Fleishman is in Trouble also is an eight-episode saga about time, relationships and the limits of empathy. The excellent cast and storytelling are really in sync and by the end his wisdom becomes inescapable.

Fleishman Is in Trouble is based on the novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and is the new television series created by Brodesser-Akner.

Toby Fleishman, a doctor, coming from a Jewish family, meets, falls in love and marries Rachel, a theater manager, orphaned at an early age. They have two children together and the series begins with their divorce.

The first genius element of the series is that the story of the collapse of their marriage is told in a third person.

Libby (Lizzy Caplan) is a men’s magazine reporter (just like Brodesser-Akner, editor of GQ and, more recently, the New York Times Magazine). Underemployed and somewhat lost in suburban New York, she devotes her energies to covering the divorce of her old friend Toby (Jesse Eisenberg) and his wife (Claire Danes).

Libby’s busy schedule, her attention to detail, and the time she spends with her old boyfriend allow her to establish, first, Toby’s point of view, a rejected and abused husband, while always trying for the best. Now, he’s separated from his wife of 15 years and is finally rediscovering the world through dating apps. He has a lot of sex. A whole world of opportunities has opened up for him, or so it seems. This lasts until he has to look after his two young children after his ex-wife suddenly leaves the children at his apartment early one morning and disappears.

Over the course of the series and in the episode Me Time we see Rachel’s perspective. Danes and Caplan give excellent performances that show how there are no clear villains in these complex life crises and evoke an incredible sense of tenderness for the women experiencing grief, anger and uncertainty. Brodesser-Akner confidently walks a fine line in how to present these wounded women so that we understand more about why they did what they did.

Rachel is presented, through Toby’s eyes, as neglectful, constantly nagging and never making him feel enough. To him, Rachel is the social-climbing workaholic mom who had an affair with her friend’s husband and abandoned her children for whatever selfish reason she had.

But her true story, her life experiences that almost no one knows about are shocking and moving. Rachel is fueled by the fear of not being loved, wanted, accepted which, in this funny irony about fears, leads her to make choices that marginalize herself more and more.

Brodesser-Akner is the writer of seven of the series’ eight episodes

Libby’s perspective is that of a keen observer, a reporter of real life. The world of the series is carefully designed. He’s a surgeon and she’s a theater talent manager, the couple disagrees on most of the everyday, one doesn’t understand the other, they don’t spend time together. This marriage doesn’t make anyone happy, least of all the kids (Meara Mahoney Gross and Maxim Swinton).

Toby Fleishman and Rachel Fleishman suffer endlessly and simultaneously and their separate personal melancholies are trapped in a bubble almost from the very beginning, from the very first episode. Although both of these stories are told by one insightful and compassionate voice, Libby’s – they are two voices after all. And all together, characters, narration, acting skills, script, create one of the most realistic stories that have been transferred to the small screen to date and describe the reality of relationships, marriages, our personal battle, all of life.

But in the end, to which Fleishman does the title refer? Which Fleishman is in trouble? You just have to find out. The series is available on Disney+.