Sweet Sorrow

 

At the end of the 84th episode of Younger… a series made pre-Covid by MTV but only recently re-released on Netflix… I sagged. I found myself in a funk, feeling as though I had lost a friend. A really, really, good friend. Like a school boy’s crush. It was sad, but true. It was over.

I have never found anything so easy to watch… “stream” would be the better term… for I never was able to view only one episode and then stop. In fact, I am quite sure I never watched less than three episodes at a time. On Netflix, that would take about an hour. Five or six episodes at a time were not out of the question and so, in less than two weeks’ time, I watched all seven years of this beautifully produced, wonderfully acted, well written, totally captivating dramedy. There is a part of me that wants to fill the page with quotes from the bright dialogue or try to recapture for you moments that occurred in almost every episode where I was moved to tears. But I am not going to do that.

There are so many layers in this tale of a recent 40-year-old divorcee who must reinvent herself to get back into the marketplace, to get a job that meets her needs as well as the tuition requirements for her daughter’s college. It is rich in social commentary, sexism, ageism, and it is so delightfully romantic. It is Cinderella meets Sex and the City, coupled with a touch of Lena Dunham sensibility meeting Pretty Woman, and then better than all that put together.

This is NOT The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It is not a homage to style in cinema, nor does it attempt anything close to that. One admires Maisel… often freezing the frame to reverse the action to see a particular shot again. That does not happen with Younger… this is not ground-breaking stuff… it is more basic than that. I was so into this show, so captivated by what transcended style, so drawn into the lives… specifically the life… of the primary character, that now… at the end of episode 84… the show is over, and I am bereft. Sutton Foster, who IS the lead character Liza Miller, the focus of this series, is out of my life and I feel the loss… deeply.

The actors who make up the ensemble of Younger deserve better than they will get here. They were all quite good, all worthy of some mention and I am sorry for not going on about them. I am simply too smitten by their leading lady. 

I am reminded that I saw Sutton Foster on Broadway in her Tony Award winning performance 20some years ago in Thoroughly Modern Millie. If you check back through old reviews of mine, my recollection is you will find Ms. Foster was the only thing I praised in the Hugh Jackman revival of The Music Man where she played Marian, the librarian (of course).

The bad news for me is that it would appear Sutton Foster is a real Broadway baby and consequently does not do a lot of television. Too bad. It is the best argument I have heard yet for cloning.

Still driven by this new obsession, I moved on through my Google machine, turning up a series I had never heard of with the unfortunate title of Bunheads. Believe it or not, this show from over a dozen years ago which you can find on Disney, not only stars Sutton Foster (heavens be praised), they matched her with the same team that would go on from there to make the series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

I mean, is God a Cagney & Lacey fan or what?

Back to planet Earth.

Even with Amy Sherman-Palladino at the helm, Bunheads is not great. That possibly accounts for why there is only the premiere season for us to watch, BUT… it ain’t bad… not even close to bad… and it stars SUTTON FOSTER.

Be still my heart.

 

Barney Rosenzweig