Let your freak flag fly...

with these two TV shows that will put a dose of compassion and kindness into your post-Succession life.

First off, I’d like to say hello to a bunch of new people who have joined us. If you are new, welcome! We have a supportive and dedicated community here with lots of writers weighing in with equally helpful and fascinating information in the comments¹. In terms of deliverables, I try to do a paid post with publishing/writing advice every Wednesday morning, and about twice a month on Friday mornings, I share free posts where I’m either giving feedback on the writing material of paid subscribers, or I’m recommending books or writing resources, sharing job posts, or waxing nostalgic about something—which I’m doing today.

Are you in the market for a new TV show that doesn’t make you feel like death? Something cheerful and heartwarming that will—I’m gonna say it—make you live, laugh, love?

As you will know if you are a person on the Internet, the hit TV show #Succession has come to an end. Please don’t @ me if you hate the show, I won’t enage: I loved it. But I will admit that Succession is a nihilistic show. It’s fun to watch for the jaw-dropping settings, the five-star acting and the wild writing, but the capitalistic values on display are depressing AF. One way I’ve been filling the post-Succession void in my life is by watching Succession memes on TikTok: there is a truly genius vein of these going around that has people replicating the closing Tom and Shiv doomsday hand hold, except it’s from the POV of exhausted parents. (For example, there is one that shows that handshake captioned “When the baby says Dada instead of Mama” that is the smartest thing I’ve seen online in a long time. Keep up the good work, @kirbyfeagan on TikTok.)

As much as I’m enjoying these memes and “final takes” and debunking posts about the show sporing like mushroom puffs across the World Wide Web, they keep me in the cold, cruel world of the program, which isn’t a nurturing place to be. And I need a lot of nurturing right now because the novel I’ve been working on seemingly forever has gone waaaaaay off the rails.²

So, before the weekend, I’d like to share two television programs I’ve been watching that are the opposite of everything Succession is. These programs are warmhearted, inclusive, charming, kind, and ultra compassionate.

A still from MerPeople featuring Mermaid Sparkles and Mermaid Morgana

#1. MerPeople: For those who are seeking (or have already found) their chosen family

First up, we have MerPeople, a new limited docuseries out on Netflix. This program documents the lives of people all across America desperate to earn a living as professional mermaids.

I’m attracted to this show for a myriad of reasons. If you have read my memoir, The Year of the Horses, you might recall that I desperately wanted to be a mermaid when I was young, myself. I watched “Splash” every weekend of my adolescence and when I was nine years old, I fashioned a mermaid tail out of a hefty bag and duck tape and proceeded to nearly drown in the deep end of my parents’ pool, as I had jumped in (unsupervised, natch) with my “tail” on, which immediately filled with water and nearly sunk me to the pool’s floor. When Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” released, I would roam about the backyard with a dinner fork, twirling my hair around the utensil that Ariel called a ‘thingamabob’, belting “Part of Your World” to the birch trees. If you ask me what I’d like to be reincarnated as, the answer remains: mermaid. So I definitely had a predisposition to this show’s premise.

But what really drew me to MerPeople—and saw me crying every episode—was how the main characters blossom once they find their people. The handful of Mer people the show documents are absolute outcasts: rejected by their families and colleagues for their sexual identities, the way their body looks (or doesn’t look), and their freaky, inconvenient, and expensive little dreams.

I myself had a freaky, inconvenient and expensive little dream, which was to learn how to play the equestrian sport of polo at nearly 40 years of age. The pleasure and support and joy and inspiration I’ve found from the equestrian community, who welcomed me with open arms (as long as they could put a manure fork into my arms and get me to muck stalls) is beyond what I ever could have expected, and it provides a crucial outlet and escape for me when my real world—which is the world of publishing and writing—has me down and out.

Being a horse rider and a professional Mermaid are not the same endeavor, but they are both expensive, niche, and time-consuming pursuits that many people do not “get.” The Mer people profiled in this show have to work multiple jobs to afford the silicone tails and breast petals and waterproof makeup that is all the rage among the elite Mers they want to join. One Mermaid in the series, Sparkles—who gets a lot of airtime in the show—is based in landlocked Arkansas, and none of the local pools will let her practice in them with her tail on, save for one, who makes her swim around behind the 70 plus crowd doing water aerobics.

This is uplifting entertainment at its very best. I adored the vintage clips from the golden age of Weeki Watchee in the late 1940’s and witnessing the reunion of this iconic group of women in their 70’s made me weep. In the spirit of disclosure, my husband thought this program was ridiculous, but that’s fine— “Mer-ing” isn’t for everyone. My nine year-old and I adored it, and I think it’s the perfect chaser for a lot of the programming that’s been streaming recently where everybody hates each other and there’s no real point to life and money gets you everything, but nothing gets you happiness.

Sad! Let’s not be sad. Give MerPeople a try. Tell me in the comments what you think if you watch it!

#2. Amazing Interiors: For people who wish they had roommates who share their niche obsessions.

Next up is the documentary “Amazing Interiors,” also on Netflix. This show isn’t as well produced as MerPeople, and some of the episodes are hit and miss, but what I love about this program—which documents homes whose normal looking exteriors bely what is inside—is that the show takes pains to introduce viewers to the supportive family members and friends who help the home owners realize highly specific dreams. From the Englishman whose house was filled to brimming with monster masks and sci-fi loot until he opened up a museum in the basement of his home, to the loving husband and wife pair who have been painting murals on every available surface of a former masonic lodge for the last twenty years, to the single gay man who turned an abandoned warehouse into an homage to the motherland he had to leave, this show—more than anything else—introduces you to the lives of people who have stayed together through sickness, health, and over-the-top interior design decisions.

Skip the episode on the conspiracy theorist building bunkers in California, and also skip the uber rich Dutch couple who buy an entire hospital for their duplex apartment. Start with Neil Cole, the sci-fi obsessive who turned his home into a museum. He’s lovely, his wife is great— I wish them the best of luck.

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What about you? What uplifting shows are you into? Any inclusive and welcoming programming you’d like to share that can bring us smiles this June? Share in the comments!

A word about comments: I keep comments behind a Paywall to support my efforts to keep this a safe and supportive community for writers of all stripes. I believe that being a paid subscriber shows a level of commitment and generosity that usually plays out in a positive way in the comments section. You can upgrade to paid if you would like to comment. I have a special anniversary sale for new subscribers.

1. Please see my note - in bold above- about why I keep commenting a privilege for paid subscribers.

2. More about that later. Maybe?