3 HBO Max Shows to Devour This Weekend (September 12 – 14)

A good friend of mine back in the day had HBO, and hanging out at his house every Sunday watching The Sopranos was one of the highlights of the week. I was raised on tame network television, so HBO completely blew my mind. Happily, HBO Max is still exploding my cranium with its vast library of award-winning shows.

For this weekend, as we head into some cooler weather, I’ve put together a mix of some of my favorite comedy, sci-fi, and drama shows I’ve watched–new and old—and I think you’ll like them, too.

3

Tenacious D

A thousand years ago, when I was a backpacker in Australia, my best friend from home sent me a care package that included a burned CD that simply had “The D” written on it in Sharpie. Not having a clue what I was about to pump into my ear holes, I put it on on my way to work, and my life was changed forever.

The D’s music, born from this short-lived cult classic HBO TV series that aired from 1999 to 2000, was the funniest thing I had ever heard, filled with hilariously raunchy lyrics about wildebeests and angels, Satan, telekinetic superheroes, going on the road, and Ronnie James Dio.

Tenacious D came spewing from the comedic minds of a pre-fame Jack Black and Kyle Gass, based on live performances of their fictional “greatest band in the world” at Los Angeles’s Largo comedy club. Even though the low-budget series only featured three 22-minute episodes (each with two short segments), the duo’s outrageous music, sketches, and absurd storytelling are guaranteed to make a lasting impression. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of JB and KG, a pair of acoustic guitar-slinging self-proclaimed rock gods, as they pursue superstardom at all ridiculous cost.

What you might find truly impressive and surprising, as I did, is the insane musical talent of Black and Gass, a fact that is, of course, common knowledge now, but witnessing it in their raw, early days is something to behold. I’ll leave this right here—it’s one of the hilarious ways Paul F. Tomkins introduces the band before they take the stage: “Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Molly Hatchet could not be here tonight, but they all had sex, and they’re proud to announce the birth of their two-headed baby, Tenacious D.”

2

Dune: Prophecy

I never read the Dune books, but I was totally enthralled by both of Denis Villeneuve’s epic films about the saga of chosen one, Paul Atreides, the brutal warring Harkonnen family, and the battle for control of the spice-rich planet of Arrakis. Dune: Part 2, released in March 2024, was even more visually stunning and action-packed than the first, so I was delighted to only have to wait a handful of months for HBO to bring the world of Dune to the small screen.

Dune: Prophecy is not overly tied to the films, and it goes without saying that it doesn’t match the vast visual quality of Villeneuve’s masterpieces, but that’s OK, it’s still full of dark conspiracies, power struggles, and some exciting action. Based on materials from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s novel, Prophecy takes place 10,000 years before the events of the films and highlights the founding of the mystical, empire-controlling Bene Gesserit by sisters Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula (Olivia William) Harkonnen. Yes, those Harkonnens.

Watson is as cold as ice as Valya, as she stops at nothing to push her agenda and keep the Bene Gesserit safe from threats, including a mysterious and powerful outsider played by Vikings’ Ragnar Lothbrok himself, Travis Fimmel. Dune: Prophecy was thankfully renewed for a second season, so catch up on the first in just a weekend.

1

Mare of Easttown

Ah, 2021, a pandemic year when we devoured copious amounts of TV programming at home and the year WandaVision, The Queen’s Gambit, The Crown, Succession, and Ted Lasso dominated the Emmys. But there was one dark, brooding, and tense limited crime series with a stacked cast including Kate Winslet, Evan Peters, Julianne Nicholson, and Jean Smart that also didn’t do too bad in the awards department—Mare of Easttown.

It’s slow moving at first, but once Easttown gets going, it will chill you to the bone. Winslet stars as Marianne “Mare” Sheehan, a police detective in the fictional Pennsylvania suburb of Easttown. While juggling dealing with the personal tragedies of her past and the harsh realities of her present, Mare must also somehow solve two heinous crimes at the same time—the disappearance of a young woman nearly a year ago, and the more recent murder of a single mother. It’s a tight-knit town, and everyone is a suspect.

Luckily, Mare has some investigative help in the form of young county detective Colin Zabel (Peters) and personal help at home from her mom (Smart) and best friend (Nicholson). Winslet won a best leading actress Emmy for the role, in which she painstakingly mastered the unique local “Delco” Philadelphia accent.

It’s easy to head right to Netflix when you’re looking for a TV show to binge for the weekend, but take a second, swipe past that red icon and click on the good ‘ol HBO Max app, becasue it has a crazy catalog of older and new series to get wrapped up in for a couple of days of escapism. Do it.