‘Leanne' review: From standup comedian to awkward sitcom star

Chicago Tribune

5 days ago

The multi-camera sitcom has been on its last legs, which is too bad because it can be such an uproarious format when it prioritizes jokes over the kind of comedy that tends to predominate on streaming: Pleasant enough — fun, even — but straight-up laughs aren't their reason for being. Television is cyclical, and maybe the fizzy possibilities inherent in sitcoms will eventually make their way back onto our screens. Alas, 'Leanne' on Netflix will not be leading the charge.
Standup comedian Leanne Morgan stars as the mother of two grown children in Knoxville, Tennessee, who is suddenly informed that her husband of 33 years is leaving her for another woman. That setup, coupled with the Southern twang of the cast, may bring to mind 'Reba,' another eponymous show with a similar premise that premiered more than 20 years ago and ran for six seasons, starring Reba McEntire as a spitfire making do with her new circumstances. But the energy here is vastly different, with Morgan's genteel suburbanite hazily floating through this next chapter in her life.
Co-created by Morgan and sitcom veterans Chuck Lorre and Susan McMartin ('Mom'), the series also stars 'Mom' alum Kristen Johnson as Leanne's kinda-sorta bawdy sister (she's too tame to really pop as a subversive presence), Celia Weston and Blake Clark as their aging parents, and Ryan Stiles ('Whose Line Is It Anyway?') as Leanne's ex.
I wish 'Mom' were more instructive as a test case, because it also started off unevenly but eventually found its groove. The push-pull, co-dependent relationship between a mother and daughter, both of whom were in addiction recovery and struggling financially, gave the show its spark, as did the friend group of fellow recovering addicts, who deepened the bench of characters. 'Leanne' feels somewhat claustrophobic by comparison, and isn't populated with anyone who feels especially defined or even interesting. It's just Leanne and her sister as gal pals who mostly get along bouncing off themselves, their needy parents and Leanne's forgettably superfluous children.
Most comedies built around a comedian's standup act draw directly from their lives. But it's worth noting that the real Leanne is very much not divorced from her longtime husband; in fact, her gentle barbs about their personality differences make up the bulk of her material. Morgan is also not an actor by training, so it makes no sense that the show didn't adapt more of her stage persona here, and instead asks her to play something unfamiliar: That tricky sad-funny middle ground of a woman whose marriage has imploded.
There's a deliberate pace to the show — and to the dialogue itself — that results in punchlines just laying there. It's weird, because there's an unhurried pace to Morgan's Netflix standup special as well ('I'm Every Woman'), but in it she has some bite and her leisurely cadence is undercut by the sharp comedy of her material, whereas this version of Leanne is oddly bland and lacking a point of view.
Exactly one joke lands. Looking at a miserable Leanne, her sister offers to share some of her pill stash: 'I got Xanax, Ativan, Ambien, I think this might be a laxative …'
Leanne grabs the last one: 'I'll always take a laxative.'
There's a certain amount of violence that's played for laughs, but the show seems uncertain where the humor actually lies in these moments. One episode ends with Leanne decking her husband across the jaw. In another, she finds him in the bathroom they once shared, making himself at home, and in response she grabs a shotgun, marches back in and blows a hole through the ceiling to disabuse him of this notion. If she were really trying to stifle deep rage under a polite, decorous exterior, and that was a running theme in the show — of a woman's worst impulses taking over as she's finally driven off the deep end — that would be so dark, it might come around the other side and be funny as well. But that's not the kind of sitcom this is.
Leanne lives in a spacious, well-appointed suburban-style home that apparently goes uncontested in the divorce. In fact, money barely comes up at all. Rarely does divorce not affect either party's finances, but also because Morgan acknowledges the realities of money in her standup act. It's clearly on her mind. Spotting an array of attractive men in the front row of her special: 'Look at y'all in these half-zip golf pullovers — hello, that says 'health insurance' to me. Alright, y'all make me think of my husband, lemme tell you about him, 'cause he's got a 401k.'
(Even her grown son in real life — who loves nature so much he raised a baby beaver in his college dorm room, a story she tells in her standup — sounds a lot more interesting than the character on the show, whose only trait appears to be 'henpecked husband.')
Now in middle age, Leanne's life as she's known it (the sitcom version, at least) has been turned upside down. Except it hasn't. She's in the same sprawling house. She doesn't seem worried about money. She didn't have much filling her days even before the divorce apparently — she has no professional life nor a social life outside of her sister (who doesn't seem to need to work, either). Leanne's existence is like science fiction — resembling something human but in a contextless bubble that has no connection to anything outside the walls of her home.
'You have a blessed Sunday,' she says at one point, and it's the kind of Southern putdown that's in the same neighborhood as 'Bless your heart.' May 'Leanne' have a blessed run. And may Morgan have another shot at a TV role better suited to her talents.
'Leanne' — 2 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Netflix