Dale Cooper looking serious in Twin Peaks
Some TV shows are so complex and deeply layered that they only make sense after you’ve seen them twice. You can’t watch a show like Netflix’s time-traveling soap opera Dark just once. And it’s not just the shows with a complicated lore.
From mind-bending supernatural thrillers like Twin Peaks to nuanced dramas like Mad Men, these TV shows demand a second viewing. Legion In between his TV adaptation of Fargo and his TV adaptation of the Alien franchise, Noah Hawley made a TV adaptation of the X-Men comics. Legion is an underrated gem; it’s scarier than Alien: Earth, and even more visually stunning than Hawley’s Fargo series. Legion is a lot closer to a Fight Club-style psychological thriller than a typical superhero show. Since the lead protagonist is an unreliable narrator who can’t even rely on his own perception of reality, Legion is a show that rewards a rewatch. We’re consistently shown a warped version of events, so, on a first viewing, you can’t be sure what’s real and what’s a twisted hallucination. But on a rewatch, when you know where it’s going, you can see things much more clearly. Mad Men At first glance, Mad Men might not seem like the kind of show you have to watch more than once. The bulk of its screen time is taken up by guys sitting around an office, drinking, smoking, and pitching ad campaigns. But the series is jam-packed with subtext and nuance; it has some of the strongest writing in TV history. A lot of important things go unsaid, or indirectly implied. Characters sometimes act out of character if they’re trying to prove a point or be something they’re not. There are so many layers to the writing and the performances. You won’t fully understand or appreciate the complexity of Don Draper until you’ve seen his story in full and go back to the beginning. Westworld Although HBO developed it as a sci-fi alternative to Game of Thrones, Westworld ended up being much too confounding and esoteric to attract a mainstream audience. Where the original movie was basically just a typical western set in a futuristic theme park, the TV series was a mind-bending contemplation on personhood and the rise of sentient artificial intelligence. The first season throws you in at the deep end, then gradually peels back the layers and reveals what’s really going on. It doesn’t all make sense until you know all the twists, then go back to rewatch the series with all the information at your disposal. The Leftovers Whereas most post-apocalyptic shows explore the collapse of society and the lawlessness on the streets, The Leftovers is more about the post-apocalyptic mindset. The world looks more or less the same, and most of the human race is still around, but they’re all suffering a collective existential crisis following the inexplicable disappearance of 2% of the Earth’s population. Across three seasons, The Leftovers told a deep, nuanced story about a bunch of broken people recovering from their shared trauma in different ways. You won’t fully get it unless you watch it twice, and know where it’s going. Better Call Saul Whereas Breaking Bad is a relatively straightforward, linear story with a clear beginning, middle, and end, Better Call Saul is all over the place. It jumps all over the timeline, using flashbacks to give us key context for the decisions Jimmy makes, and using flash-forwards to remind us of the inevitable grim fate that awaits him. Although it starts off pretty slow, Better Call Saul has lots of twists and turns that recontextualize the show you’ve been watching. On your first viewing, you cheer on Jimmy and Kim as they escalate their prank war against Howard, and laugh along as they ruin his life. But on your second viewing, when you know where it’s heading, you see their pranks in a totally different light. Severance At the beginning of Severance, Ben Stiller and co. drop us in at the deep end. Mark Scout and most of his co-workers have already been “severed,” and they’re already splitting their time between the outside world, where they have no idea what they do at work all day, and their creepy, windowless office, where they have no idea what awaits them in the outside world. The premise is a razor-sharp satire of the work-life balance, taking it to its dystopian extreme, and that much lands on the first viewing. But as for the deeper complications of the characters, twist reveals like Helly’s true identity, and the reasons they all chose to be severed in the first place, you need a second viewing to really take it all in. Dark Netflix’s supernatural thriller Dark is one of the most devilishly intricate sci-fi shows ever created. But the writers paid meticulous attention to detail, so it’s not needlessly confusing; it just demands a second viewing. Once the townspeople start getting swept up in the time-traveling cave, the show branches off into various different timelines, exploring different eras in the town’s history . You can’t possibly comprehend all that time-bending storytelling in a single viewing. After you’ve seen Dark for the first time and had your mind blown, you have to go back and watch it a second time to make it all make sense. The writers did a great job with this show, but they don’t spoon-feed anything to their audience. Attack On Titan When you first watch Attack on Titan, it’s a mind-blowing experience. It immerses you in this crazy, monster-infested world, and raises the stakes to insane levels in the first episode alone. But if anything, it gets even better on a rewatch. Subscribe to the newsletter for rewatch-ready TV picks Unlock richer viewing by subscribing to the newsletter: concise rewatch guides, scene-by-scene analysis, and curated recommendations that help you uncover hidden details and themes in complex, rewatch-worthy TV shows. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. On your second viewing, Attack on Titan is a lot easier to digest. A lot more things make sense when you’ve already been enlightened as to where it’s all going and what it all means. The Wire David Simon’s groundbreaking crime drama The Wire is an almost documentary-like deconstruction of the American city. Through the lives of its flawed but compelling characters, The Wire explored everything from the illegal drug trade to the death of the working class to the corruptibility of government to the failings of the public school system to the sensationalization of news media. You can’t possibly appreciate all that rich thematic exploration on a single viewing. You can’t even appreciate all the nuances of the characters and their complicated arcs on a single viewing. The Wire is a true TV masterpiece that rewards rewatches. Every time you watch it, no matter how many times you’ve seen it, you’re bound to get even more out of it. Twin Peaks The ultimate show that demands a rewatch is David Lynch and Mark Frost’s supernatural soap opera Twin Peaks. In classic Lynchian fashion, Twin Peaks takes place in a quaint little American town populated with quirky, colorful characters, and that town has a mysterious underbelly involving giants, ghosts, and a gateway to a terrifying alternate dimension. The first time you watch Twin Peaks, you just take it all in. You soak in the vibe — the dark humor, the eccentric ensemble, the deeply disturbing horror sequences — as you desperately try to follow the plot. But when you rewatch it, you pick up on all kinds of hidden details you missed on your initial viewing. The murder of Laura Palmer is just the tip of the iceberg.
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