We've hit peak entertainment and it's, well, overwhelmglorious. Who can keep up anymore? So much new pours across your feeds each week that even remembering to check in with your favorites can feel like a hassle. Fortunately, long weekends like the one ahead are the perfect time to catch up on everything you've been meaning to get around to—and that includes some quality binging time once the barbecues and fireworks and family gatherings are over. Here are a few recommendations for the best books, movies, TV shows, and podcasts that you can catch up on over the next four days.
I could go on about the comic elasticity of HBO's Barry, and how, even in Season 2, it was able to uphold the quirks that made its debut season such a success: Bill Hader's seeping neurosis as a socially inept hitman, NoHo Hank (!!), Henry Winkler's Emmy-winning performance as an acting teacher with con-man sensibilities, its focus on the mental and physical minefields we wade daily, its questions of personal reinvention. I could go on and on about the show's genius and how its creators restaged it with even more flair in the most recent season, but all I will say for now is "ronny/lily." Watch Barry. Watch episode five. —Jason Parham
If you thought it couldn't get any bleaker for Jared Harris than a turn as a doomed nuclear scientist on HBO's Chernobyl, you clearly haven't watched the first season of AMC's fantasy history anthology series The Terror. It traces the freezing voyage and disappearance of 19th-century British explorers seeking the Northwest Passage through the arctic—and all the chilling and mythical horrors that seal their fate. True to its name, it's terrifying. And a new season, set in a Japanese internment camp during WWII, starts in August. Prepare yourself by watching this season first. —Emily Dreyfuss
Based on the book by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman, the show follows an unlikely angel-demon duo as they try to save Earth by preventing Armageddon. The casting—David Tennant as a charismatic demon, Michael Sheen as a fussy angel, John Hamm as snobby archangel Gabriel—is perfect, and the whole show is so sinfully funny that people literally think it should be stopped. —Emma Grey Ellis
HBO's Deadwood ended in 2006 about two seasons too soon. In the decade-plus since its cancelation, fans—and show creator David Milch—had pined for the Western to get a chance to finish its story. Deadwood: The Movie is that conclusion. Milch, facing Alzheimer's, wrapped up all of the show's storylines in this final two-hour sendoff, and while it may not be pretty, it is fitting. —Angela Watercutter
Listening to scientists talk about things they find fascinating is so pure, and host Alie Ward's wry wit means every episode of the Ologies podcast is as funny as it is informative. Whether the topic is cynology (the study of dogs) or ludology (the study of videogames), you'll emerge from the listening session with a little more wonder. —Emma Grey Ellis
As speculative fiction goes, Maurice Carlos Ruffin's dark family satire about a distant-future American South crackles with pathos and an instinctual canniness. The novel's unnamed narrator wants his son Nigel to undergo "demelanization," a costly medical procedure that erases any vestige of physical blackness. It's an act rooted in love and parental fear, but one that bears the fruit of full metamorphosis. Nigel isn't the only person transformed by the act. With echoes of Ralph Ellison, Fran Ross, and Paul Beatty, We Cast a Shadow is the perfect antidote to ailing times. —Jason Parham
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been, erm, missable over much of its run, but in its sixth season it's finally broken free of what ailed it: the standard Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline. Now that the show doesn't have to worry about spoiling the next blockbuster, it can be the upbeat campy weirdo it always wanted to be, complete with startup spoofs and space shrooms. —Emma Grey Ellis
If you know the name John Cameron Mitchell, it's probably because the auteur is the creator, and original star, of the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Mitchell has done a ton of things since—including stints on Girls, The Good Fight, and Shrill—but his latest effort might be the closest thing yet to the project that made him famous. Anthem: Homunculus is a podcast about a small-town artist named Ceann who launches an online "tumor telethon" to raise money for medical bills. With a cast that includes Glenn Close and Patti LuPone, it's the kind of offering that develops a whole new facet of the podcast format. —Angela Watercutter
Sure, yes, Yuval Noah Harari's brief history of humanity is now five years old, but in the scope of human evolution that's the blink of an eye, so you can be forgiven if you haven’t read it yet. Though the paperback is heavy and daunting, it's a quick—dare I say beach-friendly—read that somehow manages to shed light on every aspect of human life. You won't look at wheat hamburger buns at the Fourth of July party the same way ever again. —Emily Dreyfuss
A wealthy family falls on hard times and has to adjust to small-town living. Everyone’s a caricature, but also fully a realized person you’ll come to care about. It’s the best sitcom in decades. Friends could never. —Emma Grey Ellis
I don’t care much for podcasts, but there’s something especially savory about WNYC’s Adulting, hosted by comedians Michelle Buteau and Jordan Carlos. To say nothing of its stellar guests—Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black), Wyatt Cenac (Problem Areas), Chris Redd (Saturday Night Live), and Ben Sinclair (High Maintenance)—the podcast dives into the miasma of adulthood, from navigating awkward sexual encounters to how to properly break up with friends. Being a grown-up is work. Listen close. —Jason Parham
If you haven’t checked in with YouTube’s unproblematic godmother in a while (or ever) you are missing out. Lately, Jenna’s channel has become a laboratory for old millennial ennui, answering all the questions you never dared ask, like what happens when you hydrodip Crocs or make your soap-loving dog an entire bed of Irish Spring. —Emma Grey Ellis
The writer Rowan Ricardo Phillips once said that “summer is never really a story, no matter how many summer stories we think we tell; summer is a texture.” Bandana, the joint album from Freddie Gibbs and producer Madlib that dropped in late June, is also a texture. It’s soul-thumping beats are smooth and soft, and Gibbs’ rhymes are granite hard. Which is to say, the duo want you to feel something. It won’t take much. —Jason Parham
If you haven’t watched Season 2 of this country-hopping, cat-and-mouse show about a female assassin and an MI5 agent who is darkly obsessed with her, now is the time. It plays many of the same notes as the first season, but so well and with such mounting suspense that it begs to be binged. —Emma Grey Ellis
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