The first season of The Four Seasons, the Netflix dramedy created by Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield, is a richly layered and genuinely funny examination of long-term friendship and the beautiful, messy realities of midlife relationships. Adapting the 1981 Alan Alda film for a modern audience, the show centers on three affluent, longtime couples whose tradition of quarterly weekend getaways is shattered by a seismic event.
The Setup: Friendship Under Siege
The series is expertly structured across eight episodes, with each pair of episodes dedicated to one of the four seasonal vacations over the course of a year. The core six are:
- Kate (Tina Fey), the hyper-organized, uptight planner, and her softer, peace-making husband Jack (Will Forte).
- Nick (Steve Carell), a man in the throes of a midlife crisis, and his devoted wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), a ceramicist.
- Danny (Colman Domingo) and his theatrically sensitive Italian husband Claude (Marco Calvani).
The catalyst for the season is a revelation dropped during the “Spring” vacation at Nick and Anne’s lake house for their 25th anniversary: Nick plans to divorce Anne. This news sets the stage for a tricky but rewarding tonal balance, mixing moments of farcical comedy with profound heartbreak, as the remaining friends struggle with whether or not to tell Anne, who is obliviously planning a vow renewal.
Comedy Rooted in Relatable Experience
What truly makes The Four Seasons shine is its comedy, which is shrewdly rooted in the shared, weary affection that only decades of friendship can breed. The show is packed with specific, hilarious lines that capture the specifics of being middle-aged, from discussing domestic dilemmas to dealing with the generational gap.
A highlight is the “Summer” episode, where Nick arrives with his new, much younger girlfriend, Ginny (Erika Henningsen), and insists on a rustic, yurt-based eco-resort instead of the group’s usual five-star accommodation. The collective discomfort of the long-married friends, and the ensuing, unforgettable necessity of dealing with the new couple’s loud sex noises, provides some of the season’s most laugh-out-loud moments.
The Emotional Core: A Flaw-Filled Ensemble
Beyond the laughs, the season is a deep dive into the fault lines of each marriage. As Kate and Jack (Fey and Forte) are forced to take sides, they start confronting the long-dormant issues in their own rock-solid union. Danny and Claude’s relationship, initially presented as relatively idyllic, faces its own crises related to health and open communication.
The acting across the ensemble is revelatory. Steve Carell (Nick) masterfully handles the tough job of playing a character who is initially quite unsympathetic, yet finds moments of vulnerability that keep him from becoming a total villain. Colman Domingo (Danny) delivers a subtle, moving performance, as does Kerri Kenney-Silver (Anne), who captures the slow, painful reckoning of a woman whose life is suddenly and completely upended.
The eight episodes follow the group from the chaos of Spring to the tensions of the “Fall” trip to their alma mater, which includes the brilliant and brutally honest specific moment of Nick’s daughter’s play. By the time the group gathers for the “Winter” holiday, the dynamics have irrevocably shifted, leading to a climax that is both shocking and surprisingly moving. The show’s ultimate strength is that it avoids falling into cynicism and instead offers grace to all its characters. It’s a reminder that no one is perfect, and that long-term love (in all its forms) requires constant, often painful, negotiation.
The Four Seasons is a sophisticated, hilarious, and ultimately heartfelt series that’s been hailed as a triumph for Fey because it tackles adult problems with intelligence, wit, and a welcome absence of mean-spiritedness.
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