Workin’ Moms is a half-hour Canadian comedy show about a group of moms. The first three seasons of the series are streaming on Netflix now.
If I had to boil this series down to one thing I would say women are just as messed up and raunchy as men. It’s more complex than that, and very feminist in orientation. However, the main characters are messed up women who get themselves into all kinds of nutty situations.
Storylines involve mom topics like breast feeding, lots of different sex topics, an abortion arc, a revenge arc, a religion storyline, relationship issues of all kinds, worklife issues, preschool issues. There’s plenty going on here.
Catherine Reitman, Juno Rinaldi, and Dani Kind play the main characters in Workin’ Moms. Around them are an array of husbands, wives, children, lovers, co-workers, and other moms.
Catherine Reitman plays Kate. Reitman created the series and wrote many of the episodes as well as directed some. Kate’s a PR person. She’s married to Nathan (Philip Sternberg) for a large part of the series. They have two kids. She’s ambitious and often puts work over family. Kate’s mom is Eleanor (Mimi Kuzyk).
Kate is the central character. She’s strong, driven, and prone to making bad decisions. Actually, all three of the main female characters are adept at bad decisions. But what is a comedy without bad decisions that take the characters into wacky situations?
Dani Kind is Anne. Her mate is Lionel (Ryan Belleville). She’s a shrink, and like many people who get into psychology, she has issues. They have a teen and a toddler. Anne’s mom is Jane (Jann Arden).
Sadie Munroe plays the teen, Alice, and she is terrific. Already a pro, she can give back as good as she gets with Dani Kind.
The final main character is Frankie (Juno Rinaldi). When the series begins she’s married to Giselle (Olunike Adeliyi). They have a daughter. When they split up Frankie has a series of relationships, including one with Dorothy (Angela Asher), who tames her curls and makes her look like a long-haired dog.
Jenny (Jessalyn Wanlim) is the worst mom of the bunch. Good thing her fella, Ian (Dennis Andres) is a great dad. She’s an outlier in the story but does recur in every season.
Also recurring in every season is Val (Sarah McVie). She runs a mommy and me support group where the moms hang out a lot as the series gets going. She felt like a caricature most of the time. It’s hard to accept that an actual human woman could have a personality like hers.
My favorite minor character is Rosie (Nikki Duval) who is an assistant/graphic designer/do-it-all woman who works for Kate. She can be very funny.
It may seem I’ve already named every actor you ever heard of from Canada, but many more people appear in the course of 3 seasons of this comedy. A few favorites include Katherine Barrell, Varun Saranga, Amanda Brugel, Wendy Crewson, and Natalie Krill.
I tend to gravitate toward any series with a lot of women. This one has that and excellent acting and writing to go with it.
It’s the Poster! Wow!
Trailer for Workin’ Moms
Have you seen any or all of this Canadian series? What are your thoughts on it?
Update
Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.
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OMG do i love this show. i hadnt thought if it as a feminist show but i guess youre right – a show about women, with well developed female characters not leading lives secondary to men is indeed a feminist show. smart, funny, well written. i’m really looking forward to season 4. happily, i’m close enough to the Canadian border for my cable company to offer Canadian tv so if Netflix doesnt pick up the next season, i will get to see it.
I expect Netflix will get it once it’s run in Canada. I’ll have to wait for it, however, because I’m on the border with Mexico, not Canada.