“How to Die Alone” existed long before JD Vance mounted his campaign against childless women, but the timing of its debut landing smack in the middle of the cat lady era couldn’t be better. The title sums up what misogynistic men believe to be the single woman’s greatest fear when the reality is that it's everyone's.
Natasha Rothwell’s Melissa confirms some of those assumptions as the show starts. She doesn’t have a pet at that point, to be clear. She doesn’t have much of anything going on besides a job at JFK driving travelers from gate to gate, enthusiastically spouting facts about the places they’re going. The tragedy is that she’s afraid to fly, which is both a true phobia and a metaphor for the rest of her life.
