny gets a hard dose of reality from Wanda.

In the episode, entitled “Don’t You Want to Watch,” the Apple TV+ series falls back into a familiar rut of Sheila facing problems and somehow solving them, with too little suspense and zero empathy generated for its ghoulish cast of characters.

Physical needs a Hail Mary in the worst way.

The first trailer for the psychological thriller Surface lets viewers dip their toes into the central mystery of the upcoming series: What if you woke up one day and didn’t know your own secrets?

The show premiers on Apple TV+ in late July, and stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, best known for appearing in Apple’s critically acclaimed The Morning Show.

Apple TV+ murder mystery Now and Then draws to a simmering close this week.

Pedro has lost his campaign, but there’s always more to lose. Ana is ready to turn on him. Sofia’s troubles catch up with her. Marcos suspects his father. Flora suspects her best friend. Hugo suspects Sofia. And there’s only an hour to wrap things up.

It’s been a marvelous bit of sensationalism from start to finish. If we get a second season of this bilingual thriller, it will be a welcome development.

Apple TV+ alt-history hit For All Mankind makes all the right moves this week, then immediately blows a 26-point lead in the last inning.

For once, the dramatic arcs thrown at Margo, Karen, Dev, Aleida and Kelly all seem pretty satisfying and not at all cheap or hyperbolic. Then the writers ensure we won’t see how any of that plays out, instantly turning this from one of the show’s best episodes into its most frustrating yet.

But hey, at least we’re going to Mars, I guess.

This week on Apple TV+ aerobics opera Physical, its star self-help guru buys a whiteboard and the show itself backslides. After a promising showing last week, Physical reverts to its worst tendencies.

Danny is still unbearably pretentious and selfish. Sheila is still a misanthropic jerk to absolutely everybody. John is becoming more desperate by the minute. And Greta indulges in a threesome. None of this constitutes real news or development on this show. But since Physical doesn’t really know what it wants to say, this is just how it goes most weeks.

The new Apple TV+ trailer for the drama series Five Days at Memorial is just a one-minute preview. But it’s a powerful 60 seconds.

It depicts the desperate struggle in a New Orleans hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest storms to ever hit the United States.