Cast: Megan Stalter as Jessica, Will Sharpe as felix, Michael Zegen as Seb, Prasanna Puwanarajah as Auggie, Rita Wilson as Lois, Daisy Bevan as Josie, Dean Charles Chapman as Bryce, Richard E Grant as john, Rhea Perlman as Dottie, Emily Ratajkowski as Wendy, Janicza Bravo as Kim, Lena Dunham as Nora, Andrew Rannells as james, Naomi Watts as Ann, Kit Harrington as Jessica’s father, Stephen Fry as Simon, Rita Ora as herself, Andrew Scott as Jim, Jessica Alba as herself, Sophia DiMartino as Sylvia, Jennifer Saunders as Fiona

Created By: Lena Dunham

Studio/Streamer: Netflix

Length: 10 episodes

Audio description created By: Descriptive Video Works

Written By:

Narrated by:

What Is it?: Jessica is a smart, sometimes sarcastic, little bit messy, twenty something who reaches a critical end in her relationship with Seb, and is offered the opportunity to work in London and work her magic.Needing a hange of scenery, and healthy distance from Seb and his new girlfriend Wendy, Jessica moves across the pond, where she meets and falls for Felix. Felix is a struggling musician, and often times addict, who is dealing with his past while also sensitive to where Jessica is coming from. however, as both are hot messes they might just be too much for each other. Expect a lot of raunchy, bawdy, r-rated humor.

What Works: When it’s funny, it is funny. i felt like I was learning about the female anatomy. If Lena Dunham believes it can be talked about, then her next leap is to put it into words. It can create for hilarious moments, or sobering attempts at honesty, but it can also backfire, causing conversations that feel out of place, and no earthly human would actually say those things.

Megan Stalter is a delight. She’s a breath of fresh air, anchoring this show with the same brand of humor you might have gotten from mixing Janeane Garofalo with Tiffany Haddish. She has the same sort of approach to things that Garofalo had in the 90’s. Seemingly your atypical female lead, sarcastic, darkly funny, yet somehow able to be easily matched when needed with some random romantic love interest. She also has the unfiltered brashness of Haddish, the willingness to go anywhere with the humor, and the comfort ability in doing so.

This supporting cast is stacked with talent, including Girls regulars like Rannells and Scott, but also Naomi Watts, Richard E Grant, and Jennifer Saunders. It’s amazing how they are peppered across the season, and how they all take a back seat in some manner to the less experienced Stalter.

And while the series is mostly a comedy, when Dunham goes for soul crushing, she’s actually better at that. My favorite moments in the show were the more dramatic ones, the quieter ones, reflective of mistakes made, and showing us how our characters might have even more to unpack than they are willing to admit. When we finally see Jessica and seb’s relationship from start to finish, it is heartbreaking to see this wild child have her spark diminished by a man who isn’t physically abusive, but certainly knows how to emotionally smother someone by revoking attention and love.

What Doesn’t Work: Like I said, some of the humor just doesn’t land. She goes into a pretty frank conversation on anal sex in the second episode, which feels ore like it was planted to let you know there’s more to come, and less like it made sense.

Jessica is such a dominant force, most of the supporting cast, aside from Felix, feel one note, and under developed. I liked Felix, but his energy can’t match Jessica, which is almost to say Jessica needs a passive male to survive.

And, also, Jessica has an adorable little dog named Astrid. the show was going along just fine, until Lena Dunham decided to unnecessarily make an Astrid decision in the season finale that was just totally unnecessary. I was quite baffled by it, and how sudden it was, and how she chose to use it. it was easily the worst choice of the series, and right at the end, feels like the bank robber shot themselves as they exited the vault. I’d love to know what her reasoning was, because she had written the show in such a way it would have ended the same way regardless.

The Audio Description: it’s fine. The show is mostly verbally raunchy, and often less visually, so the audio description doesn’t quite have as much to describe. Still, there’s something about just how far she’s willing to go, and how far the narration goes, that does make me wonder if we got as much as we could. Likely it is perfectly fine audio description, but with a series that is this intentionally obscene you would think it would have more shocking visuals. or, go further in sex scenes. It seems visually rather PG-13, while the dialogue is anything but.

Why you Might Like it: You’ve been dying to see whaat would happen if Emily In Paris went full blown TV-MA. You are a fan of Girls, and want to see what Lena Dunham is doing next. You love strong female leads, and romantic comedy shows, and bawdy humor doesn’t scare you away.

Why You Might not Like This: you need something to watch with the kids/parents, offensive humor to you is just offensive, and you keep wondering if they’re ever going to bring back Touched By An Angel. (The original series is set to stream on Netflix shortly).

Final Thoughts: Lena Dunham might have done too much, but Megan Stalter as Jessica is just right, and a great reason to check this out.

Fresh: Final Grade: 6.5.10