I started watching Please Like Me via Netflix around the time Chester Bennington took his own life. It may have been a coincidence but the show and the Linkin Park frontman’s unfortunate passing did share underlying themes of mental illness and the grasp it has on those afflicted with it.

On the surface, Please Like Me is an Australian dramedy about 20-somethings figuring their life out. It shares that narrative skeleton with shows such as Girls and the first five seasons of Friends. We have the main character, the awkward 20-year-old Josh (Josh Thomas), who discovers he’s gay on the first episode and starts his self-exploration with the help of his friends, roommates, and the boys that come into his life.

But the real meat of the show goes far beyond that one-sentence TV-show pitch. Just when you find yourself enjoying the first episode’s laugh-out-loud scenes of Josh dating and having gay sex for the first time and his roommate trying but failing to break up with his girlfriend (Chandler and Janice, anyone?), the news of Josh’s mother’s attempted suicide breaks the comedic momentum.

Continue reading “The face in the mirror”