The Underworld in Broad Daylight

Read Time:5 Minute, 42 Second

TV SERIES REVIEWS
Sunny Nights
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Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Year Released: 2025 (U.S. Premiere 2026)
Runtime: 8 episodes, approx. 50m each
Director(s): Trent O’Donnell
Writer(s): Nick Keetch, Ty Freer, Marieke Hardy, Lally Katz, Clare Sladden, Niki Aken
Cast: Will Forte, D’Arcy Carden, Rachel House, Jessica De Gouw, Ra Chapman, Megan Wilding, Willie Mason
Where to Watch: U.S. debut on March 11, 2026, on Hulu

RAVING REVIEW: SUNNY NIGHTS never holds back; it lets you know what it’s going to be from the start, and then leans into that throughout all eight episodes. There’s a tension between the absurd and the violent that becomes the series’s calling card. What follows is a crime comedy that flirts with chaos and darkness while still feeling unmistakably Australian, even with two American leads at its center.

Martin and Vicki Marvin arrive in Sydney convinced they’re on the verge of building a spray tan empire, Tansform (yep, that’s the core premise). Their portable bronzing business is pitched as the next big thing in a country already obsessed with sun exposure. But their entrepreneurial ambition barely gets off the runway before a blackmail scheme spirals into death, debt, and a collision course with Sydney’s criminal underworld. The premise sounds intensified, but SUNNY NIGHTS never plays it as parody. Instead, it leans into the idea that bad decisions compound quickly when made by people who believe they’re smarter than the room.

Will Forte plays Martin with a sincerity that keeps the character from becoming unbearable. He’s risk-averse on paper, but emotionally reckless in practice. Forte’s strength has always been in portraying men who think they’re in control until reality checks them, and he brings that same confidence here. Martin’s attempts to win back his ex-wife while simultaneously hiding a growing criminal predicament feel both desperate and oddly grounded. He’s not a mastermind. He’s a guy trying to patch a sinking boat with motivational speeches.

D’Arcy Carden’s Vicki is the series’ spark that lights the fire. Where Martin hesitates, Vicki jumps. Carden understands that the character works best when played with conviction rather than light-hearted irony. Vicki believes in the business, believes in herself, and believes that any problem can be solved with confidence. That energy gives the show a surprising flex, especially in the early episodes when the chaos feels new rather than cyclical. The sibling chemistry is convincing without overplaying sentiment. Their bond feels messy, occasionally transactional, and ultimately loyal.

The breakout presence here may be Rachel House as Mony. House doesn’t soften the mob boss into a parody. She plays Mony as volatile but grieving, violent but strategic. There’s a stillness in her performance that contrasts with the Marvin siblings’ frantic energy. Every scene she enters adds more structure and grounding to the experience. Even when the script dives into absurdity, House keeps the threat credible. It’s a vital performance in a series that sometimes risks becoming too enamored with its own chaos.

Supporting players round out the vibe here. Jessica De Gouw adds dimension to what could’ve been a simple con-artist role, and Megan Wilding injects unexpected humor into the investigative subplot. Willie Mason, in particular, is a surprise. His portrayal of Terry, a former athlete dealing with CTE and working as muscle-for-hire, carries more vulnerability than expected. The series occasionally slows down to acknowledge the cost of violence, and Terry’s arc is where that lands the hardest.

Eight episodes feel like a little too much for a story that thrives on escalation. The first half moves quickly, organically stacking complications, one after the other. By the middle stretch, however, the narrative starts feeling familiar. The siblings make another bad choice. A criminal reacts. The trouble continues to grow. The repetition doesn’t derail the show, but it softens the urgency that the series was building. You can feel the story that might’ve been tighter at six episodes.

The balance is mostly successful. The series understands that dark comedy only works when the stakes remain real. Violence isn’t sanitized, and the consequences aren’t brushed aside. At the same time, the show doesn’t drift into bleakness. It finds humor in misunderstandings, in American optimism colliding with Australian pragmatism, and in the sheer absurdity of entrepreneurial ambition colliding with organized crime.

Sydney is present, but it’s not the expected postcard-perfect image that the US media portrays it as. Motels look worn down. There’s an authenticity to the way the world is shown; you see both sides of reality here. The aesthetic reinforces that these characters are in over their heads, not stepping into a stylish crime fantasy.

What ultimately holds SUNNY NIGHTS together is its theme of loyalty. Beneath the extortion plots and exploding wildlife (just trust me), this is a story about siblings who refuse to abandon each other. Even when they’re frustrated, even when they’ve clearly made everything worse, their instinct is to double down together. That throughline keeps the series from feeling hollow.

There’s enough here to justify its existence in a crowded crime-comedy space, even if it doesn’t fully reevaluate the genre. When it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s focused and energetic. When it drags, it’s because the narrative stretches a bit too thin rather than deepens.

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