For a long time, I resisted watching Love because the premise offended me. From the outside, it looked like another example of what Vulture call the attractiveness gap: the well-honed TV trope that men “with barely any redeeming qualities” can somehow pull an impossibly beautiful woman.
I can’t remember what eventually convinced me to start watching but once I did, I realised my first impression was wrong. Sort of, anyway. Love is a story of dweeby guy-meets-hot girl, but for reasons that become clear by the end of its first season, it’s not unaware that it has cast a mismatched couple. In fact, that’s kind of the crux of the show. Despite my initial hesitation, I have now watched the entirety of Love three times over – and the final season only aired in 2018. Reader: I love Love.
Without giving too much away, Love is an offbeat romcom about addiction, dating and two kinda-terrible people: 30-somethings Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) and Gus (Paul Rust), whose messy, on-again, off-again romance we follow over three seasons. Mickey is a cool, sardonic Los Angeles radio producer whose friends are settling down while she is not done jumping from the roof of a house into the pool at parties. Gus is a wimpy high school teacher on a TV set whose screenwriting dreams haven’t got off the ground. Both of them are perennial screw-ups excellent at getting in their own way.
Love started its run in 2016, as one of the first Netflix Originals. For my money, it’s easily the best show the streaming service has ever put its name to – but from my entirely anecdotal research, it feels like it’s flown largely under the radar. Was everyone else put off by the attractiveness gap, too? Does Love have a PR problem?
To its credit, Mickey and Gus’s courtship is actually based on a true story. Love was written by husband-and-wife duo Lesley Arfin and lead actor Paul Rust, inspired by their own unlikely romance (he was from Iowa, she had tattoos and a memoir about heroin addiction, can I make it any more obvious?). They worked with Judd Apatow, the man behind cult hits such as Freaks and Geeks, Girls and Knocked Up, to bring the show to life.
But if you don’t come to the show for its central love story, do it for the friends and colleagues who surround Mickey and Gus. While Love may ostensibly be about its two leads, it’s a compliment to the show that they aren’t actually the best part of it. They’re eclipsed in the comedy stakes by the likes of Mickey’s housemate Bertie (played by Australia’s Claudia O’Doherty, who you may know from her flawless Samantha Jones impression). Brett Gelman is so good as a creepy, pathetic radio host on the way out and Iris Apatow (daughter of Judd) is stone-cold perfect as Arya, the precocious, perpetually ughed child star Gus tutors. For a delightful couple of episodes, Andy Dick even turns up as himself. It’s this cast of supporting characters that make Love so funny.
And it is so funny – Love is full of dry, dark humour and perfect lines like “I’ve had sex with 36 people but only three of them more than once. Is that sad or awesome? I can’t tell.”
It also nails a lot about modern romance and the deep sigh of dating in your early 30s when life is not working out exactly as planned. I find Love great for a rewatch in times of personal crisis, because there is no greater balm for moments like those than watching people who are messing it up even worse than you.
The show isn’t without sweet, rewarding moments but for most of the ride, Love’s characters wrestle with their demons, stalling careers and rollercoaster relationships. They’re certainly not perfect, but as Love makes clear, imperfection can have its own charms.
• Love is available to stream in Australia on Netflix. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
