Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Everything Now’ On Netflix, Where A Teen Wants To Catch Up On The Teen Stuff She Missed While She Was In Treatment

Being a teen is hard enough; imagine having to spend seven months of your prime teenage years being treated for something you couldn’t recognize was a problem without some help from your friends and family. A new Netflix series is about just that very thing.

EVERYTHING NOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A teen girl and her father sit in an office. The girl looks through the window, and we hear her voice over say, “What would you do if, for the last seven months, your life had been made of walls?”

The Gist: Sixteen-year-old Mia Polanco (Sophie Wilde) has been in inpatient treatment for anorexia for the seven months, and the doctor in charge, Dr. Nell (Stephen Fry), tells her she has more work to do, but she’s ready to go home with her father Rick (Alex Hassell). Because she’s flying in from somewhere, Mia’s very busy — and somewhat distant — mother Viv (Vivienne Acheampong) didn’t come, but will meet her at home. At home, there’s a surprise party that’s not a surprise, and a relative that offers her a huge piece of cake. It takes a few minutes in the bathroom and a whole lot of self-talk to get Mia to deal with it.

The next morning, on her first day back at school, she meets up with her closest friends: Cameron (Harry Cadby), with whom she had a falling out before she checked into treatment; Becca (Lauryn Ajufo), whom she thinks is a Mensa candidate; and Will (Noah Thomas), whom she describes as “my wife.”

They’ve all been busy in the seven months she’s been away, going to parties, drinking, smoking, doing various drugs, and hooking up. As she hears about their exploits, she gets a serious case of FOMO. She feels like she’s missed out on a whole bunch of firsts that her friends have vaulted past. So when she gets home, she makes a “bucket list” of firsts she wants to do.

When her self-absorbed classmate Alison (Niamh McCormack), whom she describes as “entirely her own adjective,” lets slip details of a house party thrown by their classmate Theo (Robert Akodoto), she boldly goes up to him and asks if she can go. The best way to catch up, she figures, is at a party. “All the birds, one stone,” is her thought.

She figures she’ll be kissing someone there, so she asks for advice from Becca, who pretty romantically kisses her to help her practice. At the party, she overdoes it a bit, but she also sees a girl (Jessie Mae Alonzo) that fascinates her. She also lunges at Theo and tries to kiss him, but she gets sick instead.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? While this is a high-school dramedy, Everything Now feels less like Euphoria and more like Never Have I Ever, albeit with a bit more serious underpinnings.

Our Take: We really enjoyed the first episode of Everything Now, created by Ripley Parker, despite one or two quibbles. One of the quibbles is that we’ve seen Sophie Wilde in a couple too many adult roles in recent months to completely believe her as a sixteen-year-old. Still, she does a really good job of showing Mia’s struggles with not only her eating disorder but the disorientation of being in treatment during a critical time for any teenager, and seeing her friends have rocketed past her as far as experience are concerned.

It is conceivable that Mia missed out on things before going into treatment, because she was so sick, likely for months. There are definitely backstories to be told during this season, involving her going into treatment to begin with. We find out pretty quickly that Cameron told her parents that something was wrong, which is what led to their falling out. And there’s also a story behind Mia’s relationship with her mother Viv, which seems to be even more tenuous and tense than most mother-teenage-daughter relationships.

One of the themes we hope is explored is how Mia might not have been 100% in favor of getting treatment to begin with. She seems to appreciate that she got the help, and that she is doing better. But she still struggles with food issues, and there may be some lingering resentment for how it all went down. It’ll be interesting to see if Parker deals with that more.

All of that gives us a lot of hope that the first season of Everything Now won’t be just an exercise in Mia checking things off her “Fuck It Bucket,” which is the new name her friends give the list. Though, given how much we already like being around Mia and her friends, there would be worse ways to spend time than to hang out with them as they help Mia “catch up”.

Sex and Skin: If there’s any sexual content, all of it is talk.

Parting Shot: As the friends leave the hospital after Mia passes out at the party, she is happy that they’re going to help her take another run at the list. Then Will says, “You’re going to puke on me, aren’t you?” Mia says “Yes,” then pukes as he steps away.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to both Sam Reuben, who plays Mia’s levelheaded brother Alex, and Stephen Fry, who plays Dr. Nell. We mention Fry here because we hope to see him in more than just that initial scene when Mia is released. After all, he’s Stephen Fry!

Most Pilot-y Line: The voice over of Mia’s inner thoughts is overdone in the first episode; let’s hope that quickly fades as the season goes along.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Everything Now is a charming teen dramedy with some serious emotional issues underpinning the adventures of a teen just wanting to do teen stuff.

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.