Television series

The Shrink Next Door

A sharp, uncomfortable dark comedy about a psychiatrist who gradually colonizes his patient's life, fortune, and Hamptons estate. Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd are magnetic as the two men locked in a toxic dance of manipulation and need. It's a portrait of how charisma and professional power can calcify into exploitation, told with wry distance and real sadness underneath.

TVMaze rating2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like a comedy that slowly curdles, where the laughs keep coming while the power imbalance between two men gets quietly, horribly worse, and where Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd play off each other like a fencing match.

Skip it if you want a clean punchline every few minutes or need to like the characters; the humour here is uneasy, and watching one man's judgement erode can feel more uncomfortable than funny.

What it asks of you: Eight episodes of roughly forty-three minutes each, so it is a short commitment, but it asks you to stay alert to small shifts in tone and to sit with discomfort rather than wait for relief.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Succession2018

Another story about powerful men whose grip on their world is slowly poisoned by their own neuroses and appetites. The writing has the same dark comic bite, and the performances are relentlessly intelligent.

But It runs for four seasons and demands patience; the bleakness accumulates and there's no redemption waiting at the end.

Succession poster

Chappaquiddick2018

A precise, furious account of how charm, family money, and connections can insulate a man from consequences. Kate Rooney Mara and Jason Clarke are exceptional. It shares that same cold-eyed view of entitlement.

But It's deliberately unglamorous and suffocating. If you're hoping for catharsis or justice, you'll leave disappointed.

Chappaquiddick poster

The Assassination of Richard Nixon2004

Sean Penn as a desperate man whose grip on reality loosens in real time. It has that same uncomfortable intimacy with a character spiraling, though it aims for tragedy rather than dark comedy.

But It's bleak and suffocating throughout. There's no lightness, no reprieve, no joke that lands.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Shrink Next Door

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Funny Girl1968

Both are about a talented, lonely person whose hunger for connection makes them vulnerable to someone who mistakes access for love. The power dynamic is dressed differently but the damage is the same.

Streisand as Fanny Brice—a woman dazzled by and then ground down by a man's charm. It's a musical, so the devastation comes wrapped in songs and spectacle, but the core story is exactly this: the seduction of a charismatic user.

But It's nearly three hours, the first half is lighter than the second, and if you're not invested in the romance, the runtime feels punishing.

Funny Girl poster
More like this (7)

Scenes from a Marriage2021

Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in a remake of the Bergman miniseries about intimacy curdling into power struggle. Each episode peels back another layer of resentment and need. The performances are ferocious.

But It's relentlessly heavy and the central relationship is one you don't want to watch deteriorate. No comfort here.

Scenes from a Marriage poster

A Serious Man2009

The Coen Brothers' portrait of a man whose life is being quietly dismantled by forces he can't control or understand. It has that same dark, almost Kafkaesque comedy—funny because it's so unfair.

But The ending refuses to satisfy. If you need resolution or meaning, this will frustrate you on purpose.

A Serious Man poster

In Treatment2008

A slow-burn examination of therapy as power dynamic, with Gabriel Byrne as a therapist whose own life is collapsing. It's intricate and claustrophobic, deeply interested in how vulnerability becomes leverage.

But It's genuinely repetitive by design—the same sessions, the same themes circling. Patience required; payoff is subtle.

In Treatment poster

Ozark2017

Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as a couple watching their marriage calcify under pressure and secrecy. It has moments of dark comedy but trades them increasingly for dread. The manipulation is intimate and relentless.

But The show goes on too long and peaks early. By the end it's more machinery than character study.

Ozark poster

American Hustle2013

Con artists and the people they seduce into complicity. It's slick and funny on the surface, but underneath it's about how charm becomes the most dangerous weapon in the room.

But It prioritizes style and momentum over depth. The characters never feel quite real beneath the gloss.

American Hustle poster

F for Fake1973

Both interrogate the gap between performance and reality, and ask how a compelling person exploits the space between. Welles uses it for magic; Herschkopf uses it for control.

Orson Welles' documentary about art forger Elmyr de Hory—a meditation on fraud, reinvention, and the strange intimacy between faker and audience. It's playful and formally dazzling, but also quietly about the same question: who gets to decide what's real?

But It's experimental and deliberately tricky. If you need a clear narrative or someone to root for, it will not provide that.

F for Fake poster

Olive Kitteridge2014

Both are about a person whose self-image as the hero of their own story blinds them to the damage they're doing to others. Olive wields guilt and judgment; Ike wields flattery and need. Same poison, different bottle.

An HBO miniseries that spans decades, examining a cranky, intelligent woman whose emotional withholding and righteousness have poisoned everyone around her. It's funny and sad simultaneously, and the interiority is devastating. Richard Jenkins and Frances McDormand are luminous.

But It's languid and elliptical. Nothing much happens; the show is interested only in the space between moments.

Olive Kitteridge poster

People

Cast

Writing

Production

Recommended by

Dr. Death, Backpack Full of Cash