5 Shows USC Students Should Watch With Their Free Max Subscription
By Avery Thunder
Looking for a more fulfilling way to procrastinate than doom scrolling? Luckily, USC provides free HBO Max (now just Max) specifically for these situations! Perfect for midterms or finals season when you’ve already cleaned your whole apartment/dorm, and now there’s nothing else to feasibly rationalize not working. As a professional procrastinator, here are some of my recommendations for shows to binge watch deep into the night and early morning.
The Sex Lives of College Girls
Another home run for the talented Mindy Kaling (writer on The Office, and creator of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever), The Sex Lives of College Girls follows the lives of four college girls, all with vastly different interests, goals, and backstories, who end up living together their freshman year. It’s definitely a mature show, I’m sure some would call it vulgar, but it does a great job of being hilarious while also portraying a lot of difficult transitions that are pretty accurate to the college experience. If you enjoyed Never Have I Ever, I would definitely recommend this show. It covers a lot of issues like classism, racism, and especially gender discrimination. There are moments that will make you laugh, cry, and (as with most of Mindy Kaling’s creations) cringe so hard you have to hide your face in a pillow. It also feels pretty topical as a college girl myself. The third season premieres November 21, so catch up now!
2. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
With a whopping 30 emmys to its name, Last Week Tonight is an incredibly well written and thought provoking political commentary show, hosted by former Daily Show correspondent, John Oliver. Currently on season 11, and with no signs of stopping, the show has consistently beat out other shows in its category at award shows, while also incurring a shocking amount of legal fees for HBO, and inciting a considerable amount of scandal.
Have you ever heard about a social issue or a political subject and thought, “I wish I knew more about that.” Well, odds are that John Oliver and his team have done a segment on it. While the show covers current events, it mainly focuses on deep dives into specific issues, international and domestic. The show regularly includes stunts by Oliver to fix these issues. It’s a fun watch, you’ll learn a lot, and you’ll never know what is coming next. I highly recommend this show, especially if you’re interested in politics, but even if you’re not, it’s an amazing way to get a basic understanding of things that affect your everyday life.
3. My Brilliant Friend
Unfortunately the only foreign language pick on this list, but I think it’s a good one. My Brilliant Friend is a beautifully written period piece, set in post WWII Italy. The show follows two frenemies, spanning their lives, beginning in grade school. Both are very smart, but the narrator has to work at it and the other is naturally brilliant. The story shows their life paths as they veer off in very different directions, and it shows how living in the time — a very patriarchal and sexist world — drives so much of what happens to them, despite what they may try to make happen. Additionally, it’s incredibly fun to see how the world around them changes with clothes, buildings, etc. The show achieved a 95% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes during its second season and has kept consistently good ratings for its whole run. Season 4, which is releasing now, is the show's final season, so there’s no time like the present to binge it!
4. Young Justice
A childhood favorite of mine, and the only non-HBO original on this list, Young Justice follows the “sidekicks” (although they hate being called this) of DC superheroes. Featuring characters like Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian, and more! It’s an action-packed animation series filled with hilarious writing, compelling mysteries, and character development that far surpasses many “adult” shows that I’ve watched. One of my favorite things about this show is how it grew with its audience. The first season is largely fluff and fun, but as the show goes on, it gets progressively more mature and deals with darker themes. Anyway, the episodes are like 20 minutes long, so it's great to watch while you’re having lunch or whatever. I personally think it has great rewatchability and quotability, but that could just be the nostalgia talking. Either way, take 20 minutes and give it a shot.
5. Looking
A dramedy about three best friends living in San Francisco, Looking follows this absolute disaster of a friend group as they navigate finding love, changing careers, keeping relationships, and more. If you know anything about theater/if you watched Glee or Frozen, you’ll recognize the lead, Jonathan Groff, for his impressive musical ability. However, Groff goes full actor in this series, and although he’s proven himself many times as a comedy actor, he’s really able to show off his dramatic, non-musical ability in this show. If I could say one thing that I love about this show, it would be how insanely badly these characters screw up in life and love but still keep going. I hate when shows have characters experience relatively minor issues and then act as if it’s the end of the world. However, in Looking, they do some morally reprehensible things, but keep powering through, and it gives me a new appreciation for my life. You’ll like this show if you like The Sex Lives of College Girls or Queer as Folk. The episodes are short, it is endlessly entertaining, and when you’re done, you won’t be as hard on yourself about that thing you did that one time.
