A24’s ‘It Gets Worse’ Updates ‘Girls’ for British Gen Z: TV Review

The series “It Gets Worse” is a star vehicle for its 20-something writer-creator that skewers a dysfunctional friend group flailing about in a big city. Though there are important distinctions — the protagonist is a gay man, not all the main characters are white and the action unfolds in London rather than the Big Apple — the influence of “Girls” is unmistakable. But by the time the parallels really sink in, “It Gets Worse” has beaten you to the punch. Yes, an underemployed striver being told their internship won’t result in the professional boost they were hoping for is a story beat straight out of Lena Dunham’s magnum opus. This time, however, the boss breaking the bad news is played by Dunham herself.

Leo Reich, the lead and creative voice of “It Gets Worse,” collaborated with Dunham on her Netflix show “Too Much,” in which he played one of the heroine’s chaotic co-workers. It’s possible Dunham saw a kindred spirit in the comedian, another precocious child of urban creatives (Reich’s father is a film producer) with a keen eye for his peers’ self-delusion. If Hannah Horvath was a voice of a generation, a joke that’s slowly acquired a ring of earnestness as “Girls” has passed the test of time, then Dunham’s cameo marks a passing of the baton from millennials to Gen Z.

Originally produced by the über-hip studio A24 for the U.K.’s Channel 4, where the show premiered last month and will air on Paramount+ in the U.S., “It Gets Worse” clocks in at a tight and typically British half-dozen episodes. As such, the plot zeroes in on a suitably narrow slice of time: the window between college friends turned roommates Ethan (Reich), Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray) having to move out of one apartment — sorry, flat — and signing a lease on another. Whether they’ll actually relocate is an open question given the trio’s poor collective decision-making. Selfish, hapless Ethan gets too distracted by internet scrolling to fix a hole in the wall and loses their security deposit, much to Sam’s ire. Abi actually wants to move in with her boyfriend, Tom (Sean Delaney), but can’t bring herself to tell the others. Sam, an aspiring writer, supplements her Substack essays with standardized test tutoring that still may not be enough to cover London rent.

Everyone’s inner monologue is narrated by no less than author Zadie Smith, whose voice-over’s cool assurance forms a productive contrast with the characters’ anxious scrambling. (When Dunham’s girlboss tells Abi she apologizes too much, the younger woman’s first instinct is to say she’s sorry.) Reich suffers slightly from the paradox of early comedic success: Failure is funny, so Ethan is a hot mess while the person playing him counts Pulitzer finalist Smith — plus Dunham and BAFTA winner Andrew Scott, also a guest star — as a collaborator. Yet “It Gets Worse” is on point enough in its diagnosis of generational malaise that the irony quickly fades.

“Ethan had one of the easiest lives in recorded human history,” Smith begins. But that relative comfort has only provided more opportunities for self-sabotage. Abi seems to like the lifestyle that comes with settled monogamy more than her actual boyfriend. (The foodie satire, like the portrait of Anthony Bourdain Tom hangs in the kitchen, cuts particularly deep.) Ethan chases after straight guys who treat him like shit. Sam is hung up on an ex who invites her to crash at a queer commune that hosts sex parties with consent forms. Not all their problems — see Brexit — are of their own making, but many are. As the title suggests, “It Gets Worse” has pessimism baked in from the jump. Yet the show’s resigned nihilism, softened with gallows humor, takes after Ethan, who once contemplated suicide but found sourcing enough paracetamol too much of a hassle. What’s left except to muddle through?