The Best New TV Series to Stream on Hulu This Week

Credit: FX Network/YouTube

The most high profile new show coming Hulu this week is Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, but if you're not in the mood for a show about writer making some housewives angry, there's a dramatization of the lives of MLK and Malcom X, a fantastic documentary series about a sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College, and Farmer Wants a Wife, season 2. Variety is the spice of streaming TV, right?

Feud: Capote vs. the Swans

The second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series tells the true(ish) story of writer Truman Capote’s conflict with a gaggle of rich, powerful wives. To research his seminal 1966 book In Cold Blood, Capote spent countless hours among lowlifes and murderers in the Midwest, but it wasn’t until he spilled the literary tea of a hive of society mavens that Capote learned the meaning of “ruthless.” Directed by Gus Van Sant with a cast including Chloë Sevigny, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, and Naomi Watts, Capote vs. the Swans is a must-stream.

Genius: MLK/X

The fourth season of Genius, an anthology drama series about historically brilliant people, examines civil rights icons Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Genius delves deeply into their lives to bring out the personal, comparing and contrasting two men who shared a goal, but had very different ideas about how it should be achieved.

Farmer Wants a Wife, Season 2

There probably isn’t a TV show that is less aimed at me than Farmer Wants a Wife, but I like to confound expectations, so I’m going to watch every episode of season 2, starting tonight with episode 1. The reality show follows the romantic adventures of four hunky famers. Each farmer picks five city ladies to live with them on their farm and wear straw hats or swat flies or do whatever people do on farms. Through this rigorous process, love is achieved. Yee, and I cannot stress this enough, haw.

Handmaid’s Tale

I put off watching a Handmaid’s Tale until last year—the idea of the series seemed so depressing. And it is depressing, but it’s also among the smartest, most perfectly crafted shows that has ever been made. It’s as close as episodic television comes to perfection; at least for the first season. Please pretend the other four seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale don’t exist.

Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence

This “wait, that actually happened?” docu-series details a sex cult that formed in an unlikely place: student housing at Sarah Lawrence College. It was weird when 50-something dad Larry Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm room, but he quickly became mentor to a small group of her pals and roommates, and then things got really weird. Through interviews with victims and witnesses, Stolen Youth breaks down how a group of the brightest young minds in the country, at a school that stresses individuality, could fall into unquestioning obedience to an unemployed guy named “Ray.” 

Last week's picks

Daughters of the Cult

I've been fascinated with cults for a long time, so I can't believe I had never heard of Ervil LeBaron until I watched Daughters of the Cult this week. LeBaron was a next-level-evil cult leader. Dubbed “The Mormon Manson” during his reign of terror in the 1970s and '80s, Ervil ran a heretical, polygamist cult like a ruthless gang boss, straight up gunning down the leaders of rival polygamist groups. Daughters of the Cult tells this "wait, that actually happened?" story through interviews with some of his 50 children, who provide insider looks at a nightmarish religious cult that started with polygamy and ended up fully off-the-rails. 

Death and Other Details

There’s been a resurgence of top-quality, closed-doors mysteries coming out of Hollywood lately—Knives Out, Glass Onion, Haunting in Venice—and Death and other Details aims at that rarefied air. According to many critics, it’s a swing and a miss, but mystery-hounds, like all genre-fans, are forgiving. They can find something to like in even the worst examples of their obsession, and Death and Other Details is far from the bottom of the mystery barrel. Think of it as Agatha Christie-lite: It has a mysterious murder, an exotic location (a glamorous cruise ship), wealthy suspects, and even a wish.com version of Hercules Poirot in the form of Mandy Patinkin’s super-detective Rufus Cotesworth.

Superhot: The Spicy World of Pepper People

“Let’s look at people who like spicy food” might seem like a thin premise for a TV show, but these folks really like spicy food, and examining their subculture reveals an unseen world of inspiration, obsession, beauty, and controversy. Plus, you get to see people sweat a lot as they consume inhumanely spicy peppers. What's not to like?

The Floor

I'm not huge into game shows, but I love Fox’s The Floor. It pits self-proclaimed experts in various niche subjects like “cereal” or “bugs” against one another in rapid fire trivia duels, giving viewers the chance to match their own knowledge against “experts” while rooting for (and wagering upon) their favorite geek-testant. A territory-taking meta game adds yet another level to The Floor, and host Rob Lowe holds it all together with impressive game-show-host chops.

The Floor also streams on FuboTV, Tubi, Sling TV, and YouTube TV.

This Fool

The competition for a new streaming series is brutal. New shows not only compete against every other current show, but also against almost every series that has ever been on TV. So it’s encouraging that Hulu’s This Fool has survived streaming’s merciless culling process long enough to get a second season. Set in a working class Latino neighborhood in L.A., This Fool's second season sees sensitive Julio (the titular fool), his ex-con cousin Luis, and Julio's eccentric former boss Minister Payne trying to open a coffee shop together. This Fool has been available on Hulu for a few months, so it’s not new-new, but it’s among the smartest, funniest shows on TV right now.

Fargo, Season Five

Fargo’s fifth season mixes up a stew of evil criminals, oddball characters, slapstick humor, and extreme violence, seasons it with a touch of the supernatural, then sets it in the frozen wastelands of our forgotten central-northern states. The series has gotten a little “on-the-nose” in its maturity, but Fargo is still among the best shows on TV. 

Fargo is also streaming on FuboTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV.