I don’t know about you but whenever an underrated show I love is renewed for another season, I get a little bit nervous. And if that second season is as good as the first, and the show is granted a third season, I am turned into a ball of anxiety, unsure of how to handle this news. Naturally of course you want more content with your favourite characters, but on the other hand, you are scared that everything will be burned down into unidentifiable shreds and make you hate everything about the series.
And I am here to tell you that when it comes to One Day at a Time, you have nothing to worry about. Season Three might just be the best one yet.
Disclaimer: There are mild spoilers for season 3 in this article – no specifics, but certain occurring topics will be addressed. If you do not want to be spoiled, go watch the show first before coming back!
For those of you new to the series, here is a quick overview: One Day at a Time follows a Cuban middle-class family living in Los Angeles as they try to figure out their lives. Lydia fled from Cuba to escape Castro as a young teen to make a new life for herself and her husband in America. Her daughter and the woman we follow in the show Penelope, is a veteran dealing with PTSD and anxiety. Penelope’s son Alex is in the prime of puberty and making his way through some problematic experiences. Her daughter Elena is a gay human-rights activist who recently came out as gay. Add into the mix a Canadian landlord who sees himself as part of the family and you have the cast of One Day at a Time (in other words, this show has some mad representation, y’all, and you need to watch it).
While One Day at a Time is known on the internet for broaching heavy subject matter in an approachable way, I’d argue that season three shines the brightest when it comes to exploring tough topics. In just thirteen 30-minute episodes, this show manages to go to the bottom of such current topics as toxic masculinity, anxiety, consent, addiction and society’s heteronormative ideals.
The season starts off with a bang – or a funeral, in this case. With ample guest starring (Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz from Brooklyn 99 are both attending the funeral), this episode kicks of a new season that is centered on family above all.
As Penelope’s children grow up and encounter more trials, the show turns toward educating the new generation about topics that (as Lydia makes clear from her position as an immigrant and part of a generation before the internet existed) were of no concern a few decades earlier and have now become major points of discussion for everyone.
Not to sound like a complete cliché, but in this day and age, it is difficult to get to the bottom of certain issues. It is even harder to form an opinion of your own when you are constantly faced with other more dominant ones online. Phrases like “No means no and yes means yes” are plastered everywhere on social media (as they should), but as One Day at a Time shows, there is so much more to that than one simply catchphrase. Because a yes can mean no when you are led to believe that saying no would put you in unspeakable danger. A yes can mean no when you are offering it up in a shaky voice while trying not to cry. A yes can mean no when you are being followed by a strange group of men on your way home and think it’s easier to just give them your number to appease them than try to outrun them.
One Day at a Time doesn’t shy away from speaking the truth – many of the conflicts around consent and toxic masculinity have been blown out of proportion by the internet and sometimes turned into a bloody fight with no winners, but that does not diminish the valid arguments made in those discussions. As the characters in the show recount their own dangerous encounters in their past, the viewer learns that saying one thing and doing the other is not okay. That to do something juvenile and potentially frightening just to make your friends laugh is not okay. That respecting your partner no matter their gender should always be a priority. And that asking for consent can be the hottest thing you do.
As Penelope teaches her children valuable lessons just like she does in the last two seasons, she learns more about herself and her impending future as well, which brings me to another incredible theme explored in this season: the pursuit of happiness, and what that means. For Penelope’s Cuban mother, happiness means being happily married. For Elena, it means burning down the patriarchy. For Alex, it’s probably getting that pair of Yeezy’s and being the most handsome grandson in the world – and fitting in. But Penelope is struggling to conform to heteronormative ideals that make her think her happiness depends on her relationship status. It’s ingenious, really. Tiny Easter eggs are laid throughout the season about someone being the other’s “better half”, about finding that someone you feel “the spark” with. Ultimately, the final episode addresses Penelope’s idea of happiness as she watches her ex-husband getting married to a carbon copy of her. And not to spoil anything, but the resolution is as heartwarming as it is encouraging.
And these are just two examples of the kind of relevant issues that are brilliantly explored in this masterpiece of a show.
One Day at a Time has always excelled at pairing impeccable comedic timing with gut-punching heart-to-hearts. Within the span of just thirty minutes, you can cry along as someone experiences a terrifying panic attack, and laugh as Alex tries to pick up girls at the DMV who failed their driver’s tests. I sometimes find myself nostalgic for the sitcoms of the 90s, filled with their puns and situational humour. But I think One Day at a Time is one of these shows that will live on for as long as Friends and Full House have stuck around because their heart is in the right place. It’s a show that makes you laugh, but also think about your role in this fast-changing society. At its core, this is a show about family and the bonds that won’t break and it’s one that will hopefully run for many more beyond this excellent third season.
10/10 for Season 3
Season 1-3 of One Day at a Time are now available to stream on Netflix.
