The Next Great Millennial Comedy Is Here. It's Also One of the Best Shows of the Year.

Two new British series are doing more to electrify the current TV season than a whole streaming platform’s worth of star-studded dramas. Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer may have sent Netflix subscribers down a rabbit hole in search of wrongdoers, but it’s actually a bracingly compassionate look at survivors and their abusers. Camilla Whitehill’s Big Mood, which premiered April 19 on Tubi (yes, Tubi), similarly ventures into thorny territory with panache, only it keeps one foot firmly planted in comedy the whole time.

Big Mood stars Nicola Coughlan, who’s about to take over Bridgerton in Season 3, and It’s a Sin’s Lydia West as Maggie and Eddie, two thirtysomethings in London who are doing their best to make it after all — if they only knew what “it” was. Could it be professional success, which eludes them at every turn? Or mayhaps it’s a romantic relationship, even though that seems impossible when the apps are overloaded with wankers and the only people who truly understand them are each other?

One of the first truths to emerge in Season 1 — aside from incontrovertible proof that Coughlan and West are stars — is that life paths aren’t so clearly defined anymore. Higher education and homeownership are increasingly out of reach, thanks to skyrocketing costs (among other things). The internet has changed the way we communicate and third spaces are vanishingly rare, which has made it difficult to find, let alone keep, community. And if nothing else made it clear, then the COVID-19 pandemic and growing international conflicts prove the future is promised to no one. So, why plan for it?

And yet the series’s tone, set by Whitehill and director Rebecca Asher, is anything but despondent — it’s by turns absurd, abrasive, optimistic, and gracious. Maggie and Eddie may not know where they’re headed, but they’re determined to get there together and have a lot of fun (and sex and drugs) along the way. The opening scene introduces the two leads with great style and economy: Maggie’s impulsiveness (clearly not of the garden variety) is juxtaposed with Eddie’s forbearance, which is already starting to erode. As they engage in a little midday volley at Eddie’s family-owned pub, we learn about their lives and frustrations, and above all else, their love for each other. But just because they’re clear-eyed about the world doesn’t mean Eddie and Maggie don’t sometimes hide their heads in the sand — especially when forced to look at each other’s flaws.

The tension between an ever-dimmer future and the friends’ defiant hope in the face of it, along with candor about mental illness, jokes about being too online, and a glorious riff on girlbossing all combine to give Big Mood a distinctly millennial feel. Where last year’s Beef explored the grievances of the upper age range of that generation, Big Mood centers on those caught in the middle: ’90s babies turned 2020s adults; the first cohort to document their adolescence online, only to be subjected to the disapproval of thousands if not millions of strangers.

But that’s just one lens through which we can view this irreverent yet introspective comedy. Big Mood also offers a nuanced portrayal of mental illness — specifically, bipolar II disorder, debunking myths about the condition while never being didactic. Coughlan channels her natural vivacity to convey Maggie's manic episodes, but she's also effortlessly heartbreaking and relatable while depicting her depressive lows. Whitehill, who wrote the entire six-episode series, doesn’t present Maggie’s experience as universal, nor her mental illness as the root of all of her problems. It’s part of who she is, but she is not exclusively defined by it.

Her mental health has had a significant effect on her relationship with Eddie, though. Eddie’s attuned to Maggie’s mood changes, checking in on her friend when it seems like she’s going through a manic episode (right around the time Maggie has sex with a high school vice principal played by Tim Downie). But Eddie, a true ride-or-die, also readily joins Maggie in her denial, supporting her friend’s attempts to essentially try to outwit her mood disorder. “I’ll fix it,” Eddie reassures Maggie shortly before the plan goes awry. “I always fix it. I fix problems and you… have them.” 

This cycle repeats a few times throughout the season, and Eddie garners more and more sympathy as the long-suffering friend. But Big Mood subverts a certain corrosive storytelling trope; Eddie is no “Black best friend” stock character. She’s not just driven to “fix” her best friend; she feels responsible for helping everyone, even her survivalist brother (Ukweli Roach) and feckless mother (Kate Fleetwood). It’s exhilarating watching Eddie realize that she doesn’t have to live for others, especially after going through her own struggles in private.

That realization shifts the foundation of her relationship with not just her family, but with Maggie, too. And that’s when Big Mood joins the upper echelon of female-friendship comedies like Insecure, Broad City, and Tuca and Bertie (shows that are also of a distinctly millennial flavor), offering its own take on the “us against the world” dynamic that dates back to Mary and Rhoda, Laverne and Shirley, and Lucy and Ethel.

It’s tempting to describe Big Mood as a two-hander version of Girls. But where Lena Dunham's quartet saw their bond implode across six seasons, Eddie and Maggie's friendship is already frayed when Big Mood begins. “You’re a nightmare!” Eddie exclaims after the vice principal incident, caught between a laugh and an exasperated sigh, while Maggie shoots back: “But you love me!” “But I love you,” a smiling but clearly resigned Eddie replies. We see her try to cling to that feeling as the season goes on, but as her life diverges from Maggie’s, it becomes increasingly difficult. Though she has the less showy of the two roles, West is riveting as she pushes down Eddie's emotions and needs to focus on others. This is one simmering pot that needs watching.

It’s too soon to categorize Big Mood as a friendship breakup story (here’s hoping for a Season 2) but Whitehill rightly recognizes that meaningful friendships are love stories. They often progress the same way, with memorable first meetings followed by shared passions, which lead to deeper bonds. The highs and lows can feel the same; and, despite what our heteronormative, marriage-obsessed culture may insist upon, friendships require and deserve the same attention that our romantic relationships do.

Pop culture has always understood this, on some level. The best TV duos have never been strictly romantic; some of the most iconic pairings are best friends like Troy and Abed, Abbi and Ilana, Molly and Issa, and more recently, Maya and Anna. The romantic comedy boom at the turn of the century had a byproduct: the friend breakup movie. A micro-category, really (that may only exist in this writer's mind), the clearest example of which is Sandra Goldbacher’s Me Without You, which features a decade-long love story whose intensity pales in comparison with the decade-long breakup between childhood friends played by Michelle Williams and Anna Friel. Though not replete with offerings or insights — culture critic Caroline Siede described a couple of them as “rom-coms about women who hate women” in her wonderful When Romance Met Comedy column — these movies still tapped into something true: that even friendships can be tested past the breaking point, especially when the dynamic was uneven from the start.

As it winds down, Big Mood wonders just how equitable (and desirable) a friendship can be when one person, mostly through no fault of their own, is in need much more often than the other. That question is one of the best cliffhangers of the year, as told by one of the best shows of the year.

Big Mood Season 1 is streaming on Tubi. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Danette Chavez is the Editor-in-Chief of Primetimer and its biggest fan of puns.