Five shows to watch online when The Handmaid’s Tale is over

By Grace McGettigan
23rd Jun 2018

Five shows to watch online when The Handmaid’s Tale is over

The finale of The Handmaid’s Tale season two is fast approaching. On Thursday, 12th July, the world will say goodbye to Offred for one last time (that is until Elizabeth Moss returns to play the handmaid in season three, expected to air next year). To cope with the oncoming dystopian-shaped hole in our lives, we need a new series to watch. We plan on filling the void with something just as gripping and emotive as the Hulu show. But what?

Well, it’ll have to be a thriller. The more graphic and gruesome the better. The human mind is instinctively drawn to crime shows, whether they raise issues of rape, robbery, or murder. “Crime triggers the most basic and powerful emotion in all of us — fear,” criminology professor Scott Bonn tells Time magazine. “Crime shows offer guilty pleasure to thrill-seeking adults,” with the fear of the crime giving us a jolt of adrenaline. This adrenaline “produces a powerful, stimulating and even addictive effect on the human brain.” We might not want to see an innocent person being hurt, but we simply cannot look away.

With that in mind, here are five thrilling crime shows to watch on Netflix until The Handmaid’s Tale returns.

The Staircase

If you were a fan of Making A Murderer, The Staircase will be right up your alley. The 13-part documentary follows Mike Peterson and his family after the death of his wife, Kathleen in 2001. While Mike insists he found her bleeding to death after an accidental fall down the stairs; the local police think otherwise. His home is turned into a crime scene; he’s suddenly arrested and trialled for murder. As you move through the episodes, secrets from Mike’s past are revealed in graphic detail. Will his defence in court be strong enough, and what will his family make of the revelations? From what we’ve seen, The Staircase is the murder mystery of the summer.

Rillington Place

Unlike the documentary format of The Staircase, Rillington Place is a drama based on true events in the 1940s and 1950s. The three-part BBC series tells the story of UK serial killer, John Christie. Known to his family and friends as Reg, Christie murdered at least eight people (including his wife and a neighbour’s baby) at his flat in Yorkshire. The episodes reveal how an innocent man, Timothy Evans was arrested and hanged for Christie’s crimes; as well as the aftermath of that miscarriage of justice.

Evil Genius

This four-part docuseries investigates the murder of Brian Wells, the so-called ‘pizza bomber’, in 2003. Wells, a pizza delivery man from Pennsylvania, USA, was seemingly coaxed into a dangerous scheme by money-hungry criminals. While out on a delivery, he was met by two men who attached a home-made bomb to his neck. They instructed him to rob a bank of $250,000 and was provided with a home-made shotgun to threaten any reluctant bank staff. Before Wells could complete his task, the bomb detonated and he died in the middle of the street. Police describe it as America’s “most diabolical bank robbery”.

Safe

Consisting of eight episodes, Safe is a British drama series created by crime author Harian Coben. Tom Delaney, played by Michael C. Hall, is a widowed father of two teenage girls. He is struggling to connect with the girls since his wife died, and one year on from her tragic death, his daughter Jenny goes missing. Nobody can understand how this happened; the family life in a safe, gated community. Who would take her and where could she go? In Tom’s frantic search to find her, a deep web of secrets is revealed.

November 13th: Attack on Paris

This documentary shares personal testimonies of those involved in the Paris terror attack in November 2015. It includes first-hand accounts of survivors; members of the fire department; the police, as well as leaders of the French government. The producers also create a timeline of events; from the three suicide bombers who struck outside the Stade de France, to the mass shootings and subsequent bomb attack at a nearby rock concert. The three-part production is a thoroughly gripping watch.