It starts with a stolen necklace. Siblings Nicky and Morgan need to find a piece of jewellery that looks like one their dying grandmother used to own. They find it. They cannot afford it. Morgan steals it. The man they stole it from turns out to be connected to very dangerous people. And just like that, two people who have absolutely no business being anywhere near organised crime are being told they work for organised crime now.

This is the setup of Big Mistakes, Dan Levy's new Netflix series, and it is a good one. Simple, clean, with an obvious comic engine: put the least equipped people imaginable into the most requiring situation imaginable and watch what happens. The show takes a couple of episodes to really find its footing but once it does it becomes something genuinely warm and funny, the kind of series you finish in a weekend without noticing the hours going.

Dan Levy plays Nicky, a gay pastor who responds to every crisis with escalating eloquence and absolutely no practical capability. It is very much in his wheelhouse and he is very good at it. But the person you will be talking about after watching this show is Taylor Ortega as Morgan. She is ferociously funny. Physically committed, emotionally unpredictable, somehow both reckless and oddly perceptive at the same time. Every scene she is in has more energy than it would without her.

Laurie Metcalf plays their mother Linda, who spends the season running a small town political campaign while her children are accidentally embedded in a cartel operation. The two halves of the show sometimes feel like different series and that ends up being more of a feature than a problem. Metcalf is extraordinary as she always is. Elizabeth Perkins as the community's most quietly dangerous political wife is perfectly cast and is clearly enjoying every second of it. Boran Kuzum as Yusuf, the man whose necklace started all of this, finds genuine depth in a role that could easily have been one note.

People will compare it to Schitt's Creek because Dan Levy and dysfunctional family and warmth beneath the chaos. That comparison is fair but it undersells how much darker this show is willing to go. The crime elements have real teeth. The danger is played straight. The comedy works precisely because the stakes are genuine rather than softened. This is closer to Ozark territory than anything Levy has done before, just with considerably more laughs and a mother running for local office.

It is not a flawless season. The first two episodes are slightly tentative, some of the plot mechanics in the middle stretch feel a little clunky, and there are moments where the show is reaching for something it has not quite earned yet. But the cast carries it through every soft patch and the finale lands with enough confidence and enough setup for what comes next that you will immediately want more.

Levy has already teased what is coming. Morgan and Nicky know too much now. There is no way out. An awkward wedding is on the horizon. Annette's reveal as the actual boss of the operation changes everything. He described it as bigger and more chaotic. Given what Season 1 already put these people through, that is both a promise and a mild threat.