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Feb 09, 2022 By Lily Moayeri Photography by Jessica Brooks/Hulu Web Exclusive

It took a season and a half of Dollface to realize that the Hulu original half-hour comedy is really not very good. Initially, the series, which hinged on Jules (Kat Denning) re-entering the world of female friendships after being dumped by her boyfriend, made some salient points about women and their relationships. It did so with some off-beat humor that fell flat as often as it hit the mark, with the surreal sequences in Jules’ wild imagination not helping in the least.

The further Jules moved away from being dependent on a boyfriend and immersed herself in her wacky friends: Madison (Brenda Song), Stella (Shay Mitchell) and Izzy (Esther Povitsky) the more cliché and predictable the scenarios became.

This is taken to the extreme in the second season of the series, which comes over two years after the first season. By now, Jules has become a very good friend to her girlfriends, and their lives have reverted to that of teenagers. Verging on 30, these four live and act like they are still in high school. On the surface, they’re all working hard to advance in their careers, but for every two steps forward, they are actually just standing in place. It’s not that they’re meeting any challenges in the workplace it’s more that they don’t really seem to do much.

Madison, who is a PR maven, is let go from her firm and can’t make a go of it on her own. Stella, who went to business school, is back and taking over a bar, and the lady bar owner in the process, turning the place into a collection of girl-centric Instagram photo opps. All this is fine, but where the money to survive and/or invest in a bar is coming from is lost is the mystery world of sitcoms. Izzy and her ridiculous outfits which flip-flop between Hello Kitty and prairie girl is her usual neurotic and hyper-insecure self, which does not help in the workplace, or her personal relationships. And Jules is such a dud at work, they should have gotten rid of her during the pandemic purge.

The pandemic is touched on in the first episode, which is worrying as watching 10 episodes of pandemic scenarios is not appealing. But in their world, which is in Los Angeles, a city that in real life is still heavily masked at the moment, life is back to normal. They’re at parties and concerts and festivals. Nothing worthy of modern young women is explored with the respect it deserves, just saccharine goofiness. Granted, Dollface is a comedy, but it’s not a comedy for tweens, yet that’s how the series plays out.

As with all female-focused shows, the eventual goal is to pair up, more often than not with a man. These women self-sabotage continually, making sure that they don’t get what they want. This is particularly easy for Jules who, now that she’s fused together with her girls, feels safe in messing up every potential romantic relationship.

Dollface’s initial feminist stance has totally backfired, giving the whole movement a bad look. (www.hulu.com/dollface)

Author rating: 4/10