Every week, Netflix reveals its Top 10 lists, a ranking of its most-viewed movies and TV shows broken down into English-language and non-English-language categories. While it's always fun to see what's popping on the platform, and usually many of the titles predictably include highly anticipated new releases, there are always some surprises on the list. I mean, who was expecting the 2016 Ben Affleck movie The Accountant to have shot to No. 1 on Netflix last spring? It truly didn't have Spidey senses tingling.
While some titles are obvious choices to get a coveted Netflix bump, sometimes it's hard to explain the why of it all. Each week, we'll take a look at the Top 10 to call out some of the most notable, often random, titles on the list to make some sense of it.
It's no surprise that the English-language shows dominating last week's list (starting Feb. 3) include the newest seasons of The Night Agent and The Recruit, two of Netflix's most popular series of the past couple years. What's more intriguing to me is the unexpected presence of one of my favorite comedies of the past year: Envious.
If you're not from Argentina, there's a good chance you've ignored this show, if you even noticed it at all on Netflix's landing page. Envious -- which sits at No. 8 on the non-English Top 10 TV Shows list for the week -- is a half-hour sitcom that stars Argentinian actress and singer Griselda Siciliani, and for fans of romantic comedy shows like Sex and the City, Younger and Ally McBeal, it's absolutely worth the time.
In the comedy, which deftly combines slapstick humor with romance and an attempt at personal growth, Siciliani plays Vicky, a single 40-year-old who is jealous of all her friends who are marrying off and having kids. In season one, Vicky has broken up with her long-term boyfriend Dani, a man whose career she nurtured for a decade as she set aside her own dreams of success, while she waited patiently for a proposal that never came. Cut to… newly single Dani marrying the first hot, young dance instructor he sees, leaving Vicky desperate to pry into their relationship, snooping into their life and even using her old key to sneak into their apartment to find out more about Dani's young bride.
If it sounds like a farce, it is, frequently. But the show's silliness is offset by Vicky's therapy sessions, where she hilariously tries to justify her immature, self-sabotaging behavior, while also acknowledges that her hurt comes from her father abandoning her as a child. Digging into Vicky's trauma might sound deep, but the show rarely lingers on those dramatic moments, they appear just long enough to provide Vicky's character with motivation. Vicky's therapy sessions are bonkers, with her therapist serving as a deadpan foil to Vicky's self-pitying monologues about her life and her colleagues and friends, helping her on the road to self-discovery. (I highly recommend watching the series in Spanish with subtitles, as the English dub is cartoonishly wacky and ruins most of the performances.)
After breaking up with Dani in the first season, Vicky meets Matias (Esteban Lamothe), who's not her type, and reluctantly falls for him. Season 2, which arrived on Feb. 5, picks up after Vicky and Dani reconcile, leaving Matias heartbroken and Vicky left to wonder if she picked the right man.
Admittedly, Envious (whose Spanish title is Envidiosa) draws some of its humor from cultural observations specific to Argentina, but Siciliani's performance and the show's sharp writing cross cultures and are spot-on. Envious balances comedy and drama through the lens of a complicated, insecure but hilarious protagonist, as almost all great rom-coms do. When you're done bingeing The Night Agent, let Envious be your palate cleanser.
English (US) ·