Leo Reich's 'It Gets Worse': Gen Z Angst by Way of 'Girls'

Leo Reich wrote all six episodes of "It Gets Worse," a new comedy produced by A24 and Crave that is now streaming on Paramount+ and channels Lena Dunham's "Girls" for a Gen Z audience. Zadie Smith narrates. Mounia Akl directs every episode.

The series opens on Ethan, played by Reich himself, wandering through London. Smith's narrator sets the tone immediately: "Ethan had one of the easiest lives in recorded human history." He has good friends and halfway decent sex. He is even cutting down on his screen time, if you do not count his laptop or his television.

Ethan, the narration concludes with disarming warmth, has "much to feel grateful for." Yet he cannot shake the feeling that he should have something, anything, more.

What does the show share with 'Girls'?

Ethan and his best friends, Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray), spend their days grasping for meaning between corporate gigs and uninspiring partners. Their nights out brim with potential but rarely deliver. They have plenty of sex, though it is either too degrading or not degrading enough.

Reich is clever enough to acknowledge Ethan's aimlessness outright, and the perpetual dissatisfaction of one's 20s becomes the point. Sam, a writer who fancies herself the group's most emotionally mature member, usually shows that "maturity" as a stubborn refusal to take her own messy feelings seriously. Abi knows exactly what she wants — or, as the narrator puts it, "it's important to know what you want" — but cannot decide between an Instagram-official life with her dependable, condescending boyfriend Tom (Sean Delaney) and the shaggier chaos Ethan and Sam represent.

The influence of "Girls" grows undeniable with every unfiltered argument and awkward sex scene. Reich's writing is similarly confessional, surprising and unabashedly unflattering to his most beloved characters. Ethan carries so much of Dunham's confidently oblivious Hannah Horvath that he might as well be her London-based cousin. The only complication for the theory that "It Gets Worse" exists in the "Girls" universe is Dunham herself, guest-starring as Abi's nightmare millennial #girlboss.

How does the series split up its trio?

Strangely, Reich immediately separates the friends who form the show's ostensible heart. The first episode begins with all three getting kicked out of their shared apartment, and they spend the rest of the brief season mostly stranded on their own islands.

Sam moves into a loft overflowing with new roommates, including her alluring, exasperating ex-girlfriend Zara (India Mullen). Abi moves in with Tom, more of an inconvenience than a partner, and befriends her awkward co-worker Louise, played by Emmeline Downie — a comic highlight in her debut role. Ethan spends his time metaphorically putting his foot in his mouth, or asking men to do worse, literally. One early scene finds him spilling his most myopic thoughts to a very bored, very handsome therapist, played by Andrew Scott.

Who is the real star?

The series sets itself apart visually. Akl directs with an intimate elasticity that makes each 20ish-minute episode fly by, zooming in on the most awkward moments and capturing every face twitch. The approach peaks in an episode about Sam's pretentious new roommate throwing a sex party solely to make an even more pretentious docuseries about it, with Akl swerving nimbly between her established aesthetic and the pseudo-documentary's sloppy footage.

Yet the star may be Smith as the narrator. The unlikely pairing of her voice of authority with Reich's prickly words of insight turns the narration into the series's most unusual asset. Without spoiling anything, the review notes, the device ends up serving an unexpected purpose that only makes it more essential.

The New York Times critic Caroline Darya Framke, reviewing the show, delivered a pointed verdict: "'It Gets Worse' is a pretty good TV show, but much to my surprise, I left it thinking that it could have been an even better book." For viewers weighing a subscription, the answer is clear: six brisk episodes, prickly and perceptive, worth the watch even if the prose lines outshine the plotting.