Hey, TV watchers! TV critic Michel Ghanem here. Every two weeks, I share the shows worth your TV time for Trust Me, I Watch Everything. Whether you prefer sticking to cable, catching the latest on streaming or digging up a hidden gem that slipped through the cracks, I try to curate something for everyone.
Summer TV is upon us! While the broadcast schedule might be slowing down, there is still lots on offer. Consider the enthralling drama The Vampire Lestat on AMC, which serves as Interview with the Vampire‘s third season. Over on streaming, a pulpy television adaptation of Apple TV’s Cape Fear will delight, if you can get past some particularly gruesome violence. And if that selection makes you miss seeing Amy Adams onscreen, consider one of her all-time best performances in HBO’s Sharp Objects, a binge for sizzling summer days. And there’s much more where that came from — let’s jump in.
⏰ Tune in
My recommendation: The Vampire Lestat
Why you should watch it: It has been two long years since the last season of Interview With the Vampire, the (very good) television adaptation of the Anne Rice gothic horror novels. It returns retitled as The Vampire Lestat, which is very unusual for a television show, but upon watching the new episodes, it’s easy to see the thought process behind the soft rebrand.
The first two seasons were split between two timelines. The past followed Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), a 30-something brothel owner in 1910s New Orleans. His life changes dramatically when he meets and falls in love with Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), a hedonistic vampire who turns him into one of his own so that they may live and love together in perpetuity. They eventually sort of have a child together, Claudia (Bailey Bass in the first season), a young girl they save from life-threatening wounds by also turning her into a vampire.
In the present day, Louis is recounting all of these adventures to Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), a writer who is entrusted with publishing a book on this story. It’s a great structure executed with phenomenal performances and some top-of-the-line production design that is an absolutely sumptuous visual treat to watch.
Then comes The Vampire Lestat. In what is technically the third season of this show, the narrator shifts to Lestat, who has a bone to pick with the way he was depicted through Louis’s perspective in the first two seasons. He’s onto bigger and better things, though: After many hundreds of years on Earth, he has decided to become a rock star.
Twenty original songs were created for this season, so you might as well consider it a musical too. The Vampire Lestat won’t be for everyone — the tone is more akin to something like True Blood with campy humor rather than the earnestness of previous seasons. It’s unlike anything else on television right now, though, which definitely works for me (and other critics — it received universal acclaim), but might be too much of a kinetic tonal shift for others. From my perspective, it’s well worth sinking your teeth into.
How to watch: New episodes of The Vampire Lestat air on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC, and stream simultaneously on AMC+.
My bonus recommendation: The Listeners
Why you should watch it: A gentle miniseries arrives from the BBC a year and a half since it first aired in the U.K. It’s based on the 2021 novel of the same name by author Jordan Tannahill (who also writes the show).
The four-episode series follows Claire (Rebecca Hall), a suburban English teacher who begins hearing a strange humming sound that no one around her seems to notice. Understandably, it starts to drive her a bit mad, especially after countless medical tests that rule out any health concerns.
Eventually, she finds a support group in town with other “listeners,” a group of local residents who have been experiencing the same thing. Some of these listeners have even developed a spiritual relationship with the sound over the years, giving the group a cultish vibe.
Directed artfully by Janicza Bravo (Zola), the show isn’t as flashy as a lot of what’s out there right now. It seems to interrogate more existential questions. In that way, the hum becomes a metaphor for whatever you feel you want to project onto it: the hum of war somewhere in the world that everyone around you seems to mostly ignore, or that gut feeling about something being off in what is otherwise a seemingly happy life. Who do you become when your life is thrown off its axis of reliability, when you can’t necessarily trust your senses?
The Listeners doesn’t have enough episodes to really probe those questions, but there’s more than enough here to get you thinking. Hall is fantastic, and at times, it reminded me of another quietly spiritual series — Netflix’s The OA, although that was a show that really committed to the bit.
For The Listeners, there could be something supernatural going on, or it could simply be the new wind turbines in town causing some audible disruptions for sensitive ears. You’ll have to watch and find out.
How to watch: New episodes of The Listeners air Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on Starz and stream on the Starz app.
📺 Stream it
My recommendation: Cape Fear
Why you should watch it: As most things in Hollywood seem to be nowadays, Cape Fear is an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation. First came the 1957 thriller novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald, then two films in 1962 and 1991. Why not try it in a television format?
Stretched over 10 episodes, Cape Fear can best be described as an extremely pulpy thriller. The story begins with the release of the menacing ex-convict Max Cady (Javier Bardem), who went to prison for the murder of his pregnant wife.
Max is released with revenge on his mind: The defense lawyer who represented him back in 2008, Anna Bowden (Amy Adams), ended up marrying the prosecutor, Tom (Patrick Wilson). Not a good look, especially when Anna is the one who convinced Max to take a plea bargain.
The pulp of the series comes with its soaring dramatic score, tight close-ups and extremely gratuitous flashes of gore and violence right from the jump. It feels, in some ways, like watching a film from the ’90s — and I say that as the utmost compliment.
Sometimes, self-seriousness can bog down a show, especially in the oversaturated thriller genre. By keeping the temperature cranked up, Cape Fear makes for an entertaining watch, despite its heavy subject matter. And with a cast this great, it’s hard not to have a good time.
How to watch: New episodes of Cape Fear stream Fridays on Apple TV.
My bonus recommendation: What It Feels Like for a Girl
Why you should watch it: A queer coming-of-age story might just hit the spot this Pride Month. What It Feels Like for a Girl is, at times, a brutal watch — but not one you’ll forget anytime soon.
Based on Paris Lees’s 2021 memoir and written by the author, the eight-episode series finds a through line between the brutal reality of being a queer teen trying to figure out their identity in the early 2000s and the joy, levity and sparkle of living in your truth.
The year is 2000, and a 15-year-old teen named Byron (Ellis Howard) is sick of being bullied at school by their peers and at home by a harsh father. Byron starts to carve out an escape route through other means: mostly sex work with older men who groom them, but especially through a new queer group of misfit friends they meet along the way and who take them in like a stray dog.
Through one too many experiences with drugs, alcohol, pimps and brushes with law enforcement, Byron — who isn’t always the most likable protagonist amid a slew of unfortunate decisions — eventually starts to figure out exactly who they are. That feels familiar in a coming-of-age kind of way, but with a twist specific to gender identity.
What It Feels Like for a Girl reminds me a lot of It’s a Sin, another incredible British series on Prime Video that followed a group of gay men in the midst of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s and ’90s and balanced pleasure and pain. There is a similar thread here that showcases the power of community through struggle and defiance in the face of discrimination and violence against people just trying to live in their truth.
How to watch: All eight episodes of What It Feels Like for a Girl are streaming on Prime Video.
But that’s not all …
Every Year After: After the massive success of Off Campus, Prime Video has another young adult romantic drama ready for those yearning for more (or who simply miss The Summer I Turned Pretty). Based on the 2022 novel by Carley Fortune, the story follows first loves over the course of six years in the lake town of Barry’s Bay, Ontario. — All eight episodes are streaming on Prime Video
Sugar: For some reason, trailers of the second season of Sugar are continuing to hide the fact that this show is more than just a noir about a private investigator in L.A. played by Colin Farrell. It’s a solid drama that gets much juicier once the twist is introduced. On that, I’ll just say something sci-fi may or may not be involved. — New episodes stream Fridays on Apple TV
💎 Hidden gems
My recommendation: Sharp Objects
Why you should watch it: Every time the weather gets hot and sticky and I’m pouring fresh lemonade over ice, I begin to feel the pull of a Sharp Objects rewatch — a 2018 gothic horror and psychological thriller that may be one of television’s best. And I mean, of all time.
Six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams stars as Camille Preaker, a troubled journalist whose editor sends her back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Mo., to report on the disappearance of a young girl. She hasn’t been back in years, though, and has become estranged from her overly critical mother (Patricia Clarkson) and her half-sister, Amma Crellin (Eliza Scanlen).
Camille is an alcoholic and struggles with self-harm (hence the sharp objects of it all), but her editor hopes this assignment might just be the thing that gets her out of her “funk.” Being back in Wind Gap brings back a lot of memories, though, and there is a lot lurking under the surface here, between suspicious residents and a nosy out-of-town detective (Chris Messina).
Sharp Objects is special for a number of reasons, but especially for being director Jean-Marc Vallée’s last project before he died of a heart condition in 2021. The Dallas Buyers Club and Big Little Lies director had a very specific directorial style that included shooting without any artificial lighting and a lot of quick-cut flashbacks and editing. Sharp Objects features many of these blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cuts, often standing in for Camille’s internal world as her reporting assignment brings back memories of her sister’s death.
At its core, though, Sharp Objects is definitely a mystery thriller. That being said, the final reveal is crazier than anything you will concoct along the way, leading to two final episodes that will absolutely blow your mind, right until the very end. It is a bonus that it is one of the most beautifully constructed pieces of television ever, with performances that should have won Emmys many times over.
How to watch: All eight episodes of Sharp Objects are streaming on HBO Max.
That’s the end of this week’s episode, but there will always be more TV to watch. I’ll be back on June 29 with new recommendations.
Think there’s something missing that deserves my TV time? Let me know what else I should have on my radar in the comments below!
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