Brothers on Apple TV: what to know about the McConaughey–Harrelson series premiere
Somewhere between True Detective season 1 and now, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson stopped being "actors who play best friends" and became "men who might legally be siblings." Apple TV, sensing money, made it a show.
Brothers premieres September 23 with two episodes, then rolls out weekly through November 4 — ten episodes of McConaughey and Harrelson playing fictionalized versions of themselves whose friendship implodes when they find out they might actually share a father.
The premise (which is, again, real)
In the show, Woody hauls his family to Matthew's Austin ranch after his daughter's engagement collapses, Holland Taylor (as Matthew's mother) lets a decades-old secret slip, and Matthew is meanwhile flirting with a Texas gubernatorial run. Lee Eisenberg, Natalie Sandy and Schitt's Creek alum David West Read are behind it, which explains the "family secret as sitcom engine" architecture.
But the load-bearing wall here is a true story McConaughey has been telling for years, and it remains undefeated:
"In Greece a few years ago, we're sitting around talking about how close we are and our families. And my mom is there, and she says, 'Woody, I knew your dad,'" he told Kelly Ripa. "Everyone was aware of the ellipses that my mom left after 'knew.' It was a loaded K-N-E-W."
The two then "did some math" and discovered Woody's father was on furlough exactly when Mama McConaughey was mid-second-divorce from Matthew's dad. Woody has been ready to swab a cheek for years; Matthew, understandably, is not: "You're telling me my dad may not be my dad of 53 years... I got a little more skin in the game."
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What to know before you press play
- Premiere: September 23, two episodes, then weekly through November 4
- The cast beyond the maybe-brothers: Holland Taylor, Natalie Martinez, Brittany Ishibashi, and a small army of TV kids
- The world premiere already happened at the Hammer Museum, where the two arrived looking like a rejected Cialis ad, complimentary
- No, they still haven't taken the DNA test. Yes, that is obviously the series finale of our real lives.
Previously we wrote: Lioness season 3 finale ending explained: Aaliyah Amrohi is back as the villain nobody clocked
