As I put together this latest list of what’s new on streaming this week, I realized a theme running through the selections: bad-ass women. There’s a documentary about crime-solving writer Michelle McNamara, a series based on a manga comic about a warrior nun (yes, really!), and of course the Schuyler sisters, Angelica and Eliza, from Hamilton.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (HBO, June 28th)
This six-part documentary series follows the remarkable story of the late writer Michelle McNamara and her investigation into The Golden State Killer, who terrorized California for years in the mid- 1970s and 1980s. Vulture calls it “a tough, ultimately inspirational work about how life kicks the shit out of you and you just have to get through it somehow, coping with sadness and regret and PTSD because you don’t have a choice.” Based on McNamara’s book, which was unfinished at the time of her death (her widower, the comedian Patton Oswalt, helped bring the work to completion), I’ll Be Gone in the Dark rightly focuses not on the killer himself but on McNamara’s determination to bring him to justice.
Warrior Nun (Netflix, July 2nd)
Ars Technica describes the new Netflix series Warrior Nun as “if Buffy the Vampire Slayer got religion” and that’s kind of enough to pique my interest if we’re being honest: “mystical portals to heaven (and/or hell)? Check. Badass nuns steeped in the martial arts? Check. A hot young love interest for Ava? Check. Lots of demon slaying and a bit of comic relief? Check.” Based on the manga comic series “Warrior Nun Areala,” the show focuses on a young girl who fights the forces of evil on behalf of the ancient Order of the Cruciform Sword. Alba Baptista, Tristan Ulloa, and Sylvia De Fanti star.
Hanna, Season Two (Amazon Prime, July 3rd)
Hanna, the teenager raised in seclusion and trained to be a super soldier is back for a second season. The first season was based on the 2011 film of the same name which starred Saoirse Ronan; the streaming version stars Esme Creed-Miles as the titular character, who experiences something of a role reversal in season two after the [spoiler alert] death of her father Erik at the end of season one. Den of Geek says Hanna season two “effectively blends the coming-of-age boarding school drama genre with the espionage thriller genre.”
Hamilton (Disney Plus, July 3rd)
Maybe you have been off the grid/living in a cave for the past five years and are not aware of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical about the ten-dollar founding father Alexander Hamilton? Disney Plus decided to drop its film version— which includes live performances from the original Broadway cast— this summer instead of holding for its original theatrical premiere date of October 2021. It will give those who couldn’t get tickets to the show (seriously it was sold out f o r e v e r) the chance to see Miranda as Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Burr, Daveed Diggs as Jefferson, and Phillipa Soo as Eliza. Not quite in the room where it happened, but pretty close.
