Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Big Mood’ on Tubi, A Dramedy About Mental Illness That’s Jam-Packed With Laughs And ‘Love, Actually’ References

Nicola Coughlan shines in the new Tubi series Big Mood as Maggie, a young woman who’s off her bipolar meds and trying to live a normal life. Lydia West stars as Eddie, Maggie’s best friend with problems of her own, but who is very much aware that her friend is experiencing some high highs and some deep lows.

BIG MOOD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Maggie (Nicola Coughlan) rolls down the sidewalk on a motorized scooter and she’s really feeling herself. But she catches a glimpse of herself in a windowed storefront, realizes she looks kind of ridiculous riding the thing, and points to the scooter, asking the first people she sees, “Hey, do you want this?”

The Gist: The first episode of Big Mood is called “Up,” and it catches Maggie cresting over a manic episode, though you don’t really figure that out until her friend Eddie (Lydia West) asks her point blank at the end, “Are you manic?” Thus far, Maggie’s personality is exuberant and reckless: she’s a young woman approaching 30 with aspirations of being a playwright (early reviews of her first Fringe show were… discouraging), but that doesn’t stop her from asking her old school if she could come give a career talk to some students. Eddie, who runs a bar that she owns with her brother, thinks this is a terrible idea because not only is Maggie not successful, but she hasn’t even prepared anything to say to the students. She tags along to the school under the guise that she’s Maggie’s publicist named Adele Dazeem to make Maggie seem more impressive, and for what it’s worth, one of Maggie’s old classmates, a woman named Alison who is now the school’s dance teacher, does seem impressed by Maggie and is ecstatic to see her. The school principal, Mr. Wilson, also seems happy to see Maggie – he was her old history teacher who once saved her from being preyed upon by an inappropriate math teacher, and since then, Maggie’s harbored a crush on him.

Eddie realizes that Maggie’s motive for visiting the school was not actually to speak to the kids (she’s truly terrible at it, until she earns the students’ respect by telling them what a waste of time school actually is), but to flirt with Mr. Wilson. After the presentation ends, Mr. Wilson reveals that he’s been thinking about Maggie non-stop for 15 years, and the two tear each others’ clothes off and passionately start having sex on his desk, when Alison, the dance teacher, walks in, and that’s when we – and Maggie – learn that she’s Mrs. Wilson. The Wilson kids get their phones out to film their dad and Maggie having sex (excellent Tik Tok content, naturally) and Maggie and Eddie run out of the school, Maggie exhilarated by the entire escapade. She’s completely unbothered by anything that just happened, while Eddie is concerned. What she knows, and what we are about to find out, is that Maggie is bipolar, hence the reason she asks her friend if she’s manic, adding, “because if you are, you know what comes next.”

What comes next is the second episode which is, by contrast, titled, “Down,” and even though Maggie is struggling with depression throughout it, there’s still comedy to be mined from the fact that Eddie throws her a Love, Actually-themed birthday party. Maggie can’t really bear to stay at the party and fake her way through extroversion, but the fact that Eddie has dressed as Laura Linney’s character and wants Maggie to play her mentally ill brother mines the situation for some very dark comedy. The show’s four subsequent episodes continue to do just that, using Maggie’s struggle as fuel for dark humor, pathos, and conflict.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Despite the fact that the show is based around Maggie’s mental health, Eddie and Maggie’s friendship feels like there are shades of Ilana and Abbi from Broad City, always up for anything, good or bad. There are also obvious shades of shows like Aisling Bea’s This Way Up, another drama-comedy that tackles mental health, and Fleabag, particularly that show’s first season (pre-hot priest) as we unravel the mystery between Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character and her best friend, Boo.

Our Take: There are some shows that live on in our memories because they make us wish we were part of their worlds. This thought crossed by mind while I watched the second episode of Big Mood, as Maggie attended her Love, Actually-themed birthday party where every character on the show committed to the Richard Curtis-inspired bit, each one dressing as a very specific character from that film, including one dressed as an eel that attacked Colin Firth. It reminded me of the absurdity of Happy Endings, whose pop culture references and Halloween episodes, which were just excuses for truly hilarious sight gags, made me wistful for the world those characters inhabited.

Big Mood, like Happy Endings (and 30 Rock and Girls5Eva…), is a sitcom that’s so densely packed full of jokes that you have to watch it twice to catch them all. The fact that it’s also trying to portray the nuances of a woman who has chosen to go off of her mood stabilizers in order to regain some control over her creative life is yet another layer to the show, and one that doesn’t feel like a PSA or educational tool, it simply feels like an aspect of Maggie’s life that’s serious, but not so serious that it can’t be mined for jokes.

As much as this show is about Maggie’s literal ups and downs, Lydia West’s Eddie is every bit as important and deserves to be recognized for playing the one stabilizing force in Maggie’s life. Eddie’s life is not without its problems; the rat-infested bar she inherited from her father, which her brother wants to sell, is a constant worry for her, but she’s a problem solver, a fixer, in work and in friendship. If she were any less stable, the show might go off the rails and feel too chaotic. Fortunately, every aspect of the show feels balanced: the comedy plays off the drama, the chaos is tempered by moments of calm. Credit is due to Camilla Whitehill’s sharp writing, which is perfectly executed by the show’s talented cast, from leads down to the supporting players and guests, including Sally Phillips and Joanna Page.

Sex and Skin: Sex is present, but not terribly graphic, and there are some dirty references and sex jokes throughout the show.

Parting Shot: Maggie lies down on her couch in that day’s cute outfit with a smile on her face. Day turns to night and we see her lying in the same position on her couch wearing a ratty old t-shirt with a much different look on her face, to imply that her mood has begun its downswing.

Performance Worth Watching: Nicola Coughlan has always been a scene stealer as a part of the ensemble casts of Derry Girls and Bridgerton, and she gets a chance to shine here in every way possible; her physical comedy and line deliveries are balanced evenly with her portrayal of a young woman struggling with internal challenges beyond her control.

Memorable Dialogue: “You’re a nightmare,” Eddie tells Maggie as she drops her off at her house after the day’s adventures. “But you looooove me,” Maggie yells back, as if to firmly cement the fact that this is their BFF dynamic.

Our Call: STREAM IT! Every aspect of Big Mood, from the chemistry between Coughlan and West, the sharp, comedic commentary on pop culture and social media, and the nuanced handling of mental illness is responsible for this show being a must-watch.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.