https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2091t8zCvE

I just watched the final season of “Shrill” on Hulu.

It took me back to March of 2019 when the series was launching and Executive Producer Elizabeth Banks and star Aidy Bryant came to SXSW with a panel that included the woman, Lindy West, who wrote the book on which the series was based. I sat right behind Ms. Banks during the introduction and then she moved to the stage following the showing of one episode for the Q&A.

Aidy Bryant of “SNL” played the lead role of Annie Easton, a writer for the fictional “Thorn” newspaper where she interacted with Boss Gabe Parrish (John Cameron Mitchell), and Ian Owens as Amadi. The 22 episodes that I’ve watched followed the plight of an overweight single woman in today’s dating scene. We didn’t get to see as much of Aidy on “SNL” because of her involvement in this show, but that will, hopefully, end with the series finale.

Annie (Aidy) lives with her college friend Fran (Lolly Adefope), who is a Black Nigerian lesbian who grew up in London, and, for most of the series she dates Ryan (Luka Jones) who was replaced in the show’s final episodes by a new more promising boyfriend named Will (Cameron Britton).

Elizabeth Banks (l) and Lindy West (R) onstage at SXSW in 2019, lauching “Shrill.”

Ryan made it through 16 episodes as the sadly tone-deaf boyfriend, while the Will character only made it through 4 episodes before he became hopelessly pissed off that Annie went to the coffee shop where Will’s ex-wife worked, just to see what her new boyfriend’s ex looked like. After all, Will and his ex-wife met at age 15 and she was the only girl he had ever been with, whereas Annie is seen jumping in and out of bed with a variety of swains, including a really depressing deflowering experience at an “Oklahoma” cast after-party, where the prop manager of the play offered to “do” Annie, since she was the only one in their circle who was a virgin.

Most of the show wants to be striking a blow against fat-shaming. There’s the episode where Annie’s doctor mentions that she could opt for stomach stapling and Annie reacts with a great deal of profanity and unpleasantness. There’s the episode that is a pool party with a bevy of Big Beauties who are lesbian.  The show also wants to come down firmly on the side of lesbian love and there is definitely a strong message for mothers of girls with a weight problem that harping on the problem and putting their daughter on diet after diet isn’t the right approach to urging an overweight child (especially a girl) to lose weight.

As a woman who was of “normal” weight for most of my life, but gained weight after having my 2 kids, I could relate to the mother, played by pro Julia Sweeney, who spends most of her time harassing her daughter about her weight. This approach doesn’t work and the grown-up Annie proves it.

There is also a fun plot about striking back at Internet trolls, with Beck Bennet guest starring as the troll who goes online to attack fat people, especially girls, even if they are complete strangers.

There was a lot of talk about sex or having sex and there was a quirky work group that rivaled “The Office.”

I enjoyed the series while it was on the air, although I thought the attempt to strike a blow for overweight women was probably doomed to failure from the get go.

SPOILER ALERT

Aidy Bryant (second from left) and Elizabeth Banks (second from far right) with the interviewer and other executive producer appearing onstage for a Q&A following the 2019 screening of an episode of “Shrill,” as it launched.

By the last episode, Fran (Annie’s roommate) has managed to deep-six her lesbian relationship and Annie is on the outs with Will because of the ill-advised trip to the coffee shop where Will’s ex worked. I realize that the creative minds behind this venture (Lindy West and Alexandra Rushfield for all of the episodes, with Elizabeth Banks involved for 16 of them) had to end this somehow, but it was definitely not an inspiring finale. Fran and Annie are sitting on a park bench with a bottle of what looks like champagne that they had saved for the day they would stop being roommates and they both confess that they have managed to completely screw up their most recent love relationships and the final word on that is, “I’ll fix it.”

That was not the “happy ending” most of us had hoped for.

The best that can be said about “happy endings” here is that we learn that Gabe has bought “The Thorn” and Annie and Office Manager Amadi have been promoted, so take your happiness where you can find it.