That slightly uneven footing for Jessie (Rose Matafeo) and Tom (Nikesh Patel) starts at the beginning, when they add “an unglamorous bathroom sink” to the taxonomy of meet-cute locations. From what each of them may initially think is a New Year’s Eve one-night stand, things hit a slight complication when Jessie slowly realizes that Tom is Tom Kapoor, a luxury brand endorsement-level movie star. A lesser version of this show would become fixated on this unexpected encounter, with Jessie drawing everyone in her circle into a new infatuation....

The titles for all nine episodes of Season 4 are as follows: “The Hellfire Club” “Vecna’s Curse” “The Monster and The Superhero” “Dear Billy” “The Nina Project” “The Dive” “The Massacre At Hawkins Lab” “Papa” “The Piggyback” First footage from the new season debuted back in August and included a long-haired Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown), Hopper (David Harbour) with a flamethrower, and a classic shot of a group of kids racing down a dark street on bicycles....

Most of this child’s time is spent around Natasha (Michelle de Swarte), an accomplished chef who escapes the city for a remote cabin. (The location for her rented vacation place can best be described as “the foot of The Cliffs of Insanity,” a nice early surreal touch in a pilot directed by “Watchmen” vet Nicole Kassell.) After a startlingly matter-of-fact series of events, she returns as the unsuspecting guardian of the small, crawling Baby....

It was often easier to remember Cassie’s journey towards sobriety than the wacky plot involving government espionage and assassins. That note might have been taken to heart by HBO Max with Season 2, as the spy elements may be present and accounted for, but they feel far less critical to this season than Cassie’s personal growth. While most addicts are urged not to make significant life changes for the first year, Cassie Bowden has jumped in to change with both feet....

Leading up to Wednesday’s evening announcement, there was rampant speculation among Netflix subscribers about whether “The Sandman” would be renewed or was even canceled, despite its success, even leading Gaiman to dispute a tweet from a fan account online. And while Netflix has renewed “The Sandman,” it’s not exactly coming back for a Season 2, as the show will focus on other aspects of the conflict between Dream and the forces of Hell, exploring the many challenges facing the universe in the wake of Morpheus’ century-long absence....

“Sometimes it’s because somebody’s so bad that they really make a dent in history,” Nancy Goldstone, author of “The Rival Queens,” a biography on de Medici, said. Goldstone talked to IndieWire via Zoom and explained that de Medici was not only a fierce strategist, but a brutal and bloody queen with a bevy of murders under her hat. “The Serpent Queen” attempts to showcase de Medici’s (Samantha Morton) ruthlessness, as well as highlight the humor in a story of an unappealing young Italian woman sent to France to become Queen....

From “Nanette” to “Inside” to mental health jokes proliferating on sweaty basement stages, vulnerability is the new comedic currency. Lest traditionalists be dissuaded, Notaro is first and foremost a comedian, and a very funny one at that. All “Live” did was elevate her brand of dry observational comedy on mundane topics — from ‘80s singer Taylor Dayne to the spelling of “diarrhea” — to the near-divine. The comedian’s latest special, “Tig Notaro: Drawn,” may not reach as holy heights (a person only has so much unspeakable trauma to mine for laughs), but it continues the Notaro tradition of pushing standup norms to ever more creative ends....