Stream It Or Skip It: ‘About Last Night’ On HBO Max, Where Stephen And Ayesha Curry Drink With Celebrity Couples And Quiz Them With Risqué Questions

Remember the old game show Tattletales? If you do, you either have watched it on BUZZR or are old like us. Anyway, it consisted of couples where at least one of the partners was a celebrity; they answered leading and personal questions about each others’ lives and the other partner, who was sequestered behind a door and under headphones, had to guess what their partner said. It was mostly clean but risqué stuff, given that it was ’70s and early ’80s daytime television. But it was a fun way to see celebrities act like normal people. Ayesha and Stephen Curry have brought that concept into the 21st century with a new series on HBO Max.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Hosts Stephen and Ayesha Curry get drinks in a black and white shot, while the first of their celebrity couple guests — former NBAer Stephen “Stack” Jackson and his fiancée Tammy — come in and greet them.

The Gist: About Last Night has a pretty simple premise: Three couples play for their favorite charities; Ayesha quizzes the couples on how well they know each other while Steph plies them with their favorite libations. The winning couple gets $20,000 for their charities, but the object of the show is really just to drink and have a good time.

The other two couples are Adam Pally and his wife Daniella, who were high-school sweethearts, and actors Malin Åkerman and Jack Donnelly. In some rounds, one member of the couple wears headphones or a blindfold. In other rounds, they write on a grease board and keep their answers away from each other.

Ayesha asks questions like which outfit of their partner’s would they like to throw out, who is more likely to be naked — which leads Åkerman to out her husband, who learned how to be a stripper from his mother, of all things — and when they would turn down the volume on their partner. In a round called “The Naked Truth”, a question the Currys have never seen, Ayesha asks the couples to choose one place they’d like to have sex for the rest of their lives.

The couple with the most points at the end go up against the Currys in a rapid-fire quiz. The couple is blindfolded and they drink from a colored martini representing themselves or their partner. When they’re in agreement, they get a point. If the guest couple wins, they get $5000; if not, the other two couples get the money.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? At first we thought that About Last Night was a modern-day Newlywed Game, but it’s actually more like the old ’70s-’80s game show Tattletales, only with more booze and the freedom to drop f-bombs.

Our Take: The biggest takeaway we got from About Last Night is that celebrity couples — whether one of the partners in the couple is a celebrity or both are — like to hang out with other couples and cut loose, just like anyone else. The couples the Currys have chosen have no problem laying bare their sexual proclivities, or the fact that Åkerman finds it hilarious that Donnelly’s reserved Brit nature keeps him from wanting to fart in her presence even after being together for a number of years.

Sure, the questions are stupid, but the whole thing brings back that louche, key-party feeling that the aforementioned Tattletales gave audiences, who were always intrigued to see the inner lives of celebrity couples and how they deal with each other. The defenses are down and they all just act like people, which is why shows like these are so appealing.

For instance, who knew that Pally was basically an anydad who has been with his wife for a million years? Or that, as we see in the second episode, Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas still have lots of sex? How fun is it to see Mark Duplass get his wife Kate Aselton’s signature dance move exactly right in the second episode?

Even when the couple doesn’t match, the Currys keep things light — the alcohol helps — and it give the show a feeling of more of a high-end game night with your couple friends than anything else.

Sex and Skin: A lot of sex talk, but little to no skin.

Parting Shot: The show generously offers the couples hotel rooms for the night, which makes sense given all the booze consumed. So after the game, we see black and white shots of the three couples heading to their rooms, either to collapse in a drunken stupor or to get it on after all the sexy talk.

Sleeper Star: We’ve got to give it to all the non-showbiz spouses/partners who were game to be outgoing on camera for this show. In the case of the first episode, that’s Daniella Pally and Tammy Jackson.

Most Pilot-y Line: None, really, because everything is silly on this show, and it’s meant to be that way.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Ayesha and Stephen Curry have done a nice job of setting up a dinner party vibe with About Last Night, making their celebrity couple friends — or soon-to-be couple friends — comfortable enough to show sides of themselves they rarely show on camera.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.