The Letdown: Frankenstein

In ‘Frankenstein’ (2017), the first episode of the newborn-centred Netflix comedy The Letdown, we meet the central character Audrey (Alison Bell) as she gets into an argument with an officious mother who wants her parking-spot. The opening scene ends with Audrey screaming obscenities – then apologising to her baby daughter. Ruined by sleeplessness, constantly questioning her worth, Audrey is in a state of swing between tears and furious irritation at the smug mums in her mother’s group, which drives her to ever-more elaborate one-upping lies. She’s not mean as such, but she’s certainly at screaming point. 

In this scene at a bookshop, Audrey gets into a face-palming fix when she’s caught browsing the parental help section, having previously boasted, ‘I don’t need the books.’ The Letdown’s writers, Bell and Sarah Scheller, take aim at an industry that invents terms – tiger mother, crummy mummy, attachment style – designed to make women feel inadequate. We wonder, along with Audrey, ‘Who comes up with this stuff?’ 

The Letdown looks unflinchingly at the raw trauma involved in raising a baby. But this is, after all, a comedy, and by the end of the episode Audrey has worked her way through a controlled-crying disaster with her partner and is soothing her little monster with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  

Notes by Rose Mulready