Difficult People

I never heard of this show till It showed up on my streaming service so I thought I'd give it a try and what a surprise. I loved loved loved this show it deserves way more credit then it got. It reminds me of Seinfeld , broad city all out into one. I loved how the characters are awful but it's real awful. I wish more people would talk about this show it deserves more credit. One of the best comedies ever.

Difficult people is about two really awful people who go around being awful and catty and mean.

This can work, as it does in You're the Worst. But Difficult People is far less ambition. It basically feels like a couple of comedians who thought it would be funny to make a show where they just do insult comedy every week.

The first episode was *mildly* amusing. I laughed once or twice, even though I found the characters unlikable and the premise thin. The second episode had all the flaws of the first but was even less funny. So that's the last episode I'll be watching.

Follows the same formula as Seinfeld. No hugging, no learning, but it's missing something. Eichner's character is excellent, but the supporting cast are extremely annoying, which is I know what they're going for but it just doesn't work. There's nothing interesting about them, you could remove them totally and the show would be better for it. I love a show with flawed characters, I don't need them to evolve, but after a while it feels like you're watching the same episode over and over. I watched the full first season and there are really great moments and very funny lines scattered amongst it, but it's not enough to hold me. I mostly kept watching for Andrea Martin who is fabulous as Julie's mother.

This is a show for a very narrow demographic. The range of pop culture put downs is vast. It's hard to imagine anyone but gay, full-time couch potatoes understanding all of it. I come close to that category, but I'm old. Younger versions of me will probably get more of it. And, you've got to be quick to even take it all in. The show may be just a so-so framework for a barrage of rat-a-tat-tat jokes, but oh, what jokes!

The lines are tossed off so fast and are so all-over-the-place topically they barely register. If you waste time laughing, you'll miss the next joke. Not many shows can work in a line like "If I've learned anything, it's that there are limits to even what Viola Davis can make plausible." Now, for me, that's funny. And it's funny because it's true. But I can easily understand that a lot of people would be baffled. Not only do you have to know who Viola Davis is, you have to have seen enough of her work to know that she's been in some real turkeys.

I especially like some of the side players, truly original characters we haven't seen before. E.g., the transgender server who's a 911 conspiracy theory nut. When she says to a co-worker, "I wish you'd been on Flight 93," it's stunning. I'm not sure what my reaction was. Did I laugh because it was funny, or was I just astonished by the anything-is-fair-game attitude? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. I was entertained, and in the broadest sense of the word.

You may hate the characters, and you may not like their constantly snarky attitude. But you have to admire how they can simultaneously celebrate and fearlessly skewer the values American pop culture has engendered in us all.

I am totally obsessed with this show. I feel like it was made for me. I love talking about random celebrities! But I can't really watch it with other people without having to answer the question "Who's that?" or "What does that mean?" every 30 seconds. Billy Eichner was my absolute favorite actor on Parks and Recreation (he played Craig) and I am totally in love with his street comedy show. Thank god Difficult People exists. The fact that it's successful makes me feel like maybe the rest of the world is starting to be as mean and weird as me! And I love that it's about people in their 30s and not their 20s. I can't stand shows about super successful people right out of college where everyone has their dream job and dream life and everything is perfect. This show is real life, for people who are as cynical as me. I love it.