The truth about ‘Love’
It’s about to end (on Netflix, anyway).
Spoiler alert! Contains some details about the new season of Netflix’s Love (streaming Friday).
Love is the kind of show that never got enough of it. Netflix’s addictive romantic comedy starts its third and final season Friday, going out with a lot of heart but little fanfare.
The series, produced by Judd Apatow, received strong (if not wildly enthusiastic) reviews when it premiered in 2016. Some critics faulted its “meandering” pace and “unrealistic” pairing of Gus (Paul Rust), a genial aspiring TV writer, and Mickey (Gillian Jacobs), a capricious recovering addict who — in classic Apatow fashion — falls for the nerd over more conventionally attractive men.
The show arrived around the same time as other TV rom-coms, including FXX’s You’re the Worst, CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Amazon’s Catastrophe, all of which managed to generate more buzz on social media thanks to their unconventional premises, quotable one-liners, and frustrating but still immensely likable protagonists.
Love has none of those things. Not a whole lot “happens” over the course of the series, which is set in present-day Los Angeles. Aside from a few professional setbacks and advancements — Mickey, as a program manager at a radio station; Gus, tutoring a derisive child star (Iris Apatow) — they mostly just fight, make up and hang out with their pals. And while the show has its amusing moments (many of which stem from Witchita, a fake supernatural teen drama), it’s rarely laugh-out-loud funny.
Yet somehow, it remains strangely bingeable. (I watched each season in one sitting during the weekends they were released.) Perhaps it’s because Gus and Mickey are so relatably human: self-involved and mildly annoying, and often afraid to admit their insecurities and mistakes. But the show is at its best in those rare moments when emotions erupt and they do get vulnerable.
Toward the end of this new season, Gus and Mickey travel to South Dakota to visit his parents, who are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. Tensions are already high because of Gus’ reluctance to invite Mickey, and eventually come to a head when he offhandedly remarks to his family that they would never have a baby together, in case Mickey relapses and starts drinking again. With a breakup imminent, Gus breaks down in front of her and his entire family at a party the next day, tearfully admitting his failures and confiding he’s at least as messed up as she is.
Throughout the series, “we tried to have the pendulum swing back and forth,” says Rust, who co-created it with his wife, writer Lesley Arfin ( Girls). “I never wanted to write a character for myself where I am so very likable. So when we started this season, it felt like the right time to bring it back to what Gus’ (problem) is. He’s a people-pleaser, and what’s the people-pleaser do? He tries to hide and obscure negative stuff about himself. He needed to get to a spot where he realizes he has just as many issues as Mickey does.”
From the get-go, Rust thought, “what’s going to really feel challenging is not having easy villains, and trying to explore how a person individually gets in the way of themselves,” he says. Which may be why it never caught on: “Right now, where we’re at with what people are interested in watching, there seems to be less, ‘Hey, I’m going to tune in, and for a half hour, have to deal or grapple with how I sometimes do things I’m not proud of and things that I regret.’ “