Does Netflix have an Obsession with Affairs?

Lately Netflix has been churning out new TV series at an alarming rate. There are so many shows in the Netflix Originals tab that there is no way anyone would actually have the time to watch them all. Well… challenge accepted. In my quest to fill hours of free time with TV I have noticed a trend in what I’m watching, there are a lot of affair based shows being released by Netflix right now.

In the past month Netflix has released GLOW, Friends from College, and Ozarks (along with a bunch of other shows that didn’t look as interesting).

All of these shows don’t just have an affair in them, but the affair is at the center of the plot. Cheating is by no means a new concept in TV, it happened in Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Orange is the New Black, and a shit ton of other shows, but the affair is rarely a central point of the plot, it’s normally just used to show something about the character that’s cheating. When Skylar White “fucked Ted” it was because she was unhappy with her marriage and after Walter went to Ted’s office and threw a potted plant around a little bit that whole saga was over.

In these three shows the affair plays a much larger role. Throughout Friends from College, Keegan Michael Key’s character struggles to end his affair, while keeping it a secret from his wife, while also having deep feelings for his mistress and college sweet heart, and then somewhere in all that his wife goes and sleeps with her own college sweet heart. Cheating is the central conflict in that show. The same thing applies for GLOW and Ozarks (I’m only a few episodes into Ozarks and besides the whole laundering drug money for a Mexican cartel thing it seems like the affair is the central conflict in that show and is not going to be forgotten anytime soon).

So why is cheating such a hot topic in the Netflix creative wing? I don’t actually know, one can only hope that this trend continues into Stranger Things season 2 and Nancy does actually cheat on that douche bag Steve with Johnathan Byres or maybe Nancy’s mom will cheat on her super attentive husband who in no way hates everything about his life.