Age of The Nerd
Netflix’s Love may have come to an end and I am sad to see it go. Sort of. Ever since the series first started streaming, I binge-watched each season. But as I binge-watched, I always started to realize something – I really didn’t like some of these characters. And it would continue all the way to the final episode.
Reader beware! Spoilers beyond this point
The problem for me would lay in how the characters Gus (Paul Rust) and Randy (Mike Mitchell) would get more and more annoying to me. I felt that in each season at least one character in the series would get overly annoying. In season one Gus’s and Mickey’s (Gillian Jacobs) relationship was the cause of the annoyance and that was the intentions of the writers. Their relationship was a disaster. The “too nice” Gus didn’t know how to handle the sobriety of an addict in Mickey. And Mickey couldn’t make up her mind about their relationship. This would go on into the second season.
What I had initially liked about Love was the subplot story of a struggling screenplay writer. I could relate to that aspect of the character because I had been a writer for a number of years through different mediums, so for me, it was easy to root for the guy. It also made his ups and downs as a writer a bit more hilarious to me. Add in a character like Mickey that has an addictive personality which makes for the main plot of the series, you have yourself a very unique “love” story. 
When it came to season two, it was more of the same only this time at the end of it, Mickey was less of an annoyance and Randy (Mike Mitchell) was beginning to make his presence as an annoyance known. I found Gus’s “too nice” personality starting to agitate me just like how Mickey was getting agitated by him. And this is coming from a guy that was always known as the “nice guy”. Now this could be good writing – maybe – because I began to pick a side of a character. It just wasn’t on the side of the lead character (Gus) in which I think the writers were trying to do.
Now on to season three. The ups and downs of Gus’s writing career didn’t hold as much interest for me and that was mainly because I just could not stand Gus anymore. And that’s not good when he is one of the two main characters. The character went from being this nice guy that was just trying to get a girl that he liked all while trying to make his career take off to now being a really whiny guy that would blow up on everyone when he did not get his way and it was hard to feel sorry for him. Gus has be known to lose his cool in previous seasons but it felt like that’s all he was doing in season three. At times it could be funny but most of the times it wasn’t.
Also in season 3 their friend Randy becomes one of the focal points of the series. Randy, this sweet but lazy, freeloading guy with no goals in life, does something questionable in each episode. Questionable starts to turn into what is Randy going to mess up now? His relationship with Bertie (Claudia O’Doherty) becomes a lot like Mickey’s and Gus’s relationship in that they argue a lot and seem to get on each other nerves. So you have two of those kinds of relationships going on. But Bertie is a character that I really liked.
Season 3 Episode 5 “Bertie’s Birthday” for me, was a much needed episode. It gave me a break from Gus and there was enough of a story there to make it a very enjoyable story. Bertie is this ditzy, but funny and cute character who I feel could have a spin-off series. 
The final episode “Catalina” was not as good as I had hoped it would be. As stated earlier, there’s some spoilers and this is the main spoiler of the series…3…2…1…Gus and Mickey decide they want to go to Catalina to get married. Their group of friends go with them for the special occasion. As they are about to say their vows, a fight breaks out with two random guys involved. One of those guys have a heart attack and interrupts the wedding. They decide not to get married because it doesn’t feel right. This happens with just a few minutes left in the episode. Maybe a minute or two after they decide not to get married, they end up getting married with nobody around. It’s sweet but feels like an after thought from the writers like “oh yeah, we only have one more episode to do this in and not much time to do it.”
Love as a whole, I liked. Season three was somewhat of a let down, especially for a final season. I felt myself really liking a lot of the characters like Mickey, Bertie, Kevin, Truman, Dr. Colter and others except two, which happened to be two of the now four main characters. I wish the wedding was more of the focus in the final season rather than just an episode or two. For now, I’ll be waiting for my Bertie spin-off. Love-less?
