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In television romantic comedy, it often feels as if series are more interested in the chase than in the actual relationship. “Happy couples ruin TV shows” is a sentiment I’ve heard many times from writers, though they’re often citing examples (like Moonlighting) where couples never got together for very long. There are definitely shows that lost some spark when will-they-or-won’t-they turned into they-did: Jim and Pam on The Office were a lot duller in a relationship than when they were pining for each other at different times. But there are also pairs who stayed funny even after they hooked up, like Leslie and Ben on Parks and Recreation.
The trick, more often than not, is to allow couples to be happy, but not too happy. They are together, but there is still some kind of underlying tension between them that keeps generating comedy and surprises even after the pursuit is over. Sam and Diane on Cheers were fundamentally incompatible outside of raw animal attraction. On You’re the Worst, Jimmy and Gretchen were so innately narcissistic and damaged that they had a hard time acknowledging their feelings for one another. In Catastrophe, Rob and Sharon kept going through steps in their relationship in the wrong order, and were constantly playing catch-up as a result. In Starstruck, outside circumstances like Tom’s acting career constantly get in the way of him and Jessie being happy. These shows all understood that you can’t perpetually delay the inevitable, and that it’s often more entertaining to see people struggle to make relationships work than it is to see them struggle to begin the relationship at all.
Continuing in this appealingly messy tradition is Colin From Accounts, the Australian comedy whose second season arrived on Paramount+ this week. Created by and starring real-life spouses Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, the series begins on something like the opposite of a meet-cute: brewery owner Gordon (Brammall) is distracted on his drive to work by a glimpse of the nipple of med student Ashley (Dyer), and runs over a stray dog. He’s in his 40s, she’s just about to turn 30, and the only thing they seem to have in common is the dog, which he wants to euthanize when he hears the cost of medical care would be $12,000. Instead, she talks him into paying to save the disabled old pooch, whom they ironically dub “Colin from Accounts,” and somehow they wind up living together before they actually begin dating. (Again, couples doing things in the wrong order can be amusing.)
The first season does an impressive job of tracking the evolution of their relationship, and in showing that, despite the age gap, they are both immature and selfish in ways that make them poor matches with anyone but each other. But it also grants each of them enough moments of sincerity or wisdom to make them worth rooting for in spite of the fact that they are, well, the worst.
The new season picks up where the last left off, with Gordon and Ashley having seller’s remorse about giving Colin away to a family. Given the title of the show, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that they eventually get him and his doggie wheels back, though I won’t reveal the absurd lengths they go to in order to accomplish that task. Most of the season, though, deals with the two of them setting into their life together, while frequently bumping into the ways in which they each annoy the other, and/or offend the world at large.
Paramount+ subscribers might remember Brammall from playing Kristine’s boring and useless husband on Evil(*), and thus might be surprised by just how lively and funny he is playing a guy who is both an arrested development case and just mature enough to realize the parts of Ashley’s life he’s gotten too old for. Sometimes, actors have to write for themselves to show what they can do, and both stars here very clearly understand how to best display their comic strengths. There’s a hilarious new episode called “Ethical Porn,” which begins with Ash’s bluetooth earbuds picking up Gordon watching adult cinema, then transitions into her accidentally molesting an elderly patient, and climaxes with Gordon struggling to defend his specific porn choices in front of Ashley and her friends. The stars are delightfully flustered throughout.
(*) Before Evil, he and Dyer appeared in an Australian police comedy called No Activity, and he co-starred in the short-lived American remake, which streamed on what was then called CBS All Access.
But Colin From Accounts also has a deep affection for its two idiot lovers, and for the other people in their lives — Emma Harvie as Ashley’s best friend Megan, Genevieve Hegney and Michael Logo as Gordon’s coworkers Chiara and Brett — and finds ways to take their problems seriously even amidst all the ridiculousness. We’ve already met Ashley’s terrible mother Lynelle (Helen Thomson) — and Lynelle’s even more terrible partner Lee (Darren Gilshenan), who should never be allowed near any device that connects to the internet — which helps us understand how Ashley turned out this way. The new season does the same with Gordon’s family, and there are moments of genuine pain and sadness that come with that story, or in an episode that splits itself down the middle showing one long night from the perspective of each of its leads.
As romance, as comedy, as hangout show, and occasionally as drama, Colin from Accounts is excellent. Gordon and Ashley should probably not be together, except it’s hard to imagine anyone else who would, or should, have them. Which is what makes it all so fun.
All eight episodes of Colin From Accounts Season Two are now streaming. I’ve seen the whole season.
