Written by Leo Reich
Directed by Mounia Akl
Ethan (to Brian): "All I want us to live in a shit flat with my two best friends and get drunk every night and make memories that would last a lifetime and just have, I don't know, have ten years of my life where I wouldn't have to worry about anything. Is that too much to ask?"
I'm going to be blunt here - Gen Z programming isn't something that I particularly want to watch but I do want to support more out gay talent who are making shows and movies that are written with gay men in mind. You can tell that's the case here with this particular lead character.
Let's meet Ethan (Leo Reich), shall we? If you're expecting an automatically endearing gay lead character, you're shit out of luck. Ethan's rude, selfish, entitled and generally only concerned about his own needs. He's also a shit friend, displaying very little concern for the two friends he actually had in this six episode show.
I'd argue that his friends - Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray) are no better but still, they're a little bit less awful than Ethan himself. Abi's the only one out of the three with a steady job and a cute but dull boyfriend, Tom (Sean Delaney) that she didn't love. While Abi's career was mostly in order, her relationship with Tom deteriorated over the course of the show.
Sam on the other hand, alternated between writing articles on her Substack to tutoring a young lad she kept dismissing as an incel. It turned out that he wasn't by the way. Sam also had a weird throuple dynamic with ex-girlfriend, Zara (India Mullen) and Tess (Safia Oakley-Green).
If there's one positive from the show, it's that it's an incredibly sex positive show. Ethan himself had two love interests with Aaron (Dane Williams) and his on/off ex boyfriend, Jesse (Arian Nik). I'll give the show points for being pretty sex positive if messy at times with its main and supporting characters.
There's a slew of interesting guest stars but the three that stood out were Ethan's therapist Brian, played by Andrew Scott as well as Lena Dunham as Abi's boss Greta and Amelia Dimoldenberg as an old rival of Abi's named Emily. All three do a great job with the screen time they're given.
- Episode titles were Ethan, Abi, Sam, Everyone Else Is Taken, Stop All The Clocks and People Team. Zadie Smith narrated the show.
- The sexiest scene was seeing Andrew Scott going all dom on Leo Reich in the first episode and it's the least explicit scene too.
- Blake Harrison had an amusing turn as the lodger of Ethan's mother, Sarah (Vicki Pepperdine). It's funnier when Ethan realised that Roger fancied his mother.
- Chronology: I'm presuming it's 2026 London.
It Gets Worse certainly exemplified a Gen Z group of characters. Parts of the show can be a tad frustrating but I think I liked it the more it went on. There's a good chemistry between the three leads, which definitely helped smooth out some of the rougher edges.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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