The blistering British comedy “Such Brave Girls,” on Hulu, centers on a dysfunctional family and features many of the archetypes one sees in a sadcom. But instead of slow poignancy and personal growth, “Brave” is all about feral, filthy awfulness. It’s hilarious and electrified, perfectly deranged.
Kat Sadler created and stars in the show as Josie, the suicidal, closeted-but-also-not older sister whose biggest turn-on is being fawned over for how damaged she is. Billie (Lizzie Davidson, Sadler’s real-life sister) is the boy-crazy — craaaaazy — golden child who sexts during her abortion. Josie and Billie always seem to get what the other wants: Josie has no use for the doting, useless man who pledges his love to her, whereas Billie would give anything to have her dirtbag show her a molecule of loyalty. Josie can barely interact with women she crushes on while Billie is unfazed by a brief fling with her doppelgänger and romantic rival. Their mom, Deb (Louise Brealey), openly loathes Josie when she isn’t too busy fawning over her weird widower boyfriend, Dev (Paul Bazely). Family!
The show is not for the prudish. But the vulgarity is part of the fun, part of the show’s amped-up id. The characters here do and say cartoonishly monstrous things, especially about sex and intimacy, but there is truth inside their savagery. The desperation to be loved and understood can indeed outpace reason, so while the behaviors here are outlandish, they’re not nonsense. The naughtiness is rich and coherent.
In some ways, “Brave” is a satire of the trauma comedy, and it uses similar beats and moments but does so in festive, warped ways. A doomed family camping trip goes, of course, poorly, and a tiff leads to Deb kicking a tree and screaming: “We! Do! Not! Need! Catharsis!” The sisters gas each other up but with some of the worst advice imaginable, and the self-actualization moments come out tangled and grotesque.
The raunch and audacity remind me of “Peep Show” and of the Sharon Horgan comedy “Pulling.” And “Brave” shares with “Fleabag” that “Oh dang, this show is really going for it!” dazzle. To its huge credit, “Brave” tenaciously resists sweetness, and yet its fallen world and all of its ostensibly unlikable characters add up to something pretty easy to love.
Both six-episode seasons are available now.
Margaret Lyons is a television critic at The Times, and writes the TV parts of the Watching newsletter.
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