Summary
Not Suitable for Work can’t live up to the Friends comparisons just yet, but its three-part premiere is nonetheless funny and charming enough to work on its own terms.
As much as I quite liked the Season 1 premiere of Mindy Kaling’s Hulu workplace comedy Not Suitable for Work, it mostly reminded me how good Friends was, despite it having become trendy to hate on it recently. Two things are immediately obvious in Episodes 1-3 of this show, which I must stress is perfectly funny and charming and surprisingly complicated in terms of its relationship dynamics. The first is that it’s a fine comedy. The second is that it’s nowhere near as good as Friends, which I’m only bringing up since it has very explicitly been marketed as Friends for a new generation.
So, manage your expectations, I guess? But also, don’t take me the wrong way. “Welcome to Murray Hill”, “Evil Nepo Son of the King”, and “The Philadelphia Thirst Monster” all work on their own terms and – mostly – accomplish the objectives they set out to, so I won’t be mentioning Friends again. It was just important to get it out of the way early.
A Meet and Greet in ‘Not Suitable for Work’ Episode 1
Let’s get the introductions out of the way, shall we? The plot concerns the careerist travails of five twenty-somethings who live in opposing apartments. On one side of the aisle, we have celebrity stylist Abby and her college friend AJ; on the other, we have finance bro Davis Bradley Barrett III, wannabe actor and med-school dropout Kel, and trust-fund nepo baby, Josh. Immediately, we have some fractious issues, since AJ and Josh hooked up in college, and he ghosted her immediately after, an event he now can’t even remember.
Abby’s boss, Vanessa, barely notices that she exists, but thanks to medical reasons, is forced to introduce her to Cate Blanchett’s nephew, Austin Blanchett, with whom she immediately establishes a very flirtatious relationship. AJ’s boss, meanwhile, she happens to meet at a coffee cart and instantly gets into an argument with him, without realising that he’s the Managing Director of the company she was just hired by (Davis also works there). And Josh, trying to make his own way, interviews for a role as a production assistant on a broadcast journalism show, is rebuffed on account of his surname getting him fast-tracked through the interview process, and then is immediately hired on the spot by the show’s namesake when he tactically drops that last name in a passing conversation. Immediately, everyone hates him.
There are personal problems to buttress all the professional ones. AJ is living in Abby’s apartment illegally, which becomes a problem when Josh, hoping to move in with his girlfriend, Vivian, rats them out to the building manager, Antoine. It just so happens that Vivian dumps Josh almost immediately afterwards, and he tries to call off the eviction, but he’s too late, instantly causing issues with his new neighbours right after losing his girlfriend.
In a funny moment of crossed wires, AJ pepper-sprays Davis without realising that he lives across the hall, but Davis takes this as an excuse to basically fall in love with her, though he’s none the wiser about her long-ago(ish) tryst with Josh. Kel is also in love with Abby, who is smitten with Austin, and AJ might have eyes for her new boss, Bill. It’s a lot to be going on with.
‘Not Suitable for Work’ Episode 2 Gives Josh and Kel the Spotlight
It should be easy to hate Josh. He’s a nepo baby who has tried to resist his inherent privilege by becoming a performative liberal and rejecting any handouts (despite his willingness to drop a name whenever he has no other choice). But he’s also extremely charming and likeable, which is what “Evil Nepo Son of the King” digs into as he tries to navigate an office environment that detests him on principle.
The interesting dynamic at play here is that Josh did get his job unjustly, but that he is trying to go about things the right way and not play up to the “Joffrey” moniker that he’s given almost immediately. His social exclusion still manages to sting a little bit, despite us ordinarily being on the side of the non-nepo-babies. The more earnest sides of his character are able to shine through when he tries to stand on his own two feet, even if he does seem to love his dad a little more than is reasonable.
Kel’s problems are wildly different but still trapped in the orbit of outsized parental expectations. He’s realising gradually that he doesn’t want to be a doctor, and that med-school isn’t for him, but he also knows that pursuing his dream as an actor will only work if there’s a feasible chance of it coming about. He can’t give up a gold-plated career path and disappoint his parents on a hunch, but Hollywood isn’t easy to break into. The acting thing makes Kel the Joey of the group – oops, I said I wouldn’t mention Friends again – but without the lovable dope energy that Matt LeBlanc brought to that role. Kel being more switched-on makes his role more interesting.
The rest of the cast aren’t totally neglected here, but they get a bit less focus. It helps that AJ’s workplace difficulties happen to feature Davis, which allows his crush on her to develop at the same time, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that she finds Bill more compelling, or even perhaps Josh, despite their history. That seems to position Davis’s neck on the chopping block, since he’s the most likely to get hurt as a result, which would be a shame since he, like Josh, is also atypically charming given his finance bro status (Industry, thankfully, this is not).
Abby, meanwhile, can’t seem to resist blurring the personal and professional boundaries between herself and Austin, which is likely to land her in hot water down the line. But, truthfully, I wouldn’t want to work for Vanessa either.
Everything Comes Together in ‘Not Suitable for Work’ Episode 3
“The Philadelphia Thirst Monster” was easily my favourite third of the three-part premiere, since it’s where all of the introductions and build-up come together into something more coherent. Both apartments are now firmly enmeshed in one another’s lives, which leads to some proper crossover hangout comedy instead of a bunch of parallel but separate storylines.
The highlight here is an ad hoc dinner party that is supposed to be a thank-you evening AJ is throwing for Davis. He thinks it’s a date, obviously, but AJ has other ideas, especially when she reflexively invites Bill after witnessing his girlfriend dump him in front of the entire office. She instructs Abby to pad the numbers, which ropes in Kel and Austin, and the whole thing becomes a mess full of the best physical comedy in the series thus far when Davis eats shellfish, which he’s severely allergic to, to avoid offending AJ.
This is also where some of the secrets come out in the wash. Thanks to Josh, an expensive order of wine goes missing, which eventually leads him to the apartment after finally winning over his work colleagues (but also bumping into Vivian, who is now dating the guy she told him not to worry about when they were together, not the guy she actually left him for back in Episode 1). After hearing that Josh referred to her as “The Philadelphia Thirst Monster”, AJ reveals their mutually embarrassing college one-night stand, which means Davis finds out that Josh and Kel had been keeping it from him.
All’s well that ends well, since the characters all end up becoming closer as a result of their openness, but there’s plenty of meat left on the bone for the remainder of the season, not least the fact that Bill almost attended and talked himself out of it at the last minute. Does he have eyes for AJ, as she does for him? That seems a pretty safe bet to me. Like Abby and Austin, though, there’s no way that doesn’t get in the way of their professional lives. Either way, the vibe is working well enough for now, even if the Friends comparison seems a little too early to me.
