And Just Like That... and Too Much are the television we deserve in summer 2025

Holding Space is a joint column by Anne T. Donahue and Peter Knegt that "holds space" for something or someone in popular culture.

Peter: Anne! So we are fully in the dog days of summer (a.k.a. an endless stretch of unbearable heat), and I don't know about you, but I have been spending a lot of it … watching TV in air-conditioned rooms. 

Anne: Peter, you know how I feel about these hot summer days!

I hate them. I honestly hate this season. I swear I get reverse seasonal affective disorder once it's warmer than 22 degrees. I can't be in the sun. The outdoors are none of my business. It's too hot. Air conditioning and TV are my life raft.

Which some may say is ... Too Much. See what I did there? This month we're Holding Space™ for our favourite summer TV shows, and I'm personally here for the Lena Dunham-created Netflix series starring the fantastic Megan Stalter. Y'all might also know her from Hacks or from what can only be described as her delightfully unhinged current press tour. Peter, have you seen Too Much? What are your thoughts?

Peter: I have indeed seen Too Much, and was probably more excited for it than any other show coming out this summer. And I … liked it? I wanted to love it, and there are definitely some elements of it that earn that designation (namely Stalter's performance, which I think is quite remarkable), but overall, there was something about it that just didn't quite stick the landing for me. In part, that's because of how much of a massive fan of Dunham's Girls I am. It's a show I have rewatched in its entirety several times. Suffice to say, I don't think I'll be rewatching Too Much anytime soon, but I certainly enjoyed myself.

To get into it a little bit, Too Much is basically a rom-com loosely inspired by Dunham moving to London and falling for her now husband, musician Luis Felber (who co-created the show and also created original music for it). Stalter is the stand-in for Dunham and Will Sharpe (probably best known for playing Aubrey Plaza's husband on the second season of The White Lotus) is essentially playing Felber. And the show portrays their romance in a pretty compelling way, I thought. Here are these two rather broken people trying to push through their baggage and trauma to really see each other, and thanks to some thoughtful writing and great performances by Sharpe and in particular Stalter, I was pretty into it.

What I was less into was … everything else. Too Much tries to do a lot, introducing us to more than a dozen supporting characters (including returning Girls alums like Andrew Rannells, Richard E. Grant, Rita Wilson and Dunham herself as Stalter's sister). And I struggled to care that much about the world the show built outside of its primary relationship. How did you feel about all that, Anne?

Anne: That's exactly how I felt! I cared about Stalter and I cared about Sharpe (their characters' names do not concern me), but everyone else paled in comparison. But that could also be a me-problem: I'm not great with Netflix series because I lose interest after binging too many episodes in one sitting. I think if I'd moved through Too Much on a week-by-week basis, I'd have had more time to warm up to everybody outside our dynamic duo. I like having time to think and to process! And I know that I am an adult woman with free will who can simply choose to watch one episode at a time, but get real. I make poor choices.

The thing is, I was a little nervous about Too Much — outside of being thrilled to see Stalter helm her own series and watch Lena Dunham and Andrew Rannells appear onscreen together again. I had a fraught relationship with Girls. I was in my mid-20s when it came out and really resented my demographic being portrayed as messy and complicated and often insufferable in the way Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna were. Which, again, was an absolute me-problem: I was messy and complicated and often insufferable! I still am! But at the time, I projected a lot of my own insecurities onto the series and its characters and got really reactionary about it. I even got into an actual argument with one of my best friends on her birthday at the Conestoga Mall Aerie because she liked the characters and I did not. (How very Hannah of me!)

Also, I was working on the internet at the time, and I couldn't go two hours without reading a Girls think piece — some of which I wrote. But Too Much healed that particular trauma because a) I was watching it not as a 25-year-old aspiring writer, but as a 40-year-old tired woman, and b) Lena Dunham is so good at balancing humour and emotions in her writing. Which I wish existed more in the And Just Like That… Universe. Have you been watching Carrie and co.? Do you have thoughts? I have never felt closer to absolute strangers than I am every Friday morning, watching TikTok recaps and scenes re-framed as American Horror Story instalments.

Peter: Oh, not only have I been watching And Just Like That…, I have been making it event television all summer. Not because I necessarily love it (I don't), but it's not fully "hate-watching" either. (Also, can we just retire that term?) I'd argue a third of it is actually a great show, and then the other two thirds are … a truly fascinating mess. Like the historical fiction book Carrie is writing in this season alone is one of the most psychotic things ever depicted on television, and yet I'm kind of obsessed with it? Even if it makes me yearn for the ridiculous metaphors of her Sex and the City columns at the same time.

By all accounts, Too Much is a significantly better show, but like And Just Like That…, it does stand in the shadow of its predecessor. And it simply is not as good as Girls, if only because what Dunham did with that show is pretty hard to top: She gave us one of the defining depictions of a generation while she was still living it, which is a pretty mammoth achievement. Especially when you consider that she did it while the culture unfairly treated her like garbage.

So, while Too Much is by no means a bad show, it's hard not to miss Girls a bit while you watch it. Just like it's very hard not to miss Sex and the City (and Samantha Jones in particular) when you watch And Just Like That…. Watching these two shows alongside one another has honestly been a bit of a trip, because it's felt like we are getting extended universe editions of two of the greatest television contributions to female-focused storytelling at the same time (and two of my favourite shows ever), and yet, neither of them are what we really want. But that also somehow seems weirdly appropriate, because I kinda feel like that's what we as a society deserve in 2025. 

Anne: Oh, we deserve nothing but crumbs in 2025, so I'll take these spoils. And I will also gladly take Too Much! I will take it and I will embrace it. I think it's a palatable entry point into the Lena Dunahm universe, too. If you were a wee babe in the 2010s, Too Much is the gateway for the preceding cultural touchstone. Kind of like watching Veep and realizing In the Loop is also by Armando Iannucci, and then going back and watching that.

As for And Just Like That…, I mean, look: I don't want to use the term "hate-watching" either, but has any other show garnered so much discussion and camaraderie and extremely funny hot takes? To me, it's completely separate from the original Sex and the City because nothing about the characters is narratively congruent. It kind of reminds me of playing Barbies and basing the storyline on a movie and pretending your dolls look like, say, Han Solo and Princess Leia. But it's also fun. It's not an offensive show! It's bizarre, and I think Aidan Shaw is a worse villain than Walter White, but it's in the Love Island or Bachelor realm for me. It bolsters community by being so over-the-top that we, as a people, have no choice but to make jokes because what is this? 

And that's my favourite genre of TV, to be frank! Remember watching The O.C. in its last season and being like, "Why is Chris Pratt in this?" (A question I ask every time Chris Pratt is in anything.) Or the last season of The Hills and wondering why we were expected to believe anything that was happening? TV got so serious post-"golden age," and I follow And Just Like That… because it is so un-serious. Too Much has enough character development for it to make you critically think, but Carrie and friends is like microwave popcorn in television form. Does that make sense, or am I simply craving popcorn?

Peter: Both things can be true! And honestly, nothing has ever made more sense to me than declaring Aidan Shaw a worse villain than Walter White. If there's one thing And Just Like That… absolutely needs to do to keep me watching forever, it's kill off Aidan by the end of the season. Although who I am kidding? I'll keep watching it forever anyway.