Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Queenie’ On Hulu, Where A Woman Deals With A Breakup, Family Squabbles And Other Quarterlife Crises

It’s been about a quarter century since we’ve been at “quarterlife”, but we do know what the term “quarterlife crisis” is all about because when we were 25… wow, it was not a fun time. The main character in Queenie is suffering from a quarterlife crisis, but it’s one that’s full of deep issues about her identity and family issues. And, yes, the show is a comedy.

QUEENIE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman lies on an exam table in a doctor’s office, and thinks about the things she could have done instead of being where she is.

The Gist: Queenie Jenkins (Dionne Brown) is at the OBGYN office, and is amazed at how uncomfortable the probe that’s going up her reproductive area is. What’s showing up on screen is so unusual that the doctor calls others in the practice over, but doesn’t tell Queenie what’s going on.

When she comes out of the room where her very chatty aunt Maggie (Michelle Greenidge) is waiting, she’s a bit rattled; she’s shaken to the point where she leaves the gift she got for the mother of her boyfriend Tom (Jon Pointing) for her birthday. As they walk back to Queenie’s place, Maggie seems to be preoccupied with Queenie talking about her “V” and the “Gemini boy” she’s been dating for three years.

Queenie and Tom have been fighting a lot lately, and the news that she just got probably won’t make things that much better, but she’s still interested in keeping things together with him. She works in the social media department of a local newspaper, but wants to write about topics that matter to her; she’s invited to pitch the editors but doesn’t quite hit the mark with her latest pitch. She’s frustrated that people at work aren’t taking her seriously enough.

At the birthday dinner with Tom’s family, Queenie has the doctor’s visit on her mind; it turns out that she was pregnant but never knew it, but also miscarried and didn’t know it, as well. With that traumatic news rolling in her head, she goes off on Tom’s bigoted grandmother, who goes on and on about the prospects of having great-grandkids that are “the color of milky coffee”, among other features. She runs off and Tom catches up to her; in the ensuing fight, he tells her that she’s always angry and is “a lot.” She can’t seem to find the right moment to tell him that she had a miscarriage.

When she visits her buddy Kyazike (Bellah) the next day, her friend theorizes that Queenie is going through a quarterlife crisis: “Once you turn 25, your head goes,” she says. At least that’s what she’s heard; she’s too confident in herself to suffer through one of those.

Queenie goes to see her grandparents Veronica (Llewella Gideon) and Wilfred (Joseph Marcell). She’s horrified to learn that her mother has been invited to lunch, and bails before she shows up.

When Tom finally comes back home after the incident between Queenie and his grandmother, he decides that both of them need space from each other. He’s going to go back to live with his parents for a bit, which means that Queenie is going to need to find someplace else to live.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? A little bit of Insecure, a little bit of Shrill, and a little bit of Survival Of The Thickest, and a little bit of Twenties.

Our Take: Part of what separates Queenie, created by Candice Carty-Williams from her novel of the same name, from the shows we just mentioned is that she’s a first generation Brit in a family that came to London from Jamaica. It’s pretty apparent that she has a complicated relationship with her family’s traditions and mores, and wants to find a place for herself that’s includes more of an independent identity. That’s what’s going to drive the series, which is enhanced by Dionne Brown’s intense lead performance.

If there is such a thing as a quarterlife crisis, Queenie is certainly in the middle of one. It’s that time in your life when you want to forge an identity, whether it’s in your career or in your love life or in something else, but doing that proves to be a struggle. And when Queenie gets the news about her unexpected pregnancy and miscarriage, she’s thrown for that other loop that people who reach 25 don’t expect: Your life can change at the drop of a hat.

So all of that is roiling around in her head, which is why hearing her internal monologue works here. We’re not sure how much of it we’ll hear going forward, but it’s a good way to show just where Queenie is in her life. Always thinking, always striving and always trying to figure out her next move when things don’t work out as she hoped.

What we’re curious about is just what has generated these ill feelings Queenie has with her mother. Did her mother have her young and was mostly absent? Or is there something else going on? Hopefully we’ll see an episode about that. But mostly we want to see Queenie navigate her life away from Tom and see if she can deal with her “stuff” in a way that makes her more open and vulnerable, as well as able to deal with someone else’s “stuff.”

This is the other lesson you start to learn when you reach 25, though sometimes it takes years to really get it through your head, but as Tom said when he asks for space, “We’ve all got stuff.” The only way to not make it someone else’s problem is to be open, honest and vulnerable, something Queenie admits she’s not used to being. We’re pretty sure her family life growing up had something to do with it, which will be interesting to examine.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: After Tom leaves, we see all the text messages popping up on Queenie’s phone, and she starts panicking. The screen goes black and we hear her say, “Fuck!”

Sleeper Star: Bellah is funny as Queenie’s buddy Kyazike, especially when she tells Queenie to “go home and get your ivory king.”

Most Pilot-y Line: Queenie makes up a texting group called “The Corgis”, consisting of her friends. “I bet the Queen’s corgis supported her when she had boyfriend troubles,” she tells them. Get it? She’s named Queenie, so…

Our Call: STREAM IT. Queenie has some equally funny and dramatic moments in its first episode, and Dionne Brown handles both sides of her character well.

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