Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (Apple TV, 2026) is a show designed to perplex you.
On the one hand, it’s a surprisingly astute commentary which thoughtfully tackles the emotional isolation and loneliness of single motherhood offering a more nuanced twist on the classic woman-scorned allegory.
In fact, it inverts the scandalous cautionary tale of the femme fatale hell bent on vengeance for her ex, bringing it to a screeching halt that leaves you wondering not if gaslighting occurs, but just how many times it has occurred in cinematic history, and just how frustrating that realization is.
Paula, played to perfection by Orphan Black‘s Tatiana Maslany, is more relatable, yet no less frenzied, neurotic, and at times downright unhinged than your typical Claire Danes character, fingers running through her hair and all.
As a side note, if I were to lodge a grievance, it’s that the series leans a little too heavily into the familiar “crazy, bipolar” playbook we’ve seen time and again when depicting complex, middle-aged women onscreen. Messy can come in many forms, but it doesn’t have to look like this EVERY TIME:
Paula’s ex husband Karl (Jake Johnson), whose name tells you everything you need to know about him in that “He’s a Karl,” has left her for a co-worker he was probably already romantically involved with prior to the marriage dissolving. Paula and Karl share a young daughter, Hazel, who plays soccer and Karl and his new wife, Mal, are attempting to change the terms of their custody agreement at Paula's expense.
From the get-go, in the explosive season opener, we know that Paula pays a cam boy (A cam boy is an online male sex worker) for sex, intimacy, and a bit of companionship. But the cam boy is only the entry point into understanding Paula. The series quickly reveals that this isn't just a story about a woman seeking physical release; it's about a woman trying to reclaim pieces of herself after being reduced to roles—wife, mother, overlooked woman in the workplace, abandoned spouse—that no longer fully fit.
And that’s what makes Paula such an interesting contradiction.
By trade, she’s a fact checker, which also means she’s naturally suited to investigating crimes and drawing up a mean murder board (wink, wink), a skill that will come in handy as the series progresses. She’s also the type of fun-loving mom who dances well-choreographed TikToks with Hazel and pretends she has her shit together, because the consequences of letting that carefully constructed image crack could mean losing custody of her daughter.
BUT, BUT, BUT…It’s Also Hella Funny
This show is also a workplace comedy and veers into screwball territory at times, especially in the nonstop banter between the Gen Z co-workers. Charlie Hall (The Sex Lives of College Girls) plays the neurotic Rudy and, yes, is the unjustly talented, and handsome, progeny of Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus and SNL's Brad Hall.
Opposite him is Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg as Geri, an ambitious, bold foil whose confidence perfectly offsets Rudy's anxious energy. These two have chemistry for days, but it’s their will-they-or-won’t-they situationship that keeps the show from becoming too dark, especially when Paula is being actively hunted by hitman Murray Bartlett (Physical, The White Lotus) who coincidentally frames Paula.
The comedy is rounded out by the sharp-tongued, gambling-friendly Sofia Gonzalez (Dolly De Leon), an occasionally inept but mostly savvy cop who wants to believe in Paula but, like the rest of us, finds her complicated and unreliable, as far as suspects go. Her repartee with Jon Michael Hill's Detective Baxter, a warmer, more vulnerable counterpart, crackles, giving the series a welcome buddy-cop energy just when it threatens to become too dark.
A Bonus
Let’s Discuss
Name a femme fatale who, in retrospect, was done dirty.
The second, third, or fourth time you watched, you realized you’d been fed a skewed story that never really served her. I’ll start. Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne in Gone Girl. Or Margaret Qualley’s character in How to Make a Killing.
Who’s yours?
What’s been your Summer breath-of-fresh-air show?
If They Don’t Make the Movies or Shows You Want, WRITE Your Own Story
After decades (?!?!) of reviewing other people's shows and films, I've come to the conclusion that there's no greater happiness than birthing a world of vibrant, tender characters and crafting a story worthy of them.
True story: One of my funniest characters, in my soon-to-be-published workplace romance novel, SO THIS IS HAPPENING (order here), a sassy, tells-it-like-is Jewish grandma with bright red hair from Florida named Estelle, lives rent-free in my brain, and during a recent MRI gave me the necessary “tough talk” to get through the experience.
I had an entire dialogue with her as I lay in the loud, dark, claustrophobic depths of the MRI machine. She could be annoying at times, but I imagine that’s exactly why she got through to me. I credit Estelle, and, inexplicably, Justin Bieber’s “Yummy” for getting me through what would have otherwise been a hellacious experience for someone who skews high on anxiety.
If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be having conversations with my book characters, I’d have called you crazy. Let alone that a single character could make me smile and chuckle my way into a somatic, blissful flow state during an MRI.
But I guess that’s the thing about stories. The truly moving ones bring us characters who feel so real, it’s as if they’re already a part of our lives. We will them into existence and they have the power of elevating us in dark moments.
In the words of another tough broad, though likely not as tough as Estelle, listen to the late, great Cass Elliott of the iconic 60s California sunshine band, The Mamas and the Papas, “make your own kind of music"…Because that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Order SO THIS IS HAPPENING (because it is) today. And meet Estelle. You will miss out if you don’t.
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