Streaming's Newest Comedy Unites White Lotus Stars From Different Eras & Critics Are Loving It

The new comedy mystery series, which debuted on Hulu on October 20, was created by Nick Paley and follows a teenage boy who believes that his mother was swapped out with an impostor while he was in the hospital recovering from a car accident. The show is led by two alumni from the White Lotus cast who appeared in different seasons of the hit HBO anthology series, namely Connie Britton (who played season 1’s search engine company CFO Nicole Mossbacher) and Sam Nivola (who played season 3’s Lochlan Ratliff, a financier’s son who has a complicated relationship with his brother).

Rotten Tomatoes has aggregated enough reviews from critics for Phony to receive an official score on the Tomatometer. While the score could fluctuate if more reviews are added, at the time of writing, 10 critics have weighed in to give the show a near-perfect score of 90%. Additionally, the average score of these reviews is a strong 7.7 out of 10, with the highest score being the 4 out of 5 given to it by Joyce Slaton of Common Sense Media.

While the one negative review (from Variety‘s Alison Herman) posits that the trickery used to make Connie Britton’s face look slightly off hampers her performance somewhat, critics largely agree that the mystery is compelling in a manner reminiscent of Twin Peaks (with one even implying that the show is preferable to the similarly-themed horror movie Other Mommy, which has a dismal 19% score), but that even if the outcome is disappointing, the show is worth the ride thanks to its strong comedic sensibility and the believable atmosphere of the teen-centric scenes.

The score that Phony has received matches the 90% Rotten Tomatoes score of The White Lotus season 1 (which was nominated for 11 Primetime Emmy Awards and won five) and improves upon the 86% score of season 3 (which was nominated for 10, though it didn’t win) to become the highest-rated Sam Nivola project on Rotten Tomatoes. Below, see a breakdown of his Top 5 movies and television shows on the platform:

Now that Phony has premiered with its first two episodes, audiences have also been able to share their thoughts on Rotten Tomatoes, and they are liking it even more than critics. The show has so far earned a Popcornmeter score of 93% from nearly 50 user reviews with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5.

This Popcornmeter score is higher than any Connie Britton movie (her best on that front is 2020’s Joe Bell with 88%) and ties with Friday Night Lights as her second-highest for a television show (she guest starred on The West Wing season 3, and that show has an average Popcornmeter score of 95%).

Choose the movie with the higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Sign in to claim your place on the leaderboard!

Sign in to claim your place on the leaderboard!

The remaining episodes of Phony are expected to debut weekly, so if this strong early response translates to good word of mouth, it is possible that the show could pick up steam and become a major streaming success. However, it is already showing signs of life, as it was No. 2 on Hulu’s overall Top 10 in the United States on October 22.