On the evening of April 6, 2026, Netflix hosted the world premiere of the new and hotly anticipated Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott vehicle, the comedy thriller Big Mistakes. In attendance were Canadian-American comedy royalty; Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, and onscreen/offscreen father of the writer and star, Eugene Levy. This, obviously, is not the junior Levy’s first dalliance with portraying family dysfunction for a television audience. Schitt’s Creek, the sleeper Pop TV hit that lived quietly in its own little corner of the universe until an accident of timing, Netflix + Global Pandemic, launched the family Rose and their merry band of townies into our homes and hearts and pulling a culture full of ever-increasing divisiveness and polarization back from the brink. If only for a moment in time. But if Schitt’s Creek was a beacon of hope, a tale of coming together after tragedy, of rebuilding ourselves by rebuilding together in all of our irreverence, awkwardness, and fuck ups along the way, Big Mistakes might have us frantically googling “enmeshment” and reconsidering attending family events for awhile.

Let’s begin: A pastor, a politician, and a public school teacher visit a woman in the hospital during her final days. It doesn’t seem like a joke, but it is. Dark and twisted though it may be. I won’t reveal the punchline, as if there was only one, but I will repeat the wise words of a former therapist of mine, “Weddings and funerals bring out the best and worst in people.”

The pastor is Nicky, played by Levy, a mid-30s man who holds no authority, spiritual or otherwise, within his family dynamic. All the while his leadership in his small congregation hangs by a thread due to his sexual orientation. He is allowed to be gay, he’s just not allowed to be “practicing.” The politician is his mother Linda, a dynamo of tactless, no-nonsense devotion. Or is it just control-freak tendencies on steroids? Regardless, with Laurie Metcalf at the helm of this character’s ship it is a hilariously sick delight watching her shatter the egos of everyone in her way. The public school teacher is the sticky-fingered, emotionally-detached, sister of Nicky, daughter of Linda, Morgan played with what I can only describe as dramatic nonchalance with tremendous comedic effect by Taylor Ortega. And the dying woman at the center: Nonna, the outgoing matriarch (Judith Roberts). There is another sister, Natalie. The right hand of Linda and golden girl of the three siblings, headband crowned and played with a sickly sweet airy crunch like a bite of meringue by Abby Quinn. She maintains her place at Linda’s side while Nicky and Morgan get and fail spectacularly into some serious shit.

How serious is this proverbial shit? Oh, just your run-of-the-mill international organized crime. And how does a pastor and a school teacher in New Jersey get involved in such crime? By picking up a few gifts for dear dying Nonna, of course. No good deed goes unpunished. The writing retains Levy’s signature urgent quippiness, the acting is biting, and as for the “pig slut whore” line? Well, you’ll have to wait until episode two. And I will have to wait with everyone else to see who our big bad really is and how – or if – this family learns their lessons.

Big Mistakes drops today, April 9, 2026, on Netflix. 

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