The Pop Culture Pundit

Abraham Lincoln once proclaimed, “87% of quotes on the Internet are made up.” Now, if you’ve ever taken a history class, you probably detected immediately that this is indeed a made-up quote; but in the age of AI Slop, anything is possible, which is why it’s more important than ever to have fact checkers. 

In the show Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, our main character Paula Sanders (Tatiana Maslany) is a fact checker who, in between verifying sources and accuracy for the paper she works for, is busy weaponizing her job to solve the crime of who killed the cam boy she was seeing. As the web of lies grows, the secrets deepen and the truth frays, the show only gets more and more compelling. 

First, let’s back up. When we first meet Paula, she’s confessing her personal crises to the still very much alive cam boy in question, Trevor (Brandon Flynn). She’s not on the best terms with her ex, Karl (New Girl alum Jake Johnson), who has a new wife, Mallory (Jessy Hodges). We later find out Mallory wants to relocate from New York to Idaho, much to the chagrin of Paula, who loves her daughter Hazel (Nola Wallace) fiercely and is trying to ensure she keeps custody as her life spirals further out of control. The opposite ends up happening, though, when in one session Trevor is attacked by a masked assailant. Paula records this and shows it to a skeptical detective (Dolly de Leon), who is convinced it’s more of a scam than a real attack. Paula, feeling defeated, uses her fact checking skills to track down Trevor and confront him; instead, she finds his dead body in the bathtub. From there, the show is off and running into the unknown. 

There’s certainly a lot going on in that one paragraph alone, but Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed manages to thread all of its plots together surprisingly well. Similar to how the HBO show Barry tied together Hollywood and hitmen, Pleasure ties together motherhood and mystery quite excellently. And that’s not to mention the youth soccer and hockey plot lines, which are woven into the main story in unexpected ways.

Much of what sells Pleasure is its simply marvelous cast. Tatiana Maslany deftly anchors the show as Paula–she won an Emmy for playing multiple characters on Orphan Black–and the many hats she puts on as fact checker, mom, and amateur detective all meld together as she goes from Fun Mom who makes TikToks one moment to Super Sleuth the next. Jake Johnson, who played Nick Miller on New Girl, is always a pleasure to have on-screen. Sadly, his character is kind of a jerk here, but it’s kind of impossible not to love the man who once proclaimed “I’m not convinced I know how to read, I’ve just memorized a lot of words.” White Lotus breakout star Murray Bartlett is the most mysterious and terrifying character on the show, and you’ll understand when you watch (I don’t want to spoil too much, but the scene where his character buys multiple pairs of soccer cleats is chilling). I also want to point out Raymond Lee as fellow soccer parent Steve, because the Quantum Leap reboot on NBC ended too soon! 

Only three episodes into Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, I can confidently say that it’s one of my favorite shows of the year thus far. There’s so much potential for where the plot can go–each episode will leave you on the edge of your seat waiting for the next. Backed by a propulsive, electrifying Challengers-esque score that only adds to the tension of each scene (thanks to Wynne Bennett), Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed delivers on its title. When other shows are only delivering the minimum amount of comedy to make you laugh or drama to make you cry, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed ensures you’ll laugh, cry, and probably scream too–maybe even all at once. 

^{Apple TV via YouTube}

^{Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is now streaming on Apple TV. Episodes drop weekly through July 15; the first three episodes have been viewed for this review.}