I finally started watching the new ABC show A Million Little Things recently. I was honestly only drawn to it by the inclusion of James Roday in the cast – I was a fan of him in the ridiculous USA comedy Psych a few years back. I wondered how he would handle what appeared to be a more dramatic role. Not only was I pleasantly surprised by his performance, I was fully swept into the show, its premise and the deeper story it is trying to tell.
The ABC website describes the show like this: They say friendship isn’t one big thing, it’s a million little things; and that’s true for a group of friends from Boston who bonded under unexpected circumstances. Some have achieved success, others are struggling in their careers and relationships, but all of them feel stuck in life. After one of them dies unexpectedly, it’s just the wake-up call the others need to finally start living. Along the way they discover that friends may be the one thing to save them from themselves.
Roday – who plays Gary Mendez, a slacker whose breast cancer is currently in remission – is a small, but integral, part of this ensemble cast filled out by David Giuntoli (Eddie Saville, a burnt-out rock star having an affair), Ron Livingston (Jon Dixon, a married father of two who is deeply enveloped by his work), Romany Malco (Rome Howard, a successful advertising director who has dreams of making a feature film), Allison Miller (Maggie Bloom, the newest friend in the group who is also dealing with breast cancer and falls for Gary), Christina Moses (Regina Howard, the doting wife of Rome who has dreams of her own), Grace Park (Katherine Kim, Eddie’s overworked lawyer wife), Stephanie Szostak (Delilah Dixon, Jon’s lonely wife), and Christina Ochoa (Ashley Morales, Jon’s all-knowing assistant).
One of the things I love about this show is that it deals with actual adult problems in realistic ways. Shortly into the pilot episode, one of the main characters commits suicide, which throws everyone close to him into upheaval. Along with suicide, it also presents the issues of adultery, the effects of cancer, depression, falling in love at the worst possible time and more all within this small circle of friends. The show tackles all of these problems head-on and based in reality, instead of a dismissing them in a cookie-cutter Grey’s Anatomy way.
For example, when it is revealed a character is having an affair with another within the group, they are both villainized for their behavior. All too often in recent dramas, a man who cheats is considered a bastard, while a woman who cheats is a hero. It’s a strange double-standard that has permeated popular shows over the last decade, but this show faced the topic bravely and ostracized both characters for a while within the story. It also deals with suicide and depression in a way that is both compassionate and questioning at the same time.
Suicide is something that has touched nearly everyone’s life at one time or another. At the end of each episode, there is a PSA for the Suicide Prevention Hotline. Depression, also, has not been given the proper attention on most network dramas until recently. This is one of the first shows that I have seen that deals with depression in a real, familiar way, without dropping the character into the overused trope of only pity. Sure, you feel for the character, but you also feel with the character. You struggle with him when he has a handful of pills, or in a later episode, when he finds a stray pill on the kitchen floor, or even later when his father finds out he’s taking anti-depressants. Many lesser shows would have the father ridicule the son for having such feelings, spouting that old “In my day, we didn’t have time to bedepressed” adage. A Million Little Things tackles the topic in a completely original way and for the times we are currently living, it is nearly perfect.
Naturally, one of the reasons I enjoy this show is that I can relate to the characters and the problems they face. The fact that they don’t sugar-coat their issues is, ironically, the icing on the cake. In my opinion, A Million Little Things is clearly the best new drama of 2018 and I hope you will give it a view, if you haven’t already.
