Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Elsbeth Season 3 Episode 1.Elsbeth is back, and our favorite police consultant is as “Elsbethy” as ever in the Season 3 premiere “Yes, And…” The episode is a microcosm of everything we love about the series, and Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) herself, and if there were any worries that Season 3 wouldn’t be able to maintain the lofty standards set by the first two seasons, consider them dashed. “Yes, And…” is one of the series’ best, filled with meta moments, warmth, fun, and the promise of some fascinating dynamics that will play out over the season.

Elsbeth Meets Late Night Murder in the ‘Elsbeth’ Season 3 Premiere “Yes, And…”

Elsbeth‘s second season didn’t end on a cliffhanger per se, with Elsbeth released from prison thanks to the efforts of Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) and Officer Chandler (Ethan Slater). Rather, it ended in Elsbeth choosing to embrace the challenges before her, with the machinations of Judge Crawford (Michael Emerson) still very much in play and Detective Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) leaving New York for her task force training program in DC. “Yes, And…” picks up a few months after that point, and, slowly but surely, little nuggets of information are dropped throughout the episode to bring us up to speed.

It’s a credit to the series’ writers that they can play that slow exposition without taking away from the main story, and it’s fitting that such a well-written episode opens with Laurel Hammond-Muntz (Amy Sedaris), head writer and executive producer of late-night talk show Way Late with Scotty Bristol, entering the writers room. She’s there to give them the bad news, yet again, that Scotty (Stephen Colbert) has decided not to use their material for that night’s show. Cue the sound of the paper shredder in Scotty’s office, a regular occurrence done simply to piss off the writers.

Laurel goes from there to the green room, where a familiar face from the past, Sheryl Jacobs (Marcia DeBonis), who fans will remember as the friend Elsbeth made at the wellness retreat in Season 2’s “Unalive and Well.” She’s on the show to promote her book about her wellness journey, and Laurel is there to prepare her, as best she can, for whatever Scotty may throw her way. As she’s talking, Scotty breezes in, and a starstruck Sheryl introduces him to the friend that came to support her from the audience: Elsbeth Tascioni. Elsbeth is on the couch behind a number of bags, trying to catch a few winks before the show starts after just arriving home from Scotland (we’ll get there, promise), but still bright and bouncy enough to be an irritant to Scotty.

The episode cuts to the taping, where Sheryl is being interviewed by Scotty. She asks if he’s read the book; he has not. But his sidekick, Mickey Muntz (Andy Richter), did, and starts to engage with Sheryl before being cut off by Scotty, who uses the book to verbally abuse Mickey on air, as is his wont. After the show wraps, Laurel is seen consoling Mickey, her husband, not only over the verbal abuse but over Scotty’s refusal to allow Mickey time off for medical leave due to a heart condition. Laurel sends Mickey off and heads into Scotty’s office. They reminisce about the trio’s past as an improv group before making it big, with Scotty tenaciously holding on to fame to the point of, well, denying a long-time friend medical leave. Laurel seduces Scotty, who she spurned back then for Mickey, and backs him up against his big paper shredder, dubbed “Mickey 2.” As he leans back, Laurel jams his tie into the shredder and holds down the override button, strangling Scotty to death.

Writers Top the List of Suspects in the ‘Elsbeth’ Season 3 Premiere “Yes, And…”

Back to Elsbeth, who returns home to the welcoming face of Teddy (Ben Levi Ross). She’s evasive about why she’s come back earlier than expected, chalking it up to being there for Sheryl. Teddy changes the subject to talk about his good news, having taken a job with the New York View as an investigative journalist. This is the first sign of Crawford’s lessening impact, with Teddy having found a job he’s passionate about after giving up on becoming a lawyer. Just as Elsbeth is about to finally get some sleep, Wagner calls, asking for her to come to the crime scene.

While on the subject of being back on the job, Elsbeth asks if there’s a “new officer keeping her in line,” and there is: Grace Hackett (Lindsay Mendez), police officer by day, aspiring comic at night. There is a connection between the two, but it will be some time before it builds up to the dynamic Elsbeth shared with Kaya (but does show promise that it can get there). At the crime scene, Elsbeth looks around, and posits that Scotty must have taken out his earbuds to talk to someone, most likely the killer. In the episode’s funniest meta moment, when it’s revealed that Scotty was listening to “Merrily We Roll Along,” the Stephen Sondheim musical, prompting Elsbeth to gleefully utter how much she loves his work, because his stories always work backward – just like Elsbeth always does with her deductions. Moving on, she acts out the probability of what happened to Scotty, which is a pretty faithful observation, but it’s a mystery, given the override button has been wiped of prints.

Back at the station, Elsbeth has gifts she brought back from Scotland for everyone, personal gifts that she put thought into, plus a number of novelty pencils to give to those that she doesn’t know well. But it’s a station that has changed since Elsbeth’s been gone, with those budget cuts, another fallout from Crawford, forcing Lieutenant Connor (Daniel K. Isaac) to make budgetary decisions, like charging $1 for coffee and cutting back on how often garbage is collected. The efforts irritate Detective Smullen (Danny Mastrogiorgio) to no end, but that will have to wait as they gather to try and figure out who might be responsible. Smullen theorizes, or outright declares, that it must be the writers. So back to the crime scene, where a page walks Smullen and Elsbeth down the hall, pointing out Scotty’s office where they found him dead (it mimics the opening moments of the episode when the same page is giving a tour, one of many fun details in the episode). They question the writers, but it becomes unlikely that it’s any of them: none of the writers were in the office at the time, and while they might have been angry with Scotty regularly, the writers assert that any writer isn’t going to rock the boat, but rather be thankful they have a job.

Amy Sedaris’ Laurel Gets Caught In a Lie in the ‘Elsbeth’ Season Premiere “Yes, And…”

Image via CBS

Speculation turns to Mickey, after video footage from the elevator shows him visibly angry and hostile after the embarrassment suffered on the show, just before he heads back and finds Scotty’s body. Only it’s something he does routinely after any show, building up the courage to quit before calming down, as evidenced in additional elevator footage. Elsbeth’s attention then turns to Laurel, who regularly took the brunt of the writer’s hostility towards Scotty, and would have been upset over Scotty’s poor treatment of Mickey. As they’re talking, Elsbeth drops one of those nuggets we talked about, adding that her ex narrowly escaped disbarment, yet another of Crawford’s machinations to fall. Their talk turns to the trio’s past as an improv troupe, giving Elsbeth the idea that Laurel should teach her improv, as it could really help her in her work. She does, and the improv lessons, led by the most important lesson of “yes, and…”, are the highlight of the episode, a brilliantly funny scene that also serves to draw Laurel deeper into Elsbeth’s suspicions.

But it’s Mickey that actually picks up on Laurel’s murderous act first, after confronting her about lying to the police about him wanting to quit. Only the realization is too much, and Mickey dies on the spot. It’s the perfect opportunity for Laurel, who pins the blame on Mickey, and Smullen figures that’s it, end of story. Except she uses the phrase “yes, and,” a fatal flaw that Elsbeth catches, all but confirming her suspicions. But that’s still all they are, suspicions, and after getting an update from Detective Jax (Ruffin Prentiss) on Kaya (she’s doing well and is on her first undercover assignment, and has a plushy Loch Ness Monster waiting for her), Elsbeth goes into her office. Meanwhile, Wagner, after watching Connor being utterly berated by the officers angry over his budget cuts, comes to his rescue, saying any concerns about the budget need to go through him. His standing up for Connor makes the episode’s quietest, yet most powerful moment, as Connor’s face is visibly relieved and thankful.

In her office, Elsbeth notices that Smullen has tossed his shortbread cookies, a gift from her, into her wastebasket. It’s a lightbulb moment, and Elsbeth rushes off to the studio. She confronts Laurel there, giving her a list of reasons why she would hate Scotty enough to kill him. Laurel asks how she knew all this, and the answer comes around the corner: the page. Pages know and see all behind the scenes, and are responsible for emptying out paper shredders, as he did before Scotty’s demise. Only there was paper in Mickey 2, meaning someone put the shredded paper in after the fact, and the spacing between the shreds matches the shredder in Laurel’s office perfectly. It’s a wrap as Laurel is walked out, saying that she didn’t kill Mickey, but Elsbeth points out to her that she did, just not directly.

Having successfully solved the case, Elsbeth uses the opportunity to grab a box of now-unusable Way Late with Scotty Bristol-branded office supplies for the precinct. It’s a short-term solution, but before Elsbeth can voluntarily step away from the office, Wagner stops her, saying that if it comes down to getting rid of her or the budget cuts, he will never entertain the thought of the former. Now, finally, Elsbeth gets some sleep. Ah, but we promised you the scoop on her Scotland visit, so here it is: Elsbeth is hesitant to call Angus (Ioan Gruffudd) her boyfriend, claiming she’s not sure what to call what they have, and was evasive when asked by Teddy. It could just be the weight of keeping up a long-distance relationship, but I swear I will take back the love for the writers here should they break the pair up.

New episodes of Elsbeth drop on Thursdays starting October 16 on CBS in the U.S.

Release Date

February 29, 2024

Directors

Nancy Hower, Robert King, Lionel Coleman, Rob Hardy, Robin Givens, Ron Underwood, Rosemary Rodriguez, Aisha Tyler, Bille Woodruff, James Whitmore Jr., Joe Menendez, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Lily Mariye, Nick Gomez, Peter Sollett, Sam Hoffman, Tyne Rafaeli, Darren Grant, Fong-Yee Yap, Mary Lou Belli

Writers

Jonathan Tolins, Erica Shelton Kodish, Bryan Goluboff, Sarah Beckett, Michelle King

Pros & Cons

• The writing is among the series? best, filled with clever meta moments and pearls of exposition.
• The improv lesson scene has Carrie Preston and Amy Sedaris at the top of their game.

• Andy Richter is largely underwhelming, giving the premiere a sense of missed opportunity.
• The ambiguity surrounding Elsbeth?s relationship with Angus is maddening.

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for High Potential Season 2 Episode 3.The Game Maker (David Giuntoli) may have been High Potential‘s most intense villain yet, but as of the two-part Season 2 premiere, he’s been defeated for now. With the Game Maker out of the way, High Potential is back to its case-of-the-week structure for the third episode of Season 2, “Eleven Minutes.” The episode sees Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) and her team investigate the murder of Nathan Gould, a man who is strangled to death while waiting at a restaurant to meet with his daughter.

Meanwhile, the Season 2 premiere only brought more questions about Roman Sinquerra’s whereabouts, and Morgan has to deal with the difficult decision in this episode of whether to tell Ava (Amirah J) that her father had recently been staying at a motel in Nevada. The return to form is naturally less suspenseful than the previous two episodes, but “Eleven Minutes” is nonetheless a strong installment that ends with a shocking twist.

In ‘High Potential’ Season 2, Episode 3, Morgan and Her Team Investigate the Murder of a Man in a Lot of Debt

After Nathan is murdered in this episode’s cold open, Morgan and Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) go to the crime scene to investigate. The paramedics who treated Nathan reveal that they treated him a lot for “suspicious injuries.” Morgan figures out that the tables were intentionally spilled on and set up so that Nathan would be sitting in the right place. The restaurant’s host then tells Morgan that she heard a duck sound in the alley after Nathan disappeared, which is how she found him. From investigating Nathan’s apartment, Morgan and Karadec figure out that he was a gambler in a lot of debt, and that one of the people he owed money – Nathan’s loan shark, Ray – came to kill him after he had already been murdered. Nathan also made Ray the beneficiary of his life insurance before he died.

This takes the Major Crimes team to the previous beneficiary: Nathan’s daughter, Jessica. Jessica explains that Nathan disappeared from her life after her parents divorced when she was a child. He reached out to her several months before to make things right because he’d be “going away soon,” and the two have been getting to know each other in the meantime. When Nathan was stood up on the morning he was killed, someone texted Nathan to change the location at the last minute, while Jessica was waiting for him where they’d agreed to meet. Morgan and Karadec then realize Nathan was planning to end his own life to give Ray his life insurance money and protect Jessica. Morgan also discovers that Jessica was pregnant, and Jessica tells Morgan that both she and Nathan had had a lot of doctor’s visits recently: her for the pregnancy, and him for a series of tests and scans with a cardiologist, even though he was fine.

In ‘High Potential’ Season 2, Episode 3, Morgan Tells Ava the Latest News About Roman

Image via ABC

After her visit from Arthur (Mekhi Phifer) last episode, Morgan has been struggling with the weight of keeping the most recent updates about Roman’s whereabouts from Ava. After some well-meaning advice from Karadec, Morgan tells Ava everything that she knows about Roman’s latest whereabouts, including that he was living in Nevada a few weeks ago. Morgan then leaves for work, but later, she learns that Ava was arrested for vandalizing one of Roman’s murals. Morgan defends Ava, then she gets arrested alongside her, but Karadec quickly gets them released.

Later, Morgan and Ava talk, and Ava tells Morgan that she’s having a hard time after getting her hopes up that Roman hadn’t abandoned her after all. Morgan isn’t able to do much to reassure Ava, except tell her that she believes Roman had a good reason for disappearing for all these years, even though she knows as little as Ava does. Morgan still hasn’t reached out to Arthur about Roman, though, and the overarching mystery of Roman Sinquerra once again continues.

‘High Potential’ Season 2, Episode 3, Ends With a Shocking Plot Twist

Image via ABC

Morgan figures out that Nathan’s phone alarm was set to the duck sound, and after interviewing the paramedics who treated him, she realizes that someone had planned it out so that Nathan would be found in time for his heart to be donated. As it turns out, Nathan Gould was killed for his heart, but the heart is now being redirected to a billionaire with sway over the hospital. The billionaire, Carson Wood, is not a great match for the heart, though the hospital coordinator threw away the paper with the original recipient’s name on it. Morgan and her team look through the waiting list for heart recipients, and Morgan figures out that the heart was attended for the mother of one of the paramedics, Christopher Bishop.

When Nathan was dealing with Ray’s threats and injuries, he got to know Christopher well, and he told him that he’d give Christopher’s mother his heart when he ended his life. When Nathan learned that he was going to be a grandfather, he changed his mind, and Christopher killed him for his heart. Morgan and Karadec let Christopher’s mother, Rosemary, see him and say goodbye to him one last time, then she goes back on the waiting list for another heart. Morgan gives Jessica the brooch that Nathan was planning to give to her baby, then Morgan asks her how she was able to forgive him and let him back in her life, to which Jessica says her mother raised her that way. “Eleven Minutes” then ends with Morgan considering Jessica’s words, and Karadec comforting Morgan by showing her who will be receiving Nathan’s heart.

New episodes of High Potential air Tuesdays at 10:00 P.M. EST on ABC.

There’s something so absolutely blessedly mind-numbing about going all-in on a (usually mediocre and brief) televised psychological thriller. Wealthy women who live on the seashore with dark secrets! The family matriarch and/or patriarch suddenly vanishes without a trace! Pretty young people with their whole bright futures ahead of them find themselves implicated in a vicious murder plot! Whether these stories begin as YA novels or beach reads, they eventually land on a streaming network for us to enjoy. Most recently, Netflix’s Perfect Couple has managed to strike a chord with people looking for something to half-watch on a screen. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of the forgettable thrillers I watch on Netflix (e.g., Behind Her Eyes, Fair Play, The Watcher, Anatomy of a Scandal, Safe), there were no lesbians in it!

So let’s get into some thrillers that do have queer characters. For this list I focused on thrillers that are centered on the relationships between humans impacted by whatever mystery or thrilling situation lies at the heart of the show, rather than thrillers that are centered on law enforcement, government officials, journalists or podcasters investigating a crime that they’d have no relationship to were it not for their vocation, which I think would be a different list. 

Psychological Thrillers About Toxic Romantic Relationships

Tell Me Lies

Hulu // Two seasons // Based on Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering

(Disney/Josh Stringer)

The centerpiece of this soapy thriller set in 2007 at a fictional upstate New York college is the relationship between Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and her absolutely insufferable and transparently toxic on-again-off-again boyfriend Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White). Lucy’s roommate, Macy, is killed in a car accident her first week of school, setting off a twisty little spiral of events that ensnare their whole social group. We’re also transported back and forth in time to a 2015 wedding between two of Lucy’s college buddies. In Season One, Lucy gets a new roommate, Charlie, who’s a lesbian, and although her stay on the series is brief, (spoiler alert) Lucy’s best friend Pippa also turns out to be queer.

Wilderness

Prime Video // Limited Series // Based on Wilderness by B.E. Jones

©Prime UK/David Giesbrecht

British couple Liv (Coleman) and Will (Jackson-Cohen) appear to have it all — a glamorous life in New York far away from their provincial home town, a widely envied marriage — but it all comes crashing down when Liv learns of Will’s affair with Cara (queer actor Ashley Benson). After coping with heartbreak, Liv moves on to revenge, and plans to execute it on a couples road trip to all the National Parks, only to arrive at Yellowstone and find Cara’s already there. Liv is sexually fluid and her best friend, Ash, is a lesbian with a very obvious crush on Liv.

Gypsy

Netflix // One Season

Gypsy Season 1

Still the only television program I’ve found so riveting that I hooked up my phone to my car (not a routine behavior for me in 2017, bear with me here) so I could continue listening to it on my way home from the gym, this objectively bad one-season Netflix show stars Naomi Watts as a psychologist who infiltrates the private lives of her patients. She becomes… entangled with Sidney Pierce (Sophie Cookson), a barista who falls in love with Jean and whose ex-boyfriend is a client of Jean? Also Naomi Watts is married and her husband is Billy Crudup. IDK you’ll have to see for yourself.

Leopard Skin

Peacock // One Season

Describing the plot of Leopard Skin is both challenging and largely irrelevant, as it is entirely its own beast, a very weird and compelling and erotic mystery about Alba (Carla Gugino), a documentarian whose husband let her for a cocktail waitress named Batty (Gaite Jansen), who Alba now lives with for murder-related reasons, and both of them and their housekeeper are held hostage in their mansion by some diamond thieves. “The show feels a bit as if David Lynch were to try his hand at a softcore Cinemax production,” Kayla wrote.

You

Netflix // 4+ Seasons // Based on the You series by Caroline Kepnes

The queer content in You is … meager, to say the least. Shay Mitchell plays Peach Salinger in Season One, a rare character who was queerer in the book than the show. Later seasons see our protagonist falling for a woman who has some lesbian besties. There are also some gay male characters. But this has become, for better or for worse, one of the best-known series in the genre, following Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager who becomes obsessed with the women he loves, manipulating and stalking them into submission — and worse. The fifth and final season is currently in production.

‘Secrets Lurking Beneath Seemingly Idyllic Lives’ Thrillers

The Hunting Wives

Netflix // One Season (so far) // Based on The Hunting Wives by May Cobb

Sophie O’Neill’s husband gets a job in East Texas and thus moves his wife and son there from Cambridge. Sophie quickly finds herself pulled deeply into the world of Margo Banks, the queen bee of a tight clique of gun-toting fancy Southern gals who are sugar and spice on the outside but often a little sexually deviant on the inside. Sophie and Margo’s relationship turns sexual pretty quickly, and then there is MURDER

Harlan Coben’s Shelter

Prime Video // One Season // Based on Shelter by Harlan Coben

I think I’ve watched every televised adaptation of this man’s work (The Stranger, Safe, Fool Me Once, Stay Close, etc), but can’t really remember a single minute of any of them — except this one because it was gay!

Mickey Bolter (Jaden Michael), a teen still recovering from his father’s sudden death, moves in with his aunt in his father’s hometown, and meets a mysterious old woman in a mysterious old house who said his dad isn’t dead. Then he gets a crush on a girl who disappears immediately. These confusing situations and many others in this seemingly picture-perfect town are ripe to be tackled by Mickey and his brand new friends, Spoon (Adrian Greensmith) and queer goth art girl Ema (Abby Corrigan). Honestly what made this series work for me is 90% that it’s really surprisingly gay (keep your eye on Constance Zimmer as Mickey’s aunt!!) and 10% the plot, which has its moments and also has its eye-rolls. Sadly it was cancelled after one season, as so many gay things are.

Apples Never Fall

Peacock // Limited Series // based on Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Based on the book by Liane Moriarty (of Big Little Lies fame), Stan (Sam Neill) and Joy (Annette Benning) are tennis coaches who’ve sold their school and are prepping for a lovely retirement when Joy disappears, sending her family into TUMULT. All eyes are on Savannah (Georgia Flood), a domestic violence survivor who Joy and Stan had invited to live with them some months earlier who turned out to be full of secrets and lies. Savannah is queer, as is Joy’s youngest daughter, Brooke (Essie Randles), a physical therapist engaged to Gina Solis (Paula Andrea Placido). This show is by all accounts not great, but if you can move past that, it’ll eventually hook you!

The Last Thing He Told Me

Apple TV+ // Limited Series // based on The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Hannah’s (Jennifer Garner) husband disappears — right after his tech company falls under investigation for fraud — thus forcing Hannah to have to find a way to connect with her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Bailey, to figure out the truth about who he really was and where the hell he went. Aisha Tyler plays Hannah’s (lesbian) best friend, a San Francisco Chronicle sports journalist who wants to help her friend — she just has to figure out how to do that and her job.

Murder Mystery Psychological Thrillers

Past Lies

Hulu // One Season

Rita (Elena Anaya from Room in Rome) is a successful lesbian film director who returns to her hometown with her girlfriend to settle her mother’s estate, only to find herself there for an unexpected event: the remains of a high school classmate, who disappeared on their senior trip 25 years ago, turns up. Her high school friend group, still intact and in her hometown, are shaken, and old ghosts come rattling to the surface in more ways than one.

A Murder at the End of the World

Hulu // Limited Series

Darby (non-binary actor Emma Corin) is a hacker, author and amateur detective invited to a mysterious and exclusive retreat hosted by a billionaire at an isolated Arctic compound in Iceland in this miniseries from Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. She’s surprised to see a very close estranged friend at dinner on the first night, and even more surprised to when she finds him killed on their first night at the resort.

Teen Drama Psychological Thrillers

Dare Me

USA // One Season // Based on Dare Me by Megan Abbott

This atmospheric mystery thriller based on the Megan Abbott novel finds a group of cheerleaders entangled in a dark web of lies and mysteries when new coach Colette French (Willa Fitzgerald) takes over the squad, coming between best friends Addy (Herizen F. Guardiola) and Beth (Marlo Kelly). After Addy and Beth catching Colette cheating on her husband with her ex, the dominoes begin to fall. Eventually there is in fact a murder! Kayla writes that Dare Me “dresses up its darkness with glitter, but that mask is very intentional, a piercing juxtaposition of the thrills and terror of high school sports.”

Cruel Summer Season One

Freeform // Anthology Series

You have to wait until the literal last episode of Season One to really get your gay payoff (and the link above has a gay spoiler in it so be careful!), but this teen thriller is pretty compelling without it. In 1993 in Skylin, Texas, the beautiful, popular Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt) disappears, and socially awkward Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia) manages to take her place, even getting her boyfriend. In 1995, Jeanette is loathed nationwide after Kate is rescued and Jeanette accuses her of witnessing her abduction and failing to report it. A legal battle ensues but the spiral of secrets has only begun to unravel. Harley Quinn Smith plays queer character Mallory, one of Jeanette’s best friends who then becomes Kate’s best friend.

One of Us Is Lying

Peacock // Two Seasons // Based on the One of Us Is Lying series by Karen M. McManus

Based on a buzzy YA thriller, a disparate group of students find themselves under suspicion after online gossip scourge Simon suddenly dies while they’re all in detention. Simon’s best friend, Janae Matthews, is the unlikely outsider who finds her way into this clique, and who comes into her own as queer and non-binary.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Prime Video // One Season // Inspired by I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan-Arquette

This adaptation of the teen horror movie that was an adaptation of a novel rockets the story into present day Hawaii with the same basic conceit but an otherwise very different story. It’s difficult to describe what happens without giving you spoilers, but for our purposes here: there is a bisexual main character played by Brianne Tju and the lead has some …. bisexual qualities.

Comedy-Mystery-Thrillers

Bad Sisters

Apple TV+ // Two seasons

Wry and warm and funny; this Irish series co-starring and co-created by Sharon Hogan finds four sisters trying desperately to kill John Paul, the insufferable, abusive husband of the fifth sister. Sarah Greene plays second-youngest sister Bibi Garvey, a married lesbian who lost her right eye in a car crash. Although we sadly didn’t write a standalone review of its first season, that was not for a lack of love: Bad Sisters easily made our list of the Best TV Shows of 2022, where it was described as a “MASTERPIECE in television.”

Imposters

Bravo // Two Seasons

Maddie (Inbar Lavi) is a con artist, part of a larger web of similar scammers, who works her way into the romantic lives of men and women before breaking their hearts and stealing all their valuables and money. Then three of her jilted paramours  — Ezra, Richie and Jules — find each other and want revenge. “Imposters is a show about love, sort of,” writes Natalie. “It’s about the different ways in which we fall in love and what that love says about us as individuals.”

The Other Black Girl

Hulu // One Season // Based on The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

With the exception of the horror shows listed below, I mostly avoided shows with any supernatural elements for this list because that would be a whole entire other sort of list! But I made an exception for genre-blending satire / thriller / comedy The Other Black Girl. Nella, a young publishing assistant, is the only Black girl at her publishing office and is stoked when a second Black girl is hired. But her relationship with the new girl, while promising at first, eventually turns suspicious. As Nella digs deeper into her employer’s history with Black writers and employees, she discovers a web of sinister secrets. Nella’s queer best friend, Malaika, is the show’s unsung hero.

Baby Reindeer

Netflix // Limited Series

It’s hard to put this show into any category, and psychological thriller is really only half the story, as is calling it a “comedy.”  Aspiring comic Donny Dunn works as a bartender at a pub where he meets Martha, a woman who immediately becomes obsessed with Donny and begins stalking and harassing him. Donny tells us his own story at his own pace, about the sexual abuse and shame around his bisexuality that drives his present despair and anguish. He also dates Teri, a trans woman played by trans actress Nava Mau. “We need more shows like Baby Reindeer,” wrote Drew. “Challenging work that leads with empathy and a commitment to the many contradictions of our world.

Psychological Horror-Thrillers

Dead Ringers

Prime Video // One Season

Rachel Weisz plays twin gynecologists seeking to revolutionize the way pregnancy and birth are handled in the medical world in “this bloody and horny psychosexual thriller full of body horror, mind games, and sci-fi-ish strangeness.” An adaptation of the 1988 David Cronenberg film, one of the twins is a lesbian, but the other has been known to seduce on her behalf.

Swarm

Prime Video // Limited Series

Donald Glover’s horror series takes a stab at stan culture through unhinged protagonist Dre (Dominique Fishback) whose passion for Ni’Jah, a pop star with a fan club called “the swarm” drives her into making a series of bananas decisions such as “homicide.” Around mid-season she spends some time with a queer cult led by Billie Eilish.While her queerness is a bit apparent in the start, it’s not fully at the surface until the last episode, which also features a queer graduate student named Rashida (Kiersey Clemons).

Ratched

Netflix // One Season //

Sarah Paulson stars as the titular Nurse Ratched, the antagonist from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in this thoroughly gay series that “takes the original film’s backdrop of queerness and splatters it on the screen in blood.” As Drew writes: “There is so much to chew on, so much to celebrate, so much to critique, and yet the whole thing feels so completely Ryan Murphy it’s hard not to just delight in its very existence.”

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Young and the Restless spoilers indicate that Damian Kane (Jermaine Rivers) could be dead. Cane Ashby (Billy Flynn) is a suspect, among others, and Chance Chancellor (Conner Floyd) is investigating. There are some intense new spoilers to talk about.

We’re going to dive into whether Cane killed his romantic rival Damian, or if somebody else did it, and who Chance is grilling as part of the murder mystery that we were promised and they’re delivering on. We’ve got lots of good stuff for the week of July 14th on Y&R.

Young and the Restless Spoilers: Cain’s Jealousy and Lily’s Rejection

So, by the end of this week on Young and the Restless, Cane is really losing it because he wants to be with Lily Winters (Christel Khalil). She keeps rejecting him, and then even worse, Damian, his former employee, winds up in bed with Lily. She is moving on without Cane. He doesn’t stand a chance with her. He never did. But then everything’s going to shift.

Y&R Spoilers: The Necklace and a Moment of Sorrow

So, after Lily kissed Damian again in front of her ex-husband Cane, that seemed to kind of break something inside of him. Lily took Damian off to her train car, slid into the sheets with him, and Cane pulled this necklace out of his shirt.

And I saw some people on Soap social media asking what’s the significance of the necklace he had. It’s not the chain, it’s what was on it. After watching Lily leave with Damian, Cane pulled out a chain and it had his wedding band on it.

They showed it just for kind of a brief second, and some of the screenshots and pictures is not terribly clear, but it is distinctly a wedding band. The band he wore back when he was married to Lily. So, it was kind of like Cane was just having this little moment of sorrow, and then the implication is that he completely snaps in jealousy because then next week things take a turn.

Did Cane Poison Damian? Unraveling the Y&R Murder Mystery

Damian and Cane run into each other in the maze. They are having a drink, and Damian asks Cane if he’s trying to poison him because he’s jealous about Lily. Cain reassures Damian and says, “No, we’re both drinking the same stuff.” And then Cane says, “No, no, cuz I’d be poisoning us both.”

Then Damian seems to have some sort of reaction to what he drank. And it looks like he’s maybe losing consciousness. Cane’s like, “What’s going on?” At a glance, it does look like he poisoned Damian while the two men were alone in a fit of jealousy over Lily. But there’s a few things to consider. One, Damian’s not really dead.

You know, this is just one of those cleverly edited promos and you know, he’s fine and somebody else is killed. So, two, the poison or whatever it is was meant for Cane not for Damian. That’s another thing to consider. If you remember, Cain brought Chance there because he said somebody’s trying to kill him.

And since Cane told Damian they were drinking the same thing, the poison, if indeed someone is poisoned right there, might have been in the glass, not in the liquid. You know, maybe Cane just happened to grab the non-poison glass and Damian grabbed the one that was actually meant for Cane. Of course, if it is Damian that dies, it looks bad because he just slept with Lily and everybody knows that Cane wants Lily back. But the fact that Cane brought Chance there because of a potential death threat calls everything into question.

Young and the Restless Spoilers: The Newman’s Knowledge and a Plan B – Exploring Cane’s Motives

I do have to mention, you know, Damian might not be dead for a couple of reasons. Now that Cane knows that the Newman’s know that he left and went to Genoa City and was buying up real estate properties and he has a minion there. And of course, Cane knows all this because Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) told him, the Newman’s know that could be the big motivation for what’s turning into a murder mystery next week.

So Cane might have already had this as like a plan B or a plan C in his back pocket to buy more time to keep everyone trapped there at the chateau while he’s got Holden Novak (Nathan Owens) doing his dirty work back in their hometown.

You know, I mean, it’s not for nothing that Chance is there and that Cane brought him. It all feels like a big setup. He’s supposed to be this master manipulator and all this. So, you have to think a little deeper and wonder if the Y&R writers are being, you know, clever with these edits on the promos and things like that.

Young and the Restless Spoilers: Chance’s Investigation and Cane’s Scheme – A Convenient Setup?

So, Chance is starting up a full-blown murder investigation next week, which means nobody at the chateau can leave. So, that feels pretty convenient for Cane right? We’ll see if it is or not, but that’s what it feels like. What’s crazy about this also is that Chance has no jurisdiction in France be investigating anything. He is a Genoa City cop. Nobody in France has to listen to him or stay there to be questioned by him. But this is what we’ve got. So if this is some sort of scheme by Cane to keep his unwilling guest there longer, a couple of things could happen.

The promo’s misleading and somebody else has died or Damian appears to have died, but he’s not dead, you know. And it could be that Cane gave Damian something to knock him out. Has his henchman Carter and Amanda Sinclair (Mishael Morgan) stash him somewhere? Maybe he is going to blackmail Damian to stay quiet and play dead. Cane might have some sort of leverage he can hold over Damian. Some sketchy business thing from his past when he was Dumas.

Maybe Cane has access to some special cancer treatment that would be some kind of big help to Damian’s mom. Amy Lewis (Valarie Pettiford) tells him, you know, play dead for a week and I’ll get you this experimental treatment or something. Cane’s dad, Colin, was sick and died not too long ago, so Cane may have built up some medical connections.

You know, I think Damian could be talked into playing dead for a week or so, but we’ll see how it goes. Uh, you know, we’ll know when the full roster of our spoilers is out next week. It would kind of suck for Lily to finally get a a new man in her life and in her bed and then he dies right after they do the deed. That’d be terrible.

Peeping Through the Bushes: Who’s Watching Kane and Damian?

Also, next week when Cane’s with Damian and the other man appears to have some reaction to whatever he drank, somebody is watching Kane with Damian. They’re nearby. They’re peeping through the bushes at the hedge maze.

And again, this could be contrived. It may be Nick Newman (Joshua Morrow) because next week he’s having this confrontation scene with Phyllis. And Nick’s telling Phyllis, “Stop with all the stall tactics.” And she’s asking what he saw. So maybe Nick was peeping at them. Maybe Cane wanted them to be peeped at. I mean, he’s controlling everything and he has cameras everywhere.

Agatha Christie Style: Chance Gathers the Suspects

So later on, Chance gathers everybody in the train car, murder mystery style, Agatha Christie style, and Lily asks if Chance is calling this a murder, and he says, “Yeah, that’s what they’re looking at.” But Lily at the same time doesn’t look like she’s distraught, like her new lover just died. That’s why I’m kind of like, weird, you know? So, at the back of my mind, I’m also wondering if Damian’s fine and somebody else is dead and they just didn’t show him in the promo because in the promo, I also don’t think I saw Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) and some others.

So, could be somebody disposable like Carter, the guy who’s Cane’s assistant. And again, we’ll know more when we get the full roster of weekly Y&R spoilers. I like Damian. I hope he’s not pushing up daisies at the chateau next week. Chance tells the assembled guest they’re going to that he’s going to talk to everybody privately about where they were, what they were doing over the last hour.

That appalls Abby Newman (Melissa Ordway), who’s asking her ex-husband, Chance, if he’s going to interrogate them. Devon Hamilton (Bryton James) starts complaining that they’re all basically suspects in a murder investigation.