100 Favorite Shows: #99 — Man Seeking Woman
“I’m starting karate in the fall because, when you’re single, it’s really important to put yourself out there.”
After a five year stint writing for Saturday Night Live and immense success as a writer of James Thurbur-esque short stories and novels, FXX deemed Simon Rich ready to adapt one of his books, The Last Girlfriend on Earth, for the small screen. Altering the title to Man Seeking Woman, Rich collaborated with Jonathan Krisel, Lorne Michaels, and Andrew Singer to craft a rom-com series with an abundance of surrealist humor. Man Seeking Woman mainly followed Josh Greenberg (Jay Baruchel) and his quest for love with the accompaniment of his best friend, Mike (Eric André), and his sister, Liz (Britt Lower). For three seasons, from 2015 to 2017, on FXX, Man Seeking Woman depicted a modern take on romance through a kaleidoscope of quirky concepts.
(Details about Man Seeking Woman are featured in this essay. Potential spoilers may be included.)
In the 1970s, with films like Annie Hall, Love and Death, and Manhattan, it seemed like Woody Allen had a monopoly over creative takes on a relatable depiction of modern lifestyles and romances on screen. Fortunately, we, as a society, have evolved past the need for Allen films because not only do we not ever need to reward or praise Allen again, but the definition of a “modern romance” has evolved, too. Now, the niche styles of such a genre (and its adjacent creativity) belong to a new era of creatives across multiple cities, like B.J. Novak (One More Thing is a stellar book that leaves me excited for his upcoming television endeavors), Natasha Lyonne, Issa Rae, and, of course, Simon Rich.
Of these select examples, Rich’s style is the most surreal. We’ve seen his talent present in TBS’ Miracle Workers and HBO Max’s An American Pickle, but those stories dealt mostly with themes of religion and identity. His first major television foray, Man Seeking Woman, was a surreal bend on the commonplace trope of a single guy just navigating his twenties, his thirties, and his love life. Through Rich’s individualistic style of storytelling, though, Josh Greenberg didn’t just date. He dated a woman who dated Jesus Christ (Fred Armisen), found himself conjoined to one of his girlfriends (Claire Cavalheiro), witnessed his right hand (Sarah Silverman) come to life, and even funneled his romance through the absurd conceit of time travel.
Each of these increasingly eccentric premises came about with the initial driving force of Man Seeking Woman, which saw Josh attempting to both rebound from a break-up with his long-term girlfriend, Maggie (Maya Erskine), and find a new, grander love to surpass his memories with her. Mike insisted that Josh’s way forward in the dating scene was to have as many one night stands as possible; Liz devoted her time with Josh to trying to set him up with “the one.” Josh, on the other hand, just wanted to have a good time and date around with a number of short-term girlfriends, rather than commit to anything too serious. (Still, throughout the series, Mike and Liz would jockey for control over Josh, both assured that they knew what was best for him.)
Baruchel was a perfect choice for the role, considering that — as an actor — he is a paragon of the easygoing, but also kind-of-awkward archetype that befits a single guy in the 2010s. Way more likable than the version of Baruchel portrayed in This Is the End, Josh carried himself like the kind of guy who has a punchable face and knows it, so he goes out of his way to compensate for that with general niceties and an overbearing need to be polite in most social and romantic situations.
However, this also resulted in the character of Josh depicted as an overly nervous social vagrant. Beginning the series as a temp worker with temporary romances, Josh was wary of committing to anything unless he was sure about it. The problem was that he was so initially wishy-washy that he found himself hard-pressed to be sure of anything at all, leaving surrounding characters annoyed.
This characterization is depicted in a striking juxtaposition against Mike (Eric André is excellent casting for a series that always needed to lean into the odd behavior and storytelling devices it employed), who is more free-wheeling and off-center. For example, the season one episode, “Gavel,” sees Josh slowly progressing his relationship with Kayla (Anna Konkle) to a more serious place, which deeply concerns Mike. Fearing that Josh has potential to marry Kayla, Mike orchestrates one of the episode’s surreal set pieces, as he kidnaps Josh and throws him onto a prison transport bus with many other members of the romantically incarcerated. Rounding up this group of men in relationships who are thinking about taking the next step, Mike brings them to Daniel (Jon Daly), a “happily” married man in the suburbs who delivers a Scared Straight-esque spiel to each of them, warning about the consequences of settling down.
As Man Seeking Woman so often achieved, there is a sense of banality in Josh’s tone as he asks, “Where are they taking us?” to his presumed cellmate. To us, it’s a highly extraordinary scenario Josh has been thrust into and it would upend our entire year if a friend abducted us and slammed us into a prison bus to belabor a selfish point about marriage. For Josh, it’s just another blasé occurrence in his consistently outlandish life; to him, it’s completely normal. And even though Daniel raises a number of sensible points, it’s ultimately just a narrative of his own and of Mike’s, as they both have conceptions about what it means to settle down that differ strongly from how Josh views love. Josh is excited to find “the one,” but he’s not in a rush. He’s happy to be on a different path than Mike and Daniel, even if they’re deaf to it. No life journey is exactly the same because that would be boring; Man Seeking Woman was never, ever tedious.
For us, anyway. For Josh, in “Gavel,” when aliens crashed his apartment, asked to have sex with him, and told him they didn’t mind premature ejaculation, all he could respond with was a shrug and a sputter of his lips. Yes, this was an extraterrestrial, near impossible parable for Josh’s feeling that women only want to sleep with him when he’s locked into a relationship. But for Josh it’s a minor inconvenience, as if everyone experiences the invasion of sex aliens on a nightly basis.
The last surrealistic set piece of “Gavel” consists of a recurring court case headed by a judge (Marc Evan Jackson), who presides over the notions that Josh has been acting far too chummy and flirtatious around Maggie, instead of acting loyally towards Kayla, his current girlfriend. Succinctly, it’s described by the judge as a case of “boyfriend misconduct,” prompting Josh to respond with increasingly haggard explanations for his behavior. It begins with him saying he simply felt “kind of tired,” but the justification quickly spirals into refrains of dictionary definitions and the term “jibber jabber.” By the end, he’s openly dating Maggie and watching episodes of Carnivàle with her overnight. There was no way to explain his way out of that, not even in court.
(My favorite “legal” justification is when Josh hops on one foot and says he’s “more mixed up than a one-legged man at a hoedown!” The entire audience laughs (the judge asks, “Why is that funny?”) in a David Wain-esque joke that encapsulates my favorite kind of humor: silly and irrational.)
These sorts of insane, but amusing diatribes persist throughout the arc of Josh finding comfort in himself beyond the surface awkwardness. By season three, though, Josh was equipped for an arc of closure to his character in the form of being introduced to “the one.” Yes, the sort of series Man Seeking Woman was prevented it from devoting dozens upon dozens of installments to the idea of a “one true love,” as a series like How I Met Your Mother did. Instead, the third season introduces a perfect match for Josh, solely because they were both single, awkward, cute people who happened to be looking for a long-term relationship again at the same time. Lucy (Katie Findlay) is a good match for the final season; she brings closure to the eccentricities of Man Seeking Woman.
In probably my favorite episode of the series, season three’s “Bagel,” depicts how the surreal nature persists even when Josh finds the woman who will be his future wife. “Bagel” begins with Josh informing Mike that he’s ready to take his biggest leap of the series. What strikes us initially is that Josh is ready to propose to Lucy. For Mike, though, he’s thrilled at the prospect that Josh and Lucy are considering anal sex (as evidenced by Josh’s Internet browsing history).
When Josh asks Lucy’s father (Mark Moses) for permission to have anal sex with his daughter, he stands forebodingly and intimidatingly over Josh and demands to know how Josh could ask him that. Without calling him, “Dad,” first, of course. They laugh, hug, and enjoy a jovial celebration over a taboo subject that’s celebrated more than the marriage question, which is readily dismissed with an obligatory approval. The humor both comes in a mistranslation (how we are accustomed to sitcom characters asking their partners’ fathers for permission to marry, as opposed to permission to round the bases three times) and in a completely unexpected, but hysterical scene (as Baruchel and Moses play the scene completely straight). (It’s no wonder that Stefani Robinson, one of the exceptional talents on Atlanta, What We Do in the Shadows, and Fargo (also known for their slapstick and surreal elements), wrote “Bagel.”)
However, the absurd moments are not just limited to Josh by this point. In season three, Lucy proves herself to be just as capable in the fantastical segments as Josh. In fact, in “Bagel,” she brings a respite of lightness to these setpieces (considering how the earlier installments could grow unexpectedly dark, like “Stain,” which brings Josh literally to hell) with the most fun example coming in the form of Lucy taking on a Sherlock Holmes persona.
Stalking around her apartment, she proposes her itemized list of clues to Watson (John Billingsley) with a pipe in hand and a deerstalker atop her head. Granted, Josh’s proposal clues are obvious (including an actual admission of proposal intentions and the claim that he’s just “practicing” lunges), but Findlay is clearly deft at hamming up the absurdity of any given Man Seeking Woman scenario in a way that many of Josh’s other flings weren’t. (The best of her performance comes when she eviscerates Watson’s lack of contributions to solving the mystery, claiming that his resumé would say he “sat around and said dumb shit.”) She fits into the cast perfectly and she and Josh fit into each other’s lives perfectly.
By the end of “Bagel,” Josh and Lucy decide that one single proposal is not enough to define their love. Instead, they propose every act of their days to one another. “Will you please go for an egg and cheese bagel with me?” “You wanna sit in comfortable silence while I read a magazine and you read an actual book?” “Will you keep me company while I brush my teeth and tell me all the interesting things you’ve read on the Internet lately?” These are just a few of the proposals Josh and Lucy exchange by the end of “Bagel,” illustrating that their love is about more than getting married. It’s about how excited they are to do all the mundane acts of married life together.
Even if the entire world (especially Mike) feels that they can claim ownership over their relationship. Even if their mundane acts will likely be interrupted by beings typically reserved for Aesop’s fables and the Grimm fairy tales. Even if their marriage was ignored in favor of the monumental accomplishment of anal sex. Josh and Lucy are still just happiest when they’re around one another. They don’t need some grand gesture; all Josh and Lucy need is an egg and cheese bagel.
