Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
The Trades, Crave
Two episodes of blue-collar comedy The Trades will drop on Crave each Friday, starting on March 14.Michael Tompkins/Crave
“What is this – a trailer park?” welder Todd asks in the first episode of the second season of The Trades, as he returns from months away working on a pipeline to find his driveway filled with garbage and goofs. The meta-joke is that Todd is played by Robb Wells, who previously portrayed Ricky on the cult Canadian comedy Trailer Park Boys. The blue-collar comedy he’s now starring in trades on that connection even more in this new batch of episodes, adding fellow TPB vet Patrick Roach (previous the ever-shirtless Randy) as a new anti-union antagonist named Danny McRules working at Conch Industries, a shop populated by a who’s who of hoser comedy. The writing of The Trades may be as unrefined as ever, an unwieldy welding together of scatological sitcom and out-there sketch comedy, but the rough edges didn’t stop it from becoming the No. 1 Canadian show on Crave in 2024. Two episodes drop each Friday starting March 14.
Long Bright River, Crave
Amanda Seyfried as Mickey in Long Bright River.David Holloway/Crave
Amanda Seyfried goes for gritty in this new eight-episode adaptation of Liz Moore’s novel of the same name – one of Barack Obama’s top books of 2020. She plays Mickey Fitzpatrick, a police officer (and single mom) who patrols the streets of a Philadelphia neighbourhood racked by the opioid crisis. After several unhoused women die in a way that only Mickey finds suspicious, she embarks on her own investigation – and tries to track down her missing sister, whom she fears may be the next victim. A thriller that also aims to be an empathetic exploration of addiction, all episodes of Long Bright River (on Peacock in the U.S.) are now on Crave – though its dark depiction of the impact of drugs on families will not necessarily inspire a binge-watch.
Dope Thief, Apple TV+
Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura star in Dope Thief, the latest drug-themed thriller set in Philadelphia.Apple TV+
The not-so-sunny parts of Philadelphia are all over the streamers this week: Dope Thief, adapted by screenwriter Peter Craig (The Batman, Top Gun: Maverick) from the 2009 noir novel by Dennis Tafoya, is another drug-themed thriller set in the City of Brotherly Love. The opening scene of its first episode (directed by Ridley Scott) holds The Wire-like promise as Drug Enforcement Administration agents Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) bust a sad front-porch drug-dealing operation in a poor part of town. But then comes the first of many plot twists: Long-time friends Ray and Manny turn out not to actually be law enforcement, but criminals stealing from criminals. Of course, they soon try to thieve from the wrong ones and all hell breaks loose. In between the entertaining suspense elements, Henry (Atlanta) gives a tremendous tragicomic performance as Ray, a man weighed down by his past, his family and his own addictions. The first two episodes land on Apple TV+ March 14, then new episodes arrive weekly.
Concrete Valley, CBC Gem
Set and shot in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, this 2023 drama by franco-Canadian director Antoine Bourges follows a Syrian couple named Rashid (Hussam Douhna) and Farah (Amani Ibrahim) who can no longer practise their old professions – doctor and actor, respectively – in their new limbo-like existence in Canada. A tender film made with plenty of humane humour and a cast filled with mostly newcomers to acting, it was named a Critic’s Pick by The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz. “Douhna is a true one-of-a-kind discovery, peeling away layers of Rashid slowly, almost imperceptibly,” he wrote in his review. “How Bourges and his non-actor actor managed such a trick is one to be studied and appreciated for years to come – a performance utterly devoid of cliché.” On Gem as of March 14.
Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years, Disney+
The endlessly exasperated American stand-up Bill Burr is making his Broadway debut right now playing one of the angry, ageing real estate salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross – a near perfect piece of casting that few of his Canadian fans will be flocking down to see given current cross-border tensions. A fair compromise, then, might be to watch the Boston-accented comedian’s new special on Disney+ (March 14) – in which he looks and sounds as much like a David Mamet character as ever, but ultimately evades reactionary views like those now espoused by Trump-loving Mamet himself. In between airing his latest set of gripes about the world, Burr comes to the conclusion, only mildly begrudgingly, that maybe it’s in the best interest of middle-aged men like him to be kind to their wives, avoid language that alienates others when possible and talk about their emotions so they don’t die of a heart attack in their 50s, the “drop-dead years” of the title that he currently finds himself in.
