What I’m Watching: Trying

Trying: Season 1, Episode 4 “Rainbow Castle People” (B+)

I like that, hard as they may try, Nikki and Jason aren’t quite organized to keep track of whether something is actually on the calendar or whether they’ve just started talking about it and not answered that very question. Getting very drunk the night before a really important appointment was unfortunate, but fortunately Penny had a slot available later that day to come back. I’m so happy we finally got to meet the character played by Imelda Staunton, an actress I first encountered when, at age sixteen, I excitedly saw the film “Vera Drake,” featuring her in an Oscar-nominated turn as an abortionist in the 1950s, in Florida while visiting my grandparents, who took my siblings to the more age-appropriate “Hitch.” She was really great here, initially seeming to be rather stuffy but then responding well to Jason flirting with her and his very poorly-conceived delivery of how he was bullied in part because he had curly hair. It was sweet – and a relief – that she told Nikki that they really didn’t need to try to be so hard to be “those people” since they were a perfectly good fit all on their own. Their efforts to seem more upscale and responsible were predictably humorous, and I enjoyed that they essentially went shopping in someone else’s home for furniture and room decorations that they thought seemed mature. Going out again hardly seems like the best idea, but these are not people who like to think about the consequences of their actions until after they’ve already done them.