Stream It Or Skip It: ‘This Way Up’ on Hulu, in Which Aisling Bea is a Woman on the Other Side of a Nervous Breakdown

Hulu’s This Way Up is already drawing comparisons to Amazon Prime hits Fleabag and Catastrophe, which may work in its favor. Created by and starring Irish actress/comedian Aisling Bea, it’s a six-episode character study focused on a contemporary woman whose biting wit acts as a smokescreen for her personal issues — and who depends on her sister for emotional support. It’s funny, melancholy and a bit bitter, but does it stand on its own?

THIS WAY UP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An exterior shot of a sprawling rehab hospital.

The Gist: It’s Aine’s (Bea) last day at the mental-health facility. She and her older sister Shona (Sharon Horgan of Catastrophe) give their feedback to a nurse: Didn’t the website show pictures of a jacuzzi? Why wasn’t there a jacuzzi? They expected a jacuzzi. A jacuzzi might be helpful for someone like Aine, who had a nervous breakdown — if that’s what you want to call it.

Four months later. Aine employs Keeping Up with the Kardashians as a tool to teach English to a classroom full of immigrants. She’s sort of lightly disinvited to a dinner party via a lame excuse that she maybe should take personally? A few fruitless phone calls later, she faces the prospect of being alone on a Friday night. She impulsively steaks a drink from a shop; she’s stonewalled by her therapist’s receptionist.

She drops in on Shona, who’s preparing to go to a work-related party full of mostly white men — so obviously, she’s in finance. Her boyfriend is Vish (Aasif Mandvi), who, being brown-skinned, doesn’t fit in either. But Freddie (Chris Geere), Aine’s ex, fits right in. Anyway: Shona borrows the skirt right off her sister’s butt and heads to the Caucasian Male Finance Soiree, leaving Aina alone with no pants on. She takes a knee. Is she just crying, or having an anxiety attack? Hard to tell.

Aine heads home. She calls Tom (Ricky Grover), an amiable buddy from rehab, who comes over. She jumps his bones, and even though they agree she has “really cracking boobs,” he balks. It’s not the right thing to do. But he can’t go home. The trains have stopped running. And we soon learn that he snores a lot. So Aine does what Shona explicitly asked her not to do, go for a walk late at night. Shona tracks her sister’s whereabouts on her phone, which both agree is probably a good thing. Despite connecting with a new friend, Charlotte (Indira Varma), Shona leaves the party to find her sister. Nothing happens to Aine — at least not physically. Psychologically, though, she’s obviously hurting.

Our Take: Whether This Way Up is more of the same in the wake of Fleabag‘s considerable acclaim seems moot. I’ll pause here to let anyone who thinks there are too many strong, complex female protagonists on TV air their grievances. Actually, I won’t — this is the internet, and it’s full of people who are blissfully, belligerently unaware that they’re wrong.

The debut episode teases us with a what-happened-to-Aine plot, but the series is clearly about what happens to Aine next, in all the small moments that don’t move the earth, but comprise the bulk of our lives. Not to be glibly referential, but she’s human and needs to be loved, just like anybody else does. And even after spending a scant 27 minutes with her, we may love her already, because Bea’s performance is equal parts droll and vulnerable. There’s truth in the way she renders the character, who has a distracting one-liner for every situation, no matter how painful it may be.

The other cracking pair is Bea and Horgan, who anchor the show with their tight-sisters, two-peas-in-a-pod, share-a-wardrobe-and-maybe-also-a-brain dynamic. There’s love, trust and a lived-in quality to the way their characters interact. Their performances are smart, playful, nimble and rooted in empathy. We watch, greatly anticipating their next scene together.

Sex and Skin: The cracking boobs stay in their bra.

Parting Shot: A wide shot of Shona and Aine parked on a stoop late at night, giggling at pictures of animals that look like celebrities.

Sleeper Star: Although we only get a brief glance at Geere (of You’re the Worst fame) in this episode, I’d wager that Aine’s ex will steal his share of upcoming scenes.

Most Pilot-y Line: “My problem wasn’t that I was drinking, Tom. It was that I was too much of a f—in’ legend,” Aine quips, being so funny, she hopes everyone forgets that they were talking about something serious.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Yes, it stands on its own. Context is meaningless, considering how tightly written and exceptionally funny This Way Up is.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream This Way Up on Hulu