NBC’s This Is Us is one of the best shows on television. Don’t trust us strictly based on our past experience of being right about everything. Trust us on our tears.
This show will give you all of the damn feels—from sobbing uncontrollably to laughing, and then back to sobbing uncontrollably (but happy tears this time). In the same vein as shows like Parenthood and Friday Night Lights, This Is Us interweaves the mostly happy, moderately fucked up lives of family members and friends. And, without giving away any spoilers, the show has also managed to make me knock over several glasses of wine in surprise. But it’s so good, I’m not even mad.
This Is Us is great in the fact that not all of its characters conform to the conventional standards of beauty. The characters deal with real shit, like racism and weight loss and self-doubt, and the show producers don’t try and tie it up in a pretty package. It addresses the uncomfortable stuff (like, am I a super shitty parent? Am I a psychopath girlfriend?) but manages to do it without making the viewers feel uncomfortable. Fucking genius.
Added bonus is that Milo Ventimiglia (aka Jess Mariano) appears shirtless pretty regularly. And Mandy Moore singing is a flashback to the Princess Diaries—back before we hated Anne Hathaway, of course. And Toby is a really damn good boyfriend and every girl deserves a Toby in her life. And William spews wisdom so magical he’s basically Harry Potter. And everything is just so good that if I had any emotions (which betches obviously don’t) I would tear up just thinking about it.
With the second season premiering TOMORROW, you need to get your friend’s boyfriend’s dog’s roommate’s Hulu password and binge This Is Us. It has literally managed to get better each episode, so lawd only knows what the second season will bring. Besides tears.
If you haven’t caught on to Insecure yet, you’re in luck because we got bored over the holidays and watched the entire first season and we can tell you why it’s a betchy show. We almost ignored this show completely, but we needed a distraction from explaining to our dads for the fifth time that we do have a plan for the future, we just haven’t gotten to it. Insecure was the perfect solution. If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically Girls but instead of privileged New York millennials it’s not-spoiled LA millennials who deal with bigger problems than their parents cutting them off after their third unpaid internship, such as casual racism in the workplace. And unlike Girls, watching Insecure won’t make you want to kill yourself. And no Lena Dunham (so far)! Have I convinced you yet?
Here are our top 12 reasons why Insecure is a show you should watch.
1. Issa and her best friend Molly have a ride or die relationship that we can all relate to. They’re not afraid to call each other out on their shit, but it’s only okay when they do it to each other—as soon as one of their other friends talks shit about one of them, they stick up for each other.
2. Molly is a boss betch—she’s hot, a successful lawyer, and has an awesome apartment—but she still falls for fuckboys because they’re literally a plague. Relatable.
3. Issa is always not doing work at work and bullshits her way through a presentation, same.
4. When Issa gets in trouble for not doing work, she gets back on her boss’ good side by throwing a huge party/event to raise money for her job. Literally proving that partying and getting free shit is what she’s best at. Betchy.
5. Issa’s relationship with her boyfriend takes us through how shitty it is to fall out of love with someone. She wants to get out of the relationship, but it’s too comfortable to leave.
6. Issa has commitment issues and when her boyfriend takes her ring shopping, she freaks out and we totally get it.
7. Everyone on the show judges TF out of each other, while the audience gets to judge everyone on the show.
8. The bros on this show are hot, especially Jared. There are plenty of bro butts, which flips the Game of Thrones boob ratio around for our benefit.
9. Molly gets drunk and word vomits to her casual hookup bro, Jared, telling him that she should just settle with him. While we were v secondhand embarrassed for her, we’ve also all said shit drunk that we regretted later.
10. Natasha Rothwell says the betchiest thing to Issa when she seems upset: “It’s my birthday, it will be about you if you get hit or have a baby”.
11. The girls get a dope Malibu rental for a weekend and go out with the catchphrase “We did say” as in “we did say we’re going to get crazy this weekend,” and Molly takes home a college kid. Not a good move, but shit happens when we go out with our girls and “we did say” so whatevs.
12. Everything is fucked at the end of season 1, but Molly and Issa make up and you know things are going to be okay because bros come and go, but your besties hold it down.
