Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Shrill’ On Hulu, Where Aidy Bryant Plays A Woman Who Learns To Accept Herself And Her Body

It’s 2019 and television shows and movies are still making fun of overweight people, which just feels wrong on many levels. Hopefully, shows like Shrill will change that. Starring Aidy Bryant of SNL fame, the show is one of the first we’ve seen about an overweight woman who finally decides to not try to achieve a body image others want for her, and just live for herself. Read on to find out more about this very funny Hulu series…

SHRILL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman enters her house with her dog, changes into a dress (which she stretches out in order to feel more comfortable), then eats plain chicken breast from a diet plan meal.

The Gist: Annie (Aidy Bryant) has never been happy with herself, especially her body. It feels like the whole world, from a fitness instructor who accosts her at a coffee shop to her own mother (Julia Sweeney) want her to be “healthy,” but to Annie, that’s just code for “not fat.”

This has the effect of making Annie very unassertive, like when she tries to pitch article ideas to Gabe (John Cameron Mitchell), her boss at the Portland-area alt weekly where she manages the event calendar. She also reluctantly accept being treated terribly by the shaggy Ryan (Luka Jones), who loves having sex with Annie but doesn’t want anyone — including his podcasting buddies — that he’s with her, so he shuttles her out the back door of his house. He also won’t use a condom, which means that Annie has to get the “morning after” pill after every time they do it (the scene where she buys soda and shoelaces to nonchalant getting the morning after pill is hilarious).

It seems like the only one who thinks Annie shouldn’t change — except, maybe, her confidence in herself — is her roommate Fran (Lolly Adefope). When Annie finds out that she’s pregnant, Fran tells her to get an abortion, “before it becomes illegal, or something.” She continues: “You’re being so mean to yourself. It makes me so sad.”

Encouraged by Fran, Annie tells her mother that she doesn’t want to be on a diet anymore, while getting more encouragement by her ailing father (Daniel Stern). Then she breaks up with Ryan. “I’ve been letting people dismiss me and say shit to me about my body my entire life. At this point, I’m like, ‘fuck them.’ And fuck you,” she says in the most non-confrontational way possible. Then she pitches an idea to Gabe and ends up getting a shot at a dining review. Annie’s done trying to be what others want her to be, but how hard is that going to be with her lifelong notions about not being good enough running through her head?

Our Take: We’re not sure why we haven’t seen a character like Annie on TV before, but it feels like we haven’t. Shrill is based on a book by Lindy West about her journey to self-acceptance, but with West and Bryant as co-creators (and Elizabeth Banks on board as an executive producer; Ali Rushfield is the showrunner), the character of Annie is more of an amalgamation of both women’s journeys, along with those of the show’s writing staff. And knowing that makes Shrill even more enjoyable than it is on first watch.

We all know that Bryant can be funny from her years on Saturday Night Live. But, even from the first episode of Shrill, she embodies Annie as a multi-dimensional character, someone who has been struggling with her body image and self-worth her entire life and is finally sick of it. Much of her tentativeness in her life comes from the fact that people have dismissed her because of her weight, and Bryant does a wonderful job of showing Annie starting to come out of that fog by the end of the first episode.

Yes, there’s a hipster, Portland-y part of the show that could get grating over time (Ryan’s beard, Gabe’s overall assholishness because he’s a “successful writer”), but with Bryant at the center of the show, it feels like Shrill will stay grounded through its first season, which is more than we can say about other shows that are in this vein.

Sex and Skin: After Annie and Ryan have sex, she doesn’t even get a pillow to lie on. “I’m your pillow,” says Ryan. Yeesh.

Parting Shot: Annie confronts the annoying personal trainer who keeps badgering her to “get healthy.” The trainer calls her a “fat bitch,” but Annie walks down the street feeling even more empowered.

Sleeper Star: Mitchell is always good in whatever he does. But this has to go to Adefope; she brings the same droll deadpan to the character of Fran that she brought to Rosie, God’s assistant on TBS’s Miracle Workers. In the second episode, she lets loose a line that’s one of the funniest we’ve heard in awhile: “I don’t apologize to white people.”

Most Pilot-y Line: Like most TV shows, Shrill has no idea how journalism works in 2019. The offices of the alt weekly where Annie works has a massive staff and a loft vibe that screams 2003.

Our Call: STREAM IT, enthusiastically so. Bryant busts out of her sketch comedy shell as Annie, and the ensemble around her is just as fun to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Shrill on Hulu