Coherence netflix brasil7/1/2023 ![]() The men are weak, the children are dreadful, just about every supporting character is unpleasant. The problem isn’t so much that Katherine is unlikeable – she’s spiky and selfish, sure, but a pussycat beneath – but that there’s nobody at all to root for. This brings us to the vexed issue of our heroine’s “likeability” – a standard often applied to female characters in comedy. She is, as Ryan admits, “a bad person who’s a good mom”. Katherine’s problems are her own, rather than blamed on the strains of parenthood. “I actually like her.” It’s clear that Olive is the best thing in her chaotic life. “I don’t need a break from Olive,” she snaps when a friend offers to babysit. Katherine absolutely adores her child, arguably too much. Ryan’s approach is empowering and celebratory, making The Duchess the anti-Motherland. Most middle-class parenting comedies these days are populated by downtrodden women who guzzle white wine and whinge about how tired they are. In some ways, however, The Duchess is a breath of fresh air. There are endless references to oral and anal sex, plus a pair of explicit raunchy scenes. She throws around insults and drops the C-bomb with alacrity. Ryan’s determination to be daring soon wears thin. ![]() Rich, white Katherine tells the black case worker to “eat a d-”, insults her personal hygiene and sneers “keep your secondhand crack babies”. When they dare question her motives, she launches into a foul-mouthed tirade. Katherine approaches an adoption agency on a whim, demanding a baby. In between comes a painfully drawn-out adoption sequence in which the show reaches its nadir. The series ends as poorly as it began, with a melodramatic wedding. There’s a bizarre sequence at a “body positivity conference” which has been edited to the point of illogicality. Yet unforgivable missteps keep tripping it up. Things pick up and the show hits its stride mid-series. ![]() ![]() Katherine comes over as a spoilt bully and, at the school gates, sports a sweatshirt distractingly emblazoned with the slogan “World’s Smallest Pussy”. ![]() Like many sitcoms, the opening episode is the weakest, labouring to establish the characters and set the tone. This plotline never convinces but becomes the driving narrative of the series. With Evan too clingy and fertility clinics freaking her out, Katherine decides the best option to father another child is her feckless ex – because, against the odds, the first one turned out well. Now the estranged couple hate each other – a fact of which we’re reminded at wearyingly regular intervals. Shep ended up in rehab and lost his record deal. After a drunken one-night stand, she discovered she was pregnant. Katherine was once a groupie to his chillingly plausible boy band Tru-Sé. With her biological clock tick-tocking and nine-year-old daughter Olive (Kate Byrne) demanding a sibling, Katherine is torn between two men: her soppy, bafflingly tolerant boyfriend Dr Evan (Australian comedian Steen Raskopoulos) and Olive’s father Shep (Rory Keenan), a washed-up pop star who’s in thrall to conspiracy theories and lives off-grid. Sadly, the whole thing is something of a distasteful failure.Īs well as writing and executive-producing the show, Ryan plays a fictionalised version of herself called, wait for it, Katherine Ryan (have comedy creators given up trying to come up with character names?), a thirtysomething who runs a chic pottery business called Kiln 'Em Softly. Some of the six-part series is outrageously funny. So goes the outlandish yet somehow semi-autobiographical set-up of Canadian comic Katherine Ryan’s debut sitcom The Duchess (Netflix). You’re a high-fashion feminist potter and single mother who decides to have a second child with a former boyband member who lives on a barge, while lying about it to your dentist lover and using naked selfies to blackmail your rival alpha mums at the school gates. ![]()
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