Forever is a half-hour dramedy series created by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, airing on Prime Video. The series stars Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph as a middle-aged couple, Oscar and June, who seem stuck in a rut in their relationship. When their circumstances radically change, they're tested to either remain the same, forever, or venture into unfamiliar territory.
The series premiered in 2018 on Amazon Video and ran for a single eight-episode season.
Not to be confused with the 2014 series of the same name.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Brown: Neither Oscar nor June's race are specified. Mark mentions that he's curious about June's racial makeup. The only hint we get is that June's nephew is Jewish.
- Asshole Victim: Discussed. Kase figures out how to "juice" Currents by stealing their energy. She makes sure to show that a local gas station employee is a real scumbag before teaching June how to do it, so June won't feel guilty.
- Bait-and-Switch: Toward the end of "Andre and Sarah," we see Andre arrive from work to find Sarah cooking a large dinner, implying that they've left their spouses and started a life together. It turns out that they're cheating on their spouses by having a date in a vacant house.
- Cannot Talk to Women: Mark, due to dying before he ever had a relationship.
- Cliffhanger: Where did Oscar and June end up at the end of the season?
- Dissonant Serenity: After reading June's "Dear John" letter, he has almost no external reaction and simply goes about his day as normal. The only betrayal of his internal turmoil is when he tries to slam a stuck drawer closed.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Oscar. We see him try to hit on June in a bar, only to be ignored when her much more handsome boyfriend arrives. He eventually wins her over by being a nice guy.
- Dull Surprise: Some pretty shocking things happen to Oscar, but you would never be able to tell from his perma-bland expression.
- Extreme Doormat: Oscar is extremely nonconfrontational. In the first episode, we see June yelling at him while he remains mild. In the seventh episode, June discovers that he secretly rearranges the dish washer after she loads it to avoid arguing about it. When giving Mark advice, Oscar says that he is the "peacemaker" of the relationship and that every couple needs one.
- Falling-in-Love Montage: The series begins with a montage of how Oscar and June met, fell in love, got married, and fell into a rut.
- French Jerk: Marisol has a French accent and says things that are at times mildly insulting, such as when she blithely comments that some of the things June says sound stupid but provide an interesting perspective.
- Healing Spring: None of the Formers in Riverside can venture more than a few miles from the fountain in the middle of their neighborhood.
- Her Heart Will Go On: June spends episode two mourning Oscar.
- Meet Cute:
- Oscar first tries to chat up June at a bar, but they meet for real at the grocery store when they're both trying to buy the same frozen pizza.
- Sarah and Andre meet when Andre visits Sarah's first solo open house, and he accidentally muddles up her pristine snack table.
- Motif: Being near water. Oscar and June live in Riverside and spend their vacations in a lakehouse. In the afterlife, they still live in Riverside and can't go too far from a fountain. They eventually make it to Oceanside, where they can't go too far from the sea. In the episode ''Andre and Sarah," the eponymous pair discuss how practical it is to live in a desert so far from water.
- Modern Stasis: The era where Andre and Sarah meet and devolop their affair seems to be the 2010s, considering the smartphones, pop culture references and the way they talk about how society has changed and an interracial couple like them would be badly seen or not exist at all in other times. However, in the future, when a 70-years-old Andre goes to an open house where Sarah was supossed to be, everything looks the same as if it's still the 2010s.
- Mundane Afterlife: A founding principle of the show. The afterlife is just hanging around on Earth, squatting in vacant buildings, eating, sleeping and doing most of the same things you used to do. June was bored doing the same things for her entire life. Now she's really got to decide if she can do them literally forever.
- Older Than They Look: Everyone looks the same age as when they died, no matter how long ago that was. Mark looks 17 but is in his 50s, and the person who's been in Riverside the longest is a child.
- Resurrected Romance: An unusual example in that Oscar dies in the first episode, and June spends an episode mourning him until she dies and reunites with him in the afterlife.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Oscar says that June dated a lot of handsome, mean men, but he won her over by being nice.
- The Unreveal: When Andre makes a putt to "determine the future of humanity," we don't see whether he sinks it or misses. They both react with mild amusement, and Sarah says she doesn't know whether to be happy or sad about the result.
- Walk, Don't Swim: Formers can walk along the bottom of the ocean. In the season one finale, June and Oscar walk across the ocean to somewhere new.
