One of my best friends got me hooked on TVLand’s Younger, a comedy series with a lot of heart, spice, humor and an irresistible love triangle.
If you are a romantic, I recommend it. If you’re in your 20s to 50s, I recommend it. But I have to insist on watching it if you are a writer.
Here’s the plot for Younger TV series in a nutshell:
Liza Miller (Sutton Foster) is a 40-year-old, about-to-be-divorced mom with a daughter doing a semester abroad in college in India. She lives with her lesbian best friend (yes, this is an important plot point) Maggie (Debi Mazar).
Liza is eager to get back to work in publishing after a 15-year hiatus. Unfortunately, even her Dartmouth degree can’t save her from the agism and prejudice toward her resume. But when a hot younger guy named Josh (Nico Tortorella – The Following) hits on her assuming she is around his age, Maggie’s inspired to give her friend a makeover. She has the looks and the body. All she needs is a crash course in pop culture, and she is good to go.
Soon enough, Liza lands a job as a marketing assistant under the tough 40-something Diana (Miriam Shor) who has a clear disdain for millennials. She is soon taken under the wing of Kelsey (Hillary Duff), a millennial junior editor and she can’t resist dating the lovely Josh.
Now she is working, working out, partying and dating like a 26-year-old. Can she keep this up? Oh, and then there is her divorced, hot 40-something boss Charles (Peter Hermann) who thinks Liza is wonderful. Can she keep it up?
Why Watch Younger?
As a 32-year-old – which makes me an older millennial – it is not that hard for me identify with the “old folk.” In fact, my social media knowledge and love for going out to dance aside, it is often easier to feel more at home with the pains and jokes of the 40-somethings. I’ve always been a fan of reading paper books, and movies and music from the 80s and 90s.
Of course some of it is exaggerated for comedy and it works. But mostly, the show is just blunt and sincere. Even its more extreme characters are people we have run into at some point in our lives. Some of it characters, we’d just love to run into. (Charles and Josh, anyone? And Maggie is literally one of the best people you could have in your corner.) Diana is hilarious with her strict bitch mode, and we root for Liza all the way. Yes, there is a ton of things she could have tried to maintain a certain form of career at home, but she was too busy raising a kid, dealing with a gambling and cheating husband. And sometimes life gets in the way.
The show is the ultimate anthem for breaking the rules that don’t make sense or just seem to serve as annoying roadblocks in your way. And that you are never too old to pursue your dreams, find yourself and find love.
And let’s face it. Love triangles are a lot more fun when you don’t mind either side winning. Although no one is perfect and some episodes in season 3 seem determined to paint Liza as the one with most flaws, I can honestly say I’m a bit more in love with Charles as a character than Josh. Yes, Peter Hermann’s Charles seems like an even more evolved version of Mr. Darcy – a tall hunk with no social interaction problems, a loving father, a romantic who loves Berlin (the band) and someone who reads…
Let’s watch on to see all of these characters’ adventures.
Writer Characters in Younger
Technically, Liza works in marketing. But she is in publishing, reads a ton, and she gets to write and edit for a couple of authors in some of the episodes. We also see a lot of authors and can learn a few things about what not to do when you are signing with a serious publishing house.
Also, nothing quite sets a fire under our writing asses to see the publishing world up close. And we can only work to be one of the most celebrated authors of a publishing house like theirs.
*There might be affialite links in the post.