TV Review - Shrill: Season 3

This series premiered in 2019 with a pretty splashy start, but it hasn't really caught on in a way that I wish that it would. All the major award shows have ignored it. However, it's my hope that it gets some love this year from something like the Emmy Awards. Now that Schitt's Creek (2015), which was last year's winner, has ended, along with fellow Emmy nominee, The Good Place (2016), hopefully, that will clear a path for this series to get into the field. Other comedies like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017) and Dead to Me (2019) either took an extended break or were ineligible this year, so those shows being absent could also open a door for this series to enter the race. I mention this because I think the show should be in the conversation because it is that good.

Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Live and Girls) stars as Annie Easton, a writer at a newspaper that used to be in print but now is mostly online called The Weekly Thorn. She garnered success at the paper when she wrote an article about her experiences being an overweight woman in Portland, Oregon. Obviously, there were a lot of external issues and pressures that made her feel uncomfortable about her body or things that just made her feel bad about her size. She's certainly experienced fat-shaming. She does her best to call it out, despite not really being a confrontational person and just generally nice. Yet, even she has her limits. Otherwise, she's a really sweet, lovely and funny hipster kind of a girl.

Lolly Adefope (This Time With Alan Partridge and Ghosts) co-stars as Frances or Fran, a Black girl from England who went to college with Annie and became her best friend. Now, they're roommates who are bonded like sisters. Fran is a hair stylist and a lesbian. If it weren't for the fact that Annie isn't gay, one would assume the two of them to be romantic interests. Their relationship is not unlike that of Ally and Renee in Ally McBeal (1997). Unlike Renee and even unlike Annie, Fran has stopped her casual sex encounters and has a partner, an actual steady relationship.

The question for her is if she's ready to change her life for this relationship or perhaps there's still a part of her that isn't ready to take the next step, which would alter the course of her life right now. Right now, she compartmentalizes and exists in this free-flowing lifestyle that really only has Annie as her constant. As a lesbian, there's a part of her that resists hetero-normative benchmarks, but it's clear that she's falling in love with her partner, Emily, played by E. R. Fightmaster. Emily or Em is a non-binary, formerly female presenting, person who goes by the pronouns, they and them.

Unfortunately, Annie takes a little longer to find a person with whom she could possibly settle down. First, she struggles at work to get out of the box that she only does stories on being overweight or being against fat-shaming culture. She wants to branch out and do different things, more challenging and more creative things. That results in her clashing with certain interests that come with running a business like a newspaper. The series brilliantly wades into the issue of cancel culture, which has been a hot topic, especially in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. I don't think the show addresses the issue in a way that is totally emblematic of the danger, but I appreciated the nuance the series did put on this issue.

The show is just funny and not in a way that it's hitting you over the head with jokes or ridiculous gags. It's mainly buoyed by a bubbly cast where at the heart of it all is a sweetness and a compassion. There are jokes that could veer the show into raunchy territory. One such example includes barbecue sauce in a lower orifice of the body, but the series never feels raunchy or close to blue comedy. To be clear though, there are sometimes intense sex scenes and nudity from people who are plus-size. Yet, it never really feels bawdy. If anything, it feels refreshing.

Cameron Britton (The Umbrella Academy and Mindhunter) is new to the cast. He plays Will, a friend to one of Annie's co-workers. His relationship with Annie follows that of Kate and Toby's in NBC's This Is Us. At first, there's a reluctance and outright avoidance because there's a perception that the two are only together because they're both overweight. This is clearly though a reflection of internalized fat-shaming. However, there are those that would think that a fat person could only ever be with another fat person. Despite his size, Will is so gentle and soft-spoken. His quiet and unassuming personality is just a kind of empathetic that is rarely seen from a male character. He's just great and Britton is terrific in this series.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 30 mins. / 8 eps.

Available on Hulu.