A Preview of ‘Single Drunk Female’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Stories that revolve around addiction and recovery, tend to follow a fairly specific formula. Wherein the person suffering from such an affliction, succumbs to it later on in life. Often after some kind of tragic, life-changing experience and when they do… we watch them suffer on screen or in print as their lives fall to pieces at the hands of drugs or alcohol. All before they finally stand up to addiction and find their way back into the light. Which makes for a powerful story, one grounded in darkness since the process of falling from grace is ugly for certain, but the inspiration at the end of the story is well worth our while. But while those stories do indeed inspire and give us plenty of food for thought, there is one drawback to this type of tale.
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In that, they are somewhat inaccessible due to their dark subject matter. Since some folks just want entertainment value over anything else. But in this era where mental health discussions are in high demand, as are new stories, storytellers are finding new ways to explore such topics in a manner that audiences can easily handle, and it just so happens that Freeform is about to premiere a series that pulls that off in a dynamic and unique manner in Single Drunk Female. And it just so happens that we here at Nerds That Geek had the opportunity to see this series in advance and thought it would be worthwhile to offer up a spoiler-free preview of what makes this show so special.

Now in this particular tale, we are introduced to a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Samantha Fink and when we catch up with her, here, she’s in quite the difficult place. Because her addiction to alcohol has cost her a good job in the city and stunted her growth for the future, forcing her to move back home with her mother, Carol, as she works to put the pieces of her life back together and recover from her addiction and that plot is one big reason why this show is so unique. Because it doesn’t present addiction as merely some kind of coping mechanism like so many stories in this vein. It instead presents it as an actual illness, one that can grab hold of anyone at any time and change their life on a moment’s notice and presenting it in such a raw manner really does shed a new light on addiction, specifically alcoholism, and will undoubtedly spur new conversations on the matter.

But there are other reasons that this series is so incredibly special. Specifically… how it presents the recovery process. Because rather than terrify us with a process that sees Sam go through utter hell before clawing her way to the light, we are instead… plunged into a shockingly realistic world of recovery. Where the viewer is reminded of the fact that we can’t solve all of our problems at once and have to tackle them one step at a time, or in this case, one day at a time… and that’s just a brilliant way to present something so important and daunting. Since it really does offer up a fascinating new perspective on how we can conquer big problems and it also leads to wonderful and poignant messages for the audience, that we’ll get into further during our weekly recaps of the show. But what’s wild… is that we still aren’t done talking about the majesty and wonder of this particular series.

Because it also takes us off guard in a good way, by injecting a great deal of humor into Sam’s journey. Which removes the dark mystique surrounding these kinds of stories and makes it accessible to all, since the jokes provide entertainment value… while also sending another message our way. In that, sometimes the only way to heal is to find humor in everything so it doesn’t overwhelm us, and well… when you take all of those elements and combine them with some stunning performances, since Sofia Black-D’Elia (Sam) and Ally Sheedy (Carol) are brilliant in their respective roles… you’re left with an utterly brilliant show. One that examines addiction in an intelligent and compelling light and starts the conversation surrounding it in a healthy way and the best news of all… is that you don’t have to wait that much longer to experience this incredible series. For Single Drunk Female debuts on Freeform on January 20, 2022, and we here at NTG can’t wait to break down each episode with all of you and share the other preview related goodies we have in store for you, as we count down to the premiere of this poignant series.

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