Physical is an American dark comedy/drama series created by Annie Weisman for Apple TV+. Its first season premiered in 2021; its third and final season premiered in 2023.
Rose Byrne stars as Sheila Rubin, a repressed housewife in 1980s San Diego married to unsuccessful academic Danny (Rory Scovel). Sheila spends her days going to ballet, watching her daughter, judging others in her internal monologue, and keeping her weight in check with a vicious eating disorder. But after she discovers the aerobics studio of Bunny Kazam (Della Saba), Sheila becomes obsessed with the exercise and begins her own journey towards healing and empowerment.
The show co-stars Paul Sparks, Lou Taylor Pucci, and Deirdre Friel. It also features a score by Isabella Summers of Florence + the Machine.
Tropes:
- The '80s: Set in 1980s San Diego, and features aerobics instructionals, surfer dudes, and '80s pop galore.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: Simone praises the bohemian, '60s-ish aesthetics and attitudes of her professor Danny and his wife Sheila.
- Contrived Coincidence: Just before they leave San Diego Tyler begs Bunny to go to the beach one last time, and she lets him. As Tyler says his goodbyes, he notices that someone is drowning — and it's none other than Danny. That this is a coincidence of the highest order is lampshaded multiple times, and it allows Tyler to spill a secret of Sheila's (her affair with John Breem) that she had thus far successfully been keeping from Danny.
- Happily Married: Sheila's friends Ernie and Greta, after they work through their marriage's Dead Sparks phase in season 1, are all loved up in season 2. Sheila and Danny, who are not happily married, are often uncomfortably subject to their tales of spicing it up in bed, including being on the receiving end of a swinging attempt.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title of season 1 begins with "Let's". Season 2 does the same but with "Don't", and season 3 with "Like".
- Outclassed at the Gym: Sheila invites her Fat Best Friend Greta to her aerobics class. The beginner Greta finds it humiliating and difficult to follow along with the trim, experienced students and leaves on the verge of tears. Sheila picks up on this insecurity, and offers to teach Greta at home. This is the beginning of her plan to start a line of aerobics home videos, because she realizes that a lot of women can't or won't go to classes or the gym.
- Rape as Backstory: Sheila is estranged from her wealthy parents because they didn't believe that her father's friend assaulted her as a teenager.
- Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: We learn in the fourth episode that Sheila, a former '60s radical, is the daughter of country-club WASPs who disapproved of her liberal Jewish husband.
- Stepford Smiler: On the surface, Sheila is a polite, if a little standoffish, housewife happily married to her academic husband. Inside, she's full of self-hatred and is viciously judging other people internally.
- Surfer Dude: Tyler, a laid-back San Diego beach bro who can barely string two sentences together, loves weed, and can't resist the call of the waves, even with a diagnosis of surfer's ear.
- Villainous Gentrification: John Breem's developmental efforts in San Diego are called out for pricing out local business owners and destroying the coastline.
- Weight Woe: Sheila suffers from binge-eating disorder and obsessed with staying trim. She meticulously watches what she eats, calls herself fat and ugly in her internal monologue, and often puts other people down mentally for eating high-calorie foods or offering her food. During moments of stress, however, she'll gorge and then tell herself it'll be the last time.
