What We’re Watching, Vol. 7

At The Attic on Eighth, we are obviously a multimedia bunch, with our regular reading discussions and film lists. In fact, some of our very first interactions as friends were excitedly messaging scene for scene reactions to some of our favorite shows across oceans and time zones. In this monthly series we paraphrase group chats surrounding our most recent views. Nothing keeps us together like binge-watching together, even if we’re not in the same room.

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November is the coziest month; full of warm drinks, enveloping blankets, and settling in to watch our beloved shows as they wind down to holiday specials or mid-season drama. For those of us who don't rely on the average television schedule, it could also mean re-watching old autumn favorites or embracing the onslaught of new streaming content. The internet knows all we want is to stay home and gather this month, and so the internet delivers.

After a couple of days away ourselves, connecting with family, home, and the season, we’re back, and here’s what we’re watching this month:

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Raquel Reyes

After the spookiness of October, November always feels like a resetting of the everyday for me. To that effect, I’ve found ultimate coziness in watching new seasons of a couple of past favorite shows. This week I watched the new season of The End of The F***ing World, a Netflix/BBC venture about a young teenage couple based on graphic novels of the same name. James and Alyssa would be like your average, unhinged and slightly sociopathic troubled teenagers, if only real, adult life mayhem didn’t seem to follow them everywhere they went. Still, it’s a sweet story that magnifies the troubles of being a bored teenager in a small town, surviving unexpected trauma, and ultimately finding someone to bear it with you along the way. Continuing on the streaming front, I’ve been slowly watching the new season of House of Flowers with my brother, as it was one of our favorite shows when it premiered last year. Following a modern day socialite family in Mexico City, House of Flowers is the best of many worlds — a riches to rags family comedy à la Schitt’s Creek, a dramatic soap opera with enough tropes to remind me of beloved telenovelas I would watch growing up, and just a touch of heightened, campy pseudo-realism reminiscent of the ‘extra’ sort of content I love nowadays (think low-level scandal, plot-driven drag shows, and refreshingly elegant costume design amidst elaborately whacky set design). 

Finally, given the building excitement for next month’s film adaptation, I decided to watch the Masterpiece miniseries adaptation of Little Women that aired last year. I would highly recommend this one for anyone in search of a truly cozy watch this season! I can’t say much for its accuracy, (I’ve not seen the 1994 film nor even actually read the book — looking up the series was an attempt as gauging what all of the fuss was about in the first place because for all of my attempts, I just can’t) but I felt it stood enough on its own, with beautiful scenery, perfect acting, and as a tale of loving family and period life in general.

Annie Jo Baker

I almost never binge watch a show, instead watching a couple episodes a week for several weeks, but I recently devoured all of the sitcom Please Like Me in the course of seven days. In the first episode, the main character, twenty year old Josh, realizes he’s gay, accepts it, and moves on with his life, which is a great set-up to the “que sera sera” way many of the characters deal with existence.

Josh lives in a small house with a beautiful garden in the suburbs of an Australian city with his best friend, the incredibly straight Tom, and his dog, John. Josh’s family—his divorced parents, de facto step mom, and, later on, baby sister, as well as his and Tom’s other friends flit in and out with their own problems, none of which are ever resolved in any thirty minute episode, or even within the series itself. Everyone cooks meals together, tend the garden, and arrange their interior decor amidst the rest of their daily lives. It’s wonderful and homey, even as they all deal with major issues. It’s probably the most realistic slice-of-life TV show I’ve seen, providing brutally matter-of-fact portrayals of mental illness, suicide, and abortion. While I cannot recommend this show more, I do strongly suggest looking up content warnings, just to be safe.

Also, Hannah Gadsby shows up as a major supporting character from the second season on, so you really should look into this.

M.A McCuen

As The Attic’s resident YA enthusiast, I was really excited to see Looking for Alaska finally get adapted for the (small) screen last month. The Hulu mini-series is such a throwback, reminding me of poring over the novel when I was in high school myself. It’s the story of a group of students at a boarding school in Alabama who are trying to navigate the intense emotions that come with being a teenager and being in love. The show is such a mix of pranks and other high school hijinks, contrasted with deep conversations of life, death, and grief. I really liked how the adaptation expanded the role of many of the characters in the book, giving them more backstory and nuance. As a teacher myself, I really respected the way they gave depth to the lives of the teachers at the school. It was curious to see myself go from identifying with the students when I first read the book, to now resonating with the teachers instead.

I also began watching Masterpiece’s Grantchester this month. My mom called me in late October to tell me “there is a show I found that has lots of the British countryside and a very attractive vicar.” Obviously, that hooked me immediately. Set in a small town in 1950’s Cambridgeshire, it’s about a vicar who partners with a local police detective to solve mysteries together. It’s honestly such a supremely cozy show. I love the details: cups of tea, bicycling through the countryside, jazz music, charming Cambridge colleges, and nosy parishioners. The mysteries are fun to try to solve, but not morbid enough to give you nightmares. I just finished the first season and I’m excited to cozy up with my own cup of tea and the second season tonight.

Olivia Gündüz-Willemin

The last month has been about three things for me: my ongoing Gilmore Girls rewatch, The Politician, and my growing love for Outlander. What started out as a light “Wouldn’t it be really funny if I got into Outlander after all this time??” joke in late September as I was looking for an engaging autumn show has now turned into a full-fledged love affair. The story of a woman – Claire – who accidentally travels back in time from postwar Britain to 1740s Scotland, falls in love with a Highlander, and gets caught up in the Jacobite risings, the show is absolutely bonkers but also a complete joy. You can tell it was originally a 1990s romance novel series, but it’s spectacular and I now know why everyone – and I mean everyone – has been recommending it to me since 2014. It’s violent to be sure (which was the main reason I refused to watch it before), but the story is just so gripping that I got into it anyway. I’m currently three seasons into it and desperately waiting to start season four. Definitely the show to watch if you want to be absolutely absorbed into something over the cold autumn and winter months.

Belonging to a very different genre, the other star of the month has been The Politician. Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan and starring the likes of Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Lange, Zoey Deutch, and Lucy Boynton, the show is a comedy-drama that very much feels like what would be the result of your wishing very hard that a Wes Anderson film would be turned into an entire television series. The premise of the show promotes a love or hate feeling – it’s the story of an overly ambitious young man – played by Ben Platt – who knows from day one that he wants to be President of the United States and who is consequently running to be student body president of his high school – but everything is so on point that it’s a constant delight to watch. I can’t wait for season two!

Finally, Gilmore Girls is an eternal autumn comfort and joy, the perfect thing to have on in the background through the season.

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