Maybe getting "Laid" is a matter of connecting with one's hectic, self-involved youth

No moment encapsulates the conflicted charm and weirdness of "Laid" as aptly as when its not-quite-a-heroine Ruby (Stephanie Hsu) shows up at the funeral of a guy named Brandon who she recalls dating for “like, a second” out of curiosity.

She and her best friend AJ (Zosia Mamet) spend the scene before discussing how little Ruby knew and thought of him, which makes it especially bizarre for her to stumble into a shrine consisting of framed photos featuring her and her ex mere steps beyond the church's threshold.

Have Ruby and AJ stumbled into an alternate dimension? Of a sort. This is how Ruby discovers how much more central she was to this near stranger’s life than he was to hers. Ruby remembers Brandon as another notch on her bedpost. To him, she was so much more, to an extent that Ruby can’t quite wrap her head around, because Ruby is pathologically self-involved.

At Brandon’s service, she stands over Brandon’s casket and launches into yammering about her dreadful love life. He’s the ideal conversation partner, after all, because he can’t talk back. In another episode, Ruby attends a wedding and badgers the groom to explain why she couldn’t bring a guest, and why the two of them didn’t work.  

“This,” he tersely answers. “You’re making my wedding about you while my parents and a line of people are waiting to talk to me.” He adds, “Maybe if you weren’t like this, you would have a plus one.”

“Laid” is adapted from an Australian series, but its creators Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna, who collaborated on “Don't Trust the B—— in Apartment 23” have captured a version of youthful solipsism that feels extremely American.

Here they center our focus on a woman who is simultaneously egocentric and terminally insecure, which describes many young adults who are struggling to figure themselves out.

But this premise saddles Ruby with a tangible answer to the question that’s plagued anyone who’s repeatedly struck out at dating – “Is it me?” —  along with a deadline to solve that problem. It quickly comes to Ruby’s attention that the people she’s slept with are dropping dead in the order in which they smashed – so yes, the problem is her, and a mystery Ruby and AJ are determined to unravel.

Zosia Mamet as AJ and Stephanie Hsu as Ruby in "Laid" (Jeff Weddell/PEACOCK)

“Laid” deserves to be commended for taking what is essentially a “Black Mirror” premise and extending it into an eight-episode kinda-sorta rom-com.

This is where I’ll admit that I’m probably not quite the audience for this for reasons that could be generational. The premise bears similarities to past shows like the awesomely named Brit TV series “Scrotal Recall” (retitled “Lovesick” for Netflix, because we can’t have nice things) and “Love Life.”  Another way to measure whether “Laid” is for you may be to ask yourself whether you enjoyed “Girls.” (Mamet’s AJ even has a slacker boyfriend Zack (Andre Hyland), who is convinced he’s more enlightened than the women in his life despite purporting to make a career out of online gaming.)

The shows' tones could not be more disparate, and although Mamet has a central role in both, that's not the reason why the seminal “voice of a generation” comedy came to mind. It’s the nervous, shuddering electricity in dialogue that Hsu and Mamet deliver pitch-perfectly, capturing a strain of younger Millennial/elder Gen Z vanity you either find to be endlessly pleasing or totally exhausting.

Plenty of people loved “Girls," and I suspect that if I counted myself in that group I might not have been so impatient with Ruby’s single-minded infatuation with herself. Hsu’s charismatic effervescence, though, kept me hanging in there.

Zosia Mamet as AJ and Stephanie Hsu as Ruby in "Laid" (James Dittiger/PEACOCK)

Having Hsu shoulder “Laid” alongside Mamet is its saving grace, reinforcing the sentiment that she deserves more and meatier roles after proving her dramatic flexibility in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” In playing Ruby, Hsu is by no means forging new paths in the realm of portraying supposedly unlikable women. Nor does she go out of her way to sugar her narcissism with cuteness.

But when I say it’s no small feat that we come around to feeling for Ruby in a real way by the third episode, I’m putting my full chest behind that. Even in her shallower moments, there are parts of Ruby to which every woman whose confidence is misunderstood as arrogance can relate.

Whatever humor the script gleans from Ruby’s myopic behavior and AJ's unnatural excitement about her best friend’s bizarre predicament is undercut by the pair’s callow reaction to the lengthening trail of dead dragging behind Ruby.

Her banter with AJ endeavors to explain this away by reminding us of her terminal superficiality. Hsu’s character doesn’t grow that much beyond her childish “why is this happening to me” wallowing until late in the season. By then you may be ready for her problems to resolve, but no. The finale optimistically sets up more chapters.

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Since “Laid” is a modern rom-com it follows that genre’s standard rules, including its heroine’s moon-eyed ideality of that genre’s classics, specifically Billy Crystal’s contribution to them. (An atypical choice, but it works: “I’m a Crystal-head!” she chirps.) Khan and McKenna assign every major character a pop culture obsession or quirk, which explains the barrage of TV and movie references throughout. Mamet’s AJ is all in for true crime and has a specific obsession with Amanda Knox.

Michael Angarano as Richie in "Laid" (James Dittiger/PEACOCK)

For Michael Angarano’s Richie, who runs trivia night at a local bar a mastery of pointless TV and movie ephemera is his whole personality, reflective of many movie and TV references stuffed into the show.

There’s more to him and Ruby’s client and crush Isaac (Tommy Martinez) who is hopelessly unavailable, as most love interests are in this kind of story. Of the two, Isaac is mostly a pretty face, one of the least known in a string of cameos that includes Simu Liu and John Early as a heightened version of himself.  

“Maybe it seems like I’m selfish, but really, it’s like AJ says: I just have high standards for myself,” she observes. Of course, this ignores that Ruby has bumped with assorted randos of questionable quality. That doesn’t justify making their lives and deaths feel meaningless aside from their roles as ticks on a countdown clock. Then again, maybe it’s just me.

All episodes of "Laid" stream Thursday, Dec. 19 on Peacock.