The Big Picture In 2018, Starz premiered a show called Sweetbitter about a young twenty-something named Tess , who moved to New York and started working at a high-end restaurant. Between trying to learn a complex menu and navigate the unfamiliar city, Tess got involved in a complicated love triangle between two slightly older coworkers: a refined server named Simone and a troubled bartender named Jake . The show lasted only two seasons, and I’ve been mourning it ever since.
'Chestnut' Offers a Compelling Love Triangle Love triangles are a popular trope, especially in coming-of-age stories. From Twilight’s Team Edward vs. Team Jacob to Riverdale’s Barchie vs. Bughead, shipping wars have been around forever, becoming a staple of young adult content. When love triangles are poorly written, they can be particularly tedious. When they’re well-developed, however, love triangles can heighten the romantic stakes and tension.
Chestnut also puts a refreshing spin on things by embracing both queerness and ambiguity. There’s been a call for messier queer representation lately — and for good reason. In the past, LGBTQ+ characters were either demonized or killed off, but lately, culture has seemed to course-correct to the extreme, over-sanitizing queer characters to be one-dimensional beacons of morality. Chestnut allows its characters, including its LGBTQ+ ones, to be deliciously flawed.
'Chestnut' Features an Underrepresented Coming-of-Age Story Coming-of-age stories are often restricted to characters in high school or protagonists who have recently made a big move to a college or big city. Chestnut hones in on a common but underrepresented time in life by examining that limbo stage directly after college.
Tyler and Danny can both exude eye-roll-inducing “I’m not like other girls/boys” energy, with Tyler constantly insisting that she’s not a nice person and Danny going on a rant against celebrating birthdays since simply being born isn’t an accomplishment. We get breadcrumbs of their pasts — particularly Annie and Danny’s during one long conversation — that helps give them depth beyond their archetypes, but one can’t help but wish the reveals came a bit earlier and that there were more of them.