Netflix's 'A Man on the Inside' Is the Warmest Fuzziest Show of the Year

Many may not realize this, but Mike Schur has a tremendously fun sports podcast with Joe Posnanski that’s roughly 70% baseball and 30% NFL and NBA. Considering how much time he spends writing and running his TV series, his depth of knowledge — especially about baseball — is staggering. He seems to know the WAR of every active MLB player.

I bring this up because a few weeks ago, Schur — a Massachusetts native and notorious Yankees hater — devoted an entire 90-minute episode to gleefully dissecting the Yankees’ World Series loss. It was pure, unfiltered joy. But this is who Schur is: a few weeks later, he spent twenty minutes expressing guilt over his dislike of the New York Jets, a struggling team that hasn’t made the playoffs in nearly 15 years (though he still thinks Aaron Rodgers is bananas).

That’s the kind of soft-hearted guy Mike Schur is: someone who can’t hate the Jets without feeling bad about it (I assure you that I have no such compunction). That same kindness is woven into seven seasons of Parks and Recreation, four seasons of The Good Place, and his latest project, Netflix’s A Man on the Inside.

The series stars Ted Danson as Charles, a retired widower trying to fill his days while grieving his wife’s death from dementia. At his daughter Emily’s (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) suggestion, he seeks out a hobby and stumbles upon an ad from a private detective, Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada), looking for “a man on the inside” to uncover who’s stealing jewelry in a retirement home.

Some have compared the show to Only Murders in the Building, but I don’t think that’s quite right: there’s no murder, and the investigation serves more as a backdrop to explore relationships among retirees facing old age, memory loss, and loneliness. Charles moves into the retirement home, befriending the residents and turning their lives upside down, just as they transform his.

While fun and funny, A Man on the Inside is mostly warm — arguably the sweetest show on TV outside of Trying. It doesn’t try to be more than that. The detective work is secondary, and the mystery is largely an afterthought. The real focus is on developing its characters and gently preparing viewers for a long, cathartic, and deeply satisfying cry — the good kind. The kind that you need.

The supporting cast shines, from Stephanie Beatriz (using her normal voice!) as the retirement home manager to a lineup of seasoned character actors who bring depth and life experience to their roles, including Sally Struthers, John Getz, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, who stands out as Calbert, the soft-hearted Ron Swanson archetype Schur includes in every series.

It is a lovely, lovely show, the sort you can watch with the entire family over the holiday or by yourselves, as you wistfully acknowledge the older people in your lives while appreciating your own journey toward old age, where even in a nursing home, there’s still a lot of life left to be lived.