5 Reasons I'm Glad 'Difficult People' Got Renewed

Ken Tucker
·Critic-at-Large, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated
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The Billy Eichner-Julie Klausner sitcom Difficult People has been renewed by Hulu for a second season, and unlike roughly 85 percent of all TV shows that get renewed, this one deserves it. Here’s why:

1. It just keeps getting funnier. Although my favorite episode remains the third, “Pledge Week,” featuring Kate McKinnon as Abracadouglas, “Williamsburg’s Premiere Sober Magician” with her recovering-alcoholic patter (“Magic is an illusion made up of many steps, sobriety takes just 12”), this week’s episode, “Even Later,” premiering Sept. 2, is top-notch, featuring choice insults aimed at Woody Allen and a choice cameo by Amy Sedaris as a ping-pong table salesperson.

2. Billy and Julie are mean to others, but supportive of each other. The key to mean humor such as the stuff that suffuses Difficult People is that we need to like the protagonists even as they drip contempt and sarcasm on others. Eichner and Klausner have cracked this comedy code. In Episode 5, “The Children’s Menu,” you never doubted for a second that Julie was rooting for, and worried about, Billy’s audition showcase for Saturday Night Live; his failure to get it was felt with brief but genuine poignance.

3. James Urbaniak is aces. Playing Arthur, Julie’s very long-suffering boyfriend and PBS employee, the always-adroit Urbaniak has found a new outlet for his martini-dry line-readings. His primary showcase thus far in the “Pledge Week” episode (“Doo-wop CDs are catnip to PBS viewers!”) just makes you want to see more subplots involving his character. Fans are already keeping track of Arthur’s manifold nicknames for Julie (“Pushpin”; “Hydrox”).

4. The jokes never stop. Difficult People has a very high, dense joke quotient. Since the premise of the show is that these two pals exist to dissect, celebrate, and traduce pop culture, the zingers have to really possess zing, and the duo shows no signs of running out of material. “Which would I rather see less, Chelsea Handler’s nipples or her new Netflix talk show?”; “Miles Teller looks exactly like k.d. lang”; and (imitating irritating “millennial nuisances”) “’Remember Full House? So do I! Isn’t that funny?!’” The snaps just keep on coming.

5. Andrea Martin is wonderful. As Julie’s self-absorbed psychologist-mother, Marilyn, Martin reminds you how she made zany witty on SCTV. Whether giving Julie clueless career advice (“You have to make a YouTube”), writing and starring in a therapeutic theater piece she wrote (Me! A Show About You) or leaning horizontally over a podium during a lecture as though she was trying to surf out of the lecture hall, Martin provides great, essential support.

Difficult People has three more episodes in its first season. Catch them all.

Difficult People streams on Hulu, with new episodes premiering on Wednesdays.