Dan Levy is the son of Eugene Levy, the famous Canadian comedian who is best known for his work with Christopher Guest in films, starting with Waiting for Guffman (1996) but also made a name for himself for playing the dad in the hit films, starting with American Pie (1999). His presence in mainstream media came back into prominence when both father and son worked together in the Emmy-winning series Schitt's Creek (2015), which Dan Levy co-created and for which he was one of the head writers with his dad. Dan Levy has worked on projects since then, but this is his sophomore show as creator and writer, his follow-up to that 2015 hit. Schitt's Creek was a sitcom. It wasn't necessarily multi-cam or shot in front of a studio audience, but it's structured in a lot of way like a traditional sitcom. This series could be classified as a sitcom too, but it has a serialized narrative. It could be argued that Schitt's Creek had a serialized story, but it felt more like a sitcom in that you could drop into any episode in any season and watch without needing to see anything that came before it.
There are some similarities between this and Schitt's Creek. Dan Levy's character in both shows has a sister with whom he frequently argues. His character has a very eccentric, if not quirky mother. It's not exactly the same but in both shows his character or his character's family is trying to dig themselves out of a financial hole that in one way or another they caused or did to themselves. The main difference is that this show doesn't have a father figure in the story. Levy's character does have a father but that father is not involved in the narrative in any significant way. Dan Levy stars as Nicholas Dardano or Nicky, a pastor at a church in New Jersey. He's openly gay, but he keeps his relationships private and secret from his congregation and church employees. As a result, his current boyfriend, Tareq, played by Jacob Gutierrez, is forced to go into the closet, which is in small ways affecting him and his psyche.
Taylor Ortega (Universal Basic Guys and Welcome to Flatch) co-stars as Morgan Dardano, the younger sister to Nicky. She's a public school teacher. She was an aspiring actress who went to New York City to try to make it. Things didn't work out, so she came back to New Jersey and is back dating her childhood boyfriend, Max, played by Jack Innanen (Adults), a guy who does a lot of therapy speak. It's not clear if he's in therapy but almost everything he says sounds like him parroting things he heard in therapy. He also says things that make it seem like he's very "woke." It's clear that he's more in love with Morgan than Morgan is in love with him, and his therapy speak is more to manipulate or guilt her into staying with him. Morgan is frustrated with her existence and doesn't want to have a boring, suburban life with the kids and the white picket fence, which Max clearly wants. Morgan doesn't want to settle.
This series is co-created and co-written by Rachel Sennott (I Love LA and Shiva Baby). Sennott and Levy worked together on HBO's The Idol (2023) where they probably met. Sennott isn't an actor in this series, probably because she's currently starring in I Love LA on HBO and production schedules could have conflicted. However, the character of Morgan feels like it was written for Sennott or perhaps Sennott wrote it for herself or with herself in mind because if you're familiar with Sennott's previous performances, Morgan is such a Sennott type or maybe Ortega just has a natural similarity to Sennott that works incredibly well, especially when bouncing off Levy. So much of the show is built on the sibling rivalry between Nicky and Morgan. It's not necessarily rivalry as it is just bickering. The show feels like 90-percent sibling bickering where Nicky and Morgan are just going back-and-forth, often yelling and screaming at each other. While some might get a headache from it, it's core to the comedy conceit here and Levy and Ortega make it work. Both are so good comedic performers that often it feels like they're not going off what's on the script but are simply improvising and riffing off each other brilliantly.
Laurie Metcalf (The Conners and The Big Bang Theory) also co-stars as Linda Morelli, the mother to Nicky and Morgan. She also has another child, Natalie, played by Abby Quinn (Hell of a Summer and Knock at the Cabin). Natalie seems to be the child of a man who is different from Nicky and Morgan's father. If this is not the case, then for some reason, Natalie isn't close to Nicky and Morgan, probably because she's the youngest and more of a mommy's girl than her siblings. Linda is not only the mother of three, but she also is the owner and operator of a hardware store in Glenview. After divorcing her husband, and now that all her children are grown, Linda has decided to go into politics. She is running for mayor of Glenview. Her rival in the race is a wealthy jerk who owns a boat named Tom Donaldson, played by Darren Goldstein (Ozark and The Affair). He's kind of a Donald Trump-style candidate.
Linda isn't like Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, but her campaign is perhaps caught off guard, much in the way that the Clinton and Harris campaigns were. Otherwise, Linda is a very aggressive woman who can tear into anyone, particularly her kids. She is perhaps more civil and calm, as well as passive aggressive with anyone outside her family gets into the fray. Yet, when it comes to members of her family, she can be a bull in a china shop. Basically, Linda is aggressive in her nagging. She nags her children loudly and incessantly whenever they're around. It's not that far flung from Metcalf's performance in Lady Bird (2017) but dialed up a few notches, or it's as if she took her role in Lady Bird and infused Jamie Lee Curtis' character in The Bear (2022). She steals or sucks up the oxygen in any scene she's in. She's absolutely someone you can't ignore. She's a force of nature, a powerhouse for sure.
Boran Kuzum is a Turkish actor who is making his American debut. He plays Yusuf, the manager of a gift shop in Glenview. He came to the United States because he had a dream of designing shoes. He specifically wanted to make sneakers for Nike. Things didn't exactly go well for him and he ended up working for the Russian mob. He doesn't want to be involved with the mob, but he gets in too deep and now he can't get out of it. He wants to think he can use his connection to the mob or parlay it into something more, but he becomes increasingly aware that he won't ever be able to rise up or out.
Guest starring this season is Mark Ivanir who plays Ivan, one of the Russian gangsters. Ivanir has been in shows like Homeland (2011) and Mayor of Kingstown (2021), as well as films, such as Schindler's List (1993) and Emilia Pérez (2024). Here, Ivan is meant to be this scary guy who threatens or puts his boot on the necks of people like Yusuf. As the show goes along, it becomes clear that he's a bit of a cog in a bigger machine and that someone might have their boot on Ivan's neck, which makes him scared. In the latter half of this season, it's funny to see him squirm after making others squirm. He's reminiscent of the character played by Karren Karagulian in Anora (2024).
Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 30 mins. / 8 eps.
Available on Netflix.
