What would happen if your best friend, someone who you’ve been close to for decades, started dating your daughter, who’s an adult but half his age? That’s the premise of the new Hulu comedy Alice And Steve.
Opening Shot: Two people (and a dog) are sitting at a funeral.
The Gist: Alice (Nicola Walker) and Steve (Jemaine Clement) are at the funeral for their friend Mike, which gets them upset on a few levels. Steve brings Crosby, the dog he shares with his ex-wife, to the funeral, and he sneezes on Mike’s face as they approach the coffin.
After a post-funeral pub session, the two longtime best friends — they dated briefly when they were in their 20s, but have been close almost to the point of being co-dependent in the 30 years since — go back to Alice’s place because she knows she has a baggie of coke stashed away somewhere. Alice inadvertently wakes up her husband Daniel (Joel Fry) and checks in with their teenage son Dom (Tyrese Eaton-Dyce).
While waiting, Steve is surprised by Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith), Alice’s 26-year-old daughter, who just broke up with a longtime boyfriend and has come over to spend a few nights at home. Izzy is surprised to learn that Steve got a divorce a few years back.
Alice and Steve then go to a club to snort the old coke and try to feel young again. Alice even tries to set up Steve with a younger woman she finds at the bar, but they have nothing in common. When Crosby gets into the baggie of coke, though, they end up at the emergency vet.
Steve sleeps over, and when Izzy comes into the living room where he’s sleeping, and they start talking, they realize they’re attracted to each other. They start kissing, which leads to sex.
Because he slept with his best friend’s daughter, Steve goes incommunicado for a couple of days, leading Alice to worry that he was upset with her for almost poisoning Crosby. Izzy comes over, and the two of them realize that, despite the age difference, they quite like each other and have more in common than they realize. When Alice shows up to check in on Steve and sees Izzy there, Izzy decides to spill the beans.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Written by Sophie Goodhart, Alice And Steve is a “wrongcom” along the lines of Such Brave Girls and Fleabag.
Our Take: The first episode of Alice And Steve has its moments, but it’s busy trying to establish just how close Alice and Steve are as friends before the event that disrupts that friendship. It’s in the second episode, that disruption, and how Alice deals with the horrifying news, when things get really uncomfortable — and really funny.
Much of this is driven by Nicola Walker. You would think that Clement would be the funnier of the pair in this story, but Steve is spending so much time apologizing, and before that just being a middle-aged fuddy-duddy, that Walker’s Alice is hilarious as she seethes and plots against her best friend for what she thinks is a supreme betrayal.
That’s why the first episode has to do what it does. We have to know how codependent the two of them are with each other, and how they say, “I love you,” to each other despite their platonic relationship. We have to know that the friendship predates both of their marriages, and we have to know how much Alice adores Izzy. Without that information, Alice’s anger doesn’t make as much sense. But with that info, seeing what Alice does with her hurt and anger has that much stronger impact.
It’ll be fun to see the headstrong Izzy and the surprisingly in love Steve get deeper into their relationship as Alice tries to figure out how to break them up. And as much as we enjoyed the chemistry that Walker and Clement had in the first episode when they were still getting along, the sour turn their friendship takes will be interesting to watch because they had such good chemistry in that first episode.
Performance Worth Watching: Like we said, Nicola Walker is the standout here, because her anger at the situation is readily apparent, but it comes out in the form of snide remarks, embarrassing stories about Steve, and other passive-aggressive actions.
Sex And Skin: None in the first two episodes.
Parting Shot: Izzy comes right out and tells Alice that she and Steve slept together. We see Alice trying to process the bombshell in a close-up.
Sleeper Star: Mable is the name of the dog that plays Crosby, who is cute as hell. We are also intrigued by Eilidh Fisher, who plays Dom’s friend Rome, mainly because of her maturity and the fact that she totes a film camera with her wherever she goes.
Most Pilot-y Line: Steve is a hairdresser with famous clients, and Alice tries to boost his profile to the younger people at the bar by telling them he’s responsible for Nicole Richie’s bob. Even Nicole Richie might be too old of a reference for these people.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Alice And Steve gets funnier the more the tension between Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement’s characters ramps up. But the effective way their friendship is established is what makes the tension work.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
