Summer Slack Streaming - Fleishman Is in Trouble - miniseries

Fleishman Is in Trouble is a show that completely (in my eyes) went under the radar. The title lives in Australia on Disney+, it's a miniseries created by Taffy Brodesser-Akner based on her 2019 novel of the same name. 

The miniseries was an FX on Hulu title which starting airing mid November, 2022, concluding just before NYE 22/23.

Toby Fleishman, the protagonist, is a recently divorced man in his 40's using dating apps for the first time.

As he begins to find successes he never found in his youth, his ex-wife Rachel disappears without a trace, leaving him with their kids. 

As he balances looking after his children, a promotion at the hospital where he works, and all the women in Manhattan, he realizes that he'll never be able to figure out what happened to his wife until he can be more honest about what happened to their marriage in the first place.

It's a really wild ride across 8 episodes with a truly awesome cast. Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes and Adam Brody are the main four players, with Danes delivering some of her best work since Homeland.

Eisenberg does steal the show, mainly due to the fact he is the main star for the first chunk of episodes whilst Danes is MIA. Caplan narrates the story for a few perspectives. We get both sides of a complicated story. Or is it just the story of life, people growing apart and us weird ass humans growing older, into adults. Even though we want to remember the best parts of our younger lives.

In the finale we get big conclusions, life lessons, along with some exceptional performances. SPOILER ALERTS! 

Libby goes back to Toby's apartment to update him, but he takes no interest in Rachel's breakdown and asks her to leave. 

After taking the woman off life support at her husband's request, he begins finalizing the details of Hannah's bat mitzvah. She reveals that she does not want to go through with it, and Toby, understanding the importance forming her own tradition holds to her, indulges her and gives her her own coming of age ceremony. 

He takes his children to the vantablack exhibit again, and this time, they stay inside. 

Libby finally returns to her family and continues to fight with her husband, and attends a party Seth invites her and Toby to. As they realize the party is a front for Seth to propose to his girlfriend, Toby and Libby make up and discuss her idea for a book based on Toby's divorce. 

The conversation soon transitions into her thoughts on how her life changed after she got married, and she returns home to her family and gets in bed with her husband, at peace. Toby returns to his apartment and decides to get a new one. As he looks out over the city, Rachel opens the door behind him and enters, exactly how Libby said she would end her book.

Till next time...