3 great HBO Max shows to watch this week (February 23

HBO Max has some real bangers on its hands right now, and your couch is calling this week. Don’t worry, though, we know you need a machete to cut all the weeds, so I’ll just leave these three suggestions here, and you can do with them what you want.

For the week of February 23 to March 1 (is it March already?), you must embark with the big and courageous hedge knight that everyone is talking about. Or why not put on your best suit and dive into the ruthless world of London high finance? Or take a deep breath and get intense with a season of True Detective? You simply can’t lose with any of these picks this week.

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

When I read George RR Martin’s cute and digestible short stories, collectively known to Game of Thrones nerds as “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” at the height of my GoT nerdery, I had always hoped that they would be made into some sort of series or movie. Now that the finale of the first season has aired and the HBO Max series is a real success, I’m more than satisfied. If you haven’t yet bent the knee and watched, all seven of its glorious half-hour episodes are here for your binge – which, I promise, will be more satisfying than waiting a week for each one.

But I digress. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms“The first season focuses on the first news, The hedge knightwhere we meet Ser Duncan “Dunk” The Tall (Peter Claffey), a homeless and homeless knight-errant who wants nothing more than to prove his worth in a grand tournament so that he can secure his future as a true knight of the realm, under a worthy lord. Along the way, he confronts a young squire, “Egg” (Dexter Sol Ansell), who has a dangerous secret. Dunk is as honorable as they come, but also naive, and soon learns the stings of Targaryen politics and royal arrogance as he is forced to fight for his life in one of the series’ most intense penultimate episodes. Got history.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place after the events of Dragon House and before Game of Thronesso while you shouldn’t expect dragons, there’s definitely plenty of action to come as Dunk and Egg continue the tales.

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Industry

Looking at the characters in HBO’s devilishly good financial drama Industry stabbing each other in the back, sleeping all the way to the corner office, and partying like animals over expense accounts, there’s a part of me that hopes the world of the pound-pusher series isn’t real, and there’s a part of me that hopes it is, because it’s so crazy to watch. With its fourth season well underway, now is the time more than ever to start from the bottom of this BAFTA-winning series directed by former bankers, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay.

Often compared to Succession with the chaos of Euphoria, Industry follows the lives of hungry newbies at investment bank Pierpoint & Co., where it’s a case of sink or swim. The prodigious Harper Stern (Myha’la), an American with a career-ending secret, is already falling behind the privileged Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and the impatient but naive Robert (Harry Lawtey), as they all try to impress their unhinged and intense mentor Eric Tao (Ken Leung) and get ahead…at all costs.

Season one has it all: client coups, power plays, billion-dollar bets, lies, sex and scandals, and the seasons that follow only get deadlier, even bringing in John Snow himself, Kit Harrington and in season four, Stranger Things Charlie Heaton. This is a 90%+ HBO series that you would be mistaken not to watch.

Industry

Release date

November 9, 2020

Network

HBO

Directors

Isabella Eklöf, Tinge Krishnan, Ed Lilly, Birgitte Stærmose, Zoé Wittock, Caleb Femi, Mary Nighy, Konrad Kay, Lena Dunham, Mickey Down

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True Detective

Many of those who accompanied all four seasons of HBO’s spooky crime anthology series True Detective have a love/hate relationship with the Emmy-winning series (read: 41 nominations and six wins). Some feel like its inaugural 2014 season can’t be touched, others have a soft spot for the less critically acclaimed middle seasons, and many (to the tune of 19 Emmy nominations) feel that Jodie Foster’s epic Night Country season is the show’s pinnacle. I guess you’ll have to decide for yourself and you won’t be disappointed you did.

Each season of this crime drama is hosted by different investigators, and assuming you start with the first season, that means Louisiana State Police homicide detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson), longtime partners and friends, as they investigate the brutal, ritualistic murder of Dora Lange who was found in a field with deer antlers attached to her head. The season bounces across three timelines in the life of the case: its beginnings in 1995, 2002, when the case and their friendship fall apart, and 2012, when a new murder that mimics the one in 1995 has Rust and Marty wondering if they’ve found the right guy.

This is HBO at its best and most compelling, and is widely considered one of the best seasons of television ever made.

True Detective

Release date

January 12, 2014

Network

HBO Max

Showrunner

Nicolas Pizzolatto

If your watchlist seems empty or full of noise, you can’t really go wrong with any of these HBO Max suggestions this week. If you still need help weeding out the chaff, we’ve got some tips on how you can use HBO Max even better.

Subscription with advertisements

Yes, $10.99/month

Concurrent streams

2 or 4

HBO Max is a subscription streaming service featuring content from HBO, Warner Bros., DC and more. In 2025, the service rebranded itself as HBO Max after previously dropping “HBO” from its name.