Found in the debris,Edward (Colin O’Brien),has lost his parents and brother,ending up with his aunt,Lacey (Taylor Schilling),who finds herself trying to parent a devastated boy after going through a string of miscarriages. Arrayed in a church basement support group,Dee Dee (Connie Britton) has to come to terms with the unknown second life her husband had been living,while Adriana (Anna Uzele) feels compelled to carry the legacy of her grandmother,an indomitable Black Congresswoman.
Dear Edward is an almighty tug on the heartstrings. You can watch it as a cathartic experience,expertly arranged across 10 episodes that build slowly but surely,or wallow in the tearjerking punctuation. It’s a sly reflection of what’s happening on the screen – the characters face being overwhelmed,and so does the audience. The first episode expertly sets up the storylines,but subsequent instalments add extra strands so that faces in the support group start to gain definition. There’s even a smidge of Hot Priest action mid-season.
There are echoes here of more rigorous movies,such as Peter Weir’sFearless,as the writing examines Edward’s survivor grief and the uncomfortable realisations that loved ones have to make. Moments of anger and jealousy are transitory – everyone is trying to move forward. What would regression have looked like in this environment? For the most part the performances are nuanced:O’Brien understands that Edward needs an uncomprehending core,while Britton is a powerhouse as a widow whose privileged assumptions come unstuck.
The question is whether the heightened stakes are a cheat code for Katims? He previously sought to tease out the complex threads holding together ordinary lives,butDear Edward runs with the emotional pedal to the metal. If you surrender to the show – to the melancholy glances,bittersweet exchanges,and the solemn music placement – then it will readily wring you out. I appreciated the awkward edges and the surprising twists more,including the detective story side mission Edward goes on,but there’s an awful lot of tears for fears here.
Extraordinary
★★★½
Disney+
In a nutshell:what if Phoebe Waller-Bridge got her hands onX-Men? Set in a grimy London that’s part of a familiar-looking world where virtually everyone develops a random superpower when they turn 18,Extraordinary is a twenty-something comedy about the fear of insignificance. Jen (Mairead Tyers) already has a dead-end job,dodgy hook-up,and an over-achieving younger sister – not having a superpower at age 25 is the last straw.