I wasn’t planning on getting HBO Max until The Outsider season 2 came out. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what the difference between HBO Max, HBO Now and HBO Go were. Ok, I’m still not 100% sure, but David says HBO Max is what we want and unfortunately we can’t play it on the Roku. But I digress.

My attention is always perked when something sci-fi-y comes across my radar. I think it was a YouTube ad, good job algorithms, you’re right again, but I wasn’t interested in signing up for yet another streaming service for just that one show.

But HBO has a crack team working for them. And they knew people like me would want to see what they were offering. So they put the first episode up on YouTube free of charge. Well played HBO, well played.

That first episode blew my mind. Apparently Ridley Scott knows what he’s doing. Who knew? I’ve always loved the exploration of the concept of what makes people human and when a machine ceases being just a machine. But this show took that concept, added an amazing cast, stunning visuals, interesting story, impressive sound design, and just the all around high quality you would come to expect from early seasons of a good HBO series.

So, we set up the Google Chromecast and got HBO Max. And thank goodness we did. I had no idea we were missing Watchmen, Lovecraft Country and Chernobyl (and it was going to happen when The Outsider came back anyway, so really, we just sped up the inevidible).

I recommend you watch the free episode on YouTube, and if you are like me, you’ll be following it up with a brand new HBO Max subscription.