Easy: Season 1/ Episode 1 [Series Premiere] – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

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If you’re familiar with Joe Swanberg’s work, him finally working on a series seems long overdue. For with his characters being just the right kind of weird, but only occasionally overdoing it, consistently he had made movies you wished were extended into series. Drinking Buddies perhaps the best example. So with Easy comes the chance for the dream to be realized and as of the first episode, so far so good.

Main Storyline

Things start off focusing on Kyle (Michael Chernus) and Andi’s (Elizabeth Reaser) relationship. Of which, after 19 years, while comfortable, isn’t sexy anymore. Kyle just doesn’t make moves and doesn’t have the libido he is used to. Add in he is a stay at home dad while she is the breadwinner, and one of their friends bringing up some study as to that being the reason for less sex in a relationship, and it bothers them. To the point, they try but it seems like they may need to adapt their expectations of the other or settle for lonely masturbation.

Highlights

As usual with Swanberg’s work, you are left wanting more. Kyle and Andi, while they don’t have the most complicated or sexy relationship, they both seem sweet and don’t have the usual drama of relationships we see. Especially relationship on network/ mediums which don’t have to worry about censorship. They seem authentic in their problems of keeping things hot after being together for almost two decades as well as having kids. And that normalcy, without the bells and whistles of affairs or even the temptation to have one, much less to see a couple actually trying and not basically at the end of their marriage, felt different. Different in a good way.

On The Fence

With that said, though, I can foresee some thinking these two are as dull as can be. Kyle is a stay at home dad with two very normal kids, and some aspirations to be a writer/ actor. Andi is an organic chef. Together their normalcy, without any real drama, just some disappointment from Andi that she still very much wants an active and fulfilling sex with her husband, who needs to be pushed to participate, may not be enough for some. Even I have to admit, as much as I enjoyed this, I felt like I was watching the introductory part of a movie before things ramped up. To the point when I realized this episode was 20 minutes, I had to question why? Mostly due to the rather large cast I see on IMDB which means this may be one of the few times we get to really focus on these two before the concentration shifts and they become seldom seem or heard about.

 

Feelings Since the Premiere

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed that we only got to see most of the characters for one single episode and that was it. Mostly because you were left with what felt like an incomplete story. One which reminds you that you are just witnessing a snippet of these people’s lives but that treatment, while understandable, is also infuriating.