Fleishman Is in Trouble (2022–2023)
9/10
Compelling relatable story
4 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I love Toby, Seth, and Libby together. They're supposed to be what I feel like is around my age- at least from the flashback to college/post college in the 90's. It all feels very familiar and nostalgic.

But it also is an ode to how things sometimes go when you marry the person you met in your early-mid 20's. How you think you can love enough for two people. Or how you just brush important red flags under the rug in those relationships figuring it will just all work out.

I love the way Lizzy seems wistful at the fun, cool, lives that Toby and Seth are "getting" to live. Where she's just the suburban mom, bored, sweaty, and watching Disney movies instead of going out late to the underground club. When meanwhile, Toby is wistful at the simplicity of the families at the town pool, just having family day out.

It's all just really relatable. I've been all three of them- Toby, Lizzy, Seth, at different times in my life. The same way I felt Sex and the City was relatable in my 20's. I felt Toby's pain when he went to Lizzy's house and the pool, then just HAD to get out of there, to the underground place with Seth and feeling like he had to get out of there too. Like he couldn't be anywhere.

There are a few things I don't like which aren't major but knocked a star for me. I don't like how the Jewish women, except for Lizzy, are portrayed. They're all very overly stereotypical. It makes me cringe. The other major thing is that Clare Danes is woefully miscast. There's no way she's believable as any small part Jewish. The character claims to be half but it's just not there. She and Toby have no chemistry at all. There are so many actors I think would've been better to play Rachel- Dianna Agron, Alison Brie, Shiri Appleby. I know the character is supposed to be unlikable, but you can't picture them ever getting together in the first place. There was no real evolution. She seemed cold from the start.
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