It’s been a little quiet on the Apple TV Plus front lately, but that’s okay: I’ve binged the first three seasons of Slow horses for the second time – this time with my eldest, who enjoys it as much as I do.
But there are some exciting new shows coming to the streamer in August 2024 that seem like strong contenders for our list of the best Apple TV Plus shows — three in particular are already on my watchlist. From terrifying true stories of drug cartels to fictional Florida madness and heartbreaking multi-generational drama, here are three shows that seem worth keeping watching.
Cowboy Cartel (August 9)
Apple TV Plus isn’t known for documentaries as much as it is for dramas, but Cowboy Cartel can fix that. It reads like a script for Narcos: Mexico but this documentary tells a true story that is just as terrifying. The four-part documentary series takes you inside the world of the most dangerous of all drug cartels, how they launder their money, and how the FBI found out and tried to take them down. Early reports say this is a cut above your average true crime documentary, not only in terms of production quality and storytelling, but also in the scope of the story it tells.
Pachinko Season 2 (August 23)
I wrote about this the other day after the trailer made my eyes water: it’s an epic story of love and survival and season 2 of Pachinko It looks like it will be just as gripping and heartbreaking as the first part. Pachinko tells the story of four generations of a family in Korea and Japan, which is expected to continue in the second season with more time travel. The eras here are the last days of World War II and the greed-is-good late 80s.
Bad Monkey (August 14)
One of my favorite authors is Carl Hiassen, whose Florida crime stories always deliver an explosive cocktail of insane comedy and intense action, so I’m very excited about this adaptation of his novel Bad monkeystarring Vince Vaughn as Andrew Yancy, a disbarred former detective who now has to inspect restaurants for a living. When a tourist finds a severed arm, it drags Yancy into a dark world of greed and corruption—a world that features Michelle Monaghan, Rob Delaney, and a host of other talents. I’m always a little nervous when a favorite author is adapted for the screen, but I’m optimistic that this will be another Attorney Lincolna hugely entertaining film adaptation that is more about atmosphere than slavishly following every word on the page.