A breezy show about three women navigating divorce, friendship, and work
in South Carolina abounds in margaritas and its role as comfort food TV.
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| Sweet Magnolias review: Stream It or Skip It |
Sweet Magnolias, a breezy Netflix
series about three best friends somewhere outside of Charleston, South
Carolina, is a show that knows the potential – and limits – of its
ingredients. Created by Sheryl J Anderson and based on the series of
novels by Sherryl Woods, it stars three steadily working but not
well-known actors, whose episodic orbit is not the local coffee shop or
bar but the couch, weekly margarita in hand. There, they extoll the
messes of their lives (balance, jobs, motherhood) which, in real life,
can be overwhelming; here, it’s mixed with light tea-spilling, perfectly
coiffed hair and expertly mixed drinks.
It is, in other words, incredibly low-stakes television, a streamlined
version of Lifetime or CW (think Hart of Dixie) content, the enjoyment
of which depends, like their staple margaritas, on one’s personal
pressure release valve and tolerance. Kicking back with it feels
indulgent and mindless, an easy slide into a binge, syrupy with enough
tart to keep it moving. It can range from pre-bottled to slightly
distinct but is still what it is: unpretentious, with all the requisite
parts, a balm for some and too “rosé all day” for others.
Sweet Magnolias takes place in a self-contained town where everyone
knows each other, all hardships are personal, and all flaws are
ultimately redeemed. Naturally, it’s called Serenity, and its focal
point is a charming but taste-signifying restaurant owned and operated
by chef Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott), who grew up in the town with best
friends Helen (Heather Headley) and Maddie (Joanna Garcia Swisher). In
keeping with the town name, Sweet Magnolias eschews melodrama for more
down-to-earth, mundane struggles; the most explosive scandal – Maddie’s
doctor husband, Bill (Chris Klein, literally straining through a
southern accent), having an affair and impregnating a nurse, Noreen
(Jamie-Lynn Spears, also straining, though that’s beside the point), and
breaking up the family – takes place before the first episode, which
opens with their divorce proceedings.
Instead, the series ambles from Maddie’s indignation to recovery in the
arms of her friends, who endeavor to somehow renovate a beloved old home
into a women-only “spa” (wellness center) in a month or so. The project
allows each woman to demonstrate satisfying competency – Helen as a
no-holds-barred lawyer, Dana Sue as a perfectionist chef, Maddie as an
event planner balancing caring for her of two teenage sons and a young
daughter – with small, absorbing complications.
Their tribulations over the course of the 10-episode season, eight of
which were available to critics, are momentous in real life but, in TV
terms, tame – there are no tragic accidents or explosive love triangles,
but stage-of-life quandaries that will likely feel relatable to many in
the target audience. Maddie wades into life beyond divorce with an
attraction to her son’s baseball coach, Cal (Justin Bruening); Helen is a
successful careerist coming to terms with her desire to have a family,
man or no; Dana Sue channels the trust issues scorched by her ex-husband
into work, and struggles to ask for help.
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| Img Source: Netflix |
Their kids, meanwhile, also wade through what feel surprisingly like
grounded high school drama, not the trauma of Euphoria or craziness of
Outer Banks but more mundane mortifications: getting too drunk once at a
party, the post-life of a too-vulnerable text, dealing with parents
upset with your grades. The Magnolia’s children – Maddie’s sons Tyler
(Carson Rowland) and Kyle (Logan Allen) and Dana Sue’s Annie (Anneliese
Judge) – also, refreshingly, look like they’re actually 15.
The view of the south in the series is similarly benign, with only a
palatable kick of anything awry – it’s mentioned once that, in the past,
Helen’s high school love was complicated by his parents’ disapproval of
him dating a black girl. Otherwise, Serenity is unremarkably diverse
and harmonious – or, at least, the gossipy small town-ness is evenly
spread among the town’s black and white inhabitants, who talk a lot
about each other but not about race. Which is fine – for some shows,
especially those whose budgets and marketing invite scrutiny for its
overwhelming meaning, such omissions would be notable flaws.
But Sweet Magnolias is not trying to be that show; it is consciously
aiming for pleasant. If you’re watching, you’re knowingly submitting to a
world where the conditions of modern life (social media, texting) are
arbitrarily applied and the horror of America’s racial contract is out
of sight.
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