"The Woman Getting Drunk in the Stalking Chair in the House Across the Street from the Girl and the Hunky Dad Taking His Shirt Off in the Window"

 

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window.  An absurdly long title, but after years of 1-word Netflix titles, it comes as something of a relief.  With two women mentioned, I'm not hoping for any gay characters.  But maybe one of the women will have a cute boyfriend.

Scene 1: Closeup of a woman in a white bathrobe preparing to cook fish.  With Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup.  This commercial break has been brought to you by....  She is so flustered by a flashback of sex and death that she drops her casserole and screams.

She sits down and voice-overs us about her husband's criticism of her over-active imagination, her lack of focus, her alcohol abuse, and so on.  Sounds like a real jerk.  Fortunately, he dumped her.  Then why is she making the fish-and-mushroom-soup casserole?  Just order Chinese.

Scene 2:  Next day.  White Bathrobe is still sitting in her chair, ruminating and watching people have lives out the window.  She sees a nuclear-family moms taking her kids to school and exclaims "Shit!'  Then:  "Elizabeth, let's go!  You'll be late for school!!"  Great, so far four women and nary a penis in sight.

Scene 3:  Standing outside the school, White Bathrobe ruminates: "We tell our kids not to be afraid of monsters.  Why don't we tell them the truth?  There are monsters."  

The other nuclear family moms stare and gossip.  Well, she's still wearing a bathrobe!  She tries to scram, but one of the moms, Carol, approaches to ask how she's holding up after the breakup -- three years ago!  I usually need about 24 hours and a self-pity hookup.  

Also, you never called Mark back to confirm your date tonight.  Girl, she's way too broken for a date!  Maybe after a few years of therapy!

White Bathrobe tries to cancel, but Carol insists: Mark is a client of her husband, and if she flakes out, he'll probably cancel his big account.  Aha, Carol isn't really a friend, she's pimping out White Bathrobe for money.

Scene 4:  Back home, White Bathrobe sees movers carrying boxes into the gigantic Georgian mansion -- um, I mean middle-class home -- across the street.  She stops to ask the working-class Buell how his repair of the mail box is coming.  Finally, a man!

Inside, White Bathrobe starts her daily routine of boozing and window-staring.  She checks out some photos of her and her ex, Doug (Michael Ealy), on her phone, flashes back to their wedding reception, and gets even more depressed.  Delete them!  

Oh, boy: a cute nuclear family dad and his daughter emerge from the house across the street, to ask the movers for a cliche teddy bear.  White Bathrobe perks up, thinking "Yum!  And he's single!"  Or maybe his partner is inside, or at work, or at the gym, or at a meeting of the LGBTQ Alliance....

The phone rings.  It's Sloane, another woman, asking why she hasn't been in contact for a few days.  Also, she wants one of White Bathrobe's paintings for her new exhibition at her ritzy gallery. 

White Bathrobe checks out her paintings -- a lot of Georgia O'Keefe vagina-flowers -- and ruminates "I was so talented once."  Before hubbie left, or before you started hitting the booze at 9:00 am?

Scene 5:  Hey, White Bathrobe owns clothes.  She puts on a red dress and earrings, and asks Daughter what she thinks.  Daughter won't say, and when pressed notes that she can't do much because she's dead.  

"Oh, right.  Why do I keep forgetting that?"  So the Moms were gossipping because White Bathrobe tried to drop her dead daughter off at school.

Scene 6: In the bathtub. Carol calls, irate because White Bathrobe stood Mark up, and now her husband's business will tank.  It's Carol's fault for making the entire account depend on the action of someone who is clearly unstable.  

Suddenly there's a thud and a creak, and the trap door to the basement is swinging.  White Bathrobe walks carefully to the trap door, considers opening it, and decides to get drunker instead.  She sits in her stalking chair and watches while, across the street, Hunky Neighbor takes off his shirt -- in front of the window!  After we get a good look, he closes the curtains.  Darn!

Scene 7:  Morning.  White Bathrobe awakens to a knock at the door.  It's Hunky Neighbor (Tom Riley, with a beard), bringing her flowers. Nope, he doesn't have a secret crush on her -- they were delivered to his house by mistake!  You could have said that first, instead of the super-misleading "These are for you."   He introduces himself as Neil.  They gaze in hetero-horniness. No husband at home, darn! He leaves.

The flowers are actually from Sloane the Gallery Owner, to turn into a vagina painting.  

Scene 8: White Bathrobe visiting her daughter's grave, which she does every day.  Once a week would be more than enough.   

Back home, the Girl from Across the Street is selling chocolate bars for a school fundraiser.  She needs to sell a lot to get the other kids to like her.  Great, another severely broken person.  White Bathrobe orders five boxes and interrogates the Girl about her hunky dad.  Dead wife, naturally.  She offers to bring over a chicken casserole for dinner tonight.

Scene 9:  Bringing over the casserole.  Buford is still fixing the mailbox.  Isn't that like an hour-long job, tops?  Is he really there?

It starts to rain, which upsets White Bathrobe so much that she collapses in the middle of the street.  Hunky Neil rushes to her aid.   She explains that she suffers from ombrophobia, fear of rain.  Wouldn't you run away instead of collapsing into it?

Hunky Neil decides that this is the perfect moment to describe his wife's tragic death: she drowned at the lake house.  That's how the victim dies in 3,000 murder mysteries. But I bet the little girl did it, not Neil.

White Bathrobe counters with her daughter's tragic death.  That's not going to get you laid, girl.   They flirt a bit, and Hunky Neil leaves.

Scene 10: White Bathrobe decides to investigate the attic after all.  Nothing important up there.  She's scared by a bird, rushes to take some pills, and sits in her stalking chair.  

Across the street, Hunky Neil is on an exercise bike in front of the window.  He sees White Bathrobe watching.  Girl, you have to keep the lights off for night-time stalking.   He comes over, furious.   No -- horny. They kiss and sexify.

Wait -- nope, White Bathrobe imagined the whole thing.

Scene 11:  Morning.  Rufus is still working on that darn mailbox.  White Bathrobe brings over a new casserole, and gets invited to dinner.  Cut to the three laughing and joking and not being depressed.  Upon discovering that White Bathrobe is an artist, Little Girl displays some of her art: a duck.  I expected something scary.

Scene 12:  Dishes are done, Little Girl is in bed, it's time to sexify for real.  Well, just some accidental hand-touching, whish is apparently a major turn-on for heterosexuals.  

Scene 13:  White Bathrobe in bed, reading The Woman Across the Lake (from the Girl in the Window?).  She voice-overs that she's happy that she can finally dream of a future where she is "no longer alone."  Meanwhile, there's a shadowy figure flitting through the attic.  The end.

Beefcake: Neil takes his shirt off twice.

Gay Characters: Probably not.  Maybe Sloane the Gallery Owner.

Heterosexism:  This is all about White Bathrobe Finding Love Again, but doubtless Neil is a murderer.  Or maybe his daughter.

Buell:  Cameron Britton appears only in the first episode, so I don't know whether he's really repairing a mailbox forever, or a figment of White Bathrobe's imagination.

Top Photo: Benjamin Levy Aguilar, who appears in one episode.

My Grade:  This was actually a lot of fun.  These characters don't behave anything like real people, and the dead wives/daughters all the way down was stunningly ridiculous.  I wonder if it was intentional.  Is this supposed to be a comedy?  B.