10 Unexpectedly Awesome Netflix TV Shows That Need Binge Watching

Coming seemingly from nowhere this past May, Dead To Me is one of those unexpected dark, delicious delights that television fans live to discover.

Playing Jen, a widow still reeling from the death of her husband in a hit-and-run, Christina Applegate is her usual intimidating, laser-eyed self with the gain cranked up: all feedback and flare, radiating hurt and rage.

Sardonic and bitter, determined to force the police to solve what she considers to be plain and simple murder, Jen befriends empathetic hippychick Judy (Linda Cardellini) at a support group meeting and the two become unlikely best friends as they help each other navigate through their individual tragedies. But there’s a twist… actually, there’s more than one.

Without that righteous undercurrent of pain both women are dealing with, this would be Desperate Housewives Redux, and it’s to the credit of the writing and Applegate and Cardellini’s incredible performances that despite the chunky plot the narrative manages to stay on the right side of melodrama, remaining moving and painfully honest.

But make no mistake - this is entertaining as well as powerful television. Caustic, gallows humour intertwines every scene like veins of gold, Applegate in particular delivering her lines as though spitting bullets. Ending on a cliffhanger, renewed for a second season, it’s difficult to know where on earth the plot could possibly take them next… but if they can keep this quality up, it should be something really special.