Fleishman Is in Trouble Recap: Premiere Episode 1 on Hulu

Divorce isn’t exactly a laugh, but Hulu’s is Fleishman is in trouble manages to find humor in the story of a broken New York family – and adds an intriguing mystery to boot.

Thursday’s premiere introduces Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a mild-mannered doctor newly separated from his workaholic agent wife, Rachel (Claire Danes). Toby is just starting to delve into the world of dating apps and is confused by all the single women out there trying to talk dirty to him. (He’s always been unhappy with the opposite sex.) We get flashbacks to Rachel complaining a lot and rushing to work, and now she threw her two kids on Toby’s lap a day early to make them off to a yoga retreat can. He calls her angry, and they argue back and forth, with her explaining that she needs “me time.” “All your time is now time for me,” he fumes.

Toby takes his children—grumpy Hannah and sweet Solly—to Y 92nd Street, where a mother sympathetically greets him: “We’re your friends too.” He recalls talking to the idiot husbands of Rachel’s mother friends who look down on him for being “just” a doctor. He likes his job, but one day he snaps at his interns and admits he’s getting a divorce. An intern is happy to introduce him to dating apps, and one weekend Toby logs on and is inundated with messages from eager women who love that he’s a doctor. He has never been so popular! Toby specializes in treating the liver, which has the ability to heal itself… and he also feels like he’s regenerating.

He also reconnects with his old friends Seth (Adam Brody), a slick womanizer, and Libby (Lizzy Caplan), a sarcastic housewife who tells Toby’s story. They lost touch over the years but got back together when Toby reached out after the divorce. Seth encourages him to enjoy his newfound freedom: “The world is your oyster now. Lick up.” He even invites Toby to a yoga class, which he whispers is a great place to meet women. Seth agrees that “marriage is for suckers” after marrying so many Seeing men who are desperately unhappy and afraid to go home to their wives, Seth also tends towards younger women: “I just think the younger ones hate us less.”

Toby leaves his kids with their nanny, Mona (“You’re ruining everything,” Hannah growls at him) so he can go on a hot date with a girl named Tess, with whom he exchanges dirty messages. They have a drink and complain about their exes, but before long they’re having wild sex – and we see in a montage Toby having a lot of wild sex with a bunch of other women. He returns home strengthened and takes Hannah to a sleepover where Rachel will pick her up, but when Toby tries to confirm it with his ex, he is unable to reach her. He sends her a barrage of angry messages, and she never shows up to pick Hannah up, forcing Toby to rush there instead. Rachel can be cruel to him, but it’s not like her to dump her kids. Toby leaves her an angry voicemail and Hannah yells at him and Tess shows up at his door in a trench coat and lingerie, but flees when his kids answer the door. “Where’s Mama?” Hannah keeps screaming. Yeah, where’s Rachel?

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