Somebody Somewhere: The Funny Thing About Grief...

Mike Hagerty died this year. He was a wonderful character actor whose presence on screen was often bigger than the roles he inhabited. Among his many credits, you might recognize him as Mr. Treeger, the building supervisor in Friends over its long run, or even from 1987’s Overboard as Billy Pratt. When his death was announced in April, I found myself strangely affected. I wasn’t sure why. Death is often a sad event, but from afar, it felt peculiar to be taken aback by the news. Then it hit me, what I was thinking about: Somebody Somewhere and Hagerty’s performance in the quiet HBO show from earlier this year. Not only was it a disarming, gentle, and true-to-life performance, but it became emblematic of what makes the show stand out among this year’s best. It was often so unassuming that it could go unnoticed just like Somebody Somewhere itself.

Hagerty played Ed, Sam’s (Bridget Everett) father. The catalyst for the entire season is the death of Sam’s sister, Holly. Before Holly died, Sam returned to Kansas to help take care of her. Six months after Holly’s death is when the show picks up. Sam is left rudderless without Holly. However, she stays in Kansas, where she grew up. Her family, from her other sister, Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison), to her mom and dad, have never left their hometown of Manhattan, Kansas. The tensions are clear between Sam, Tricia and their mom almost immediately. Sam and her dad aren’t like that. The love between them is palpable. Which makes the conversation that Sam eventually has to have with her father about her mother’s drinking that much more difficult. Hagerty’s performance is quiet. Not the kind of quiet that necessarily bestows wisdom or approaches a caricature or stereotype of an emotionally unavailable father. Just like Sam, he has to learn how to reconnect with other people and open up. When he finally starts to have honest conversations with Sam and his wife (Jane Brody), Hagerty brings a certain joyfulness to the experience. Especially when he finally goes out to an event hosted by Tricia at her store. As the night progresses, we finally see him loosen up. He even gives a belly laugh as he notes how cheap alcohol really goes to your head. It is that whole night, but in particular that moment, that encapsulates Ed’s journey as well as Somebody Somewhere as a whole. Eventually, finding refuge in connections with others in the face of immeasurable loss and grief can save you.

Sam’s journey throughout the show is much less linear than her father’s. Slowly, over the show’s first season, an eclectic group of wonderful strangers start to fill out the ensemble around Sam and show her what it means to live again. Simplifying the show in that way lays out how many times a journey like this has been shown in either movies or television. It also highlights where Somebody Somewhere feels different among its counterparts: people and place. The scenery is sparse. Not unlike taking a drive along the highways of any Midwestern state: cornfields punctuated by small town centers or downtowns. It has a beauty all its own right. Even the location – which is paramount to a show like this – is not what make the world come to life. Somebody Somewhere looks to the margins. The type of people who aren’t normally the stars of television shows. And it is those people that make up this Kansas community. They illustrate its fabric from the bright colors to the seams where things fall short. Each one of the characters in the ensemble, from Sam to Joel (Jeff Hiller) to Fred Rococo (Murray Hill) and beyond, are all complicated characters. They are complicated in a way that feels true-to-life as the show actively works to avoid the pitfalls and stereotypes of dramedies that demand to be taken seriously. It can get dark without giving into the darkness. It almost always finds the humor from moment to moment. That’s also largely due to the performances within the ensemble as well. Each of the performances affords each of these characters – no matter how small their role – the humanity they deserve. That same humanity is what fills the stillness of the Kansas landscapes.

Pacing is a remarkably difficult task to master, either in a television show or a movie. In some ways, sitcoms have it easier. Each episode is largely self-contained. Overarching storylines can be imagined and planted throughout the episodes, but majority of the time, the writing of individual episodes can be approached with a certain selective memory. Shows like Somebody Somewhere that split the line between drama and sitcom are all about pacing. The dramatic through lines (in this show’s case: dealing with grief, adultery, addiction, and more) have to be married to the sitcom ones. In that sense, it’s often easy for dramedies to slip into telling a drama in a sitcom format (think perhaps something akin to Barry). And that is choice that writers and showrunners have to make, for better or worse. In some cases, like Barry, it works out better than ever imagined. In other instances, you end up disrupting the flow of the dramatic elements of the show. Events happening feel less like natural occurrences of this created world and more the whim of the creator themselves. The seams start to show. Somebody Somewhere avoids this in large part due to its emphasis on characters and not plot. Sure, there is plot in the show. The show deals with grief, religion, addiction, family strife, and more. Those require plot. But when you’re packing all of that into a seven 30-minute episode season, you need something stronger to hang your hat on than just plot. Each episode flows in and out of each other because of the characters. Plot advances certainly, but at a character’s behest, not the writers. A show like this - quiet, understated, and always finding the big in its own smallness – can feel like a revelation. Television and movies can move at breakneck speed. It often feels like the answers must exist for everything, lest we leave plot holes to be filled in by audiences. There’s also something incredibly comforting about not just knowing you don’t have the answers but that other people don’t as well. That is what Somebody Somewhere offers. Nothing solves everything. We just do our best to try and find where we fit in this enormous world. We struggle, we love, we lose, and then we do it all over again. If we are lucky, somewhere in there we find compassion, grace, and empathy, both for ourselves and others. May you rest in peace, Mike Hagerty.

Favorite performance

I refuse to pick this one, because it’s a dead heat for me between Bridget Everett as Sam, Jeff Hiller as Joel (which admittedly I did not give enough shine in the above paragraphs – he is just a delight with his ability to both steal a scene and know exactly when to support someone else’s moment), and Mike Hagerty as Ed.

I will use this space to highlight how sensational Bridget Everett is though. I read a piece from Lili Loofbourow on the show, and she drew a comparison between Everett’s performance in Somebody Somewhere and John Goodman in Roseanne that hasn’t left my mind since I read it. It was a terrific comparison, and one that I might argue should even go beyond Goodman’s work on Roseanne and extend to his work on The Righteous Gemstones. He has this knack for straddling a line between showmanship and charm with a gruff vulnerability that can come off as rough around the edges despite his compassion. Everett embodies that same archetype as Sam in Somebody Somewhere. Her stage (and barn) performances are captivating, but the in-between moments where she embraces Sam’s humanity are where she shines.

Favorite episode

This feels like a little bit of a cop out, because it almost feels too easy, but I’m going to go with the season finale, “Mr. Diddles.” Jackson McHenry interviewed Bridget Everett about the finale when it first aired. Specifically highlighting its dichotomy between the big moments and the small ones, the bombastic moments and the tender ones. It expressed wonderfully how the show approached both those types of moments, especially in the season finale.

Favorite character

Fred Rococo. I didn’t have to think about this one long at all. Who was the character that whenever they were on screen I just lit up with excitement? Fred Rococo. Everything about Murray Hill’s performance as Fred as infectious. Hill always left me wanting more, and Fred Rococo felt like such a singular character in a cast full of them.

Favorite joke

I’m sure there are great one-liners I am passing over, but there’s one moment in particular I have to highlight. Early on, adjusting to being back in Kansas is rough for Sam. Especially without Holly. Finally, things start to break her way, though. She makes friends with Joel and starts to connect with other people, including her neighbor. He’s cute, and it’s clear they both have some interest in one another by the end of the conversation. The next episode opens with police at his home, and Sam goes on the porch to make sure everything is okay. The police tell her that he was making meth in his home. As the neighbor is being walked out of his house in handcuffs, he casually says hi to Sam. The opening theme starts playing and we get the title card. That neighbor is never mentioned again, but the matter-of-fact way both the set-up and delivery of the bit nails the payoff.