Ouch.
OuchOuchOuch.
HBO's new romantic comedy Divorce is painful to watch. For anyone who has been through a divorce, or watched friends or loved ones go through the ordeal, the series will ring true. Painfully true.
Divorce debuts at 9 p.m. today and stars Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City) and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways, Spider-Man 3) as Frances and Robert, a rut-bound couple living in the New York suburb of Westchester County, whose decade long marriage hits the skids and begins to slowly unravel.
They have two occasionally frustrating children -- young daughter Lila, (Sterling Jerins,World War Z), and her older brother Tom (Charlie Kilgore, Moonrise Kingdom).
This being HBO, it's a TV-MA adult series. There are adult themes, adult language and adult pain, but that appears to be the point.
In an HBO interview, Parker said, "Divorce is about people trying to navigate a really unhappy and difficult experience. "
Actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts (August: Osage County), who plays family friend Nick, adds, "It's something we can all relate to, because love is painful and pain is funny."
Nick is married to Frances' best friend, the unhappily married Diane (Molly Shannon).
"I want to save my life while I still care about it," Frances confides in Diane. "He's not a monster. He's the father of my children."
"Then your children are half monsters," Diane retorts.
Divorce marks the 51-year-old Parker's return to a lead TV role years after she played the iconic Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City (1998-2004) and its two film sequels (2008, 2010).
Church, 56, first came to our attention as the dim-witted, but lovable mechanic Lowell Mather in Wings. Parker and Church do an outstanding job from the first scene as a middle-aged couple in slow, smouldering crisis.
"What we had was crazy and fun," Frances tells Robert, "but it ended because it needed to end ... right?"
The clean break and fresh start that Frances initially envisioned soon proves impossible and that's the source of the humor. This looks to be a very, very long divorce and well worth your time
There will be 10 half-hour episodes in the first season.
• Insecure, 9:30 p.m. today HBO. The new comedy follows Divorce and stars actress/writer Issa Rae, known best for her web series Awkward Black Girl. Rae co-created Insecure with comedian/writer and former Comedy Central talk show host Larry Wilmore.
The series is set in South Los Angeles and HBO says it "aims to explore the black female experience in an uncliched and authentic way."
Who's insecure? Best friends Issa Dee (Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji) are as they attempt to navigate the professional and personal challenges of Los Angeles.
Issa is a liaison for a nonprofit youth organization and has a tenuous love life; Molly is a corporate lawyer not as in control as she pretends. Together, they attempt to figure out what they want in life and how to achieve it.
Also on hand are Jay Ellis as Lawrence, Issa's longtime, career-challenged boyfriend, and Lisa Joyce as Frieda, a co-worker at the nonprofit.
HBO notes the series "incorporates the music of both indie and established artists of color, and touches on a variety of social and racial issues that relate to the contemporary black experience."
In tonight's debut, (the episode has an unprintable title), Issa has just turned 29 and ponders her dead-end relationship with Lawrence. Meanwhile Molly laments her single status and the fallow condition of her "lady parts."
There will be eight episodes in the first season. They're rated TV-MA for adult content and language.
Reminder: Ash vs. Evil Dead returned to Starz on Oct. 2. It airs at 7 p.m. today. There's still plenty of time to catch up. Spoiler alert: Hard to believe, but it's even more bloody and gory than the first season.
• Presidential Debate No. 2, 8 p.m. today on all the major broadcast networks and usual cable news channels.
Tonight's Round 2 will be held at Washington University in St. Louis with ABC's Martha Raddatz and CNN's Anderson Cooper moderating.
This one will be in the form of a town hall meeting with half of the questions coming from the audience (uncommitted voters selected by Gallup) and the rest from the moderators.
MONDAY
• Supergirl, 7 p.m. The CW. The series moves from CBS to its new home for Season 2.
• 2 Broke Girls, 8 p.m. CBS. It's Season 6 and the girls are still broke.
• Freakish, Hulu. All 10 episodes of the new horror series are available Monday. The series features teens menaced by mutants after there's an accident at the local chemical plant.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 10/09/2016