Easy (Netflix, Season 1)
Dec. 30th, 2016 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroA series of vignettes about “couples, life, sex and technology.” Less like a TV series and more like a short-story collection gleaned from attending a lot of cocktail parties.
It’s hella pretentious and “artsy.” The dialogue is clearly intended to be “realistic”, and it does give things a “reality TV” feel, for better or worse. They take advantage of the Netflix format to show boobs and drop f-bombs.
This is SOOOO not Jethrien’s thing, as there are lots of “wince” moments, and there are less clear takeaways to any episode so much as a clear implication you’re supposed to think deep, arty thoughts about what it means. “People make poor choices but life generally goes on despite it” seems to be the theme to this series, to the extent it has one.
Episode 1 has a long-time married couple with kids inspired to try sexy roleplaying to revive their flagging sex life, only to be constantly interrupted by work and kids. Well that’s…painfully familiar. Awkwardly so, really.
Episode 2 has college-age lesbians with one of them trying to convert the other to veganism. (Or, at least, one of them is trying to impress the other by being converted. It goes about as badly as you’d expect, though at least they’re sensible about it in the end.) The convert-ee is the babysitter for the couple from the first episode, and the children appear as recurring characters.
Episode 3 features a pair of brothers (one of them the boyfriend of the woman who’s the best friend in episode 2—I see how they’re semi-interconnecting this) deciding to start up an illegal brewery. And, of course, the other brother (who’s bankrolling this) decides not to mention it to his pregnant wife. When she finds out, she gets upset…and then they talk it out like sensible adults. Hey, that’s unusual to see on TV, right? Especially two episodes in a row?
Episode 4, for a change of pace, is almost entirely in Spanish and subtitled. It includes a dubiously consensual scene that could be read as either infidelity or rape, and I’m going to go ahead and guess that, as the writer/director is male, is intended to be infidelity. (A writer for The Mary Sue, shockingly, read it as rape.) Either way…ehhhhh.
Episode 5 has a comic artist make an ass of himself and it goes viral…but then turns that into a good thing? (I feel like this drifts out of “sensible adults” and into “wish fulfillment”.) And speaking of wish fulfillment, episode 6 features Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman and Kate Micucci having a threesome, humorously interrupted by a colicky baby. Delightful fanservice in that one, certainly.
Episode 7 features an actress deciding where to take her life following a breakup. The artist’s best friend from episode 5 return as a castmate/confident of the protagonist (and the focus shifts to her mid-episode), and the vegan girl from episode 2 as her neighbor. The attempts to interpose the two stories (as there clearly wasn’t enough material for either one to stand alone) doesn’t actually really work.
Episode 8 circles back, and follows a reporter investigating the underground brewery from episode 3, and then follows up on that cast. I found it particularly strange that there’s a single “sequel” episode with six other unconnected stories.
Overall: I suspect that the writer/director has a following large enough to get Netflix to hand him some money and say, “Do whatever you want.” And he did. While there were some things to appeal to me, I don’t think this was neatly as smart or as poignant as it thought it was.
It’s hella pretentious and “artsy.” The dialogue is clearly intended to be “realistic”, and it does give things a “reality TV” feel, for better or worse. They take advantage of the Netflix format to show boobs and drop f-bombs.
This is SOOOO not Jethrien’s thing, as there are lots of “wince” moments, and there are less clear takeaways to any episode so much as a clear implication you’re supposed to think deep, arty thoughts about what it means. “People make poor choices but life generally goes on despite it” seems to be the theme to this series, to the extent it has one.
Episode 1 has a long-time married couple with kids inspired to try sexy roleplaying to revive their flagging sex life, only to be constantly interrupted by work and kids. Well that’s…painfully familiar. Awkwardly so, really.
Episode 2 has college-age lesbians with one of them trying to convert the other to veganism. (Or, at least, one of them is trying to impress the other by being converted. It goes about as badly as you’d expect, though at least they’re sensible about it in the end.) The convert-ee is the babysitter for the couple from the first episode, and the children appear as recurring characters.
Episode 3 features a pair of brothers (one of them the boyfriend of the woman who’s the best friend in episode 2—I see how they’re semi-interconnecting this) deciding to start up an illegal brewery. And, of course, the other brother (who’s bankrolling this) decides not to mention it to his pregnant wife. When she finds out, she gets upset…and then they talk it out like sensible adults. Hey, that’s unusual to see on TV, right? Especially two episodes in a row?
Episode 4, for a change of pace, is almost entirely in Spanish and subtitled. It includes a dubiously consensual scene that could be read as either infidelity or rape, and I’m going to go ahead and guess that, as the writer/director is male, is intended to be infidelity. (A writer for The Mary Sue, shockingly, read it as rape.) Either way…ehhhhh.
Episode 5 has a comic artist make an ass of himself and it goes viral…but then turns that into a good thing? (I feel like this drifts out of “sensible adults” and into “wish fulfillment”.) And speaking of wish fulfillment, episode 6 features Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman and Kate Micucci having a threesome, humorously interrupted by a colicky baby. Delightful fanservice in that one, certainly.
Episode 7 features an actress deciding where to take her life following a breakup. The artist’s best friend from episode 5 return as a castmate/confident of the protagonist (and the focus shifts to her mid-episode), and the vegan girl from episode 2 as her neighbor. The attempts to interpose the two stories (as there clearly wasn’t enough material for either one to stand alone) doesn’t actually really work.
Episode 8 circles back, and follows a reporter investigating the underground brewery from episode 3, and then follows up on that cast. I found it particularly strange that there’s a single “sequel” episode with six other unconnected stories.
Overall: I suspect that the writer/director has a following large enough to get Netflix to hand him some money and say, “Do whatever you want.” And he did. While there were some things to appeal to me, I don’t think this was neatly as smart or as poignant as it thought it was.
