Mike Schur and Ted Danson are good together. If you’ve watched The Good Place, created by Schur and starring Danson, you know how good their pairing gets. Schur, who also co-created Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has a knack for building endearing worlds inhabited by accessible characters who are, um, kind of ridiculous—there’s no other way to describe them. Schur’s characters might fall in love in hell, or in a police precinct where hijinks are the law, but they tend to build varying relationships that are guaranteed to outlast the apocalypse. They’re ridiculous and ridiculously lovable.
That must be why Netflix teamed up with Schur to create A Man on the Inside, his new collaboration with Danson. The story follows Charles, a retired professor who lives alone a year after his wife’s death from Alzheimer’s complications. While clipping yet another unwanted newspaper article for his daughter, Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), Charles spots an ad that will allow him to bring some adventure back into his life. He ends up going undercover for Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada), a private investigator who sends him to infiltrate the Pacific View Retirement Home in San Francisco. Relishing his new role as a detective/spy, Charles searches for a lost necklace but finds what’s missing in his life.
Adapted from the documentary The Mole Agent, this comedic-mystery shines in its one-on-one relationships. Especially through Charles and his fellow resident Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson). There’s also Julie and her husband Joel (Eugene Cordero)—and their hilarious pack of wild sons—yes, the sons are a unit. Or the besties found in Margaret Avery‘s Florence and Sally Struthers‘ Virginia; or even Pacific View’s manager Didi (Stephanie Beatriz) and the entire community. While it may not be an instant classic, like Schur’s previous series, A Man on the Inside is a pleasant, laidback afternoon watching experience. It jokes around with the cozy mystery format, but it’s truly about elders reconnecting while discovering their raisons d’être—whether they’re struggling with illness or loneliness, or remembering how sweet life can be.
Watch A Man on the Inside now on Netflix
