With Ted Lasso back for a fourth season — a show that has always understood grace better than most — it felt like a good moment to talk about TV that gets redemption right.
TV loves a rock bottom. The moment everything falls apart is easy to dramatize because it’s emotional and it fits neatly into an episode. What’s harder to capture is what actual change looks like, which is usually slow and dependent on people who have no obligation to stick around but do anyway.
We talk about redemption like it’s an event. Most of us know, if we’re honest, that it’s more like a direction — something you’re moving toward on good days and away from on others. The shows that get this right resist the clean arc. They let their characters backslide and make forgiveness cost something — because becoming someone better is a long negotiation, not a single turning point.
These five are worth your time.
Editor’s note: Some of the shows on this list are rated TV-MA and may contain language or content that isn’t for everyone. We’d encourage you to check ratings before diving in.
Beef (Netflix)
Two strangers have a road rage incident that neither of them can let go of, and Beef follows the slow unraveling of both their lives as the feud takes over. What creator Lee Sung Jin gets right is that Danny and Amy aren’t really fighting each other — they’re fighting themselves, using the other person as a target for everything they can’t admit. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong are extraordinary, and the show’s ending, which asks whether two people who have genuinely damaged each other can still extend grace, is one of the more quietly devastating things TV has done in recent years.
Physical (Apple TV+)
Sheila Rubin is a San Diego housewife in the 1980s who hates herself with a precision and consistency that Physical renders both funny and heartbreaking. The show — which ran for three seasons — follows her as she discovers aerobics, builds a business, and very slowly begins to close the gap between the person she presents to the world and the person she actually is. Rose Byrne plays the role with tremendous control, and the show is honest about how nonlinear that kind of becoming really is: Sheila takes as many steps backward as forward, which is exactly what makes it feel true.
Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max)
Sam is a middle-aged woman who has returned to her small Kansas hometown after her sister’s death, and she is not doing well. Somebody Somewhere is quiet and specific about what it looks like to slowly stop running from yourself — to let people in, to find a community you didn’t plan on, to start showing up to your own life. Bridget Everett is extraordinary in the lead role, and the show around her is generous without being soft. It doesn’t rush Sam’s redemption or tidy it up. It just stays with her, which turns out to be exactly what she needs.
Stick (Apple TV+)
Pryce Cahill is a long-washed-up professional golfer who sells clubs at a range — not where he saw his life going. Stick follows him as he takes a young prodigy named Santi on the road, ostensibly to help Santi’s career, actually to give himself a reason to try again. Owen Wilson is well-cast for this kind of quietly unraveling character, and the show is smart enough to run the redemption both ways: Pryce is trying to become someone worth following, while Santi is learning to trust again after his father walked out. It’s funny and more moving than you’d expect from a golf comedy.
Shrinking (Apple TV+)
Jimmy is a grief therapist who is, by his own admission, not doing great — and Shrinking follows what happens when he stops pretending otherwise and starts saying what he actually thinks: to his patients, his neighbors, his teenage daughter who has been managing him for a year. Jason Segel plays him with a loose, wounded charm, and the show around him — Harrison Ford especially, as his gruff mentor — is warm without being soft. Season one is the recommendation here; it’s funny and honest about what it looks like when someone decides to try again without quite knowing how.
