Easy to laugh at second season of ‘Difficult People’
Show creator Julie Klausner plays Kessler, an aspiring comic who’s only managed a nearly anonymous career as a re-capper — someone who blogs about who got killed last week in “Game of Thrones” — and who should be using the term “spoiler alert” in everyday conversation, because she insults everyone she meets.
Billy Eichner plays her gay best friend, Billy Epstein, another wannabe stand-up comic who works as a waiter but serves food only when it’s convenient and always with a heaping helping of attitude.
In the long run, that could wear thin, but it shows no signs of doing so yet, because Klausner and her writers must keep vats of industrial-strength acid in the writers’ room, and because the cast is so funny.
In addition to Klausner and Eichner, regulars include James Urbaniak as Arthur Tack, Julie’s live-in boyfriend who works for PBS; Broadway great Andrea Martin as Julie’s therapist mother, Marilyn; Cole Escola as another gay waiter at the cafe where Billy works; Gabourey Sidibe and Derrick Baskin as the cafe owners; and Tracee Chimo as Arthur’s boss at PBS.
First of all, Arthur is cultured, polite, sophisticated and organized — in other words, the polar opposite of Julie.
In one episode this season, she loses her housekeeper but happens on a new patient (guest star Megan Hilty) who has OCD and can’t stop herself from cleaning and rearranging everything in sight.
The season premiere finds Billy enjoying a post-workout steam and the attentions of a handsome guy (guest star John Mulaney) who turns out to be filthy rich, thanks to his family’s jelly bean business.
Julie, meanwhile, learning that another comic has scored a TV development deal by attending a trendy Jewish social group event, maneuvers her way into the group in order to meet a big-shot TV exec (guest Sandra Bernhard).
In another episode, Julie is mistaken by a bunch of big-haired Jersey girls for a fellow Italiana and decides that passing means she can enjoy overeating and bad behavior without feeling the pangs of Jewish guilt.
First two episodes available for streaming on Hulu on Tuesday, July 12.