Hahn plays Clare with the fearlessness of an actor who knows the material is strong enough that she doesn’t need to beg for love, and her faith is richly rewarded after a few chapters. The words hold power even before we’ve had a chance to warm to Clare herself, or to click to the show’s combination of gimlet-eyed clarity and unabashed sentiment. While too much voiceover can feel like a cheat in some literary adaptations, Hahn’s poignant delivery makes the most of Clare’s full-hearted prose, much of it excerpted from Strayed’s actual Dear Sugar columns. Despite the “shitshow” that is her current existence, Clare finds herself flourishing as a writer for the first time in years, dishing out replies that muse on the nature of faith, the impossibility of certainty, the importance of love. Then into that mess drops an unlikely lifeline in the form of “Dear Sugar,” an advice column she’s recruited to take on. (The 2014 film Wild, also based on Strayed’s life, would actually be the closest comparison.) The Clare we first meet in the pilot is a trainwreck: reckless, volatile and quick to announce it’s not her fault Danny kicked her out of their home after she drained their teenage daughter’s college fund. The present-day narrative unfolds in linear fashion, and seems at first not unlike other recent Hulu half-hours about messy women grappling with past trauma, a la UnPrisoned or Life & Beth. ![]() ![]() Cast: Kathryn Hahn, Sarah Pidgeon, Quentin Plair, Tanzyn Crawford, Merritt Wever, Owen Painter, Michaela Watkins, Elizabeth Hinkler
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