Hulu’s latest original series, Maggie, about a 30-something-year-old psychic is an unexpected treat.
The concept of seeing into the future isn’t entirely new to millennials, so it makes sense that the series is geared toward the demographic with nostalgic references and jokes that only people who lived through the ’90s and still think it’s the best decade would ever actually understand let alone appreciate.
The series taps into that millennial magic with its quirky blend of That’s So Raven, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch – with a sprinkle of Good Witch for good measure. Heck, even Sabrina Spellman’s former principal Willard Kraft (guest star Martin Mull) walks into Maggie’s storefront as Zach, a man looking for a reading to determine whether or not he should retire. It’s just one of many Easter eggs for millennials.
Why? Because Maggie is an adult Disney show is Disney made show for adults.
And that’s precisely why you need to watch it.
Admittedly, the first episode feels slightly disjointed and a little too fast-paced, but that’s to be expected when you’re jumping into the thick of things without really knowing what to expect. By episode 2, you’re fully hooked into Maggie’s drama and captivated by the eccentric supporting cast, which also includes Chris Elliot from Schitt’s Creek in the role of the titular character’s father, Jack. This is no Schitt’s Creek, don’t be mistaken, but it’s an enjoyable and breezy watch from beginning to end with a charming nature that kicks things into PG-13 territory at times.
Rebecca Rittenhouse ebbs and flows between an ethereal being and your normal girl next door. It’s never too much because — with visions or without them — she’s just a girl that can’t figure out her own life even when she has all the answers in the palm of her hands.
Despite the visions giving audiences a glimpse at what’s to come, the mystery never fades as we quickly learn that the visions are devious little things that don’t always show the full picture… likely on purpose.
And what we come to gather pretty quickly is that Maggie relies on them all too much. She’s so focused on the future, she forgets to live in the present or follow her heart since she always knows what’s going to happen next. And while that sounds great on the surface, there’s a reason us mere mortals don’t know what’s going to happen next — it’s the perfect breeding ground for self-sabotage.
Maggie does a lot of that throughout the 13-episode run.
Her first misstep is when she ends things with Ben (David Del Rio) — a once sidekick on Beauty and the Baker that has quickly (and deservedly) ventured into heartthrob territory. After their swoon-worthy meeting and one-night stand, their connection is undeniable and has the potential to become so much more. In fact, according to her vision, she could have gone all the way with Ben as he’s the one, the soulmate, and the man she actually sees herself having kids with.
Of course, that’s too easy, and Maggie’s picture-perfect life is destroyed within minutes when she gets a vision of him standing at the alter with another woman, which forces her to end things because “she knows how it will end anyway.” Except that she doesn’t.
Credit: Maggie/ Hulu
Much of Maggie’s visions do, in fact, come true. A few months later, Ben does move into the duplex her parents own, with his high school soulmate and on-and-off-again girlfriend, Jessie. But while Ben and Jessie are a cute couple — we even like Jessie! — it’s clear that things between them are still choppy, especially since Ben naturally gravitates toward Maggie at every opportunity. They never go there, but emotional cheating is emotional cheating. And those stolen glances between Ben and Maggie, I mean, there’s no denying it.
As nice as Jessie is, you can’t help but root for Ben and Maggie through all the ups and downs of the season, including when Maggie gives Daniel, a great guy on the surface, a shot. Even then, Ben seems to pick up on the fact that he’s just not right for her, and when it’s revealed that Daniel doesn’t believe in her superpowers, Ben is there to pick up the pieces with some cake. Why? Because he’s a man that knows the way to her heart. He knows her, sometimes better than she knows herself.
Also, let me segue really briefly into Daniel. He claims to love Maggie, but then tells her that their whole lives don’t have to revolve around her visions, which is fair, they don’t, but in that ask, he wants her to ignore and mute a core part of who she is instead of embracing it and finding a way to incorporate it into his life. It’s one thing to encourage her to live life without constantly seeking approval from the future and coming from a place of love like Angel, but it’s another thing entirely to attempt to mansplain it, which is what Daniel did. He was dismissive of Maggie and her feelings. She deserves better; and seeing Daniel’s hesitancy to accept Maggie, while Ben didn’t even question her abilities further propels Ben into “the one” territory.
There are a few moments where Maggie acknowledges the depths of her feelings for Ben, including when she finally opens up to her mom about their brief yet meaningful fling, but those are rare and far and few in between. Mostly, she’s just doing what’s “expected of her,” and what she thinks she “should do,” which again, is where most of the problems stem from.
In fact, it’s why she loses her powers in the first place. While trying to help people, Maggie gets too caught up in seeing her own future while simultaneously denying what she was seeing based solely on fear.
Her mind eventually blocks out the visions to protect her from something bad, which ends up being Jessie finding out about Maggie’s hookup with Ben.
The problem here isn’t that they had a thing since it happened while Ben and Jessie were broken up, but it’s more about betrayal by all of the people she loved and trusted, including Ben. In a refreshing moment, Jessie also doesn’t put the full blame on Maggie, who is all too eager to take it anyway, but she acknowledges that part of the fallout is that Ben doesn’t seem convinced that he wants to pursue a future with her. After 14 years, he still doesn’t know what he wants and won’t commit to her fully.
Maggie then figures that the only way to course-correct and possibly get her visions back is to help fix the problem she created. She pushes Ben towards Jessie by telling him that she’s his future. It seems logical since she saw them getting married in her vision, but she’s also ignoring all the other visions that very clearly allude to Ben and Maggie having a family together one day. She’s still sacrificing her happiness for others and meddling instead of just being honest and allowing her heart to dictate what happens next.
And that’s a steep price to pay.
It’s also clear that by not trusting her heart and using her visions to dictate her future, Maggie pushed Ben right back into Jessie’s arms creating this whole mess. When Ben finds himself at a crossroads, he has a heart-to-heart with Maggie where she suggests that maybe she’s his soulmate, but Maggie continues to push him toward Jessie thinking that she can just fix the problem by ignoring it. But the truth is, if you have to convince someone to be with their long-time girlfriend, it’s likely not the person they should be with.
Credit: Maggie/ Hulu
Nevertheless, the final episode finds Ben and Jessie engaged. And when Maggie’s visions finally return, she gets some conflicting information as she sees both herself and Jessie standing at the altar with Ben. Initially, I thought that maybe Maggie’s visions were testing her and that Jessie was actually getting married to someone else, but now I’m thinking this is proof that nothing is set in stone. Your actions — today, yesterday, and tomorrow — have the power to change the future.
What if upon meeting Ben, Maggie said “screw the visions” and kept a good thing going? Would that have changed the future and removed Jessie from the equation entirely? Or would they still end up in this situation only for Ben to realize that he’s been trying to make things work with the wrong woman?
Obviously, things are messy now considering the whole ring of it all, but if she truly loves Ben and can’t see her life without him, she owes it to herself, to him, and heck, even Jessie, to get in the middle and mess it all up. This unconventional triangle is simply setting them up for more heartache down the line by not actually being honest.
Plus, an engagement doesn’t just make all the problems disappear. Jessie and Ben simply glossed over their core issues because they wanted to make this work instead of getting down to the root of it all. What led to their previous breakups is bound to bubble up again, ring or not.
The supporting cast offers a bit of reprieve from the whole “will they or won’t they” trope.
Lou is a fun contrast to Maggie’s more methodical personality. She’s free-spirited and up for anything, but she also knows exactly how to ground Maggie when it’s needed. Her choice in men hasn’t always been the best (looking at you. John), but I’m hoping that Sam, a fellow pug owner that she meets at Dave and Amy’s wedding, might finally be the real deal. I felt for her when she talked about the degrading nature of online dating.
Everyone on the show is fantastic, and while they started off as exaggerated characters, mostly Dave and Amy, they’ve really brought a wealth of personality to the series. Angel, however, takes the cake as the best support system a girl could ever have. He’s punny, confident, and most of all, full of knowledge that helps move the narrative along.
Really clever shows tend to get the ax all too soon, but considering that cliffhanger demands answers, I hope we get a second season.
If only I had a crystal ball to make sure that Hulu lives in the moment and makes the right decision for Maggie’s future!
Did you watch the series?
We give it a B+! What grade would you give it? Let us know in the comments below!