Love mess? Netflix just got the soapy dramedy for you to marathon

January is a “try hard” month. The year has turned, and many people are attempting to make changes — if not full-on resolutions, then at least a dream, a goal to try to angle themselves toward. I think it’s a great time to undertake a TV project. (Watch historical television! Cross off that one show you’ve always meant to do!) But for the days when the trying has become too much, you need something pulpy and propulsive to sink into. Enter Younger, specifically to Netflix’s catalog. Younger is a perfect soapy watch for several reasons: It’s long-running. It’s got short, punchy episodes that almost always end with a dangling promise for what’s to come. It’s got a love triangle that gets tossed around like vegetables frying in a wok. But perhaps most notably it’s because Younger is a show where the premise matters a lot — right up to when it doesn’t. The show follows Liza (Sutton Foster), a freshly divorced, former stay-at-home mom trying to get her career back on track after 15 years away. Finding herself shut out of all entry-level jobs in the publishing industry, she decides on a white lie: Change her resume to make it look like she’s 26 (which means ditching the AOL email address). [Image: Pictured: Sutton Foster as Liza, Hilary Duff as Kelsey and Molly Bernard as Lauren of the series YOUNGER. Photo Cr: Nicole Rivelli/2021 ViacomCBS, Inc. All Rights Reserved. https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Younger_0122721_709_NR_0127_R.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] Younger goes out of its way to make it clear that she is doing this out of desperation — you can only be almost called old in an interview so many times before you turn to foolhardiness — and viewers should use their own discretion when lying on a job application. And technically, much of Younger turns entirely on the central lie of the series. But as the series grows, it gets knotty with relationships, entanglements, thinly veiled publishing gossip, and hijinks. You can trace the various lives of Younger from the various season posters: Liza kissing a boy; Liza walking with her friends; Liza and Kelsey (Hilary Duff), a friend and colleague at the publishing house; Liza turning around in a glamorous dress or just to press her finger over her lips to keep her secret. It’s less the evolution of the show than it is a window into its many facets. Given the ensemble cast of the show, there’s a lot of people who get swept up in her ruse. As you might expect, there’s various levels of hiding and discovering that Liza has to leap through as both her career and the series progress. But Younger’s gift is that while her lie is the hook of the show, it’s not all the show is. Like any 40-year-old somehow able to pass for 26, it contains multitudes and a remarkable capacity for attracting dilemmas. At its heart, it’s more of a publishing house dramedy soap. As Liza and co. jump between new relationships and publishing conundrums, Younger is tantalizing in the way it weaves its web of lies and love. And every step is at once heartening and chaotic. The show feels like the right kind of trashy: shiny and always driving forward at the next complication. In a month where we all feel like we’re steering out of skids and avoiding the cold, Younger is the perfect marathon to keep you warm — you just gotta love mess. Younger is now streaming on Netflix.