You enter the HBO Max catalog. You expected a series to be there, highly visible, highly recommended, and it is not present on the cover. You think there has been an error. Perhaps the release date has changed or, in the same way that European titles disappeared from the platform at the time, perhaps it has disappeared and is not expected. A feeling of disappointment settles next to you on the sofa. You enter the content search engine and, after writing the first letters of the title, you see that it is there. It is Somebody Somewhere which, since it does not have mushroom-men, dragons or viperine dialogues in forbidding mansions, is hidden in the catalog despite being extraordinary when it comes to portraying an ordinary world.
Somebody Somewhere is, for those who don’t remember, the series that only needed 27 minutes to convince us that we were looking at a treasure, an intimate and honest vehicle about life, when it premiered in January of last year. Carolyn Strauss, an HBO executive, told Bridget Everett, an actress, singer, cabaret artist and comedian, that she deserved to have her own series, and put her in contact with writers Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, who created a series in which could feel comfortable, inspired by their experiences but without being biographical.
In fiction, she is Sam. She did not enter into her plans to return to her hometown, inland and depressed, but she did it to take care of her sister, who had cancer. And, once that person, the most important person in her life, died, she is still stuck there, in a grieving process that she doesn’t know how to manage, at least until she meets Joel (Jeff Hiller), a high school classmate she hasn’t even met. even remember. He discovers to her that even in a conservative, depressed area like that, Sam can express himself, find people proudly on the fringes, forge friendships that see and enjoy you for exactly who you are.
The first episode of the second season, mind you, doesn’t use music to dramatize all of Sam’s essence in an instant to channel all emotion and put you on the verge of joyful tears, but it captivates by how everyday it is. There are Sam and Joel doing their daily steps to maintain a long-lost line, laughing at the need to wear stretchy pants, facing the day in heroic good humor.
Sam, after all, has Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison), his picky and judgmental sister, in an identity crisis as she faces divorce; Mary Jo (Jane Drake Brody), his alcoholic mother who is to feed him separately, is in a rehabilitation center after suffering a stroke; Ed (Mike Hagerty), his father, has taken time for himself, listening to Sam, and has left that Manhattan (which is not the Manhattan of New York) after a life chained to the farm; and the protagonist has to empty her father’s warehouse for the new tenants, which unleashes a storm of memories.
Somebody Somewhere overcomes the main obstacle of the new episodes: actor Mike Hagerty passed away before the production of the second season and, instead of killing off the character, he is looking for a way to keep him alive and not have to deal with his loss in front of the cameras . Of course, it does not go unnoticed, when Sam’s character loses his composure at a certain moment, that the duel was present on set, allowing the public to process this loss. Hagerty, with his worldly poise that required few words, helped turn Somebody Somewhere into this corner of naturalness, honesty and closeness.
When you think about it, Somebody Somewhere is the antithesis of cool television with Sam and Joel taking a walk, with Sam moving hoses and junk around, with these two friends looking for a product to remove a shit stain or having too much wine in an awkward dinner with Tricia. But this is the secret of the work: presenting two characters, stripping them of any artifice, revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary and giving you their humanity. When the viewer loves Sam and Joel, in reality, he loves himself a little more.
