Lessons In Chemistry (2023)
Created By: Lee Eisenberg
Starring: Brie Larson; Stephanie Koenig; Alice Halsey
On Apple TV
By Paul Bernardo paulieb2003@gmail.com
Lee Eisenberg was producer for the smash hit The Office, and was a writer on Year One and a producer on Bad Teacher. So he knows funny, and he knows smart comedy. Lee teaming up with this kind of subtle, smart humor could be a perfect match.
Lessons in Chemistry is now showing on Apple TV. It stars Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson, of which I am a big fan of. So naturally I was very interested in dipping my toe in this water. It was taken from a NY Times #1 Best seller, so you know it has some brains behind it.
Set in the early 1960’s, Elizabeth Zott is a better than average chemist. In fact, some say she was quite good. She falls in love with a Nobel Prize nominated co-worker at her company and she begins to love her work even more. As usual, life happens and Zott is left alone with a child and a new career and a whole new life.
Zott goes on to host a cooking show, Supper at Six, that becomes immensely popular with housewives all over the country. Zott is not about the cooking however, as much as she is about the female role in America in the early 1960’s. Zott is a woman who is quirky but knows her value and knows where
she belongs. She is not afraid of confrontation and actually meets it head on quite frequently.
With only 3 episodes out so far, and hopefully many more to follow, we can see Zott is fighting for equality for herself and for other women as well in this frigid state of Americana. In the chemistry world, Zott was always mistaken for a secretary, because no male believed a woman could be anything but. Especially not a chemist. Yet Zott was, and she made sure people knew it with every step she talk, down every hallway and in every lab.
Zott was in a man’s world in the chemical research industry, trying to make a difference. Now she is in a woman’s world, with a cooking show, trying to make a difference. She has reached her audience, and you can believe she’s going to make some waves.
Brie Larson is terrific as Zott, and this period piece is right on the money with tone and costumes and settings. It’s fun to watch to a petite beauty like Zott not rely on her looks, but her wit and brains to punish the socially ignorant and stubborn.
This show is a pretty face with a lot to say, socially, politically and personally. I was never good at chemistry, but thank goodness, for this, I don’t have to be.
