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3 underrated shows on (HBO) Max you need to watch in April 2025

Danny McBride and Walton Goggins in Vice Principals.
HBO

The White Lotus season 3 has come to an end, and The Last of Us season 2 is right around the corner on HBO and Max. But what are you going to watch in the meantime?

Fortunately, HBO and Max aren’t lacking in potential options for your next binge. But if you need some guidance, we’ve put together this list of the three underrated shows on (HBO) Max that you need to watch in April. Between a black comedy, an action-packed anime, and a thrilling detective series, you should have more than enough to enjoy until May comes around.

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Vice Principals (2016-2017)

Walton Goggins and Danny McBride in Vice Principals.
HBO

Prior to his guest stint in The White Lotus season 3, Walton Goggins co-starred in Vice Principals, a dark comedy that ran for two seasons on HBO. Goggins and Danny McBride headlined the series as Lee Russell and Neal Gamby, two rival vice principals at North Jackson High. Both men believe that they’re best suited to take over as the new principal, only to find themselves overlooked in favor of Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Hébert Gregory).

Despite their mutual enmity, Gamby and Russell decide to team up to bring down Brown in the hope that one of them could replace her. They may have a common goal, but Gamby and Russell don’t mesh well together. They may end up destroying each other long before they ever get close to the job they both desperately want.

Watch Vice Principals on Max.

Lazarus (2025)

Lazarus | OFFICIAL TRAILER | adult swim

Shinichirō Watanabe may not be widely known outside of anime circles, but he directed the legendary Cowboy Bebop anime and several other successful animated series out of Japan. Lazarus is Watanabe’s newest show, and it presents humanity with a unique problem. In 2052, one of the foremost neuroscientists in the world, Dr. Skinner (David Matranga), created a drug called Hapna that can cure almost any disease or ailment. In 2055, Skinner reveals that he tricked humanity into accepting a drug that will kill anyone three years after they take it. And the first victims will fall in just 30 days.

As far as Axel Gilberto (Jack Stansbury) is concerned, none of that is his problem until he’s forcibly recruited into the Lazarus team that has under a month to track down Skinner and force him to share his cure with humanity. The clock is ticking, and if the Lazarus team fails, then billions of people may die.

Watch Lazarus on Max.

C.B. Strike (2017-Present)

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger in C.B. Strike.
BBC/HBO

Cormoran Blue Strike (Tom Burke) isn’t a household name like Harry Potter, but he’s the second hero created by J. K. Rowling to get seven novels under his belt. Rowling writes the Cormoran Strike mystery novels under the Robert Galbraith pseudonym, and the HBO/BBC adaptation is quickly running out of books to turn into seasons!

Max has somewhat confusingly listed the six seasons of C.B. Strike as four seasons, but the complete run is there. The series follows the titular private investigator, who has a complicated relationship with his partner, Robin Venetia Ellacott (Holliday Grainger). The latest season tackles The Ink Black Heart, the sixth of the seven Cormoran Strike novels published to date. Supposedly, Rowling will write 10 novels in total. But unless a lengthy hiatus is planned, then Game of Thrones isn’t the only HBO show that outpaces the books.

Watch C.B. Strike on Max.

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
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