This Dark Comedy Series With 100% on Rotten Tomatoes Turns Tragedy Into a Chaotic, Heartfelt Journey

Editor’s note: This article contains discussion of suicide and mental health that could be triggering.The scene is this: Vivian Cunningham (Eileen‘s Thomasin McKenzie) gets roped into hosting a ceremony where she and her brothers will spread their grandfather’s ashes. The only problem is, she already dumped them off of that cliff the previous night when she was high. So, naturally, Vivian replaces her grandfather’s ashes with hot chocolate mix, which ends in one of her brothers angrily drinking the ashes-filled hot chocolate. This is just one example of the wonderful weirdness that is Totally Completely Fine, a severely underrated 2023 Australian dark comedy series.

Vivian’s grandfather raised her and her brothers, John (Rowan Witt) and Hendrix (Brendan McClelland), after both their parents died in a car accident. When Vivian’s grandfather dies, he unexpectedly leaves his waterfront house for Vivian, but there’s a twist: People regularly go there to jump off of the cliff and die by suicide. Her grandfather saved at least one person per week, and now he has left the responsibility to Vivian. Totally Completely Fine expertly covers topics like grief, suicide, and trauma through Vivian and her character arc, earning the show a well-deserved 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

‘Totally Completely Fine’ Embraces Vivian as an Unlikely Hero

At first, Vivian really struggles with the idea of saving lives, even after saving Amy (Contessa Treffone) in the show’s pilot. After initially taking on the job, Vivian feels frustrated that she doesn’t know how to help people in the conventional way, especially compared to her mental health professional neighbor, Dane (It’s What’s Inside‘s Devon Terrell). As her grandfather’s friend, Beatrice (Deborah Kennedy), points out, though, this is precisely why Vivian is the right person for the job. Vivian is not judging the people on the cliff as someone who can’t relate: she’s been where they have.

Vivian reveals that she attempted suicide once and pushed her grandfather away afterward because of the shame she felt after he visited her when she was in treatment. She almost attempts again in the show’s pilot, although she never tells anyone this. Dane means well, but he doesn’t understand what the people on the cliff are going through, and he can’t relate to them in the way that Vivian can. As Beatrice says, Vivian doesn’t see a firm line between herself and the people on the cliff; she could just as easily be there in their place. This leads Vivian to use unconventional methods to help the people who come to the cliff. Vivian comes at this from a place of grief that has turned into self-destructive and suicidal tendencies.

However, she uses her own experiences and pain to help other people who are at their lowest. At one moment in the show, Vivian tells Dane that she is the way she is because of the accident that killed her parents. To this, Dane tells Vivian that many of his patients who go through unimaginable pain still choose to be kind and compassionate. Totally Completely Fine shows Vivian’s journey towards slowly forgiving herself for her parents’ accident and letting herself get close to other people. Over the course of the show, Vivian becomes kinder and less self-centered, and she stops punishing herself for her parents’ death.

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‘Totally Completely Fine’ Uses Dark Comedy To Elevate the Central Message

Dark comedy can sometimes be the best way to cover serious and important topics without wading into melodrama territory. Totally Completely Fine is not just a story about grief and loss; it is a story about healing from grief and loss through helping and forming connections with other people. It takes on the topic of suicide in a way that is refreshing, because it is not melodramatic, glorified, or treated as shock value. Instead, the more painful and serious moments of the show are layered with comedy in a way that feels honest and natural.

Totally Completely Fine‘s comedic moments are wildly over the top, with scenes like a children’s birthday party that goes up in flames, and a brotherly physical fight on a golf course. The more gutwrenching moments are done with a subtle hand, though. Vivian can’t save everybody that goes to the cliff, and she experiences a particularly brutal loss at the end of Episode 4. The show treats this loss and Vivian’s subsequent downward spiral with the care that they deserve.

Totally Completely Fine is not the sort of show to intentionally try to make its viewers cry. Instead, they’re meant to laugh through their tears and to leave the show with a feeling of catharsis. The show’s central message is to debunk the idea of approaching mental health struggles with fake smiles and meaningless platitudes. Instead, Totally Completely Fine argues that people who have been through it can help each other simply by opening up to one another.

Totally Completely Fine is available to stream on AMC+ in the U.S.WATCH ON AMC+