Awful people are fun to watch.
Look
at the most popular TV shows today and you'll find casts full of
awful, awful people doing terrible, terrible things to each other.
“Orange is the New Black” centers on a stuck-up WASP who cheats
on her husband in prison. “Breaking Bad” chronicles a chemistry
teacher's descent into dealing meth as he destroys his entire family.
“Girls” mocks its own cast, the most cartoonish
twentysomethings-of-privilege ever conceived. These shows allow us to
laugh at, judge, and secretly wish to emulate those we would, in
reality, despise.
While that's all fun, it's nice to see a respite from suffocating meanness. That's exactly what “Togetherness”, HBO's new comedy from the Duplass brothers (well known for “Safety Not Guaranteed”, “The Skeleton Twins”, and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home”), offers: nice, realistic people with nice, realistic problems.
While that's all fun, it's nice to see a respite from suffocating meanness. That's exactly what “Togetherness”, HBO's new comedy from the Duplass brothers (well known for “Safety Not Guaranteed”, “The Skeleton Twins”, and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home”), offers: nice, realistic people with nice, realistic problems.
Somehow,
it's totally engrossing.
The
first episode, “Family Day,” sets up our premise. Brett (Mark
Duplass) and Michelle (Melanie Lynskey) are a married couple in Los
Angeles with two kids. When Brett's best friend, the struggling,
balding, overweight actor Alex (Steve Zissis) loses his apartment and
threatens to give up on the California dream, Brett lets him stay on
the couch to keep him in the city. Michelle's older sister, Tina
(Amanda Peet), also comes to stay in the house after a sudden
breakup, and thus our little family is born.
And
that's the plot of the show. That's it. Just some people who care
about each other living together and going about their intersecting
lives. Michelle isn't secretly cheating on Brett because she's grown
bored of him. Alex isn't about to suddenly receiving a starring role
and become a huge name in LA. The biggest crises presented in the
first two episodes are “our sex life is stale,” “I'm overweight
and lack ambition,” “I feel alone in comparison to my younger,
married sister,” and “I'm under-appreciated at my job.”
And it works.
There's nothing big about the show, nothing loud, but it just works. For thirty minutes a week—on the same night as its polar opposite, “Girls”—we get to check in with a nice, likable family and see how they are faring against their everyday struggles. No one is a caricature: the aloof sister isn't a mooching layabout, the wife growing less attracted to her husband isn't a callous and unloving bitch, the funny overweight guy isn't a cartoon fat man falling down all day. The idea of a low-key family drama is almost dead in 2015, with only NBC's “Parenthood” having kept alive this subgenre for the past few years. On the Las Vegas strip of television, “Togetherness” is a quiet restaurant with reasonable prices where you can relax after spending the day at magic shows and strip clubs and giant casinos.
An
episode of “Togetherness” ends up being a lot like a visit with
your family. Not much really happens, and there might be a few little
spats during your stay. But much like Brett and Michelle sharing a
loving moment of making the same stupid face at each other after an
attempt to spice up their sex life ends with a testicle injury, you
always settle into that indescribable feeling of comfort and remember
what makes being there so special.
Also,
does anyone else think Mark Duplass looks like John Darnielle?
"Togetherness" airs Sundays at 9:30 p.m. (EST) on HBO.
Jonathan Persinger writes stuff.
Stuff: Founding Editor of Remarkable
Doorways Online Literary Magazine. Pop culture reviews at Blog
with a Dog. Fiction in eFiction, exFic, the
Avalon Literary Review, Quail Bell Magazine, and
Wild Violet; forthcoming
in Scribble and the
Potomac Review.
Nice work Jon!
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