Sunny Review: Rashida Jones’s Apple TV+ Series is Heartwarming and Uncomfortably Funny

– No Spoilers –

The thought of losing a loved one is always a difficult one for most people. In Apple TV+’s newest dark comedy series Sunny, we explore the feelings of heartbreak and betrayal as Rashida Jones’s Suzie finds out that everything that she knew about her husband might have been a lie. What happens after that? Is she able to recover from this heartbreak and find the truth of everything that Masa has been up to behind her back?

When her husband, Masa Sakamoto, and their son tragically disappear in a freak plane accident, Suzie Sakamoto is left heartbroken, angry and confused. However, things take a turn when she is gifted a domesticated robot by her husband’s company and they eventually form an unlikely friendship that takes them on a journey to discover a dark underworld that Suzie did not know existed.

Sunny on Apple TV+ is an intricately-made show that is not just about AI, homebots and a mysterious husband who did not work with fridges. Rashida Jones’s series is about loneliness and human beings’ innate need to belong somewhere or with someone in order to feel happy and fulfilled. Thus, when Zen and Masa, Suzie’s family, suddenly die, she is left distraught. She is lonely without them – without friends or anyone else in her life. Thus, Sunny’s sudden appearance is, at first, an annoyance but eventually a source of comfort. Sunny is Masa’s homebot, but Suzie’s brilliant husband had other thoughts in mind when he sent it to her.

Throughout the runtime, we see Suzie try to figure out what happened to her family because she is almost certain that they did not die. As she and Mixxy go on this emotionally draining adventure, the audience learns more about her and her life in Japan as well as about Sunny and Masa. The sequences where we get flashbacks of their lives are entertaining and don’t feel like a chore to watch and I must say that it’s done with a fresh twist, such that you will be compelled to see what happens next. I was sometimes compelled to wonder about the craziness, but it’s so entertaining that it makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

Suzie and Sunny’s relationship is one of the anchors of the story because the latter isn’t just a robot – Masa created her specifically for his wife with love, compassion and a ton of secrets. There’s something sweet about Suzie opening up to other people with Sunny’s help, a key part of Masa’s life – another storyline that is not without its emotional moments either. Suzie’s character goes through the most ups and downs in the series and Rashida Jones, as always, wins our hearts over and over again. Her anguish and rage at losing her family and then going through grief to come out accepting at the end is nothing short of a journey in itself. There are moments when the audience hates her and then we understand her motives and feelings while also laughing and growing with her.

Another point of the storyline is Masa’s past, none of which I will be discussing in this Sunny review but it’s one of the driving forces of the show. Masa is as much a mystery to us as he is to his wife and the realisation that she never really knew her husband strikes Suzie and us at the same time. And then, we go out with Suzie to learn about Masa and truly know him, a journey that is not just fulfilling but also moving, in a way. You understand him and his motivations and learn to admire him as a person and as an inventor. However, he has his own demons to fight, which we slowly but surely get to know about.

Speaking about demons, the yakuza make an entry into the runtime soon enough and Suzie and the audience are left to play catchup. The yakuza’s entry feels a little unnecessary and I must say I didn’t understand the point of Hime’s backstory and internal rivalry but it does add context to her desperation to get what she wants. TV personality You is quite scary as the no-nonsense member of the yakuza who is desperate to become the boss and won’t stop at anything to reach that goal. Listen, I know you need a bad guy in these shows in order to make things more thrilling and tight, but I feel like Masa’s work and past were an exploration of immeasurable quantities and would’ve sufficed enough. But that might just be me.

Sunny‘s ending is a cliffhanger, with a shocking twist that was hinted at previously. I want to say that it was good, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that it felt a little rushed and half-baked. Although things worked out for Suzie and all, I couldn’t get over the fact that we were left with a few questions that were introduced but never touched upon afterwards. I also think that the series required more of an overarching and complete end instead of being left on a cliffhanger; considering the insanity that we watched for the 9 episodes before the last, the ending seemed almost… convenient.

Sunny Review: Final Thoughts

The series is an uncomfortable, fun and contemplative look at grief, loneliness and emotions. There are moments in the series that are just so warm and honest that it feels like it understands you. But Sunny doesn’t make the landing for some reason and leaves us with a half-baked cliffhanger and a rushed conclusion. Rashida Jones and Hidetoshi Nishijima are fantastic, with Nishijima truly stealing my heart. However, it’s probably Sho who I will remember now that the show is over (if you know, you know).

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