Billie Piper's 'I Hate Suzie' Performance is a Chaotic Tour De Force

HBO Max original I Hate Suzie is probably not going to be a show for everyone. It's messy and lewd, anchored by a lead character who is selfish, self-centered, and regularly difficult to like or sympathize with. Yet, it's also generally impossible to look away from, a blazingly entertaining car wreck of a comedy that swings for the fences and doesn't always make the shot, but that nevertheless deserves credit for its ambition in even trying.

Billie Piper plays the eponymous Suzie Pickles, a relatively C-list actress who launched her career on a singing competition as a youth, and has kept it through cult sci-fi hits about alien warrior women and Nazi zombies. But when a celebrity hack reveals nude photos from her phone, she's suddenly thrust into the national limelight. And not in a way she ever could have expected (or wanted). The photos show Suzie with a man who is very clearly not her husband, and suddenly everything from her family to her marriage to her career - and she's only just been tapped to play a Disney villain! - is falling apart.

The eight-episode series is divided into half-hour installments each named after a various stage of grief - "Shock," "Denial," "Bargaining," Acceptance", etc - as Suzie attempts to work through the fallout from the hack, both within her own psyche and in her day-to-day life. The episodes vary wildly in tone and format, and one of the absolute best things about this show is the varied way that it embraces how these titular emotions might actually play out visually onscreen.