Last weekend, I binged the third and final season of the Hulu original comedy Shrill. Based on journalist Lindy West's memoir of the same name, Shrill follows Annie Easton's (Aidy Bryant) journey as a fat twentysomething journalist jousting for justice. Now, as I said when I blogged about Big Summer, I'm not and have never been fat and don't pretend to know how fat women feel. But I am a woman and writer who knows all too well what it's like to be weird. So, I was on team Annie from go.
When we first meet Annie, she's meek on the outside and enraged on the inside. Although she's a staff writer at Portland's The Weekly Thorn, she's relegated to writing calendar entries, a gig that stifles her creativity. She's sleeping with a guy who makes her use the back door so his roommates won't see her. And everyone from strangers to her own mother urges her to lose weight while feigning concern for her health. Usually, she shrugs it all off. But one day she stops being quiet and starts questioning everything (indeed, an early chapter in West's book is called "How to Stop Being Shy in Eighteen Easy Steps"). The angrier Annie gets, the more powerful her writing becomes, earning her a reputation as a voice for the voiceless. This isn't to say that she doesn't make a boatload of bad and hilarious decisions involving but not limited to vandalism, light stalking, and awkward social encounters. Still, Bryant brings a kind of I-got-this calm to the crazy, reminding us that Annie's not only smart, sensitive, and talented, but worthy of our respect. This is just one of the reasons why her many wrecked romances rankle. I had to remind myself that Shrill isn't a rom com, however much I might want it to be, and that Lindy West's own story didn't exactly wrap with her and some dude riding off into the sunset. But that's okay. Because Shrill is about something more important, namely accepting yourself even when -- especially when -- no one else does.
Along for the Shrill ride are Annie's no-nonsense, Nigerian, gay best friend Fran (Lolly Adefope), on-again-off-again bad news boyfriend Ryan (Luka Jones), narcissistic drama queen boss Gabe (John Cameron Mitchell), laidback but put-upon office husband Amadi (Ian Owens), and kooky coworker Maureen (Joe Firestone), whose Carol Kane energy all but levitates from her manic persona and wild curls.
Some other stuff to watch for:
1) Annie's dad, who's played by Daniel Stern, the non-Joe Pesci burglar in Home Alone. (I knew he looked familiar!)
2) Portlandia's Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein (Season 3). Armisen cameos as Gabe's long-lost bandmate, and Brownstein directs three episodes.
And that brings us to that tired old thing that people do when they start speeches. Dictionary.com defines shrill as "betraying some strong emotion or attitude in an exaggerated amount, as antagonism or defensiveness." And to that I say, betray away. Because emotions aren't meant to be hidden.
After all, the (quill) pen is mightier than the sword, that early and admittedly questionable line about "jousting for justice" notwithstanding.
Maybe I should've started with the dictionary bit after all.