Issue 4 - Tyler Perry Plays Three People and Noah Wyle Keeps Not Sleeping

Tyler Perry has a movie out this week called Joe's College Road Trip in which he plays Joe, Madea, AND Brian. Three characters. One man. No one in his orbit has pulled him aside in fifteen years. The guy owns a studio the size of a small Caribbean nation and every few months he just puts on a wig and films another one of these in what I assume is a weekend. He's the most prolific filmmaker in America and nobody at any of these streaming services has ever said, hey Tyler, maybe take a Tuesday off. Netflix just cuts the check and averts its eyes. It's like watching a man perform surgery on himself in a parking lot — you can't stop him, you can only hope he survives.

Meanwhile somewhere in Los Angeles, Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo are doing heists on the freeway. We'll get to it.

The Pitt — Season 3 (HBO Max)

Noah Wyle returns as the saddest doctor in Pittsburgh for another shift that somehow lasts fifteen episodes. This is the show where the premise is: what if ER, but you, the viewer, also developed a cortisol disorder. Season three. Three seasons of one guy not sleeping, not eating, and watching people die of things that used to be covered by insurance. It's excellent television. Genuinely. The fact that America's most acclaimed drama is just a documentary about the collapse of the healthcare system with Noah Wyle in scrubs should tell you something about where we are as a country. I love it. I cannot look away.

Crime 101 (Prime Video)

Chris Hemsworth is a thief who pulls heists on the 101 freeway. Mark Ruffalo is a detective. Halle Berry is there. Barry Keoghan is there, probably doing something upsetting with his mouth. 141 minutes, directed by Bart Layton, who made American Animals, which was actually good, so maybe this is too. The concept — crime on the 101 — is hilarious because anyone who has ever driven the 101 knows the real crime is that it takes an hour to go four miles. Hemsworth's getaway vehicle is a 2009 Corolla doing 11 miles an hour next to a guy in a Tesla eating a burrito. I'll watch it.

Love Story (Hulu/FX)

An anthology of sweeping true love stories, season one being John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn, Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr., Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy because at this point there's a Gummer contractually obligated to appear in every prestige drama. Look — we are now going to do a full prestige miniseries about every celebrity couple that died tragically. Next year it's Princess Diana again. The year after it's Sonny and Cher. Eventually it'll be Bennifer and we'll all have to pretend we care. But I'll be honest, this one's probably good. FX doesn't miss as often as the others.

War Machine (Netflix)

Alan Ritchson — you know, the Reacher guy, the one whose neck is wider than his head — has to lead his Army Ranger unit against a giant otherworldly killing machine. That's the movie. That's it. Dennis Quaid is a sergeant. Patrick Hughes directed The Hitman's Bodyguard, so you know exactly what frequency we're operating on. This is the kind of movie Netflix spends $90 million on and then buries in your queue behind a reality show about Korean tarot readers. Which brings us to —

Battle of Fates (Disney+/Hulu)

A Korean reality competition where 49 of the country's top "fate readers" — shamans, tarot people, face readers — compete to see who can most accurately read fate. Actual log line: "Only those who can genuinely read fate will survive." Survive. It's a game show. Nobody's dying. Probably. I'm putting this in the newsletter purely because the phrase "Korea's top 49 Fate Readers" made me laugh for a full minute. Who ranked them. Who's number 50 and how mad is he.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (Netflix)

From Lisa McGee, who made Derry Girls, so this has an actual pedigree. Three lifelong friends investigate their friend's suspicious death while hiding a dark secret of their own. Irish, funny, morbid. The exact tonal cocktail that works 90% of the time or completely falls apart. Given McGee's track record, bet on the 90.

The rest, briefly

Million-Follower Detective (Netflix) — a Taiwanese thriller about a detective chasing a viral tarot reader who predicts influencer deaths. This is the second show this week about fortune tellers. Something's happening. Motorvalley (Netflix) — Italian racing drama, an heiress, a reckless driver, a troubled coach, Gran Turismo. It's Succession with stick shifts. The 'Burbs (Peacock) — Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall move to the suburbs and things get dark. 4.99 on TMDb, which is a score usually reserved for off-brand yogurt. Neighbors (HBO Max) — an HBO docuseries about residential disputes. Verité. Larger-than-life characters. An episode is titled "Yellow Thong Bikini." HBO. The network of The Sopranos. Humint (Netflix) is a Korean spy thriller from Ryoo Seung-wan and those tend to rip. Lead Children (Netflix) is a Polish drama about a doctor fighting a smelting plant poisoning kids, based on a true story — genuinely important, genuinely a bummer. Museum of Innocence is a Turkish Orhan Pamuk adaptation and if that sentence excites you, you already have it queued up.

Pick of the Week

The Pitt, season three. Nothing else is close. It is the only show on television that treats adult human beings like adult human beings, and it is on HBO Max, which is currently named HBO Max again after spending a year being named Max, which was humiliating for everyone involved. Watch Noah Wyle not sleep for fifteen hours. You'll feel seen.

One last thing. We got two shows this week about fortune tellers solving crimes, a reality show about competitive fate readers, and a Tyler Perry movie where he plays three people at once. The algorithm is clearly telling us something. I don't know what. Ask Korea's 14th-ranked Fate Reader. See you next week.