Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ On Freeform, Where A Young Single Guy Ends Up Being His Half-Sisters’ Guardian

This winter, Freeform seems to be leaning on shows about young adults and kids having to take care of each other after a traumatic event happens to their parents. In the reboot of Party of Five, the traumatic event is a deportation. But in Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, the traumatic event is a good old fashioned death. But the show is a whole lot more complex than it lets on in its first few minutes. Read on for more…

EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE OKAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Nicholas (Josh Thomas) is sitting at a table at an outdoor bar, having some fun kissing with Alex (Adam Faison), with whom he’s on an early date.

The Gist: Nicholas wants to go back to his place to do some “gay stuff”, but he has to make sure his dad and sisters are out of the house first. When Alex asks about it, Nicholas unloads: He’s visiting his father and half-sisters in California, but he grew up with his mom in Australia. His dad had his older half-sister with another woman and moved to take care of the girl when she was diagnosed with autism; then they had another daughter. And his mother drinks.

He does get along well with his sisters Matilda (Kayla Cromer) and Genevieve (Maeve Press), and is always trying to reconnect with his father Darren (Christopher May). On the day Nicholas is supposed to go back to Australia, though, Darren asks him to stay, and finally breaks the news he’s been waiting weeks to tell him: He’s got “bad cancer,” and he’s “going to die soon.” He wants to get his affairs in order, the most important being who will be the guardian to Matilda and Genevieve. Nicholas wants to do it, figuring that they’re both teenagers and old enough “to not put their heads in the oven — what’s the worst that can happen?” Darren wants Nicholas to be the guardian, but posits other names just in case, which gets Nicholas upset that Darren thinks he’s not capable.

The girls don’t know yet, but they each have their own issues to deal with. Genevieve is being shunned by a group of mean girls she considers friends because she refused to make fun of the hat one of them was wearing. And Matilda, who works out her emotions via the piano, makes the bold attempt of talking to the most popular boy in school, but her good mood is soon dashed when her sister, who just got her first period, tries to gaslight Matilda about it because she told her friends she got it earlier.

When Darren and Nicholas explain what’s going on over banana pudding, through their tears the girls seem to be OK with Nicholas taking care of them. We then flash to Darren’s funeral, when Nicholas gets his first parental test. Let’s just say renting a party limo for the funeral was a well-intentioned mistake.

Our Take: Everything’s Gonna Be Okay isn’t the first go-around for Josh Thomas as a show’s writer, executive producer and star; he created the Australian dramedy Please Like Me, which ran for four seasons. In that series, his character comes out and explores his sexuality. In this series, though, his sexuality is a given; the issue he wants to explore here is how a young guy like him, with a checkered family life, can get his stuff together to take care of two teenage girls that need him.

At first it seems like this is just another young adult show about a young adult doing young adult things. But, as soon as Darren tells Nicholas that he’s dying, the show takes on a whole different dimension. Nicholas eagerly steps up to take care of his sisters, knowing he has no experience but figuring “all parents start inexperienced.” He’s even hurt when Darren gives him other names to consider. To say this is refreshing is an understatement; he’s leaving everything he knows and deciding to live halfway around the world to take care of his sisters. And, by the end of the episode, we know that, even though he might stumble through it, he’ll do just fine making sure Matilda and Genevieve are OK.

But the show’s about even more than that. Both Cromer and Press are eminently watchable as Matilda and Genevieve; Press is funny and affable as a girl who’s generally confident in herself, but still has the same complexes any high school freshman might have; at the same time, she’s there to help her autistic older sister navigate high school, as well. Cromer, who is autistic herself, is a comedic revelation; she’s very present in her role, and her different abilities come through when she delivers her dad’s eulogy, which she admits will be “mostly about me;” she’s able to make the crowd laugh and cry at the same time, even when she makes borderline-inappropriate observations, like pointing out all of her father’s ex-girlfriends.

All of this sets up a dynamic where Thomas explores how a young gay man in America can relate to two teenage girls enough to help make sure they’re OK, while the girls themselves try to get through high school relatively unscathed. We’re excited to see all three of them explore these issues during the season.

Sex and Skin: Nothing, of course, besides Alex and Nicholas kissing. But this is a good place to mention the funniest line: When Nicholas sees the wildly-inappropriate black evening gown Genevive bought for the funeral, she’s feeling insecure: “I look like a child whore widow,” to which Nicholas responds, “It’s the dress I imagine girls imagine they’ll lose their virginity in.”

Parting Shot: After having a cathartic, flower-pedal-throwing dance session after the funeral, Nicholas and the girls sleep together in their dad’s bed. He eventually moves to the little sofa at the foot of the bed and the family’s huge St. Bernard takes his place on the bed. This is the new normal for all of them.

Sleeper Star: Adam Faison is going to have a lot more to do as Alex, who seems to want to stay with Nicholas despite all of the drama that surrounds him in his life. And Nicholas is going to need some of that stability as he tries to figure out how to be a dad.

Most Pilot-y Line: A dopey man tells Nicholas before the funeral that “My mother had cancer, but it was her positive attitude that got her through,” to which Nicholas snarkily responds, “I think it was the cancer that killed my father, not his inability to be positive.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Everything Is Gonna Be Okay has three fascinating leads and a multi-layered approach to showing how its characters will find themselves as the first season goes on.

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 Everything's Gonna Be Okay On Freeform.com