Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | July 8, 2026
The first season of Apple TV’s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed has been a wild, occasionally frustrating, usually exhilarating ride. It’s a fun show: Tatiana Maslany is killing it every week, Jake Johnson is surprisingly adept at playing a cranky but slightly sympathetic a-hole ex-husband, and even the annoying co-workers are finally starting to grow on me.
Spoilers for Episode 9
In this week’s penultimate episode of the season, things turned a corner when Paula discovered that the blackmailer targeting her and others isn’t after money. Whoever is running the operation goes after people in important positions and coerces them into favors that often have more value than cash. In one instance, a food scientist was blackmailed into giving up an important formula, which ultimately led to his company downsizing and cost him his job. In another, a woman was blackmailed into accepting a student into Yale, and it appears Paula may uncover a link between that student’s parents and whoever is behind the scheme.
Meanwhile, the annoying co-workers, Rudy and Geri, are now working with Paula to crack the case, and Geri has even promised to give up the story (whether she follows through remains to be seen). The detectives have also come around on Paula’s innocence, they’re doing their own investigating, and the episode ends with Detective Baxter tracking down the second hitman sent after Paula. In the final seconds, he’s pointing his gun at the hitman, the hitman is pointing a gun at Paula, and we hear a gunshot — but the episode ends before we find out who fired and who, if anyone, was hit.
But here’s the thing: there’s only one episode left, and these episodes typically run around 30 to 35 minutes. The finale is going to be aggravating for one simple reason: there’s no way they wrap up this story. We might be looking at a The Killing situation, although at least in this case, we’ve been conditioned by years of streaming television to understand that mysteries often run across multiple seasons.
But it’s still going to be annoying, because there’s not enough runway left to discover who’s running the blackmail operation, for the detectives to exonerate Paula, for Paula to deal with her custody issues, for Geri’s article to be fully resolved, and for Paula to further explore a potential romance with Steve.
There’s going to be a cliffhanger, and I feel confident the season will end with Paula discovering who’s behind it all, although the series might fully screw us and not let the audience in on her revelation. The top two choices, obviously, are still Steve — but he seems so sweet! — or a possibly out-of-left-field choice in Mallory, Karl’s fiancée. The logic doesn’t completely add up for the latter — why would she hire her own investigator, only to have Dennis, the first hitman, kill him? — but it would be a fun reveal that would put Karl and Paula on the same side.
I just hope Detective Baxter survives. He and Detective Gonzalez may be one of my favorite detective duos ever.
