The Don's Forbidden Counsel

If you binge vertical dramas on your phone, queue this up tonight. On the surface this is a Romance / Mafia serial, but underneath it is a story about two people orbiting one inevitable collision — and "The Don's Forbidden Counsel" plays both layers for all they are worth.

Law student Mara Quinn loses her mother, her tuition and her boyfriend in quick succession — the last to her stepsister — and takes refuge with a stranger who turns out to be both her ex's father and one of New York's most feared Dons. Then the show gets smart: her legal mind becomes the family's weapon, exposing traps and freezing finances in a war with a Russian syndicate. A crime procedural with a forbidden romance for fuel.

Tropes on the menu: step-siblings, lawyer. Watch it in one sitting or savor it nightly; either way, the hooks do their job.