HBO/Ballers
If there’s one thing a bro is not, it’s a full-time couch potato. However, when those ever so imperative windows of downtime present themselves, he (or she–who’s judging?) often finds himself mulling over the following question: “What in the hell should I watch on TV?”
Now… don’t get me wrong, eavesdropping on your company’s Monday morning water-cooler chatter can lead to some uber-valuable TV show insights. Nonetheless, with the overabundance of high-quality programming out there today, it’s inevitable that you’ll miss out on some real creative genius-type shit. With regard to your sacred time being of the essence, here are more than a few that should alleviate that catch-22:
Showtime’s Ray Donovan
Ray Donovan
Oh… the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Better yet, the lives that typical stay-at-home, Hollywood gossip-reading moms believe that those celebs live.
If you know anything about La-La land whatsoever, you’d realize that not all is what it seems — exactly why Liev Schreiber’s job as a temperamental fixer — is a crucial one. Schreiber plays Ray Donovan, one helluva Bostonian-transplanted badass — in a protagonistic Irishman kind of way. Truth be told, Ray loves his sketchy, old man, played by Jon Voight, about as much (alright… significantly less than) as Voight’s real-life flesh and blood Angelina Jolie does. Also in the mix are Ray’s two brothers; Terry, a Parkinson’s-ridden boxing gym owner, and the psychologically-off-his-rocker Bunchy. Next time you find yourself questioning whether your favorite actor/actress is really the class act that the media portrays them to be — decide then and there not to buy into everything the tabloids put out. In the meantime, watch Ray Donovan.
HBO’s Ballers
Ballers/HBO
If you’ve been voluntarily smelling what Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been cooking up on the big screen, then you’ll certainly want to check him out in this brand-spanking new concoction of monetarily dysfunctional sports stars in Ballers. Johnson — seemingly a cough away from bursting out of his designer suit — dons the part of Spencer Strasmore, a hulking, retired football player-turned financial manager.
The irony of the sitch? He cannot seem to get a stronghold on his own financial hardships. Equally entertaining is Hot Tub Time Machine’s Rob Corddry’s as Joe, Spencer’s Anderson financial advisor comrade. He may as well be the doppelganger to Californication’s Charlie Runkle. In a nutshell: Sports, sexy females and “The Good Life,” in a superiorly messed up way.
Netflix’s Bloodline
Bloodline
Whether we’d like to admit or not, we all inevitably have that one black sheep in our family — you know, the person who always seems to be royally screwing things up in some way, shape, or form? Such is the case for the Rayburns, a silver-spooned Florida Keys kinfold, in what many are calling Netflix’s best original series.
To top it off, Bloodline has more than a few familiar faces in veteran actress Sissy Spacek and Friday Night Lights alumni Kyle Chandler. However, more entertainingly fucked up is the sick and twisted demeanor of Ben Mendelson’s Danny, who attempts to open up a Pandora ’s Box of family secrets and the seemingly continuous shitstorm that comes from his constant blackmailing and manipulation ploys. If there’s one thing bros love, it’s a killer action and suspense binge-watching sesh; something they’ll most certainly get what they check out season one of this 13-episode goldmine.
Cinemax’s Banshee
Banshee
Oh my, my has Cinemax made leaps and bounds since being type casted as a soft-core porn cable network known as “Skinemax.” The proof? Its action-packed deliciously entertaining drama series, Banshee. If you’ve ever wanted to live vicariously through another individual, you’ll likely have no qualms about doing it through Lucas Hood… that is if you were living in a fictional town and attempting to steer clear of a powerful Ukrainian drug lord known as Mr. Rabbit.
To make matters even more peachy, Hood — an ex-con — takes on the identity of a deceased Sheriff while trying to rekindle the romance with the drug lord’s daughter, Anastasia, who’s also under a totally different alias, but now with a family of her own. If you don’t mind watching a shit-ton of sex and have the stomach for a fair share of visually gore-ific effects, then Banshee is most definitely right up your alley.
Fox’s Wayward Pines
Wayward Pines
Long before his younger bro started killing it in Entourage as the amusing and naive Johnny Drama, Matt Dillon was the bigger name–and the envy of nearly all late 90’s bros when he and Neve Campbell popped open a bottle of champagne all over Denise Richards’ ta-tas in Wild Things.
But that was then and this is now. In Fox’s magnificently mysterious Wayward Pines, Dillon gets to work alongside the visually striking Carla Gugino. This one-hour program–based off Blake Crouch’s meaty read — centers around an eerily picturesque town in Idaho. Following a car wreck, Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke (Dillon) discovers he’s stuck smack in the middle of “Where the fuck am I”-land, a town on lockdown by Terrence Howard’s Sheriff Pope –spurring you to ask yourself two not so stupid questions:
(1) How in the blue hell is Ethan ever going to escape the on-land version of shit’s creek?
(2) How does Howard — a TV regular on another Fox kickass show, Empire — defy the limitations of time and give such a convincing performance across six Wayward Pines episodes?
Oh, and any thwarted attempt at trying to flee Quack Town aka Wayward Pines is punishable via public execution.