In a scene from the new Netflix comedy “Too Much,” Jessica (Megan Stalter), a frustrated line producer, vents to her colleagues about her resentments. A co-worker snips: “You’re realizing that middling white women feel terrible wherever they go.” Well, with frenemies like this …
Created by Lena Dunham and her husband, Luis Felber, a British musician, “Too Much” follows our heroine Jessica as she flees New York after a catastrophic breakup. She moves to London for the romance of it all — the Jane Austen, the Bridget Jones, the BritBox. The distance from her grandmother (Rhea Perlman), mother (Rita Wilson) and sister (Dunham) is a perk, too, though oceans and time zones are no match for matriarchs who want to impart wisdom on vaginal health.
Jessica is a pajama girlie, seen often in granny nighties, frilly tap shorts and teddies. By day, she wears baby-doll dresses and voluminous sailor-neck shifts, big bows in her hair, space buns and a pale blue manicure. She puts her gremlin dog in sweaters and gowns, and she stomps her feet when she’s angry.
She also can’t stop looking at her ex’s new girlfriend’s social media. How can the knitting influencer and lizard rescuer Wendy (Emily Ratajkowski) be so happy with Zev (Michael Zegen), when she, Jessica, was supposed to be celebrating her seventh anniversary with him at this very moment? Jessica scrolls obsessively, and she records her own private video diaries addressed to Wendy, videos that bubble with post-breakup rage and confusion.
But maybe all that insecurity and despair is more of the New York Jessica, because the London Jessica meets a brooding singer-songwriter, Felix (Will Sharpe), on her very first night in town. They hit it off immediately and speed-run the traditional relationship markers: the I-love-yous, the dinner with the boss, the awkward introduction to friends, the strained plus-one-at-the-wedding mishegoss, the disclosure of family baggage.
Dunham’s calling card was and remains the seminal dramedy “Girls,” which turned her into a star and cultural lightning rod. “Too Much” is nowhere near as thorough or tricky, and it seems happiest in its most pat moments. It’s as diaphanous as one of Jessica’s nightgowns, weirdly long but barely there.
Though Felix and Jessica’s relationship moves at warp speed, the show itself does not. Its 10 episodes, which range in length from 31-56 minutes, meander and repeat themselves until the season re-accelerates at the very end.
Jessica, Felix and their sometimes mopey sexcapades could be enough for a shorter, tighter show, but the focus here roams to co-workers, exes, parents and pals — there are cameos from, among others, Naomi Watts, Kit Harrington, Andrew Scott, Rita Ora, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Saunders and Stephen Fry. These side characters deliver plenty of good, biting dialogue but no good, biting story lines.
“Too Much” seems more interested in elucidating, at great length, many specific modes of annoyingness. Did you know that people on drugs can be irritating, especially if you are not on (the same) drugs? Not to brag, but I actually do know that — if you’re new to the concept, “Too Much” provides a thorough education. We endure crummy rap videos from a character’s youth. Gen Z therapized lingo and pretentious Harvard chitchat both get their due. People gush about astrology and analyze their own misguided crushes well past the point of fun small talk. Scott plays an aloof director who dodges a real conversation by repeating back everything Jessica says to him but in a dumber voice, sibling-style.
Loud, presumptuous, late, exhaustingly French — oh, the many ways to be irksome.
The show’s precision when it comes to irritation and anguish does not extend to its depictions of glory. Other people tell Jessica how wonderful and charming she is, and she believes deeply in her own sparkle, but she doesn’t come across all that differently from Stalter’s loopy failing-up character on “Hacks.” Jessica’s great triumph is a bland Christmas commercial, and her big gestures are more antic than romantic.
The fighting is more compelling than the pleasure on “Too Much,” and the flashbacks to Jessica’s relationship with Zev are the most piercing and nervy scenes; her rapacious anxiety vs. his petty cruelty. The show itself shares Jessica’s ambivalence about her ex, unsure if his articulate neuroses are more intriguing than Felix’s fragile sobriety and aimlessness.
The result is a show that feels out of balance — indeed too much of some aspects and too little of others. The story may be about the wild miracle of love, but its heart isn’t strong enough to pump blood through an entire series.
Margaret Lyons is a television critic at The Times, and writes the TV parts of the Watching newsletter.
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