Somebody Somewhere Episode 1 review: Bridget Everett’s series on friendship and self-love tugs at your heartstrings

Story:

Sam wastes away doing clinical duties, smiling passively and spending weekends on a couch alone. It has been since months since her sister’s death, and Sam is struggling to cope with her loss. When she finds a friend in her co-worker, her life seems to feel just a little better.

Somebody Somewhere kicks off with a Connie Conway’s honeyed voice introducing Kansas with the peppy Kansas State Line. It is the rustic haven where our protagonist Sam, essayed by comedian, actor and singer Bridget Everett, lives. As happy and warm as this haven looks, with cutesy country diners lining the paved streets, and the houses brimming with childhood photographs, its inhabitant is not happy. Everything makes her break into pools of tears, even a little girl’s “mediocre” essay about teaching her sister to take training wheels off her bike. She isn’t as much living her life as wiling away time, withering away at a job that does not quite excite her, clinically grading essays at a testing centre in Manhattan.

She is reeling with the sudden death of her sister Holly six months ago, unable to clear out her room until her niece Shannon nudges her to go through Holly’s belongings. She is weighed down by the drudgery of her loneliness, aimlessly sipping on wine on her couch after work. Her haunting aloneness is driven home by uninhabited large and open spaces, where she dillydallies until she finds another passing hobby to engage herself in for a bit. She struggles to fit in a town where she sticks out like a sore thumb. But things start to look just a little sunny for Sam when Joel (Jeff Hiller), a co-worker and a former classmate, strikes up a conversation with her.

Somebody Somewhere ripples and glides with gentle, laidback humour while acknowledging the universality of grief. Through drinking, making merry and reviewing a pulpy book written by a high school acquaintance, Somebody Somewhere functions like a cathartic exercise for anyone who has been grieving for so long that it has come to feel normal. It is appropriately goofy and self-effacing and is somehow still in acknowledgement of the sufferings in life.

What makes the show tug at your heartstrings is the organic and easy relationship that the characters share with each other. They aren’t as much performers as they are living, breathing human beings coexisting in a space, navigating life with and around each other. The naturalistic repartee between Joel and Sam make you feel like a fly on the wall, gaping at wonder at two individuals trying to find magic in the mundane.

Everett is astounding as Sam, a woman who uses wit and humour to deflect pain. Even in the most poignant moments of the episode, Everett lets her silence do the communication. There is a nuanced and depth in how Everett deals with Sam’s depression. Likewise, Hiller’s turn as the awkward and timid Joel who finds an unlikely friend in Sam makes their chemistry utterly believable.

Verdict:

Somebody Somewhere is a story of healing, at a snail speed, perhaps, but taking the step nonetheless. The first episode is a pure joyride.