This week’s picks are an eccentric crime thriller from the maker of Reservation Dogs, a Succession-style drama about the Irish Guinness family, the return of Slow Horses and a documentary about Nick Cave’s band The Birthday Party.

The Lowdown ★★★★ (Disney+)

As played with scarecrow defiance and questionable self-care by Ethan Hawke, The Lowdown’s Lee Raybon is a self-styled “truthstorian”. A freelance writer whose abiding passion is the murky history and ongoing scandals underpinning his hometown of Tulsa, this garrulous southerner sees conspiracies everywhere, talks a great game, and gets periodically punched in the face by disgruntled subjects. “He’s a loon,” notes his shopfront lawyer, Dan (Macon Blair). “The best kind – he keeps me entertained.” The viewer should feel likewise.

Writer and director Sterlin Harjo’s follow-up to the terrific Reservation Dogs, a bittersweet coming-of-age comedy set on Oklahoma’s Native American tribal lands, is a crime thriller that refuses to recognise the genre’s boundaries. It may start with a suspicious suicide, that of old money black sheep Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson), but the narrative has a loosey-goosey vibe and absurd side missions to offset the vengeful white power skinheads and a suspicious widow, Betty Jo Washberg (Jeanne Tripplehorn).

With its nods to The Big Lebowski and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, that is a tricky outline to pull off. The eccentricities and the emerging evil have to meaningfully coexist. Thankfully, Harjo does it with ease. He has a natural feel for shapeshifters, whether it’s a sudden leap in tone or a spectral sidestep in reality – when Lee finds a cache of Dale’s writings the deceased appears next to him to deliver a reading. Given that Lee’s a stoner, it makes sense: the show gives off a contact high.

Minor characters have surprisingly rich lives, often with a twist that upends expectations, and Harjo has a stacked supporting cast that includes Keith David as an admirer of Lee’s writing, rapper Killer Mike (aka Michael Render) playing a highly unlikely publisher, and Kyle McLachlan as Dale’s backslapping brother and candidate for state governor, Donald Washberg. Peter Dinklage turns up as Lee’s chaotic pal Wendell, and he and Hawke turn into a hillbilly punk Abbott and Costello before their regrets catch up with them.

Hawke isn’t a comic actor, but he knows the fractious, farcical energy of true believers. Crucially, The Lowdown doesn’t just coast on Lee’s slapdash charm and dogged mission to figure out how Dale’s death ties into other nefarious strands. At one pungent Tulsa location after another, it nips at Lee’s self-belief, looks askance at the price others might pay. You see Lee through the eyes of his 13-year-old daughter, Francis (Ryan Keira Armstrong), who’s a natural sleuth and somehow far too involved in her father’s work. That’s an unexpected gambit – thankfully this show is full of them.

House of Guinness ★★★ (Netflix)

I’m starting to think Steven Knight could randomly open a British history textbook and turn the period on the page into a full-throated historic drama. Having already created Peaky Blinders and SAS: Rogue Heroes, Knight returns with this thumping 19th century family saga about the Guinness clan of Dublin, whose beer brought them unparalleled wealth and power, plus – as schemed by Knight – innumerable obstacles and scandals. Welcome to Succession with sabres.

It begins with two pitched battles. The first is in the streets of Dublin, where the funeral cortège of patriarch Sir Benjamin Guinness is attacked by Catholic republicans agitating for an end to British rule. The second is the legal chambers where the mogul’s will is read, managing to frustrate his four adult children: reluctant heir Arthur (Anthony Boyle), sidelined daughter Anne (Emily Fairn), budding beer baron Edward (Louise Partridge) and mournful wastrel Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea).

The overlapping paths the quartet pursue are told with bold strokes; political alliances and arranged marriages require frank exchanges. Rebels and criminals alike are handled by the family’s fixer, Sean Rafferty (James Norton, laying it on a little thick), while Kneecap’s Gaelic hip-hop soundtrack, riots and punchy graphics make clear £10,000 then is millions now. The House of Guinness has less underclass angst than Knight’s predecessors, but there’s enough pungent detail to make this more than Dublin does Dallas.

Slow Horses (season 5) ★★★★½ (Apple TV+)

The most reliably entertaining show on television returns. The fifth season of this British spy thriller, which follows the MI5 misfits cursed and commanded by Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, doesn’t miss a beat, combining twisty momentum and sardonic humour as a terror crisis builds during a London mayoral election. That’s a terrific achievement, but also a finale of sorts. While two more seasons have been commissioned, Slow Horses creator Will Smith is leaving the show, having been essential in bringing Mick Herron’s Slough House novels to streaming. Kudos to Smith for finishing on a high.

Next Gen Chef ★★★ (Netflix)

Shot on location at the august headquarters of the CIA – that’s the Culinary Institute of America – Netflix’s latest competitive cooking show is solidly constructed and impeccably paced. Hosted by former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo, the show is focused on high-end cuisine – the lofty goal is to find “a chef who defines their generation” and the field of primarily American entrants are comparatively young but already have strong resumes. The first episode culls 21 prospects to 12, but the edit thankfully favours professionalism over ego. Fans of this genre will eat well.

NCIS: Tony & Ziva ★★½ Paramount+

As demonstrated by Law & Order: Organised Crime, spinning off a season-long drama from a case-of-the-week crime procedural is a tricky proposition. This attempt by the NCIS franchise isn’t particularly inspiring, but it is reliably executed and offers fans of the original show a wider lens for two long-running but departed US Navy investigators, Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva David (Cote de Pablo). Both working privately in Paris and co-parenting at a distance, they’re reunited as a family and sent on the run when danger looms. The series leans into fan service quips and standard action-adventure moves.

Mutiny in Heaven ★★★½ (DocPlay)

Now that Nick Cave’s career as one of Australia’s pre-eminent musicians is well into its sixth decade, this thorough documentary on his late 1970s breakthrough band, The Birthday Party, serves as a telling primer. An unassuming tone captures the peaks and troughs of an uncompromising band, as Cave and his bandmates – some speaking in contemporary interviews, those departed via archival projects – calmly recall the group’s drug-fuelled trajectory from Melbourne to London to West Berlin. Escaping punk’s gravity, the group was discordant, eruptive, and abhorred entertainment. It’s amazing they lasted three years.

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