One Mississippi: Tig Notaro's new Amazon Prime series

September 13, 2016 11:31 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

Tig Notaro's new series One Mississippi is a fictional "traumedy" based on events in Notaro's life, and follows her as she returns to her hometown after a double mastectomy and the sudden death of her mother. Released September 9th, the first season tells a complete story in six 30-minute episodes, with a full narrative arc that includes both dramatic and comedic high points. This post is for discussion of the entire 3-hour story, so spoilers within. (Most important spoiler: it's great.)

Daily Beast: ‘One Mississippi’: How Tig Notaro Turned Tragedy into TV’s Realest New Comedy "Prickly, dry, and melancholy-sweet..."

Deadline: ‘One Mississippi’ Review: Tig Notaro’s Amazon Traumedy Well Worth Your Time

posted by mediareport (6 comments total)

It's devastatingly good, in so many ways.

Tig is perfectly herself. Obviously, she's playing herself, in a real story, but she's not being "Stand Up Comic Tig Notaro", she's being a person who's in multiple shitty situations and reacting like a human being. The fact that she uses it for her radio show doesn't come across like the filler standup bits of early Seinfeld; it comes across as her processing the things that are going on in real time, along with the audience.

Two things I didn't like were her stepdad, who is just cartoonishly cardboardy. He grows a bit, but still seems more like a character than pretty much anyone else. Well, anyone else besides Casey Wilson, who I love so much when she's playing crazy people who are barely holding it together and don't even realize it (e.g., Happy Endings, Marry Me).

But her brother is just perfect, and the writing is top-notch, especially how they dole out info in dribs and drabs without doing too much exposition.

Which leads into possibly my favorite thing: as noted earlier, the radio bits. It would have been so easy to fall into a trap where every episode had an intro radio bit to exposit at us, or a closing radio bit to tie things all up in a neat little bow, but instead, it was just a thing that Tig did. It was her job rather than a window into her soul or whatever.

A+++ would allow it to break my heart again.
posted by Etrigan at 11:41 AM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I loved bingeing this. It's a sweet, gentle, genuinely funny and totally heartfelt show about family, illness, death and sex, and is beautifully filmed, acted and edited. The writing is excellent and mostly understated, but manages to have real emotional power. It starts a bit slow but then gets very rich, with interesting character arcs and comedic payoffs along the way. I particularly liked the balance it strikes between dramatic and comedic moments (hint: it favors the former); it doesn't revel in awkwardness but instead has well-drawn, oddly funny characters who seem fairly realistic (agree with you, Etrigan, about the stepfather; he's the only one who's too much of a caricature). Noah Harpster is perfect as Tig's brother, and the way the show handled the b-story of Tig's sex life, flirting and relationships - well, it just all worked.

Highly recommended.
posted by mediareport at 11:50 AM on September 13, 2016

Stepfather might be my favorite character so far (two episodes in), only because I grew up with people/am a person sometimes like him.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:41 PM on September 13, 2016

So good. I'm now watching all six episodes again with someone else just days after my first viewing by myself.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:08 AM on September 14, 2016

Really enjoyed the whole thing. But what really really hit me in a way I didn't expect was that graveyard scene. It's possibly one of the most cheerfully bleak scenes I have ever seen/read. The stories are heartbreaking but the presentation is so upbeat.
posted by M Edward at 9:40 AM on September 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

My takeaway is that Tig Notaro must be one of the bravest person I have ever seen.
posted by Seamus at 10:22 AM on January 23, 2017