A TV show that begs to be hate-watched isn’t, by definition, a “bad” show. The most glaring example is Girls, a “good” show that’s nearly impossible to view through any lens other than unfiltered contempt—its quartet of fairly loathsome Brooklyn gentrifiers, moving messily through their 20s, are subtly exaggerated caricatures that are meant to simultaneously represent and critique their demographic. But Girls is addictive because of the surface-level familiarity of the setting and styling, enough so I’ll clench my jaw while watching a very specific subset of upwardly mobile urban “creatives” behave noxiously. Besides, good TV doesn’t require characters you can personally vouch for; more often, the truth is closer to the opposite.
In short, the Chicago of Easy is by and large a judgment-free zone, populated by flawed but well-intentioned people in cozy threads they picked up at Village Discount Outlet. Hence, in season two, there are stories of Beverly yuppies in training conspiring to narc on a neighborhood package thief; stories about the bumbling soft opening of an open marriage; more stories about craft breweries and artisanal dog-biscuit start-ups. (We all know SAIC can be a cornucopia of fart-huffing post-postmodernism, but we collectively abandoned performance art about iPhone selfies in 2015.) The characters are clearly Chicagoans, though not particularly interesting ones. And while it often feels like Swanberg goes out of his way to focus on the most tedious subjects imaginable, you can’t say he doesn’t have a distinct style.
(Netflix)
