Lovesick is what happens when great shows are given bad names.
3 reasons to watch Netflix’s Lovesick, the show formerly known as Scrotal Recall
Lovesick is a tender, romantic gem of a TV show.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
The British TV series made its US debut on Netflix in 2015, under the much different title of Scrotal Recall. I don’t understand why anyone would ever choose a moniker that conjures up the idea of male genitalia and flashbacks, but then again, I may not have my finger on the pulse of TV show title trends. However, when Netflix first started promoting the show, I was not alone in my befuddlement.
Scrotal Recall changed its title to Lovesick ahead of its second season, which arrived on Netflix in 2016.
Lovesick is a much less memorable name then Scrotal Recall, but it still gets at the show’s premise: Dylan (Johnny Flynn) is diagnosed with chlamydia and has to call the women he’s been intimate with to inform them of his recent diagnosis. In each episode, we see flashbacks to Dylan’s romances with those women (and why said romances didn’t work out), and along the way we also become familiar with Dylan’s most cherished relationships: his friendships with Evie (Antonia Thomas) and Luke (Daniel Ings).
The basics of this premise, coupled with a title like Scrotal Recall, might signal a dude-bro raunch-com about sex feats. But Lovesick is actually a funny and tender gem of a show. Thanks to recent inclement, freezing weather, I managed to binge the entire eight-episode third season, which launched on Netflix on New Year’s Day, over the course of a weekend.
Here’s what I really like about the series, and why you too should consider checking it out.
1) The premise is much more clever than it might sound
What makes Lovesick tick is that it operates not just as a love story, but as a mystery. In season one, each episode begins with a title card showing the name of a woman — Abigail, Cressida, Jane, etc. — followed by a flashback to Dylan’s past relationship with that woman. The flashbacks are intercut with scenes of Dylan, Evie, and Luke going about their lives in the present; in that first season, Evie is about to get married.
The result is the television equivalent of the corner pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We know the beginning and end points, but we don’t know what happened in between. Each episode fills in more details, slowly painting a bigger picture of how all of Dylan’s relationships have changed his and his friends’ lives — some by a little, some by a lot.
Writers Tom Edge (who also created the series), Andy Baker, Ed Macdonald, Mark Grimme prevent “calling someone with unfortunate STD news” from feeling like a gimmick by using that framing to reveal the depths of Dylan, Evie, and Luke’s friendship. As Lovesick progresses, we get to see how this trio — which is so tight-knit in the present — came together, with moments like their first meeting or a trip they took offering emotional insight into their bond in the present.
The series rewards you for investing in its characters by caring for them every step of the way. And as the show finds its rhythm in seasons two and three, you begin to realize that Lovesick is just as much or even more about these three friends than it is about Dylan’s love life.
2) The three lead actors are impossibly charming
Of the three lead actors, Flynn, who plays the show’s main lead Dylan, probably has the least splashy role. Lovesick is, after all, a story about how Dylan’s romantic relationships never seem to work out.
Dylan isn’t filthy and funny like Ings’s Luke is, nor does he get the messier, confused moments of relatability that Thomas enjoys as Evie. They both have a bit more edge about them. But Flynn still imbues Dylan with a unique charm and keeps him from falling into the shopworn and ultimately forgettable “nice guy” territory.
Ings (whom fans of The Crown will recognize as Mike Parker, Philip’s dodgy wingman) gets to really showcase his comedic chops as Luke. Luke is silly and campy with a penchant for raunchy humor, and Ings excels at playing it all. One standout scene in Lovesick’s second season involves Luke, a deer, said deer screeching, and the conundrum of defecating in the woods. It is perfect.
And Thomas is buoyant as Evie. When Lovesick begins, Evie is a messy tempest of unrequited love, and as the series progresses (without giving too much away), that ... changes somewhat. You understand the pain and helplessness that Evie feels with just one of Thomas’s sharpened looks or the slightest knitting of her brow. But an occasional smirk or glimmer in her eyes lets you see the character’s moxie and sunniness — Thomas’s knack for striking this balance in Evie comes through in Lovesick’s very first episode.
Together, the three actors have created one of television’s best portrayals of friendship. The relationship between their characters isn’t perfect; Lovesick doesn’t shy away from showing how Dylan, Luke, and Evie are capable of hurting each other (whether they know it or not). But the very best friendships in real life aren’t all sun, fun, and games.
3) The show is, quite simply, about love
My favorite thing about Lovesick is how mature it is on the subject of love. The show’s plot twists — and there are a couple — never feel manipulative or forced. Likewise, its stories never approach overly soapy, sudsy levels of drama; this is not a show that makes a point of tugging your heartstrings with extraneous monologues or dramatic declarations of feelings.
Lovesick just wants to capture what it’s like when regular people fall in love, and how real relationships often don’t match up with what pop culture teaches us about how love presents itself. And it’s at its best when it asks questions about what those real relationships actually feel like.
What if there’s no such thing as “true” love? What if love is temporary? What happens to love if the timing isn’t right for it? What if love and happiness aren’t bound together?
Lovesick’s only clean, tidy answer is that love doesn’t always look the way you want it to.
The show is very clear on the fact that love doesn’t always come with a grand pronouncement or a stomach full of butterflies. Sometimes it’s a dusty old thing. Sometimes there’s more love in a one-night stand than there is in a long-term relationship. Sometimes nothing works out the way you want it to. But no matter what it looks like or how long it lasts, if we find it, we should feel lucky.
And I’m glad Lovesick is committed to telling that story.
