Laid Review

Laid, the new Peacock series that stars a great Stephanie Hsu (who I continue to believe should have won the Oscar over Jamie Lee Curtis for their film Everything Everywhere All At Once, but I digress), is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the series – which is adapted from an Australian series of the same name – has a killer hook, some really good performances, some fun guest appearances, and the still-rare instance of a really difficult and unlikeable female protagonist that the audience has to try very very hard to root for throughout much of the season. On the other, well, the series feels like it drags on too long without nearly enough in the way of payoff (despite being only eight half hour installments long), there’s a twist late in the game that more or less negates a bunch of what came before and feels more frustrating then enlightening, and as game as Hsu is in playing that really unlikeable protagonist – and she’s very game – the character still feels too thinly drawn to hang the entire series on.

But let’s start at the beginning. Laid tells the story of Ruby (Hsu), a woman who lacks empathy and who is more than happy to float through life cutting down those around her while still hoping that the magical happy ending from RomComs and Disney films will fall into her lap. She’s the person who goes to therapy so that she can tell people she goes to therapy while refusing to do any work on herself while simultaneously duping her therapist into allowing her to keep refusing to make herself even the least bit emotionally vulnerable. Unfortunately for Ruby, her carefully constructed, emotionally distant façade is about to shatter as she realizes that a troublingly high percentage of folks she has previously had sex with are turning up dead. And they are dying in the exact order in which she slept with them, earliest first.

Luckily for Ruby, her best friend and roommate, AJ (Zosia Mamet, channeling Shoshana from Girls once again), is a true crime aficionado, knows how to construct a murder board, and has a disturbingly accurate recall as to every person Ruby ever dated. So, the duo put pen to paper and attempt to determine who’s next for the chopping block to warn them of their impending doom, while also trying to figure out why this is happening to Ruby’s exes. Of course, since Ruby lacks even a modicum of outward facing care or awareness, she’s also incredibly focused on what this means for her and her sex life – not really something most people would be worried about at this particular juncture, but that’s Ruby.

Tangled up in the warning of exes and the mystery of just what is going on is a love triangle of sorts for Ruby, when she reconnects with one of her potentially marked for death exes, Ritchie (Michael Angarano, who’s great in the role, even if the writing isn’t quite sure how much we should be rooting for him), while also developing a crush on the charming and sweet Isaac (Tommy Martinez), for whom Ruby is party planning a shindig for his parents’ 40^th anniversary. It’s a heck of a lot to juggle, especially for a character who Ritchie aptly calls “the worst person I have ever met.”

And I suspect that’s going to be the thing that makes or breaks this series among those who watch it: Ruby as a character. Hsu is a spectacular actor and she has managed to walk the fine line between villain and misunderstood character before (again, see Everything Everywhere All At Once). But Ruby is a character who is clearly meant to challenge the audience with their desire to see her put in her place for all the horrible things she says and does to others (which, of course, stems from an unresolved childhood trauma she won’t face) while still needing to the audience to want her to succeed in order for the show to really work. We don’t want her exes to die (and boy, are some of the deaths spectacular and jarring in nature). But, we also aren’t sure we want Ruby to get off without real consequences – just what those consequences are and what they are for is where things can get a bit messy.

The series doesn’t want to chastise her for having a healthy sex life – which is great. Plus, the more exes she has, the longer they can try to solve the problem at hand before we start potentially losing characters we know and care about. But without understanding why these deaths are happening, we can’t really understand how they impact Ruby as a character. Until then, it’s just one-off guest stars popping on the show, being warned of their impending death, brushing off the warning (because who would believe Ruby?), and then, ultimately, dying. And that’s fun, but again, not a ton of character work happening with Ruby, AJ, or any of the other key players, at least until the final part of the season.

And that’s the flaw of the series and why it didn’t completelty work for me. In order for Ruby to really start growing, she needs to start dealing with her past trauma and seeing how her love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude is really a function of her deep-seeded fear of getting left first (and yes, this is something her therapist finally gets at, as do other folks in the series). And while she can start to recognize that this is what is holding her back, it’s hard to really have a complex discussion about this very difficult topic while Ruby is also trying to save lives (and get people to believe her) and also decide who she wants to be with (which really feels so secondary to the rest of the story it’s strange when it’s given such a large chunk of the narrative arc).

There’s a good show somewhere within all the story arcs and the dead bodies, but it doesn’t quite get out of its own way to show us it in season one (season two, which is teased with a cliffhanger, already has me much more intrigued than most of the first season, for what it’s worth). If you’re looking for a chance to watch Hsu do her thing, Laid doesn’t require a huge commitment of your time and her performance is very strong. And if you’ve been missing Mamet’s manic energy, she’s churning out some of her most neurotic and amped up work here. I’m not sure if that’s enough to recommend it, but it’s certainly not a pan.

Laid premieres on December 19 on Peacock. All eight episodes of season one were provided for review.