Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Work In Progress’ On Showtime, Where Abby McEnany Somehow Hilariously Deals With Depression And Body Issues

There have been a few shows that have come out in the past couple of years that deal with how the current generation of the LGBTQIA community has confused the previous generation, but one that doesn’t deal with it in such a, well, mundane way as Abby McEnany’s first series Work In Progress. But in that mundanity is a whole lot of funny. Read on for more…

WORK IN PROGRESS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman is on the phone with someone, seemingly ecstatic. She even screams the way out of date “WAZZZZUP!” into the phone. Then, mid-sentence, we cut to “THURSDAY,” and that same woman is saying she wants to kill herself.

The Gist: Abby (Abby McEnany) is a 45-year-old, self-described “fat, queer dyke” who is tired of being lonely and tired of people like her co-worker body shaming her by saying she’s bought almonds for her at Costco. She decides to line up 180 almonds and eat one per day. If she still feels awful at the end of it, she’ll end it all. But as she’s explaining all this to her therapist, it looks like the therapist has fallen to sleep. When Abby checks, though, she realizes it’s even worse: the therapist is dead.

When she laments about this with her sister Alison (Karen Anglin), she talks about trying to take the therapist’s pulse, but didn’t know how, due to lying about her pulse rate in 7th grade. Let’s just say she’s had body issues for most of her life. Alison seems to be surprised Abby is suicidal, but Abby insists she’s mentioned it before. Abby is really attracted to their waiter Chris (Theo Germaine), but she thinks they’re hitting on Alison. To prove that’s not true, the married-with-kids Alison gives Abby’s number to Chris.

Chris ends up calling Abby while she has friends over for game night, including her college buddy Campbell (Celeste Pechous). During the call, Chris informs Abby that their actually a trans man, and Abby and her friends have a hard time trying to figure out what pronoun to use.

Abby is understandably nervous at the start of the date, but gets distracted when she sees Julia Sweeney (herself) at the bar. She explains to the super-young Chris that Julia’s SNL character Pat “ruined my life,” mainly because the only gag was that no one knew what gender Pat was. Jerks would call her “Pat” all the time. Chris decides to confront Julia on Abby’s behalf, and when Julia comes over to talk, Abby passes out.

We then see a scene from 1995 where Abby and Campbell go to a sorority to meet Abby’s new girlfriend, and she had to deal with a bunch of frat boys calling her “Pat.” When Abby comes to, she and Julia chat, and Julia is of course apologetic for how the character affected her, and they hit it off. So do Abby and Chris, especially when Chris asks if they can come up to Abby’s apartment.

Our Take: McEnany has been around the Chicago improv circuit for years, but this is the first time her perspective has been encapsulated on TV. And it’s a perspective that’s fresh and welcome. Work In Progress, written and produced by McEnany, Tim Mason and Lilly Wachowski (yes, of the Matrix Wachowskis), is one of the more distinctive shows on the air right now, and it’s not just because McEnany somehow makes her suicidal thoughts into some pretty funny moments.

One of the most distinctive elements is that, even though the show is LGBTQIA-centric, it’s not afraid to examine how things are different between generations. Abby is trying to get her own life straightened out in a world where she also has to figure out if she’s attracted to a trans man like Chris. But even for someone in the LGBTQIA community like Abby, things like gender fluidity, pronouns, and gender-free restrooms are new and difficult to navigate, and a lot of what’s going to make this show work is seeing Abby and her middle-aged friends trying to figure out the new normal just like everyone else.

Work In Progress is a show that has characters with depth, and the hilarity comes from that depth. To have that in the first episode is usually the sign of a show that’s going to be pretty good.

Sex and Skin: Nothing besides some kissing between Abby and Chris.

Parting Shot: Instead of having sex, Abby starts explaining why Chris eating one of the almonds she has lined up is important. And Chris listens.

Sleeper Star: The ingenious stroke of this show was to incorporate Julia Sweeney playing an enhanced version of herself. She has heard over the past couple of decades that Pat was a character that was hurtful to many in the LGBTQIA community who were just like Abby, and it’s great to have Abby and Julia take that topic on directly.

Most Pilot-y Line: Showing Abby’s dead therapist with her eyes open was a bit too creepy for the somewhat dark tone of the show.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Abby McEnany is not afraid to leave her psyche completely open in Work In Progress, and we’re happy that she’s brave enough to do it. It makes for one of the most honest and funny shows we’ve seen all year.

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, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Work In Progress At SHO.com