Binge This: I'm Sorry

I've got a thing for funny women on TV. It starts with the fact that they're funny, of course. Full stop. I have no idea how far back this goes (Wilma Flintstone, maybe?), but there's probably a seed planted pretty deep.

Then there's the understanding (and the desire for just the right amount of wokeness, I suppose) that the entertainment industry is a particularly difficult one (OK, like so many others — there's that wokeness poking through again) for women, and even more so after, say, 35 years old.

So I like shows that feature smart, funny women — and especially if they're doing more than just reading lines. (With all due respect to actors, cause that ain't as easy as us civilians like to think it is.) It can be sit-coms, and I've taken in as much stand-up as I can, since Netflix and Amazon are making so much of it.

And that brings us to the easy-to-binge I'm Sorry , whose first two seasons are available on Netflix.

I'm Sorry is not a new arrival — the first season of the TruTV show from the wonderfully messed up mind of comedian/writer/actor Amanda Savage has been around since 2017, and it and Season 2 have been on Netflix for most of the past two years.

Season 3 was in production when the whole world stopped this spring. So, we wait.

Here's the thing about I'm Sorry , though. It's in that stable of shows that's funnier and smarter and more crass than what you'd expect to see on basic cable. It's in same vein of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Canada's Workin' Moms , where it absolutely pushes the line to the point where you wonder how it ended up on cable at all, and then you remember that Netflix doesn't have to bother with all the bleeps. (Though in the case of I'm Sorry — and not so much in Workin' Moms — the occasional image gets blurred out.)

So that's the scene we set for the family unit of Andrea Savage as Andrea Warren, Tom Everett Scott as Mike Harris, and Olive Petrucci as Amelia Harris-Warren. It's Andrea's show, both behind and in front of the camera. The show is roughly based on Savage herself — Andrea Warren is a comedy writer in Los Angeles. She's almost completely unfiltered. And just because you know the joke is coming — there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it, really — doesn't mean you don't want to see where (and how) it lands.

That's maybe one of the more endearing parts of this half-hour (barely, because when not on Netflix it has to contend with commercials) show. Tom Everett Scott (who will never, ever be referred to by anything other than all three names) as Mike is the perfect straight man to Andrea's comedic tornado. He doesn't just lovingly await the punchline — he offers notes. Because half the time Andrea's just being Andrea and says whatever the moment calls for, and the other time she's still doing that, but with the conscious reminder that she's funny for a living. And Mike getting into the game and occasionally trying out his own material on his wife — to varying degrees of success — is a very real thing.

Each episode is pretty encapsulated, with elements bleeding from one half-hour to the next. So even if you hop in halfway through a season (though why would you do that) you'll never feel lost.

Except, maybe, for Andrea's relationship with her divorced parents Sharon (Kathy Baker) and Martin (Martin Mull). If parents like this actually exist, they should be locked away, never to be seen by anyone. (And especially by grandchildren.) Sharon feeds her new husband in bed like he's an invalid, but she's not-so-secretly pining for Andrea's father. (Andrea has told her mother Leon has to die first before anything could possibly happen.) Martin, meanwhile, is finding his true self into his 70s, including his love for clubs and taking ecstasy and asking his daughter if she'll contribute to the pictures on his new "sensual wall."

Or don't lock that up. Maybe that's exactly the kind of parental relationship you bottle up, just like Savage has done here. And because it's Martin Mull being Martin Mull, who on MDMA actually serves as a leveler, it's ridiculously funny.

There's the revolving cast of friends, too. Work partner Kyle (Jason Mantzoukas) with those eyes and that beard, brother David (Nelson Franklin) and the various school parent-friends who give the show that much more depth outside of the family fun. (And if you're a fan of Veep , on which Savage also played in the latter seasons, you'll find a lot of familiar faces here, too.)

It's best not to overthink I'm Sorry . It is, first and foremost, funny. It's also very, very wrong, and absolutely not the sort of thing you want to watch in front of children or spouses who just don't find crass, unfiltered people as funny as you do.

Even if they're smart, crass, unfiltered women whose shows you want to support in your own little way.

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