Too Much, Too Real, Too Good: Lena Dunham Makes Neurotic Hot Again
| In 2025, the Girls reboot may still be far from sight, but Dunham is back in the creator’s chair with Too Much — which just *may* count as a spiritual sequel? Swetha Ramakrishnan writes.
| This essay contains (not too many, but just enough) spoilers for Too Much. IN 2017 , just ahead of the season finale of Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls, she appeared on the 73 Questions with Vogue interview and answered a rather interesting question.
“(Hypothetically) What is the plot line of Women ? The 2025 reboot of Girls?”
And Dunham answers, “Everyone will be like at an auction bar complaining about their newly adopted robot children.” 2025 seemed so far away then, but here we are in 2025 now, and there’s no reboot (or robot) in sight. Dunham is back, however, at the creator-writer-director’s chair after seven years, with her new Netflix series, Too Much . It has very little in common with Girls (although that hasn’t stopped the internet from making comparisons), but you could say Too Much is a spiritual sequel, in that it explores (in great detail) the inner workings of a woman at the precipice of being something . In Girls, it was Hannah Horvath becoming a voice of a generation (as she’s predicted to be in the very first episode), and in Too Much , it’s Jessica who is aching to become anything : a good girlfriend, an accomplished career woman, or at the very least, a worthy addition to the long-line of emotionally scattered women in her family. Stream the latest films and shows with OTTplay Premium's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. | Dunham is not known to hold back — whether it’s in her writing, her directorial voice or in playing characters who wear their “too-much-ness” on their sleeves. In Too Much , she directs her protagonist Jessica with a kind of intentional laissez-faire attitude, in terms of allowing her to be as unhinged as she’d want to be. Too many emotions? Sure, who doesn’t have those? Too many tears? Just another Tuesday night. Too much sex? What’s that? Too many words strung together to mean pretty much nothing? No problem, you be you, queen. There are many scenes where Jessica spirals (bad break up, tough boss, chaotic job, etc) and despite it being cringy to watch, Dunham doesn’t yell cut. We’re urged to watch the “too-much-ness” play out. This is Jessica’s reality, and whether we like it or not, this is her show. Coming from the creator of Girls , who wrote Hannah Horvath with the same unhinged passion, Too Much is a step up in terms of how provocative and uncomfortably unpackaged it can be to audiences. You wanted a dainty, manic-pixie-dream-girl to be the protagonist of this rom-com? Too bad. You aren’t getting it. Welcome to the female gaze. | Dunham plays Jessica’s older sister Nora in the series, joining Rita Wilson (who plays her mother) and Rhea Perlman (who plays her grandmother) as the aforementioned emotionally scattered women. Early on in the series, all three women end up in their grandmother’s house, depressed or broken up with or just fed up with the status quo, sitting by the television, complaining about anything they can think of. The scene is given a comedy treatment, allowing for us to laugh with them instead of at them. As if to say, nothing is “too much” for these four women of different generations under the same roof. This aptly sets the tone of the series going forward. Jessica (Megan Stalter) is a hot-shot executive producer who is dating Zev (Michael Zegan) and lives in New York. Her world turns upside down when he dumps her to get engaged to an influencer named Wendy Jones (Emily Ratajkowski). Jessica takes up a job in London to run away from her problems, but on her first day there, she meets indie-musician Felix (Will Sharpe) and thus begins Jessica’s unpredictable, rom-com-esque story of her time in London, where each episode takes us closer into Jessica and Felix’s hot-and-cold relationship. We learn that Jessica has, in fact, not gotten over her break-up and has a private Instagram account where she makes videos addressed to Wendy Jones. This plot point comes back to bite her in the ass around the last few episodes, but it also leads to an endearing scene at the end of the series between Wendy and Jessica, proving they’re both girls’ girls, despite dating the same guy. Watch Megan Stalter’s acclaimed turn in the multiple award-winning show Hacks, now streaming on JioHotstar with your OTTplay Premium subscription. | A prominent sign of a Lena Dunham show is not how she writes her female characters — because they are always given the breathing room to be (flawed) people first before their gender defines them — but how she writes her men. Universally, all men written by women are just naturally hotter. This is especially seen in Girls , where both Ray and Adam are standout characters with unique personalities, yet most New Yorkers know of someone like Ray or Adam. She uses the same broad strokes in writing the men of Too Much , whether it is Zev, Jessica’s high-brow and annoyingly elite ex-boyfriend (so Brooklyn coded) — who gets an episode of his own to explore his point of view on the breakup — or Felix, an emotionally stunted indie-musician who wears black nail-paint and has mommy issues. One character says early on, “An indie musician who plays at pubs? Throw a tuppence (here), you hit one of those.” | But Felix is deliciously different. By episode 4, Jessica has had a life-changing break-up, moved countries, been duped and burnt down by a candle, and she’s sobbed for all of womankind. It isn’t completely out of line for Felix to say, “You’re a bit too much.” To this, Jess promptly says, “Maybe I’m not too much, you just aren’t enough,” and understandably so, as any woman would say at this juncture. Dunham subverts this scene just mildly enough by getting Felix to quiz Jessica about why she thought that was a negative statement. His “too much” meant it’s “just the right amount and then a little bit more”. These “pull-the-rug-from-under-their-feet” moments are aplenty in Too Much, but they’re also sandwiched between familiar rom-com tropes (the climax, for one, which I definitely saw coming). It’s almost like Dunham wanted to serve a show that replicates the comfort of chocolate ice-cream but with a suckerpunch of mint flavour (my favourite kind). There are some signature Dunham themes in the series. The (rightful) autonomy that women (should) have over their bodies is explored beautifully in an emotionally dense abortion scene, which is a masterfully political comment given the US’s current stance on reproductive rights. The loneliness of being in a new relationship can be best seen in static frames where Jessica is allowed to just be, letting her anxiety stew in a rollercoaster of overthinking that we as audiences take with her. There are also some wonderful cameos that will make viewers sit up and take notice. | Too Much says a lot in its 10-episode runtime, and in the fun and games of it all (the pacing is brilliantly haphazard), you might forget that Dunham is essentially trying to say one big thing: the characters in this story don’t have to fit into your preconceived notions and labels. Exes can be humanised. Women who share a man can be friends. A love interest can be emotionally stunted but still propose marriage. A separated married couple can find their way back to each other even if one of them is bisexual. Women don’t have to be Eurocentric (or on Ozempic) to be desirable. Four women can live peacefully together: no catfights (also, petition to abolish that word in 2025). You may think Too Much is disappointingly average, or doesn't commit to one arc, gets weirdly chaotic in the middle, deviates from the main plot too many times, and spends too much time on Jessica’s neuroticism, but it doesn’t really seem like Dunham has any f*cks to give. I support this wholeheartedly; take all my money and make more unhinged TV shows, Lena. Too Much is currently streaming on Netflix. | Like what you read? Get more of what you like. Visit the OTTplay website or download the app to stay up-to-date with news, recommendations and special offers on streaming content. Plus: always get the latest reviews. Sign up for our newsletters. Already a subscriber? 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