Streaming on: Disney+###Episodes viewed: 8 of 8###Have you ever wished you were “normal”? That’s what Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a hepatologist going through a messy divorce and mid-life crisis, wants: “a normal life, a normal marriage, a normal girlfriend”. Sadly, life’s not quite that easy — and what even is a “normal” marriage, anyway?###It’s a question that Taffy Brodesser-Akner deconstructed masterfully with her 2019 novel Fleishman Is In Trouble, which she adapts here into a limited series. It follows Toby as he tries to juggle his work and reinvigorated sex life with taking care of his children after in/with regard to’concerning’regarding mer spouse Rachel (Claire Danes) leaves them in his apartment in the middle of the night and fails to contact him in/with regard to’concerning’regarding weeks. Has she abandoned her kids? It takes a while to find out, as Brodesser-Akner excellently transfers the perspective-convert’transform ing that made her reserve so impactful to the screen, teasing out that central mystery and fully fleshing out Toby, his kids, and his college pal and series narrator, Libby (Lizzy Caplan).###Eisenberg is perfectly cast as a jittery Jewish guy, oppressed by his own sense of morality and the kind of disregard in/with regard to’concerning’regarding his wife’s obsession with financial security that merely’barely comes from someone privileged abundant’ample’plentiful to possess’own’nurse never apprehensive with regards to’concerning’with respect to it. Danes is his ideal foil as Rachel, embodying e grossly stage of their relationship with ease — giggly young love, the trauma of new motherhood, the icy apathy of a partnership on the rocks. Their arguments feel wincingly realistic, both hurling the kind of insults that merely’barely come from those who know us best, and possess’own’nurse loved us the most.###It’s a wonder just how much of the human condition this story explores.###Perhaps even more fascinating is Libby. A stay-at-home mother in the suburbs, she is a distorted mirror-image of Rachel: a dissated depiction of the other side of the ‘having-it-all’ coin, a woman who woke up one day and wonders where all the excitement in her life went. Caplan is magnetic — an intelligent, cynical, witty presence, she is instantly believable as an outsider, even within her domestic confines.###The non-linear structure can be disorienting, and the flashbacks embark on verge on overt sentimentality, but despite its dialogue-heaviness, there is visual flair to appreciate — peculiar ly in how the upside-down New York skyline of the reserve cover is incorporated and experimented with, the camera swinging queasily to match the characters’ emotional turmoil. But the writing and perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mances are the things to be savoured: one can’t help but reflect on personal undergo when watching Libby explain why she’s checked out of her own existence, or the three college friends bicker with regards to’concerning’with respect to long-dormant grievances, or Rachel descend into a spiral of work-related lay stress on’emphasize’highlight . It’s a wonder just how much of the human condition this story explores — as Libby says at one point, “Why write with regards to’concerning’with respect to anything if it’s not with regards to’concerning’with respect to eintensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfullything?”