If you’ve watched a Netflix authentic previously few years, you may acknowledge the comic Michelle Buteau because the platform’s punchiest voice of cause. At the start of the 2019 breakup comedy Someone Great, Buteau’s character delivers a brisk shallowness enhance to the movie’s protagonist, whom she encounters as a crying stranger on a subway platform: “Why he won’t try? Look at you with your pretty teeth and shit.” In Randall Park and Ali Wong’s Always Be My Maybe, launched a few month later, Buteau performed Veronica, the very pregnant and really humorous assistant to Wong’s celeb restaurateur, Sasha. And since 2020, Buteau has hosted The Circle, a chaotic Big Brother–esque actuality sequence on which individuals work together solely by a bespoke social community; she retains the uncanny present surprisingly watchable along with her stream of self-referential commentary.
In her newest involvement with Netflix, Buteau takes heart stage—and this time, she doesn’t have the solutions. Survival of the Thickest, which started streaming final week, stars Buteau as Mavis Beaumont, a plus-size stylist reeling from a breakup kicked off by catching her wealthy photographer boyfriend in mattress with a lady—however “not just any other woman, a skinny model version of me,” as she tells a buddy. Mavis unexpectedly leaves Jacque (Taylor Selé), transferring out of their trendy Manhattan dwelling and right into a cramped Brooklyn residence the place her bed room doesn’t have a door and her roommate doesn’t have boundaries. Loosely primarily based on Buteau’s 2020 essay assortment of the identical title, Survival of the Thickest is an effervescent, self-aware story of beginning over that implicitly rejects the confines of the “fat best friend” trope. Though typically uneven, it’s a welcome new entrant amongst reveals that observe girls rebuilding their lives, and Buteau shines within the well-deserved highlight.
As the emotional anchor of the sequence, Buteau showcases a variety that extends past the sensible retorts which have earned her the nickname “Queen of Quips.” Buteau’s character—whereas hilarious—is relieved of getting to function the present’s ethical heart, jokingly or in any other case. It may need been tempting, for instance, to jot down Mavis as a lady whose heartbreak instantly turns into bulletproof armor towards her dishonest ex’s apologetic overtures—or, given Buteau’s real-life profession, as a humorist who turns her scenario into fodder for a killer comedy routine. But Survival of the Thickest, which Buteau co-created with Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, offers Mavis house to make unhealthy selections—a rarity for any Black-woman character, a lot much less a plus-size 38-year-old daughter of Caribbean immigrants. For each triumphant declaration like “I’ma keep it moving and keep my plants watered,” Mavis additionally flounders in her new post-Jacque life. She trusts an internet site referred to as roommatefinder.internet as a result of she noticed it on a bus; she has a one-night stand with a person who woos her at a bar by saying, “If you were my girl, the whole bedroom would be the Vatican, and you’d be my Olivia Pope.”
In that sense, Survival of the Thickest covers well-trod territory. As lengthy as folks have been getting their hearts damaged, they’ve been making TV about selecting up the items afterward. Series reminiscent of New Girl, Dollface, and Grace and Frankie adopted their protagonists after a catalytic breakup. Insecure and The Incredible Jessica James turned their consideration to Black girls messily navigating the thorny transition. That mentioned, Survival of the Thickest is especially attuned to its protagonist’s contradictory emotions about her personal physique and the extent to which they’re formed by a male companion’s actions. Romantic betrayal doesn’t occur in a vacuum. However assured Mavis is likely to be, she’s not resistant to a lifetime of messaging about what sorts of our bodies are most valued.
Early within the first episode, when Jacque playfully pictures Mavis and remarks that the digicam loves her, she says: “Is that right? Well, it must be my drumstick-emoji physique. It’s meaty on top, nubby on the bottom. Very delicious.” But after strolling in on him of their mattress with a mannequin she’d helped fashion, Mavis’s tone adjustments. “You know what people say. If someone cheats on Halle Berry, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, how that man cheat on Halle Berry?’” she tells her buddy Khalil (Tone Bell) as the 2 pack up her belongings. “But if someone cheats on someone like me, a thick girl, with problem areas? They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I get it.’”
Khalil shortly provides some supportive pushback on Mavis’s evaluation: “Okay, stop,” he says gently. “Mave. Stop. Do not breathe life into that silly-ass narrative. When somebody cheats, that’s them tryna stroke they own ego.” Because of heartfelt moments like these, Mavis and Khalil’s friendship is a spotlight of the sequence—and an all too uncommon on-screen instance of a presumably straight man and girl who are usually not constructing towards romance. Mavis’s pragmatic buddy Marley (a splendidly solid Tasha Smith) additionally provides the lead much-needed perspective on courting, primarily taking up the function that Buteau would have in a special sequence. But she will get her personal subplot, too, one which sees her questioning the function that males’s approval has performed in her personal relationships.
Following her breakup, Mavis wants her styling profession to buoy her each financially and emotionally. She lands a gig working with a former supermodel named Natasha Karina (Garcelle Beauvais), then with Nicole Byer (as herself), who desires Mavis’s assist with the ultimate appears to be like for the plus-size lingerie line she’s set to launch. Most of Mavis’s styling scenes are a delight to look at—Buteau imbues the character with a palpable pleasure about her private {and professional} mandate. There’s a beautiful earnestness to how she talks concerning the work, which makes cases {of professional} pressure really feel pivotal even after they’re in settings as foolish as a marriage organized for 2 canines. “This is my fucking calling; this is my purpose,” she says after assembly Byer. “I wanna work with beautiful thickums and make them feel good about themselves and make them feel stylish and look fly!”
Survival of the Thickest packs lots into this season’s eight-episode run. Sometimes, that feels applicable—the interval after a giant breakup definitely can really feel like the whole lot is occurring unexpectedly. But the present often struggles to maintain its many storylines cohesive. An episode that begins with Mavis spending time with Luca, a brand new Italian paramour (Marouane Zotti), for instance, pivots right into a clunky meditation on racism in America by spending a baffling period of time on an altercation with a “Karen.” While racism would undoubtedly form any Black character’s expertise, the narrative diversion is very noticeable given how brief the sequence runtime is. Spending time with “Karen” means sacrificing time with Luca, Marley, and any of the present’s different pleasant supporting characters. Survival of the Thickest is at its most suave when drawing consideration to simply how a lot Mavis is making an attempt to stability. The sequence doesn’t have to do the whole lot to be nice—it simply must maintain Buteau’s appeal at its heart.