How do you even explain a show like Please Like Me?
A few months ago Taskmaster Australia aired its second season (but it was third in filming order? that's a whole different confusing can of worms) and one of the contestants on it was Josh Thomas, a melancholy twink who stood out to me and my husband as hilarious amongst a pretty funny contestant lineup. As an american, my heartfelt suggestion is to watch all of english-language Taskmaster (except for US which I've written about before, sorry Reggie) if you're interested in finding new comedians to love.
As it turns out, one of the most fun parts about getting into Taskmaster and going through various seasons & contestant lineups has been figuring out what else these comedians have worked on, and then watching those things. As a result I've gotten very into the UK Comedy Panel Show scene and the very limited by comparison Australian and New Zealand panel show scenes. Among them stuff like QI, 7 Days, Would I Lie To You? Hypothetical, Mock the Week, Have You Been Paying Attention?, Guy Montgomery's Guy-Mont Spelling Bee, Thank God You're Here, and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, among others. But, many of these comedians aren't really panel show people, they each have a primary work they're known for such as a sitcom, and in Josh Thomas's case it's the Australian drama disguised as a sitcom Please Like Me.
My husband and I sat down to watch Please Like Me, we had been watching What We Do in the Shadows and we got to the season finale where everyone goes around the world on various journeys so we figured it was a good place to take a break. What I expected was a sitcom. What I got was a drama about being a messy queer young adult that derives comedy in the same way Nathan Fielder's newer projects like The Rehearsal or The Curse do, by focusing on the juxtaposition of goofy shit happening next to uncomfortable tragedy.
I will put a CW here for Suicide, Self-Harm, Abusive Relationships, Sexual Assault, Homophobia and Mental Health Issues.
This show does not sugarcoat these topics, and if you're sensitive to any of those, you should consider whether nor not you want to continue reading this. If you decide the answer is no, that's okay, I get it.
Also, just like, spoilers, in general, this show is dense with drama.
Still with me? Alright. Please Like Me starts with a bang. Josh's girlfriend Claire breaks up with him because she can see that he's Gay and Josh is living in denial. Josh goes and talks to his cishet best friend Tom, who I can only describe as Gormless. He has negative swag & his girlfriend at the start of the show, Niamh, exhibits super toxic manipulative traits. They talk about how he should break up with her and how he'll do it later tonight (he doesn't). Tom's coworker, Geoffrey is gay, and Josh and Geoffrey attempt to hook up but a comedy of errors prevent them from having sex, Geoffrey stays the night. The next morning Josh wakes up to about ten panicked voicemails from his father, because his mother has attempted suicide and is now in the hospital. The hospital determines it's not a good idea for Josh's mom to live on her own, so Josh decides to move back in with her. Aunty Peg, who is I think Josh's mother's aunt, also hangs around to help out when needed, she's quite irritable and homophobic.
The first season is chock full of chaos. Tom repeatedly tries to break up with Niamh. Josh moves in and when Josh has somewhere to be, Peg (who is very old fashioned and no-nonsense) tags in to try and keep an eye on Josh's mom. Josh's mom tries to get back in the dating scene (his parents are divorced by the way), Josh tries to deal with his Father being an anxious mess about everything, including being obsessed with the well-being of Josh's mother & his girlfriend tries to reign him in. Aunty Peg basically announces to an entire church that Josh is gay and that after an initial adjustment period she's okay with it. Tom's girlfriend tells everyone he gave her chlamydia, then lies to him about being pregnant to try and force them back together. Claire falls in love with Tom during all of this, but before Tom knows Niamh was lying about the pregnancy, he has to reject Claire. Josh's Mom starts dating again and gets together with a really dogshit homophobic guy. Josh and Geoffrey repeatedly break up and get back together. Aunty Peg dies sitting in a car with Josh's Mom while they wait for a real estate agent to show her house. The last episode of the season focuses on Peg's funeral, which is taking place on Josh's 21st birthday, and he spends the whole episode wondering why he can't cry almost until the very end when the dam finally breaks. The episode ends with Josh's mom attempting suicide again after breaking up with her dogshit boyfriend. There's alot of comedy to be found in these moments but oh my GOD season one is only six episodes and it has this much in it.
There's too much that happens in seasons 2 and 3 for me to really go over it in detail. This paragraph is going to be big, but keep in mind it's a fraction of what happens. We get some new characters by way of Josh's mom checking herself into a mental hospital, she befriends fellow patient Hannah, Ginger, and Arnold. Hannah's a lesbian who recently had a breakdown; she mostly struggles with depression and self harming tendencies. They do NOT sugarcoat this at all, there are at least a few scenes where Hannah is smashing her feet with a hammer. Ginger has bipolar disorder and the very first time she's ever on-screen Josh's mom walks into her room at the hospital and stops her new roommate's suicide attempt. Arnold suffers from panic attacks and an anxiety disorder, he's about Josh's age and is gay, they end up getting together and Arnold is Josh's boyfriend for most of the rest of the show. Claire's working in Germany for a while so sometimes we see her on skype but she's mostly absent from this season. There's a new roommate in Josh and Tom's house named Patrick who's gay but doesn't seem to be Josh's speed really, and he moves out after a few episodes. Tom starts dating a highschooler (yeah I know) and it's a really bad relationship because Tom has no self-esteem, so Tom gets walked all over; the last time we end up seeing her she sexually assaults Tom and they just like, show it. This show doesn't pull ANY punches. Tom also hires a prostitute and gets scared and hides in the bathroom when she shows up. Josh's dad's girlfriend Mae has a baby, Ginger has a successful suicide attempt, Josh and his mother go on a big hike/camping trip in the wilderness at the end of which Josh's mom opens a note Ginger left for her. Arnold has to come out to his parents and uses Josh's dad to practice, which makes Josh's dad cry. The real thing goes about as smoothly as sandpaper. Claire comes back from Germany, then leaves again, then comes back. Josh's Mom and Hannah move in together to keep an eye on eachother. Tom meets a girl at a club named Ella who accompanies him to the hospital when Tom, high on MDMA, trips and breaks his arm. They end up getting together after that. Josh and Arnold decide they're polyamorous, and Josh hooks up with a guy that has a brain aneurysm that needs brain surgery to fix it. Season 3 ends with all the main characters having a Christmas lunch at Josh's house and it starts deteriorating rapidly as everyone ends up complaining at eachother.
Season 4 is also dense, and is more emblematic of the changes that accompany the closing of a chapter in your life.
Josh and Arnold try and have a threesome but Josh gets self conscious when he feels ignored and wanders off. I personally am not poly, but because I have so many friends who are queer furries it's become very common in my orbit, and if your brain is wired for it and you can pull it off, I say go for it, but to see many of my anxieties about what might happen if I tried it manifested on screen? Whoo boy.
The next episode is a camping trip for Hannah's birthday, and ends with Josh and Arnold breaking up in a tent during a rainstorm.
The episode after this Josh gets back out there and has a series of horrible dates.
The episode after that, Josh takes his parents out to a fancy 15-course dinner where they alternately reminisce and argue.
The penultimate episode sees Ella have a breast cancer scare and Josh visiting his mother only to find she's committed suicide. This is by far the most dramatic episode in the whole show.
The final episode, Josh sells his mother's house and gets 1.5 million for it, then buys a loft with the money. Everyone moves out of the share house, Tom and Ella move in together, and then immediately break up before they're done unpacking, leaving Tom to move back in with Josh in his new loft.
You see what I mean when I say this show is alot? It can be hard to watch at times. We had to take a few breaks.
The comedy in this show is sort of Fielder-esque, if you've seen his post Nathan For You shows like The Rehearsal and The Curse, you'll know what I mean by this. Lots of the comedy is derived by juxtaposition: putting something silly or awkward next to something horrifically tragic. For example, in the finale, immediately after finding out his mother is dead, when he calls his dad to tell him, his father spends about five minutes trying to awkwardly order a burrito bowl before Josh can say it. It's the final escalation point of dozens of moments like this throughout the show.
There are many things this show does well in addition to the comedy, One is that it, as you can see if you made it this far, does not shy away from tackling hard topics and I think while they can be uncomfortable it shows those difficult things for what they are - moments that change you forever. There's no practicing being an adult, it just happens and you have to roll with it. It's also doing a fantastic job of showing that the nature of life is change. Things happen, people move to germany for work and then come back and then they feel like things aren't the same, babies are born, breakups happen. Also, Josh cannot seem to keep his mouth shut. He often tries to make jokes to diffuse tense situations but it nearly always backfires.
I'm not sure if I'll ever revisit Please Like Me but I'm glad I watched it.