{"id":240022,"date":"2026-08-07T16:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/240022\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:05:12","slug":"bloody-murray-is-the-israeli-rom-com-you-need-to-watch-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/240022\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Bloody Murray\u2019 is the Israeli rom-com you need to watch: review"},"content":{"rendered":"

It shouldn\u2019t be too hard for a smart, funny, and successful Israeli woman to meet Mr. Right.<\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s the theory hilariously put to the test in \u201cBloody Murray,\u201d the hit Israeli romantic comedy<\/a> that recently made its U.S. debut on ChaiFlicks.<\/p>\n

The series centers on two 35-year-old roommates and best friends navigating careers, dating, and the pressure to settle down in Tel Aviv. Murray (Naomi Levov) teaches romantic comedies at a university but can\u2019t seem to make one happen in her own life. Her roommate Dana (Rotem Sela), meanwhile, is a successful gynecologist whose romantic life isn\u2019t exactly thriving either.<\/p>\n

Originally released in Israel in 2022, the nine-episode first season premiered on ChaiFlicks on July 19, with new episodes arriving weekly. The streamer has also acquired the second season, which will receive its global premiere on the platform at a later date.<\/p>\n

Crash, smash, dash to a wedding?<\/p>\n

\u201cBloody Murray\u201d wastes no time creating its own meet-cute.<\/p>\n

After Murray gets into a minor car accident with Lior (Shlomi Tapiero), he initially pretends to be a police officer. Once he comes clean, Murray realizes that beneath the bizarre introduction is a handsome, confident man.<\/p>\n

Instead of exchanging insurance information like normal adults, Murray drives off. But because she teaches romantic comedies for a living, she can\u2019t help wondering whether the crash was actually fate intervening.<\/p>\n

Then comes the twist: When Lior tracks Murray down, he meets Dana instead \u2014 and is immediately interested in her.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Murray is forced to watch the man she had begun imagining as her romantic destiny date her best friend.<\/p>\n

Hey jealousy!<\/p>\n

Murray insists she\u2019s fine with Dana and Lior dating.<\/p>\n

She is very much not fine.<\/p>\n

Part of what makes Murray such an entertaining protagonist is that she knows all the rules of romantic comedies. She teaches them. She analyzes them. And yet she is remarkably incapable of understanding her own romantic life.<\/p>\n

\"Naomi\"Naomi<\/p>\n

Naomi (Levov) has her eye on Lior (Shlomo Tapiaro) (Chai Flicks)<\/p>\n

Her jealousy is also wrapped up in her insecurities about Dana. Murray sees her best friend as more beautiful, more composed and more professionally impressive. Dana, of course, has insecurities of her own.<\/p>\n

Things get even messier when Murray and Lior go shopping for Dana\u2019s birthday and run into Murray\u2019s commitment-phobic, on-again, off-again ex, Gur (Omer Etzion). Murray asks Lior to pretend they\u2019re dating to make Gur jealous \u2014 and is caught off guard when Lior kisses her.<\/p>\n

Was he just committing to the bit, or is this love triangle becoming something more?<\/p>\n

Etzion is especially entertaining as Gur, the kind of man who is utterly convinced he is right even when he has absolutely no idea what is going on.<\/p>\n

An unhealthy crush?<\/p>\n

Dana has romantic complications of her own.<\/p>\n

Her brilliant but demanding boss, Atias (Yoram Toledano), invites her to attend an important medical conference in Europe. The problem? The trip conflicts with Lior returning home.<\/p>\n

\"Dana\"Dana<\/p>\n

Dana (Sela) has a drink with Atias, (Rotem Toledano) (Chai Flicks)<\/p>\n

As Dana\u2019s relationship with Lior develops, so does an increasingly complicated dynamic with Atias, who is separating from his wife and wrestling with feelings he didn\u2019t expect to have.<\/p>\n

Toledano gives Atias a welcome complexity, playing him as both stern and vulnerable. When the normally meticulous doctor makes an uncharacteristic medical mistake, it becomes clear that his personal life may be affecting him more than he realizes.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not supposed to vomit in a fish tank<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Gur begins reconsidering his relationship with Murray and decides he might actually be willing to give commitment a try.<\/p>\n

Naturally, it does not go smoothly.<\/p>\n

Without giving too much away, an evening involving illness, a fish tank and some spectacularly bad behavior becomes one of the series\u2019 funniest sequences.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s what \u201cBloody Murray\u201d does particularly well: The most absurd moments still reveal something real about its characters. Sometimes you learn more about a potential partner when everything goes catastrophically wrong than you ever could over a perfect candlelit dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cBloody Murray\u201d is an Israeli story that has nothing to do with war<\/p>\n

For American audiences, one of the most refreshing aspects of \u201cBloody Murray\u201d may simply be seeing an Israeli series whose central conflict has nothing to do with terrorism, espionage, or war.<\/p>\n

\"Rotem\"Rotem<\/p>\n

Rotem Sela and Shlomi Tapiaro in Bloody Murray (Chai Flicks)<\/p>\n

While internationally successful Israeli shows like \u201cFauda\u201d <\/a>and \u201cTehran\u201d revolve around national security, the crises in \u201cBloody Murray\u201d are wonderfully ordinary: bad dates, complicated friendships, impossible apartment hunts, and wondering whether you\u2019re falling behind while everyone else seems to have figured out adulthood.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the show ignores Israeli society. In one scene, Murray confronts a landlord who appears unwilling to consider her Arab friend as a potential tenant. But politics exists in the background of these characters\u2019 lives rather than defining them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBloody Murray\u201d ultimately feels unmistakably Israeli while telling a story that could resonate almost anywhere.<\/p>\n

Is the juice worth the squeeze?<\/p>\n

Even Israeli celebrity culture gets dragged into Murray\u2019s increasingly chaotic life.<\/p>\n

While checking out an apartment, she encounters Israeli actor Ofer Schechter, playing himself, after he spills juice on her. Murray soon finds herself helping him prepare for an audition and wondering whether yet another chance encounter might be the universe trying to send her a message.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s quintessential Murray: Practically anything can become evidence that her life is about to turn into the romantic comedy she has been waiting for.<\/p>\n

A lot of laughs, but this one is the best<\/p>\n

One of the series\u2019 funniest moments comes courtesy of Dana.<\/p>\n

\"Elad\"Elad<\/p>\n

Elad Atrakchi and Rotem Sela (Chai Flicks)<\/p>\n

When a woman arrives at the hospital unsure whether she wants an abortion, Dana becomes increasingly furious with the seemingly flippant man accompanying her. She finally lets him have it \u2014 only to discover that she has misunderstood a rather crucial part of the situation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, uncomfortable and exactly the kind of scene at which \u201cBloody Murray\u201d excels: letting its characters confidently race toward conclusions before reality knocks them over.<\/p>\n

All\u2019s well that ends well?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m usually pretty good at predicting how a movie or television series is going to end.<\/p>\n

\u201cBloody Murray\u201d got me.<\/p>\n

Saying much more would ruin the fun, but the finale makes some surprising choices while leaving plenty of room for the story to continue.<\/p>\n

The accolades suggest I\u2019m far from alone in my enthusiasm. The first season won Best Comedy Series at France\u2019s Series Mania festival in 2022. More recently, \u201cBloody Murray\u201d won five prizes in the comedy categories at the Israeli Television Academy Awards, including Best Comedy Series, Best Director, Best Script, Best Actress for Levov and Best Supporting Actress for Sela.<\/p>\n

Great chemistry and even better writing<\/p>\n

The series ultimately works because Levov and Sela are so good together.<\/p>\n

Sela, one of Israel\u2019s biggest television stars, is familiar to audiences from \u201cThe Beauty and the Baker\u201d <\/a>and \u201cA Body That Works.\u201d Levov previously starred in the acclaimed Israeli series \u201cOn the Spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sela\"Sela<\/p>\n

Rotem Sela and Naomi Levov show their comedic chops and well as their dramatic ones (Chai Flicks)<\/p>\n

Here, Sela gives a more restrained performance as Dana, providing the perfect counterweight to Levov\u2019s wonderfully unpredictable Murray.<\/p>\n

The two have terrific chemistry. Their friendship feels lived-in \u2014 affectionate one minute and exasperated the next \u2014 and creator and writer Stav Idisis understands that the real love story at the center of \u201cBloody Murray\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily between either woman and a man. It\u2019s between Murray and Dana.<\/p>\n

The romantic entanglements keep the plot moving, but their friendship gives the show its heart.<\/p>\n

What is ChaiFlicks?<\/p>\n

Often described as the \u201cNetflix of Jewish content,\u201d ChaiFlicks<\/a> specializes in Jewish and Israeli television and film.<\/p>\n

Its library includes \u201cCheckout\u201d (\u201cKupa Rashit\u201d), the hit Israeli sitcom set inside a chaotic supermarket, and \u201cThe New Black\u201d (\u201cShababnikim\u201d), about four yeshiva students who don\u2019t exactly excel at following the rules.<\/p>\n

The service is also home to \u201cShtisel,\u201d<\/a> the acclaimed drama starring Michael Aloni as Akiva Shtisel, a young Haredi artist trying to find love and his place within Jerusalem\u2019s ultra-Orthodox community.<\/p>\n

Now \u201cBloody Murray\u201d joins the lineup \u2014 and it deserves to find an audience well beyond Israel.<\/p>\n

Across nine episodes, Murray and Dana make questionable decisions, fall for the wrong people, fight, reconcile and repeatedly discover that real life refuses to follow the rules of a romantic comedy.<\/p>\n

The result is funny, messy and incredibly watchable.<\/p>\n

Watching \u201cBloody Murray\u201d is like ordering a drink at a bar and immediately knowing you\u2019re going to want another. It isn\u2019t just one of the funniest Israeli rom-coms in recent years; it\u2019s one of the most entertaining rom-com series you\u2019ll find, bar none.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It shouldn\u2019t be too hard for a smart, funny, and successful Israeli woman to meet Mr. Right. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[28733,37,20959,65027,11162,67073,18982,67074,554,9560,29649],"class_list":["post-240022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-comedy","tag-israel","tag-israel-culture","tag-israel21c","tag-israeli-tv","tag-jewish-television","tag-love","tag-romance","tag-television","tag-tv","tag-tv-show"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117055083590841226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}