Thank You for Being a Friend

Lessons on friendship from "Somebody Somewhere."

Jeff Hiller and Bridget Everett on Somebody Somewhere. (HBO)

What does it mean to be a good friend? Americans appear not to know anymore. The surgeon general has declared an epidemic of loneliness. Fewer and fewer Americans say they have close friends, or report spending less time with friends on a regular basis. Whether we are a MAGA troll or an overworked parent, we seem to no longer know how to relate to other people, cocooned in our individual pods, furiously lashing out at everyone unlike ourselves, unable to hear what others have to say, or to grasp what they might contribute to our own lives.

It seems rather unlikely that a single television show will solve our national problems, let alone a relatively low-rated HBO series that recently wrapped its third and final season. But I suspect that if everyone in America were required to watch the last ten minutes of “As Much As I Like Not Feeling,” the penultimate episode of Somebody Somewhere, we would at least have a shared template for what it looks like to be a good friend, and to have a good friend in turn. Modest spoilers ahead, inasmuch as there can be any spoilers for a show like Somebody Somewhere, in which plot is mostly an afterthought and mood and the moment are all.

First, some brief place-setting: in the series, Sam (Bridget Everett) returns home to Manhattan, Kansas after the untimely death of her sister. She is adrift and grieving, and connects with a high-school acquaintance and coworker, Joel (Jeff Hiller). Sam is scathing, self-defeating, deeply loyal, and in search of meaning in the wake of terrible loss; Joel is self-effacing, bubbly, possessed of Big Sidekick Energy. Sam and Joel strike up a friendship that serves as a protective carapace from the world’s slings and arrows.

By the third season, Joel has developed a mostly happy relationship with the kindly, if rigid, Brad (Tim Bagley), albeit one with its usual array of small frustrations (why doesn’t he let me load the dishwasher?) and large ones (is my boyfriend’s church full of small-minded homophobes?) Sam, too, is warily circling the man who is renting her parents’ farmhouse, a close-lipped Icelandic expat (Ólafur Dari Ólafsson) who she struggles to communicate with (or even to pronounce his name), but Somebody Somewhere is clear that its central relationship is between Sam and Joel.

This is not presented as some quirk, a la the relationship between Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne in Platonic, some lifestyle-section “Women and Men Can Be Friends After All!” twinkle; this is a mere fact that both Sam and Joel must keep rediscovering for themselves. Whether they are single or partnered, the most important person in their lives is their best friend.

In the concluding moments of “As Much As I Like Not Feeling” (feelingly directed by Lennon Parham, and cowritten by Parham with the show’s creators, Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen), Sam and Joel sit down in her living room, martinis close at hand, feet encased in plastic wrapping. Earlier in the episode, Joel had gotten into a fender-bender, and has been terribly rattled by the experience, finding himself unexpectedly crying over what appeared to be a minor incident. Joel loves his boyfriend, but is also struggling with the question of what it means to be in a committed relationship with a partner who is unwilling to have children with him.

Sam settles herself under her blanket, pivots her body to face in Joel’s direction, lets out a few anticipatory breaths, and asks, “Are we allowed to talk about it?”

Joel agrees, and Sam presses forward: “So I know that you’ve made your peace with it, but does what’s going on have anything to do with having kids?” Joel lets out a sniffle, and Sam exhales in relief: “Because I was worried that it might have something to do with God or religion, and I’d be a little out of my depth.” At this point, Joel bursts into tears once more. “Oh God, I’m warmer!” Sam is simultaneously reassured that it is a topic in her wheelhouse, and terrified that she is hurting Joel merely by asking about Joel’s tenderest spot, a spot so raw that he is reluctant to even acknowledge it to himself, let alone to a friend.

Sam and Joel are sitting on the same couch. Their eyes regularly lock. No one is holding a phone or a remote control. They are carving out a moment from their lives to simply talk, and it is that sense of communion—of two people looking to understand each other slightly better, of adding one more brick to the joint edifice of friendship—that speaks to the quiet magic of the moment.

Sam is willing to bring up a potentially difficult subject with Joel because she is worried about him, and because she wants to talk it out with him. And Joel is willing to go to a painful place because it is Sam who is encouraging him, and because he trusts her intentions.

Joel is loudly sobbing now, covering his eyes and wiping his nose before attempting to respond to Sam’s gentle questioning: “It’s just that things are really good. Things with Brad are really good. I have good friends. I have you. Things in my life are wonderful. Why isn’t that enough?” Just the way that Joel says “you,” his voice tight with pent-up emotion, is as stirring a tribute to friendship as any I can think of in recent television.

Sam’s voice gets tender; she is practically whispering now: “Well, what’s wrong with wanting a little bit more? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.” The gentleness in Sam’s voice reflects how much she loves Joel. Her best friend is sometimes willing to recede into the background of his own life, and she is here to remind him that he is allowed to take up more space.

Perhaps just as importantly, Somebody Somewhere is a show about friendship that refuses to fall into the us-against-the-world vibes of other friendship-oriented series. Earlier in the season, we learned that Brad’s homophobic ex-wife had prevented him from being a part of his own children’s lives, and the thought of raising a new child brought back all the terror and pain of that experience. Somebody Somewhere is, among other things, about how every person, even the blandest, most milquetoast, uninteresting pedestrian on the street (cough- Brad- cough), is the protagonist of their own life story. Brad is not a stumbling block standing in the way of Joel’s self-actualization; he is himself a hurt spirit in flat-front khakis, his fumbling politeness covering a wound that will never heal.

A good friend is sometimes someone who can see your foibles and your flaws and find a gentle way to help you find the best version of yourself. Joel is allowed to ask the world for what he wants, and Sam is insistent that he not feel ashamed, or like a spoiled brat. Sam suggests that Joel reach out to his old friend and colleague Pastor Deb, who had been a mentor to Joel prior to their break some time back.

Joel’s face is red and blotchy now, and he takes a moment to pull himself together before reorienting the conversation: “I’m bored with me, tell me about you.” A good friendship is never a one-way conversation, is never only about one person to the exclusion of the other.

We know Sam has something to say, but she is reluctant to begin. She scratches her nose thoughtfully and slowly pushes her hair out of her face. “OK,” she starts, “Well, there’s this guy…” Joel sits bolt upright, as if he has been electrically shocked: “What guy?” Sam starts to explain, and then Joel jumps in enthusiastically: “Oh yeah, the guy from the bar. He’s all manly and has a really deep voice.”

When Sam goes on and says that he kissed her, Joel audibly yelps with glee. Sam immediately starts apologizing, even though it is abundantly clear to us that she has nothing to apologize for: “I’ve been wanting to tell you, I swear to God.” Joel’s gleeful enthusiasm says so much about him as a person. He is thrilled for Sam in a way that simply can’t be faked. Her triumph—even this relatively modest one—is his triumph also.

Joel presses on, knowing Sam well enough to realize that he has to ask her how she is feeling about this objectively good news. “Not great,” she tells him. She looks down at her lap as she fills in the details: “I really like him, and I’m not really—I don’t really know what I’m doing, and it kind of brings up a lot of stuff.”

Sam is generally bursting with life, and it is these moments when she gets small that feel so surprising, and out of character. Joel asks her to explain, and Sam nervously fingers her blanket as she talks: “I keep thinking about what if he got to know me. How could he want that?” Joel bursts in, his voice husky with emotion: “How could he not?”

There are any number of beautiful, heart-rending sequences in Somebody Somewhere, but in all its three seasons, this is perhaps the scene I love most. It is, like so much of what is beautiful about this series, an exceptionally quiet moment. It is a middle-aged man getting briefly emotional at the thought of his friend underrating herself, seeing herself as less than she actually is. It is watching someone feel moved on someone else’s behalf, reflecting the ways in which we often carry around profound feelings about our closest friends and never have just the right moment to share them. Joel is offering her a portrait of Sam as he sees her, in just four words.

Here, too, is Sam acknowledging all her own self-doubt and shame, and the ways in which it has kept her from finding happiness, or pursuing a romantic relationship, and Joel insisting that she is wrong. Sam is the one crying now, her arm covering her face in shame: “I really want to feel that way, Joel. I’m really trying.”

Joel echoes Sam back to himself, turning her advice about Pastor Deb around and offering it to her: “But why don’t you just try and see what happens?” “Well, fuck you,” Sam retorts, breaking the temporary spell and causing both of them to burst out laughing. “A wise woman once told me that,” Joel says, and Sam responds, “She’s a dumb-ass bitch.” Friendship, in essence, is a protracted effort to try and see what happens, day in and day out, choosing the same person again and again.

It is only too easy for writers to demonstrate what a toxic friendship looks like. Characters say mean, hurtful things to each other. They fail to listen. They ignore each other’s hurts and dominate the conversation. (Watch any episode of Girls if you want to see what I mean.)

Depicting what a really good friendship looks like is much harder. And unlike romance, it is rarely about lavish gestures. (Romantic relationships are also rarely about that, either, but that is perhaps a story for another day.)

What is so lovely in this moment is how forcefully both Sam and Joel are showing up for each other. Sam could easily have not asked Joel why he was being so maudlin without cause. Joel could have let Sam bad-mouth herself without butting in. But a good friend knows when to hold up a flattering mirror to our faces, to insist that we see ourselves as they see us, and not as we imagine ourselves in our worst moments. They also know when to suggest, as Sam does, that the conversation end, and that it is time to “fuck up some donuts.” And what more does a friendship need than that?

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Ministry Book Corner 📚

Here at MOPC, not only are we pop culture writers, we’re also authors! Every Monday, we’re going to recommend each other’s work. And if you’d like to check out all of our books, visit our bookstore at Bookshop.org.

Jennifer recommends … Advika and the Hollywood Wives by Kirthana Ramisetti

Kirthana takes a cliché—the older, rich, powerful man marrying a young, naïve woman—and turns it inside out, showing it to us in a whole new light. A Cinderella fantasy turns into a mystery, and eventually a thriller, as struggling screenwriter Advika meets famous movie producer Julian Zelding while she’s tending bar at the Oscars’ Governors Ball. Kirthana humanizes her characters with empathy and detail, showing us a love that is believable and real, despite the characters’ 41-year age difference, as it leads to their quick marriage. Then she drops the bomb of the novel’s true premise: Julian’s first wife, famous actress Evie Lockhart, dies, and her will bequeaths $1 million and one mysterious film reel to “Julian’s latest child bride,” but only if she’ll divorce him. As Advika digs around in her new husband’s past and feels increasingly restrained in the marriage, her story becomes an unexpected tale of women finding empowerment in each other.