{"id":450901,"date":"2026-05-20T08:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/450901\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T08:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:52:07","slug":"maximum-pleasure-guaranteed-review-almost-earns-that-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/450901\/","title":{"rendered":"Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed review: Almost earns that title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple TV\u2019s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed<\/a> has the kind of ambitious title that could blow up in a streamer\u2019s face. If the product doesn\u2019t deliver on the promise of its moniker, the punny pans write themselves: \u201cminimum pleasures,\u201d \u201cbroken guarantees\u201d etc. Fortunately, the new comedic thriller from David J. Rosen (Sugar<\/a>, Hunters<\/a>) is good enough to avoid such easy ridicule. The pieces of its puzzle\u2014involving a single mom and a murder mystery that begins online\u2014don\u2019t all fit together perfectly, but it\u2019s hard to care too much about an abundance of coincidences and lucky timing on a show this well-paced, wonderfully performed, and unpredictable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a show that employs the lost TV arts of tempo and rhythm, with propulsive episodes that never overstay their welcome. The story only sags during a few repeated conversations about child custody\u2014but those conversations ultimately prove essential. The core of this show about how much people use and take from each other is, surprisingly, the fight to hold onto a child\u2019s love.<\/p>\n

The child in question is Hazel (Nola Wallace), the daughter of Paula (Tatiana Maslany) and Karl (Jake Johnson). The couple is going through a bitter divorce, in which the legal counsel is getting more expensive and the demands are growing increasingly unreasonable\u2014especially on Karl\u2019s part. He\u2019s moved on, and basically wants to start his family over by replacing his ex-wife with his colleague Mallory (Jessy Hodges). Magazine copy editor Paula, meanwhile, is wallowing, but her off-hours aren\u2019t all wine-chugging misery. There are several great scenes in which Paula and Hazel are just allowed to be goofy and fun together, and the maternal care Maslany captures in these moments is key to Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed\u2019s appeal. One imagines life with Karl and Mallory doesn\u2019t involve nearly as much dressup or TikTok creation.<\/p>\n

When she doesn\u2019t have Hazel for the night\u2014and sometimes even when she does and the girl\u2019s asleep\u2014Paula spends virtual time with a young man named Trevor (Brandon Flynn), a camboy who treats her well. Yes, Paula has a semi-boyfriend on the computer who she pays for both conversation and a bit more. Rosen and Maslany smartly refuse to use the early scenes between Paula and Trevor for mockery or degradation, and Maslany never plays her unexpected relationship as desperate. Paula is just a solo, sexual woman who doesn\u2019t mind paying this handsome man for a little attention.<\/p>\n

One night, an alarmed Paula sees Trevor being attacked and kidnapped by a masked assailant. Or does she? Detective Sofia Gonzalez (a perfectly wry Dolly de Leon, so very good at a withering retort) immediately calls bullshit on the whole thing. And, wouldn\u2019t you know it, a call comes in from a desperate Trevor, saying that the kidnappers need money, or he\u2019ll end up floating in the river. Paula chooses anger over victimhood, tracking down Trevor to expose his scam\u2014only to find something much, much worse. From that discovery on, there\u2019s a new shock in every episode, but the way it unfolds never feels cheap.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Sofia and Paula trying to figure out what happened to Trevor: There\u2019s also Detective Baxter (Jon Michael Hill), a perfect counterweight to Gonzalez\u2019s cynicism; and, most effectively, two colleagues\/friends of Paula\u2019s who end up shaping the entire narrative in a truly refreshing way. Fellow magazine employees Geri (Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg) and Rudy (Charlie Hall) end up driving to remote locations, barely escaping violence, and serving as the Hardy Boys to Paula\u2019s Nancy Drew. Goldberg and Hall are great, bringing three dimensions to characters who first feel like run-of-the-mill snarky sidekicks. On the whole, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed has a hell of a cast\u2014and we haven\u2019t even gotten to Murray Bartlett, whose role in the proceedings is best kept secret Suffice it to say, he\u2019s great.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this is Maslany\u2019s show. She\u2019s better here than she\u2019s been anywhere since her Emmy-winning turn on Orphan Black<\/a>, in large part because of how she plays Paula as more than just a heartbroken divorcee or a target of an online scam. She finds moments of humor and buoyancy in Paula\u2019s plight, and she even gets a potential romance to inject further notes of joy. It helps that Maslany is collaborating with some great directors\u2014including David Gordon Green in the premiere\u2014but Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is a reminder of how much a great performer can do when a writers\u2019 room gives her this much to work with.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, some of what they give her gets a little silly. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed flirts with some big concepts about who runs the world, and how powerful people use information and illegal routes to get what they want when they want it. It\u2019s a thriller about our current age of users\u2014the people who have turned modern technology into more of a weapon than an asset. As the show points out, we give so much of ourselves to relative strangers online without asking enough questions about the hidden costs. In the end, some of these themes feel a bit underdeveloped, although the door remains open for a second season that could finish the job\u2013one that amplifies its subtle social commentary and sexually charged twists, meeting Maximum Pleasure\u2019s maximum potential along the way.<\/p>\n

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed debuts on May 20 on Apple TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple TV\u2019s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed has the kind of ambitious title that could blow up in a streamer\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-450901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}