It Gets Worse is a new British comedy on Paramount+ that fits firmly in the “twentysomethings figuring things out” genre, which generally makes us roll our eyes. But this series does things a little differently.
Opening Shot: As we see someone looking through a hole in the wall, a narrator (Zadie Smith) says, “Ethan had one of the easiest lives in recorded human history.”
The Gist: The hole that Ethan (Leo Reich) is staring through is the one he put through the wall of the flat he and his college buddies Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray) are moving out of. He apparently thought he needed a hammer to remove a picture from the wall.
The roomies are moving to a new flat, but it won’t be ready for a few weeks, so they’ll be crashing with various people in London. Abi is going to stay with her boyfriend Tom (Sean Delaney), whom the other two think is an incel. Sam is crashing at an artists’ hostel with her ex, Zara (India Mullen). And Ethan is crashing with Jesse (Arian Nik), a guy he barely knows but is sleeping with.
The trio celebrate their last night in the flat by going to a gay club — Tom joins them, much to the other two roomies’ consternation. They never end up getting in, as the line moves incredibly slowly. It’s as they walk down the street away from the club that Abi drops the bomb that she’s going to move in with Tom, mostly because she’s tired of “pretending that I’m a child.”
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Pick any number of “self-centered twentysomethings trying to figure out being a grown-up” shows of recent vintage, like Adults, and it’ll feel similar to It Gets Worse, which was created by Leo Reich.
Our Take: We have to give Reich credit for subverting the usual tropes of the “adulting sucks” genre pretty much right away. For instance, we see Ethan talking to a therapist (Andrew Scott) about what in the grand scheme of things seems to be minor problems, but then the therapist kisses Ethan and we realize that Ethan is there for other reasons, and just figured he’d get a professional opinion while he was there.
Those kinds of misdirects make the first episode, which is focused on Ethan, tolerable and even funny at times. All three of the roomies were in a mostly carefree bubble in that flat, and even just dealing with this brief gap before they move into the new flat has them all realizing that things may not get better than what they had there. The hole in the wall that Ethan can’t seem to bring himself to repair is a funny symbol of that.
We also appreciate the idea that these characters are not only facing adult problems, but they are quickly realizing that, even under the best of conditions, life is not easy. Smith’s dryly funny narration points this out, as she relates what previous generations of Ethan’s family were doing when they were his age. Some of it was hard, some was comically silly, but it was all more grownup than anything Ethan or either of his friends have ever faced.
Performance Worth Watching: All three of the lead actors — Reich, Gray and Fairn — have their strengths, but they also have really good chemistry when all three share a scene.
Sex And Skin: We see Ethan having sex with Jesse — before Jesse kicks him out of his flat — and we see how he tries to be a bottom but can’t seem to deal with the pain involved.
Parting Shot: After Jesse kicks Ethan out, Ethan returns to the old flat to fix the hole in the wall. He finds Abi there, then Sam comes in with the right tools needed to patch it. Ethan asks if he can stay with one of them that night.
Our Call: STREAM IT. It Gets Worse succeeds because the “twentysomethings trying to figure things out” are not nearly as obnoxious as some of the other characters we’ve seen in this genre, which is refreshing to see.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
