Season Review: Quibi’s Dummy Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Cody and her boyfriend Dan have a wonderful, trusting relationship… until she discovers his used sex doll hiding in the closet. So begins a weird and wild saga of destruction, deception, and inner turmoil. Cody accidentally breaks the sex doll (named Barbara), which causes her to have to go on a roadtrip to find a repair shop.

Throughout the evening, they slowly find themselves becoming closer. Eventually, an employee recommends that Barbara be replaced. Cody can’t bear to do it, though. So instead, she brings her home, makes her into her roommate, and turns her into a… writing partner?! As the show goes on, the duo get into a whole mess of troubles from being taken hostage, to much worse.

Our Take:

Quibi has arrived, bringing with it 50 different shows that are all consumable solely on phone apps. Regardless of your feelings toward yet another streaming service, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how much I used Quibi’s ‘gimmicky’ feature of being able to watch in fullscreen on both portrait and landscape. It may sound dumb, but just having the freedom to hold it how I please while watching in bed, on the couch, or on our (non-existent these days) commute is very handy! But on to the show itself – Dummy is part raunchy sex comedy, part introspective character drama. It’s an offbeat and unexpected experience, and I actually enjoyed it, for the most part at least. There’s a lot to like here, so let’s break it down.

Anna Kendrick is charmingly dorky and lovable as Cody. She’s our main character, and so it’s important that we’re able to empathize with her, seeing the world through her eyes. Kendrick is no amateur, and does a great job selling Cody’s insecurities about everything from her boyfriend to her agent to herself. She’s a writer working on a pilot about ‘the tooth fairy, but also a stripper’. She also might be insane? The relationship she eventually forms with her boyfriend’s sex doll is definitely inside her head, but it’s somewhat debatable just how detached from reality she is. But who cares? Cody is still great!

Then there’s Barbara, who starts off as Cody’s rival and slowly morphs into something of a companion. Even if you put aside the whole ‘talking sex doll’ thing, Barbara is still an interesting character because she’s basically Cody’s inner, more honest self talking to herself. She isn’t afraid to say what’s real, or what she thinks is real, and the dynamic between them is really cool once you get past the, er,  outer layer. Barbara is excellently voiced by Meredith Hagner, but one thing that I was never to sure about is the facial animation for the doll. It strikes a weird balance between real and overly-stylized, and I found myself wishing it picked one or the other angle instead of landing creepily in-between.

In the end, Dummy is definitely worth checking out if you like raunchy comedies, heartfelt dramas, Anna Kendrick, or all three. It’s a strange little show that hides a lot of emotional depth underneath an outlandish exterior. And adding up the runtime of all ten episodes and you’ve only wasted one evening if you end up not liking it.