Wolf Like Me is a Peacock Paranormal Romance series, starring Josh Gad and Isla Fisher.
In Adelaide, Australia, Gary (Gad) is a widower with a 12-year-old daughter named Emma, both of them struggling with depression after Gary's wife passed away from cancer nearly a decade before; Emma also spends a lot of time with her aunt Sarah and uncle Ray, when Gary isn't up to taking care of her. Into their life comes Mary (Fisher), a much more energetic woman whom Emma latches onto and Gary falls in love with.
The catch is that Mary is a werewolf, and has to work her romantic life around the full moon.
The first season premiered in 2022, and the second season premiered in 2023.
This series contains examples of the following:
- Alternate Identity Amnesia: As she is quick to tell Gary when he assumes otherwise, Mary can't recall her actions as a wolf. Mary's ex-boyfriend Anton, who is also a werewolf, also has this issue when he appears in season 2, basically confirming this to Gary.
- Bad Samaritan: A pair of carjackers pose as auto help when Gary, Mary, and Emma are broken down in the desert, only to show their true colors when Gary tells them to leave. Mary ends up eating them.
- Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Mary's Catapult Nightmare at the beginning of season 2 has her maternity wedding dress get ruined by her unborn baby transforming and ripping its way out of her womb, and attacking everyone at the wedding. Emma's flower-girl dress in the same nightmare also gets drenched in blood.
- Brick Joke: In season 2, Gary procures a pig for Mary to eat on the night of a full moon. It gets let loose when Sarah and Ray turn up. That same pig watches everyone get arrested at the end of the season 2 finale.
- Broken Bird: Underneath the Manic Pixie Dream Girl persona she has on in public, Mary is quite clearly broken and dysfunctional.
- Broken Masquerade: Mary's secret is let out at the end of season 2, first when she starts to transform in public, then the police arrest everyone at the end of the episode.
- Camping Episode: The Season 1 Finale starts with Gary, Mary, and Emma out camping in the Australian Outback, only for their car to break down before they get home. The full moon rises before they can fix it, and Mary eats two carjackers who try to exploit the situation.
- Cannot Spit It Out: In the season 1 finale, Mary is OK with telling Emma about her being pregnant, but can't muster enough courage to tell Emma that she's a werewolf. Rendered a moot point the next night when Emma sees Mary's wolf form in action.
- Car Meets House: Gary accidentally crashes his car into an Italian restaurant while trying to pull away from Mary's car.
- While panickedly running home in the pilot episode, Mary also unintentionally causes a car to crash into a bus station.
- Catapult Nightmare: Season 2 opens with Mary having one, in which her wedding gets ruined by her unborn baby turning into a werewolf, ripping its way out of her womb, and attacking everyone at her and Gary's wedding.
- Chest Burster: Mary's Catapult Nightmare has her unborn baby turning into a werewolf and doing this at her wedding.
- Chronically Crashed Car: Gary's blue SUV is heavily dented and visibly rusting, and Gary gets into three separate car crashes (and one breakdown in the middle of the desert) in season 1 alone.
- Crash-Into Hello: Gary meets Mary in a car crash at the beginning of the pilot episode, when Mary accidentally drives her car into Gary and Emma's. Gary unintentionally returns the favor at the end of season 1 episode 3.
- Censor Shadow: Mary's return to the car in the season 1 finale shows her outline in the night, using the darkness to hide her nudity.
- Cliffhanger: The season 2 finale ends on this note. Mary successfully gives birth to her pup and acts gentle with it, but the police are at their door.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Mary was bitten by a werewolf while in Prague, then turned into one and (most likely) ate her husband at a rock concert that happened to be the night of a full moon. Then she transformed again while in Italy and ate an entire family, before she fled all the way to Australia.
- Disposable Vagrant: Averted. Emma gifts a sandwich to a homeless person in season 1 episode 1, and Gary gifts a replacement Shopping Cart of Homelessness to another homeless person (whom Gary assumed was the first one) in season 2 episode 5.
- Drives Like Crazy: Both Gary and Mary are accident-prone drivers, and Gary's car is clearly busted up as a result.
- Deconstructed when this gets them named as suspects for a double homicide by the police.
- Eats Babies: Mary specifically tasks Gary with trying to prevent her from invoking this trope on their own baby.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Sarah and Ray's cat is afraid of Mary, hissing and fleeing to the roof of the house.
- Inverted with actual dogs, a half-dozen of whom are shown happily approaching Mary in the park.
- Fairy Tale Wedding Dress: Mary's Catapult Nightmare at the beginning of season 2 has Mary in a Fairy-Tale maternity wedding dress, that gets ruined when her unborn baby rips itself out of her womb, and attacks everyone at the wedding.
- Foreshadowing: Emma's Security Blanket being a plush wolf foreshadows Mary's lycanthropy, which is first revealed at the end of the first episode.
- That same plush wolf being placed in the baby crib, and Mary's affectionate treatment of it while she's in wolf form, also foreshadows Gary and Mary's then-unborn baby is also a werewolf.
- Freak Out: Emma has a panic attack after the car crash in the pilot episode and again when she sees Mary's werewolf form kill and eat two people in the season 1 finale.
- Gory Discretion Shot:
- In season 1 episode 2, Mary turning into a werewolf and eating two chickens and a goat happens entirely off-screen- all we see is Gary's reaction.
- Mary eating the two carjackers happens while the camera is on the other side of the car.
- Had the Silly Thing in Reverse: Played for Drama when Gary accidentally setting his car's stick-shift to third gear puts him into an Italian restaurant.
- Hero Insurance: Gary and Mary liberally engage in theft, reckless driving, Assault, and property damage, all to keep Mary's Lycanthropy a secret. Averted when they all get arrested at the end of season 2.
- Letters to the Editor: Mary's day-job is as a writer who responds to "Dear Adelaide" letters in the local paper. Some of Mary's monologues at the beginning of episodes are also presented in this format.
- Locked in a Room: Self-imposed by Mary, who locks herself in her basement with some chickens to avoid eating people. When she's unable to do this in the Season 1 finale, Gary and Emma keep themselves locked in the car while Mary eats a pair of would-be carjackers.
- Mama Bear: Mary quickly becomes one for Emma. she later becomes one for her unborn baby, tasking Gary with keeping her from eating it.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Subverted. Mary initially seems like this, coming across in public as a cheerful happy-go-lucky girl, only to be revealed to be a werewolf with a Dark and Troubled Past.
- The Masquerade: The show starts with only Mary and her ex-boyfriend Anton knowing that Mary is a Werewolf. Gary and Emma find out over the course of season 1, and resolve to keep it a secret. Sarah and Ray find out during the season 2 finale, and the police find out when they come to arrest everyone at the end of the episode.
- Maternity Crisis: A pregnant Werewolf going into labor the day before the night of the full moon, and starting to transform mid-day during labor, definitely qualifies.
- Mercy Kill: Subverted- the goat that Mary ate in episode 2 had some sort of nerve infection, and was going to be put down anyway. The goat would have probably preferred euthanasia to being eaten.
- In season 2, Mary kept a loaded gun in the glove box of Gary's car so that he could give her one if she ate their baby.
- Missing Mom: Gary's previous wife (and Emma's mom) died of cancer when Emma was a toddler.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Mary wears one in the opening of episode 3, having changed back from wolf to human but not having gotten dressed yet.
- Monster Delay: Mary's wolf form is obscured from the audience completely for around 5 episodes. She is revealed by the climax of the Season 1 finale, and becomes more visible in Season 2.
- Never Found the Body: The fact that Mary's late husband's body was never found is why Mary believes she ate him. She also thinks she ate an Italian family for the same reason.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Season 1 only describes Mary's condition as "turning into a wolf" with the only use of the word "werewolf" said once for episode 5. Subverted when Season 2 came along, with Mary being referred to as a werewolf more frequently.
- Oh, Crap!: At least Once per Episode.
- Mary when she realizes that it's almost sundown on the night of the full moon, so she has to run all the way home and lock herself in her basement.
- Gary when he follows Mary home to retrieve his car keys... and witnesses Mary turning into a werewolf.
- Gary when he accidentally backs his car into Mary's jeep in Episode 3. And then again when he crashes into the Italian restaurant in the opening of episode 4.
- Mary's dialogue with Gary in episode 5 reveals she had one off-screen when she found out she was pregnant, worrying if the baby will also be a werewolf or if she might accidentally eat her own child.
- Mary and Gary when their car breaks down in the Australian Outback on the night of the full moon.
- Gary and Emma when they get carjacked while their car is broken down, and then again when Mary shows up and eats the carjackers.
- Gary and Mary when they find out that Emma is in trouble for standing up to a bully at her new school in the first half of season 2.
- Gary when he accidentally unlocks the basement door instead of the front door, meaning that Mary's wolf form is loose in the house and he can't pick up Emma from Sarah and Ray's.
- Gary when the Police question him on Mary eating the carjackers, which is being considered a double Homicide.
- Mary when another Werewolf, her ex-boyfriend Anton, crashes her baby shower.
- Gary when Mary cheats on him with Anton while they're both in wolf form.
- Mary when she realizes she left a loaded gun in the glove box in Gary's car... which the police have just seized in an investigation related to the deaths of the two carjackers.
- Gary, Mary, Emma, Sarah, and Ray when their arguing causes Mary to go into labor.
- Gary, Mary, Emma, Sarah, and Ray when Mary starts turning into a werewolf while in labor, at the hospital, in broad daylight.
- Sarah and Ray when they witness first-hand that Gary was not kidding about Mary being a werewolf.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The normally vegan Mary willfully eating meat when not in wolf form is one of the first signs that Mary is pregnant to the audience.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Mary is pretty much a bog-standard werewolf, with the standard werewolf origin story (bitten by a werewolf, then became one herself), is a mindless hungry brute as a wolf (she takes the precaution of locking herself in the basement with some chickens every night of the full moon), and is shown as quadrupedal when her wolf form is finally shown on-screen in the season 1 finale.
- As of the season 2 finale, Lycanthropy is also shown to be hereditary, and female werewolves apparently give birth while in wolf form, on the night of a full moon that is nearest their due date.
- Pregnant Badass: The inevitable result of a female werewolf getting pregnant, as two would-be carjackers find out the hard way.
- Red Herring: Emma's panic attack after surviving an automobile accident, combined with her Missing Mom, leads the audience to believe that Emma's mom died in a car crash. Gary mentions to Mary that she died of cancer instead.
- Screaming Birth: Played Straight in the first half of Mary's labor. Averted once she transforms.
- Security Blanket: Emma's is a plush wolf.
- Self-Harm: Emma is hospitalized in episode 2 after Gary walks in on the aftermath of her self-harming. It's also heavily implied to have been a Bungled Suicide.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Mary has to quickly strip all her clothes off whenever she turns into a wolf.
- Shopping Cart of Homelessness. Gary accidentally runs over a homeless man's shopping cart in season 2 episode 5, but then (assuming the homeless man was the same one that Emma gifted a sandwich to in the pilot episode), he goes through the effort of getting him a new cart.
- Shout-Out:
- Mary gifts Emma a copy of Contact as an apology gift for the car crash in the pilot episode. Author Carl Sagan is also name-dropped, as is his relation to the Voyager Golden Records
. - Mary's Catapult Nightmare at the beginning of season 2 shows a baby werewolf ripping itself out of its mother's womb . Where have we seen that before?
- Mary gifts Emma a copy of Contact as an apology gift for the car crash in the pilot episode. Author Carl Sagan is also name-dropped, as is his relation to the Voyager Golden Records
- Streaking: Downplayed. Mary walks out into the street to keep talking with Gary, covered only in her Modesty Bedsheet, while marathoners run by while paying no attention to them. The other time she's naked in public, she's in the Australian Outback, completely alone except for Gary and Emma.
- Surprise Car Crash: Mary's Crash-Into Hello with Gary and Emma is this, her jeep T-boning Gary's car completely out of nowhere. Fortunately, nobody is killed, though Emma has a panic attack.
- Swear Jar: Gary's in-laws, Sarah and Ray, have one at their house. Gary and Mary run afoul of it in episode 5.
- Time-Passes Montage: Three months pass between episode 4 and episode 5 of season 1, shown by three full moons, each followed by a shot of Gary standing at the top of the basement stairs with a bathrobe for Mary.
- Time Skip: At least three months pass between the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2, since Mary is in her first trimester at the end of season 1, and already has a large bump by the beginning of season 2.
- Transformation Discretion Shot: Mary's transformations into a werewolf are always given this until the season 2 finale.
- Transformation Sequence: Mary doesn't get an on-screen one until the season 2 finale, when Mary transforms when in labor in broad daylight.
- Trauma Button: Italian food is one for Mary, after she ate an Italian family in her backstory.
- Meat in general is also apparently one for Mary, since she became a vegan as a human, presumably to dissociate from her wolf side.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A man and a woman arguing in the street, the latter only wearing a Modesty Bedsheet, are completely ignored by a group of passing marathon runners.
- What If the Baby Is Like Me: Mary is worried that her and Gary's baby will also be a werewolf. Also notable in that this is the way that Mary's pregnancy is announced to the audience in season 1.
- This trope is the reason for Mary's Catapult Nightmare at the beginning of season 2- notably, the nightmare ends with Emma, her flower-girl gown as drenched in blood as Mary's wedding dress, exasperatedly asking why Mary got pregnant.
- Ultimately, the season 2 finale confirms the baby to be a werewolf.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: After Gary discovers that Mary is a werewolf, she asks is he's going to tell anyone. While he is terrified, he brings up that nobody would believe him.
