At first glance, Lady Dynamite could be mistaken for another entry in the ever-increasing genre of stand-up comedians playing "versions" of themselves in sitcoms (Louie, Maron), but don't write this one off: It's actually one of the most inventive, absurdist, and beautiful comedies in recent history. Much of this is due to Maria Bamford herself. Fans of Bamford know her for her eclectic comedy, infectious voices, and rampant honesty when it comes to finding humor in mental illness. Lady Dynamite doubles down on this, resulting in a surrealistic and meta romp through Bamford's life and, most importantly, her brain.

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Lady Dynamite is loosely based on the comedian's life—she suffered a breakdown in 2011, has been in psychiatric hospitals, and, yes, as the pilot episode depicts, even once had a bench installed in front of her home to help Bamford face her own shyness. Lady Dynamite, more than any other comedy of the same ilk, relies on the strong perspective of its main character. Maria, self-described as a "45-year-old woman who is clearly sun-damaged," is a small blonde with wide eyes and an occasionally-quavering voice, but she owns every second that she's on screen (unsurprising, considering she was the best part of Arrested Development's questionable fourth season). It's impossible not to give her your full attention, whether she's adding smiley faces to her name tag at Debtors Anonymous meetings, struggling to keep her cool in the hospital, or sadly enduring some embarrassment while trying to get everything back on track.

But this isn't your standard breakdown-and-rebuild structural sitcom. Lady Dynamite practically weaves in and out of standard consciousness, skips around time frames (the present, the past, and the in-between time when Maria hangs out with her family in Duluth, recovering from her recent hospital stay), and gleefully breaks through the fourth-wall with manic abandon. This meta-commentary and fourth-wall destruction (it should be noted that this show was developed with Arrested Development's Mitch Hurwitz) could be a turn-off for some viewers, but Lady Dynamite manages to find a way to make it utterly charming and unique. It shows up in surprising ways: Patton Oswalt, playing a cop in the pilot episode, suddenly breaks character and warns Maria not to include stand-up comedy segments in Lady Dynamite because it's been done to death; in an episode centered around race, Maria and the Lucas Brothers celebrate their "victory" against selling out only for a visual record-scratch to stop them in their tracks, noting that Maria didn't really do anything to change the problems with race in comedy and Hollywood.

'Lady Dynamite' is careful not to romanticize or demonize mental illness but instead swings back and forth between showing the frustrations that plague suffers and showing the hyper-creative, wholly unique way that Maria views the world around her.

But tearing down the fourth wall isn't the only thing at which Lady Dynamite succeeds. It also functions as a sharp satire of Hollywood, with many episodes featuring her sort-of useless manager (Fred Melamed), who means well but can't seem to get it together, and a fast-talking, bizarrely ruthless agent (Ana Gasteyer), who routinely confuses an eager-to-please Maria. There is the aforementioned episode on race (the Lucas Brothers are cast as garbage people in a pilot called "White Trash" and Maria's bumbling attempts to "fix" everything go awry—but in a way you don't expect), as well as Maria's half-hearted tries to get back into comedy post-breakdown (she'd prefer to start small, like in a bookstore or alone).



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Still, the most unique and unforgettable aspects of the series involve Maria's brain. Lady Dynamite remarks on the ways that both a screwed-up Hollywood and a mental illness can fuck with your mind, making you believe things that aren't necessarily true, and sometimes, as in one scene, turns you into a literal sheep. Depicting Bipolar Disorder in a sitcom may not seem ripe for comedy—especially showing it in a realistic manner and not the sensational, borderline offensive way that television usually goes for—but Lady Dynamite is determined to find the jokes in a rebelling brain. That means Lady Dynamite is, at times, sad—in one episode, Maria can't get her love life back on track because the perils of her disorder means that she can't trust her own brain—but it quickly veers back on the comedy track. (I won't ruin the ending of that episode but it does feature the best "knock, knock" joke I've ever heard.) Lady Dynamite is careful not to romanticize or demonize mental illness but instead swings back and forth between showing the frustrations that plague suffers and showing the hyper-creative, wholly unique way that Maria views the world around her.

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The end result is in a sitcom with a screwball structure, testing out various tricks and tropes to see what sticks—much like your brain does when trying to test out methods for fixing itself. Sometimes it works and sometimes it falls flat, but the important thing is that Lady Dynamite energetically keeps going, much like Bamford herself.

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