Let’s be honest: television has been missing a certain level of chaotic charm without Dan Levy around.
After helping turn Emmy Award-winning Schitt’s Creek into one of the most beloved comedy series of the past decade, Dan Levy is officially returning to the small screen with a brand-new Netflix show, Big Mistakes. And based on the premise alone, the title feels less like a warning and more like a promise.
The upcoming series premieres April 9 and features eight half-hour episodes that blend family dysfunction, criminal chaos, and the kind of awkward comedy that Levy fans know and love. Big Mistakes is his first official offering on Netflix following his 2023 film Good Grief, and the stakes have never been higher, but if Schitt’s Creek proved anything, it’s that Levy has a gift for turning messy characters into television gold. Now he’s taking that energy somewhere new: the world of organized crime.
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A Crime Story…But Not the Competent Kind
In Big Mistakes, Levy plays Nicky, one half of a pair of siblings who are spectacularly unprepared for the situation they find themselves in. Alongside Morgan, played by Jenna Ortega, Nicky gets pulled into a criminal underworld after what was meant to be a simple act of desperation. The siblings attempt a misguided theft to help their dying grandmother, but things quickly spiral when the situation lands them in the orbit of organized crime.
Instead of escaping the mess, they’re blackmailed into carrying out increasingly dangerous tasks. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Nicky and Morgan are deeply incapable of navigating the criminal world. Rather than masterminds, they become liabilities who stumble through increasingly chaotic assignments while somehow making things worse.
Netflix describes the show as a “bold, new comedic family saga within a high-stakes crime thriller,” which feels like a polite way of saying that two very unqualified people are about to cause absolute mayhem.
Levy’s Very Specific Fear
The idea for the show didn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, Levy says the premise was inspired by a fear that might sound a little familiar to anyone who spends too much time reading the news.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Levy explained how the concept started with an oddly specific anxiety. “I don’t know whether it was my algorithm or just the kinds of news that I’ve been drawn to over the years,” he said. “Most of the time, you can’t really get out once you’re in, and that felt really scary to me, but it also felt really propulsive as a story idea for TV. Throw two characters who ultimately prove themselves to be a liability to the organized crime dynamic, therein lies the comedy.”
In other words, what began as a worry about accidentally ending up in organized crime somehow turned into a full-blown Netflix series.
A Secret Romance Adds More Drama
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dan Levy project without a little romantic complication. In Big Mistakes, Nicky isn’t just navigating criminal chaos — he’s also hiding a secret relationship.
Levy’s character plays a gay preacher-slash-pastor who is quietly involved with Tareq, portrayed by Jacob Gutierrez. The combination of a religious role, a hidden romance, and organized crime trouble gives the series another layer of tension, and almost certainly a few awkward situations along the way.
Why Fans Are Excited
For LGBTQ audiences in particular, Levy’s return to television carries a little extra excitement. Since publicly coming out in 2015, he has become one of the most visible voices for queer representation in mainstream entertainment.
His portrayal of David Rose in Schitt’s Creek helped reshape how queer characters could be written on television. The show’s optimistic and inclusive approach allowed queer relationships to exist without being defined by trauma or conflict, something many viewers found refreshing.
That legacy is part of why Levy’s new project is already generating buzz.
Another Era of Levy Chaos
While Big Mistakes is clearly a very different world from the quirky small town of Schitt’s Creek, it still feels unmistakably like a Dan Levy story. The characters are flawed, the premise is slightly absurd, and the humor comes from watching people try very hard to manage situations that are clearly spiraling out of control.
If the show delivers on its promise, audiences won’t just be watching a crime story. They’ll be watching a comedy about two people who probably should have stayed very far away from the criminal underworld in the first place.
And honestly, that sounds like exactly the kind of chaos Levy was born to play.