The critically beloved Max show proves there’s never been a better time to visit Manhattan, Kansas’s locally beloved Varsity Donuts
On Sunday, Somebody Somewhere, the hilariously heartwarming HBO series created by cabaret queen Bridget Everett, concluded after three seasons. The series, centered around the lives of a group of queer folks, weirdos, and misfits navigating grief, family trauma, and friendship earned a cult following throughout its run, thanks to its uniquely endearing cast and deep Midwest authenticity. And while everyone else is reminiscing about Somebody Somewhere’s incredible depiction of adult friendships, I’m obsessing about its doughnuts.
Throughout the series, Varsity Doughnuts in Manhattan, Kansas, where the series is set, is somewhat of a homing beacon for Sam (Everett) and her best friend Joel (Jeff Hiller). It’s where they go when everything goes to shit, when they’re scared about the future, and when they’re celebrating their successes. And honestly, after seeing these doughnuts on screen and perusing the menu, I get it. Who wouldn’t want to drown their sorrows in the Larry, a twisted peanut butter doughnut doused in raspberry jam? Or anxiously await bad news while scarfing maple logs and cinnamon twists?
And while these doughnuts look especially compelling, eating — and drinking — is generally a source of comfort for Sam and her pals. Joel and Sam regularly meet their friend Fred (Murray Hill) at the Chef, a real-life restaurant in Manhattan, for breakfast, and order “French toast for the table.” In what may be one of the most iconic Thanksgiving scenes in television history, the gang prods Joel’s charmingly uptight boyfriend Brad (Tim Bagley) into telling his coming-out story, all over abundant plates and full glasses of wine. Here, when the dishes are generous, so too are the characters’ relationships as all that repressed trauma finally pours out.
Max
Sam (Bridget Everett) bristles at Susan’s habit of policing her husband’s diet.
This theme is even more evident when characters are deprived of that comfort. Later in the series’s final season, Fred and his new wife Susan are eternally battling over what Fred is “allowed” to eat. Susan (Jennifer Mudge) is constantly on Fred to eat healthy, to the point where Fred begins is regularly sneaking out to score cheeseburgers at the Chef. When Susan scolds Sam for bringing those aforementioned doughnuts to Catch Club, Fred’s loosely coordinated pick-up baseball game, she immediately cemented her place as the show’s only real villain. Susan is both annoying, constantly badgering Fred to “eat healthy,” and pedantic, telling Sam that she shouldn’t “bring Fred down” with her. And by “bring Fred down,” of course, she means offer him some of those incredible doughnuts.
In Somebody Somewhere, deprivation is the only damnable sin. We see that born out in Sam’s suffering, too. As she contends with the loss of her late sister Holly, Sam’s done a whole lot of repressing her feelings. And as she ponders a potential relationship with the man she only calls Iceland (Olafur Darri), we begin to see the ways in which depriving herself of pleasure because she doesn’t believe she is good enough to deserve happiness has only harmed Sam throughout the years.
It’s sweet treat o’clock. #SomebodySomewhere #HBO #BridgetEverett #JeffHiller
As it eschews the overproduced, over-the-top spectacle that has come to define so much of our entertainment, Somebody Somewhere digs deep into the brutal, sometimes beautiful, mundanity of life. It really makes sense that, in a show that pretty much every viewer describes as the television equivalent of a “warm hug,” food is an eternal source of welcoming consolation. When we hear Sam ask Joel if he wants to go fuck up some doughnuts, the audience is as eager to accept her invitation as he is because we feel so welcomed into their world. In this universe, everyone and everything, even something as polarizing as St. Louis sushi, has a place at the table.
