The great thing about TV in the streaming era is that it gives you a chance to catch up on things you might have missed.
The bad thing about TV in the streaming era is that there’s too much to catch up on.
You’d think that might not be such a bad problem to have. Yet, I don’t know about you, but if I have a little extra time to watch something and I open up one of the streaming platforms I subscribe to, which is basically all of them, then I am paralyzed by choice. I spend all my time looking at the menus and previews and wind up watching “Sportscenter” on ESPN.
Not to worry. I’ve got three recommendations for shows that came out this summer — a couple of new series, and the return, and return to greatness, of a third.
‘Furious’
This Hulu series starring
Emmy Rossum as a deeply wounded FBI agent searching for a deeply wounded serial killer is the best new show of the summer, and if it weren’t for “Widow’s Bay,” the entire year. The story, the performances, the execution — they’re all great.
It’s not a whodunit — we know from the first scene that the killer is Catherine Grace (Lola Petticrew, brilliant, which is an adjective you can use for every single performance in the show). She was sex-trafficked as a girl. Now Alice Black (Rossum, also a producer on the show), new to the bureau, is part of the team trying to catch her.
It is so much more complex than that. Alice was abused by her former boyfriend, who was a New York City cop alongside her. (She didn’t make a formal complaint but left for the FBI.) This is just one of the things she likes to keep hidden. Her boss, Nora (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), who likes to fill her water bottle at work with liquor, is tough, frustrated, sometimes abrasive and often hilarious.
Alice and her old friend Danny (Scoot McNairy, outstanding, like everyone else), who is still a New York cop, work through professional and personal tangles. The show asks a lot of questions and insists that the audience come to its own conclusions. How far is too far to see justice served, especially when the system set up to decide these things is corrupt and broken? Revenge is a complicated thing. “Furious,” created by Elizabeth Merriweather (“New Girl,” “The Dropout”), explores it with depth and intelligence (and the occasional Greek myth).
How to watch: Streaming on Hulu.
‘Lanterns’
A lot of the discourse around this show — yes, shows inspire discourse, the replacement for water-cooler conversations — has to do with whether it’s really a superhero show. After all, it’s mostly a murder mystery.
To which the only suitable response, of course, is: who cares? I mean, when the Green Lantern creates an impenetrable shield or a tweeting bird in a split second by using his ring, that seems pretty super. He flies! How super do you need it to be? Not every comic-book story has to end with a brain-scrambling battle between gigantic armies of heroes and villains. Chill.
Besides, it brings Kyle Chandler back to TV, though he’s nothing like Coach Taylor in “Friday Night Lights.” Here he is, Hal Jordan, the current Green Lantern, assigned to protect earth. He is also training — reluctantly — a new Lantern, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). There can only be one Green Lantern protecting earth at a time, so there’s some tension. Thus, Hal and John don’t much like each other and Hal is always throwing roadblocks in John’s way. It’s pretty great, thanks to the chemistry between Chandler and Pierre.
They’re not solving a murder so much as trying to find aliens on earth (it’s explained, kind of) in a tiny Nebraska town. This means supporting characters, the frame a series like this depends on, and they deliver. There’s the town sheriff (Kelly MacDonald), her dopey lawyer husband (Jason Ritter, perfect), the local rich survivalist guy building his own militia (Garret Dillahunt, always weird and great), the rich guy’s wife (Poorna Jagannathan), just to name a few.
One of the producers adapting this is Damon Lindelof, whose “Watchmen” series was more ambitious. (He was also one of the creators of “Lost.”) That’s fine. “Lanterns” satisfies one of the basic requirements of a TV show — it gives us characters we want to spend time with.
How to watch: Streaming on HBO Max.
Watch all these shows with a Disney+, Hulu, HBO bundle
'The Bear'
The second season of “The Bear” is one of my favorite things that’s been on TV in ages. The third season? Not so much. It's more of a placeholder season. The fourth season was just odd, and ended — spoiler alert — with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), the gifted, tormented culinary genius, handing the restaurant over to Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott).
So the announcement that there would be a fifth season was a surprise. Hadn’t they diluted the genius of the first two seasons enough? Could there even be a show without Carmy? Was there anything left to say?
Yes. By going back to basics — the final season mostly follows a single service at The Bear, the once-and-current Chicago sandwich shop that Carmy has worried into a fine-dining restaurant. An epic storm is brewing outside, the place is falling apart and the staff is certain that the Michelin guide reviewer is in the dining room.
Carmy is still around, but Sydney is the leader in the kitchen now. It’s a different vibe, then, but we still see what we love most in this show — everyone coming together, working toward a common goal. Or goals, whether they be simply getting a dish to a table on time or impressing the one person whose opinion could make or break the restaurant’s future.
I am inclined to like a show whose messages include not overthinking things. And I am inclined to like “The Bear” when it follows its own advice.
How to watch: Streaming on Hulu.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Media commentary with a side of snark? Sign up for The Watchlist newsletter with Bill Goodykoontz.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why 'Furious,' 'Lanterns' and 'The Bear' are 3 best TV shows to stream
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