Is 'Irma Vep' Lowkey the Best (and Queerest) TV Show On Right Now?

""The Bear" and "Stranger Things" are probably the two most popular TV shows of the summer. And while some corners of the internet debate Will's sexuality, those who want good (and queer) TV should check out "Irma Vep" on HBO if they haven't already.

Though based on existing I.P., the show seems about as niche as it can get. It's a remake of sorts of French filmmaker Olivier Assayas' 1996 film "Irma Vep," starring Maggie Cheung, which is about a washed up French director looking to turn his career around with a remake of Louis Feuillade's silent-era epic "Les Vampires" but the shoot is rife with issues. With the miniseries, Assayas writes and directs all eight episodes but the story is expanded and turned inside out for the small screen with Assayas pulling out some of his biggest tricks in his 30-plus-year career.

Similar to the film, the "Irma Vep" series is set on a Paris shoot for a TV show of "Les Vampires," with an out-of-control director in René Vidal (an amazing Vincent Macaigne) who has cast openly queer A-list movie star Mira Harberg (Oscar winner Alicia Vikander) as his new Irma Vep. Mira balances her career between making big-budget blockbusters and smaller projects that speak to her on an artistic level, and the character Irma Vep speaks to her. During her time as the seductive latex-catsuit-wearing villainess, something shifts in Mira, allowing her to be more confident and spiritually connected to the project. As she's inhabiting the role, Mira is also bumping up against her ex-girlfriend Laurie (Adria Arjona), who was also her former assistant before dumping her and running off to marry director Herman Ray. These scenes between Vikander and Arjona are some of the show's most sexually tense.

As the show goes on, it begins to become a commentary on the film industry, feeling pretty inside baseball. It gets into very fine details about how difficult it is to actually create cinema and what goes into a production. "Irma Vep" also raises existential questions threatening the industry – Can TV be cinema? Are indie projects just as artistically bankrupt as major motion pictures?

"When I did it in the '90s, cinema was in turmoil for many different reasons. I think now it's in turmoil for completely new and different reasons. It means I had a completely different engine and could tell a completely different story based on something I already visited in another time," Assayas told Vulture, adding that "Irma Vep" is "not a movie" but a "concept."

Not only that, but "Irma Vep" is one of the most meta shows I've seen, breaking down walls that relate to our reality. About halfway through the show, René is haunted by his ex-wife Jade, a former actress from Hong Kong who starred in his film version of "Irma Vep." In reality, Assayas was briefly married to now-retired Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, who starred in his 1996 film while they were together. In the TV show, René has some serious and riveting talks with the "spirit" of Jade, about what went wrong in their relationship, why he's even remaking "Irma Vep," why he changed the character to a white woman and so much more. The show also frequently switches perspectives. Sometimes we see the cast and crew as they are; sometimes we see them in character filming their "Irma Vep"; sometimes the same actors are used by Assayas to recreate scenes from the 1920s involving the cast and crew on the set of "Les Vampires."

Always lavish-looking, Assayas' new update to "Irma Vep," which is also extremely funny at times, has so many layers. It looks back at the early days of cinema – a dangerous time when people were inventing the playbook of moviemaking – while weaving the past into a story that's about the now. "Irma Vep" is not what you think it is, but it's better for it.