By: Ava Rogha
Sweetbitter (2018) is a Starz original drama that explores the life of young waitress, Tess (Ella Purnell) and her surroundings.
It all starts when the 22 year old moves to New York for a fresh start with no goals, no friends and barely any money in her pocket. Moving to New York was seemingly going to be the best decision of her life, but it was anything but glamorous.
"I think that home is the past. Who wants to visit the past?"
Her journey starts as she moves into a not so fancy shared apartment in the middle of the city, and her first few days are spent alone.
However, when she cuts short on rent money, she is forced to apply for waiting positions. After scoring a job at a pretty fancy NYC restaurant, her New York drama finally begins.
Tess starts off as an innocent country girl, but quickly gets used to the big city life with all it has to offer from boy drama to heavy drinks and drugs! Tess hates it when her much older co-workers refer to her as a little child, which urges her even more to prove them wrong.
Working at a restaurant comes with its challenges, but for Tess, the job goes pretty smoothly (after some time anyway). It is rather the super attractive bartender, Jake (Tom Sturridge) and soon-to-be manager Will (Evan Jonigkeit) that keep the girl busy. And guess what! Tess’ biggest weakness is that she kisses and tells, which gets her in serious trouble throughout.
"Why do you think about me all the time?"
This show realistically presents the life of a young and inexperienced girl and how she would do anything to make new friends even if she can’t trust them. As the audience, it helped me see how easily people take advantage of Tess and her loyalty. Her relationship with one of the older servers, Simone (Caitlin Fitzgerald) is a great example of how Tess is clueless of her surroundings’ intentions. Simone in particular is a good friend to her face, but not so friendly behind her back. It almost appears as if Simone is envious of the girl and wants to harm her to make herself feel better.
It also frustrates me to see how infatuated Tess is with Jake, the cute bartender guy despite the way he treats her. Tess is an only child, who was raised by her father and has not seen her mother in years. Therefore, it is completely understandable that she lacked some attention and support growing up, which she yearns for now that she is on her own.
"The tip of the tongue -- every taste has its corresponding area -- that is where we taste sweet. Salt is the tipping point. Sour is the sting of food that's alive. Bitter is poison, although we've cultivated a taste for it. And sugar... Sugar was the first addiction."
I believe the show has strongly presented her naïve personality to the viewers and it mostly shines through every time she trusts the wrong people.
Aside from Tess’ strong character development, there are of course other obvious strengths with the show. It mostly focuses on the environment at the restaurant, which introduces us to the side characters, who all come from different backgrounds, but make the perfect team. Excluding Tess’ toxic older friends, the side characters all form a strong bond that goes beyond their jobs as bartenders and waiters at a restaurant. They care for each other more than one would expect and make sacrifices, which encouraged me to finish watching the show to the end.
"When you move somewhere new, I guess you sort of get to take inventory of your life, and I wanted to be careful about what I brought here."
You will also feel plenty of emotions while watching this show including pity, anger and sympathy.
Sweetbitter is one of the most dramatic shows I have watched in a while, mostly because of how realistic it is.
I’m sure we can all relate to a lot of the situations that are presented in the show, from good ones to bad ones. It teaches us that it is important to be ambitious in life in order to succeed (but it’s completely OK to be spontaneous at times).
Another important lesson that stuck with me is how big of an impact our surroundings have on us even though we may not always realize it. I don’t want to spoil the show as it is quite short, but it is definitely worth a watch. I also hate to disappoint, but the show discontinued at its second season in the middle of a cliffhanger. Let’s just hope the producers change their minds and come back with a third season.
Catch Sweetbitter on Amazon Prime (Starz) now!
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