I Love Bekka & Lucy

Bekka (Jessica Parker Kennedy) and Lucy (Tanisha Long) live alone in an abandoned suburb in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. Their blissful existence is disrupted when a new neighbour Glenn (Alexis Desioff) moves in next door, and their bond is further tested when Lucy's ne'er-do-well boyfriend (Christopher Nicholas Smith) proposes.

Faced with the idea of life apart, the erstwhile soulmates try to figure out what they want and need, whether together or apart...

Created by Rachel Holder (who writes and directs every episode), B & L is a production of Stage 13, a new company with a mission to provide a platform for new and diverse voices to create and share their stories.

Composed of 11 episodes running about 10 minutes each, B & L feels like an indie dramedy about leaving your 20s behind, and trying to figure out what the 'adult' version of yourself is.

Lucy and Bekka feel like they need to be doing/not doing something different at this point in their lives. Lucy decides to marry her boyfriend because it feels like time. Despite the fact that her boyfriend shows no signs of maturity, responsibility or self-awareness, she contemplates having kids as the logical next step. Meanwhile, Bekka is insecure about her independence. She does not follow Lucy's lead, but she is trying to find a new paradigm.

Largely restricted in scope, it never feels padded or over-ambitious in scale. If it was not for the reminder to watch the next episode, you would think it was one continuous story - a lot of the episodes pick up immediately after each other, with no recaps of preceding episodes. This show is designed to be viewed on this platform.

I caught the trailer randomly on social media. Its focus on the friendship between two women reminded me of the web series OK Cupid which I reviewed last year.

One thing that I appreciated was how little I knew about the cast. Tanisha Long was the only one I recognised, and I'm only familiar with her from a couple podcasts and comedy sketches. Meanwhile, Jessica Kennedy Parker and Alexis Desioff were complete unknowns to me (Kennedy Parker was featured in that pirate show Black Sails and Desioff is a veteran player in the Joss Whedon stock company).

Desioff's character is an accountant-turned-screenwriter who is trying to build a new life for himself. He gravitates towards the girls because he is lonely. Desioff is one of the best things in the show, and also the locus of my main problems with the show.

Repeatedly throughout the show, our leads wrestle with the idea of how they want to feel old. Lucy considers marriage and children, while Bekka pushes for friendship; the idea that a soulmate has to be a romantic partner is challenged throughout the pair's interactions. Ultimately the show channels this thesis through the characters in ironic ways. Lucy finally recognises that Harry is not what she wants. Whatever the future holds, she can figure it out without him.

The benefit of the running time allows the makers of B & L to let scenes play out in ways that organic and motivated - we can track character choices here in a way that reminded me of Hello Cupid. The best example is the final conversation between Bekka and Glenn in the pool. Scenes of characters falling for each other often shortchanged and contrived, with characters in ways that contradict their personalities and motivations. Here, it feels totally natural, coming at a point when both characters have reached a similar point of mutual awareness - they know and accept each other.

And the strength of Holder's writing, and the actor's performances, is that they are building the foundation for a relationship that fulfils Bekka's needs without feeling like a identikit version of the relationship with Lucy. There is no sense that Glenn (and a hetero romance) is destroying what Bekka and Lucy have.

Unlike the 50s women Bekka regards with fear and awe, she can have more than a soulmate, romantic or otherwise. It is not the usual type of change we get, where the female protagonists is transformed. It is more of a case of Glenn acknowledging and understanding her.

That really is the ultimate message of the show: there is no set path, no schedule or fixed destination to 'adulthood'.. The final epiphany the main characters reach is being able to recognise that the 'right choice' for one person maybe the wrong one for someone else.

The two leads are great - Parker Kennedy and Long have great chemistry, and their characterisations are so complementary that they feel like a single personality. Long gives Lucy this sense of cynical optimism that is hard to describe - her character is both aware of her unhappiness, but also too scared to do anything about it.

Parker Kennedy's Bekka is a similar contradiction - a school teacher who hates people; a mature adult who has sex with strangers; a confirmed loner who ends up married. Parker Kennedy's no-nonsense performance is a treat, is she tries to figure out what Lucy's marital plans will mean for their friendship. 

Christopher Nicholas Smith is hilarious and terrifying as Harry, Lucy's boyfriend-turned-fiance. Introduced telling his mom he forgot to water the plants she sent him, Harry is a good-for-nothing with no ambition and no real empathy for other people, he is millstone that Lucy has trouble learning to get rid. He could be a cartoonish monster, but there is a sadness to his performance, as though he is aware that he is on autopilot, but lacks the motivation to change.

Right, now that I have talked about what I liked, onto the giant suppurating ulcer at the centre of this show: despite Stage 13's vision of diversity, the fact that Glenn is not played by a disabled actor is ridiculous. Desioff delivers a great performance - but I am sure there are plenty of other actors who could have done this role.

The other problem with the show is Glenn's character. There is a big reveal about Glenn is the fact that he divorced his wife because she was fat; taking place during a double date with Lucy's other half, it functions as a rug-pulling moment for Bekka after she jumps into a relationship with a stranger. Making Glenn come off as an asshole is a funny idea, but this revelation is awful. It ends up making it easy to question Glenn's feelings for the younger women. It is a bummer, because as a scene the final reproach-ment between Bekka and Glenn is great - it is rare that you see characters forge what feels like a genuine, believable connection. But the reveal about Glenn's wife feels like a fumble in terms of how viewers feel about the resolution of the show.

One other interesting thing about Glenn is the near-total lack of attention that is paid to his disability. In a way I like Glenn's story about his wife because it prevents his character from coming off as a saint, or just a diagnosis with dialogue. Giving him a defect to make him feel more rounded is a worthy idea, but this particular character flaw just turns him into a superficial jerk. What is worse is that after this scene

Overall, I really enjoyed I Love Bekka & Lucy. It is funny and heartfelt, and the three leads are terrific. I just wish the show was more nuanced, and more willing to embrace different POVs. There is a great show here, but there are a couple of components that hold it back.