Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To GeekWell, the dragons officially landed on HBO Max last Sunday, and if your social feeds look anything like mine, they’re currently boiling over with Targaryens. But nobody can live on dragon fire alone—sometimes you need a palate cleanser, something the family can watch, or a documentary to feed your brain. Happily, HBO Max still has a few tricks up its sleeve for June, with exactly that kind of content.
So, for this week, here are a couple of shows and a movie worth carving out time for beyond the obvious. There’s a surreal, animated comeback nearly a decade in the making, a fiery cooking competition where smoke and flame rule, and a stirring new environmental documentary from an Oscar-nominated filmmaker.
3
Regular Show: The Lost Tapes
Mordecai and Rigby are back for more chaotic adventures
After only ever seeing short clips from this surreal animated show in my Instagram feed over the years, I never actually thought I’d see any new episodes of it. Happily, that has changed. Nearly a decade after it ended, the Emmy-winning Cartoon Network favorite Regular Show, which ran from 2010 to 2017, is back with The Lost Tapes.
A revival from original creator J.G. Quintel, the show once again follows the blue jay Mordecai (voiced by Quintel himself) and Rigby the raccoon (William Salyers), two slacker best friends working as groundskeepers at a local park where the most mundane task somehow spirals into surreal, reality-bending mayhem.
Their long-suffering boss is Benson (Sam Marin), a literal gumball machine with eyes, with Mark Hamill returning as the yeti handyman Skips. There’s a neat hook with The Lost Tapes, though—every episode is framed as a “lost” VHS tape of an untold adventure, discovered by the lollipop-headed Pops in the afterlife, which cleverly lets the revival add new stories anywhere in the original timeline.
The first run of 10 episodes (Season 1A) landed on HBO Max on June 8, with new ones on the way.
Regular Show: The Lost Tapes
Release Date
May 11, 2026
WHERE TO WATCH
Network
Cartoon Network
Cast
Sam Marin, Mark Hamill, William Salyers, J.G. Quintel, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Patti Harrison, Stephen Root, Robert Englund, Joe Lo Truglio, Maria Bamford, Julian Barratt, Cooper Andrews, Matthew Mercer, Fred Tatasciore, Ali Hillis, Roger Craig Smith, Natalie Palamides, Steve Blum, Minty Lewis, Janie Haddad Tompkins, Courtenay Taylor, Steve Little, Tim Heidecker, Eric Bauza, James Adomian
Writers
Monty Ray, Toby Jones, Alex Cline, Maddie Brewer, Ryan Pequin
Main Genre
Animation
Creator(s)
J.G. Quintel
Producers
Ryan Slater
Seasons
1
Executive Producer(s)
J.G. Quintel, Sam Register, Sean Szeles
2
BBQ Brawl (Season 7)
Bobby Flay’s smokey competition show continues
I’m a sucker for a good cooking show, and since it’s summer, especially if it has to do with barbecue. Now in its seventh season, BBQ Brawl is Food Network’s stalwart barbecue competition show, and this year it comes with a personal twist. The supremely bingable show draws 12 of America’s best pitmasters and grillers, who are split into teams led by three captains—celebrity chef extraordinaire Bobby Flay, season six’s reigning champ Maneet Chauhan, and Brooke Williamson—who captain their teams through challenges at Star Hill Ranch in Austin, Texas.
This season has a personal wrinkle, though. Williamson, a longtime BBQ Brawl judge, has moved into a competing captain’s chair this season because she and Flay began dating in 2025, making it impossible for them to fairly judge each other. Because of that, two new faces have joined the judges’ table alongside Carson Kressley— renowned chef and author Adrienne Cheatham, and BBQ Brawl season 3 winner Rashad Jones. The trio decides who advances and who heads home, with the last pitmaster standing crowned “Master of ‘Cue.”
If you like cooking shows and smoked, grilled meat, BBQ Brawl is just reliable fun summer TV that’s easy to binge a few and (maybe) hit the ‘cue yourself. New episodes hit HBO Max the day after their Monday Food Network airing, running through early July.
Network
Food Network
Cast
Bobby Flay, Carson Kressley, Rodney Scott, Anne Burrell, Brooke Williamson, Michael Symon, Jet Tila, Sunny Anderson
Directors
Peter J. Babington
Main Genre
Reality
Producers
Janelle McCracken
Seasons
7
Executive Producer(s)
Kim Martin, Grant McGahuey
1
The Welcome Table
A hopeful reckoning with climate displacement
The lone documentary on this list, The Welcome Table delivers a dire message, but does it in a way that leaves you feeling hopeful, positive, and with your faith in humanity restored. From Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning filmmaker Josh Fox—best known for the HBO fracking exposé Gasland—The Welcome Table is a feature documentary that takes a sobering look at the effects of global climate migration and climate change, which the doc points out will result in one out of every three people losing their homes.
The Welcome Table isn’t your standard-talking-head-and-archive-footage documentary, though. Fox’s framing is unusual and moving—he builds a 1,000-foot dinner table along a New Orleans levee and invites climate refugees from around the world living through the crisis now, to take a seat and share their stories. Their accounts are harrowing and devastating and include families displaced by the 2018 Paradise wildfires, communities scattered by rising seas, and those ravaged by Hurricane Irma. Their stories are backdropped with live music from New Orleans legends, including jazz singer John Boutté (who wrote the theme to HBO’s Treme) and actor-director John Cameron Mitchell.
The Welcome Table is part sobering climate report, part hopeful celebration of resilience, that will leave you with a few things to think about. It premieres June 23 on HBO Max.
Fun, fire, and faith in humanity
From a talking gumball machine to a show that will make your mouth water to a documentary that delivers hope, these three picks make for a varied week of watching. When you’re done, however, head to How-To Geek’s streaming section for more ideas on your next watch.
Subscription with ads
Yes, $10.99/month
Simultaneous streams
2 or 4
HBO Max is a subscription-based streaming service offering content from HBO, Warner Bros., DC, and more. In 2025, the service re-branded itself as HBO Max after having previously cut “HBO” from its name.
Live TV
Live sports available in Standard and Premium plans
Price
Starting at $10.99/month or $109.99/year
