Look, when I decided to watch Stan‘s new show Younger I was well and truly hungover. It looked like it was going to be pure and utter crap – the perfect, mind-numbing cure to my dehydration and shitty life choices from the night before. How good could a show about a 40-year-old publishing has-been pretending to be 26 really be? Cradling my Gatorade, I not-so-secretly hoped it would suck.
But by episode two I found myself kinda hooked to this easily consumable shit, which, tbh, was a bit annoying considering I needed a nap / time out from my pounding headache.
I’m not dumb, though. I know exactly why I like the show, and it’s not just because of the incred power lesbian Maggie from Brooklyn, the disgustingly hot love interest (Josh, ily) and the fact that Liza would never pass as a 26 year old IRL. It’s because muh’ gurl Hilary Duff is back in action, fina-fucking-lly.
Besides a brief threesome with Lonely Boy and his BFF-turned-lover Vanessa in Gossip Girl, waiting for Duff to make her triumphant return to acting after Raise Your Voice, The Perfect Man and Cinderella Story was like waiting for rain in this drought – useless and disappointing.
Instead we had to rely on all her other teenage dramz – y’know, the ones where life is against her and all her big dreams – to get us through our morning afters, right next to our stack of Amanda Bynes rom-coms (gotta cherish dem child actors in their prime).
But the wait is over, fellow lovers of Duff’s existence and/or her perfect teeth alignment.
With the invention of this oddly addictive series, Duff plays a 26-year-old publishing climber – Kelsey Peters – who has upgraded from her @PrincetonGirl days by replacing her pre-teen quotes corny enough to fill a taco. Instead she’s a borderline-alcoholic with a slightly forced use of millennial language, probs for the sake of emphasising the age gap between herself and her deceitful AF 40-year-old bestie.
OK, so Duff’s character is kind of / wildly irritable in the show – lets her boyfriend walk all over her, is too dumb to realise that her best friend is actually a 40-year-old single mother, and seems to get her way a lot of the time despite being a semi-shit human.
It’s a Carrie Bradshaw-worthy cringefest all over again, unsurprising considering it’s the same writer – Darren Star – from Sex And The City.
Suddenly it all makes sense, but we’re quietly blaming Duff for not being able to look away. It’s like watching your lil’ sis grow up into someone that makes you cringe and applaud all at the same time thanks to her new embodiment of sass. You did good, girl.
Props to her for not letting the fear of striking out, keep her from playing the game.
Welcome back Duffy.
Now, could ya’ go ahead and drop a new album pls?
Younger is exclusive to Stan, with episodes dropping the same day as the U.S.
Photo: A Cinderella Story.
