If you haven’t gotten the chance to watch all six episodes of The Bisexual on Hulu yet, you’re probably wondering what to expect. But as someone who has watched all six episodes of The Bisexual, I’m not even sure if I can accurately describe what you should expect either. At the very least, I can say one thing to just completely ignore is the idea that this is just the British version of Girls. Because it seems like any female-led (and created and written) half-hour dramedy these days is compared to Girls, whether that holds up under any sort of scrutiny or not. (It typically does not, but this is all a soapbox for another day.)
Just to get everyone up to speed, The Bisexual is a new series starring, created by, co-written by, and directed by Desiree Akhavan (writer/director of Appropriate Behavior and The Miseducation of Cameron Post). In the series, Akhavan plays Leila, an Iranian-American living in London, who breaks off her romantic partnership of over a decade with Sadie (Maxine Peake) — who is also her business partner, so you can imagine the awkwardness that ensues — in order to explore the singledom she missed out on in her 20s. Of course, the issue becomes the fact that this exploration involves her acting on her attraction to men (despite identifying as a lesbian) for the first time in her life.
The Bisexual focuses on Leila pretty much having the quarter-life crisis she didn’t get to have in her 20s, and despite the (very played out, yet still prolific) stereotypes about bisexuals, Leila’s decision to open herself up sexually and romantically to the opposite sex doesn’t suddenly lead to a buffet of options, either male or female. Not only is she starting from scratch when it comes to men, she also sometimes ends up on a trial of sorts from the men themselves, wondering what it is about them that made a lesbian all of a sudden consider them the right man for the job. (It’s actually a pretty funny subversion of the toxic masculine idea that all it takes is the right man to turn a lesbian straight, and that’s before the series even brings out a parody of a human who exists as that type of character.)
Despite the series title, Leila doesn’t go around calling herself a (or the) bisexual at any point. In fact, she pretty much proclaims to anyone she can — especially once people start questioning her own questioning of her sexuality — that she’s a lesbian. But she’s still treated like a unicorn out in the wild (and not even in a good way, more like the evil unicorn in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) to the point where everyone else around her might as well just be calling her “the bisexual” instead of “Leila.” And if they were to do so, it would definitely be in a pointed manner at worst and simply a confused one at best. Because if Leila is confused, then her heterosexual roommate Gabe (Brian Gleeson), pretty much a walking stereotype of a tortured golden-boy writer, simply has no idea what’s going on when it comes to Leila’s sexuality, or her existence as a human being who exists past any particular label.
(An aside: If nothing else sways you to watch this series, please know that I really need someone to talk to about the fact that Brian Gleeson, brother of Domhnall and son of Brendan, spends this entire show looking like a poor man’s Ewan McGregor, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is truly distracting in every scene he’s in.)
It should come as no surprise that The Bisexual is quite the personal story for Akhavan, as the very idea of “the bisexual” is based on a feeling of otherness Akhavan specifically wanted to explore. As she said in an interview with the New York Times:
“I heard myself described as ‘the bisexual’ at every other introduction: ‘the bisexual filmmaker,’ ‘the bisexual Iranian-American,’ ‘the bisexual Lena Dunham.’ … For some reason, hearing that word made my stomach flip, in a non-fun way. And I wanted to explore that.”
I spent a good portion of The Bisexual’s six episodes flip-flopping between wondering whether I really, truly enjoyed the show or not. Part of that honestly was because of the half-hour dramedy aspect of it all, because while I definitely laughed at certain moments in the show early on, it was as though it was hitting the guffaws of the other British-to-U.S. comedy transplant it’s currently being compared to all the time right now (Sally4Ever). The tones and intentions between the two shows couldn’t be any more different, but still: Both are British comedies that are airing the United States, and both are tackling sexuality, so that’s really all the fuel one needs to draw comparisons.
But focusing just on what The Bisexual is by itself and without comparison to any other outside material, I’m not sure I got at first exactly what the show wanted to be or if the show even quite knew what it wanted to be. Of course, there were plenty of interviews with Desiree Akhavan to explain that specifically, but those wouldn’t necessarily matter if the material itself couldn’t reflect her interpretation and intent. (The New York Times interview is one of the many pieces on the show I’ve read since watching it.) So since I’m the type of person who goes long past the three-and-done rule of new television viewing, I figured I could easily stick it through six episodes of television, essentially telling a full story, with minimal mental wear and tear as a result.
However, as laissez-faire as I was about watching the show at first, by the final two episodes, everything just kind of fell into place. Finally, the plot points in the series I couldn’t see the very point of came into focus, and random moments I’d actually considered pretty funny albeit perhaps inconsequential throughout had even funnier pay-offs. For the most part, with British television — even coming from an American perspective — the much shorter length of a season means any and all meandering has to have a point, because sometimes it’s difficult to see the forest through the trees leading up to a very sudden finale. By episode six of most American network shows, things could either just be “getting good” or they’re actually halfway through the season; but neither version is close to the very end of the season (and possibly the story as a whole). As Akhavan also stated in the New York Times interview:
“I think it will turn off a lot of viewers. I want to know why that is, and to stand by it: I know that I’m playing the long game and I want you to watch this thing and be like ‘Oh, it’s not what I thought it would be.’”
As I compliment the final two episodes of the season, it’s also with the acknowledgment that they only work as well as they do because of the four episodes that come before it. And while I wasn’t sure of my feelings about the series at first, with the full picture it ended up being worth it, especially as a now-instantly rewatchable series. And let’s be honest, three hours of television isn’t so much of a commitment as it is a fling, so to get so much from the full picture is also impressive. That’s what to expect with The Bisexual.
