Stars: 4.5/5
“Love” has returned to Netflix for a third season to develop its characters and prove just how real love can be.
The past two seasons have shown how young love can be weird and awkward in your 20s. When do you become too old for the strings attached to young love? The two main characters of the show, Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) and Gus (Paul Rust) show us how a realistic love story unfolds.
The third season of “Love” shows Mickey and Gus in the best part of any relationship – six months in. They are still in the new part of the relationship, so things are fresh and exciting, but they are far enough in to be comfortable with each other. Mickey and Gus are surrounded by two other couples who are in very different stages of love. Mickey’s roommate is fighting with her current partner, and Gus’ friends are married and sick of each other. Mickey and Gus use this to strengthen their own relationship, however, they still have their problems.
In the first few episodes, they are disgustingly happy and affectionate. As the episodes string on, Mickey and Gus find their relationship may not be as perfect as they thought. In the fourth episode, Mickey conveniently gets sick, causing Gus to abandon his friends and miss out on what was supposed to be a fun day. As he nurses Mickey, who allegedly has food poisoning, he too gets sick and begins to throw up. He blames Mickey for not taking care of him, though she is also sick. The two lovebirds get into a heated fight over their different nurturing behaviors and hash it out until they forget what they were fighting about in the first place. This seems to be a trend in their relationship; they fight until one of them releases how trivial the argument is.
The show also delves into the separate lives of the two main characters. Mickey works at a radio station and deals with the drama of the radio hosts, while Gus is an on-set tutor for a teen drama show’s cast. Gus deals with the teen actors well, but the real life stress of his failing dream to become a director keeps him in a constant panic.
In the third season, Mickey is given a higher position at work and is excelling at her job, while Gus remains the laughing stock for the more successful T.V. show writers. In the middle of the season, Gus and Mickey’s differing success levels become more of an issue, causing them to reevaluate their positions.
This season develops Mickey and Gus’s relationship, along with their separate plots. We learn more about who they were before they met each other and how they’ve changed as a result. Judd Apatow’s production shows how real, painful and all-around goofy love can really be.
