Something to Stream Every Day This Week; ‘The Acolyte’ and ‘The Boys’ Finales, ‘Snowpiercer’ S4 Premiere, More
Something to Stream Every Day This Week; ‘The Acolyte’ and ‘The Boys’ Finales, ‘Snowpiercer’ S4 Premiere, More
Suddenly, it’s Monday again. The day of the week that no one asked for simply refuses to stop coming around, and that means it’s time for a new list of shows and movies to stream each day and help make the dreaded work week scoot by a little faster.
Check out the list below, which as always has been personally curated by me. Hopefully, there’s something for all tastes this week, which will see the return of some old favorites and even the debut of a new obsession or two for many in the audience.
Monday, July 15
‘Marvel's Hit-Monkey’ Season 2 Premiere | Hulu
This one is the perfect antidote for all viewers who are suffering from a bit of Marvel fatigue. The series centers on a Japanese snow monkey who, aided by the ghost of an American assassin, goes on a killing spree, and becomes the famous “killer of killers.”
Season 2 will continue Monkey’s insanely violent adventures, and maybe offer him a way out of the life he’s stuck in. In New York City, Monkey finds a path to escape his life of killing, while Bryce attempts to repair the damage to those he wronged in life. But what will it cost them to undo the past?
Tuesday, July 16
‘The Acolyte’ Season 1 Finale | Disney+
“The Acolyte” is set around 100 years before the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and sees a Jedi Master tasked with stopping a crime spree that is leaving other Jedi dead. His old student is soon caught up in the events, and the secret of the Jedi returns to haunt him even as the Order’s most ancient enemy appears set to rise again…
A series like “The Acolyte” is something of a microcosm of Star Wars shows on Disney+ in general. There’s a lot to like about the series, but it can get bogged down in uneven writing and sometimes clunky dialogue. Those problems are much harder to iron out when review bombing and other tactics used by upset fans are employed, which makes it more difficult to have a conversation about how to tweak new Star Wars content for the better.
Wednesday, July 17
‘Big Brother’ Season 26 Premiere | CBS, watch with a five-day free trial of DIRECTV STREAM
“Big Brother” follows a group of people living together in a house outfitted with dozens of HD cameras and hundreds of microphones, recording their every move 24 hours a day. Each week, someone will be voted out of the house, with the last remaining Houseguest receiving the grand prize of $750,000.
After 26 years, “Big Brother” is still one of the most popular reality TV programs available. The show has clearly found a formula that works for its audiences, and the new batch of housemates planned for Season 26 has the potential to be one of the series’ most outrageous groups yet.
Thursday, July 18
‘The Boys’ Season 4 Finale | Prime Video
“The Boys” Season 4 has been as gruesomely violent and gleefully irreverent as every other season, but the finale might be the most consequential episode of the series yet. Victoria Neuman is under the thumb of Homelander, but their plans for domination are teetering on the brink, as is Homelander’s relationship with Ryan.
Robert Singer is firmly in the crosshairs, and The Boys have to figure out who the shapeshifting Supe tasked with his assassination is before the plot is carried out. But Butcher is in bad shape, Annie is trapped, and Kimiko now has one fewer leg to face dangers with. How will they stop Homelander’s fascist machinations and save the world?
Friday, July 19
‘Lady in the Lake’ Series Premiere | Apple TV+
When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Sherwood (Moses Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family.
Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger. The series is a feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams.
Saturday, July 20
‘A Very Vermont Christmas’ Premiere | Hallmark Channel, stream with a seven-day free trial of Philo
A local champion skier and Vermont brewmaster named Joy is on top of the world until she finds that the brewery her family has owned for generations is in trouble. In response, she teams up with an unlikely match (Ryan McPartlin) to create a seasonal microbrew, in order to save her family’s business by Christmas.
The movie is part of Hallmark’s annual “Christmas in July” lineup, which offers heartwarming Christmas-themed tales and helps viewers cool down when the mercury is rising to its highest point. “A Very Vermont Christmas” is an original premiere, which means unlike many other titles in the “Christmas in July” schedule, viewers will get to watch it for the very first time this week.
Sunday, July 21
‘Snowpiercer’ Season 4 Premiere | AMC+
More than seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, the remnants of humanity inhabit a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe as class warfare, social injustice, and the politics of survival play out.
The final season of this post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller picks up nine months after Snowpiercer and Big Alice have parted ways. The two trains are now on different paths, and only the fates know how their populations will endure, especially as Big Alice seeks an unknown world beyond New Eden.