Harlots sets the tone quickly in its opening scenes, from matter-of-fact supertitles declaring, "1763. London is booming. And one in five women makes a living selling sex," to the group of girls eagerly reading a just-published catalog that reviews London's whores for prospective clients, or culls. "The very thing in winter for those who love a fat, jolly girl," for example. Or "this girl is new upon the town, having been debauched just six months ago."

The show—created, written, and directed by women—is nearly done with its second season, available in the U.S. exclusively on Hulu, and if you haven't been keeping up then you're missing out. Harlots is about two rival brothels in 18th century London, with more scheming, sex, raunchy historical slang, and rapid-fire editing than Downton Abbey could ever dream of. Like a soap opera, every plot development is basically a plot twist, with kidnappings, shifting alliances, a cult of rapist aristocrats, and, inevitably, murder. If The Handmaid's Tale is about how a male-dominated society brutally maintains control over women's bodies and sexuality, Harlots shows how women try to leverage those same assets for their freedom—and it does it with a dark, bass-heavy soundtrack.

Liam Daniel

The show centers on Margaret Wells, an ambitious brothel-owner looking to move up in the world, and her rivalry with the older, richer, more established Lydia Quigley, who, let's say, "employed" Margaret at her own "bawdy house" when she was a child. Jessica Brown Findlay, formerly Downton Abbey's too-virtuous-to-not-die-in-childbirth Sybil Crawley, stars as Margaret's daughter and London's most celebrated whorehouse veteran. When the show begins, Charlotte (whose "bosom enchants to rapture," according to that catalog) is on the verge of securing a "keeper," a wealthy aristocrat who will pay her to be his live-in mistress. Margaret is angling for a similar deal for her virgin younger daughter, Lucy, who's expected to be even more popular than her sister and eager to help her mother. But when Lucy finally enters the family profession, she's quickly exposed to the brutal, casual violence of upper-class men that her mother had until then kept her insulated from.

This may sound bleak and sooty, but Harlots is gloriously technicolor. Charlotte stalks a promenade strapped into turquoise dresses or, for extra refinement, dons a towering, hot pink-streaked wig. On paper, Margaret may not come off very motherly. But she's protective and calculating, and to her, being a harlot is the only way to gain security in the world. Margaret has used that to rise up to managing her own team of girls, and at the start of the show she's finally buying a new house, one big enough and in the right location to help establish her and her family. It's not a clean, uplifting story though. Margaret and her daughters' schemes keep derailing or backfiring, and they're still stuck in a world that prioritizes men over women and the rich over the poor. "It's not [men's] power we're at the mercy of," one girl sadly tells her cull after her friend is murdered. "It's your weakness."

Liam Daniel

It's rare and refreshing to find a show with such a woman-dominated production team, and that's no doubt a big factor in why it never devolves into the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliché treatment prostitutes usually get on-screen. These harlots, whether they're seasoned pros or newly "debauched," are shrewd entrepreneurs, cut-throat and clear-eyed. They're realists trying to protect their families, earn a more secure future, or just survive. And if they have to stab a rich dandy or two along the way, so be it.