Love

Mickey mostly does it with assholes. Mickey is not super happy with herself and therefore seems to think that she doesn't deserve any better than cocaine-sniffing unemployed guys, who still live with their mother. Gus is not doing much better. When God put Gus together, he forgot to put a spine as well. Gus is a mollusk. Gus is one of those guys who later in the Rai trudges with a trolley after his wife, so that she can stock up on some extra jars of Calvé mayonnaise there at the Huishoudbeurs. I also see him in matching training suits cycling through the Biesbosch with his girlfriend with a laminated route map on his handlebars. That's Gus. When the two bump into each other in a store, a friendship / relationship / cluster fuck / romance / obsession ensues, which Netflix gets 10 episodes to derail. Love is a peanut butter sandwich. You won't take a snapshot of it on Instagram in an attempt to convince your 'friends' that you live such a great #rich life full of #unaffordable experiences, but it will satisfy your hunger. For a while anyway. It's that one guy you got tonguesed with last weekend at that illegal squatters party whose name you've already forgotten. Nice in the moment, but otherwise not very memorable. Love is solidly constructed, but does suffer from a wringing shoe. Or two. It's always nice to hate one of the main characters. What would Suits have been without Louis? Entourage without Ari? Shameless without Frank? Exactly, boring garb. The great thing about these characters is that they are constructed in such a way that one moment you want to pull them through the TV into your living room to tell them the truth and the next moment they attack you with their fragile mildness. That satisfying schizophrenia is missing in Love. Especially Mickey is simply unbearable in full blown. There is really nothing that makes her character even slightly likeable. She is a blood-sucking narcissist, who makes herself impossible for her environment, but expects everyone to dance to her tune. Kind of like Donald Trump, but with better hair. And tits. You could of course provide Gillian Jacobs with a standing ovation, because she portrays the character so convincingly, but above all I want to hit her. In the face. With a chair. About ten times. Per day. Gus might invite you to your birthday a little more quickly, but it doesn't really stop there. Little evocative protagonists with an acute lack of mutual chemistry are not the only flaw, however. In an attempt to make this 'a nice cool comedy', the writers have written a 'fuck', 'shit' or 'cocksucking cumdumpster' in just about every line. Don't get me wrong, the turn a series thunders through may not be short enough for me at times, but the screams of Mickey and Gus often feel a bit cramped and out of place to me. A bit like Lange Frans rapping Gangster's Paradise in a program for bored housewives and men in their forties with model trains in the attic. You don't suddenly make a series more edgy by having your main characters say fuck all the time, it takes more than that. FX has been setting a good example for two seasons with You're The Worst. So if you fancy a nice dysfunctional relationship between two people that you don't know whether to praise or hate, give them a chance first. If you still feel like a dessert, yogurt without too many extras afterwards, then you can easily spoon Love in.

"You can't live with them, but you can't live without them either". You've probably heard someone say that. That's kind of like me this first season of Love. Mickey (Gillian Jacobs, Community) and (especially) Gus (Paul Rust, Super Fun Night) are sometimes so annoying that they get the blood from under my nails. There are regular moments in this first season where you just want to attack your television. I said it in my review of the first episode: Love is definitely not for everyone. Love is about Gus and Mickey. They are in their thirties who have just come out of a relationship. More importantly, they constantly get in their own way. That makes this very clear this first season! Gus and Mickey want to change, but how? They are both looking for happier times. Then they meet. Love then shows how they try to build a relationship. A relationship that seems doomed to fail simply because Gus and Mickey are so different. Gus is the 'nice' boy and Mickey is the 'rebel'. What does a rebel do with a nice boy ... What do these two do with each other at all? For that you should definitely start Netflix and set up Love. The funny thing about Love is that the series regularly works better when the series does not focus on Gus and Mickey together, but Gus and Mickey with the other people in their lives. That's simply because both can be so insufferable that you don't always pull them together. That's something Love can definitely work on before the second season starts. In the episode Magic (directed by Steve Buscemi), the two go on a date together for the first time. How the date unfolds is illustrative for Love: it is annoying, annoying and yet very fascinating. In that respect, the series really looks like You're the Worst. Jimmy and Gretchen can also be quite annoying, but the writing is so layered that the negative aspect is not what sticks. No, what lingers is that the series performs a well-known fact in a fun / fresh way. The series is well acted and the supporting roles really add something. It's proof that series really don't have to constantly reinvent the wheel. Originality in film and television is almost non-existent. That is why I am always looking for an interesting implementation of the given. Give me an interesting performance and characters that make me feel something ... and I'm sweet. That's what a series should do for me. It should not leave me unaffected. Whether it is annoyance, sympathy, affection or whatever. Love makes interesting creative choices that pay off more and more as the season progresses. Especially the development that both characters go through is nice to see. There are clearly issues (as said, the series regularly gets the blood from under your nails), but when a series wraps you up, it matters much less. The great thing about Love is that Gus and Mickey often mean well. They regularly have the best intentions, but then again manage to sabotage themselves. Especially the view on Mickey is interesting. Mickey is a woman who has just turned thirty and has no attitude. She wants to be young and party, but she also wants a stable relationship. Mickey is a person who has a hard time adapting to others, while Gus is constantly ignoring himself to please others. Love really gets going when both are vulnerable. I myself have been really impressed by Gillian Jacobs. Jacobs is spunky when necessary and fragile when the situation demands it. Whether she takes the blood from under Gus's nails or is candid about her past, Jacobs makes sure your eyes are on her. And, also a shout-out to Paul Rust, because Rust is also doing well. The greatest merit of Love is ultimately that as a viewer you can identify with much of what is shown. I was also unsure whether that girl saw me. I also regularly checked my phone, grating because the message that came in was not hers. And I know you too have wondered if there is nothing more to life than this. Whether you have made the right choices. Love is realistic, recognizable and comes close. Again, this series is definitely not going to be for everyone. Not really. But when the arrow (which is there on the banner through the heart) hits you, you fall in love with Love. www.meneervevie.com