Where to watch: Max
Reactions: I laughed. I cried. Heartfelt happiness.

I’m shocked that it took me this long to finally watch Somebody Somewhere because this show is exactly the type of show I love. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that this is one of the best shows I’ve seen in ages. It’s so simple in concept and yet so complex is its psychology and characters.

The show opens with protagonist Sam who has returned to her hometown to take care of her sister who has since died of cancer. The show then follows her struggle to live again, to find happiness, to find community, and most importantly, to discover how to love herself so that she can love others.

This show’s three seasons and 21 episodes are beautifully scripted and acted. I truly did laugh out loud. And I cried tears of grief, sorrow, and joy. But mostly, I cried because I could relate to so much of what Sam faces. And that’s because the challenges Sam faces are challenges so many of us face in a society that has never fully found its way, post-pandemic.

Sam represents all of us who never recovered socially, emotionally, or mentally from being locked down away from society for a year. So many of us learned a new normal in that year, accepting loneliness, isolation, and numbness. Have we never really learned how to adapt to this limbo society that has emerged in the pandemic’s aftermath – not quite the old society we knew, abut not really something new and different either.

Sam’s struggle to reconnect with life and the ability to love and be loved resonates so deeply with me as I’ve spent the last few years figuring out how to cope with lockdown-inspired social anxiety that keeps me comfortably locked away in the lonely safety of my little hermitage out here on the edge of town. I felt such resonant pangs of recognition when Sam pulls back from each new friendship or relationship that gets too real too fast. For example…

When Sam says about her love interest, whom she has been avoiding, “What if he gets to know me and doesn’t want this?”

And her best friend Joel replies, “How could he not?”

I bawled.

Another aspect of the show that I absolutely love is how the directors and cinematographers chose to linger on the simplest and most mundane situations to make the show feel so real. For example, when Sam is trying on different shirts for her first date, we see her frustration evolve as she changes three or four times, in real time. Or, there’s also the frequent long, reflective shots of Sam lost in her thoughts while sitting in her car. It’s a powerful artistic choice and it pays off by creating a hyper-realistic story and character.

And finally, I really appreciate that the show spends precious screen time (each episode is only 30 minutes or less), dealing with topic of middle-aged people coping with and making arrangements for aged parents. That’s another topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately.

One of the show’s promotional straplines is “Find your people.” As a single person in his late-forties (similar in age to Sam), I can attest that that is easier said than done. Which is what the show so brilliantly brings to life.

I cannot say enough positive things about this show. It’s remarkable and powerful. But more importantly, it’s so perfectly real and raw. I loved it.

I highly recommend this one.