Physical Review: Let’s Get Together (Season 1 Episode 10)

Physical Season 1 Episode 10, “Let’s Get Together,” is the sort of season finale that serves as an almost perfect microcosm of why this show is simultaneously so fascinating and frustrating to watch and I very much hope they take the right lessons from this first season into the recently announced second. 

There truly is so much to enjoy about Physical, from star Rose Byrne’s layered performance as the series self-loathing, hard-to-like lead to the way it interrogates our own modern obsessions with influencer culture through the lens of the 1980s aerobics fad. And there’s no show on TV right now that’s presenting the struggling of disordered eating as honestly. 

Even when Sheila is at her most unlikeable, supporting characters like Deidre Friel’s Greta, Della Saba’s Bunny and Lou Pucci Taylor’s Tyler are there to pick up the slack, with compelling stories of their own outside of their occasionally toxic relationships with Sheila. 

Are there problems? Yes, absolutely. Anything involving John Breem feels laughably out of place, and Sheila and Danny’s marriage is problematic enough that I sort of hope she’s somehow magically on her own in Season 2. (Sorry, the force-feeding her a cupcake scene was just it for me, thanks very much.) 

“Let’s Get Together” sees Sheila triumph even as her husband falls short, establishing herself as an up-and-coming aerobics star even as she realizes that to achieve her dreams she may have to leave everyone she claimed to care about behind.

The episode’s opening sequence is exuberant and fun, quietly highlighting the ways that Sheila is slowly outstripping both her business and her domestic partners. Bunny’s name may be on the door of the studio they share, but it’s Sheila’s face that’s becoming the face of their brand, and it’s her voice encouraging local suburban women to live their best lives.  

We don’t need the local paper to inform us that Danny’s political ambitions are doomed — he doesn’t know how to connect with the capitalist strivers of Reagan’s new America, and his campaign instincts (unlike his wife’s) are incredibly poor. It’s Sheila who seems to be coming into her own here, glowing with pride and accomplishment. 

Byrne remains fantastic throughout, balancing Sheila’s intense self-loathing with her obvious love of attention, while finally bringing many of the issues with her marriage to the forefront in a way that can really no longer be ignored. 

The tension between Sheila and Bunny came to something of a head, as Tyler’s surfer’s ear lead to an infection that saw him land in the hospital and the subsequent medical bills have Bunny nervous about her future with her so-called partner. (And sadly giving up on dreams of the apartment the two had just been touring.)

Her hesitancy makes perfect sense, given that Sheila essentially entered Bunny and Tyler’s lives by blackmailing them, and has never treated their relationship as a real priority, despite the warm fuzzies that last week’s squad team-up may have left us all with.

Even Sheila’s inner monologue — intriguingly quiet this episode until Bunny accuses her friend of wanting to leave her behind — seems to know that she’s as likely as not to betray her so-called friend. But will she? Sheila insists she has no intention of leaving Bunny in the lurch (and I’d like to believe that she and Tyler are important enough to the world of this show that Physical wants to keep them both around). 

But if Season 1 has shown us anything, it’s that Sheila is a liar — and she’s willing to excuse any level of harmful behavior. 

Unfortunately, literally, everything involving John Breem still feels as though it’s happening on a different show. The character is clearly meant to represent both a traditionally repressed American and a die-hard capitalist who looks at Sheila and feels both a sexual and a business model-based attraction toward her.

But he’s also terrible, a cardboard caricature of a 1980s businessman that I can’t accept a woman like Sheila ever giving the time of day to, let alone watching strip naked in a darkened shopping mall. Even if it does seem as though much of her pleasure comes from the idea that he can give her access to the capitalist success she dreams of (at least, if her ending vision of a “Shaping with Sheila” video is any indication.)

Much like the rest of Physical’s first season, this episode is thrilling and maddening by turns. And though I certainly have my fair share of complaints (throw Danny and Jerry in the sea!!), I can’t wait to see where things go in Season 2.

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• More and more, I’m becoming convinced that the image of a successful Sheila dominating a business empire that both opened and closed this season is a figment of her imagination. Not that I don’t think Sheila couldn’t — or won’t — become a lifestyle guru; she’s certainly talented and driven enough, but I think what we’re seeing is her dream and not her set-in-stone reality. 
• Greta is an incredible friend and I want more of her and Sheila’s dynamic in Season 2.
• I have no idea how we’re supposed to feel about Breem, his wife, and their pregnancy. 
• “Edge of Seventeen’ is a fantastic song but an extremely weird needle drop to end the season on. Or, more accurately, the way was used was really strange. After all, Sheila is a grown woman who knows exactly what she’s doing, even when those choices involve publicly masturbating with a stranger.
• That whole sequence was so weird and awkward. I think, for Sheila, that Breem represents success rather than sex, and it’s the promise of fame and status that turns her on rather than the man himself. (The two have practically negative chemistry, I have to go with this.)
• Did anyone else feel like Jerry and Danny were going definitely going to make out at least once while they were doing coke? Just me? Their vibe is real weird. 

What did you think of this episode of Physical? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Physical Season 1 is now streaming on Apple TV+.

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