What's Maggie About?

A thirtysomething psychic struggles to date when she can see how every relationship is doomed to end.

Who's involved?

• Rebecca Rittenhouse (The Mindy Project) plays Maggie, a psychic who finds solace in her friends and neighbors, including Ben, a one-night stand she thought was the one before a vision showed him marrying someone else.
• David Del Rio (Pitch Perfect) is Ben, Maggie’s former fling who moves in downstairs with his on-again, off-again girlfriend Jessie.
• Nichole Sakura (Superstore) plays Louise, Maggie’s best friend who fled med school and her parents’ expectations to seek fulfillment as a yoga instructor.
• Angelique Cabral (Life in Pieces) is Ben’s sister Amy, who's big-hearted but self-absorbed.
• Chloe Bridges (Insatiable) plays Jessie, Ben’s girlfriend who becomes friends with Maggie but has no idea she and Ben were briefly involved.
• Leonardo Nam (Westworld) plays Amy’s fiancé Dave, who made it big in crypto and brings a dose of earnest selflessness to the group.
• Ray Ford (Grey's Anatomy) is Angel, a sharp-tongued fellow psychic and Maggie’s mentor who tries to help her embrace life.
• Chris Elliott and Kerri Kenney-Silver are Maggie's eccentric parents.
• Series creators Justin Adler and Maggie Mull previously worked together on CBS’ Life in Pieces.

Why (and to whom) do we recommend it?

Maggie is a joy, and much of that comes down to Rittenhouse's charm. With a highly expressive face and wry way with a joke, the actress blends humor and heartache as Maggie struggles not to let her psychic visions dictate her choices.

The emotional complexity of her performance gives resonance to scenes that might seem boilerplate in another romcom, like a moment where she has a heart-to-heart with her mother about how lonely she feels. After she admits to herself that she has feelings for Ben, we see chagrin, embarrassment, relief, and infatuation all play across her face in rapid succession. It's a wordless moment that says volumes about her inner life.

But Rittenhouse isn't the show's only light. All the characters are written and played with specificity, giving Maggie what feels like a fully realized world from the start. Nowhere is this more on display than in a dinner party scene that devolves into everyone taking over Louise's dating apps. As the jokes pour forth, they're layered with flashes of Louise's vulnerability and her friends' efforts to ignore their own problems.

More than its lightly supernatural premise, it's this kind of emotional depth that sets Maggie apart.

Pairs well with

• Lovesick (Netflix), another romcom that’s equal parts sweet and tart.
• Starstruck (HBO Max), a delightful twist on Notting Hill for a 21st-century audience
• Four Weddings and a Funeral. Prime Video's 2019 miniseries features Rittenhouse in another showcase role.