In every circle of friends there's that couple whose conjugal unhappiness is concealed by a thin layer of sandwich wrap, whose boisterous social interactions occasionally slip from forced frivolity to actual discomfort and whose emotional dam is at bursting point largely in part due to unspoken angst and too much alcohol.
Well, Divorce (Showcase, Wednesdays, 8.30pm), isn't about them, as amusing as they are.
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Trailer: Divorce
A couple goes through a long, drawn-out divorce.
In this narrative that couple are Diane (Molly Shannon) and Nick (Tracy Letts) and were it not for the fact that they were supporting players in a darker, more sombre marital drama, you could write the whole show off as a kind of post-Arrested Development marital misery comedy.
Instead, this is about the couple sitting silently on their sidelines, watching in silence at the unfolding horror, and knowing that were it not for better acting classes, tighter dialogue and the best comedy moustache since Anchorman's Ron Burgundy (honourable mention to Parks and Rec's Ron Swanson) the whole room would be onto the fact that they, too, are unhappy.
![Thomas Haden Church and Sarah Jessica Parker in <i>Divorce</I>.](/web/20161012184014im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/f/4/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grzhgz.png/1476187518284.jpg)
That couple are Frances (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Robert (Thomas Haden Church) and they are in fact the stars of this story, not Diane and Nick, though it is a particularly hideous exchange between Diane and Nick that serves as the catalyst for Frances to own up to her husband that she wants out of their marriage.
Those scenes, in particular, are brilliant, bringing a touch of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf into the world of TV comedy.
Divorce comes from British writer Sharon Horgan (her other recent major credit is Catastrophe, which is also brilliant) who tries very hard to upend your expectations.
Here, however, it is Frances, not Nick, who owns up to having an extramarital affair, leaving the husband as the wronged party and the wife carrying the guilt over the disintegration of their marriage. Though why anyone would leave their husband for a man named Julian is anyone's guess.
![The cast of <i>Sex and the City</i> (from left) Kirsten Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall.](/web/20161012184014im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/3/o/o/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grzhgz.png/1476187518284.jpg)
There is another hurdle here: the audience's inability to disconnect Parker, whose performance has a lovely if slightly dour energy, from her other alter-ego, Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw. Frances is no Carrie, but that character is so omnipresent in the cultural consciousness it's hard to separate her from the actor. And, indeed, Parker's brilliance in giving life to her.
To follow that line of thinking, it should also be said that Divorce is no Sex and the City, even if that series was a young woman's search for Mr Right and Divorce, in its title at least, sounds like a perfect, if depressing, sequel.
![A long way from the City: Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church in <i>Divorce</I>.](/web/20161012184014im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/z/o/u/1/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grzhgz.png/1476187518284.jpg)
That, at least initially, is the biggest hurdle to get over. Because Sex and the City was full of light whimsy, even when it tried to be very serious. And Carrie Bradshaw always had the safety net of Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, no matter how bad things got between her and her on-again-off-again beau Mr Big.
There are no safety nets in Divorce, and for a time it feels like the opening episodes are in emotional freefall, Frances and Robert wading knee-deep through doom and gloom.
The dialogue is brilliant and the nuance is extraordinary; Horgan confirms here she is a brilliant writer. But the mood is glum, almost inescapably so.
The casting of the series is top notch too. Frances and Robert would be hideous were it not for the fact that Parker and Church, who have an individual authenticity and a natural chemistry, are in the roles.
And their own shared darkness might be wholly overwhelming were it not for the fact that other players, such as Shannon and Letts, are there to shine a ridiculous light on the show's morose heart.
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