I had a “f*cked-up rom-com” relationship with the series Laid. When I heard about it, I was like: Ooh, can we meet? Can someone introduce us? Peacock is a real one. They hooked us up, but when Laid and I met for our first date (episode 1). I wasn’t sure. It was a “hmm, this isn’t really doing it for me” situation. I kind of wanted to stop there. I couldn’t though, I’m an entertainment journalist, and you rely on me for the juice. That’s how Laid and I ended up in a whole “forced proximity” thing (that’s a romance trope). Look it up.
We kept meeting in the strangest and most comical circumstances: a funeral for an ex-boyfriend, a bizarre gynecologist appointment, or even a kidnapping. No matter where it took me, Laid kept killing a series of not-at-all-random guys and maybe a lady. And it snatched their lives in totally entertaining ways. I giggled a lot as the bodies piled up. Then one night, while we were up binge-watching, I think I twirled a braid and fluttered my lashes—the universal sign of being all in on the situationship. Because while our meet wasn’t cute [see: meet-cute]. Where was I? Oh, while our meet-wasn’t-cute, our late nights were fun.
If I were describing the show to my friends—because your girls need all the details on your crush—I’d start with the backstory. Laid is about Ruby (Stephanie Hsu), a woman who wants love but dodges it like your bestie’s drunk uncle at the Chrismahanukwanzakah party. When her exes start expiring BECAUSE she got sexy with them, Ruby and her best friend AJ (Zosia Mamet) go into detective mode—murder board and all. They need to figure out why it’s happening and how to stop the deadly dominoes from falling. Dealing with her romantic woes and everyone she loved and left or who ghosted her is torture for Ruby. But, as the audience, we might as well be a bunch of black widows holding a handful of life insurance policies. That’s how much we come out winning at the end of Season 1.
Yes, I started having feelings for this lethally funny, nasty girl, rom-com. If you adore perverse and twisty romance you’ll be guilty of matching its freak too. Confession. Like Laid’s main personality aka character, Ruby: I AM A BAD PERSON. After all, it’s Ruby’s vagina that’s killing people, and showrunner Nahnatchka Khan and head writer Sally Bradford McKenna are plotting hilarious things with that man-eating love-kitty. What I’m saying is, I enjoy it when people do good stuff with vaginas. And, like I said, by the third date (episode 3), I was getting into Laid—deadly deathtrap snatch and all.
As it turns out, this series has television and streaming roots, According to its parents, executive producers John Davis and John Fox, Laid is based on a successful and salacious Australian series with the same name. Yay for a proud chatty parental figure. The Johns (hehehe) joined forces with Khan and Bradford McKenna. That’s where Khan says the concept of a f*cked-up rom-com came from, “wanting to do a dark comedy version of that woman who’s just trying to find love when this thing starts happening to her.”
It’s that metaphor of a sexual body count becoming a real one that pulls you into the show but, as it progresses, Ruby has to reconcile her ruthless and self-centered relationships to avoid becoming a merry murderess. Eventually, two men start standing out in her life, the weirdly resilient Richie (Michael Angarano) and the rom-com ringer Isaac (Tommy Martinez), but can Ruby make choices when her love kills? Nope. The answer is nope. If she does, it proves she’s a really, really bad person, one we can’t help cheering for. “She cute.” terrible but adorable.
And that’s how I ended up riding on the back of a blue metallic “stallion” crotch rocket (for those with a 20 in their birth year, a pretentious motorcycle ). Laid drove me to it. By our sixth date (episode 6) we hit a wobble. Ruby goes into goblin mode and her selfish fire for solving the mystery starts burning everyone around her, including her ultimate ride-or-die, AJ. I mean, who hurts a perfect bestie who has a plush Penguin named Oswald Cobblepot? Who, I ask you?
As we careen toward episode 8 and the gravity of a season-ending cliffhanger. We start to realize sex cannot be that thing you do to combat every issue in life. Also men—in general—might not be okay in their heads. Either of them. And that is what makes them and everyone else in Ruby and AJ’s interwoven world hilarious.
Laid is a messed-up mix of relationship drama, cozy mystery, and sexcapades that made me pick up my TV and shake it when S1 ended—hoping more episodes would fall out. (They didn’t, but every other day, I keep trying). I guess, like Ruby, I have an unhealthy but giggle-worthy obsession.
Laid premieres December 19 on Peacock
THE EPISODES
EPISODE 101: “Brandon from College”
When Ruby learns a guy she dated briefly in college has died, she decides to go to his funeral to make up for how selfishly she treated him. That sets her off on a path of looking at her past choices in order to move forward with her present love life.
EPISODE 102: “FB to the T”
As the death count continues to tick up, AJ starts “working the case” to determine if it’s just a troubling coincidence or a pattern. Ruby and AJ go to the wedding of another ex of Ruby’s, where Ruby tries to get more insight into her past relationships, but only ends up making a horrible mistake.
EPISODE 103: “Sex Cluster”
EPISODE 104: “Flagstaff”
EPISODE 105: “Secret Soft”
EPISODE 106: “More Handsome than Joe Jonas”
EPISODE 107: “Toby and Lindsey Are Here”
EPISODE 108: “Il Mostro del Sesso”
