Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Life & Beth’ On Hulu, Where Amy Schumer Is A Woman Who Looks To Change Her Life After A Sudden Loss

Amy Schumer hasn’t been shy about the ups and downs in her life over the past half-decade or so. She’s gotten married, become a mom, and suffered through some pretty serious health problems. It’s given her comedy some depth and perspective that only added to the persona she crafted in her stand-up career, her years on Inside Amy Schumer and her movie roles. She’s created a new series that seems to reflect that maturity. Read on for more.

LIFE & BETH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of a woman swimming in murky waters. Someone calls “Beth!” and as she pops her head out of the water, lots of memories come flooding back to her head.

The Gist: Beth (Amy Schumer) is shown selling the heck out of some wine to two bar owners; she has them in the palm of her hand, but even when she’s “on” as a salesperson for a wine distributor, she still gets a little lost in the narrative when she mentions that her “partner” works for the same company.

The client assumes “partner” means “same sex partner,” which launches Beth into a tangent on how he jokes that she’s “like 100” and that they’ll get married one day, concluding with a very personal “I don’t even know if I want kids.” After that, she gets the conversation back to the bar owners but she really isn’t listening.

Back at the office of Kerig Cellars (spelled differently than the coffee pod company, of course), her boss Murray (Murray Hill) wants Beth to celebrate the sale by ringing the sales bell, which she’s reluctant to do. Not long after, Matt (Kevin Kane), Beth’s boyfriend and Kerig’s star champagne salesman, comes barreling in with a tale about selling a bunch of cases to a bar where “Pitbulls” is a customer. Murray offers Beth a sales manager job that offers a better salary and a trip to Naples… Florida. Beth is surprised that Matt isn’t being offered the job, but Murray needs to keep him as his star salesman.

Beth meets her mother Jane (Laura Benanti) to do some shopping. They definitely have a codependent relationship, though it seems that Jane is as close with Matt as she is Beth. She tells Beth that she’s met a new “friend” and wants to bring him to a party Matt has coming up. When Beth asks if he’s married, Jane demurs. Beth calls her sister Annie (Susannah Flood) to complain, and Annie responds to the news by smashing an egg, then telling Beth that she needs to tell their mom how much they don’t like the idea of her with another married man.

Before Beth and Matt go to karaoke night with a bunch of work clients, she asks Matt, “You can tell I’m happy, right?” But it seems like she’s doing that more to convince herself than anything else.

At karaoke night, Annie calls Beth with some earth-shattering news. Beth goes up and signs the song picked for her, “The Sign,” but her loud singing indicates she’s far away from that spot.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Life & Beth has the feel of another Hulu comedy series, Shrill, because both center around the lives of women who want more out of their lives, but need to be literally shoved out of their comfort zones in order to get more.

Our Take: Life & Beth is a Schumer project all the way. She created the series and is among the show’s writers and directors, and is the director of the pilot. It shows a version of Schumer that reflects all she’s been through personally over the past few years — marriage, motherhood, health issues — and she brings a maturity to the series that she didn’t quite have during her earlier standup career or her pre-movie-stardom TV project Inside Amy Schumer had.

Schumer isn’t trying to be the funniest person on the screen here, and how she underplays Beth shows off the sadness that she seems to be barely hiding. On the surface, things look like they’re going well. But it’s pretty obvious that Beth doesn’t love her job, thinks her relationship is stalling and wishes she had less tension with her mother. When she asks Matt, “You can tell I’m happy, right?” we don’t believe that she would even believe it if he said yes — but he’s too busy musing on his Peloton personal best to listen.

Beth will be moving through some different scenarios following her life-changing news, including moving back to her Long Island hometown, so the supporting cast we see in the first episode won’t be around in subsequent episodes. But they’re a good example of how Schumer is giving the people surrounding her the best lines, like the “Pitbulls” gag or Murray calling Matt his Tom Brady than pantomiming throwing to him. One of Beth’s co-workers insists on singing songs from Moana during karaoke and introduces one by saying Moana lives in Hawaii.

It’s those little, often subtle gags, that keep the audience from sinking into Beth’s depression along with her. That effort to alleviate some of the heaviness helps us go along on the journey Beth is going to take without making her seem like she doesn’t appreciate what she has. That’s a tougher balance than one might think, but if the first episode is any indication, Schumer has given her show that balance.

Sex and Skin: None, at least in the first episode.

Parting Shot: After leaving the bar in a daze, Beth turns around and starts to gasp when a tree branch falls onto the street.

Sleeper Star: It’s a tiny role, but it was fun to see Abbott Elementary breakout star Jenelle James as a boutique salesperson who is extremely uncomfortable with the mother-daughter drama that’s taking place in front of her.

Most Pilot-y Line: This is a good place to mention that we were incredulous that the 42-year-old Benanti was playing the 40-year-old Schumer’s mother. But by the time the episode ended, we understood why. We’ll likely be seeing a fair amount of Jane in flashbacks, where she will be closer to Benanti’s age.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re excited to see where Amy Schumer takes Life & Beth after a first episode that establishes many reasons why the devastating news Beth gets will send her life in a new direction.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.