CBS’s The Unicorn stars Walton Goggins as Wade, a widowed man whose friends try to get him to start dating a year after his wife has passed. Goggins is much different in this show than you’ve seen him before. He isn’t the devilishly cunning Boyd Crowder from Justified or the exaggerated televangelist from The Righteous Gemstones. In reality, what makes Goggins so unique is not really being utilized in this series. Wade could be played by anyone and maybe that is what felt so off to me.
As a comedy, it is not ‘hold your sides’ from laughing so hard funny. I would constitute it more as an endearing series than anything else. You can tell that the show does not know where it wants to go at times. In some aspects, it feels like they are trying to make Wade like Dane Cook’s character in Good Luck Chuck, but then completely retracts that in some episodes. For me, the show works the best when it’s focusing less on Wade’s dating life and more on his family.
Wade’s wife Jill passed away a year prior to the series’ beginning. As a single dad, Wade lost his wife and his best friend. The father to two teenage girls, Wade’s been living off of the frozen food everyone gave him when Jill died. Seeing their friend in a funk is not easy for his group of friends, so they try to get him to start dating. The reason why the show is called ‘Unicorn’ is dropped pretty quickly. Though widowed, Wade offers the stability that women love, while touching upon that Wedding Crashers vibe of needing a ‘thing’ that draws in dates. His friends see this as a good thing, but Wade is put off by the label.
Regardless, he goes on dates and tries the dating apps, but is not satisfied with what dating is like after twenty years of being with the same woman. Honestly, it’s also a little sleazy how pushy his friends are, considering they’re married and clearly want to live vicariously through him. There is a great episode where Wade attends a group full of widowers, who validate his feelings of hurt and anger. And help him realize that his friends will never understand because they have not lost a spouse.
The show does feel like everyone is still getting used to each other. There isn’t that seamless chemistry you would hope for. But, it is endearing to see that Wade does have a support system. His friends do generally care about him and his children. And it is nice to seem them interact with each other, showing how Wade is not the glue that keeps them with each other. In fact, it was Jill who brought them all together. Each family is also different from each other. Wade is a now a single dad of two daughters, one couple includes two working parents to one child, and one couple has four kids. Each points out their own struggles and offers some variety to the idea of a family unit.
Overall, I don’t know how long the Unicorn can last. If it is simply touching upon Wade learning how to cope with life without Jill, I think it has a chance of progressing. Goggins is still wonderful to watch and to be seen in the spotlight, as he deserves. I believe I would give the show a 3/5. There are only eight episodes so far and the previous one was a Thanksgiving-themed episode – which was very good. I will keep watching and if you can watched, let me know what you think of The Unicorn.
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
