Emmy Voters, Don’t Forget About ‘Laid’: Peacock’s One-Season Dramedy Is Worth a Second Look

It’s been 30 years since the publication of Nick Hornby’s novel “High Fidelity,” and there’s a reason that it has been adapted into a movie, a TV show and a Broadway musical. Turns out, a book about tracking down your exes in hopes it will help you understand why your latest relationship failed is extremely prescient – even if it came out during the dial-up era.

“Laid,” the Peacock comedy from Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna and adapted from the Australian format of the same name, is “High Fidelity” for a generation raised on true crime and procedural television.

Stephanie Hsu stars as Ruby Yao, a 30-something party planner who is both desperately seeking a meet-cute and biding her time until she finds The One by testing out other available options in the Seattle area. She’s a little weirded out when she learns of a college boyfriend’s sudden passing, but then more exes start falling — some in surprising and surreal ways like a police shooting and others from drawn-out illness. Sometimes these relationships were long-term courtships; others were random hookups who can only be called an “ex-boyfriend” by the loosest of definitions. Sometimes they barely remember Ruby. Sometimes they remember her quite well and have some hard truths to share before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Ruby’s top ally in this scavenger hunt is her best friend and roommate AJ (Zosia Mamet), a bartender and Amanda Knox stan who transfers her well-honed knowledge of the Italian legal system and extradition practices into an elaborate sex timeline so they can try to prevent some of these deaths. Not necessarily as helpful are AJ’s boyfriend Zack (Andre Hyland), Ruby’s ex Richie (Michael Angarano) and the new object of her affection, Tommy Martinez’s Isaac, a handsome client who hires Ruby to plan his parents’ 40th wedding anniversary party.

Much like Peacock’s “Poker Face,” each episode of “Laid” allows for random actors and comedians like Simu Liu, John Early and Mamoudou Athie to pop in as the “case of the week.” Also, “Laid” gets to revel in making absurd comedy about something that’s actually quite awful. Unlike “Poker Face,” its heroine doesn’t have as strong a moral compass or world weariness; Ruby is a Zennial who does virtual therapy sessions because it’s easier to zone out during them instead of doing the work. She contemplates if seeing old flames keel over like dominoes is just what it’s like to be in your 30s.

“Laid” also gets to do something that evades many female-centric TV shows: raunch. It is a show that is very much about sex and dating culture, and its characters talk in a more graphic and honest way than the ladies from Max’s “And Just Like That…,” but without the sense of self-discovery and finality that comes with Hulu’s cancer dramedy “Dying for Sex.” As far as sex and pleasure go, this is not Ruby’s first rodeo. The theme song, “Laid,” is a 1990s ballad of addictive and toxic romance by the alt-rock band James (“My therapist says not to see you no more / She said you’re like a disease without any cure”).

But the cast and creators also understand the lineage that got them to this point. Ruby and Isaac bond over a shared love of the oeuvre of rom-com king Billy Crystal, and she learns that his favorite way to unwind is to bust some moves to the Hugh Jackman movie “The Greatest Showman,” creating a meme-able moment for anyone who has spent too many Sundays on a couch with movies like “27 Dresses” and “13 Going on 30.”

“Laid” is proof that, although romantic comedy tropes tend to go round and round, they can also be remixed.