One of the great things about Netflix and other streaming services like it is that, in addition to delivering new titles to viewers regularly, these services also give us the chance to rediscover stuff that may not have made a huge splash when it was first released.
Now that some users are discovering Loudermilk, a show that was first released in 2017 and ran for three seasons, they may be looking for other stuff that’s in the same wheelhouse. This show, which is about an alcoholic who gets clean and tries to put his life back together, features a hugely compelling central performance from Ron Livingston and deftly balances its comedic and dramatic elements. Here are three other shows like it that you should definitely make time for.
Shameless (2011-2021)
Adapted from a British series of the same name, Shameless tells the story of a single family that redefines what “dysfunctional” means. The show is ostensibly led by Frank, a single father who spends much of his free time drinking instead of tending to his six children. That largely leaves the children to tend to themselves.
The show ran for so long in part because of William H. Macy’s remarkable central performance, and in part because its story of a messed-up family that loves one another in spite of their differences resonated so broadly. Shameless also launched an entire generation of young talent, and we have it to thank for The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White, among other things.
Shameless is streaming on Netflix.
Mom (2013-2021)
While it may seem like a conventional sitcom, Mom turned to be a lot smarter about issues of addiction and sobriety than most people thought. The show tells the story of a single mother who is newly sober and is trying to balance her life when her mother, still an alcoholic, storms back into her life.
Thanks to Anna Faris and Allison Janney, the show was often blisteringly funny, but it also knew how to take the subject matter at its center seriously. This was a show about addiction, and even when it was at its most absurd, Mom was never hiding that fact.
Watch Mom on Hulu.
Bojack Horseman (2014-2020)
Set in a strange, animated world where animals and humans coexist as sentient beings, Bojack Horseman tells the story of a former sitcom star who is also a horse as he battles his own demons, including alcoholism, in an attempt to better himself.
The genius of Bojack is that the show could be blisteringly funny, but it was often far more interested in examining the darkness at the heart of its main character. Bojack was often terrible to the people he claimed to love, and the show gives each of its central figures the opportunity to reckon with the damage he’s done to their lives.
Bojack Horseman is streaming on Netflix.
