'Big Mistakes' Review: Dan Levy’s Chaotic Family Comedy with a Criminal Streak Is Completely Compelling
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- 3 min read
By Romey Norton - April 9, 2026
After the cultural comfort blanket of Schitt’s Creek, writer and star Dan Levy could have easily played it safe with his next projects. Instead, with Netflix’s Big Mistakes, he swerves sharply into darker, stranger territory, delivering a series that blends family dysfunction with crime energy in a way that’s both chaotic and surprisingly endearing.
The premise is gleefully absurd. Nicky (Dan Levy) and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) are not just unqualified for a life of crime; they’re spectacularly unsuited to it. Yet a well-intentioned but ill-conceived attempt to help their dying grandmother spirals into a botched theft, landing them squarely in the orbit of organised crime. From there, things escalate quickly: blackmail, dangerous errands, and a pattern of “failing upwards” that becomes the show’s central comic engine. The series starts with big energy, big characters and a big baseline. It’s instantly gripping and, thankfully, manages to sustain this throughout the eight episodes.
Levy, who co-writes the series with Rachel Sennott, describes the project as “a genre-bending comedic thrill ride” and admits that his imagined ineptitude as a criminal inspired it. That self-awareness is key; Big Mistakes never pretends its characters are anything other than deeply out of their depth, and the humour flows directly from that mismatch between ambition and ability.
As Nicky, Levy leans into a slightly more frayed version of his familiar persona: anxious, verbose, and perpetually on the verge of collapse. It’s a performance that invites comparison to his earlier work but pushes further into desperation. The choice to be a priest is great, allowing for deeper conversations around the LGBT community and religion. Opposite him, Taylor Ortega is a revelation. Her Morgan is impulsive, erratic, and just confident enough to make catastrophically bad decisions feel like good ones. Together, they form a sibling dynamic that feels authentic in its chaos, filled with loyalty, rivalry, and shared disbelief at how badly things keep going.
Laurie Metcalf is excellent as the loud, dramatic, overbearing mother, whose energy bursts through the screen. Boran Kuzum plays the threatening criminal very well without becoming caricatured.
For all its jokes, the criminal world the siblings stumble into isn’t entirely cartoonish. There are real consequences, real threats, and moments where the tone dips into genuine tension. The series walks a delicate line here, and while it doesn’t always balance perfectly, the friction between comedy and danger gives it an edge that many sitcoms lack.
Structurally, the eight-episode season moves at a brisk pace. Each episode introduces a new complication or scheme, often escalating the stakes in ways that feel both inventive and slightly unhinged. The “fail upwards” concept is stretched to its limits, sometimes to the point of believability. There are moments where you may find yourself questioning just how many disasters these characters can survive without consequences catching up. But the show’s energy is such that it usually sweeps you along before you can dwell on the logic.
If there’s a weakness, it lies in occasional tonal whiplash. The shifts between comedy and suspense can feel abrupt, and not every dramatic beat lands with equal weight. At times, the show seems unsure whether it wants you to laugh at the danger or feel it. Still, that instability is also part of its charm. Like its protagonists, Big Mistakes thrives on unpredictability.
Big Mistakes is an excellent dark comedy. It’s a series that proves incompetence, when paired with just enough luck, can be oddly compelling. Levy and Sennott have crafted a show that’s fast, funny, and just reckless enough to keep things interesting. It may not have the cosy warmth of Levy’s previous work, but it replaces it with something sharper, a comedy where the punchlines come with a side of peril.
All eight episodes of 'Big Mistakes' are available to watch on Netflix.
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