'Rain Dogs' Is One of TIME's 50 Most Underappreciated TV Shows
Time · LC · trust 32/100
Shows about chosen family tend to be a bit saccharine—bless these beautiful misfits going out into the world and finding in each other the love and support their awful parents never gave them! Not Rain Dogs . This tart 2023 British dramedy takes a scalpel to the codependent relationship between Costello (Daisy May Cooper), a destitute peep-show dancer and single mum who dreams of becoming a writer, and her manipulative best friend, Selby ( Jack Farthing ), an upper-class gay man who just got out of prison. First-time creator Cash Carraway depicts the two leads’ destructive tendencies without cliché. Particularly harrowing is the threat Costello’s thrall to Selby seems to pose to her daughter, Iris (Fleur Tashjian). Yet he loves the little girl, too, to the extent that love is possible for a sadist of his magnitude. Along with darkly witty dialogue that shares a sensibility with gutter poets like Jean Genet and Tom Waits (whose song and album give the show its title), as well as Cooper and Farthing’s almost spookily complete embodiment of their broken characters, it is the genuineness of these three people’s longing to be a family that keeps Rain Dogs from sinking into despair. Underpublicized during its Stateside run on HBO, this is TV with the emotional immediacy of live theater, so do as you would at a Broadway show, silence your phone before pressing play.
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