I Am Not Okay With This starts with Sydney Novak one of the leads of the series, clothed in blood, running down the middle of the street at night. There are seemingly other ways she had rather be spending her time. That would seem to make knowledge with the series’s narrative: her life is pretty normal — up until the part comes where you get she has some superpowers that permit her to blow things up with her mind.
Netflix’s new comedy is a work of deep dread that evokes a lot of other stories about young girls coming of age. It has Carrie’s supernatural angst, Juno’s oddball quirk, and the smart-twee edge of Scott Pilgrim. Syd is a gross weirdo — she is equally thrilled and disappointed by her leg acne, it is pretty fine with being excluded by her classmates, and bewildered by the people she is tempted to. The difference here is that Syd is also very angry.
Sydney’s superpowers are a manifestation of her rage, and she has loads to be mad about. Her best friend fell for a crude jock, her single mom is overburdened and commanding, and, as the show slowly exposes, there is a deep family trauma that has haunted her since before the series started.
Watch I Am Not Okay With This Season 1 All Episodes Online on Netflix
But even with all this in her mind, I Am Not Okay With This spends most of her time is more desirable than annoyed. Much of it focuses on Syd’s developing relationship with fellow weirdo Stanley Barber. Stanley has been played by Wyatt Oleff — best known as one of the kids in It — who starts here as Timothee Chalamet, but a little bit wrong. This plays astonishingly well opposite Sophia Lillis’ Syd, another IT star and an excessively talented young actor.
I Am Not Okay With This the series doesn’t really end as much as it stops in its tracks. The season finishes the story with an unexpected conclusion that is obviously meant to come with the second season, but it also brings little in the way of promise — something that seems a little unfair given how lean and sharp the show is, every episode takes only just the time in which it needs to make its point and leave. (Usually, it doesn’t take more than 20 minutes to complete.)
Despite all this, I Am Not Okay With This has worked really well because all the things it conveys without speaking a word, all of them difficult: being a young woman who doesn’t adhere to a conventional definition of femininity, who is estimating her sexuality, who is handling discomfort, disillusionment, poverty, and superpowers. Why the show quietly asked the single question, is there no one there to catch Sydney if she falls apart? Stay be tuned to get other updates from the new and upcoming series and many more.
