As of writing this post, I've officially ended my Apple+ subscription.
You know how subscriptions tend to reel you in and try different tricks to make it hard to quit... I decided to end my subscription because:
a) I've finished all the shows I wanted to see and I don't feel like waiting around for future seasons; and
b) the price per month is being raised from $9.99 to $12.99...
The screen immediately following me hitting "cancel subscription"- the whole vibe read "oh, please don't go, we'll give you 2 months at a reduced rate... and then we'll raise it up to $12.99"
When Ted Lasso and this show come back, I might reconsider it. But for now, I can confidently say I'm ready to move on and I'm happy with what I did with the time I had.
***
Of the series I'd watched with my mom, this was her favorite. Months from now, she'll still be talking about how great it was. How fun the characters are and how great the banter is.
Ted Lasso is still my #1, but this will sit at a firm second place.
I was inspired to check this one out after the Emmy nominations came out and the trailer did a good job showing just how an interesting a series this could be.
But I still wouldn't have expected to enjoy it THIS much. It had a good mixture of funny moments as well as heartwrenching and serious ones.
For starters, the main three characters, Jimmy, Paul and Gabby, are therapists who work at the same practice and are good friends outside of work as well. Also in their friend group are Jimmy's neighbors Liz and Derek and his BFF, Brian.
The series's main hook, which was played up really well in the trailer, was about Jimmy being a grieving widow who'd essentially sleepwalked through the past year of his life. He finally reaches a breaking point where he decides to give his clients unfiltered advice and becomes personally invested in their lives. And he slowly gets reacquainted with the people in his life. The most important of them being his daughter, Alice.
It's an interesting concept. These three therapists are all good at what they do and their skillsets vary. They are also human and sometimes struggle to deal with their own problems.
My mom is a huge Harrison Ford fan and both of us equally loved him as Paul. Being that residential voice of reason combined with his dry sense of humor makes it a role tailor-made for him. While he's really good at advising those around him, he's not perfect. Now that he's dealing with the early symptoms of Parkinson's, he's forced to be more open to receiving help and, more importantly, knowing when to ask for it instead of trying to get by on his own.
Under that gruff exterior is a big heart and he shows this off in some nice unexpected ways through the series. The greatest of these moments is in the second season finale during Thanksgiving. Not going to spoil it, but have some tissues handy.
I hadn't seen too many of his movies beyond his work as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, but I'd say if he does nothing else with the rest of his career, that scene will stand out as one of his greatest acting moments.
Wendie Malick also has a recurring role as his doctor-turned-girlfriend and the two of them are really great together.
Then there's Gabby, who fills a variety of roles throughout the series, but the common denominator of them all: she's so quick to assume the role of caregiver and putting others' needs first that she doesn't always give herself permission to look out for her own interests. The end of season two shows her slowly moving in that direction and hopefully she's able to make more progress in the future.
While Jimmy starts making some major headway with his patients while getting a little more involved in resolving their issues, he has one major relationship that needs to be remediated on the homefront.
His daughter Alice isn't talking to him because he'd checked out while they were grieving her mom's death. They have several ups and downs throughout the series and things have a way of working themselves out.
Also, in the times he'd been checked out, others have stepped in to fill in the void left by Jimmy's absence.
The most notable being his neighbor and recent empty nester Liz. She can be kind of a bitch and over the top sometimes. But when it comes to the people she cares about, she'll fiercely defend them. Aside from being a bit of a busybody, she likes to polish rocks and she gives the special people in her life a rock when they've earned it.
Her husband Derek is the polar opposite in a lot of ways. His actor played a similar role in Married with Children where he's the more laidback member of the married couple. If anything, he's good for a laugh but that's not all there is to his character.
And also, Paul has had regular sessions with Alice where she'll meet with him on a park bench and they talk about things. She often brings some sugary treat as payment and it's a fun running gag to see his reactions to them.
Another character we're introduced to is Brian. Who doesn't just play the overenthusiastic gay friend, but he's also the type of lawyer you only see in TV and movies where they use their law degree in multiple facets of the legal profession. He's an estate lawyer but a few times, he acts as a defense attorney on Jimmy's benefit (or technically, his patient's behalf). I'm no expert but apparently this would not fly in real life. Just because you have a law degree in one particular thing, doesn't mean you can just use their legal expertise whenever it's conveneient.
His character has a few interesting plots points throughout the series. He gets married to his longtime boyfriend Charlie and they pursue adoption to start a family.
This particular storyline, I kinda took issue with... they went into the marriage with the understanding they weren't having a family even though Charlie wanted kids but Brian isn't interested. Yet the typical peer pressure thing happens and Brian is forced to change his mind. Media needs to stop doing this nonsense. This is a big decision both parts of the couple need to agree on before going to the altar. No takebacks.
Oh... and in the show, there's an outdoor dining establishment with cornhole and Brian started a movement where you yell "cornhole!" when you sink a beanbag in the hole. This comes back a few times through the series- always good for a smile.
As for Jimmy's patients, there's two notable ones because they get massive character arcs.
Grace is played by that one actress from the Hotels.com commercials and she's always over the top and quirky. In this role, she's a lot more understated. Which I personally prefer- both of those Hotels.com actors annoy me.
So Grace's whole character arc is about her emotionally abusive relationship with her husband. When Jimmy finally snaps out of his funk, he flat-out tells her to leave her husband because he's never going to treat her well. And for a while, he succeeds...
The story has a good resolution in the end but, man, it had its frustrating moments.
Then there's Sean, an army vet who'd recently ended his tour overseas and he's dealing with a lot of issues afterwards. Anger, PTSD, not knowing what to do without the routine that comes with the military life.
Jimmy goes above and beyond to help him get back on his feet when his folks kick him out of the house for getting into too many bar fights. Some of his advice is unconventional and not all of it works to his advantage. But eventually they do get things right and Sean's life is made better for it. And Jimmy's various connections are also impacted by having him in their lives as well.
For me, probably the most unexpected turn with this series... Jimmy's wife/Alice's mom/Gabby's best friend Tia was tragically killed in a car accident.
We actually get to meet and spend time with the guy responsible for her death.
And it's none other than Roy Kent himself, Brett Goldstein, who was a writer on this show as well as Ted Lasso.
It's bizarre but also kinda funny how this dude kept showing up in the Apple content I was watching. I've had several actors I'd actively followed from one movie to another... and in some cases, actors I followed through various roles because of how they were connected with a certain actor. But that wasn't the case here, just a series of funny coincidences.
The only thing I purposely watched for Brett Goldstein on this streaming platform was the movie "All of You"... somehow, my Google page on my phone got the idea "oh, you liked Ted Lasso? Check out one of the actors from that show in this movie."
It wasn't the best movie in the world but I still enjoyed it. He was probably the best part of it honestly and I'm just saying that as someone who finds him likable as an actor.
So his character, Louis, in this series shows up a number of times in season 2. Alice gets several bits of advice for dealing with her grief throughout and one is writing a letter you don't intend to send but the act of writing it is therapeutic.
She tracks him down to where he works and finally gets some of her grievences off her chest about how his actions ruined her life. But we also learn he'd been struggling with what he'd done and hadn't quite made peace with it.
One episode shows a bunch of flashbacks with the main characters but also what his life was like before the accident. He and his girlfriend had this really cute relationship, including their favorite pasttime of people watching at the train station.
I think the last time I saw this was in Family Guy with Stewie and his girlfriend, Olivia, where they'd comment on people they see while in the park. But with Louis and his girlfriend, they make up lives and backgrounds for the people at the train station.
There's a huge question mark about what happened to his girlfriend after the accident. Was she also collateral damage? Did she leave him? The answer was somewhat anti-climatic but at least it was something I didn't expect.
Alice and Brian both wind up spending time with Louis and getting to know him. This does not go over well when Jimmy finds out... this thread finds its own resolution later on and again, it's unexpected and that's what makes it good.
So often, when someone drives drunk and someone else is killed as a result of their actions, it's easy to write them off as villains or jerks who had no sense of accountability. Just like the whole angle of therapists being as imperfect as their patients, the way the show spun this was really well done and kinda makes you think.
With Jason Segel, who plays Jimmy. I'd only seen him in a couple of roles prior to this. The big one that comes to mind is Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That movie starts in a similar place as this series did... where his character is grieving someone that had been a huge part of his life and eventually finds his way out of that depression.
But much of my memory of that movie was ruined by the full frontal nudity in the first several minutes of it... maybe I owe it to myself to try watching it again but maybe on cable where all the R-rated stuff is edited out...
Speaking of the content, this series mostly had langauge under the content warning section. Occasionally violence and a little sexuality. Whatever sexuality it had, it was handled really well. And compared to The Morning Show, where there were endless tirades laden with F-bombs, the cursing was used very tastfully. I'm not so sure about Alice, who's only 17, using that language, especially towards her father. (I definitely wouldn't have gotten away with that if I was her age). But whenever any of the other cast members used the f-word, it was always to express frustration, not just tearing the other person a new one.
Again, Harrison Ford showed why he was the best actor on this show because the way he used language, it not only felt organic, but it was as if he turned them into an art form.
So yeah, overall, this was a really good show. And I can say from experience that it's a good one to watch with family or anyone you consider as close as family.
In fact, that's another reason why this show is so good. It's about a group of friends and their families and together, they're all as close as family. And if they're not at first, they become as close as family over time.
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