Loved ‘Lucky’? These four crime shows belong on your list
Loved ‘Lucky’? These four crime shows belong on your list
‘Legends,’ ‘Hijack,’ and two more thrillers take the best parts of ‘Lucky’ in very different directions.
“Lucky” gets moving from the opening frame, and you better be ready to keep up. There’s the botched heist, the FBI, Annette Bening’s terrifying crime boss, Lucky’s con-man father, Cary’s secrets, and then all the running around trying to figure out who has the money and who’s backstabbing who. But the part I kept coming back to was Lucky herself. She’s great at lying and improvising because she was raised to be a criminal, and now she’s trying to use those exact skills to get out of that life. I love the irony. So, if you finished “Lucky” and want another crime drama that’s just as unpredictable, here are the shows I’d watch next.
Lucky
When a multi-million-dollar heist goes sideways, con artist Lucky is forced to go on the run. Pursued by both the FBI and a ruthless crime boss, Lucky must fight for her life—and a way out.
For another woman getting pulled way over her head, watch: ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’
Tara and I kept up with “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” all season, and every week I wished Apple TV would let us just binge this show already. Tatiana Maslany plays Paula, a divorced mom who witnesses a crime during an online sex call. That one moment blows open into blackmail, murder, police investigations, custody problems, work drama, parenting, and a whole lot of increasingly bad stuff that never stops coming.
Paula is nothing like Lucky at first. Lucky already knows how to manipulate people. Paula is figuring out (usually with disastrous consequences) in real time how to investigate, lie, improvise, and push much further than she thought possible. And she gets better as she goes. The tone is another place “Maximum” differs — it’s definitely lighter, and Maslany fits the world perfectly. One scene she’s super awkward, then really funny, then pure chaos as she steps right into another catastrophic mistake… only to be followed by really smart detective work to try and sort out what’s really going on. Where Paula and Lucky are the same, though, is that both of their lives crack open and each woman is forced to become someone new very quickly.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed
A newly divorced mom falls down a dangerous rabbit hole of blackmail, murder, and youth soccer.
If you loved all the lying, go straight to: ‘Legends’
I burned through “Legends” in like four days. Now it’s only six episodes, but it’s one of the best crime dramas I’ve watched in years. The series is inspired by a real British Customs operation from the early ’90s that took ordinary employees, trained them to build fake criminal identities called “legends,” then sent them inside major heroin-trafficking organizations to try and take them down from the inside.
For me, Tom Burke makes this show. His character Guy goes deep undercover, and Burke plays him in a way that you know he loves it and yet is tortured by it at the same time. Where Guy has to find a way to become someone else, Lucky has the opposite problem. She’s spent her whole life becoming whatever person the con required and now wants to know who she is without all of it. Tonally, “Legends” is quieter and more grounded than “Lucky” (it’s British, so that’s to be expected), but every conversation can feel dangerous because one wrong detail could expose everything. For my money, this is one of the most underrated new shows on streaming.
Legends
As drugs flood the streets of ’90s Britain, a team of civil servants is thrust undercover to topple the gangs behind it.
If you want to watch someone think their way out, try: ‘Hijack’
Speaking of underrated shows, “Hijack” is another one over on Apple TV that more people need to watch. Season 1 puts Idris Elba’s Sam Nelson on a hijacked flight from Dubai to London, then gives him seven hours to help keep everyone alive. The fun twist is that Sam isn’t secretly an operative — he’s a business negotiator. His weapon is basically being better than everyone else in the room at figuring out what people want. Now, he’s got to use that skill to save lives.
The connection to “Lucky” is the way both characters use whatever information they have to get closer to what they want. Lucky gets cornered, studies the people around her, spots the opening, and talks or cons her way forward. Sam does the same thing, just without the criminal background. He uses information to play people against each other… and the stakes are sky high with hundreds of lives on the line. Tara and I got completely hooked on Season 2 too, which moves the crisis to a Berlin train. If Lucky escaping traps was your favorite part of the show, “Hijack” gives you that feeling almost nonstop.
Hijack
Expert negotiator Sam Nelson is in for the ride of his life—and so is everyone on board with him—after a group of hijackers take control. Sam will try every move in his playbook to take them down…as the stakes grow higher by the second.
Wildcard pick: ‘Ride or Die’
“Ride or Die” lets you know pretty quickly that it’s here to have fun. Hannah Waddingham plays Judith, who has apparently spent years keeping one fairly important detail from her best friend Debbie, played by Octavia Spencer: she’s an international assassin. Then a job goes sideways, Judith’s past catches up with her, and the two of them are suddenly tearing across Europe with a whole bunch of dangerous people behind them.
This is easily the funniest show on my list, so wildcard feels right. It’s a buddy spy comedy first. But there’s still a very “Lucky” idea buried underneath all the action. Debbie has to reconcile the friend she knows with this completely different person Judith has secretly been for years. Was the friendship real if part of Judith wasn’t? “Lucky” keeps poking at that same contradiction between love and deception. I also just like seeing Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham get to lead this kind of ridiculous action story. More diversity on TV, please!
Ride or Die
Best friends Debbie and Judith are forced on the run when Debbie discovers Judith isn’t a forensic accountant, she’s an international assassin! With a mysterious figure chasing them, and Debbie’s husband involved in something deeply corrupt, it’s a race against time and a road trip across Europe to untangle the truth and stay alive.
More to watch after finishing ‘Lucky’:
‘The Day of the Jackal’ | Peacock
The Day of the Jackal
An unrivalled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal, makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.
‘Culprits’ | Hulu
Culprits
Family man Joe Petrus is living the American dream with his fiancé and step-kids. However, unbeknownst to them, Joe was involved in a mysterious crime three years ago and now his dangerous past is about to catch up with him. When a killer starts targeting the crew behind the crime, Joe realizes it’s only a matter of time before his family is targeted. He returns to London to track down his old gang and find out who is coming after them.
‘Sneaky Pete’ | Prime Video
Sneaky Pete
A con man on the run from a vicious gangster takes cover from his past by assuming the identity of his prison cellmate, Pete, “reuniting” with Pete’s estranged family, a colorful, dysfunctional group that threatens to drag him into a world just as dangerous as the one he’s trying to escape - and, just maybe, give him a taste of the loving family he’s never had.
‘Killing Eve’ | AMC+
Killing Eve
A security consultant hunts for a ruthless assassin. Equally obsessed with each other, they go head to head in an epic game of cat-and-mouse.