‘Alice and Steve’ Review: Nicola Walker Burns the House Down as a Jilted Best Friend in Hulu’s Sly Comedy

“Anybody would be lucky to have you,” Alice (Nicola Walker) tells her best friend, Steve (Jemaine Clement). He’s been divorced for four years and shares custody of Crosby, the dog, who he’s been touting around under his arm all day like an appendage he’s worried will reject his body. (Like his ex-wife did, like his ensuing girlfriends did, and so on and so forth.) Steve even took Crosby to a friend’s funeral, where his gray-spotted French Bulldog sneezed all over the corpse. Luckily, only Alice saw, and she won’t say anything. That’s what best friends do: They keep quiet about a desecrated corpse, just like they keep quiet about clinging to a dog like a life raft all day, even when you’re at a very hip bar.

“Women our age can’t have babies,” Steve says, emphasizing he doesn’t just want a girlfriend; he wants to be in love and he wants to have a child. “So get a younger one,” Alice says. “Younger women are just older women… but younger.” Steve dismisses the idea, but Alice is already playing wing-woman. She even finds an interested, age-inappropriate prospect who talks to Steve for a few minutes before they realize they share nothing in common.

And that’s that — no, Steve isn’t done pursuing younger women. Without Alice’s knowledge, she’s opened the door to an idea that had otherwise never crosses Steve’s mind. Frankly, it’s not even his idea, but later that night, when Alice’s daughter, Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith) comes downstairs and finds Steve sleeping on the couch, she flirts (aggressively) with her mom’s best friend, and that little voice in his head that responds to an attractive, mid-twenties woman showing an interest in him now sounds like Alice giving him permission to go for it. “Anybody would be lucky to have you,” it says; “get a younger one,” it says.

Of course, Alice didn’t mean anybody — not if that inclusivity encompasses her daughter — and her incandescent rage over such a personal betrayal becomes the fuel driving “Alice and Steve.” Created by Sophie Goodhart (a writer on “Sex Education” and “Rivals”), the six-episode first season slowly melts and transforms from a cute romantic-comedy into a more gnarly comedy of loss. (Opening on a funeral was, perhaps, a tip-off.) While the episodes can move a bit too quickly through the characters’ emotional logic, checking off relationship milestones that push Alice further beyond the pale, her resolution becomes the show’s purpose, and Walker’s fiery performance burns with a controlled intensity that holds us in her broken heart all the way through.

As uncomfortable as her perspective can be, it’s refreshing to see an age-gap sitcom told from an invested outsider’s point of view. It can be all too easy for couples to convince themselves a relationship that defies common sense is the exception that proves the rule, and perhaps Steve and Izzy will proves themselves exceptional. “Alice and Steve” keeps the door open, slyly ping-ponging between reasons to doubt their soulful connection and believe it’s the real deal.

Nicola Walker in ‘Alice and Steve’Courtesy of Lara Cornell / Hulu

But like a certain sitcom icon who always knew where to draw the line, no matter how arbitrary, Alice doesn’t waver. As soon as she finds out about her daughter and her best friend, it’s over. Steve crossed a line. In the words of another great sitcom philosopher, he’s so far past the line, the line is a dot to him, which also means he can’t see the line anymore. Not really. Steve knows Alice won’t be happy about his new paramour, but he underestimates just how far she’ll go to split them up.

In the ensuing melee, Alice also loses track of the line. The former friends’ quickly escalating feud is often too earth-shattering too laugh at, but the dark-comic hijinks still work to illustrate the parallels between Alice and Steve. (Only two people who’ve known each other this long could hurt each other this deeply, just as only two people who know each other this well would be willing to go eye-for-an-eye this many times.) But their war — and it is all-out war — also speaks to the pain inflicted on Alice by Steve (and, to a slightly lesser extent, her daughter).

Clement is a great choice to play the innocent, affable idiot — the type of guy whose sad, puppy-dog face begs for immediate forgiveness and whose silly sense of humor makes giving in all the more inviting. He’s an ideal foil for Walker because she not only has to win the fight, but win the audience over, as well. It’s all too tempting to wish “Alice and Steve” would settle into a slightly awkward yet easy-going sitcom. Instead, it’s intent on showing why such seismic relationship shifts don’t always settle into a viable groove. Thirty years of friendship isn’t something to be thrown away in an evening, just as 50 years of lived experience isn’t something that can be ignored for everyone else’s convenience.

Walker embodies Alice’s anguish, anger, and astonishment without forgoing the messy nature of a character whose issues run deeper than a single relationship. She lashes out at her husband, Daniel (Joel Fry), who she may have been taking for granted for too long. She snaps at coworkers in a way that betrays her stated love for the work. (She’s a clothing designer, although not in high-fashion.) She struggles to be there for her teenage son, Dom (Tyrese Eaton-Dyce), as he falls for his first love. She may have been due for a mid-life crisis even without Steve’s breach of trust, and “Alice and Steve” could benefit from a second season to continue unpacking everything going on there.

Walker deserves it, too. To paraphrase one more sitcom star (who happens to be extremely British, just like Alice), the best love stories are ugly and uncomfortable and, yes, messy and complicated, too. But they’re the best because they’re true, and Alice’s truth is on fire, even if her love is nothing but smoldering ash.

Grade: B-

“Alice and Steve” premieres Monday, June 8 on Hulu. All six episodes will be released at once.