“Difficult People”
Synopsis: Two thirty-something New York City comedians, who hate everyone but each other, struggle with their careers and relationships as their friends find success and love.
What You Need To Know: New York City’s favorite misanthropes are back and are surprisingly trying to get their lives in order. Julie (Klausner) is trying to wean herself off of anti-depressants and deal with her mental-health issues while Billy (Eichner) has landed himself his first serious boyfriend Todd, played by one of the Internet’s Real Life Boyfriend, John Cho (“Star Trek”). With an equally funny and foul cast consisting of James Urbaniak, Andrea Martin, Derrick Baskin, Gabourey Sidibe and Tracee Chimo, “Difficult People” is living proof that sometimes of the world’s most awful, selfish people are also the most hilarious people we know.
Release Date: August 8th
“Mr. Mercedes”
Synopsis: A drama focusing on a psychopathic killer who drives a stolen Mercedes into a crowd and the recently retired cop trying to bring him down.
What You Need To Know: The entertainment year isn’t complete without a Stephen King adaptation and “Mr. Mercedes” is this year’s annual King contribution to the primordial pop culture soup. Adapted by David E. Kelley (“The Practice,” “Big Little Lies”) and starring Brendan Gleeson, Harry Treadaway and Mary-Louise Parke, Audience’s “Mr. Mercedes” is a tense game of cat-and-mouse between retired law-enforcer (Gleeson) and unrepentant vehicular murderer (Treadaway) – but who is the cat and who is the mouse? Its series like these that remind us genre fare is still thriving, despite being squeezed more and more out of the multiplexes.
Release Date: August 9th
“Atypical”
Synopsis: Sam, an eighteen year-old teen on the autism spectrum, decides it’s time to find a girlfriend, a journey that sets Sam’s mom on her own life-changing path as her son seeks out more independence.
What You Need To Know: Created by Robia Rashid (“Bad Teacher,” “The Goldbergs”), “Atypical” has some serious potential to be a summer sleeper hit for Netflix. Starring Keir Gilchrist, Michael Rapaport and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the series is shaping up to be an honest depiction of a neuro-diverse family dealing with the reality of their autistic son looking to expand his horizons without being preachy, cloying or turning into a multi-episodic After School Special. At the end of the day no hetero teenage boy, wherever they are on the spectrum, is immune to the siren call of boobs.
Release Date: August 11th
“Get Shorty”
Synopsis: A former hitman discovers his unique skills and talents can be applied equally effectively to the movie business.
What You Need To Know: Based on author Elmore Leonard’s novel, which was previously brought to the big screen by Barry Sonnenfeld, the Epix series finds Chris O’ Dowd playing Miles Daly, a hitman from Nevada looking for an exit out of the criminal life, who decides to take a crack at producing a script left behind from one of his “assignments.” He teams up with washed up D-list movie producer Rick Moreweather, played by Ray Romano (…) to get the picture made, but things get more complicated when the criminal and movie businesses clash over the production. As the saying goes – there really is no business like show business.
Release Date: August 13th