Everything’s Gonna Be Okay
Today is a momentous day since this will be my very first TV show that I’ve covered on this blog! I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling especially excited to dive into this one, and I apologize in advance for any format issues or incoherency that may appear in this review. Being my first TV show review, I’m still feeling out what works best in terms of what to focus on and how to arrange my thoughts for a different style. Of course I’ll do whatever I can to make sure this review is easy to read, but it’s still probable that mistakes will occur.
With that out of the way, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay! A show with a title that would make you swear that it was a meditation series. After a long watch session (one that I had to extend the deadline for posting this review to begin with), I’d say I liked this show fine. I can’t say anything in this show is especially groundbreaking in terms of visuals, characters, or story, but it did happen to break records in terms of representation. To be perfectly candid like Rosa Diaz, you just can’t have a conversation about this show without mentioning this subject because it’s the first show ever to put a major spotlight on characters with autism and have each of the actors portraying those characters be autistic as well. You’d think this wouldn’t be an especially difficult record to break, but it’s taken the human race until the year 2020 to do it so take that as you will.
Outside of that, the show mainly focuses on the relatability of its characters and situations, as well as creating an environment which is realistic and believable. For being labeled a comedy show, it doesn’t have very many laugh-out-loud (or lol if you’re a Gen-Z’er) moments and I didn’t find myself laughing very hard for the majority of its episodes if at all honestly. Since the realism of the show can take over a lot of the time, the tone seems to juggle back and forth to the point where you can’t seem to tell if they’re going for a funny moment, a tender moment, an uncomfortable moment, or a sad moment. Maybe that’s just because I’m on the autism spectrum as well and am having a hard time reading the social cues that this show is giving off while I watch it.
This may also have something to do with the show’s editing. To some people that may seem like an odd thing to criticize, but I genuinely believe that most of the problems in this show are in its editing. All of the elements to make this show funny are present in what I can see on screen, but they just aren’t utilized in a way that’s satisfying. Sometimes they can hold on a scene for too long diluting the humor in it to the point where it becomes awkward, they can cut abruptly to another scene before properly finishing a joke, or they don’t even show a scene in its entirety where they’ll cut to it in the middle of the action so we don’t even see the setup for the situation we’re watching and still cut away from it too early so we end up questioning why the scene was even included to begin with.
In terms of comedy I can’t help but feel like this show is significantly held back by its tonal shifts and editing issues, but it does still portray its characters in a way that makes you believe they’re real and relate to them in a meaningful way. Much of this show’s charm is based off of the characters themselves and how they interact off of each other like a real dysfunctional unit and the acting/writing fully supports that. When I see them talk to each other I can’t help but feel like I’m not really watching a show, but instead looking through a window into someone’s life.
With all that being said, I think I’ve done enough introduction, let’s actually drop our father’s casket and get into it for real. This is Everything’s Gonna Be Okay!
The basic premise of the show is that it follows a family of three where the older half-brother Nicholas (played by Josh Thomas) gains custody of his two younger half-sisters Matilda and Genevieve (played by Kayla Cromer and Maeve Press) after the death of their father due to cancer in the first episode. That’s essentially it. What follows couldn’t be any more of a ‘slice-of-life’ type of show which shows the trios’ exploits trying to figure out what it means to be a family when none of them know what they’re doing.
While there isn’t much of a continuing story, there are at least some elements in the show that remind you of the passage of time. For one, Nicholas has a boyfriend named Alex (played by Adam Faison) who sticks with him throughout the entirety of the show. There are moments when their relationship is called into question, even a moment when they split up due to miscommunication and perceived heartlessness on the part of Nicholas, but I always felt invested in their relationship. It feels especially genuine and their characters are written and acted so believably that I do want them to work out in the end.
If I did have one gripe about the characters, I really feel like Nicholas can be annoying. Like headache-inducing annoying. Both he and Alex can be cute together when they’re laid back, cuddling, and enjoying each other’s company, but more often than not when there is an issue in their relationship it’s due to Nicholas completely screwing up some basic aspect of human interaction that makes him look stupid and even cruel. I know by the end of the show he ends up getting diagnosed with autism, but it doesn’t make any of those previous moments earlier in the show easier to watch for me, even as an autistic person myself. There’s even a moment where in order to properly apologize to Alex for something Nicholas did earlier, Alex ends up Googling the steps for crafting a sincere apology for Nicholas to follow and he still doesn’t do it correctly. To me it comes across less quirky or comedic and instead more frustrating that he can’t follow simple instructions.
Although, I think I might be picking on Nicholas a bit too much, because yes while those things do irritate me, it does speak to how much these characters are written like real people. That’s the thing about real people is that they’re not always going to do what you want them to do, and often times they can surprise you, either for better or for worse. Nicholas is written as spontaneous doing the first thing that comes into his mind without question or rational thought, and rarely, if ever, do you know what he’s thinking. While some things he does can be very humorous setups, sometimes we aren’t even given those moments to laugh at.
For example, in one moment Alex and Nicholas go on a couples trip to Mexico and upon ordering room service Nicholas gets the bright idea to pour seafood on top of Alex’s head while they’re in the bathtub. Honestly that sounds like a pretty funny setup on paper, but in the show we don’t even get to see it. All that we get is the argument between the two of them that takes place afterwards which goes on for a solid 2 minutes. While that may not seem like that long, when it’s just non-stop bickering and an unpleasant angry couple it really drives me up the wall. I would’ve loved to laugh at that premise if I had gotten a chance to see it, but instead they decided to focus on every argument my parents ever had as a kid. Please just let me laugh at you show!
Okay, getting back on track. I hadn’t thought that I would’ve gotten that emotional over something like that, but I think it does go back to the classification of the show itself. Everywhere I checked people list this show as a comedy, but I personally don’t think that kind of category works well for it. I don’t think the show exaggerates enough situations or plays up the absurdity of life enough for it to be considered a comedy. Given what I said before, I think the show does work better as an off-beat slice-of-life. Every episode just feels like people in their natural habitat, and also people I would like to get to know better (except Nicholas). I would probably be more forgiving of these kinds of decisions which prioritize realism over comedy if the show was more up-front about what it was at its core, but instead I feel forced to judge it based on comedic criteria.
If I were to focus on what the show is though as opposed to what it’s trying to be, it succeeds pretty well at it. This also reminds me I haven’t discussed any of the other major players in the show, the two sisters Matilda and Genevieve. Matilda is the older sister who is also autistic which they do not shy away from on the show at all. In fact, I may even go so far as to say that’s the majority of her character. If this show were to be released in any year earlier than 2018, I think this likely would’ve been a major problem, but they handle it in a way that’s believable and even relatable. That last part may just be the fact that I’m autistic myself, but I digress. This may also be because Kayla Cromer, Matilda’s actress, is autistic along with all of the other actors playing autistic characters in the show whom appear in Matilda’s special needs class. Each of them bring something new and charming to the show which makes them seem all the more real truly showcasing the spectrum that autism is including Matilda’s girlfriend Drea (played by Lillian Carrier) whom she ends up marrying by the end. When she’s 18. That still weirds me out to say. *insert image of me tugging at shirt collar uncomfortably*
Second is Genevieve who is probably one of the most grounded characters in the show outside of Alex and throws a healthy dose of sarcasm into the mix. She’s smart, interesting, embarrassingly weak when physically assaulting people, and rarely seen without her friends Tellulah and Barb (played by Ivy Wolk and Lori Mae Hernandez). Genevieve also had a third friend at the beginning of the show who disappears by the second episode and is never brought up again. We never even get to learn her name and it still confuses me why she was even there to begin with, but it is what it is. They hang out, have girl talk (like what their buttholes look like), catfish Barb’s mom, partake in unknown prescription medication, it’s a grand ol’ time. Upon closer inspection as well, while there are more comedic setups explored amongst the other characters in the show, there are more comedic payoffs with Genevieve and her friend group. Even then, those payoffs can be partial or weak. The show even mentions some of those previous moments in a more blasé attitude than I did when I wrote them just now.
Beyond all of that though, the show is very good at getting the viewer invested in the lives of the people on screen. While I can’t say that I laughed at every joke I heard, in fact I rarely did that, I did at least find myself caring what happens to these people. Matilda badly wants to get into Juilliard to become a composer and I felt myself biting my nails over whether she’d get in or not. After that, I was not only relieved that she did, but that when accounting for her autism, she may not be able to attend since the show takes place in California and Juilliard is in New York City of course, so they acknowledge she still may not be able to go since they don’t know if she’d be able to handle herself in a big city. Ultimately she decides she can’t do it and I was legit bummed to see she wouldn’t be going to her dream school. There’re a lot of moments like this as well, such as the death of their father in the first episode that really makes you empathize with the characters and how Nicholas, Matilda, and Genevieve learn to live together. To reiterate, while Nicholas can be frustrating, I do still want him and Alex to be together since they have great chemistry and I like seeing them in each other’s arms. Genevieve also has a couple relationships she explores throughout the show which are almost criminally relatable. Matilda gets rejected by a boy she likes early on in the show because he doesn’t want to date an autistic person. All of these things really make everything feel real which is one of the best strengths of any piece of media like this.
I do have to admit that even the slice-of-life feel can be a bit much sometimes. Mainly in regards to the ending. The fact is that once the show gets to its final episode, Matilda and her new girlfriend Drea get married (again 18, ew!), Alex has split up with Nicholas but wants to get back together after learning about his diagnosis, Drea’s parents are being weird at the reception…and it just stops. Yeah, it doesn’t so much end rather then…stop. The final end credits scene off the show is just Nicholas and Genevieve brushing their teeth together. That’s it. In the end it kinda leaves you empty, knowing that there will probably be more things to do after this, but the creators aren’t going to show it. While it does feel more authentic to real life, it would’ve been nice to have at least some kind of epilogue or resolution as opposed to just…stopping. Either way, that’s all I have for this show, and to be real, despite the problems I have with it I do still recommend it.
While it’s definitely not as funny as I would’ve hoped, it does still deliver on a family show that is interesting and detailed in its relationships. Also when I say family show I don’t mean this show is for families to watch, there is way too much sex in this for that to be the case. What I mean is as a show centered around a family working out their differences and learning from each other to become better people, it does still do that.
Nicholas is still my least favorite character of the bunch, but even I can’t deny that he does go through some growth by the end of the show which does make him at least somewhat more tolerable. To me this shows that the creators of this show do still want the focus to be on the emotional heart of these characters and their struggles which is more than I could’ve asked for in an alleged comedy show. After all, in my opinion if there’s anything this comedy show is lacking in it’s the comedy, but if you would still like to take a journey with unconventional characters that leaves you emotionally supported, I’d say this is a good show to check out. Overall, if I were to rate it on comedy criteria I’d give it a 2.5/5 West African Cockroaches, but on what the show is and what it ultimately accomplishes, I’ll give it a 3.5/5 West African Cockroaches. By the way Nicholas is an entomologist. I merely reported on this because the show merely reported on this.
Also, of course I wouldn’t show you a picture of a West African Cockroach, I care about you.
Thank you so much to commenter MoppaOppa for suggesting this show!
If you have any other suggestions for me, feel free to send me an email on my Contact Page. Thank you for reading!
(I make no claim of ownership for the image used in this post)
(It’s owned entirely by its respective copyright holders which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies and shows, I do not make them)
(Yet)
