It’s a warm blanket.  It’s comfort food.  

A show you’ve seen before and know that you like.  You stick your thumb firmly in your mouth, grab your security blanket, put on your red and black striped shirt, believe in the Great Pumpkin, and just watch that show you know puts a smile on your face.  That’s okay, Linus.  This is a stressful time and it’s okay to want to feel safe and secure.  

I do it all the time.  I can’t count how many nights I’ve fallen asleep to Futurama streaming on my iPad, or The Simpsons, or Psych, or The A-Team or some other show I know and love and can quote backwards and forwards.  It’s basically every night for the last fifteen years, so I guess I could count, but that’s not going to be fun for any of us.  So as much as I could talk about the insanity and spectacle of Tiger King, I feel like I’ve said enough about that already.  Let’s get right into it.  What am I watching that I’ve already seen before?  What shows am I revisiting, what shows are my macaroni and cheese right now?  I present to you The Rewatch, Quarantine Edition:

The Tick

Am I never naked—or am I never not naked?  A question you might find yourself asking while stuck at home is one the Tick asks himself in his own quest for identity.  Of course, The Tick isn’t just about the existential query of one’s own nature, it’s also about good guys fighting bad guys.  But specifically deeply flawed, emotionally damaged, and societal fringe good guys fighting bad guys.  This isn’t your standard superhero-heroically-fights-supervillain show.  While that does happen—destiny calls and that call is answered—The Tick is about so much more.  It’s about the deep down trauma that people carry with them.  It’s about the things in our lives that make us feel like we don’t fit in.  Like we’re not normal.  And it’s about taking those things and embracing them.  I never got much into the original live action series from the 90s; rather, it was The Tick cartoon that introduced me to and subsequently defined the character for me.  But this time I’m talking about the Amazon Prime original.  Featuring the perfectly cast Griffin Newman and Peter Serafinowicz as Arthur and the Tick respectively (and a wonderful supporting cast of Valorie Curry, the indomitable Alan Tudyk, Scott Speiser, Yara Martinez, Brendan Hines, and Buzz from Home Alone), the show never once shames anyone for being different.  It’s as funny as it is heartwarming, it’s as action-packed as it is sentimental, and it’s as caring as it is inspiring.  What may have started life as a love-letter to superheroes ended up a love-letter to us all; a subversive look at heroism and how it’s found as readily in the big and the blue as in the twitchy accountant or self-sabotaging paramedic who secretly yearns for more.  The Tick takes superheroism and puts it on a level accessible to all of us; we can be heroes too (and sometimes, if you look hard enough around at the people in your life, you may even already be one and not know it).  Unlike Amazon’s other subversive superhero show, The Boys, which is a great show in its own right, it eschews over-the-top violence in an uncaring world for some teetering-on-the-top violence in a world that cares quite a bit.  While it, unfortunately, only lasted two seasons before Amazon unceremoniously cancelled it (much like AMC’s beautiful Lodge 49, a show whose cancellation is still too raw for me to rewatch it, but if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s on Hulu and I can’t recommend it enough), those two seasons are well worth your time.  The Tick accepts you for who you are and wants to give you a big hug.  

The Mandalorian

Part of me wishes I could honestly tell you that this is only the second time I’m watching this show, but that would be a damn dirty lie.  This is probably the fourth time I’ve seen it from start to finish, in addition to watching each episode again before the new one aired when the show originally came to Disney+.  Like the title hero goes for his flamethrower with worrying frequency, in times of emotional distress I often reach for Star Wars.  I’ve been a fan of Star Wars since I was a small child and this expansion of the universe is just so….choice.  No, it’s not perfect.  Mando makes a few odd decisions and seemingly trusts some people much too quickly with varying degrees of success (and episode 4 “Sanctuary” and 5 “The Gunslinger” should be swapped in order), it features some good writing, well composed action sequences, and possibly the cutest thing ever to grace this galaxy or the next, Baby Yoda (or as I’ve co-opted from Jason Concepcion, “LBY”, short for “Lil’ Baby Yodes”).  Whether he eats the frog or drops it out of his mouth, I just melt.  I could just stare at LBY for hours.  I’m pretty sure I have, actually.  And some great performances from Carl Weathers himself—turns out he’s far more than just creative ways to get a stew going—and Gina Carano in her best role since the very underrated Haywire keep the show on boil.  After the disappointment that was The Rise of Skywalker, it’s nice to see that there’s still magic left in the Star Wars universe, and I hope we don’t get saddled with some hokey reveal to ruin everything like they did with TROS.  Because I’m not going to play Fortnite, damn it, no matter how many messages Palpy sends through it.  This show trades the swashbuckling action of the original trilogy for a more grounded, western feel that is as much The Man With No Name trilogy as it is Lone Wolf and Cub and is all the better for it.  If you haven’t seen it yet, I would watch it.  And if you have seen it, now might be the right time to watch it again.

Mindhunter

Okay, ready for things to get heavy?  Because the next show I’m rewatching is not the kind you put on in the background just for sound.  That’s not to say there isn’t the occasional levity in the show, but more than anything, I just find it incredibly fascinating.  I’m not a “true crime” kind of guy and I don’t get obsessed with the villainy—I’m not a fan of serial killers and I don’t find the Joker very compelling without the Batman—but there’s something about Netflix’s Mindhunter that just entrances me.  It’s not the serial killers, though.  It’s the funnily named Holden Ford (if you’re familiar with car company rivalries of Australia, you should get a kick out of that name), the gruff Bill Tench, and the highly intelligent Dr. Wendy Carr creating the new math of sequence murderers.  Much of what we know now about serial killers and how they operate came from the work of Ford’s, Tench’s, and Carr’s real life counterparts at the FBI.  So the next time you’re sitting back and watching some crime procedural where a square jawed white guy says something “the killer returns to the scene of the crime”, you’ll know that came from the real life work that was done in the 1970s.  Also, many of the interviews with serial killers are recreated from real interviews, and sometimes with chilling accuracy and effect.  Of course there’s only so much you can sit and watch a show like this, despite its moments of comic relief.  Once you see a man pleasure himself into a woman’s shoe in front of our protagonists and a prison guard, you might want to change over to something a little easier to watch.  

Warehouse 13

We had five seasons of Warehouse 13 and it still didn’t feel like enough.  This show continues that motif of taking misfits and accepting them and never making them feel like they aren’t enough.  This is a show that features strong, fully realized female characters, caring, affectionate men who are also tough guys, and some real LGBT representation without brushing past them and then having the showrunners pull a muscle patting themselves on the back like some shows or movies do (I’m looking at you, Disney).  The premise of the show is pretty simple.  There’s weird shit out there in the world, the weirdness is usually centered around an object that’s been through some remarkable occurrence (like Mary Mallon’s knife or a record imbued with all the love and creative energy the songwriter put into making it), these objects are called artifacts, and there’s a shadowy organization whose job it is to find the artifacts and make sure they don’t hurt anyone (or more accurately, anyone else).  It’s similar mechanically to many monster or mystery of the week shows; but instead of the bleak skepticism of The X-Files, for example (and I say this with all love for The X-Files), you get a warm atmosphere of positivity.  The show takes a few episodes to stumble through and finally get to learn itself, but I was pretty well interested by the second episode and some time shortly after that, I realized that I’d fallen in love with the characters.  It’s not fluff, but it’s not super dark either.  It’s easy to watch, but it’s never fast food.  It’s got that really perfect escapist tone, which allows you to get lost in the show for a little while and just really enjoy the characters and the stories—as well as some fun cameos, like Jewel Staite and Sean Maher from Firefly and Michael Hogan from Battlestar Galactica.  Like The Tick and Lodge 49, Warehouse 13 is one of those shows that wants you to know that you’re okay, and hey, we’re going to have some fun along the way, and that’s okay too.  Warehouse 13 really is that security blanket; it’s right up there with shows like Psych, Monk, Chuck, and Futurama that I can watch over and over again without diminishing returns.  And if you find yourself liking the show, check out Podcast 13, where two intelligent women discuss the show in depth and bring in experts to discuss the artifacts.  

Obviously, there’s so much media out there that you could launch Netflix, throw a dart at your TV, and find something to watch (though I really don’t recommend this), but I hope I was able to give you a few options that will help give you a sense of normalcy and comfort as we weather this global pandemic, and also Mindhunter, because it’s so damn interesting, even though it is far from comforting.  Stay home, stay safe, and stay tuned.  Podcasts are up next, if you like to be entertained, but just feel like using your eyes and ears at the same time is too much work, I have some shows for you.