Such Brave Girls Season 1 Review – Dark, depressing, and outrageously funny

Episode Guide

Such Happy Girls -|Review Score – 4/5
Such Unavailable Girls -|Review Score – 4.5/5
Such Birthday Girls -|Review Score – 4.5/5
Such Outdoorsy Girls -|Review Score – 3.5/5
Such Friendly Girls -|Review Score – 5/5
Such Daddy’s Girls -|Review Score – 4/5

Kat Sadler’s British dark comedy Such Brave Girls is rife with emotional abuse, severe mental health troubles, and just a generally bleak reality. The show isn’t afraid to touch on the shocking and depraved in its bold explorations of trauma and womanhood. But is it, as many hold, too dark and depressing for a comedy?

Sadler plays Josie, a depressed young woman who likes to talk about her mental health a bit too often for others’ comfort. She often expresses a desire to process past hurts and learn to become a happy person. But she ends up more often than not numbing herself to new experiences and taking the easy way out, something her mother Deb (Louise Brealey) insists is the right course of action. “Experimenting with… who she is, what she wants, her feelings” can only lead to pain. In Deb’s mind, it’s better to shop away the depression and deny one’s sexuality (she adamantly refuses Josie could be a lesbian) than to step outside the box.

Sadler also acts alongside her real-life sibling, Lizzie Davidson, as her sister in the show, Billie. If Josie meanders through life with her head down, Billie charges through every experience with a naive sense to conquer it. She’s ready to do any unhinged thing it takes to keep her unfaithful boyfriend by her side–a likely byproduct of her hurt over being abandoned by another man–their father–ten years ago. As the two girls struggle with their mental health and their trauma from their father’s abandonment, Deb pushes forward with the stalwart mentality that the best thing to do is brush yourself off and find a new man to provide for you. So goes her attempts to woo her drab boyfriend Dev (Paul Bazely) into marriage for no reason other than his having a huge house. Dev, unfortunately, isn’t exactly on the same wavelength.

All in all, life is pretty dark for the girls, but Sadler and her stellar cast manage to transform the morbidity into something funny as hell, and even surprisingly touching. Such Brave Girls expertly portrays the very real ways we might fail to process trauma or manage our mental health. There’s both sympathy and hilarity in the sheer relatability of Josie’s, Billie’s, and Deb’s many blunders.

Sadler’s dark comedy likely won’t appeal to those of a more sensitive nature (When it comes to its sense of humor, think Fleabag’s brazenness, but make the sex jokes grosser). But the show is for anyone with dark humor tastes who perhaps once thought their trauma/depression/anxiety/etc. made them more interesting–until the realization hit that, actually, maybe the most significant thing that “being different” does to you… is make your life harder.

Josie and Billie go through the same process. “Most people aren’t wet for trauma like we are,” Josie quips to her sister at one point. “But trauma’s all we’ve got,” Billie replies. The sisters then pride themselves on how interesting they are due to their darkness, comparing themselves to another woman. “Where’s all the damage? What the fuck does she even talk about?” They try to comfort themselves by putting her down. “She’s basic. She’s live laugh love. We’re death, silence, hate.”

But Sadler isn’t buying into this attitude of patting oneself on the back for all one’s endured. She’s acknowledging the absurdity of making one’s entire personality one’s trauma, and in sitting in the absurdity of this total bleakness, we’re able to laugh it too.

So, is the show too morbidly depressing for a comedy? I don’t think so. In addressing all the dysfunctional family drama and trauma, Such Brave Girls delves into the dark and the bold–without ever being flippant. Underneath the sheer brutality of every episode, the show manages to be not only outrageously funny, but also quite warm. It’s an incredible feat to walk that line, and Sadler pulls it off beautifully.

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