Lena Dunham's new Netflix show Too Much is a rom-com for the TikTok-scrolling, influencer-besotted age. In the show, 30-something Jessica relocates to London after a thunderous breakup that causes her to go a little insane. While Jessica is the kind of frumpy, childish mess familiar to fans of Dunham's other work, she also immediately meets and falls in love with an astoundingly handsome indie musician named Felix. The show chiefly concerns the pair's lighting-fast courtship. In one episode, Felix tags along to Jessica's chaotic work party. In another, she's his plus-one at a farcically posh British wedding. There's a lot of sex, a decent amount of drugs, and—seeing that Felix is a musician—some rock and roll as well. A consistent theme is that Jessica runs too hot—she's too much, as the title suggests—and Felix runs too cold. He's emotionally distant and hard to read, while Jessica is an open book.
However, while Too Much ends up being an overstuffed if eminently bingeable rom-com, the most interesting moments come not from the main characters, but from Jessica's ex-boyfriend, Zev.
While Zev at first seems like a victim of Jessica's obsession (we meet him after she's literally broken into his house), he's eventually revealed to be a jerk of a now-familiar type: the therapy boyfriend. Using the pseudo-intellectual language of therapy, Zev sanitizes meanness and neglect. When Jessica (reasonably) feels insecure, he tells her that she "can't always ask for constant reassurance," adding that she should "maybe see a therapist, 'cause it's actually really selfish of you not to let go of this anxious attachment style." In a therapy session after their breakup, he compares Jessica to his overbearing mother, casting himself as the victim of her overwhelming, suffocating demands for affection.
