When I was visiting my mom a few weeks ago, we watched the first episode of…
Life & Beth, the new Amy Schumer comedy series. The first episode felt a little slow, and since I’m infamously impatient with TV shows (a character flaw I can’t seem to get over), I said we should turn it off. But, a couple weeks later, when my friends kept talking about how great it was, I gave it another shot.
And I loved loved loved it. Amy Schumer plays Beth, a wine distributor in Manhattan who seems to have it all. “I love my cool life,” she tells her mom, unconvincingly. But after a family tragedy, she decides to shake up her job, break up with her fiancé, and move back to her hometown to figure out what she really wants.
The show is funny and nuanced and charming. But one of my favorite parts is that Beth’s crush, a sweet bearded farmer named John (Michael Cera), seems to be on the autism spectrum. When Beth asks him why he didn’t return a co-worker’s wave, he says, “I already said hi to him today.” He is honest to a fault and obsesses over the safety of his fishing boat, even while at a funeral. Amy has talked openly about her husband, Chris Fischer, being on the spectrum, and she asked him to read the script to make sure the character rang true. Big thumbs up for neurodiverse characters in mainstream TV shows.
Beth is a complicated person, too — loving, selfish, funny, confused, all of it. “It still feels kind of exciting to see a woman playing just, like, a full human being and, you know, not just whatever sort of version we’ve seen written by men for women,” Amy told TheWrap. “I feel like I wrote like a real person. You know, a couple of real people!”
You can find it on Hulu, if you’d like.
What shows are you watching right now? Any recommendations?
P.S. The ultimate TV guide, and what comedy scenes do you love?
