Too Much is Netflix's best ever comedy – I've already binged it twice

Metro

2 days ago

Lena Dunham's Girls will always hold a special place in my heart.
I was almost exactly the same age as Hannah Horvath when she boldly declared to her parents in the opening episode: 'I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least, a voice of a generation.'
I, too, was an aspiring writer who had just moved to the big city with dreams of living like Carrie Bradshaw – in a cosy apartment, with a wardrobe worth more than any house I'd ever lived in, all paid for by my weekly column.
Turns out, a weekly column gets you a day's rent in a Brixton flat share – if you're lucky.
Somewhat ironically, and somewhat predictably, when HBO trusts a 25-year-old to write the definitive millennial comedy, Dunham did become that voice of a generation.
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Hannah and her friends – Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams), Jessa Johansson (Jemima Kirke), and Shoshanna Shapiro (Zosia Mamet) – summed up everything brilliant and completely awful about almost everyone I knew at the time. We were self-centred, wildly immature, totally directionless, but we loved everyone and everything we knew so hard.
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Thirteen years after Girls ended, Dunham's career has been quieter than many expected, especially after being worshipped as the Bob Dylan of television comedy.
She's rarely appeared on screen herself, though she's continued to write smaller-budget comedies that drip with her signature awkward, quirky charm, even if none quite hit the same mark.
With the possible exception of Fleabag, few shows have truly deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as Girls. But her new 10-episode comedy, Too Much, is an instant classic. It's no exaggeration to say that, as soon as it ended, I knew it would be one of my favourite television shows of all time.
I'm writing this six weeks before Too Much launches on Netflix.
That's six weeks of not being able to share the bubbling excitement that there will be moments from Too Much that pop into my head at random for the rest of my life – and I'll find myself laughing uncontrollably on the tube, in my local Co-op, or while walking down the street.
When television is truly great – when its characters feel like real people – there's a kind of magic that leaks into real life. I'm not a fantasist; I understand fiction. But Chandler Bing, Samantha Jones, Frasier Crane, and Buffy Summers are all heroes of mine who've made my life infinitely better just by being in it.
Too Much is one of those rare gems, with characters destined to stay with you for life and have the same impact.
Meg Stalter stars as Jessica, who's reeling from the end of a relationship. She's moved back in with three generations of single women – and her nephew – at their family home in New York.
Increasingly isolated after a brutal breakup, her only solution is to accept a job in London and start over in solitude, imagining herself as a Brontë sister… in Hackney.
The estate she moves to isn't quite the Downton Abbey she'd pictured – it's a council estate in Hoxton.
On her first night, she meets Felix. Their connection is instant. Too Much perfectly captures what it feels like to fall in love with a stranger in your 30s, with all the excitement and anxiety that come with it.
The parallels between Jessica and Stalter's chaotic Kayla from Hacks are too clear to be accidental. It's hard to imagine Too Much getting off the ground without her. Her distinctive, offbeat humour is Jessica's greatest strength.
Stalter was already the highlight of Hacks, but in Too Much, she proves she's far more than a quirky one-trick pony. Yes, she's predictably hilarious – her delivery is unmatched, even on lines that seem pointless to quote out of context – but when needed, she is breathtaking.
She can be devastating and wickedly funny in the same breath. She might even be the only person capable of denying her Hacks co-star Jean Smart a third Golden Globe for Deborah Vance.
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Felix, on paper, may not seem exceptional, but he's kind and sincere in a way rarely seen in characters like him. As the series unfolds, his layers reveal themselves to be both surprising and deeply compelling.
Will Sharpe, riding high from The White Lotus and A Real Pain, truly shines here. This feels like his moment. Together, Stalter and Sharpe are unmissable: one of the all-time great couples on television.
Richard E Grant and Naomi Watts steal one episode that deserves to be studied for its comic timing, rivalling the very best of British comedy. I had to rewind one of Watts' lines multiple times, wheezing with laughter.
There's also a headline-grabbing cameo from Jennifer Saunders that, for reasons I won't spoil, is bound to become one of the standout TV moments of the year. Even Rita Ora manages to hold her own in a cast packed with greatness. More Trending
But perhaps most impressive is how Dunham writes about Britain and its eccentric characters better than many Brits have managed since the comedy heyday of Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses.
Maybe it helps to arrive in Britain as an outsider, but Too Much is a heartfelt, hilarious love letter to Dunham's new home in London. One that tells the truth, pulls no punches, yet brims with affection and admiration. It's genuinely moving.
Rarely do I find a show I want to watch again and again, but by the time Too Much finally premieres, I fear how many times I'll have rewatched it already. I imagine at least three… and then I'll jump at any excuse to watch again, this time with friends.
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Too Much is available to stream on Netflix now.
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