John Powers

But she does build to a climax filled with emotion and with suspense that isn't merely suspenseful.

The story confronts Tom, and us, with a moral conundrum that philosophers call the trolley problem.

For all its comedy, Widow's Bay winds up asking a thorny question.

Just how far would you go, and who would you sacrifice to save those around you from harm?

If you ask the psychologists, they'll tell you that humor is a defense mechanism, a buffer between ourselves and the painfulness of reality.

I'm not sure that's actually true.

I think of laughter as something transcendent.

But I have to admit that the world has gotten so alarming that I'd rather watch something funny than the news.

I laughed a whole lot watching Big Mistakes, a new half-hour Netflix crime comedy from Dan Levy of Schitt's Creek fame, who co-created the series with Rachel Sennett.

Set in a fictional New Jersey city, this story about an offbeat family that finds itself entangled with the mob is a wild and woolly inversion of Schitt's Creek.

where that much adored show started out cartoonish and grew warmer and more humane.

Big Mistake starts as a frolic, then morphs into a farce that grows more than a little hellish.

Laurie Metcalf stars as Linda, a histrionic single mother of three who's running for mayor with guidance from her favorite child, Natalie.

That's Abby Quinn, who has the smug, small-souled efficiency of a political operative.

She clings to her mother's side like a barnacle.

Things are more fraught with Linda's other kids.

Levy plays Nicky, a fussy, anxious, closeted gay minister who hides his boyfriend from his parishioners.

Nicky is forever bickering with his sister Morgan.

That's Taylor Ortega, a chaos-inducing schoolteacher with a real mouth on her.

She's got a puppyish boyfriend she doesn't adore.