TV shows we love: Uncoupled

I’ve loved several TV shows Neil Patrick Harris has done. I obsessively watched How I Met Your Mother, then watched him play Count Olaf in the beloved, comic and dark series A Series of Unfortunate Events and now, as Michael Lawson in Uncoupled, a Netflix 2022 show.

In this most recent series, Harris’ character is rather different to the womaniser or evil uncle he has portrayed in the past. In Uncoupled, he plays Michael, a New-York real estate agent who has been happily in love with his boyfriend for 17 years. But, on his boyfriend’s milestone birthday, for which Michael organised a mega-big party with all of their family and friends, he gets dumped. His boyfriend breaks up with him moments before his surprise party and they have to endure a very awkward birthday gathering.

Single for the first time in nearly two decades, and heart-broken, Michael tries to put the pieces of his life back together and navigate the world as a single person. Not a couple anymore but… Uncoupled. As he tries to understand what led to the break-up he also attempts to re-enter the dating scene yet in the 17 years he’s been away, he finds that New York’s gay dating world has changed. Dating apps, casual sex dates and weird requests are common now as Michael discovers through tragi-comical situations, still trying to find his place in the world as a single person.

‘Newly single, forgot how to mingle’ is the show’s tagline and the dating experiences and post-break-up blues Michael goes through are relatable to all, whether in the LGBTQI+ community or not. The story has, of course, its ups and downs and ends on a cliffhanger that made me want to grab Michael out of the screen and shake him to his senses. That’s for season 2 to reveal, I guess.