The Good Place (NBC/Netflix): Creator Michael Schur continues to make us laugh after the devastating endings to both The Office and Parks and Recreation and the most devastating ending to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Kristen Bell plays Eleanor Shellstrop (who is basically the physical form of Gossip Girl) as she enters The Good Place, the fictional version of an extremely selective Heaven. After getting a full tour, she realizes that they have the wrong Eleanor, she asks the man who was assigned as her soulmate to help her become good since he is a moral philosopher. It’s a fun time as you see Eleanor fight to be good while dealing with the chaos that is happening due to her being there (as she is the mistake in a “flawless” system). Oh, and there’s a major plot twist at the end that will make you question every plot point that I just explained.
Weeds (Showtime/Netflix): This show is in the vault, and I’m bringing it back out. As I rewatch it, I find more humor and learn more than I did when I first watched it the year before my freshman year of college. If you don’t know, this show follows a recent widow with two sons living in the suburbs. As she struggles to keep her home and family together, she decides to get into the drug dealing business, selling marijuana. She meets bad people along the way and uses the people (and family) around her to build her success and maybe even her downfalls (multiple ones, she can be kind of stupid.) The season three finale will have your heart racing and even worse in the season 7 finale. Give it a whirl one night when you’ve come back from the bar and need something to watch, you won’t regret it.
The Sinner (USA/Netflix): If you like good psychological thrillers with plot twists and no cliffhangers then watch The Sinner. Jessica Biel plays a normal wife/mother who goes to the beach with her family one day and snaps by stabbing a stranger on the blanket in front of them. The show is different because it’s not about who killed the man, that’s quite clear. It’s about why she did it, and there are so many angles as to why she might have but in the end, her story is crazy. The dynamic between her and the detective that doesn’t give up on her is quite intriguing. It is just amazing to see how her story is told in eight 45 minute episodes, something you probably will binge in a day like me.
The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix): The Haunting of Hill House is nothing like you would ever expect. If you can’t get over the fact that Halloween is over already then take 10 good hours out of your day and watch this. First off, it isn’t as scary as many are making it out to be; you will survive. The storyline, however, is something you might not come back from. The premise follows a family in the past and present as they purchase a mansion to flip and sell for the summer. It doesn’t go as well as one might expect as all members of the family start hearing, seeing, and doing things that they normally would not. Something happens that summer that truly breaks the family apart, hence why we also see them in the present as they try to live their lives as best as possible in these broken times with another catastrophe to top it all off. Their stories not only are spooky but they tend to be sad as I found myself crying twice within the episodes and once more (and a little harder) at the end. Watch it at night, watch it during the day but, just know that a house is not a home without a family.
Flavor of Love (VH1/Hulu): FLAVOR FLAAAAAAAAAAV!! I don’t know how I got away with watching this show as a kid but it is just as ridiculously funny now as it was then. If you truly need something to watch while doing homework, then this is the show to watch. Plus, the iconic and meme’d New York is in the first season so you get a laugh when she’s putting on tears about how much she LOVES Flav, or even when she gets into the cat fights with Pumkin and the others. You can’t go wrong with this reality tv classic, trust me.