Modern Love is adapted from the Time’s Styles section essay column by the same same. It is a quasi-fictional show that tells eight different tales of various kinds of people. It talks about various variations of love paternal love, self-love, the love shared between family members, young love, and old love.
Each story is fantastic in their own ways. Here they are, the best moments from each episode, ranked.
At the Hospital, an Interlude of Clarity: The Park Scene
The prelude to “At the Hospital, an Interlude of Clarity” is provided in the finale episode of Modern Love. It starts with a sudden summer storm in New York. John Gallagher Jr.’s Rob stands outside the restaurant he’s been stood up at. Sofia Boutella’s Yasmine takes cover at the very same place. “Life gives you another chance,” proclaims Sofia and asks Rob out on a date.
The actual episode is a second-date story where Rob accidentally cuts himself and Sofia spends the night at the hospital with him. Very quickly she discovers Rob’s medical history, in a way that’s almost unnerving.
The ending stands out, for it is a Notting Hill-esque park scene. The two are polar opposites, he almost can’t function in social situations owing to his anxiety and she live-blogs every event on social media. What matters is that they have accepted each other for who they really are.
Rallying to Keep the Game Alive: The Epiphany
Tina Fey and John Slattery star as a middle-aged couple in “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive”. They stay together for the sake of their kids. Tina Fey’s Sarah rants about how tired and unhappy she’s in their marriage. Her husband, Dennis, is an actor, who’s emotionally absent from their marriage, and mostly from the family life. When he is around, only his kids have his attention.
Their therapist suggests that they do something together as a couple, find common ground, a hobby. And that’s when they start playing tennis. But it is only the heart to heart conversation as a couple that acts as a catalyst to their romance. She admits that she has been an adult in their relationship, a role she’s tired of playing. Dennis slowly pushed her out of his life and that is why they are where they are today. Finally finding a common ground starts with Dennis’s apology and acceptance from Sarah.
So He Looked Like Dad. It Was Just Dinner Right: Peter Does the Right Thing
Julia Garner’s Madeline is a young adult who’s spent her years without fatherly love. So she craves for it. The more Madeline craves for it, the more she looks it in for odd places. At her friend’s 21st birthday party, she looks at her dad as if he’s talking to her.
Finally, Madeline gets a dad-crush on her boss Shea Whigham’s Peter. She fixates on him and begins to take note of his fatherly characteristics: crumbs on his sweater, little flecks of silver on his sideburns, his smell. Knowingly, or unknowingly (best left to individual judgment), Madeline leads him on.
The end of the episode is affecting. Teary-eyed, Peter tells her he’s leaving work. Peter walks off telling her she’s the daughter of any father’s dreams. And that’s all that Madeline really wanted.
Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am: Lexi Accepts Herself
“Take Me Me As I Am, Whoever I Am” is the closest thing to a La La Land. Anne Hathaway plays Lexi, an entertainment lawyer by the day. The episode begins with her filling out her bio on a dating website. Soon, she’s got herself a date with the supermarket guy and she’s excited about it. The first odd thing you hear about her is that she’s missed work. The next thing you see a montage of how her depression set in. Lexi has lived only half of her life, the rest of it, she’s spent hiding and sleeping in bed. She’s lost out on her date (Gary Carr’s Jeff) and her job. The show couldn’t have explained it better.
But confiding in a co-worker about her situation liberates her. She finally accepts herself for who is she, saying, “I felt almost proud of my condition.” Lexi rings colleagues, old boyfriends to provide an explanation for her past behavior. Lexi ends on the note of self-love and acceptance of who you really are.
When the Doorman Is Your Main Man: Guzmin’s Approval
Christin Milioti and Laurentiu Possa have incredible tenant-doorman chemistry in “When The Doorman Is Your Main Man”. She has a tendency to date the wrong kind of guys while he vets them for her. Maggie doesn’t agree with what Guzmin has to say, but she does seek him out continually.
Guzmin’s love for Maggie is thoroughly paternal, he watches over her, lends her advice when she gets pregnant accidentally. Guzmin establishes a beautiful form of paternal love between him and Maggie, by challenging various stereotypes about single-motherhood, pro-choice arguments, new age romance. The moment is stellar when they reunite years later and Guzmin approves of Maggie’s new boyfriend.
When Cupid Is a Prying Journalist: Julie Learns Why She Was Stood Up
Catherine Keener’s Julie wins hearts in “When Cupid Is a Prying Journalist”. The story begins with The Times’s Julie doing a profile on Joshua (Dev Patel), the CEO of a dating app named, Fuse. Julie and Joshua get to casually talking about dating and love, at the end of which she pries on his love-sickness.
Totally, off the record, Joshua narrates the story of how he and Emma split up. She’d almost cheated on him, he broke it off. Two years later, he still wanted her, only she was engaged. Emma gets hold of Julie’s profile on Joshua, calls him up and the two of them begin dating again.
Julie tells Joshua about her own untested love, the young man she’d met in Paris 17 years ago, the man who’d stood her up.
As fate would have it, she meets this man who tells him he’d lost the book she’d written her address on. We get one night of the two of them out together. Julie’s narration of the following words is heartwarming:
“The love we had in our past, unfinished, untested, lost love seems so easy, so childish to those of us who choose to settle down. But actually, it’s the purest, most concentrated stuff.”
Hers Was a World of One: The Confrontation
“Hers Was a World of One”, talks about a couple, Andrew Scott (Tobin) and Brandon Kyle Goodman (Andy) who share a strong paternal instinct to have a baby. They settle on open-adoption as means. Olivia Cooke (Karla) is the woman who provides them their baby. They learn that Karla is a free spirit in every sense of the word: she travels throughout the year, doesn’t believe in permanent settlement, or things, that according to her, make human beings inhuman.
In her third trimester, Karla comes to live in with Tobin and Andy. It is here that the impending Tobin versus Karla happens, and it’s worth every penny. She calls him a hipster-liberal who just claims things he doesn’t do. He tells her she’s insignificant, a world of one. Tobin and Andy are blessed with a baby girl, whom Karla sees on occasion.
The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap: Margot’s Eulogy
“The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap” is creatively brilliant. Jane Alexander plays a grieving widow named Margot. She’s lost the love of her later life, Ken to old age. This installment talks about old love and draws similarities with young love.
Margot’s eulogy is an outstanding part of the episode. She makes a strong case for how similar love of all ages is. She acknowledges, as an old couple in love, they did all the things that young people do. At the end of this funeral, Margot decides to go for a walk all by herself in a New York summer storm. That point is the beginning, the mid, and the end of some of the stories in the anthology series.
