‘The Accident’ Needs to Be Your Post ‘The Affair’ Watch

Even with a never-ending stream of television nothing can ever fully replace the hole left by The Affair. Showtime’s show about love and mistakes was just soapy, melodramatic, and oddly funny enough to keep you pressing play season after season. But if you’re looking for something similarly dark about a seemingly perfect community, The Accident on Hulu gets pretty close.

On a surface level the two shows are nothing alike. Instead of diving into a multiple marriage ruining fling, Channel 4’s The Accident revolves round something far sadder. The quaint life of a small Welsh town is brought to a halt after a factory under construction collapses, killing a group of teenagers who were trespassing at the time. The rest of the series divides its time between chronicling a town in mourning and trying to figure out who exactly is to blame for this tragedy.

It’s thanks to that second part that the series becomes compelling. Even though The Accident literally starts with this small town throwing a parade, everyone is hiding a secret. There’s the smiling politician who pointedly looked away from several bad business deals and who regularly abuses his wife. There’s the successful CEO who’s acutely aware people have noticed the shoddy workmanship of her factories. And then there’s once lovable now distrustful Polly (Sarah Lancashire) in the middle of it all, drowning in all of these half-truths, secrets, and lies.

It’s the melodrama hiding behind this perfect world that makes these shows the most similar. No one, no matter how big their smile, is as happy as they seem on The Accident. And likewise no one can be trusted. For seasons The Affair promised us that under the veneer of a perfect life there are broken people scrambling to stitch themselves back together. If you’re looking for another hit of that particular TV drug, check out Hulu this weekend.

Watch The Accident on Hulu