Feel Good: Mae and George’s fractured love story. Season 1 Review.

Feel Good is the autobiographical story of Mae Martin, who plays the lead character of Mae in the show. Mae is many things. A recovering drug addict, a struggling comedian, into both men and women, with a preference for straight women – it’s something about the challenge and the chase, yaknow?

Mae Martin stars opposite Charlotte Ritchie, who plays George – the straight girl breaking in her gay tendencies for the very first time. George is privileged in that she grew up in a financially stable environment, grew up as straight, and skipped over a lot of the trauma that comes with being the queer kid in the school yard because, well, she wasn’t. 

We stumbled across Feel Good on Instagram last week and we thought it looked so intriguing we sat down and binged all six episodes of season one at once. We felt many things as we watched this quirky, yet oddly important story. When we watched it, we didn’t know that it was an autobiographical tale. Now that we do know that, it hits a little differently. 

Here are our thoughts on Feel Good season one. 

Mae

Mae’s journey to meeting George in Feel Good is paved with broken glass and big black endless pot holes. Mae began using drugs at the tender age of just fourteen and struggled with addiction for an entire decade after. According to Mae’s mom, played by Lisa Kudrow, Mae spent the majority of their adolescence lying, stealing, and cheating their parents out of whatever they could to access drugs. 

Consequently, Mae ends up getting kicked out of home. The extensive details of the happenings of that period of time aren’t really hashed out too much in season one, except to say that Mae is clearly still dealing with the consequences of their choices at that time. Mae is, for lack of a better term, a bit of a train wreck. 

Mae is wickedly funny (clearly, since they are attempting to break into the comedy scene), but they’re also overly anxious, a little neurotic, and definitely one hundred percent adorable. It all makes for entertaining viewing, that’s for sure. 

While it’s clear that Mae’s sexuality seems to be fluid, their gender identity undergoes some discussion as well. Is Mae trans? Is Mae non-binary? Mae is still trying to work that one out. Mae does have a preference for girls though, and that’s where George comes in. 

George

George is a teacher, who has only ever dated men. All her friends think she is straight, her family thinks she is straight, and George thought she was straight until Mae comes along too. But George likes Mae a whole lot, so despite all that, George suddenly finds herself not straight. 

George shows up to one of Mae’s comedy shows with her friend Binky (Ophelia Lovibond). Binky is your typically average hetero that has managed to get through her life without circling around too many gays. Casually homophobic, but doesn’t really know it about herself. She is George’s best friend. 

George is kind of nuts about Mae, but she doesn’t want anyone to know it. George and Mae start dating for real, and Mae moves in. Except George is too afraid of what the people in her life will say about her newfound gayness and tells everyone she is dating a man. *insert eye-roll here please*

Despite the fact that George looks five thousand percent more put together and Mae is, as the layers come off, it’s clear as the day is long that George has some issues to work through as well. 

Love is in the air

Like all good girls who fall in love so quickly (and we feel comfortable calling them both girls because Mae doesn’t really officially come out as non-binary at this point in the show), Mae and George instantly move in together. It’s all good, until skeletons start rattling in the closet. 

See, George wasn’t aware that Mae is an addict when they shack up together. Naturally, this sparks some alarm in George. She wants to know all about what happened but Mae isn’t particularly in the sharing mood and insists that all is fine (it’s not) and that she doesn’t need an AA meeting (they do). 

George’s avoidance of introducing Mae to absolutely anyone in her life that matters induces massive amounts of anxiety in Mae. The anxiety turns into just a bit of mania, and then before we know it Mae is acting like a crazy person on the brink of a meltdown. This is the kind of stress that drives addicts to relapse. 

Mae almost relapses, but doesn’t quite go all the way. However, Mae does stand up at the comedy club, not realizing George was in the audience, and does a “comedy bit” that essentially blames all of Mae’s problems and anxiety induced crazy behaviors on George. 

It’s clear that Mae has many hang ups about dating George that they are not comfortable sharing with George, but they are comfortable sharing with a room full of strangers. Shock of all shocking horrors, George breaks up with Mae. 

Why you should watch Feel Good

Full disclosure: we’re a bunch of anxious creatives here at the Q+ Magazine offices and Mae’s anxiety gave us anxiety. Despite the fact that anxiety is never fun, what we felt was real and it kept us tapped in so much we watched all six episodes in a row. While we don’t understand everything about Mae and George’s journey, we do understand not feeling like we’re good enough, just as we are. 

George clearly doesn’t introduce Mae to her friends because she doesn’t want to deal with the rejection. She knows they’re casually homophobic and doesn’t want to have to explain herself. Except, why should she? She loves Mae. That should be all that she has to say for that love and acceptance to be afforded to her. 

And Mae clearly spirals into a nutty lunatic because they are worried that George doesn’t want to introduce them to her friends because George doesn’t love Mae enough to stand up and claim them. Because, for their entire life, that is exactly how the people around Mae have made them feel. From parents, right through to abusive and manipulative partners, Mae has constantly been made to feel that they are not enough. 

But that’s just not true. Mae is more than enough. Mae is perfectly enough. And George and Mae deserved more than the roadblocks life put in their way. But that’s the great thing about this show: this is the way of the world for many queer folks. It’s this reality that is depicted in Feel Good that kept us watching. 

It didn’t always feel good, but it really often felt real. 

If you haven’t, pull up a chair this weekend and watch Feel Good. You’ll burn through season one in no time. 

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Feel Good is streaming exclusively on Netflix. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!