This week's pick: "Love," an endearingly cringy comedy series from the minds of Judd Apatow and a few other fantastic writers. Starring Gillian Jacobs ("Community") and Paul Rust ("Animals."), "Love" tackles complex issues like substance abuse, career development and, obviously, love!
But more so than that, it captures the essence of dating in the 21st century, of what it means to be exclusive, inclusive, "it's complicated" and just about every other label in the book (and there are quite a few). When you watch "Love," you don't only feel for the characters and their inability to find real love, but you relate to them...more than you ever really wanted to.
Netflix hit it out of the park on this one, and if you haven't watched already you're missing out. Three seasons of unbearable awkwardness await and if we haven't sold you yet, keep reading to let us work our magic and convince you why "Love" should be the next show you binge.
Especially if you just got broken up with and desperately need to feel something.
W<span>hat's it about, you ask?</span>
Unhandled
Real, true love is messy. It's alllll sorts of weird. It's questionable and hard and hilarious and never ever, ever perfect. It's nothing "like the movies" and yet, "Love" managed to capture it perfectly. The way our personalities clash. The way we feed off each other in the strangest imaginable ways.
"Love" is the story of two such tortured souls, Gus and Mickey, 20-somethings living and working in LA, hiding from their pasts while still enveloped in them (but aren't we all amiright?). They meet at a gas station, after having respectively terrible nights/days and their vulnerability brings them together.
From there, it's weird dates, a couple hook-ups, plenty of fights, an acid trip and everything else that comes with being young, dumb and stupid. But we're not here to judge! We're just here to remind ourselves that we have the same exact problems as these fictional characters -- and that's what makes "Love" great: relatability.
But what makes it <i>different</i>?<div><sup>And why should I care?</sup></div>
Everything about "Love" makes it different. It has varying episode lengths (for peak binge-ability), a mostly unknown cast, a fairly unexplored topic and much more. But what truly makes "Love" stand out from other rom-com TV series, in our humble opinion, is the reversal of gender stereotypes.
Don't worry, we're not getting socially political or anything. In the show, Gus is the feminine character and Mickey is the masculine. Stereotypically speaking. He is effeminate, flamboyant and "meek," whereas Mickey is more of an outgoing bad*ss who's not afraid to smoke pot in her beat-up car and jump off of roofs into swimming pools.
It's refreshing to see how writers explore their characters from perspectives we're not traditionally used to, and in today's day and age we could seriously use more of that.
If you're still on the fence...
- Look up Judd Apatow and see if you like any of his other movies. (You probably do.)
- Think back to your 20-somethings and decide if you want to relive them or not.
- Watch one episode. There's no harm in giving it a try!
- Look at all the other shows in your Netflix queue.
- See reasons one through four above.
- Watch the trailer below.