After serving as showrunner’s assistant on series such as The Conners, Roseanne, and Homeland, Simone Finch is now calling the shots and bringing her own creation to Freeform this season. Single Drunk Female follows a similar Finch formula of quick and witty humor amidst life’s darker realities. While our main character twenty-eight year old, Samantha “Sam” Fink (Sofia Black-D'Elia), delivers some hilariously relatable lines (like summing up life as “sitting around talking to each other, and waiting to die”), she is challenged by an arduous and sometimes isolating path to sobriety.
Framed by a fluctuating Sobriety Calculator, audiences watch as Sam’s drunken breakdown brings her back to her hometown in Massachusetts where she faces jail time and the hard truths of adulthood. One of those hard truths? Well, when you show up to your NYC office-job intoxicated and hit your boss (Jon Glaser) with a phone, there’s going to be consequences: like a 30-day rehab, AA meetings, hundreds of hours of community service, and bumping into your ex-best friend (Sasha Compère) who is engaged to your ex-boyfriend (Charlie Hall) as you are forced to work a minimum wage job, slicing turkey at the local grocery store. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
While Sam is at the core of the story, the strong ensemble of Single Drunk Female features various familiar and engaging sitcom characters with their own set of problems. There’s the equally overbearing and slightly enabling mother-figure (The Breakfast Club’s own, Ally Sheedy), the best friend who is a fun time until she’s not (Lily Mae Harrington), the ex-best friend that should’ve been kept (Sasha Compère), and of course, the guy (Garrick Bernard) she can’t have because she has to be sober for a year and a day… Although familiar by nature of television tropes, when accompanied by Finch’s zanier dialogue, this cast fluctuates from being characters you love to characters you love to hate. Case in point, Lily Mae Harrington’s portrayal of not-so-great-best-friend, Felicia, is one of the performances I’m most excited to watch this season. Just her first scene, sitting down at the bar beside Sam with her thick Boston accent, led me to experience a roller coaster of emotions, including both sincere joy and unnerving fear. Brava, to Glee Project’s Lily Mae!
In almost every TV Guide lineup, there’s usually a topical show that is heavily criticized for glamorizing alcohol and substance abuse. Single Drunk Female is not that show. In fact, every time Samantha enters the vicinity of a bar or liquor store, you’ll find yourself riddled with anxiety. Finch’s script combined with Sofia Black-D'Elia’s portrayal of Sam Fink is definitely the strength of this series thus far. No matter what humiliating mistake Sam makes, it’s unlikely audiences will find themselves rooting against her. Every time the Sobriety Calculator resets (and sadly, it does), you don’t feel anger, you experience heartbreak. In fact, it’s best if you prepare to make some desperate pleas to the television screen now rather than later. Even with a fast-paced, sitcom formula, this is a show about recovery and facing one’s inner demons. After the first few episodes, I’m certain everyone will find a piece of themselves throughout Sam’s journey even if it’s hard to admit.
Between the equally frustrating and lovable ensemble, and the impressive opening scripts, Single Drunk Female is a show worth trying! I haven’t watched a show tackle themes of addiction and adulthood quite like this before, and I’m already invested in seeing how it all pans out for the residents of this fictionally small version of Malden, Massachusetts.
At the end of each episode, Sam is granted a small win of sorts (getting her first sober paycheck) which is immediately followed by a sudden loss (dropping and shattering her phone as she tries to take a picture of the occasion). As Olivia Rodrigo once said (and absolutely no one else), “it’s one step forward and three steps back,” and Single Drunk Female is no different. Even in these brief closing moments, Finch encapsulates the long road ahead for a sober Sam and leaves viewers wanting a win for Sam ever more than before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR9XNxGovDM
Single Drunk Female’s series premiere airs Thursday, January 20th at 10p/9c and streams on Hulu the next day.