It Gets Worse review: A perfect comedy for any 20-something at a crossroads

When Channel 4 released the first clip from its upcoming series It Get Worse, created by comedian Leo Reich, it sent the internet down a thirst spiral.

In the clip, taken from early on in It Gets Worse‘s first episode, angsty 24-year-old Ethan (Reich) sits down for a chat with a therapist (Andrew Scott). Talking at a mile a minute, he frets that his life is already over before it’s had a chance to start. While Scott’s therapist does listen attentively, it soon becomes clear that he is not Ethan’s actual therapist. Rather, he’s a match from a hookup app, and Ethan has stopped by his office between sessions to have sex. It’s not long before Scott’s character is dominating Ethan, telling him he’s a “hole for daddy” and spitting in his mouth.

The scene was immediate catnip for anyone who ever experienced Fleabag‘s Hot Priest fever, but more than that, it established the bold tone of Reich’s series, a combination of confessional vulnerability and frank sexuality that can flip from awkward to hot to eye-opening at a moment’s notice. While Scott’s memorable therapist doesn’t return for the rest of the six-part season, that tone carries through, and It Gets Worse truly only gets better.

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What’s It Gets Worse about?

It Gets Worse is the latest in a string of comedies by Gen Z/zillennial showrunners about people in their 20s struggling with what it means to be an adult. That puts it in conversation with shows like Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA and Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold’s Adults. However, It Gets Worse shares more DNA with Lena Dunham’s Girls, from its messy honesty to its central trio, who teeter on a knife’s edge between absolutely imploding and hugging it out. (Dunham also guest stars as the world’s worst boss.)

Our gateway into this trio is Ethan, who, according to a voiceover from author Zadie Smith, “had one of the easiest lives in recorded human history.” He lives, unemployed, in London, where he receives money from his mother, enjoys the occasional no-strings hookup, and lives with his two closest friends from uni: Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray). The former wants nothing more than to prove to others that she’s “made it” as an adult, curating a social media feed that screams “corporate girlboss.” The latter is an aspiring writer who claims to reject society’s monogamous norms, even though her seemingly blasé façade hides a deeper need for affection.

The three are in crisis, forced to leave the flat they share as their landlord looks to sell it. The move scatters them across London while they try to find new living situations. Ethan avoids returning home to his London-based parents, opting instead to crash at hookup partner Jesse’s (Arian Nik) place. Abi moves in with her boyfriend of three years, Tom (Sean Delaney), who will cook elaborate miso lamb dishes for her but always avoids having sex. Sam joins her ex-girlfriend Zara’s (India Mullen) anarchist commune, which hosts an awkward sex party and demands its members chip into the shared MUBI account.

Each situation forces Ethan, Abi, and Sam to take stock of their lives and their relationships, both platonic and romantic, all leading them to ask that most daunting of questions: What the hell am I going to do with my life? Surely, this can’t be it.

It Gets Worse weaves a messy tale of early 20s friendships and screwups.

From callous bosses to awkward crushes, It Gets Worse conjures up a world of all too relatable worries. Even if you haven’t experienced something like this yourself, you know someone who has, and you’ve almost certainly commiserated with them as they’ve vented.

That’s almost what watching It Gets Worse feels like: a diaristic venting of anxieties about life in your early 20s. Some scenes felt so personal that I almost felt like I shouldn’t be watching them. And no, I’m not just talking about the sex scenes, although there are many, and they all fall somewhere on the scale from “hot and mildly awkward” to “I’m watching through my fingers out of sheer pain for the characters involved.” I’m also talking about the scenes where It Gets Worse truly gets in its trio’s heads as they weather painful realities: Ethan hearing someone surgically pick apart how he uses humor as a defense mechanism. Abi realizing in real time that her promotion doesn’t actually come with a pay raise. Sam trying to put on a brave face as her current hookup, Tess (Safia Oakley-Green), becomes far more interested in Zara. With each of these moments, It Gets Worse packs a gut punch.

Those gut punches extend to the fraught dynamic between Ethan, Abi, and Sam as well. These are people who know everything about one another and will tell each other to fight for what they deserve. These are also people who will shit talk something that’s important to their friends, then turn around and tell them how great it is. Between the constant needling, you might be inclined to think that these three need nothing more than to get away from each other, much in the way you might have thought Girls’ leads needed to take some serious time apart. Yet It Gets Worse also finds bittersweet ways to keep bringing them back together, and Reich, Fairn, and Gray’s chemistry is so sharp and lived-in that you can’t help but yearn for them to share the screen time and again.

Bittersweetness defines much of It Gets Worse, even as it often opts for a brash, of-the-moment aesthetic. You can tell it’s an A24 production from the credits alone, whose flashing block letters recall the credits of Charli XCX satire The Moment or Halina Reijn’s Gen Z slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies. (The latter even gets name-dropped.) Yet the core of It Gets Worse is the serious growing pains Ethan, Ali, and Sam experience. Reich treats these pains with an Ethan-like touch, covering them in quick one-liners and canny satire so the trio’s traumas never turn into full-out tragedies. As he does, he extends a sympathizing hand to anyone in their early 20s (or anyone who’s ever been in their early 20s), as if to say, no matter what generation you belong to, no matter your experience, we’ve all been at an uncomfortable crossroads. But maybe that discomfort is worth celebrating in all its messiness. It’s certainly worth watching play out in It Gets Worse.

It Gets Worse is now streaming on Paramount+.

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