Billie Piper returns in I Hate Suzie Too, and it’s a punch in the guts

I Hate Suzie Too ★★★★½
Stan

Calling the new episodes of scalding British comedy a second season undersells both their intent and impact. Comprising just three essential episodes, I Hate Suzie Too is a distillation of everything vital in the show’s 2020 debut, so that both the stress and release – the punch in the guts and the punchline – of this show are impossible to avoid. As Billie Piper’s British celebrity tries not to crack up, the truths are now inescapable and the horrors unforgettable.

Actress Suzie Pickles (Billie Piper) loses everything when intimate photos of her are hacked from her phone.Credit:Tom Beard

Created by Piper and Succession writer Lucy Prebble, who’d previously collaborated on Secret Diary of a Call Girl, the first season was a trojan horse: the satire was in fact all too real. A pop star turned successful television actor, Suzie Pickles (Piper) has her life upended when photos of her engaged in a sexual act with a man who is not her partner are hacked from her phone. The tabloids pounce, her career stalls and her university lecturer husband, Cob (Daniel Ings), is furious. No one even acknowledges that she’s the victim of a crime.

With her son Frank (Matthew Jordan-Caws) a bewildered onlooker, Suzie pinballed from professional triage, counselled by her agent and friend Naomi (Leila Farzad), to private self-immolation. Six months later she’s losing her custody battle and trying to regain the public’s affection on Dance Crayzee, a celebrity reality competition painted with damning detail.

“I’m gonna win,” vows Suzie, in a moment of defiance, but it’s not clear she even knows what the stakes are anymore.

The storytelling is clear that Suzie is an imperfect mother, that her best intentions are sporadic and stress makes her embrace self-preservation, but these human flaws in turn make her struggle brutally genuine. A self-administered abortion via pill is depicted with methodical rigour, while career conversations with her new agent, Sian (Anastasia Hille), are politely acidic. You don’t watch Suzie struggle with panic attacks, you start to sense them as the camera pursues her into corners and her gleaming television smile becomes a mockery.

As with the first season, the show’s point of view will slip from Suzie’s exterior response to her inner turmoil, dipping into her subconscious with absurdist ease. When she does dance on television, desperate for viewers to send in enough votes to avoid dismissal, it’s with expressive relief – the performance sequences are like core samples of her psyche. None of this is casual viewing, but it’s deeply compelling. Consider I Hate Suzie Too a last-minute addition to any Best of 2022 list.

The Witcher: Blood Origin ★★★
Netflix

Michelle Yeoh arrives in the land of swords and sorcery in this prequel to The Witcher: Blood Origin.Credit:Susie Allnut

Henry Cavill has departed and Liam Hemsworth arrived in the title role of Netflix’s fantasy hit, but this prequel offers a more alluring addition to the swords and sorcery realm: Michelle Yeoh. Fresh from Everything Everywhere All at Once, the global star returns to her martial arts roots. The show knows what it has, with the first fight sequence featuring Yeoh using slow-motion so you can appreciate her grace.

Wearing elven ears, like the majority of these characters, Yeoh is part of a “magnificent seven” of rootless warriors on a mediaeval revenge mission in this prequel set 1200 years prior to The Witcher. Making such an explicit reference is one of many shortcuts this limited series embraces: it’s also got a cheery, homicidal dwarf, bad CGI monsters, the swearing of blood oaths, and murderous usurpers.

The cast play it admirably straight, but the show itself is a modestly enjoyable grab-bag of fluid action sequences, Middle Earth memories, and goofy gambits. Yeoh leads the way with a welcome gravitas, and six episodes of this origin tale is a thankfully succinct length. In this instance the best parts really are greater than the sum.

Little America (series 2)
Apple TV+

Isuri Wijesundara and Sathya Sridharan in an episode of the anthology series Little America.Credit:Apple TV+

Keep an eye out for the second season of this terrific anthology series about the vast possibilities of the immigrant experience in the United States, whether as newcomers to a sometimes incomprehensible land or as the offspring of pioneers trying to accommodate family and culture. Just over a half hour in length, these new episodes have a modest but enduring insight and empathy – start with Tinge Krishnan’s The 9th Caller, an alternately bittersweet and blithe struggle for recognition in a Sri Lankan clan.

Three Pines
Amazon

Alfred Molina as Chief Inspector Armand Gamache in Three Pines, which is based on the mystery book series by Canadian author Louise Penney.Credit:Amazon Prime

The erstwhile Alfred Molina, a gifted supporting actor with a vast resume, sets a worthy tone in this Canadian detective series. Three Pines interweaves contemporary issues across an entire season with a case-of-the-week format that has his Chief Inspector Armand Gamache bailing up suspects and delivering deductions. Whether grilling crims or pondering Canada’s colonial ills, Molina’s dedicated police detective has a compelling emotional presence. The show can be grimly serious and somewhat eccentric in the same episodes, but Molina navigates the tonal breadth with ease.

Love Lizzo
Binge

Lizzo at the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2022.Credit:AP

The artist-driven music documentary has become a common if sometimes sanitised format in recent years, as superstars bridge the gap between social media and their inner sanctum with curated confessions and behind-the-scenes footage. As subjects go, the American rapper, singer, and flutist Lizzo offers genuine potential, providing a welcome ascendancy and a compelling persona. Director Doug Pray (Hype) makes some inroads into the authorised biography genre, engaging the pop star in thoughtful conversation that searches for the intersection of her music and beliefs, that is matched to force of nature concert footage.

Gudetama

Netflix

Gudetama is a lackadaisical egg yolk who has become a hugely popular character in Japan.Credit:Netflix

A mixture of delightful digital animation and live action mishaps, the micro-episodes in this sweetly droll existential comedy are the streaming debut of Gudetama, a lackadaisical egg yolk who has become a hugely popular character in Japan. Press ganged into an unlikely quest for a maternal figure by the freshly hatched and determined chick Shakipiyo, the duo travel from sushi train to politician’s office. The plotting, including a television director trying to snare the explorers, is somewhat forced, but the central conceit of a slacker and an over-achiever at odds is timeless.

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