“Life & Beth” Examines the [Im]Probability of Happiness
“Life & Beth” Examines the [Im]Probability of Happiness
Amy Schumer is back for a more somber season 2 of her semi-autobiographical show
For this review of a beloved show, I invited music and pop culture enthusiast
of to swap thoughts with me. Steve and I collaborated on a review of comedian Bridget Everett’s HBO series, Somebody Somewhere [Review here], and share a fondness for Amy Schumer, who is a good friend and former co-star of Everett’s back from her Inside Amy Schumer days, so it’s only fitting we should tackle this one together.Steve: Hi Beth, I’m excited to explore another excellent television series with you!
I will say that I feel my TV-watching time has dwindled greatly over the past year, so having a project like this forced me to adjust my priorities (a little) as it wasn’t just lounging in front of the boob tube; this was research for a writing project!
The first time we talked TV, we discussed the Bridget Everett HBO Max series Somebody Somewhere, so it seems natural for us to explore its sister series, Life & Beth. It feels like kismet that the two good friends are concurrently starring in half-hour dramedies loosely based on their lives.
Considering the numerous parallels, it’s hard not to compare the two shows. I’ll do my best to evaluate Life & Beth on its own merits. But, in general, I think we both agree that Somebody Somewhere walks the delicate line between drama and comedy more effectively than Life & Beth. Not to slight what Schumer has done here; it’s a high bar to reach. I enjoyed season 2 quite a bit, and I highly recommend Life & Beth to anyone who likes Somebody Somewhere or who prefers a quieter, more character-driven series.
Both shows begin with the death of a close family member and feature combative yet strong sister relationships. Both shows feature a (mostly) tight-knit circle of friends. Both shows feature problematic parenting. Both shows recently completed their second seasons. Somebody Somewhere was renewed for a third, but Life & Beth hasn’t yet.
Beth: As you point out, apart from obvious similarities of “art imitating life,” the themes for Somebody Somewhere and Life & Beth center around family, fractured relationships, and the desire to connect to others in deeper, more authentic ways. Schumer and Everett are exceptionally adept at inviting their audiences in to bear witness to the zany, messy, mad chaos of their worlds. Navigating choppy emotional waters with a balance of levity and gravitas can be tough, but in the case of both shows, these women are more than up for the task.
For those unfamiliar with the show, Life & Beth, a dramedy loosely based on Schumer’s life, has two seasons’ worth of episodes streaming on Hulu. Season 1 depicts her coming to terms with her mother’s death and processing traumas from her childhood, which lead to a variety of unhealthy behaviors. Season 2 is focused on her developing romantic relationship with John, a stand-in for her real-life husband, Chris, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It continues to pull on the thread of how childhood trauma (e.g. sexual misuse by boys, parental negligence, covering for her father’s lies, etc.) has left long-term effects on adult Beth.
Steve, I’m excited to explore this excellent TV series with you.
Let’s talk about what works best about Life & Beth.
Steve: For me, it would be the depth and relatability of the supporting characters. A little of Amy Schumer goes a long way for me, so the episodes that worked the best gave her friends, family, and coworkers juicy storylines worth following.
Michael Cera would top that list. Though he doesn’t show up until more than halfway into season 1 as Beth’s love interest, John, in season 2, he’s a featured co-star. I’m certainly no autism expert, but Cera’s John seems exceptionally believable as a person with high-functioning ASD. I love how his character is given many shades to portray; he’s both wary of and open to testing to find out whether he has autism.
In a particularly affecting scene, John visits a hospital to be assessed for autism and is taken to a room that is clearly used for testing children. The only chairs in the room are kid’s chairs, and when the nurse brings him an adult-sized chair to fill out his paperwork, John instead sits down and squeezes into the kid’s chair. It’s a wordless scene that says so much.
Throughout the season, we witness several situations that clearly bother Beth, but John is perfectly fine with them. As the audience, we can understand the reasoning for both of their reactions based on their challenging childhoods.
What the show smartly focuses on, during a pair of powerful couple’s counseling scenes, is how Beth and John come to learn (to different degrees) how their partner’s history has shaped them.
At the start of season 2, it seemed like they were setting up Beth’s circle of close female friends with storylines that would provide depth and complexity. But unfortunately, by the end, each subplot seemed designed to serve Beth’s storyline more than their own. Maya (Yamaneika Saunders), who I think is supposed to be Beth’s best friend, develops increasing frustration with Beth for constantly brushing aside her feelings and needs. When Maya tells Beth about a work conference she is attending in New Orleans, Beth decides to plan her wedding in the Big Easy at the same time, ignoring Maya’s clear wishes that Beth schedules the wedding for another time. Beth’s numerous cultural and racial insensitivities throughout the season never get properly explored and are brushed over with Beth’s pregnancy announcement and half-assed apology.
Jess and Jen’s storylines, which center around having an affair (with a much younger man) and becoming addicted to pain meds, worked even less effectively for me. We do see how Jess’s husband ignores her, but we learn of it mostly after the affair. Jen’s addiction is both played for laughs and as a serious problem, which felt like tonal whiplash.
I know I’m being critical when you asked me to talk about what works in the show. But that’s how I roll! :)
However, despite plot lines that didn’t fully work for me, most of the supporting characters were given added depth in season 2. In particular, Beth’s ex, Matt, has a nice backstory in which he finds out he has a teenage daughter and develops a relationship with her.
Beth: Beth’s orbit of friends work well together, and I love that no one here is a super well-known actor, save Cera (Arrested Development). And even he, a former child actor, is probably only known to a smaller segment of the indie cinephile population and those who adored him in Juno and as Allan in Barbie. After you told me that Beth’s boss in the show (Cole Escola) is the stalker/kidnapper from Search Party, it has me wondering if he was introduced to Schumer by way of Cera, who co-starred with Search Party’s Alia Shawkat in Arrested Development.
For me, the magic of the show is Schumer’s ability to portray Beth's flaws/claws out in the open. The show effectively explores her childhood trauma alongside her current struggles, like her lack of self-esteem, her fear of abandonment, and Trichotillomania. Layer all of this on top of her budding romance with John, someone she suspects has ASD, and you get a brave, raw, and, in some scenes, hard-to-watch show.
I don’t watch stand-up that often. I don’t really enjoy it, but take a comedian and put them in a dark comedy or drama, and you have me hooked. So in Life & Beth, Schumer is the differentiating factor.
Early reviews of the 2nd season didn’t give the show as much critical love as the first. It took me a minute to get into the more serious themes brought forth, but I found myself easily consuming all ten episodes. The show vacillates between two timelines - Beth’s high school years and her in the present day. Early on in the season, these cuts between present and past felt more forced. Notably, all of them showcased some sort of problematic male-female sexual dynamic in Beth’s past, which catches up with her in the present.
In episode 5 (“Claire”), when her ex, Matt, meets his long-lost daughter and Beth helps him through his anxiety, it intercuts with scenes from Beth’s childhood with her negligent father (Michael Rappaport) and her unconditional love for him despite his lack of parental competence. This is where I felt the season found its footing. I like the pivot, with it being more Beth-centric and less about her relationship with her mother — a main focus of the first season.
Steve: I don’t understand the reviews claiming season 2 is less artistically successful than season 1. I found season 1 fun and often funny, but it struggled to find the right tone, and I couldn’t tell which supporting characters to care about. Although the tone is still not as balanced as it could be – there are too many dips into wacky slapstick – in season 2, it’s clear that Life & Beth’s writers better understand what the show is about and what themes it wants to examine.
I had a big pet peeve about the flashbacks in season 1. They often didn’t reveal anything new about adult Beth. Also, the young Beth scenes tended to dabble in teenager cliches, which pulled me out of the main storylines.
Outside of a couple of episodes, the backstory scenes in season 2 were more smartly integrated, especially the flashback scenes of young John. We learn of his failed attempts to make friends, his close relationship with his mother, and his challenging one with his father, giving us a more layered view of adult John.
Even though the flashbacks worked much better in season 2, if there’s going to be a season 3, I hope they dial them way back. They break the flow in the present-day storylines, and the show doesn’t need them.
That said, I was expecting some sort of flashback scene where Beth and her sister Ann (Suzannah Flood) bond over having both been abandoned by their mother. And in the adult scenes, we never get to see the sisters truly connecting with each other either. I don’t want Hallmark, but considering all they’d experienced together, I thought a small moment of sympathy and understanding might occur.
The episode at the haunted mansion (season 2, episode 6, “The Work”) was potentially set up to be that episode, but instead, it merely repeats the familiar dynamic of Beth not being able to empathize or even listen to her younger sister. I would hope if there is a season 3, that the sisters' relationship gets a lot more attention. Also, Ann’s obvious agoraphobia was hinted at all season and never developed.
Beth: Their dad is another big component of Ann and Beth’s relationship. It’s hard to be sympathetic to Leonard (Michael Rapaport) because he’s so over-the-top in the narcissist department. The episode where he runs out to get the girls an air mattress and food and then returns late at night with nothing made me want to rage quit the series altogether. Thankfully, Beth makes the adult decision (as a teenager) to drive her and Ann back home to their mom’s house — which is equally dysfunctional but in a different way. The parents are the show’s weakest links, as both are incredibly immature and one-dimensional. The mom’s incessant need for male approval and romantic validation gets tiring, so I’m glad this season put the kibosh on our exposure to it.
This season, Beth and John’s relationship was at the forefront. Given what we’ve shared here about Cera, I think this was a boon for the show. He’s the character that grows the most this season, and I love the way the show’s writers integrate his childhood experience into the present timeline, like Beth’s. Seeing how he experienced his mother’s death as a child and his father’s inability to parent him in the loving ways that he needed led him to be chronically stuck in this one type of existence with no real diversion from that. He’s an adult living with ASD, and he was once a child, unable to get the tools he needed to be successful. As an adult, John, up until meeting Beth, hadn’t been challenged to shake up the status quo since his childhood. He lives on the same farm his parents did and finds comfort in the same activities - tending to the farm and solitary nature excursions. Then along comes Beth who blows that all up as far as what he’s always done and known.
He [John] now needs to hold space for another human in his life. This is where I think the beauty in the show lies, along with Schumer’s unfiltered demeanor playing Beth, which either endears you to her or has the opposite effect — sends you running for the hills.
Steve: As I said before, Michael Cera is the star in season 2. When the show focuses on the relationship and marriage of Beth and John, it’s relatable, honest, and exciting. Beth’s worrying about everything greatly contrasts John’s worrying about nothing. I found myself relating to both of them and empathizing with their struggles.
Having had little parental guidance her whole young life, it makes sense that adult Beth is always on the lookout for potential danger. Her character does evolve, though, and it’s refreshing and rewarding to witness this growth, as it feels earned and honest.
Beth: It’s interesting what you say about Beth looking for something to worry about. I didn’t register this behavior so much as I chalked it up to pregnancy hormones — and yes, that’ll do weird stuff to a person — but in retrospect, I might have short-changed that.
I have to imagine that Beth’s childhood left her in a constant state of anticipatory anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop. So it tracks that when surface-wise things are ok, the feeling is alien, and she finds things to worry about. It’s her normal resting state. With John, his worry expresses itself differently — he directs it into mechanical crafts — building the perfect crib and installing shelving in the kitchen.
I do think we see glimpses of growth for Beth this season, less so with how she interacts with her sister Ann, where she’s continually clueless, and more with her friend Maya, and finally reading Caste after initially ignoring her friend Maya’s pleas. She is better able to show up for her friends than she is for her sister. She’s even able to be a support to her ex, Matt, in a manner that she never could for Ann.
It made me wonder why — to the point of your comment on episode 6 (“The Work”) — Beth went with Ann to the haunted house in the first place since it felt self-serving. Ann doesn’t show up for her either or share her frustrations with Beth openly, but she’s much better at respecting the boundaries she puts up.
Side note: My first and middle name is “Beth Ann” so hearing these sisters’ names has been a bit trippy.
Names aside, cultural identity is a big part of this show. Amy Schumer is Jewish, as are many of the actors in the show. In the show, through her flashbacks, she references acts of antisemitism she experienced.
The episode where she’s sexually misused by the boy in high school and later on, he vandalizes her house with his friends, and they call her “jewbag” are ways she integrates that level of hate based on her ethnic identity into her story.
As a Jewish woman, I greatly appreciate that she is boldly making those choices. Violet Young (Young Beth) nails that performance as well. It’s not easy to be a surrogate mom to her younger sister while flexing some of the developmentally appropriate rebelliousness, to your point.
Steve: I did think about you sharing a name with the main character and wondered about possible overlapping personality traits, but I wanted to keep our discussion on topic!:)
I was an early fan of Amy Schumer’s standup comedy and had even watched the season of Last Comic Standing that she starred in (and made it to the final three, I believe). She was one of the filthiest female comedians I’d ever seen, but she balanced the raunchiness with self-deprecation perfectly, in my opinion. I also think that Inside Amy Schumer was an often brilliant show that hilariously skewered relationship dynamics and cultural norms better than almost any other TV show.
I have my fingers crossed that Life & Beth gets a 3rd season renewal. After the writer and actor strikes, a lot of shows are being prematurely axed, which is a serious bummer. I think the show did okay, ratings-wise, but who knows? I’d love to check back with you to chat about season 3 if it comes!
It’s been amazing discussing TV with you again, Beth and I look forward to our next collaboration!
Beth: Agreed. Let’s not wait 9 mos. before we collaborate again. We shouldn’t have to because Somebody Somewhere is slated for release this year. If Life and Beth teeters on the brink of cancellation, I’m volunteering to start a petition on Change.org. I did this for the show Reboot on Hulu, which was unfortunately canceled after 1 season [Petition here], but my petition didn’t do much for the cause. Also, to your point about the shared “Beth”-ness of this character and myself, I only wish I could be as candid as Schumer! I’ll take the comparison, though. Thanks, Steve.
Parting Thoughts
Amy Schumer on healing childhood wounds:
If you don’t deal with your trauma, it’s gonna kill you.
Cameos (that worked) & Subplots (that didn't)
Cameos We Loved:
Jennifer Coolidge as a New Orleans psychic
Amy Sedaris as Beth’s wedding planner and her dad Leonard’s paramour
Charlie Hall (Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ son) is the guy Jess is having an affair with. Underused here as he’s only on the episode for a half second.
Subplots We Didn’t:
Beth’s friend Jen’s opioid crisis
Her other friend Jess’ affair (save seeing Charlie Hall)
Anything to do with Leonard or Jane, the parents
Readers: Chime in. What did you love about season 2? What was more of a miss?
Also, should I consider a bi-monthly post called “Cameos Characters (that worked) & Subplots (that didn’t)” where I analyze a bit more free-form these specific elements of shows? What would be your pick for a first show?
Thanks for having me back, Beth! Or should I call you Amy?
We didn't talk about it, but what did you think about the time jumps they incorporated? Particularly the one where she's pregnant and we speed through 8 months in a 3 minute speeded up montage. I thought it worked visually, but after the speedy marriage, the speedy pregnancy felt like they were trying to squeeze in a lot of "life" in one season.