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There are a lot of things I can say about the odd show on Amazon called Forever. But most of those things require a significant amount of spoilers. So proceed at your own risk.
Forever comes from creators Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, dumping in the classic binge mode on Amazon Prime, and stars Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen as couple, June and Oscar, who die. The first episode starts it slow, building up a cutesy little relationship between them, and you might wonder — why am I watching this? What’s the hook? Oscar is a bit boring, and June isn’t much more interesting, and the two are vaguely comfortable in their rut.
But then Oscar dies in a skiing accident, and suddenly the world opens up for June. Risks and changes for them led to death, and then it happens again, a risk and a change in the form of a first class flight and a new exciting position, and June chokes to death. Almost like the universe is punishing them for trying to change.
June arrives in a suburban town, in a house akin to they one they lived in for decades, but she is fortunate to have Oscar fill her in on the details. It’s a weird purgatory, it seems, an eternal town of houses where they somehow still eat and sleep but cannot die ‘again’. They exist as spirits interacting with the real world, and the fake suburbs and real world are confusingly intermixed.
Oscar has befriended Mark (Noah Robbins), a guy who died as a teenager in the 70’s — thus he’s still physically that age despite having lived in the afterlife several more decades. The interactions between the punkish ne’er-do-well and Oscar are among the highlights of the first few episodes, lending a bit of a cynical touch to what could easily be a dull, dreary experience.
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June connects with their mysterious neighbor Kase (Catherine Keener), someone who is immediately unsatisfied with the ‘comfortable’ rut that the town provides. Catherine Keener is pretty good here, having a different sort of energy to Maya Rudolph in this role. Their friendship, built into a new, nihilistic perspective on the afterlife provides a fascinating counterexample to the comforting familiarity of Oscar.
The world building is interesting, but sparse, adding little details about sucking energy from humans to move more freely in the world, a confusing mysterious man (Peter Weller) preventing them from moving backwards (unsubtle thematic choice), and other points here and there. I feel like the world isn’t fully thought out in some ways, so I found some of the episodes to feel a bit ‘samey’ at times.
There is one particular episode getting a lot of acclaim about two people, Andre (Jason Mitchell) and Sarah (Hong Chau), going through a romance of passion and connection, despite being in relationships with other people. It ends (the timeline of this episode makes no sense) with June being motivated by them never ending up together and this being portrayed as a tragedy. Thus the parallel to choices, risks, and trying something new to compare to June and Oscar. But I found the choice a bit bewildering.
Acting aside (which is quite good from the two), the morality is questionable — unlike in the afterlife, where it’s easier to understand nihilism, Andre and Sarah are having an affair that eventually ends because they don’t want to break up their families. Either it’s cowardice and they’re settling for people that aren’t making them happy, they’re idealizing this physical relationship, or they are bad people.
No matter which of those it is, I found it a disappointing way to resolve that episode despite the attempt at thematic connection to the primary storyline. But the positive spin is that the ultimate way the season ends has an interesting, hopeful twist that I appreciated.
The show suffers in a way that’s almost unfair, because The Good Place already is about the afterlife and is one of the best shows on the air, and among the best high concept comedies ever. Forever is entertaining, and it picks up its stride quickly. Having only eight episodes means it doesn’t overstay its welcome either, which is easy too in the binge culture.
Sometimes the quirky natures of Armisen/Rudolph rubs the wrong way, but I felt like the show was best when it explored the depth of potential despair in an unending afterlife, and not as much when it repeated things. In the scale of all of the streaming short form comedies, it’s not bad, and the concept is clever and keeps a good ending. It’s not the sort of thing that needs another season, but I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad.
What did you think of the first season of Forever? Hoping for a third? Tell us what you think!
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