I have a good track record. After watching Doubt (2008), I decided Viola Davis should be in leading roles that sidestep cliches. Eventually, How to Get Away with Murder and The Woman King happened. For years I imagined what it would be like if Paterson Joseph regenerated into Doctor Who. Then Ncuti Gatwa happened. After Insecure and The White Lotus, if you didn’t want more from Natasha Rothwell, we can’t be together anymore (but keep reading because). Now, How to Die Alone has happened.
Like another RIOTUS favorite, Diarra Kilpatrick (from American Koko to Diarra from Detroit), Rothwell created the opportunity she wanted to see for herself. As co-producer and co-showrunner of How to Die Alone, her vision goes for the skies:
Melissa (Rothwell) is a courtesy transport driver at JFK airport, shuttling passengers to their gates. She has one friend (Conrad Ricamora as Rory), her family (Bashir Salahuddin and Ellen Cleghorne) doesn’t like her, and her romantic backstory is messy (Jocko Sims as Alex). Her life is… What’s the opposite of peak? Rock bottom? Gutter sliding? Transitionally low? Mel’s life is all of that. Unlucky for her, she’s in the place where things go “terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad’ for comedy heroines.
Mel’s birthday ends after a rat nibbles her dinner-for-one, and a build-your-own-wardrobe sends her to the hospital. Much like the Wu-Tang Clan, an Allen Key ain’t nothing to f#©k with. Neither is a broke Black woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“There are three kinds of deaths.
Physical death, we all know and write poems about.
The kind when people stop carrying about you.
And the worst kind is when you stop caring about yourself.”
Inspired by her hospital roommate Elise (Jackie Richardson), Mel decides—based on the above quote—that she died a while ago. The only option left is to start living, but she can’t live without making her messy life messier. I’ve never seen anyone fumble the bag, the boy, or the breakout so badly while keeping us befuddled and giggling—this series is worthy of bravos.
How to Die Alone is a ‘crux of the crisis’ comedy that has wings. Not like an Always product but like a flight, or a phoenix who like Octavia E. Butler said*, “…first must burn”. Mel burns everything that matters down to ash and embers, but the series takes flight in the second half when she learns to rise. Not like dough, like a phoenix.
That season-long arc is thematically rich. Each episode opens with a documentary-style set of street interviews with people talking about life and love. Proving this may be a comedy but it is also reality. Mel works at an airport but she’s afraid of flying, thus her life is both physically and metaphorically grounded. Scenes that initially seem like flashbacks, turn out to be her unlived life flashing before her eyes. Those three themes lead to the understanding: What we’re witnessing is the death of who she used to be (and the hope she can rise from the ashes).
Alongside Rothwell, Salahuddin remains one of the funniest people on any screen. I hope he’ll make it into the first paragraph of this review one day soon. Sims’ Alex and KeiLyn Durrel Jones as Terrance are giving ‘invite him to Thanksgiving dinner’ energy in two different ways. Meanwhile, Ricamora is a sweet but bitter best friend who gets better after he gets honest.
Complimenting the cast, the writing takes off after episode 3 “Burn Bridges” (that phoenix metaphor comes from somewhere). With its set-up in place, the show is hilarious but insightful about the mistakes we make when we think we are one. Episode 5 “Trust No One” and the season 1 finale, “Get Lost,” are my top picks but How to Die Alone is worth watching from top to toes.
In the end, this series will make you sing “One Margarita” by That Chick Angel TV and shout, “Bless this mess” afterward.
The half-hour comedy series debuts with four episodes on Friday, September 13 on Hulu
with new episodes streaming on Fridays.
* “In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.”― Octavia Butler
