Well, it looks like another brick in the impenetrable fortress that used to be HBO has fallen. Remember that one friend who used to host all the best Game Of Thrones watch parties because no one else wanted to pay for a premium subscription? Among his laundry list of offenses, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has also removed that small bit of prestige for the more TV-inclined among us. In a recently announced move, Zaslav has begun licensing formerly-exclusive HBO properties to rival streamers for the first time.
As of this morning, all five seasons of Issa Rae’s Insecure are available for your binging pleasure on Netflix. (That is, if your mom/ex/landlord/second-cousin-once-removed was nice enough to shell out the $8 mooching fee, or you were one of the many, many folks who caved and bought their own account after Netflix made their password-sharing crackdown.)
Per Deadline, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, and Ballers were also included in WBD’s deal with Netflix and will be added to the streamer in the coming weeks/months. Other formerly-exclusive HBO shows that have found homes on non-Max streamers include Westworld (R.I.P.) on The Roku Channel and Tubi and True Blood on Hulu. Deadline also reports that True Blood will be added to Netflix services outside the U.S. (Presumably, the series will remain available on Hulu within the states.)
While this is an obvious and typical cash grab by Zaslav, we can’t completely say we’re disappointed that more potential fans will have access to a show as wonderful and worth revisiting as Insecure. Maybe now the big boss can take some of that sweet, sweet cash and use it to bring back a TCM staffer or two. (But we’re not holding out hope.)