Amazon subsequently acquired the rights to stream the series, and the previously unaired third season was released on Amazon Prime Video in some countries, such as Canada, in December 2020.[citation needed] The series made its U.S. debut in March 2021, while the third season was added the following month.[4][5]
Additional seasons were planned, but not produced as of 2024, since the show could not find a network willing to offset the production costs.[5] In January 2024, Sony Distribution licensed all three seasons to be available on Netflix as well as Amazon Prime.[6]
Premise
Sam Loudermilk, a former music critic and a recovering alcoholic, is a substance abuse support group leader living in Seattle, who regularly doles out clever but acid-tongued critiques to his clients, his friends, and any random person he interacts with. Loudermilk, who does not have his life together in the way one might expect of a counselor, is somewhat nicer to the few people close to him, including his best friend and (usually) sober sponsor, Ben Burns, and his sponsee and unplanned roommate, Claire Wilkes.[1][7][8][9]
Frequent scenes depict Loudermilk's group sessions at a local church, with subplots deriving from the group members' lives. Farrelly expressed particular pride at the arc of Mugsy (Brian Regan) during season 3, where the character gradually rebuilds his relationship with his children before relapsing. The character of Cutter (Danny Wattley) features in a prominent subplot in season 1; Wattley was unable to reprise the role in seasons 2 and 3 after himself relapsing, but after going through recovery was planned to appear in a fourth season.[3]
Loudermilk originally premiered on AT&T's Audience Network.[5] Its first season debuted in 2017. On April 12, 2018, Audience renewed the series for a second season,[7] which it premiered on October 16, 2018.[8] On December 5, 2018, it was announced that Audience had renewed the series for a third season,[12] but the network ceased operations in May 2020, prior to the third season's scheduled airing.[3]
Amazon Prime Video, which was already carrying the series in some countries outside the U.S., premiered the third season in those countries on December 31, 2020.[citation needed] Amazon acquired the U.S. streaming rights for the show and made the first two seasons available there on March 12, 2021.[4] On April 27, 2021, the third season received its U.S. premiere on Prime.[5]
Despite being based in Seattle, Loudermilk is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Music
The first season uses tracks from Andy Shauf's album The Party as incidental and atmospheric score, with an eclectic soundtrack as a nod to Sam Loudermilk's past as a music critic.[13]
Reception
Review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes gives the first season an approval rating of 92% based on reviews from 12 critics, with an average rating of 7.12 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states:
Loudermilk's timely premise and sharp writing lay a solid foundation for a strong central performance from Ron Livingston, perfectly cast in this endearing dark comedy about a rock critic turned recovering alcoholic.[14]
Distribution
The series is distributed by Sony Pictures TV; and in Canada, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S., it airs on Amazon Prime Video.[5][9][15][16] The show has also become a popular choice on Netflix since being added to their library. [17]
Future
Though the cast was released from any contractual obligations to produce further episodes after the shutdown of Audience Network, co-creator Peter Farrelly has stated that "everybody wants to come back and do Season 4", and that a production network is being sought. While Amazon was distributing the existing seasons (and Netflix has since joined them), to date they have not taken on a production role for further seasons. In total, Farrelly has envisioned seven seasons' worth of plotlines and character arcs.[3][5]
