Trying

Episode Reviews

July 8, 2026 – S5, E1: “Rollercoaster”

Jason and Nikki embark with their kids on their first supervised visit with Princess and Tyler’s birth mom, Kat.

In an effort to keep Kat from being a “bad influence” on Princess, Nikki boards a bunch of amusement park rides with them, making herself feel quite ill in the process.

Princess complains about the inability to visit Kat on her own, with Jason and Nikki each trying to help Princess understand why. Princess is upset with Nikki because Nikki lied about meeting Kat in Spain. She wonders if she can trust her parents to tell her the truth in the future.

Nikki, for her part, doesn’t trust Kat. She doesn’t understand why Kat abandoned her children in the first place and worries that she’ll abandon them again. Nikki wants to protect her kids. However, Jason points out that Kat does seem to be trying. And when Nikki sees just how much Princess wants to connect with Kat, she finds a way to give them some alone time.

Scott, Nikki’s brother-in-law, has embarked on a mission to row across the Atlantic Ocean to raise awareness about climate change. His wife, Karen, is annoyed with him because she feels like he did this without her permission. (It’s clear she’s frustrated that she has to take care of their daughter, Stevie, by herself.) When Scott tells Stevie that he’s doing this for her, Karen scolds him: “If you die, she’s going to carry that guilt.”

Karen winds up befriending some people by pretending to support Scott and using his departure to earn sympathy points. When she learns there’s a parents’ group that gets together just to trash-talk other parents, she eagerly signs up.

Kat indicates that she has a tattoo on her chest, trying to show it to Princess on a rollercoaster, but the ride’s safety harness prevents her from seeing it.

Someone compares Nikki to Hitler. A couple of characters lie. God’s name is misused about 20 times.

Jason offers Tyler some good advice about girls, encouraging his son to simply be himself. Tyler notes that girls like “nice guys” now because of things that Jason’s generation did.

May 1, 2020 – S1, E1: “Nikki and Jason”

When Nikki and Jason learn that they won’t be able to conceive, they look into adoption.

As Jason and Nikki ride a bus home from a bar, Nikki realizes that her ovulation window is closing. She unbuckles Jason’s belt and straddles him, insisting they should have sex right there since the only other person on the bus is sleeping. They kiss and move around with their clothes still on. When they’re done, the other passenger glares at them, having woken up.

Elsewhere, Nikki climbs on top of Jason again, asking for sex. When he hesitates, she becomes quite angry and begins questioning their entire relationship. However, they talk it out, kissing and then falling off-camera (presumably to have sex).

We see Jason shirtless as he’s getting dressed for bed. When Nikki and Jason’s friend Erica goes into labor, Erica’s husband asks Jason to collect their hospital bag from their house, instructing Jason to grab some extra underwear for Erica. Jason looks at several pairs of underwear before picking one.

One of Nikki’s coworkers says she was pregnant for about four to five months. When Nikki apologizes, assuming the woman miscarried, the woman clarifies that it was not all in one go but “a week here, a week there.” It’s unclear what she means by that.

When Nikki is told that conceiving with her own eggs will be very unlikely, she’s devastated: “How can I miss something I’ve never had?” she asks Jason. Jason holds her and comforts her.

A few people talk about adopted children as though they were a commodity. However, the episode makes an effort to correct those adoption myths.

There are several nice moments sprinkled through the episode in which Jason and Nikki comfort each other about their infertility and adoption fears. Nikki offers some kind, wise words to a little girl who’s about to become a big sister.

When a new mother exults how wonderful it is to have a child, a father (a friend of the woman) hints the opposite. That same father later complains about his pregnant wife and the money he’s had to spend on his preborn child. He says that birth isn’t a miracle since babies have been born around the world 7 billion times before.

A jealous Nikki says several harsh things about her friends and their children to Jason, but she doesn’t seem to really mean them. Someone inadvertently insults Nikki’s appearance. Another person purposely insults Nikki’s personality (though not to her face). A man complains that people in their 20s don’t seem to work real jobs, even telling some that their dads “aren’t proud of you.”

We hear a racial stereotype. Someone mentions a “patriarchal conspiracy.” A man says he knows someone who got “gay married” and then “gay adopted.” When his son says that’s not the correct terminology, the man gets frustrated with him. The man also blames the death of a garden plant on the “radical social democracy” of the country from where it came.

A woman lies. Nikki throws a man’s phone into a lake when she mistakenly believes he’s ignoring his kids. But it turns out the kids aren’t his, and when he borrows a woman’s phone to call the police, Jason throws that phone into the lake as well to protect Nikki from getting arrested (which would disqualify them to adopt).

People drink throughout the episode. A man is unable to drive his wife to the hospital when she goes into labor because he’s had three glasses of wine. His wife is appalled since he did so within 20 minutes of arriving at their friends’ house. A man on the street holds a cardboard sign that reads “help punk get drunk.”

There are seven uses of the s-word, as well as several British expletives, including “pr–k,” “wanker” “sodding,” “bloody” and “bloody h—.” God’s name is misused about seven times, and Jesus’ name is abused once.