Are you Team Josh or Team Charles? Unless you're Team Younger (now streaming on Stan) you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But you will soon, I'll get to that.
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To quickly recap six seasons, Younger is the story of Liza Miller, a 40-year-old divorcee (I love that word) who fakes her identity, pretending to be a sprightly 26, so she can get a job in the publishing industry. Along the way she meets Josh, a tattoo artist, also 26, and the pair hit it off, as my nana used to say. When she gets the publishing job she meets Charles, far more age appropriate and the head of the company where she is working.
I'm not going to give too much of the next five seasons away, suffice to say, now, at the end of season six, Liza is in a position where she may once and for all have to choose which team she's on.
It's an interesting show to discuss with your millennial colleagues. They're firmly on team Josh. I get that. I would want to date him if I was 26. He's cute, affectionate, loyal. I'm not sure about the tattoo thing, but that's the 52-year-old me talking. My colleague Amy Martin, who, when she's not busy filling the paper with interesting lifestyle stories, had this to say:
"Sure Josh is 14 years her junior but at the end of the day should it really matter? After all, Charles didn't seem to mind when he thought Liza was 14 years his junior? You can argue men mature slower than women, but then you would be ignoring the fact Josh was never a clueless 20-something, and Liza isn't someone to settle for someone who can't keep up with her intellectually. What this debate should actually come down to is who brings out the best Liza. It can be said Charles has more in common with Liza, but there is a certain sense of freedom, playfulness and excitement which comes out in Liza around Josh which I would argue does not come out in her around anyone else."
Oh dear Amy - watch me slip into condescending Gen X mode, with all due respect - how can you not see Charles is by far the best pick for Liza. They both are divorcees, with teenage children - did I mention Josh has a brand new baby? Who wants to go through that again? - they're at an age where they don't really want to have roommates (although Debi Mazar, as Maggie, Liza's roommate is one of my favourite characters), they are grown-ups. Josh is lovely. But he's a puppy that still needs some house-training. Charles is a purebred. Sure, he might not jump on you, lick your face and try and hump your leg, but he's never going to poop on the carpet.
So I guess the whole point of this is, is there an age, younger or older, where you should choose the guy that seems right at the time, but you know, perhaps in the long run, he won't be the right one. Mr Right for Right Now.
Another of my favourite shows I've put Amy on to is Netflix's Workin' Moms, starring Catherine Reitman. it follows a group of women who meet in mothers' group when they all have new babies. Over the course of the next few years, they return to work, start new relationships, have more babies. It's confronting and funny and way too close to home. Watch it as soon as you can.
So, in the final episodes of season three, Reitman's character Kate has discovered her husband Nathan has been having an affair with her best friend's nanny. She leaves him, eventually meets a hot guy from work, after shagging the young office boy a few times, and is now at the point where she has to choose between going back to her philandering husband or hook up with the hot guy. Who is seriously hot.
It's ironic that in Workin' Moms I'm rooting (to use that coy north American term) for Kate to hook up with the hot guy, and leave her pathetic husband who could do nothing but complain how she paid him no attention. But in Younger I'm wanting Liza to make the sensible choice and be with Charles. He's solid, dependable, he likes books. And yes, he's pretty bloody hot too.
Who knows, as we negotiate relationships in all stages of our lives, who we should choose. We all remember those people who, as Amy said, bring out a sense of excitement in us, but can we, when we're older, not younger, take that risk? Mr Right is elusive but can we gamble on that Mr Right for Right Now? Perhaps we should.