‘Somebody Somewhere,’ Thank You for Being A Friend

We’re in an era of entertainment maximalism. Superheroes with larger-than-life powers; cinematic universes with a dozen franchises or more; huge swings with even the unlikeliest IP: all are inescapable. So it’s nearly a miracle that Somebody Somewhere, which seems like an experiment in how small a story can be and still enthrall its audience, has lasted this long. With its third and final season, it ends as it began: portraying the vital necessity of true friendship, especially later in life.

In the first season, Sam (Bridget Everett) has relatively recently returned from New York City to her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, for her sister Holly’s last days. As the series begins, Holly has died of cancer, and Sam is just trying to maintain baseline functionality. She doesn’t realize that Joel (Jeff Hiller), now her co-worker at her job reading college admission essays, knew her when they were both in high school, because Sam was microfamous as a choir singer and Joel was a fan too shy to approach her. Knowing what Sam’s going through now, Joel sets out to become Sam’s friend — something he has to do with a lot of intention and persistence, since Sam is deeply depressed and very resistant. But as the series goes on, we see that each of them has been waiting for the other: to make up songs about their cocktail of choice, “teeny ‘tinis”; to gossip about their most annoying ex-classmates; to share a supportive phone call when a questionable cold cut-based hors d’oeuvre called St. Louis Sushi sends them into simultaneous digestive meltdown.

Broadly, the first season is about Joel coaxing Sam into the community of Manhattan misfits she didn’t know existed. The second is marked by the rift the friends experience when Joel starts dating Brad (Tim Bagley), but keeps it from Sam out of fear that she won’t be able to make room for Brad. Of course, she does eventually find out about the relationship and is far more hurt that Joel kept such a big secret from her. A wedding brings them back together, and lets Sam close the season by blowing the doors off the reception with her rendition of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,” one of Joel’s favorites.

The third season, which premieres on HBO Sunday night, finds nearly everyone thriving. Joel and Brad are moving in together. Sam’s sister Trish (Mary Catherine Garrison) is happily divorced, busily dating and successful enough selling her line of “c--t” throw pillows that she’s joining the country club and buying herself a new SUV. Newlyweds Fred (Murray Hill) and Susan (Jennifer Mudge) are sufficiently established as a couple to make his physician-ordered weight loss a project for the whole household. Trish and Sam’s parents have rented out their farm and retired to Texas. Only Sam is still at loose ends. Having lost the income she and Joel used to share from renting his house out for short stays, she’s working as Trish’s assistant and picking up shifts at a local dive bar. After the friction of Season Two, Sam’s being respectful of Joel and Brad’s partnership and trying not to monopolize Joel’s time. She’s also trying to ignore nagging pain in her knee and resisting calls for her to seek treatment, having not forgotten that Holly walked into Dr. Weis’ office fine and walked out with cancer.

Of course, even the characters who seem to have their lives together are also dealing with private struggles both current (Joel’s resolution to give up his dream of fatherhood because it’s not something Brad wants) and dormant (Brad’s near-estrangement from the now-adult children from whom his ex-wife limited Brad’s contact after Brad came out as gay, ending their marriage). But since Sam keeps up a stream of self-deprecating jokes, her more outwardly successful friends can treat her like a charity project. What the show observes so sharply is how familiar kidding can cross into hurtful criticism, testing the tensile strength of the various threads that make up this web of friendship. 

When, for example, Brad asks Sam to help him write a song to Joel to sing at their housewarming party, Sam deftly transitions them out of Brad’s vulnerable moment listing Joel’s lovable attributes by doing her impression of Joel; Brad laughs, a little guiltily, then responds with his own. All of that is fine! But when, after the housewarming party, Brad mentions something to Sam that she had told Joel in confidence, it becomes a matter that Sam and Joel have to discuss. (That Brad brings it up moments after she’s explained the joke behind gifting Brad and Joel a Dutch oven for their kitchen makes the timing especially unfortunate.) 

Later, Sam tells Joel about Susan accusing her of dragging Fred down with Sam’s unhealthy habits, and Joel loyally tells Sam to take a photo of him housing a donut and flipping the bird, so that she can text it to Susan. Sam pretends she sent it, then admits she doesn’t even have Susan’s number — another instance in which producers’ and stars’ ears for this friend group’s specific dynamics makes the show feel authentic. 

The third season also gets deeper into dating in middle age. Joel having decided to move into Brad’s house and give up his own, he’s trying not to disrupt the life Brad has made for himself. But while these two churchgoing Midwestern gay men are unfailingly considerate of one another’s feelings, that just means there are issues they’re too polite to fight about — big ones, like whether they need to worship in the same congregation; and small ones, like what is actually the right way to load a dishwasher. Meanwhile, Sam develops a romantic interest in her parents’ tenant, a man with a name so unpronounceable that she and Trish have nicknamed him Iceland (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) after his country of origin. Iceland’s taciturnity isn’t an obvious match for Sam’s constant patter — which only increases with her nerves around Iceland — and the effort each takes to lower their guard is tenderly dramatized by both actors. Though most romantic comedies revolve around younger people with fewer psychic scars, this show dares to say that past disappointments shouldn’t disqualify older people from seeking love.

This makes Somebody Somewhere sound like a sadcom, but as Hiller described in our interview last year, the show’s great strength is how it swirls jokes into even its most wrenching emotional moments. Joel spends multiple episodes spontaneously bursting into tears, but Hiller’s physical choices to communicate Joel’s real bafflement at what’s happening keeps it from being too maudlin. Sam is just about at the end of her patience on a trade show trip to Kansas City with Trish when a hilariously scandalous health crisis forces a break in Trish’s relentless networking; no spoilers, but it does involve Trish throwing her underpants over the shower door and Sam flicking them off her own foot, then surreptitiously wiping off her toes. Many declarations of platonic love between Sam and Joel are chased with a poop joke. 

Above all, this show is true, and the truth is that funny people are funny even in the middle of heartache. Watch it with the best friend you know will always keep your secrets, and who’s always ready to talk shit about the people you both can’t stand.