She is vulnerable and strong and capable of a bit of kookiness He's uptight in that LA way. In the first episode of Togetherness, (Thursdays, Soho, 9pm) Michelle (Melanie Lynskey) was caught by husband Brett (Mark Duplass) doing something peculiar, in bed, alone.
"Why," he wanted to know, enraged and perplexed in equal measure, "do you have clothes pins on your boobs?" She was also reading Fifty Shades of Grey, which may or may not be a clue but having not read the thing, perhaps as I fear it features people doing peculiar things with clothes pins, I don't care to delve too closely. Neither did Michelle. "I don't know," she said, as perplexed as Brett.
Lynskey is terrific as a youngish LA mom, adrift in a marriage which is neither wildly happy nor wildly unhappy. She has two young kids and a husband who is a sound engineer - a job on the periphery of the Hollywood glam scene and so which might count as being neither wildly successful nor wildly unsuccessful. She is vulnerable and strong and capable of a bit of kookiness; a properly formed character. He is uptight, in that LA way - "there's so much gluten in this taco" - and a bit of a bore, but he is good-hearted. His best friend Alex (Steve Zissis) is a failed actor and, in LA terms, a failed human being. He's losing his hair and he's fat. "People look at me like I'm a f***ing whale... They want to f***ing harpoon me."
Alex tries to take his bag of donuts away. "This is tough love." Alex is evicted from his scummy apartment and goes to live with Michelle and Brett, who don't have a spare room. He bunks on a couch in the living room where the other couch is about to be taken by Michelle's sister, Tina (Amanda Peet), who is a bit of an airhead dreamer and can't keep a guy. She is dumped by a creep with OCD who keeps a tiny portable vacuum cleaner handy at all times.
