I was 30 minutes into the Netflix movie Christmas Inheritance when I reached a breaking point. Before this, mind you, I’d watched no less than four other holiday movies of the same variety with my mother—and enjoyed them all. From Netflix’s The Princess Switch to Lifetime’s The Christmas Contract, these films were just the cheesy, delightful romps I needed to get excited about December. With low stakes and happy endings all around, these movies really are welcome reprieves from the insanity that is 2018.

But by the sixth Santa cookie consumed in Christmas Inheritance, I’d had enough. Yes, these flicks are fun, but there’s only so much fluff you can watch in a three-day span before you start craving something with teeth.

That’s why I was stoked to check out Bravo’s new limited series Dirty John, based on the podcast of the same name, on Sunday night (November 25). The true-crime show was just the palette cleanser I needed before diving back into another Hallmark marathon—and, boy, did it deliver.

The series, for the uninitiated, centers on a real woman named Debra Newell (played by Connie Britton) who begins dating a handsome-but-suspect man named John Meehan whom she met on the Internet. John (Erica Bana in the show) seems like a dream at first—he’s a hunky anesthesiologist and a great listener—but Debra’s daughters, Veronica (Juno Temple) and Terra (Julia Garner) quickly notice red flags. Despite his high-paying job, John is a schlubby dresser, he’s combative with Debra’s daughters almost immediately, and seems a little too infatuated by the Newell family’s wealth. By the end of the episode, Terra discovers a nursing diploma in John’s closet, which makes her wonder if he’s even an anesthesiologist at all.

If you’ve listened to the podcast, then you know the answer—and you know the story only gets more intense from there. Don’t worry, though: Bravo’s adaptation will still hook you. That’s a testament to Britton, who does a scary-good job at playing aloof to John’s eccentricities while also gaining empathy from the audience. Bana, on the other hand, is brash and creepy as John, yet there’s still something about him that’s completely charming. You 100 percent understand why Debra fell for him, even though her own daughters were imploring her to run in the opposite direction. Both actors give nuanced performances that hopefully aren’t overlooked come awards season next year.

“Unnerving” is the perfect word to describe Dirty John. We know that Debra and John’s relationship implodes at some point, but the journey there is uncomfortably sunny and happy. All the good times John and Debra share have this dark, ominous cloud over them—a cloud Debra herself doesn’t even know is there, but the audience does. It’s the polar opposite of the Christmas movies you’ll consume in mass quantities this season, which are all sun with absolutely no thunderstorms in sight. Dirty John, in its own dishy, gritty way, will make you appreciate the whimsicality of those Hallmark movies even more.

The show airs Sunday nights at 10 P.M. ET on Bravo.

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