Big Mistakes Review: Stellar Cast, Chaotic Plot
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- "Big Mistakes" is a Netflix crime comedy created by Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott, centered on New Jersey siblings Nicky (Levy) and Morgan (Taylor Ortega) who stumble into Russian gangster Ivan's (Mark Ivanir) orbit after Morgan shoplifts a necklace from a local store.
- Laurie Metcalf plays the siblings' overbearing mother Linda, who is simultaneously planning her dying grandmother's birthday party and a mayoral campaign — a performance the reviewer calls her best work to date.
- The series runs 8 half-hour episodes, but the review says its increasingly deranged plotting makes the first season feel much longer, with the Miami-set Episode 7 ("I've Really Enjoyed My Time With You") singled out as requiring "complete suspension of disbelief" and feeling like "an entirely different television program."
- Levy's Nicky subplot adds a closeted-sexuality layer — he's a pastor hiding his relationship with Tareq (Jacob Gutierrez) — giving the character higher personal stakes that the chaotic crime storyline threatens to swallow.
- Despite the narrative mess, the review credits the sibling dynamic between Levy and Ortega as the show's saving grace, calling their "obnoxious sibling bond" the element that keeps the series from fully imploding.
- The review concludes that sharper rewrites and edits would have let the comedic tone, wit, and "beautifully zany" characters shine, but as is, the show offers only "glimpses" into Levy and Sennott's quirky world.
Why it matters: For Levy, a beloved "Schitt's Creek" alum, "Big Mistakes" is his first major follow-up vehicle, and the review suggests the issue isn't talent or tone — it's plotting discipline, with a stacked cast (Metcalf, Ortega, Ivanir) doing the heavy lifting that the script can't. The upside is that a chaotic first season with this much ensemble firepower could justify a recalibrated second run if Netflix is paying attention to where the show actually works: the family dynamics, not the crime chaos.
