Will Forte and D'Arcy Carden team up in the funny, bloody Sunny Nights

At first blush, two of the more promising TV comedies debuting in the States this month, DTF St Louis and Sunny Nights, seem to have a lot in common. They’re both dark, with normal folks getting in over their heads resulting in a dead body—or in the case of the latter series, a body part—revealed in the premiere to set up an investigation. They’re both well cast, with Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden having an immediate chemistry in Sunny (which originally premiered last December on the Australian streamer Stan) that’s predictable given their track records but no less winning. They both have ruminations about midlife crises and not reaching one’s full potential. And they even both have sun-referencing opening-title music, with DTF dropping The 5th Dimension’s “Let The Sunshine In” and Nights a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Who Loves The Sun” by The National’s Matt Berninger and Rosanne Cash. (The original versions of those songs were also, interestingly, released nine months apart.) 

But that’s essentially where their similarities stop. If Steven Conrad‘s HBO comedy gets a laugh from a nice sad sack thinking he’s going on a date with a woman who looks exactly like 1970s David Bowie named Moonage Daydream, Sunny Nights does so with a bang, be it an exploding crocodile, a crashing plane, a blown-up car, or any number of bloody interactions its central pair causes or stubbles upon. That is, this is a loud show. “Ozark but funny” comparisons might be unavoidable, especially given the fish-out-of-water setup, not to mention its shot-in-the-arm season finale and cat-and-mouse game. But that’s not quite right. (Even after scenes of torture here—there’s a memorable one with a dude getting a tooth pulled out with pliers on a minigolf course—you’re left more amused than shocked.) And neither, really, are those to Barry, which went way deeper and darker, feeling much more like a character study. 

The series, which was created by Nick Keetch and Ty Freer, centers on a brother and sister trying to get their spray-tan business, Tansform, off the ground. There’s Forte’s Martin Marvin, a nice Midwestern guy (sample:”You’ve gotta stop hitting my balls, please”) who’s not one for risk-taking and is really in Sydney to win back his wife Joyce (Ra Chapman), a journalist at a clickbait site. (As was the case with Bodkin, the MacGruber star’s distinct line deliveries up the enjoyment.) And then there’s Carden’s Vicki, an unapologetic, overreacting wild card who tries to goad her sib into saying the c-word, suggests a “a soft bank robbery” for quick cash, and responds to the most politely packaged sound advice like so: “I am going to behave so properly, act with so much decorum that he’s gonna fuckin’ choke on my good fuckin’ manners.” As a colorful character in a show with a fair share of them, Vicki was clearly the most fun one to write, and Carden’s delightful performance follows suit, making the biggest impression.