Not dreadful, but also not ground-breaking. If you are into cringey humour then this could be for you, but apart from that it's nothing special.
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New series Marry Me premiered in the UK on Thursday night, the series is a romantic-comedy about couple Annie and Jake. Made by the creator of Happy Endings, David Caspe (who based some of the story on his recent marriage to actress Casey Wilson, playing Annie), the series has quite a similar sense of humour and style. Wilson plays the slightly stereotypical hysterical bride to be, with the ability of talking at super speed. The series is based in Chicago, and does contain some familiar faces; Jake is played by Ken Marino, who you may recognise from Veronica Mars, and Reaper. Both the shows leading actors also have featured in Happy Endings.
The episode starts when Annie and Jake return from their anniversary holiday, and Annie starts to completely freak out because Jake did not propose on their trip. Then becomes one of her worst nightmares, whilst ranting about every single one of their friends and family—she turns around to discover that Jake is actually proposing, and has invited all their family and friends round to watch, who are hiding in their house. Within the first five minutes of the show Annie has successfully badmouthed everyone she knows, so as they exit one by one she has to apologise. Jake leaving straight after them to try and forget the whole thing ever happened. As if that isn’t bad enough, she walks into her bedroom to find the room filled with roses and candles– commence breakdown.
Meanwhile all the guests witnessing this disaster proposal are driving home. Annie’s dads are arguing about whose child she is, Annie’s friend and Jake’s best friend Gil are discussing his ‘mozzarella marinarathon.’ Jake’s mother, who Annie has just declared has no friends and she hates, is loudly singing along to an inspirational song by Kelly Clarkson, with Jake sat in the car.
We flashback to six years earlier showing the moment when Jake and Annie met, Jake introduces himself to Annie outside a nacho restaurant. She claims he should be eating at the restaurant because they give money opposing to gay marriage. Jake then throws away his food and apologises, until Annie’s order from the restaurant is brought over to her, along with her loyalty card. Jakes response ‘wow, so you’re like a horrible person.’
Back in present day the slapstick comedy makes a small appearance, when one of Annie’s friends who was hiding in the cupboard bursts out (whilst Annie binges on chocolate covered strawberries and sobs into a bottle of champagne), causing Annie to run screaming into the bedroom wall. And again following the silly humour, her friend confesses to peeing in the cupboard.
Annie hatches a plan to try and propose to Jake, she turns up at his work playing Bryan Adams with a bunch of roses. Despite her clumsy entrance, Jake says yes. However, his boss then confronts him on Annie’s reference to their holiday in Mexico, because Jake had lied to his boss about where he was- and he gets fired.
At this stage the audience wonders how many more things could actually go wrong for the couple, until they find themselves back at the same restaurant where they met and decide that it is a sign they again ended up in the same place. They agree to do the proposal then and there, finally after two attempts, it goes to plan.
Marry Me depicts the image of what for Annie, becomes a desperate attempt to remain ‘cool’ about the relationship. Despite the episodes soppy ending, the episode effectively uses cringe-filled disasters for its comedy effect. Although not totally dreadful, it appears to be nothing particularly ground-breaking, but I am intrigued to see where the story can take off from here without slipping into the same pattern as every wedding based rom-com we have seen before.
Marry Me is broadcast on Thursdays at 9.30pm on E4.
