The show definitely gets way better with the introduction of Adam Scott and Rob Lowe at the end of season 2, but I still think watching the first two seasons is essential.
Haven’t had hbo for awhile. Have it for a few months, trying to binge on it.
Watched all three seasons of Sucession, first season of White Lotus (will watch second), and Our City or whatever that one is. Also plan to watch House of Dragon.
What else are must sees on HBO atm? I have seen everything that came out before season three of Westworld.
Watch Euphoria if you’ve never seen it. Righteous Gemstones too.
Definitely Righteous Gemstones
Industry
Tokyo Vice
The Rehersal
Maybe you’ve seen these not sure on the years but they feel pretty new to me
Barry
Chernobyl
The Deuce
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I was very happy to see, particularly in the current age of All Your Favorite Shows Are Cancelled, that this is coming back for S2!
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I don’t think I’d call it “must watch”, but I did enjoy Our Flag Means Death.
Seconding Chernobyl, but I think it falls outside of your time frame. If not, I’ll add the Watchmen mini-series as well.
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Thanks for all the great suggestions.
Righteous Gemstones - forgot this is one I have been watching, like halfway through s1.
Industry - thanks!
Tokyo Vice - thanks! The Rehersal - thanks!
Barry - I think I previously watched most of s1, will enjoy going back
Chernobyl - always wanted to watch this never took the time.
The Deuce - think I did watch this need to check
Our Flag Our Death - thanks!
after years in my queue, i finally watched The Wind Rises (studio Ghibli). Not exactly what i expected but loved it anyway. Really tugs at the heartstrings how personal life events intersect with history.
Indeed, we watched this show over the last week. It was really good - like Theranos, it’s an insane story about the kind of stuff people will pour billions of dollars into, this time with less outright fraud and more “lol, how did all these investors think this business was going to work?” Like people make fun of MoviePass but “torch money on fire for the sake of ‘growth’” was the entire business model of this company that was inches away from IPOing at a $50 billion valuation until the insanity of the company & their founder made everyone be like “wait a sec”. How did it even get that close???
Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway are fantastic.
It also randomly reminded me that, as good as crypto Matt Levine and Elon Matt Levine are, I think the absolute peak of Money Stuff was WeWork Matt Levine. This show is so much more vivid because so many of the details are things I remember reading about in real time, from a writer who at the time was like, lol, isn’t this fucking wild? And while the show (small spoiler) ends on a more defeatist note, the coup de grace of the IRL story is that this guy absolutely got away with it all and made out like a fucking king. Respect to the king of all grifters, Adam Neumann, no one will ever come close to you, gotta respect the hustle.
Parting thought - one thing I think the show slightly missed on was an opportunity to drive home everyone’s complicity in it. Like by the end of the show/Neumann’s reign as CEO, everyone’s fed up with him - employees are mad because he’s fucking up the IPO, the board is mad because he’s fucking up the IPO, everyone is like “we want an adult running the company, not you”.
…And yet. Surely they all know that this psycho is *the entire reason* this company is a unicorn? Surely they know that if you take this psycho away from the helm, all you’re left with is a boring company that leases real estate and slices it up to rent to subtenants at a slight premium? This psycho is why you have stock options that make you a paper millionaire, this psycho is why your early investment in the company has now 20xed instead of bumbling along, slowly outpacing the S&P 500. The show doesn’t really comment on this dichotomy, though, once he’s not useful to the people around him they just discard him (which is probably realistic to be sure, but you’d think a TV show would frame that a little differently).
I googled “wework stock” to see how the company is doing away from its visionary founder (it did finally go public in 2021):
$1.2B market cap!!! Ouch!!! But also, what’s that underneath the ticker?
Hahaha holy shit, so yeah he started this rent-to-own startup “Flow” after leaving WeWork, and VCs learned their lesson and stopped throwing money at this guy lol just kidding Andreesen Horowitz invested $350M before the company even launched, and I guess the first news stories with details are actually coming out about it. Let’s read one:
- HAHAHAHAHAHAHA holy fuck, no, no, oh my god no one wants to plunge a fucking toilet no no no no no, and
- This is literally a scene from the show! When he’s in some community college business class he pitches a co-living apartment company and someone in the audience makes fun of him like “this is a dorm, you just invented dorms.” He just got A16Z to put a third of a billion dollars into that shit!!! Forever the king.
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wait, am I not supposed to plunge my own toilet in my apartment?
Can I take the cost of the plunger out my rent?
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It’s just a plunger, Kerowo. What could it cost, like $100?
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Tubotax wouldn’t let me write it off so I had to price it in to this years budget.
I’m the type of renter that unless it’s prohibitively expensive and far beyond normal wear and tear (or urgent) like a water heating breaking, then I’m not pestering my landlord about it, I either fix it myself or call a repair guy to do it if it’s less than $200. I’m not gonna sit around for potentially weeks waiting for the management company to get their act together, and I like to control who precisely comes in and out of my home.
like, if my toilet clogs, I’m plunging it in less than 10 mins. People actually think that’s the landlord’s responsibility? holy shit
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The idea that someone would call their landlord to plunge their toilet for them is legitimately something I never considered prior to today.
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Maybe that’s an NYC thing, like, where lots of buildings are so big that there’s a superintendent living in the building to respond to stuff like that on short notice. When I was renting in a 6-unit building in SF I’d never dream of calling the landlord for something trivial since all but the largest emergencies would require at least a couple days to get them to come fix it. But otherwise, yeah, I’m calling the landlord to fix shit, not going to Home Depot myself or paying someone out of pocket to fix something that’s the landlord’s responsibility.
(I guess this also depends on the quality of your landlord - mine was actually responsive and would fix stuff, if yours is a deadbeat and your choice is between fixing it yourself or filing legal complaints or living with it that’s a bit more 
)
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maybe belongs in a renters thread but my landlord is completely nonexistent, and I prefer it that way. You can ask him to fix shit but for instance it took him five months to send someone out to fix my heater once. weirdly though I actually prefer this kind of landlord because they’re less up in your shit and way less likely to want to come inspect stuff. I have nothing to hide but I don’t want my fucking landlord in my home, like ever, they creep me out and I’ve had bad experiences before with snooping landlords.
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I just moved into a high rise apartment building after having been a homeowner forever. When the toilet in my only bathroom was clogged, I contacted maintenance and someone was over within an hour to plunge it.
I would have plunged it myself, but I apparently failed to take the plunger with me when I moved.
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