“No one loves you like your mom, and no one hurts you like your mom,” Beth reflects to a captive audience late in the season with the gravity that clearly points to an intended thesis statement. However, as much as Jane sparks the series’ inciting incident and effectively functions as a major obstacle for Beth to overcome, she never feels rendered with the same sort of graspable humanity that imbues the other major characters, despite an earnest performance from Berlanti.
While Jane often drives the action, she feels at once too plot-convenient and emotionally opaque to strike a resonant cord; Beth’s connection to her ne’er do well father Leonard (Michael Rapaport) is ironically, and in a way that definitely feels unintentional, the far more effectively rendered parental relationship. The series hints and gradually builds their connection, effectively setting up a complicated bond that pays off in “Leonard,” one of the most emotionally effective and resonant episodes of the series overall. While that old saying “show don’t tell” isn’t always entirely true, the impact Leonard has on Beth and what she learns from him—from her sales skills to her alcoholism—feels organically built into the series in a way that the much more heavy-handed but ultimately less effective efforts to explore Beth’s relationship with Jane never accomplish. With a central relationship that never lands quite as impactfully as it clearly means to, the show’s extensive detours into other territory are actually quite welcome, as they often traverse far more compelling landscapes.
“Life & Beth” is the sort of show that, if anything, features a surplus of talent, with brilliant comedians filling even the smallest and blandest of roles (the pilot in particular makes an unfortunate waste of Janelle James). Yamaneika Saunders shines as Kiana, a childhood friend of Beth’s whom she reconnects with upon returning to Long Island, a character that on occasion toes the line of a stereotypical sassy Black friend role but is overall handled with a respectably deft hand. Susannah Flood is similarly mesmerizing as Beth’s enigmatic sister Ann. Of the more minor players, Jonathan Groff is a remarkable as Travis, a small-town big fish who loves “New York” in the most cringe-inducingly painful way only a tourist can.
While it’s a crowded field, Michael Cera as John, an organic farmer with more than a few surface similarities to Schumer’s real-life husband, stands out as a particularly clever casting choice. John feels like the grown-up version of the endearingly earnest unlikely romantic leads from “Juno” to “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” that defined Cera’s early career, realistically flawed yet in the present context, his honest-to-a-fault tendencies also feel like something of a romantic fantasy.
Overall, “Life & Beth” is a mixed bag but ultimately sufficiently watchable first season, a commendably heartfelt passion project from Schumer that introduces enough lovable characters to be sufficiently engaging, even if it has not quite figured out what to do with half of them quite yet.
Ten episodes screened for review. The first season of “Life & Beth” premieres on Hulu on March 18.
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