October Streaming

October meant admitting defeat to the couch. Netflix was dropping new seasons and shows and everything in between, and I already knew I’d spend the next month with some combination of pizza, wine, and whatever was bright and moving on the screen.

Stranger Things was back, which was enough on its own—the kind of show that makes time disappear without you noticing. Mindhunter was finally arriving, something about FBI profilers in the ’70s that looked like it actually had something to say. The Meyerowitz Stories was there, Baumbach’s comedy-drama thing that works because it doesn’t try too hard. Riverdale if you wanted beautiful people and absolute ridiculousness. Some documentaries, specials, the usual stuff that shouldn’t exist but does.

The list could go on forever. The point wasn’t to watch everything—that was impossible—it was to have the option. October was permission to disappear, to have something new waiting every time you finished something else. The comfort was in the abundance, in not having to decide too far in advance what you’d be doing at midnight three weeks from now.