Love: Season 3

And just like that, Love is dead. After three seasons! Eh, that sounds about right.

I've touched on this before, but I can't say I ever loved this show. It was tolerable, decent, low stakes - just very forgettable television, really. It's a longform rom-com from Judd Apatow about two deeply and differently flawed people and their burgeoning romantic relationship. Apatow has said before that he specifically wanted the show to focus on the moments between the moments you'd see in a two-hour movie. The dead-end do-nothing hang-out sessions, the minor bickering, the weird sex, the lulls - and I see what he went for, and I think he did it pretty well. I think Love was, all things considered, very close to the best possible version of itself.

But it never really grabbed me in any way. Three Marches in a row now, I've spent a few consecutive nights chugging a season down, not really dwelling on it or thinking about it for the fifty-one weeks in between those hearty servings. And now it's gone, and that's all fine and good, and I can't imagine it makes even a footnote in any future references to this Peak TV era.

I think the major factor preventing me from really investing myself in Love was the relationship at its core. I like Gillian Jacobs plenty - or at least I did on Community - and Paul Rust is perfectly serviceable as this sort of whiny, nerdy, needy man-child - you know the type and you know it well, dammit. But the characters themselves - and I know this was intentional - they sucked! They were just an awful lot to handle, and everything about them being together felt wrong and forced and weird and bad. An easy contrast to make is to a show like You're the Worst, where the two main characters are so deplorable and broken that their relationship is a tragic comedy, comic tragedy, whatever you want to call it. Mickey and Gus aren't vile or terrible - they're just a little unpleasant. Which, again - fine! Human! But not necessarily a pair of people I ever found myself rooting for, if that makes sense.

I'll close on a positive note, which is to say that the breakout star of this show has to be Australian actress Claudia O'Doherty. As Mickey's roommate Bertie, she's quirky, hilarious, adorable - and not just because of the accent! (Okay fine, the accent does some very heavy lifting.) I hope we see plenty more of her in the years to come.