The best show you’re not watching
After an hour of “Succession” (9 p.m., Sunday, HBO, TV-MA) and its themes of corporate sadism, caustic inter-family cruelty and blowtorch profanity, can you blame viewers for wanting a little relief?
The low-key comedy series “Somebody Somewhere” (10:30 p.m., Sunday, HBO, TV-MA) is just entering its second season. But its Manhattan, Kansas, setting already seems so familiar and its characters like old friends, or even family.
For the uninitiated, “Somebody” stars Bridget Everett as Sam, a farmer’s daughter who returns home after decades away and a career that never took off. Funny and brash and proudly plus-size, she’s reacquainted with her love of singing and performing by Joel (Jeff Hiller), a goofy and somewhat ungainly gay man who has a complicated relationship with religion — he knows only that church is one of the few places he feels at home.
Sam has a complex history with her sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison), whose husband left her last season for her partner in their gift/thrift shop. Now that her daughter has departed for college, Tricia feels alone for the first time in life — and that makes her capable of anything.
In the second season, Sam and Joel have moved from being tentative pals to an inseparable “couple” whose closeness borders on codependency. At their most frisky, their antics recall Lucy and Ethel; at their most raunchy, they bring Patsy and Edina from “Absolutely Fabulous” to mind. As on that series, their closeness is frantic, fragile and deeply neurotic, as if they both know that they are mere placeholders until a “real” lover comes along.
The actor and “Friends” regular Mike Hagerty, who played Sam’s beleaguered father, Ed, died last May. As season two begins, his absence is explained by a long-delayed trip with his brother. But Sam is seen getting wistful as she helps clean out his barn.
Look for cabaret performer Murray Hill as Fred Rococo, an ag-college professor and overall fixer for the local farm community. It’s a breathtaking performance.
Less than 30 minutes long, the season opener is filled with moments both granular and profound that evoke the day-to-day melancholy of 21st-century life: visiting a hostile and nonresponsive mother in a senior facility; cleaning out Dad’s lifetime of accumulated possessions and junk; punishing yourself to “answer” the demands of your Fitbit step-counter; facing up to divorce and an empty nest; getting a bad review from loathsome and destructive Airbnb guests. “Somebody Somewhere” is grounded in such ironies, heartaches and disappointments. And from such details, real characters emerge, real human beings.
› Homes reflect the choices of the people who own them — and not all choices are wise. Both poor initial construction or dubious renovation can leave some dwellings with wonky layouts, stairways that lead nowhere and hallways that bring nothing but confusion and needless drafts.
The Boston-based renovation team of Mike and Denese Butler host the new series “Fix My Frankenhouse” (9 p.m. Sunday, HGTV, TV-PG). They aim to discover and preserve each project’s essential charms while ironing out some of the structural wrinkles that have built up over time.
First up: a family’s multigenerational home needs a coherent floor plan to maximize space. The goal: maintaining historical details while opening up a ground floor that seems too cramped to host one family, never mind several. ›
Renovators give themselves a four-month deadline to complete 18 projects and transform the town of Fort Morgan, Colorado, in the second season of “Hometown Takeover” (8 p.m., Sunday, HGTV).