Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mrs. Fletcher’ On HBO, Where Kathryn Hahn Plays An Empty Nester Discovering Her Sexual Self

We admit that we’re in the tank for Kathryn Hahn, as far back as when she was a guest-starring powerhouse in comedies like Parks and Rec, through her heartbreaking arc on Transparent and even her starring role on the weird I Love Dick. We’re also in the tank for Tom Perrotta, who has made a fairly unprecedented career out of writing accessible novels about suburbia and then adapting them into acclaimed films and series. So the combination of the two promises to be pretty damn good. And Mrs. Fletcher, Perrotta’s adaptation of his novel, doesn’t disappoint.

MRS. FLETCHER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a group of women doing crafts at a senior community. But in the background, we hear vaguely sexy noises. We pan over to see a male resident on the computer watching porn. “Mrs. Fletcher!” screams one of the ladies.

The Gist: Eve Fletcher (Kathryn Hahn) is the administrator of the senior community, and she has to deal with issues like the fact that resident Roy Rafferty (Bill Raymond) is losing his inhibitions, a sign of worsening mental health, and his son George (Domenick Lombardozzi) dismisses it by saying, “Everyone watches porn.”

But the biggest thing she’s dealing with is that her son Brendan (Jackson White) is leaving for college the next day and she’s going to face life alone for the first time in years. She’s a single mom — her ex Ted (Josh Hamilton) has moved on to his new family to the point where he can’t even make it to his son’s moving day — and she’s feeling the void of being an empty nester approaching.

This is despite the fact that, by all accounts, Brendan is a complete dick towards his mother. He barely talks to her, stares at his phone, and is basically dismissive. Yes, all teenagers do that, but as we see when he goes to a party on the night before he leaves that he is a bully, picking on his classmate Julian (Owen Teague), and treating pretty much every woman he encounters like an object. Still, Eve is dreading not having Brendan in the house, but her best friend Jane (Casey Wilson) encourages Eve to explore and live. And by “live”, she’s not talking about a personal essay class, which Eve says she’s going to take. Jane calls her a “skinny MILF goddess,” implying she should get out there and get some.

The next morning, as Eve is sweating while loading the car, a former girlfriend named Becca (Kelly Lamor Wilson) comes over after flipping off Brendan at the party. A sweet text led her to give him a goodbye gift: a blowjob. Eve inadvertently hears it going on through his door and is horrified, especially by the porny language he’s using. On the ride to school, she tells Brendan that “you have to be nice to women.” But considering how bad he ignores her desire to help him move in, how much will he really listen to that advice?

On her first lonely night at home, she has a lonely takeout dinner and a lonely bath. Then she looks up the definition of MILF, which leads her to a MILF porn site. Let’s just say she doesn’t immediately click away.

Our Take: Mrs. Fletcher is a miniseries based on Tom Perrotta’s novel; Perotta is the show’s creator and he wrote the pilot, with Nicole Holofcener directing. For the most part, the appeal of the show is because of Hahn’s well-documented ability to be funny while being vulnerable, uncomfortable and lonely. As usual in an adaptation of a Perrotta novel, especially ones where Perrotta is involved in the writing, characterization is the primary goal, and by the end of the first episode we know a whole hell of a lot about both Eve and Brendan.

The Brendan half of the show is what we’re not sure about. From what we can see, Brendan is as dumb as a rock and has no capacity to treat women with any kind of respect. Where he got that from, we’re not sure. Maybe his mostly-absent dad, who has been even more absent after his youngest son was diagnosed with autism. But the fact that it feels like Eve was bending backwards to be there for Brendan, and Brendan still treats her like shit, makes us not like Brendan very much. Is his college journey going to be about him gaining more respect for women? Maybe getting his comeuppance because he’s not a big fish in a small pond anymore? Hard to say, but his half of the show is amusing but feels empty.

It also takes us away from Eve. Whenever we see Eve, we sympathize with her. She’s in her 40s and feels far from being an old fogey, like when she insists that Brendan’s new roommate not call her “Mrs. Fletcher.” She’s sacrificed herself to take care of Brendan and now it’s her time. But just what does that mean? We’re not empty nesters, and won’t be for quite a while, but we can understand her frustration. As far as she’s concerned, she’s young and vital, but has no idea what to do with that energy.

In the second episode, we see a little more of what Eve is trying to explore, as she gets the willies being on a blind date with a handsome real estate agent, sensing boredom closing in on all sides. She has her desires and she wants to explore them. Porn’s her first outlet, but there will be more as the season goes along, and Hahn’s performance as Eve goes through these explorations is what’s going to keep our attention.

Sex and Skin: Glimpses of porn scenes as well as the aforementioned blowjob are in the first episode. The nudity and sex in episode two are more explicit, including full frontal by Hahn.

Parting Shot: Eve goes into the essay class and sees a young man that turns out to be Julian. She has no idea that he’s Brendan’s old classmate, and she takes off her sweater to show her shoulders, then further flirts by twirling her hair like she’s a teenager.

Sleeper Star: Wilson is a bit too young to play an empty nester, but we’ve been a fan of hers since Happy Endings, so we hope we see a lot more of her as Jane.

Most Pilot-y Line: When she sees Brendan and his new roomie pumping dumbells, she says “Am I walking into a dorm room or a gymnahsium?” Yes, she pronounced it “gymnahsium,” and we don’t know why.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Kathryn Hahn puts in an Emmy-worthy performance in Mrs. Fletcher, and her presence makes the more questionable parts of the series more than tolerable.

Your Call:

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, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, FastCompany.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Mrs. Fletcher On HBO Go

Stream Mrs. Fletcher On HBO NOW