This week on our streaming radar, we have Netflix thrills, a network favorite making its return, and a family that has turned keeping everyone in its business into a business of its own. From political ambition to police investigations to the Kardashians, there’s plenty competing for your remote.
Leading the radar this week is Animals, arriving on Netflix October 9. Ben Affleck co-writes, directs, and stars alongside Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, Gillian Anderson, Adriana Paz, and Luis Gerardo Méndez in a thriller that takes an already strained marriage and puts it through every parent’s worst nightmare.
Affleck plays Mark Kimball, an independent candidate for mayor of Los Angeles whose campaign has left him financially strapped, completely stressed, and struggling at home. His wife, Abigail, played by Washington, is a therapist with a few secrets she’s keeping close to the vest.
Then, ahead of a major fundraising event, a phone call changes everything: Their son has been kidnapped.
What follows is a frantic scramble to save him, with every decision threatening to expose something else about the life this couple has built. Political ambition, financial pressure, and marital resentment all collide at the exact moment Mark and Abigail need to trust each other most.
That’s what makes Animals so compelling. It examines what happens when the veneer shatters—when the person you present to the world gives way to your most animalistic instincts. The instinct to survive. To protect. To provide. And, sometimes, to protect yourself from the truth.
The kidnapping supplies the urgency, while the marriage gives the film its weight. Every revelation forces these two people to reconsider their partner and themselves. How do you deal with the possibility that you aren’t quite the person you’ve always believed yourself to be?
It’s a terrific character study inside a tense political thriller, and one of my favorite Netflix offerings of the year.
I sat down with Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington to talk about the film. Check out highlights from that conversation below, and put Animals on your watchlist.
Up next is the fourth season of Elsbeth, returning to CBS October 8, with episodes available the following day on Paramount+.
Elsbeth is one of those network shows that fits comfortably into a streaming habit. It has the familiarity of a weekly procedural and a lead character distinctive enough to make “one more episode” an easy decision.
Carrie Preston plays Elsbeth Tascioni, an unconventional attorney working with the NYPD whose curiosity and remarkable attention to detail make her very difficult to fool. To borrow a phrase from Liam Neeson, she has a particular set of skills. Hers happen to come with an abundance of questions and very little concern for whether she’s making someone uncomfortable.
For me, the appeal recalls Monk and Psych, two standouts from that great USA Network era when an eccentric lead could make an entire series tick. There’s a mystery to solve, certainly, but spending time with the person solving it is a large part of the fun.
Preston gives Elsbeth that same pull. Her quirkiness makes her easy to underestimate, which is usually somebody else’s first mistake.
If you’ve been outside the Elsbeth circle, this is a good opportunity to step inside. There’s history to enjoy if you start from the beginning, but the individual cases make sampling the new season an approachable proposition.
And finally, everyone’s favorite family—or the family everyone has an opinion about—is back. Season eight of The Kardashians begins October 8 on Hulu.
Kim, Kylie, Khloé, Kendall, Kourtney and Kris return, with Caitlyn Jenner also appearing in the season’s previews. New relationships, familiar family tensions, and the challenge of balancing very public careers with very personal lives are all on the agenda.
Like plenty of viewers, you may have a complicated relationship with the Kardashians. To me, the show’s appeal has shifted over the years. Alongside the spectacle, there’s now the curiosity of watching how a family this famous continues to change while the cameras keep rolling.
Kim’s pursuit of a legal career has an amusing parallel in her television work: She’s still working toward becoming a lawyer while already playing one in All’s Fair. This season also teases more about her dating life, while the rest of the family navigates its own relationships, ambitions, and disagreements.
I wouldn’t declare the drama behind them just yet. In this family, even moving on tends to require a few episodes.
New episodes of The Kardashians stream Thursdays on Hulu.
