If You Don’t Watch 'Escape at Dannemora' Now That It’s on Netflix, You Don’t Care About Good TV

Ben Stiller’s 2018 limited series is an underrated gem

Paul Dano’s sweatshirt isn’t my color, but I look good in New York state prison green, dont I? (Showtime; Hannah Roman)

This week, I was originally planning to write about The Lincoln Lawyer, a show that has some characteristics of a Dad Show but is actually a pure Mom Show. But then I saw that Netflix added Escape at Dannemora, one of my favorite underrated TV shows, and I changed my mind. Besides, I don’t need a whole post to explain why The Lincoln Lawyer is a Mom Show. It’s because Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as slick attorney Mickey Haller appeals to women more than men. He’s manly, but not a tough guy or an antihero. He’s handsome, he’s a good listener, he’s a little bit troubled but in a sensitive way. He has good relationships with women, even if he can’t stay married to them. My mom really likes him.  

You know who’s not any of those things? Benicio del Toro as Richard Matt and Paul Dano as David Sweat in Escape at Dannemora. They’re total scumbags, but one woman in particular is drawn to them. This is a messy human story about really messed up people in an extraordinary situation of their own making.

Escape at Dannemora tells the true story of Matt and Sweat’s escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York in 2015. They dug a tunnel out of the prison with the help of Tilly Mitchell, a worker in the prison’s tailor shop with whom they were both having affairs. Tilly is played by Patricia Arquette. I know Patty won an Oscar for Boyhood, but she still doesn’t get enough credit for being one of the GOATs. She’s so good in this show, as she is in everything else.  

Anyway, Escape at Dannemora premiered on Showtime in 2018. Back then, Showtime was still occasionally making high-quality and distinctive television — Escape at Dannemora was nominated for six Emmys, including Outstanding Limited Series — but the network’s terminal decline was well underway, so Escape at Dannemora didn’t get seen the way it would have been if it had been on HBO or Netflix. I championed it at TV Guide, though, giving it a rave review and interviewing Eric Lange, who played Tilly’s husband Lyle, the sap to her unconventional femme fatale, for the flashback episode where he lost 35 pounds to play a younger version of the character. I even hosted a screening of the first episode, where Showtime asked me not to describe the show as feeling like a ‘70s crime thriller in my introductory remarks. I don’t know why. It does feel like a ‘70s crime thriller. That’s clearly one of the things Ben Stiller was going for. 

Stiller started his transition into being a serious TV director with Escape at Dannemora and completed it a few years later with Severance. These shows are totally different from each other and totally different from anything Stiller did previously, which is cool. He’s at a point in his career where he can pursue his passion projects, provided they’re TV shows and he lands them at the right place at the right time. It seems like he has a pretty great life overall these days. He goes to Knick games and makes excellent TV shows and has gray hair and doesn’t act unless he feels like it. He directs his ass off in every episode of Escape at Dannemora. I have a potentially false memory of reading an article where he described trying to make the show feel like a period piece about 2015 in 2018 by making sure everything was as authentic as possible. There’s a scene where Tilly and Lyle are in the car and there’s some really incongruous pop song playing, because that’s what would have been playing on the radio the moment they turned it on in the spring of 2015. The song wasn’t picked for any thematic purpose, it was picked for journalistic accuracy. I love that. I don’t remember what the song was, so if you watch the show you should tell me. 

Escape at Daddemora

Escape at Dannemora is technically a true crime adaptation, but it doesn’t feel like a typical example of the genre. It’s unusually grounded and detail-oriented. It also belongs to the prison escape genre, but it’s unusual in that our main characters are not wrongfully convicted men trying to overcome injustice and prove their innocence, they’re just career criminals who see a way out of lockup. The late-season flashback episode that explains how Matt, Sweat, and Tilly ended up in the prison is one of the best standalone episodes of any limited series I’ve seen. The standout standalone is a cliche unto itself, but we’re all suckers for a well-done one. This one confronts you with just how against your better judgment it is that you’re rooting for these people to get away with it.

All around, it’s a great show I highly recommend. I recommend imagining whether proud Italian American governor Andrew Cuomo found it flattering or uncomfortable that Christopher from The Sopranos plays him. (I think Cuomo, one of the most despicable politicians in the history of a state that pretty much only elects despicable politicians, doesn’t deserve to be played by someone as cool as Michael Imperioli.) I recommend the way Benicio del Toro, drunk as shit and lost in the woods in the last episode, pronounces Tilly’s name. I recommend trying to imitate Patty Arquette’s accent. You can’t do it. It’s too wild. 

The best thing about Netflix in 2024 is how its library licensing has put rediscovery of older shows into overdrive. Netflix has trouble making good shows but has a peerless distribution platform, while every other studio makes better shows but can’t get anyone to watch them. So everybody licensing their shows to Netflix is a short-term win-win for subscribers. It’s a long-term lose-lose — TV is worse off for the slow death of Showtime — but life is a long-term lose-lose, so what can you do.

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I wrote about Yellowstone-imitating Australian Western series Territory for TV Guide. It’s not good, but it’s kind of worth watching the pilot to see how far it pushes the limit of what one show can borrow from another show without being plagiarism. Here’s a preview:

I wouldn't use the word "shameless" to describe Territory's pulling from Yellowstone, because that implies that the producers should be ashamed, which they shouldn't be. It's smart business to attempt a regional "our version" of a hit show from elsewhere. And the Australian specifics are the most interesting part of Territory. Like on Yellowstone, many of the most enjoyable scenes on Territory are the moments when the narrative pauses to just observe cowboys doing cowboy stuff, and they do things differently Down Under. The jargon is different — "muster" instead of "roundup," "mob" instead of "herd," etc. — and they ride ATVs and Mad Max cars instead of horses. It's filmed in the Northern Territory and South Australia, which are some of the most isolated places on Earth, so it's impressive and unusual to watch something filmed there. For American viewers, Territory is a cool way to learn about a corner of the world that's more similar to America than you might realize. It's a great example of how Netflix offers the opportunity to discover international television with an intentionality that other streaming services don't provide.