Swarm is the most unsettling new show of 2023
When pop star ultra-fandom goes very wrong. Plus, the return of Yellowjackets, that first episode of Succession, and everything you need to know ahead of the weekend...
Mōrena! Sometimes friends recommend TV shows to me and I think, ‘Yep, sounds good, one day I’ll watch that,’ but never do. Your Honor is that show. It always sounded too much like Breaking Bad, so, since its 2020 debut, I didn’t bother. Five episodes in and I’m here to tell you it’s just like Breaking Bad – and that’s a great thing. I didn’t realise how much I missed Bryan Cranston doing dodgy things until I fired this up. Honestly, don’t make the same mistake I did. Just watch the first episode (two seasons are on Neon). You’ll see. Anyway, let’s get into this week’s recs! /Chris Schulz
Donald Glover’s new show invites you on a quick trip to hell
It starts out like a glossy teen drama in the style of Euphoria. A pop star’s coming to town. A fan wants to get front row tickets for her and her best friend. She logs in to a Ticketmaster pre-sale (perhaps the first indication you’re being welcomed into hell). A whopping $1800 later and she’s in. She takes to Twitter to boast about it. A fan and her best friend are living out their teenage fantasies and going to see their favourite pop star Ni'jah, a mega-huge performer who is, quite obviously, based on Beyoncé.
Then they have a fight and things … well, let’s just say, they take a turn.
To reveal how that first episode ends would be to spoil the grisly delights of Swarm, Donald Glover’s new Amazon Prime show that looks and feels like a very grim season of Atlanta – if Jordan Peele was invited into the writers room to get his grubby hands all over the script. It’s creepy. It’s mayhem. It’s carnage. It’s bleak. By the end of the seven episodes, as the bodies pile up, you’ll be covering your eyes a lot. Horror, darkness, and plenty of stings await all those who enter this particular beehive.
To say this is what Donald Glover did next is to dismiss the talents of Dominique Fishback. As the show’s lead Dre, a superfan and a serial killer, she delivers a star turn. Her eyes dart, roll around in her head, glaze over, go blank, then swim sharply into focus. She’s unhinged, shovelling food into her face, gargling apple juice, eyeballing people and, occasionally, killing them. She’s incredible, but don’t take my word for it. “I wanted her performance to be brutal. It’s just a raw thing,” Glover told Vulture. “She’s a special actor. Definitely one of the best I’ve worked with.”
Hingeing all this on Glover, who executive produced Swarm and directed its first episode, also diminishes the work of Janine Nabers, the show’s co-creator. Like Black Mirror, Peele’s Get Out, or Atlanta, Nabers places Dre in familiar locations – grubby flats, dive bars, backyards, diners – before turning everything on its head. Once you know what Dre’s capable of, a simple drink at a bar is riddled with tension. Glover pitched Nabers the idea based on a tweet, and she ran with it. “I was very much just into this idea of, well, who are the serial killers that look like me? And do they exist?”
Like the Atlanta episode based on a George Floyd looting incident, much of Swarm has already happened. Glover and Nabers pulled the story together from real-life headlines. “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is intentional,” says the show’s opening credits, and it’s not entirely wrong. “It really is just about taking events that existed on Twitter, on social media, as rumors or real news stories, real murders, and just connecting the dots with our character,” Nabers told Elle. Glover, to Vulture: “Bro, we steal everything. Anything that works, we will take it.”
Underneath it all, Swarm is a story about the dangerous intensity of fan fever. That couldn’t be more timely. Look at the way Harry Styles fans criticised his new girlfriend Olivia Wilde. Look at the absolute dedication of Billie Eilish’s Avocados. Right now, Ticketmaster is regretting ever messing with Swifties. In Swarm, all those Beyoncé references needed approval from Queen Bey herself. (It says something about just how good Swarm is that she agreed.) Glover and Nabers have created something timely and prescient, a show that pulls from everyday life to reach into the darkest depths of the soul. It’s not for everyone. It may hurt. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
A message from Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman: You're reading this because you value the work The Spinoff does in telling the stories of our people in our voices. As we head further into an already eventful 2023, we have a big job ahead of us. Covering the stories that matter to you is no small job. We’re a fiercely independent media company in Aotearoa but that also means we’re small and I think sometimes people forget how small our team is. I'm asking you to consider deepening your commitment to The Spinoff and the work we do by becoming a Spinoff Member. If you’re already a member, thank you for your support and advocacy - it's what keeps us going.
Why you need to see … the second season of Yellowjackets
Teenage life is a horrorshow. The factions, the secrets, the paranioa – it's already a nightmare before you add plane crashes, starvation and cannibal antler cults. I like Yellowjackets because it takes all that high school angst and dials it all the way up. Season two has just started and they've upped the stakes again, introducing new characters and the adult version of at least one key character from season one, played by Aotearoa's own Simone Kessell (with Melanie Lynskey, we can claim Yellowjackets as a local show now). The closest comparison – mystery with possible supernatural elements in a deserted wilderness – is Lost, and it'll be interesting to see if Yellowjackets can avoid a similar path into getting too convoluted and confusing as seasons go on. Already they're walking a fine line, but I'm in for the ride. /Toby Morris
Why you need to watch … all of Party Down
Thirteen years is a long time between drinks and the stars of Party Down – a cult comedy hit from 2009 that’s never been available on New Zealand screens – have noticeably aged. Ken Marino’s hair is greying, Martin Starr’s goatee is neatly trimmed and Adam Scott has matured like a fine wine. The one thing that hasn’t changed is its sense of humour – Party Down is funny. Based on the antics of a catering company staffed by out-of-work actors, there’s plenty of humour to be had mocking Hollywood elites. Party Down’s long-delayed third season picks up right where things left off, with superhero digs, content creator jabs and Instagram put downs. It’s great, and it’s even better that all of it – the original first two seasons, and the new third season – is available here, through TVNZ+. Start at the start, and just keep going /Chris Schulz
On the Spinoff: The Real Pod gets to grips with MAFS AU
It's home town week on Married at First Sight Australia! Join Jane Yee, Alex Casey and Duncan Greive as we grab our Canterbury shorts and a Barramundi to pash to recap all the drama from across 'Straya. Which groom will emerge as the most eligible bachelor in Australasia? Whose relationship will crumble over a cupboard? And what happened to Ollie and Tahnee's fish???? All that, plus some more riveting garden chat.
All the new stuff you can watch, right now…
If you want a middle-aged white man to play a disappointed-with-the-state-of-their-life middle-aged-white-man, you have two options: Jason Segel or Chris O’Dowd. Clearly, Segel was already busy with Shrinking, so The Big Door Prize goes with O’Dowd and is apparently all the better for it. The Hollywood Reporter calls this a “charmer” about a small town changed by a future-predicting machine that turns up by chance. It’s on Apple TV+ from today.
Meanwhile, The New York Times calls Unstable, Netflix’s new Rob Lowe series, “comedy gold”. It follows the exploits of a biotech genius (played by Lowe) spiralling after the death of his wife and trying to connect with his son (Lowe’s real-life son, John Owen Lowe). It sounds promising. On the same service, Riverdale’s seventh season debuts, and Celeste Barber’s first TV show Wellmania is getting great reviews.
Elsewhere, Amazon Prime has Toni Collette’s female empowerment series The Power (“Electrifying,” says The Telegraph), Neon has British crime series A Town Called Malice (“Zippy, brash and so 80s it's exhausting,” says The Guardian), and Apple TV+ has Tetris, a movie about the creation of the block-busting game that’s getting surprisingly good reviews. Finally, catering comedy Party Down has never been available on New Zealand screens – until now. Catch all three seasons on TVNZ+.
If you’re heading out to theatres, you’re probably going to see the country’s No. 1 film John Wick 4 (read Rec Room’s supremely positive review here). If not that, then Dungeons & Dragons (yes, it’s based on the dice game we all played at high school) is getting incredible reviews (“Endearingly dorky,” says The Age.) Sam Neill fans may want to check out The Portable Door, an adaptation of Tom Holt’s fantasy book series.
Everything you need to know…
Still recovering from that first episode of Succession’s fourth season? Me too. I had a rummage and wrote up this review about the heartbreaking last 10 minutes.
Toni Collette told The Spinoff this week that Jacinda Ardern inspired her performance in her electric (geddit?) new Amazon Prime series The Power.
Last year’s best show The Bear has received a season two teaser trailer and I cannot wait to have this show back in my life.
Please stop filming scenes from the film Red, White & Brass.
There’s a new HBO series starring Jesse Plemons and Elisabeth Olsen and it looks creepy. Here’s the first trailer for Love and Death.
If you want to watch Pearl, the acclaimed New Zealand-shot sequel to Ti West’s X, you can! The only problem? You’ll have make like it’s 2006 and order the DVD.
Finally, sometimes you just know when it’s time to quit. New York Times film critic AO Scott is giving up. The reason? Superheroes. He tells the podcast The Daily why his 24-year career reviewing movies is over.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.
