Spare a thought for poor Jessica (Megan Stalter.) Her boyfriend has left her for an Instagram model and she’s not handling it well. In need of a change (and escape from stalking her ex), she moves from New York to London to live out her dazzling romantic comedy dreams. Enter Felix (Will Sharpe), a vaguely employed musician who is gorgeous, charming and surrounded by red flags. Not that Jessica herself is primed for the love story of the century.
It’s a tale as old as time: girl loses boy, girl moves across the world to find herself (with a severely inbred dog in tow), girl meets new boy and shenanigans ensue. The basic setup of “Too Much,” Lena Dunham’s long-awaited return to TV, is perfect rom-com fodder. Certainly, Netflix is keen to sell it as such by putting Working Title Films, the production company behind “Notting Hill” and “Love Actually,” in the ads. But this is still Dunham’s show, and the creator of “Girls” is not going to tell this story so simply. The friction between playing around with those conventions and Dunham’s pricklier instincts offers some spark to the concept but the series works far better when Lena gets to be Lena.
Many years after the end of “Girls”, it feels as though the culture has finally been able to have a reasonably sensible conversation about the HBO show and Dunham’s work without it being smothered in endless discourse. “Girls” became a lightning rod for myriad conversations about privilege, many of them justified, but they frequently bypassed the ways that the show had a scathing and perceptive gaze toward the very issues it was accused of ignoring. “Too Much” takes inspiration from Dunham’s own life after she moved to London and met musician Luis Felber (credited here as a co-creator), although she is also keen to stress that it’s not strictly autobiographical. It’s a solid platform to play out some “British Jones’s Diary” ideas, as Jessica refers to the movies.
The tropes of the genre are on display throughout. Jessica gets the London monuments montage before coming back down to earth when dropped off at her deeply unglamorous new flat on a council estate. When Felix presents her with a playlist of his favorite songs, she briefly imagines him dressed as a “Bridgerton”-esque Regency hero. She talks frequently of wanting her Hugh Grant or Bridget Jones fantasy and the magic of postcard-perfect London, even as Felix drolly challenges it with sarcastic truths about wealth inequality and cocaine. Moments like this offer some good jokes but have the side-effect of making Jess seem out of step with the times. They’re ‘90s rom-com moments in a thoroughly 2025 story, turning her into a ditz in ways that undercut her character. She’s sent to London because she’s meant to be great at her job, but a lot of the time we see her at work being less than that (not unlike Bridget Jones in the films, really.)
Stalter is a perfectly Dunham-esque heroine, the kind of sparky and caring millennial with a self-destructive streak a mile wide. She cyberstalks her ex’s new fiancée and imagines scenarios in which the women are friends, foes or even lovers. At work, she fills awkward silences with too much chatter but isn’t afraid to stand up for herself or embrace the cringe of being an American girl in London. There’s undeniable charm to her lack of polish, particularly in the episode where she attends a dinner party at her boss Jonno’s (Richard E. Grant) house and wins over his wife (a very funny Naomi Watts) by just being herself.
It’s entirely understandable why Felix, a monotone indie sleaze type with a chip on his shoulder and a lackadaisical approach to social mores, would fall hard for her. It also makes total sense why Jess would give herself so quickly over to a dirtbag who forgets he’s got a woman’s name tattooed on his backside (and not just because he’s cute, but it is worth noting that Sharpe is immensely attractive in this role.) When Jess and Felix spend all night watching movies and talking about themselves, it gives Dunham a chance to do some of her finest writing: funny, natural, a touch too honest and deceptively intimate. And there’s real heat here thanks to Stalter and Sharpe’s chemistry, bringing to life the highly relatable experience of being super into someone while being fully aware that it’s probably ill-advised to be so. It’s a proudly hot show with some of the funniest, most realistic and passionate sex scenes on TV right now (another Dunham speciality.)
This is when the show is at its best, when it’s less about playing around with audiences’ expectations of the genre and more concerned with showing two people falling in love in spite of it all. “Too Much” doesn’t need to remind us so often that life isn’t like a romantic comedy. These moments are so good that one wishes the entire show was a Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy-style piece on Jess and Felix’s relationship.
That’s not to say that the show around them should be discarded entirely. Jess’s family, including Rita Wilson and the ever-welcome Rhea Perlman, are funny matriarchs with solid if nosy advice for Jess, usually delivered via Facetime. Dunham clearly had a lot of fun writing out the worst dinner party conversations of her life featuring Tumblr-speak Gen-Z-ers and posh brats with more money than sense (Sharpe’s still disdain for these people during one scene is hilarious.) There’s also a surprising number of celebrity cameos here, including one in a tender flashback of Jess’s life that will surely inspire a shed tear or two.
“Too Much” may play with rom-com ideas to get viewers’ attention but they should stick around for the relationship dramedy that gives its romantic heroes so much more to do than be types. “Too Much” is doing a little, well, too much, but when its focus is on its heart, it’s unbeatable.
“Too Much” is now streaming on Netflix.
