Leave it to Celine Dion to make Us rethink the basic black bag. While we’re usually distracted by whatever over-the-top outfit the singer is wearing, this time, her tiny, slouchy purse was what had us zooming in. Consider it proof that sometimes all a fall outfit really needs is a great bag.

Dion was spotted in Paris on September 1, 2026, wearing a statement black dress, pointed-toe pumps and a $2,600 Loewe Mini Flamenco clutch. The small, scrunched-up style added some texture to her all-black outfit without competing with the rest of the look. And because spending $2,600 on a purse isn’t exactly in the budget, we found a similar style on Amazon for $28.

Get the Uiciop Drawstring Bucket Bag for $28 at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate at the date of publication, September 8, 2026, but are subject to change.

The Uiciop Drawstring Bucket Bag gives you that same puffy, gathered look for a whole lot less. The black version is an easy match for Dion’s, but it also comes in tan and camel if you’re currently in your brown-accessories era.

Related: Emma Roberts’ Blue Bag Is Fall’s Chicest Unexpected Color Trend

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Emma Roberts convinced Us to give our usual fall color palette a little break. While brown, burgundy and black bags tend to take over this time of year, her polished powder blue style makes an unexpected case for carrying a softer shade straight into the new season. The actress was spotted at the U.S. Open […]

The soft, leather-like pick has a drawstring closure and adjustable straps, so you can carry it as a shoulder bag or crossbody. There’s also enough room inside for your phone, wallet, keys, sunglasses, lipstick and a few other essentials. Translation: It’s little but not annoyingly small.

Shoppers say it looks surprisingly luxe, too. One buyer called the dumpling bag “rich feeling and looking,” adding that the material “feels smooth and soft.” Another customer called it the “perfect mix of casual and dressy,” and said they “can wear it with literally anything.”

We can already picture this little black bag with half the things in our fall closets. Think a chunky sweater and jeans for Saturday errands, a blazer and trousers for work or a knit dress and boots for dinner. When an outfit feels like it’s missing something, this is the kind of bag we’d grab and call it ‘done.’

Want Dion’s little black bag look in a different shape or texture? Shop more chic Amazon options below!

Shop more black mini dumpling bags that we love:

Not your style? Explore more black mini bags here, and don’t forget to check out all of Amazon’s Daily Deals for more great finds!

UsNow Fall Sale Alert: These chic fashion finds are up to 60% off – plus free shipping

Welcome to fall with our biggest sale of the season. Our favorite dresses, tops, handbags, and shoes are all on sale + free shipping. Inventory is limited so hurry before they’re gone.

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Related: Selena Gomez’s Flattering Brown Top Look Is Easy to Copy for $20

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Selena Gomez just gave Us another reason to get excited about dressing for fall. There’s something about a chocolate brown top that feels way more elevated than your basic everyday black or white option, especially when it’s sleek and fitted. Her pick made an otherwise simple outfit feel seriously luxe. On August 30, the Rare […]

When you’re a big TV fan, it’s par of the course to receive some bad news every once in a while in between seasons. From shocking show cancellations to cast exits with little to no explanation, the TV world can be as unpredictable as it is entertaining. That’s been especially the case for CBS shows, as the network recently made some bold moves to its lineup, which is leaving audiences as nervous as ever.

Despite drawing in millions of viewers in its first two seasons, Matlock got some not-so-great news from its network. For starters, not only will the series premiere only in early 2027 and skip the fall 2026 schedule altogether, but Season 3 will be significantly reduced to only 13 episodes. The news is discouraging, especially for a series that has been doing so well, and the pressure is now certainly on for Season 3.

‘Matlock’ Received a Major Downgrade Before Season 3

While Season 1 of Matlock had 19 episodes, and Season 2 had 16, Season 3 will be its shortest yet with only 13 episodes. As for its schedule, Matlock will be joining other beloved CBS shows, including NCIS: Origins and Fire Country, as it gets pushed to early 2027. And while the push alone might justify the shorter season, both decisions from CBS go hand in hand. According to Deadline, the decision to push the series is for creative reasons alone. Per the outlet, the team behind the show needs more time for a “creative revamp after wrapping the major Wellbrexa storyline that dominated the first two seasons.”

Plus, with other shows receiving the same fate, it seems CBS is changing their strategy altogether. Instead of this being a targeted downgrade to Matlock directly, there’s a notable change in the network’s planning. After a record number of new scripted shows in 2025–2026, the network is reportedly trying to fit them all in a way that feels steady and cohesive.

‘Matlock’ Is One of the Best New Shows on CBS

The news of Matlock‘s shorter and delayed season might come as a surprise to fans and critics alike. After all, not only does the series hold an impressive 93% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was high in the ratings too, making it the all-around best new show on the network. Per The Wrap, the Season 2 premiere of Matlock brought in 11.9 million multiplatform viewers after one week of viewing, according to Nielsen big data plus panel viewing data. That was up 2% from the 11.7 million viewers averaged by Matlock’s first season.

But the series wasn’t just successful – it was great TV too. Matlock, which follows Kathy Bates as Madeline “Matty” Matlock as she manages to finagle her way into a job at the law firm Jacobson Moore, sees Bates in one of the best roles of her career, per Collider’s Season 1 review by Carly Lane. “Bates’ character might give off a very specific energy at first, but she’s also an observer, and, when paired with her utterly disarming personality, this allows her to notice things about people and figure out how to speak to them in a way others might overlook,” Lane wrote. “But Matty’s not always sage words of wisdom and pocketfuls of hard candies, either; she gets to express sadness, frustration, grief, anger, and everything in between.” The role went on to award Bates with a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.

All that said, while Matlock had plenty going for it in Season 1 and Season 2, the series has been receiving some discouraging and disappointing news. But considering that Season 3 is still underway, the CBS hit has a chance to continue to bring in viewers, prove its place in the network’s lineup, and continue to show just how magnetic Bates is onscreen.

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Release Date

September 22, 2024

Directors

Kat Coiro, Brad Silberling, Gina Lamar, Hanelle M. Culpepper, Jennifer Lynch, Jude Weng, Tessa Blake, Yangzom Brauen, Marie Jamora, Daniel Willis

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Writers

Nicki Renna, Jeffrey Lieber, Sara Rose Feinberg

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  Kathy Bates

  Madeline ‘Matty’ Matlock

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  Skye P. Marshall

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  Olympia Lawrence

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Netflix has one of the most impressive streaming libraries. The platform is basically known for turning a new series into the biggest thing on television practically overnight. The only problem is that a lot of other promising titles get buried under all that noise. It would make sense if these forgotten shows were nothing special, but plenty of shows on the streamer deserved more recognition than they got.

In hindsight, the strangest thing about revisiting them is realizing how little their quality had to do with how long they stayed relevant. These six Netflix shows may no longer dominate the conversation, but they are just too good to be forgotten.

1

‘Santa Clarita Diet’ (2017–2019)

Image via Netflix

Santa Clarita Diet is downright ridiculous, but it works. The Netflix comedy follows suburban real-estate agents Sheila (Drew Barrymore) and Joel Hammond (Timothy Olyphant), whose painfully ordinary life in Santa Clarita turns upside down when Sheila suddenly dies, comes back to life, and develops an appetite for human flesh. Instead of immediately turning the story into a traditional zombie comedy, the series explores how Joel tries to help his wife navigate her new condition without completely destroying their family in the process. Their dynamic is arguably the most important part of the show.

Sheila’s transformation gives her a new sense of confidence and freedom, but Joel becomes increasingly stressed trying to keep up with the bodies, lies, and absurd problems piling up around them. Despite that, the show grounds itself in the fact that these two truly love each other and are willing to go to borderline insane lengths to make their relationship work. Santa Clarita Diet is over-the-top, but the violence and chaos never take away from the central family dynamic at the core of the story. The series deserved far more than three seasons, and its cancellation still feels like a knife in the back.

2

‘Alias Grace’ (2017)

Image via Netflix

It’s impossible to believe that a show like Alias Grace just faded away despite its gripping premise. The miniseries, based on Margaret Atwood’s novel and inspired by a real 19th-century murder case, follows Irish immigrant and domestic servant Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), who has spent years in prison after being convicted of murdering her employer Thomas Kinnear (Paul Gross) and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery (Anna Paquin). Now, Grace claims to have no memory of these murders, so psychiatrist Dr. Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft) begins interviewing her in hopes of determining what actually happened. This means that everything the audience knows essentially comes through Grace herself.

She tells Jordan about immigrating to Canada, working as a servant, her friendship with Mary Whitney (Rebecca Liddiard), and her eventual arrival at Kinnear’s household. What’s interesting is how the series keeps recreating these memories for the audience without ever guaranteeing that Grace is telling the whole truth. She can appear vulnerable yet calculating in the same breath, which prevents the viewers from ever fully trusting her. This looming uncertainty is far more interesting than a simple whodunit. Eventually, Jordan and the audience realize that everyone around Grace has created their own version of her, but the truth is that she can never be reduced to just one of them. Six episodes later, the case definitely feels clearer, but Grace remains just as difficult to pin down, which is the brilliance of the show.

3

‘Lady Dynamite’ (2016–2017)

Image via Netflix

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Lady Dynamite is definitely one of the strangest sitcoms Netflix has ever made, but it stands out because of how unique it is. The series stars comedian Maria Bamford as a fictionalized version of herself returning to Los Angeles after spending months away recovering from a mental breakdown. Maria wants to restart her comedy career, date again, and build a new life, but the show doesn’t tell that story conventionally. Lady Dynamite jumps between different versions of Maria’s life. This includes the overly ambitious Maria before her breakdown and the present-day Maria trying to figure out what her boundaries are.

These periods even look and behave differently because her changing state of mind is part of the show’s structure. Episodes feature fourth-wall breaks, fake sitcoms, celebrity cameos, and bizarre fantasies. However, all these seemingly bizarre things make it easier for the audience to understand Maria. Despite all its quirks, Lady Dynamite has a clear character arc as Maria spends two seasons learning and embracing who she really is. To this day, no other Netflix comedy has felt this authentic to its protagonist’s way of seeing the world.

4

‘Sense8’ (2015–2018)

Image via Netflix

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Sense8 came way before Netflix developed a reputation for its ambitious productions. The show, created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski with J. Michael Straczynski, was far ahead of its time and told a story that feels unique even today. Sense8 follows eight strangers living across the world who suddenly become mentally and emotionally connected. At first, they don’t understand why they can suddenly see, feel, and even physically experience what the others are going through. This confusion lays the foundation of the show, as it keeps finding clever ways for all of these characters to collide. Eventually, it stops telling eight parallel storylines because the group begins living one enormous shared life and stepping into one another’s situations whenever someone needs help.

The larger conspiracy involving the Biological Preservation Organization gives Sense8 its thriller plot, but the reason the series is still remembered so fondly is the cluster and their connection. The series is flashy and has its sci-fi moments, but its strength lies in the emotional arc of the cluster, individually and as a whole. Some of Sense8’s best moments come when all eight characters effectively occupy the same moment, which is a testament to the cast’s brilliant chemistry. Netflix canceled Sense8 after two seasons, but fan backlash was strong enough that the story returned for a feature-length finale. That ending isn’t perfectly neat, but it gives the cluster the emotional sendoff they truly deserved.

5

‘Anne with an E’ (2017–2019)

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Anne with an E had all the ingredients to become one of Netflix’s defining coming-of-age shows before the world just decided to forget all about it. The series, based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, follows imaginative 13-year-old orphan Anne Shirley (Amybeth McNulty), who is mistakenly sent to live with siblings Marilla (Geraldine James) and Matthew Cuthbert (R. H. Thomson) on their farm in Avonlea. The Cuthberts had actually requested a boy who could help Matthew with the farm, so Anne arrives only to learn that the closest thing she has found to a home could also be taken away from her. From there, the story gradually expands as Anne starts school, befriends Diana (Dalila Bela), and repeatedly gets herself into trouble because of her wild imagination.

At the same time, she continues to prove just how smart she actually is. Matthew and Marilla slowly stop thinking of Anne as the orphan they accidentally received and start treating her as their daughter, which is the most heartwarming part of the series. By Season 3, the story completely reverses its original premise. Anne prepares to leave for Queen’s College, and her long-running relationship with Gilbert also finally moves forward when the two admit their feelings for each other. That progression is what makes the cancellation sting so much. Anne with an E spends three seasons watching a girl desperately searching for somewhere she belongs, only to end just as her world was becoming bigger than ever.

6

‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ (2020–2021)

Image via Liane Hentscher / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

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The Baby-Sitters Club is an underrated Netflix gem. The series, based on Ann M. Martin’s novels, follows Kristy Thomas (Sophie Grace), who comes up with the idea of starting a babysitting business with her friends Claudia (Momona Tamada), Mary Anne (Malia Baker), Stacey (Shay Rudolph), and Dawn (Xochitl Gomez/Kyndra Sanchez). Little do they know, though, that their way to make some quick bucks will completely reshape their lives. Every babysitting job Kristy and the others take on becomes its own little problem to solve. The show grounds all of this in the characters’ personal lives, which makes their work feel like an extension of what each girl is already dealing with.

Mary Anne is trying to become more independent from her overprotective father, Stacey is hiding her diabetes because she does not want it to define her, and Kristy is struggling with the changes in her family after her mother gets remarried. Even the club itself constantly runs into disagreements over money, leadership, friendships, and who gets to make the decisions. This emotional depth is what makes the series much more interesting than its premise suggests. By Season 2, The Baby-Sitters Club starts reshaping the group in the best way. None of their storylines are magically solved by the end of the episode, which makes Stoneybrook feel like a place where these girls are genuinely growing up rather than just moving through babysitting adventures. It’s a shame that the show was canceled just as its story started getting bigger.

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The Baby-Sitters Club

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Release Date

2020 – 2021-00-00

Showrunner

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Rachel Shukert

Directors

Melanie Mayron

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Writers

Ann M. Martin

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The glamorous side of being an influencer is easy to see, but Erzabel says building a successful online career takes far more work than followers might realize.

The 30-year-old Southeast Asian influencer has built an international audience while creating a lifestyle that allows her to travel regularly. However, she exclusively told The Blast that the freedom came with an unexpected problem: learning how to stop working.

For Erzabel, even a vacation could quickly become another content opportunity.

“I used to be in work mode all the time,” Erzabel exclusively told The Blast.

That mentality followed her even when she traveled somewhere she was supposed to enjoy.

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“Even when I travel, like, ‘Okay, I have to take pictures. Okay, I have to make content,’ instead of just enjoying the moment, the holiday,” she explained.

That’s one reason Erzabel is skeptical that building a career as an influencer is as effortless as it can appear from the outside.

“It seems easy, but it’s not so easy,” she said. “You have to be 100% into it, like focus on it.”

Erzabel had wanted to become a model since childhood and began working with local brands while attending university. She eventually shifted her attention toward creating content online and has since attracted an international following, with her largest audience based in the United States.

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However, getting an audience is only part of the challenge. Keeping that momentum means constantly adapting.

Erzabel Reveals The ‘Hardest’ Part Of Growing Her Audience

For Erzabel, there is no permanent formula for social media success.

“The hardest is to get more [followers],” she told The Blast. “It means that I have to actively create content, try new stuff.”

That can mean experimenting with entirely different platforms when her existing strategy stops delivering the results she wants.

“For example, this week I tried TikTok, and then if it doesn’t work, I have to try another platform,” she explained. “Just keep trying, just keep creating. That’s the hardest part.”

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The uncertainty hasn’t shaken her confidence. Asked whether she has struggled with imposter syndrome as her profile has grown, Erzabel answered immediately.

“No, I always know that I’m going to be successful,” she declared. “That’s always been my goal.”

She applies the same certainty to anyone hoping to turn influencing into a serious career.

“You cannot do it 50-50,” she said. “You have to be 100% into it.”

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Traveling The World Created An Unexpected Work-Life Struggle

Travel is one of the biggest rewards Erzabel has gained from her career, but her desire to explore the world existed long before influencing became her job.

“Since I was little, that was one of my dreams. That was my biggest dream, actually,” she recalled.

Once she began earning her own money, seeing new places became more important than buying possessions.

“Instead of buying materialistic things when I had money, the first thing in my head was, ‘I need to travel because now I have my own money,’” Erzabel said.

She now tries to travel every month, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends or her assistant.

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The trips also serve another purpose. Erzabel says staying in one place too long can leave her bored and searching for fresh motivation.

“When I travel, I get more inspiration,” she explained.

Switzerland, Iceland and Peru remain on her wish list, while she also hopes to return to China for an experience far removed from the typical influencer getaway.

Erzabel wants to attend a Kung Fu retreat. “Do something different,” she said of the idea.

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Erzabel Says Financial Independence Gave Her ‘Full Freedom’

Erzabel’s current lifestyle is dramatically different from one of her earlier experiences abroad.

Before becoming an influencer, she spent eight months working as an au pair in the Netherlands and caring for three young children.

She recalled the arrangement becoming difficult when she felt her host family was overworking her, including expecting her to participate in family weekends that were supposed to be her time off.

Today, being able to control her own schedule and finances has changed what success means to her.

“It’s really good when you have your own money, to become independent,” Erzabel told The Blast. “You have full freedom, you get to meet people when you travel.”

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She believes that independence is particularly valuable for women.

“Now you can depend on yourself,” she said. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to depend on a guy or somebody.”

Meeting people from different backgrounds has become another important part of that freedom.

“I feel like people are open books, so you get inspiration from people, from new places,” she explained.

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Erzabel Already Has Her Eye On Life Beyond Influencing

Influencing may be Erzabel’s career now, but she isn’t limiting her ambitions to social media.

Her interests have expanded into psychology, mindset and spirituality. She practices meditation, yoga, and breathwork, and says she enjoys learning how people think.

“I’m really into spirituality,” she said. “I like to learn more about psychology and mindset and spirituality.”

There’s also a considerably more sparkling business idea on her mind.

“I really like diamonds, so I really want to open a diamond business,” Erzabel revealed.

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For now, however, she remains focused on the career she has already built and the constant experimentation required to sustain it.

The beautiful destinations and freedom may be what audiences see on their screens, but Erzabel says the work behind that lifestyle never succeeds with half-hearted effort.

“You cannot do it 50-50,” she emphasized. “You have to be 100% into it.”

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Hoda Kotb and ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman are celebrating their daughters’ new school year.

“It’s here! First day of school💥. 4th and 2nd grade! Whaaaatttt?” Kotb, 62, wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, September 8, alongside photos of herself and Schiffman, 68, walking daughters Haley, 9, and Hope, 7, to school.

In one photo, Kotb and Schiffman stood between their kids outside their home as the family of four smiled at the camera.

Kotb and Schiffman began dating in 2013 and adopted Haley in 2017, followed by Hope in 2019. The pair got engaged later that year.

In January 2022, Kotb revealed on the Today show that she and Schiffman had amicably ended their engagement.

Related: Today’s Hoda Kotb Celebrates Ex-Fiance Joel Schiffman’s Birthday

Hoda Kotb is celebrating a special man who will always be part of her life. Over the weekend, Kotb, 61, reunited with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman for an intimate birthday gathering with their two daughters. “Happy bday to the best DAD!!! 🎂,” Kotb wrote via Instagram on Sunday, March 22. In the photos, Schiffman, 68, posed […]

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“Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays, and we decided that we are better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year on our new path as loving parents to our adorably delightful children and as friends,” she said at the time. “It’s not like something happened. They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, a season or a lifetime; this was for a season.”

Despite their split, Kotb and Schiffman have remained committed to coparenting their daughters. In April 2022, the former Today host exclusively told Us that they had an “easy” dynamic.

“He sees the kids,” she said at the time. “He takes them to school some, and he sees them on weekends. We’ve got a really nice, easy situation.”

Kotb added that she and the financier were trying their “best” to make the situation work.

Related: Hoda Kotb and Ex Joel Schiffman’s Relationship Timeline: Coparenting and More

Hoda Kotb and Joel Schiffman have remained on good terms after their split. The couple met and started dating in 2013. As their relationship progressed, the TV personality was often asked whether she wanted to walk down the aisle again. Kotb was previously married to Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2008. After Kotb adopted daughter Haley in […]

“We make sure that the kids get plenty of him and plenty of me,” she concluded.

Later, Kotb opened up about the reason behind their split, admitting that they were “growing at different paces.”

“Joel is one of the best people I know, and he really is a great human being,” she explained on “The Jamie Kern Lima Show” in August 2024. “And I feel like I’m a pretty great human being, but sometimes two great human beings together isn’t quite enough to make it work.”

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Kotb further broke down their split in her September 2025 book, Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life.

“There was no cheating, no scandal, no big crisis. It sounds cliché, but truth is, we were just growing apart,” she wrote. “There wasn’t the drama you hear about in all the great country songs. The no-good, two-timing, whiskey-loving heartbreakers. It simply wasn’t us.”

Kotb was previously married to tennis coach Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2008.

Detective shows have spent decades asking some version of the same basic question: what really happened? Yet somehow, the genre keeps finding completely different ways to make the search for that answer exciting. That’s because detective fiction is surprisingly experimental. A single show can mix mystery with comedy, romance, psychological drama, family conflict, or even horror without ever losing sight of the investigation at its center.

That freedom keeps the genre from feeling repetitive, even when the setup stays the same. It also means that two great detective shows can look almost nothing alike, as long as they make the audience desperate to see where the investigation goes. These six masterpiece detective shows do exactly that, with wildly different approaches to the genre, each one being 10/10.

1

‘True Detective’ (2014–Present)

Image via HBO

True Detective begins with a standard murder investigation but evolves into something much more unsettling. The anthology series tells a different story each season, but Season 1 remains the benchmark. The story follows detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson), who are assigned to investigate the ritualistic murder of a woman in rural Louisiana, only for the case to stretch across years and slowly reveal connections to disappearances, powerful people, and secrets that were never meant to come out. The investigation is gripping on its own, but the real tension comes from watching Rust and Marty lose their sense of self while trying to search for answers.

This personal angle is why True Detective stands out from typical procedurals. Rust and Marty’s partnership drives the story forward because their conversations, disagreements, and even failures become essential to the central mystery. The Louisiana setting only adds to the show’s identity with its empty roads and isolated communities. Later seasons of True Detective have taken the series in different directions, each with its own interpretation of what a detective story can be. Season 1, however, remains the perfect introduction to the show’s experimental approach, featuring complicated investigators and non-linear storytelling.

2

‘Mindhunter’ (2017–2019)

Image via Netflix

Mindhunter is another detective show that breaks away from the genre’s conventions. The series is set in the late 1970s and follows FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), along with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), as they begin interviewing imprisoned serial killers in an attempt to understand how violent criminals think. Through this premise, the series covers the early days of criminal profiling. Now, the hook here doesn’t come from watching detectives put puzzle pieces together to figure out a killer’s identity or adrenaline-fueled chases through dark alleys — Mindhunter builds its tension purely through conversation. Watching Holden and Bill sitting across a table from some of the most disturbing criminals imaginable and trying to understand them is the real horror of the show.

The series fictionalizes real-life serial killers including Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) and Charles Manson (Damon Herriman), but it never turns these appearances into mere shock value. Instead, each interview becomes another piece in a much larger experiment that would go on to redefine the world forever. This historical angle makes Mindhunter feel more real and urgent than most other thriller shows. It really is a shame Mindhunter ended after just two seasons because the series still had so much room to expand its profiling work and establish itself as a true game-changer in the genre, especially with the BTK storyline. However, the fact that it still managed to leave such an impact despite its unfinished story says a lot.

3

‘Dept. Q’ (2025–Present)

Image via Netflix

Dept. Q breathed new life into the detective genre just when things were getting a little boring. The series follows Edinburgh detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode), who returns to work after a shooting leaves one officer dead and his partner, James Hardy (Jamie Sives), seriously injured. Carl might be okay physically, but he is full of anger and guilt. Naturally, the department decides to give him charge of a newly created cold-case unit in an attempt to give him some time for things to blow over. However, Carl’s first case revolves around prosecutor Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie), who disappeared from a ferry four years earlier and was presumed dead. He initially approaches the assignment with no enthusiasm, but the little inconsistencies in Merritt’s case quickly get under his skin.

On the other hand, the audience learns that Merritt is actually alive and being held hostage, which immediately raises the stakes of this already intriguing investigation. The suspense in the show is not only about figuring out what happened. It also comes from watching Carl slowly catch up to information the viewers are already in on, which turns Dept. Q into an extremely immersive experience. At the same time, the show doesn’t shy away from showcasing Carl’s worst qualities. That messiness is exactly what gives the series so much character. The central mystery is compelling, but Carl is exactly the kind of detective viewers just can’t get enough of, especially when he gets down to work.

4

‘Columbo’ (1971–1998)

Image via NBC/Everett Collection

Columbo was ignoring genre conventions way before modern TV made it the new cool. The series throws out the biggest rule of detective television and reveals the murderer to the audience right off the bat. Most of the show’s episodes begin by following the murderer as they carefully plan the crime, cover their tracks, and convince themselves they have gotten away with it. Then, the audience follows Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk) as he begins his seemingly harmless investigation.

The show hides Columbo’s true thoughts and intentions until the very end. He quietly notices tiny inconsistencies, circles back several times, and makes the culprit believe that he is an absent-minded oldie, while being the exact opposite of that. Columbo’s inverted whodunit structure still feels fresh today. The show is definitely simpler than the darker, more complicated detective shows that have taken over TV screens today. However, its episodic structure, slower pacing, and almost theatrical acting are part of the charm.

5

‘Broadchurch’ (2013–2017)

Image via ITV

Broadchurch is hands-down one of the greatest mystery shows of all time. The series begins with 11-year-old Danny Latimer (Oskar McNamara) being found dead on a beach in the small coastal town of Broadchurch. Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) are assigned to the case, but soon enough, they realize that their suspect pool is messier than they initially thought. Turns out everyone in this small town is connected in strange ways, which essentially makes everyone feel suspicious. On the other hand, the press around the case is brutal, and Danny’s family is forced to grieve while every detail of their life is publicized for the world to see. Broadchurch doesn’t work with its central mystery in isolation.

The show sheds light on what really happens in situations like these where every new clue carries real consequences for the people involved. That gives Broadchurch a level of emotional weight that most mystery shows never even aim for. Hardy and Miller also make an excellent pairing because they approach the case from completely different positions, and this dynamic becomes the heart of the show. By the time Broadchurch reaches its answers, the mystery has already done permanent damage to the town, and that’s why the payoff lands harder than ever.

6

‘Bosch’ (2014–2021)

Image via Prime Video

Bosch is proof that when a detective show gets the fundamentals right, it doesn’t really need anything else. The series, based on Michael Connelly’s novels, follows LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), who has a reputation for doing things his own way and very little patience for anyone who gets in the way of a case. Each season usually revolves around one major investigation, but Bosch is never dealing with just one problem at a time. Old cases resurface, department politics complicate his work, and his personal life keeps bleeding into the job, which makes things even harder.

Through all this, Bosch attempts to show the actual process of detective work, where there is a lot of bureaucracy, paperwork, and leads that essentially go nowhere. That sounds pretty boring, but watching the protagonist slowly build a case piece by piece is pure satisfaction, especially when all that hard work pays off.

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Bosch

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Release Date

2015 – 2021-00-00

Network

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Prime Video

Showrunner

Eric Ellis Overmyer

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Directors

Alex Zakrzewski, Ernest R. Dickerson, Patrick Cady, Aaron Lipstadt, Adam Davidson, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Kevin Dowling, Neema Barnette, Tim Hunter, Zetna Fuentes, Christine Moore, Jim McKay, Laura Belsey, Matt Earl Beesley, Phil Abraham, Roxann Dawson, Sarah Pia Anderson, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Tara Nicole Weyr, Thomas Carter, Hagar Ben-Asher

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Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville has some answers amid her ongoing health struggles.

“I’m finally ready to tell you what I’ve actually been fighting and to start sharing some of my worst moments leading up to finally getting diagnosed,” Glanville, 53, wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, September 8. “I’ve been diagnosed with highly resistant ESBL Klebsiella and Enterobacter with biofilm, Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever), Demodex dermatitis and Mononucleosis.”

The reality star continued, “I also have a fungal ball in my face that needs to be removed. I have to get the metals from old dental work out of my mouth, my breast implants need to come out, and I’m looking at 4–6 months of daily IV treatment.”

According to the National Library of Medicine, biofilm production in ESBL-producing Klebsiella and Enterobacter can contribute to antibiotic resistance and make bacterial infections more difficult to treat.

Related: Brandi Glanville Reveals Daily 18-Hour IV Regimen, Drastic Weight Loss

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Brandi Glanville has shared insight into her ongoing health battle. “I know I’m so skinny right now. I can’t eat because the things I do … decreases my food. I feel like death. I look like death,” Glanville, 53, told fans in a Sunday, September 6, Instagram video […]

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states coccidioidomycosis is a lung infection from a fungus in soil in parts of the United States.

Demodex dermatitis is caused by a facial mite that lives in hair follicles, according to Cleveland Clinic. Meanwhile, the Mayo Clinic states mononucleosis is an infectious disease that spreads through saliva. Patients can get it through kissing or by sharing a glass or food utensils with someone who has mono.

“The treatment has NOT been easy, and so far I’ve had very little improvement. I still have a couple of surgeries ahead of me and months of treatment to go,” Glanville said about her current health plan. “Even with insurance, this is costing me around $3,300–$6,000 a month. I’m not able to work right now other than my podcast, and I honestly don’t know how I’m going to do this mentally or financially.”

When sharing her latest diagnoses, the “Brandi Glanville Unfiltered” podcast host also included videos of what her face looks like up close as she tries to get better.

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Related: Brandi Glanville Got Vaginal Rejuvenation Surgery to ‘Be a Virgin Again‘

Brandi Glanville still hasn’t forgotten about her vaginal rejuvenation surgery after becoming a mom. “I was with Dr. [David] Matlock. He was the pioneer for the surgery,” Glanville, 53, claimed on the July 2 episode of her “Unfiltered” podcast. “He was the original doctor to do it.” The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star […]

“I’m sharing some really bad moments, and I know I don’t look good in these videos,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t care. I feel terrible, and this is what being sick looks like for me right now. So please be nice in the comments. I’m already fighting enough.”

Soon after sharing her diagnoses, Glanville received suggestions from hundreds of followers. When one user claimed her health struggles are the result of breast implant illness, Glanville replied, “It’s not and everyone is on here assuming they know what it is.”

“I just want this s*** OUT of my body. I want my health back,” she proclaimed. “I want my life back. I want to feel like me again. I’ll be sharing more of what I’ve been going through, the treatments, the surgeries and hopefully eventually the other side of this. 🤍#brandiglanville #mystory.”

It’s hard not to think of 2026 as the low-key year of Patrick Brammall. The Australian actor and writer has already been carving out a niche for himself through various performances, but over the last several months, he’s become even more of a welcome presence onscreen. In May, he took on the role of Anne Hathaway‘s love interest in the highly anticipated Devil Wears Prada 2, and this month alone sees him pulling double duty for U.S. audiences in two very different TV series. The utterly charming romantic dramedy Colin from Accounts, which Brammall co-created and co-writes with co-star and partner Harriet Dyer, is wrapping up for good on Paramount+ this month (more on that swan song to come), while Apple TV’s thriller, Last Seen, is a polar opposite viewing experience.

The missing-child mystery has long been a staple of the genre, but what the six-episode series written by Kris Mrksa and directed by Christian Schwochow (The Crown) achieves comes through continually pivoting in the direction you least expect it to, pivoting away from a mere whodunit conceit and embracing more of a whydunit that doesn’t withhold its biggest twists for the sake of drama. Instead of trying to pull the wool over the viewer’s eyes until the very end, Last Seen is more interested in exploring the ripple effects that one consequential act can have on two different families — and how long-buried secrets will inevitably be unearthed.

What Is ‘Last Seen’ About?

Loosely based on Ryan David Jahn‘s novel The Dispatcher (chiefly because it transplants the story from East Texas to the fictional seaside town of Port McKenna, Australia), Last Seen centers around former police detective Ian Ridley (Brammall), whose life has been in shambles ever since his three-year-old daughter, Maggie, disappeared from home 11 years ago. Now working as an emergency dispatcher, he’s never lost hope that his daughter is still out there somewhere, but that insistence has upended all of his most important relationships and left him struggling to stay sober.

When a 000 call comes through to Ian one random night, the teenage girl on the other end of the line tearfully admits that she might be the “Mags” he’s been searching for, sending him down the rabbit hole on a search to find his long-lost daughter and vindicate his own suspicions about what happened on the night Maggie originally vanished. His ex-wife, Debbie (Jessica Wren), and their son, Dean (Tobias Muhafidin), are more skeptical about the possibility that this mystery girl could be the child they’ve been mourning, but Ian is driven to revisit all the leads that the original investigation didn’t pursue, much to the chagrin of new Detective Senior Sergeant Izzy Pena (Zahra Newman) and the concern of his sponsor, Donald Reid (Daniel Henshall).

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Ian, Donald’s brother, Henry (Brendan Cowell), and his wife, Jenna (Maxine Peake), have been living an undisturbed existence at their remote farmhouse with their teenage daughter, Sarah (Chloe Jean Lourdes), who bears an uncanny resemblance to a computer-generated sketch of what Maggie would have looked like around the same age…

‘Last Seen’s Big Twists Are Rooted in Character, Not Plot

On the surface, Last Seen looks like any other mystery thriller, with a damaged yet determined protagonist walking a tightrope between uncovering the truth and spiraling back into his worst habits. Yet beneath the familiar investigative conceit resides a much more compelling examination of grief and perseverance. Brammall’s Ian is our initial window into the story, and it’s hard to imagine many other actors striking the balance that he captures. This is a man whose refusal to let go of the past torpedoed his home life, a man who continues to make destructive choices that impact both himself and others, but Brammall infuses him with a likability that makes it impossible not to root for him to some degree. In the moments when Ian is calmly talking a mother through what she needs to do to keep herself and her children safe as the police respond to her emergency call, we can see glimmers of the capable investigator he used to be — and it sits in stark contrast to the instances when he sadly succumbs to his greatest addiction.

It doesn’t take long for the real circumstances surrounding Maggie’s disappearance to be confirmed, allowing the Apple TV series to devote more focus to letting its characters hook your interest. That strange emergency phone call reopens a lot of old wounds for Ian and his family — chiefly his ex-wife, Debbie, who has attempted to move on with her life and is expecting a baby with her new husband, police sergeant Bill McCracken (Bert LaBonté). Understandably, the couple’s dynamic with Ian is a bit strained, but Wren brings a powerful vulnerability to her performance, ensuring that her onscreen relationship with Brammall remains grounded in both the weight of the characters’ shared trauma and the love that still links them to a certain degree.

It’s impossible to ignore the clear physical resemblance between Brammall and Cowell — which may either be the whole point or simply a fun coincidence — but the Avatar actor infuses his role with the gravity required to make all of Henry’s decisions on behalf of his own family understandable, if not justifiable. Peake’s Jenna is a quieter, gentler counterweight to her husband’s more headstrong nature, while Henshall’s performance becomes even stronger once Daniel finds himself torn between two loyalties as the investigation around Maggie’s disappearance is revived. One of the biggest surprises of Last Seen, however, is Lourdes; despite this series serving as her screen debut, she delivers a striking turn that anchors both the story’s biggest emotion and most significant reveals.

Apple TV’s Last Seen asserts itself as the type of thriller that isn’t interested in conforming to the genre’s more predictable rules or structure, with the series’ twists rooted in the characters’ complexities and the moral lines that become easier to cross with loved ones in mind. This seemingly quiet, idyllic town is home to very messy, very complicated people, and the show emphasizes that their decisions — some more spur-of-the-moment than others — can give way to a tidal wave of consequences that leaves devastation in its wake. When the story briefly indulges in a flashback episode set before that fateful day, it does slow the pacing down somewhat, but mostly in the sense that it makes you more desperate to return to the present day to learn how everything will wrap up. Ultimately, this series is more focused on navigating the ripple effects that one devastating crime can create, and attempting to understand what could drive someone to commit such an act, rather than spending the entire season building to a major unveiling. Just when you think you know where the story is heading, Last Seen boldly turns in a completely different direction, resulting in a deeper, more emotional character study than the twisty thriller it’s been promoted as.

Last Seen premieres September 9 on Apple TV.

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Release Date

September 9, 2026

Network

Apple TV

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Directors

Christian Schwochow

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Writers

Alexei Mizin, Kris Mrksa, Giula Sandler, Ryan van Dijk

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Cast

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• 

  Patrick Brammall

  Ian Ridley

• 

  Brendan Cowell

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  Henry Reid

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Pros & Cons

• Patrick Brammall gives a powerful performance as the struggling dispatcher Ian Ridley.
• You’d never guess that this was Chloe Jean Lourdes’ first screen role.
• The series is less interested in big twists or reveals and lets its characters and relationships drive the suspense instead.

• A major flashback episode late in the season does slow the series’ pacing somewhat.

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Gwyneth Paltrow is opening up about the difficulties of blending families with husband Brad Falchuk.

“I have one girl and one boy, and then Brad has one girl and one boy,” Paltrow, 53, said during the Tuesday, September 8, episode of the “Friends Keep Secrets” podcast, referring to daughter Apple, 22, and son Moses, 20, with ex-husband Chris Martin and Falchuk’s daughter, Isabella, 22, and son, Brody, 20, with ex-wife Suzanne Bukinik. “So I have two girls and two boys.”

The Goop founder added, “They all get along, and it’s so fun.”

Paltrow and Falchuk, 55, tied the knot in 2018. The Iron Man star admitted on Tuesday that it was “so hard” to combine their families.

“It was like the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “It just didn’t go well for a really long time.”

Related: Gwyneth Paltrow Had an ‘Initial Difficult Relationship’ With Stepkids

Gwyneth Paltrow opened up about navigating her role as a stepmom. During the Visionary Women’s International Women’s Day Summit at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Wednesday, March 6, Paltrow, 51, asked the audience whether there were any stepmothers in attendance. When the crowd erupted into a brief applause, she said, “Yeah, it’s a bitch, right, […]

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Paltrow explained that “kids can feel like they’re being sort of demoted” when their parents remarry. (The Seven actress was married to Martin, 49, from 2003 to 2016, while Falchuk was married to Bukinik, 56, from 1994 to 2013.)

“They’re not, but they can feel like [that] if there’s a new parent that comes in, and it can cause a lot of disturbance. So it was hard. It was really hard at the beginning,” she said.

Paltrow said their family dynamic improved with time.

“We never did family therapy altogether, but we, I don’t know, it just ended up … I did a lot of work on myself and around, like, why is this so triggering, and why are my feelings so hurt, and why am I having like these non-adult reactions to a child, you know?” she continued. “And they ended up teaching me so much, and I really am so grateful that I traversed through all of that, but it was rough, but now it’s amazing.”

Related: Gwyneth Paltrow Makes Rare Comment About Life as a Stepmom

Gwyneth Paltrow is opening up and giving some rare insight into her life as a stepmom to her husband Brad Falchuk’s daughter, Izzy. “Happy Birthday my snizzle,” Paltrow, 52, wrote via her Instagram Stories on Saturday, September 6, in honor of her stepdaughter’s 21st birthday. “You have taught me so much about love,” the actress […]

Paltrow concluded, “They’re all best friends.”

Last year, the businesswoman revealed that Falchuk’s kids filled a void in her heart.

“My dad [Bruce Paltrow] used to say the only regret he had in his entire life was not having more kids, and I felt like that for a long time until I got yours too,” she told her husband on her “Goop” podcast in April 2025. “I got to tack on.”

Paltrow also got candid about the obstacles she faced while building her relationship with Falchuk’s kids.

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“We traversed through some really rough things,” she said on her podcast last year. “One of the most profound lessons that I’ve learned from my relationship with your daughter, which is now so fantastic, is there was [a lot of] testing going on. She was testing me at the time to see at what point I would reject her.”

For his part, Falchuk said he “always” believed that they could work through their issues.

Paltrow concluded, “It’s been amazing for me to watch all four kids, kind of, grow into this and embrace it. It’s almost, like, the payoff is greater when it’s your stepkid than your own kid because … it’s not as natural of a relationship. You’re able to create something with someone who’s not one of your kids but becomes one of your kids.”

Though the second act of Robert Downey Jr.’s career truly took off with 2008’s Iron Man, the film that set the stage for that comeback actually arrived three years earlier, with Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The actor’s well-publicized legal troubles and issues with addiction made him a difficult figure in the entertainment industry, but somehow Black created the perfect star vehicle to begin to bring him back to Hollywood. In the vein of Black’s other screenplays, like Lethal Weapon or The Long Kiss Goodnight, the movie is self-referential and playful with genre conventions (while never going full Quentin Tarantino), in addition to being an exciting mystery that also knows how to pull a lampshade over its convoluted plotting. The most fitting part of it for Downey is Black’s hilarious and fast-paced dialogue, which let the always fast-on-his-feet actor show his capability with line delivery.

More than any other Shane Black film, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an old-school pulp mystery, with Downey playing Harry, a petty criminal whose circumstances lead him to Hollywood in a cheeky way. He stumbles into an audition while on the run, and his clear desperation makes him look like a method actor. The movie’s sense of parody effectively comes from an inside baseball look at the industry, as most of its targets are mainstays of Hollywood lore: older successful men who seem to have everything, and younger women whose yearning for a way in to the industry leads them to a dark place. With the feel of a James Ellroy novel at times, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang throws viewers into a complicated mystery with secret identities, childhood trauma, and a world-weary cynicism that’s only bolstered by how deeply funny the movie is.

‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ Is A Subversive Hollywood Mystery

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Shane Black’s love of detective novels is only rivaled by his love of Christmas and Los Angeles, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang finally let him explore a full-on detective mystery — one a little less intense than the action excess of The Long Kiss Goodnight or The Last Boy Scout. Like most of his other scripts, it centers on a buddy cop duo dynamic, where one man is more experienced and the other is more of a chaos agent (and the two spend most of the movie learning to like each other, as the genre goes). The key difference in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is that the chaos agent at first has no sense of how deep the mystery goes, and gets thrown into its depths. Harry is just an aspiring actor, and for how much Robert Downey Jr. imbues him with a sense of street smarts and world weariness, he has none of the professional know-how of “Gay” Perry (Val Kilmer), the private detective he’s tasked with shadowing for his role.

When they discover a young woman’s body being dumped in a lake, Harry and Perry embark on a journey to discover the truth as Harry reconnects with childhood love Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), who also might have some connection to the mystery. For all the complex conspiracies at the movie’s center, everything ultimately comes back to the suggestive title. It’s a story of two relationships, one romantic and one platonic and mission-driven. The fun of watching Harry and Harmony’s rekindling of sparks, even when she seems to be the most dangerous kind of film noir femme fatale, is one of the reasons the movie works so well. The other is Downey, who, like Black, was coming off a career low point before the making of the film. The movie does the parody trick of both making fun of the genre tropes while also playing them fairly straight, and Downey’s ear for fast-paced, clever dialogue was never better put to use.

‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ Was A Redemption Moment for Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr.

Shane Black had had a rough couple of years professionally in the lead up to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with the flop of 1996’s The Long Kiss Goodnight occurring alongside reports that he had received a $4 million payday for the script, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Kiss Kiss let him prove himself as an artist by showing for the first time that he could direct as well as write, and especially by working with an actor as established — and professionally in exile — as Downey. Though Downey, in fact, wasn’t the first choice for the role of Harry; it was almost Jackass legend Johnny Knoxville, according to JoBlo reports from 2004.

The public scandals of his addiction relapses and time in jail throughout the late ‘90s made him hard to market a film around, and effectively put his career on skids around the same time as Black’s. But it meant both men could work relatively cheaply, and Downey returned the favor to Black nearly a decade later by reaching out to him to direct 2013’s Iron Man 3, giving him the biggest hit of his career while letting him be one of the few directors to put an original stamp on a Marvel movie.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is streaming on Prime Video.