Sarah Jessica Parker, best known as the leading actress on HBO’s Sex and the City, returned to the network in a new show Divorce, which debuted on Sunday, October 9th and also Thomas Haden Church as a married couple going through a divorce.
In the show’s pilot, the audience is given a glimpse of what is to come for the leading couple, as well as the dark humor the show uses to address the often difficult issues with divorce and the dissolution of a marriage. The show’s created, Sharon Horgan, says the show will at times be heartbreaking but also not averse to using comedy as a means to address the serious life issues in Divorce. The mix of drama with comedy is no given Horgan’s own comedic background, as well as the casting for the show which includes familiar comedians Molly Shannon of Saturday Night Live fame and Jemaine Clement from the Flight of the Conchords.
Sarah Jessica Parker, typically the likable heroine, plays against-type in the pilot episode as an adulterer looking to end the marriage to which she has grown bored. Horgan said the show hopes to be ambivalent on whether viewers will root for the marriage to survive and that ultimately, marriage is really difficult and not all marriages should make it. Mixing a comedic tone into the narrative for whether a marriage may or may not continue is an interesting twist and probably relatable for anyone who themselves has gone through a divorce.
So far Divorce has received mixed reviews with a 59% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.4 out of 10 from viewers on IMDB.