10 Shows Like 'Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed' You Should Watch Next

If you're into darkly comic thrillers like "Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed," check out these shows.

10 Shows Like 'Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed' You Should Watch Next

Ross Johnson

Ross Johnson Freelance Writer

Experience

Ross Johnson writes about television, film, and literature for Lifehacker. He has a degree in political science from the University of Rochester and has previously been a legal writer and editor for Thomson Reuters, for which he later traveled around India and the Middle East as an educator specializing in American English style and grammar for adults.

Ross has been an actor on stage, in commercials, and in independent films since childhood, and has written hundreds of articles and essays on genre literature and cinema for Barnes & Noble, Gizmodo, Kotaku, and Yahoo! Entertainment.

Ross produces the Swan Songs film podcast and hosts The Sound of Tomorrow, a pop culture and current affairs radio show based in Rochester, New York, where he lives with his husband and dogs and supports the local arts and cinema scene. You can find him on Bluesky.

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June 2, 2026

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Tatiana Maslany looks alarmed on the phone in 'Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed'

Credit: Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Apple TV

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Table of Contents


I'm not sure that there's a name for the genre, but you know it when you see it: I'm thinking of thrillers involving women who find themselves embroiled in crime and mystery, either completely inadvertently or because they have no choice. Think The Last Thing He Told Me or Sharp Objects. The genre has become such a staple that there's a darkly comic version that's become equally popular: shows that don't quite necessarily parody their precursors (though there's a bit of that) but, at their best, combine thrills with chuckles. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is among the latest, starring Tatiana Maslany as a newly single mom looking for some harmless fun with a webcam boy. Here are similar shows in the same vein, if you're a fan.

The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window (2022)

Here's a parody of mystery thriller shows in much the same vein as Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, just more broad in its comedy (if the title didn't tip you off). Kristen Bell is Anna Whitaker, a painter and a big fan of thriller novels in the The Woman in the Window/The Girl on the Train vein who's also mourning her dead daughter. Anna's pills-with-wine lifestyle leads to some wildly irrational behavior, which makes it even tougher to convince anyone that she saw a murder through her bedroom window—a murder that she couldn't stop because her fear of rain wouldn't let her leave the house. It's all quite silly, by design, but also frequently hits the nail on the head when it comes to the tropes of this type of mystery thriller. Stream The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window on Netflix.


Based on a True Story (2023 – 2024)

We're splitting the difference between something like Maximum Pleasure and Only Murders in the Building territory here, with a true crime enthusiast and armchair detective starting a podcast based on a series of local killings. The twist here is that Ava Bartlett (Kaley Cuoco) and her husband, Nathan (Chris Messina) realize that they know the serial killer they’re investigating (Tom Bateman), and further realize that they’re sitting on a goldmine. Instead of turning him in, they’ll make a podcast about him (they’re not meant to be likable). The show takes a while (nearly too long) to finds its voice, but once it does, it becomes a solid satire of capitalism and fame culture, going to dark places in considering what our true-crime obsessions really say about us. Stream Based on a True Story on Peacock.


Bad Sisters (2022 – 2024)

A pitch-perfect (and pitch-dark) comedy, the Irish import Bad Sisters picked up several well-deserved Emmy nominations in its first year. Writer and co-creator Sharon Horgan leads the cast as Eva Garvey, oldest of five sisters, including Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), who's married to John Paul, an abusive and isolating husband. When the dude winds up dead under suspicious circumstances, down-on-his-luck insurance investigator Tom (Brian Gleeson) starts poking his nose into things. We know the sisters definitely wanted John Paul dead, but did they actually do the deed? Tom's family business will go under if he has to pay out on the life insurance policy, so he's motivated to pin the crime on at least one of the women. Stream Bad Sisters on Apple TV.


Little Women (2022)

An adaptation that's as loose as they come, this take on the Louisa May Alcott novel strips the book to its bones and resets it as a mystery thriller in South Korea. Oh In-joo (Kim Go-eun) is a money-obsessed accountant, Oh In-kyung (Nam Ji-hyun) is a morally upright reporter, and Oh In-hye (Park Ji-hu) is a high school student with a knack for painting. The three sisters grew up poor, and each is determined to live an honest (but successful) life, a dream that gets complicated when a friend and client of In-joo's dies by suicide. It's wildly twisty-turny, and more suspenseful than funny—but, nevertheless, there's a vein of dark comedy running through the entire series. Stream Little Women on Netflix.


Big Little Lies (2017 – )

The vibe here has less to do with suburban moms gone wild than rich and (mostly) white ladies going through it in a beautiful locale. As the series opens, five women (played by Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz) become involved in a murder investigation connected to a school fundraiser that threatens to bring all of their private dirt out into the open—and there are secrets aplenty to uncover. In their social strata, any threat to the status quo can lead to big drama. Stream Big Little Lies on HBO Max.


Dead to Me (2019 – 2022)

Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini make for an all-time great TV pairing in this dark comedy about a couple of women who become united in tragedy and lies. Applegate is Jen Harding, a realtor whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run incident; she's not dealing very well, and takes a bit of inspiration from Cardellini's Judy, who has maintained a cheery disposition following her fiancé Steve's death from a heart attack—easier to do given that Steve's actually alive. And then we discover that Judy has a storage unit with a car that looks suspiciously like the one that killed Jen's husband. That's all just part of the first episode, and the show only gets wilder from there. Stream Dead to Me on Netflix.

What do you think so far?


Good Girls (2018 – 2021)

Beth, Ruby and Annie (Christina Hendricks, Retta, and Mae Whitman, respectively) are three moms in suburban Michigan, and they are all having serious money troubles. They're not exactly criminal masterminds, so they concoct a scheme to rob the local grocery store to solve them—a store that just happens to be serve as a front for a money-laundering operation. They make off with $500,000—but the gang leader whose money they unknowingly stole wants it back. Oh, and the store manager spotted one of their distinctive tattoos and is threatening blackmail. It's definitely not a sitcom, but it's a solid comedy-drama with a talented cast of characters who keep finding themselves in deeper and deeper trouble over the course of four seasons. Stream Good Girls on Netflix.


How to Get to Heaven From Belfast (2026 – )

Where are my Derry Girls fans? How to Get to Heaven comes from Irish playwright and Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, though that earlier and justifiably beloved show won't quite prepare you for McGee's batty, surreal latest. Three high school friends from Belfast reunite after learning that an estranged bestie has died unexpectedly—except that maybe she didn't; a mixed blessing given that they all have secrets that they were hoping would be buried with the maybe departed. Now they're off to investigate the mystery of the murder(?), and, in doing so, find themselves in way over their heads. The tone is all over the place in a way that somehow works, with flashes of sincerity balancing out the comedy. Stream How to Get to Heaven From Belfast on Netflix.


The 'Burbs (2026 – )

This fun and loose adaptation of the 1989 Tom Hanks film finds Keke Palmer's Samira and Jack Whitehall's Rob moving back to his impossibly safe and tidy hometown. Their house happens to be across the street from a dilapidated Victorian eyesore that may or may not have been the location of a murder a couple of decades before—a murder of a girl who made the mistake of trying to get away. As Samira adjusts to new motherhood as well as life on the cul-de-sac, she learns that even the nicest of her neighbors (played by Julia Duffy, Paula Pell, Mark Proksch, and Kapil Talwalkar) have secrets, and comes to suspect that her husband knows more about the missing girl than he's letting on. Stream The 'Burbs on Peacock.


Search Party (2016 – 2022)

Alia Shawkat stars here as Dory Sief, an aimless millennial who decides, after seeing a missing-person poster for a college acquaintance, that she's going to make it her purpose to track her down—with the extremely begrudging support of her friends. The show shifts focus from season to season. Initially a darkly comic take on a Nancy Drew-style mystery, the show later finds the gang desperate to cover up a mostly unintentional murder, getting in deeper each season. It's a funny, smart, and weird show. Stream Search Party on Netflix.

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