The Best New TV Shows & Movies This Week: 'Homecoming' and 'Insecure'

Image via Complex

Where to Watch: HBO Now

After the climatic block party blowup between Molly and Issa in the previous episode, “Lowkey Done” is the emotional funk that follows afterward. The episode starts with Issa replaying Molly’s words through a loop. Is Molly right? Is Issa really as selfish and messy as Molly claims? Issa goes back and forth between reaching out to Molly but Mirror Issa (our parallel universe queen) points out that Issa is always the one to reach out first. Maybe it’s time for Molly to make the first move this time.

Issa then calls Nathan and apologizes if he felt that she used him for the block party. To which he simply answers that he wanted to help her when she needed it. She soon attempts to spend the day to atone for whatever guilt she feels. Issa tries out random acts of kindness, which go haphazardly—she offers to pay for a pregnant woman’s groceries only to have her card declined. She then offers a ride to a man who missed his bus, only to have him complain about multiple things in her car. Frankly, these scenes felt bloated [Ed note: that old man, played by industry vet Brent Jennings, was amazing]. Yes, they demonstrate Issa’s naiveté but these felt like a halfhearted sequence that exists only to justify the existence of the next scene. 

Issa then goes to a Paint and Sip event (which—no judgment—s an odd activity to be doing solo) and finds an open seat with a group of women who are celebrating their friend’s bachelorette party. The women [Ed. note: one of them being played by Kyla Pratt. Hey Kyla] then invite her to a bar and they gas her up, giving Issa the confidence to talk about the block party as an accomplishment and as part of her career. The whole thing feels off—they’re not the friends that we’re used to seeing and, after luring her into the bathroom, we’re proven correct. The women ditch her and leave behind their bachelorette to-do list, with one of the checked boxes being “befriend a stranger”. On top of getting played, they left her with the hefty-ass bar tab. Issa chases them down and delivers the most satisfying smackdown (via her cactus painting) and unleashes her pent up rage. 

But it’s just a fantasy. Issa does find the women but she can’t do anything. Instead, she makes a call to someone asking if she can come over. For a moment, we’re dreading the possibility that the person on the phone is Lawrence (or worse, Daniel). But it’s a literal sigh of relief when she goes to have a conversation and the person who opens the door to her is her mom (played by Wendy Raquel Robinson). There’s a tender moment when Issa finally lets go of the stresses of her life and cries in her mother’s arms. In turn, her mother tells her that Issa is entering a new season of her life—one that will bring growing pains. Afterward, Issa then talks with Kelli about who should be reaching out first but we can tell that she’s over it. She goes home, gets high, and makes a plan to do something bigger with the block party (or possibly something different) in the future. 

The final scene is one of the most impactful moments of the series—Issa drives to the Ethiopian restaurant where she used to eat with Molly, only to find her there at the bar on her phone. In that moment, it’s clear that Molly could’ve done the same amount of reflection that Issa has been doing. To see her physically on her phone without making any attempt to reach out to Issa confirms that she likely won’t be doing so in the near future. Issa looks at her reflection in the window—there’s no usual quip or response from Mirror Issa. She doesn’t need any more advice and knows what to do. She walks away and she’s done. It’s a tense moment but one that’s simultaneously a relief. This is the growth that Issa needs and we’re here to see it through with her. —Andie Park

Where to Watch: TNT

After a winded history being shuffled between networks and directors, Snowpiercer has finally landed on the small screen to the delight—or dismay—of those familiar with the story. The series premiere of the Bong Joon-Ho adapted feature film of the same name had a massive debut with 3.3 million viewers and national trending status on Twitter. Despite its promising debut, the 51-minute pilot seemed to fall a little flat in comparison to the mystery that made Bong’s 2014 release so intriguing. 

Inspired by the French graphic novels, Le Transperceneige, Snowpiercer depicts a dystopian future in which the remainder of humanity is forced to inhabit a nonstop, weather-resistant locomotive in a continual journey around the globe following a man-made ice age. In the source material, the train is a product of Wilford Industries’ quasi-deity Mr. Wilford, of whom (most of) the train’s passengers revere as their savior. TNT’s adaptation also follows the class-system plot device that was the driving force in Bong’s film.

Things start to go a bit off track when lead character Layton Well (Daveed Diggs), a “taily” as those in the last car of the train are called, is thrust into the world of the upper-class in order to solve a murder. The promise of gritty, taily uprising as seen in previous adaptations is quickly undermined when the episode takes a sharp turn into more of a procedural crime drama lane.

As a fan of the 2014 movie, the cable network version had intrigue as a sci-fi series; this abrupt departure into the mundane trappings of a murder case is disappointing to say the least. To be fair, strong performances by Diggs and fellow leads Jennifer Connelly (who subs in for Tilda Swinton as voice of the train), and Steven Ogg, prop up this lengthy debut. And for a series based on a movie in which much of the fascination lies in the ending’s major reveal, it may be a bit too soon to judge this one quite so harshly. 

Snowpiercer may be off to a turbulent start, but it will be interesting to see where this one goes in the coming weeks. —Nora-Grayce Orosz

Where to Watch: HBO Now

The second installment of HBO’s limited series dropped last week and it was somehow even heavier than the premiere. 

This family saga, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, and based on the bestselling novel by Wally Lamb, is an intense look into the lives of identical twin brothers Thomas and Domenick Birdsey. 

In episode two, the curtain peels back further to show the brothers’ upbringing in their often turbulent, working-class Connecticut home. Ruffalo (who also executive produces the series) delivers astonishing performances as both Birdsey brothers. This week we saw Domenick at the end of his rope. Caring for his paranoid schizophrenic brother, Thomas, has been his lifelong promise to uphold since his mother’s (Melissa Leo) passing. 

Episode two also introduces Archie Panjabi as Dr. Patel, the on-staff therapist for the state-run mental institution where Thomas has now been committed following his latest self-inflicted violent outburst. It is in Domenick’s tense conversation with Dr. Patel that he comes to a grim realization about his brother’s impact on his own life. 

I Know This Much is True is already proving to be a moving portrait of a broken family, and it will be interesting to see how they condense the decade-spanning novel into the next four installments. —Nora-Grayce Orosz

Where to Watch: Amazon Prime

(Finally) back like cooked crack is Sam Esmail's Homecoming, this season the same, but different. Esmail's not directing all of the episodes—that feat fell to Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who does a dope job of giving Esmail's Season 1 visual appeal a remix. We're given a mostly new cast—Janelle Monae heads up a cast that only features two returning characters: Hong Chau's Audrey Temple and Stephan James' Walter—although the mighty Bobby Cannavale does make an appearance, and having a legend like Joan Cusack hop on board is breathtaking.

Does the season deliver? Mostly, yeah. There was no story from a podcast to base this excursion off of, and it looks like the name of the game was retribution. The season runs at an odd number of episodes—hard to find many seven-episode second seasons—and it looks like we're left with...an ending? It's poetic, in a way, although many innocents are thrown into the fire, but is this a situation where the story has come to its natural ending? Is this satisfying? It's definitely thought-provoking, and worthy of rewatch. Chau, Monae, and James all bring their A-game in this twisted russian doll of a seven-episode trek. —khal