I have so many complicated feelings about Cucumber. I wish I could adore it. I really do. This show really is doing something unprecedented on television. Its exploration of queer life is rich and nuanced and messy. Each of its characters lives and breathes as wholly three dimensions. It isn't afraid to be awkward, fumbling or unpalatable.
But therein lies the problem. I fear I'm too much of a normie for this show. As much as I was engaged in so many of Cucumber's characters From emotionally constipated pretty boy Freddie and excitable Dean to badass Cleo and ever heartbreaking Lance I could never quite gel with our protagonist Henry. While the exploration of his complicated relationship with penetrative sex was fascinating he constantly did incredibly amoral things that made it so hard to like him. And I feel like an idiotic Puritan proclaiming that I need to like characters to enjoy a tv show but it's the truth. A part of me fears that it's because Vincent Franklin isn't young, handsome and charming. Stuart from QaF is as if not more amoral than Henry, yet I could always root for him.
At the end of the day while I respect Cucumber I fill like I don't love it as much as I should.
Review by TshepisoBlockedParent2023-05-01T22:35:47Z
I have so many complicated feelings about Cucumber. I wish I could adore it. I really do. This show really is doing something unprecedented on television. Its exploration of queer life is rich and nuanced and messy. Each of its characters lives and breathes as wholly three dimensions. It isn't afraid to be awkward, fumbling or unpalatable.
But therein lies the problem. I fear I'm too much of a normie for this show. As much as I was engaged in so many of Cucumber's characters From emotionally constipated pretty boy Freddie and excitable Dean to badass Cleo and ever heartbreaking Lance I could never quite gel with our protagonist Henry. While the exploration of his complicated relationship with penetrative sex was fascinating he constantly did incredibly amoral things that made it so hard to like him. And I feel like an idiotic Puritan proclaiming that I need to like characters to enjoy a tv show but it's the truth. A part of me fears that it's because Vincent Franklin isn't young, handsome and charming. Stuart from QaF is as if not more amoral than Henry, yet I could always root for him.
At the end of the day while I respect Cucumber I fill like I don't love it as much as I should.