Lena Dunham is making her big, bold return to TV in the most devastating fashion. If you haven’t already, you need to go watch Too Much, which follows American girlie Jess as she navigates dating in London after a breakup that rocked her world. Think Emily in Paris, but less polished, more spitting, and with British men. Dunham draws on her own time dating in London (and eventually meeting her husband) to write the show.
As someone who moved to London in my late twenties as a single woman with far too many feelings, it hit hard. Felix—the closed-off, indie musician with more exes than clean mugs? I know him. I dated him. I slept with him. He hurt me. If you're wondering what dating in London is actually like, Too Much nails it in an episode.
The subversion of this classic misogynistic trope is glorious to see.
A lot struck me while watching. Had Dunham actually been on Instagram in the last decade? Why did our luminous, plus-sized protagonist so often wrap herself in romantic, prairie-like nightgowns? And why was I sobbing uncontrollably at the flashbacks of Jess and Zev?
In episode five, we dive deeper into the breakup that haunts Jess and lingers like a third person in her new relationship with Felix. We witness the slow unravelling of Jess and Zev’s relationship. It’s like 500 Days of Summer, condensed into forty minutes and told from the side we rarely get to see. We watch Zev go from being enthralled by Jess—talking about kids, massaging her grandmother’s feet (sorry, what?)—to slowly detaching.
Some breakups happen with a crash and a bang. You close your eyes, and when you open them, the world looks slightly different. Every colour feels nauseatingly bright. But in Too Much, we experience the devastating opposite: the slow-death breakup. Zev inches away, dismantling Jess piece by piece with tiny, cutting remarks. He begins a “friendship” with the gorgeous woman he’ll date right after her.
“You make me feel fucking crazy. Like I’m just like drowning in an ocean, waving my arms around for help, and you’re just standing there, smiling at me,” Jess says, sobbing in the dark as Zev refuses to face her.
And just like that, I was transported back to the moment I stood in front of the man I had poured all my love into, begging him to explain what had gone wrong. Just like Zev, he avoided my gaze. He denied anything was happening. Claimed it was all in my head.
I had watched our relationship erode against the crashing waves of life and infidelity. I couldn’t understand how the person who once kissed tears from my cheeks now sighed as they fell, leaving me to cry alone under the fluorescent bathroom light. We had gone from being inseparable to avoiding eye contact even during sex, defaulting to positions that made the whole thing feel more like a drunken university hook-up than anything remotely loving.
“You don’t even see how lonely you make me feel,” Jess tells Zev—but I think he did. I think my ex did too. I’d fall asleep feeling utterly alone in our double bed, trying not to let my skin touch his, terrified that one more wrong move would end it all. I stopped confiding in friends because I couldn’t explain when the crack began, only that it was growing, and all my energy went into holding it together. I was running out of sellotape for my breaking heart.
Sabrina Zohar, Dating Coach and host of the The Sabrina Zohar Show podcast, explains the psychology behind these slow-death dynamics:
“The mindf*ck is that these relationships often start with love-bombing. They studied you, mirrored you, made you feel like the most special person alive. So when they slowly withdraw that specialness, you’ll do anything to get it back. You don’t realise they’ve been moving the goalposts the whole time—you’re chasing a person who never actually existed.”
She continues, “What Too Much shows so accurately is that final discard stage—when they’re not even pretending anymore. They watch you drown with that smile because your pain genuinely doesn’t register. You’ve been devalued so thoroughly that your suffering is just background noise.”
A must-watch this summer.
But when you’re in it, it’s hard to see the erosion.
“The signs are often subtle at first,” says Lydia Mae, Breakup Coach and Reiki Master. “It might be that the connection feels dimmer, conversations start to feel forced, or you stop turning to your partner for comfort and emotional support like you used to. You might feel more like housemates than partners, or notice you feel lighter when they’re not around. If you’re constantly wondering whether to stay or go, that might be a sign that your heart is craving something more.”
Lydia recommends journalling as a way to reconnect with yourself:
“Try asking yourself questions like ‘Do I feel emotionally safe, seen, and supported in this relationship?’, ‘If not, do I believe this can be rebuilt?’ and ‘Do I feel fulfilled or am I staying because it's familiar?’ Be honest with your answers.”
Sabrina adds that many of us are subconsciously drawn to these dynamics because they feel familiar.
“Did you grow up having to earn love? Were you the kid who had to be perfect to get attention, or who learned that love came with conditions? Maybe you had a parent who was hot and cold, and you became an expert at reading moods and managing emotions that weren’t yours to manage. These slow-death relationships find us because we’re pre-programmed to accept crumbs and call it a feast. We’re already experts at shrinking ourselves to earn affection.”
Post-breakup, Jess tries to move forward. She adopts a slightly decrepit-looking dog, moves to London, and begins dating again. But she’s haunted by Zev—literally, in one sexy bathroom scene—and by a relationship she still can’t fully explain. After my own slow-death relationship, I stayed single for years. I went on the occasional first date, but never followed through. I never wanted to find myself in that place again: overstaying, accepting crumbs, convinced that bagels didn’t exist. The shame of those endings is heavy. You wonder why you didn’t leave sooner.
“You’re not weak for staying as long as you did,” Sabrina reminds us. “Your brain was literally hijacked. Healing means breaking that addiction, grieving the person you thought they were, and slowly learning to trust your own reality again."
Lydia encourages us to look at what comes next:
“Please know that you haven’t wasted your time. Every experience teaches you something about your worth, your needs, and the kind of love you’re ready to receive. This is your chance to come home to yourself, rediscover your joy, and build a life that feels good from the inside out.”
It depicts a 40-year-old woman's steamy fling with a young hipster.
“It just feels like a bunch of little papercuts. But imagine your whole body covered in papercuts,” Jess tells Zev in that final breakup scene.
She’s describing a “death by a thousand cuts”—also known as the best Taylor Swift song from Lover (don’t fight me on that one). In a time when torture is, thankfully, frowned upon, we still seem to reserve this medieval version of it for the people we once loved the most.
And while a quick breakup can be gutting, having experienced both, I will always choose ripping off the plaster over the torture of slowly watching someone fall out of love with me.
Too Much is streaming on Netflix now.
