The Two Best Shows You Aren't Watching

Two shows are returning to TV this summer that you, if the ratings are to be believed, are not watching, but you should be.

You’re the Worst, run by Stephen Falk and boasting the most robust comedic foursome since Seinfeld (Chris Greere, Aya Cash, the astonishingly brilliant Desmin Borges, and Kether Donohue), is an incomprehensible television comedy experience. Unabashedly filthy, You’re the Worst doesn’t revel in its vulgarity the way something like the now departed Two and a Half Men did (may it not rest in peace). Rather, YTW reflects on the way that vulgarity (in its many forms) is used to mask deep wounds. Jimmy and Gretchen’s love is so bright that neither of them can bear to look at it directly, and the result is one of the most genuine feeling romances that have ever been aired on television. Edgar’s experiences in Iraq have damaged him, but have not broken his loyalty or his sweetness, and Lindsay’s compulsive sexuality is one manifestation of her own intense dissatisfaction, whose cause she doesn’t even know. These characters feel fully fleshed out, fully human, in a way that is far outside of the sitcom norm. Beyond that, the show is immaculately written and hysterically funny. When it returns, sometime this summer (no air date has yet been announced) on FXX, you should be setting your DVRs, not only to ensure that you don’t miss episodes, but so that you can watch them again and again. They are rewarding enough to be worth it.

If You’re the Worst is interested in the cruel, cutting, sarcastic, and vulgar masks that good people wear to cover protect their inner selves, NBC’s Hannibal  is fascinated with demons that wear people-suits. There have been some iconic portrayals of Hannibal Lecter (a subject I will explore in greater depth closer to Hannibal’s June premiere date), but none of them have been given the scope of action afforded to Mads Mikkelsen. His Lecter is precise, controlled, and radiates the kind of internal stillness that in fiction is usually reserved for the living dead. Death, on this show, is staged with the beauty of a Goya nightmare, and the food that Hannibal prepares for his dinner guests catches the eye so starkly that it is impossible to feel a pang of hunger (even when you know that kidney didn’t come from a calf). Set in the Fuller-verse, the broader universe created by show runner Bryan Fuller (which includes the equally charming, but far more light hearted Pushing Daisies), Hannibal reads like a theological treatise dedicated to Death. Forget the Faceless Men in their temple to the Many-Faced God on Game of Thrones, Hannibal has a much deeper understanding of what it would mean to worship death. Nothing is more elegant, and nothing is more frightening.