Sex and the City recognised it early. Dating has echoed the marketplace for years, a quiet truth that feels sharper now in an age shaped by choice and performance.

Watching Queenie reveals how the performance of being fine becomes its own quiet identity, a form of emotional autopilot that can look like confidence from the outside.

Bridget Jones commits the one unforgivable cultural sin: she tries. She lets the camera watch her wrestle with life instead of floating above it.

The past keeps coming back to our screens, not because we’ve run out of ideas, but because nostalgia has become something you can package, resell, and call comfort.

Watching Midge Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel reveals how a life performed so seamlessly it looks instinctive hides the labour behind composure. Effortlessness still requires effort, and the line between performance and identity is quietly blurred.

Fleabag doesn’t make jokes to escape the moment. She makes them to edit it, to shrink the feeling into something she can hold before she steps back inside her life.