Tina Fey's new Netflix show is a chaotic ode to your mid-life era.

Netflix's The Four Seasons is the warm, witty embrace we didn't know we needed — a show that manages to be equal parts hilarious and real about the messiness of long-term relationships.

Based on Alan Alda's beloved 1981 film of the same name, this eight-episode series follows three couples who vacation together quarterly. There's Kate (Tina Fey) and Jack (Will Forte), who are probably arguing about loading the dishwasher as we speak, Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), whose marriage has lasted longer than most of my houseplants, and Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani), who make the rest question their wardrobe choices.

Their comfortable vacation routine — involving precise wine allocations and passive-aggressive comments about bedrooms — is gloriously derailed when one couple drops a massive bombshell: they're getting divorced. Thus, sending everyone into a tailspin that's both anxiety-provoking and hilarious to watch.

Watch the trailer for The Four Seasons on Netflix. Article continues after video.

The cast itself was enough to convince me to start the show. I mean, come on. Tina Fey and Steve Carell? Colman Domingo??? It's as stacked as it could be.

And they did not disappoint. The chemistry between the cast is nothing short of extraordinary. What makes this ensemble truly special is how lived-in their relationships feel. As Carell himself noted to Netflix's Tudum, "There's a code, there's an unspoken relationship that entwines all of them, and they speak the same language to each other. There's a shorthand, and it's funny."

The writing — crafted by Fey alongside 30 Rock veterans Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield — is EVERYTHING. Each conversation feels like one you've had (or wish you'd had) with your own friends — the inside jokes, the casual brutality, the moments of unexpected tenderness. It's all there.

When these characters gather around a dinner table, trade barbs in a vacation rental kitchen, or run off to gossip about the others in private with their spouse, it feels familiar. The experience of navigating group dynamics — who pairs off for activities, who gets stuck doing dishes, who holds grudges from trips past — is captured with such precision that I found myself reminiscing about my own friendship group.

Image: Netflix

What I really love is the show's unflinching look at both long-term friendships and relationships. I can only imagine these are exactly the conflicts that emerge after decades together: the way friendships evolve (for better or for worse), the resentments that simmer, the patterns that calcify, the way passion transforms into something different but potentially deeper.

Nick and Anne's relationship crisis forces everyone else to examine their own partnerships, creating this domino effect of uncomfortable self-reflection that feels both terrifying and necessary. It's like watching relationship dominoes fall in slow motion, but with jokes so good you almost forget how much existential panic they're causing.

For one of the four trips, following his divorce from Anne, Nick brings along his new 30-year-old girlfriend, Ginny, and it's as awkward as you'd imagine. The differing interests, the age-gap jokes, the lingering loyalties to Nick's ex-wife… make it stop. But things get even more awkward when Anne and Ginny finally meet during the next trip.

It's exactly what you'd imagine when someone in your group gets divorced. The tension is palpable. Nick tries desperately to make Ginny feel comfortable in a highly uncomfortable environment. Ginny attempts makes jokes that don't land with the group. Anne gives her attitude. The group chat is never the same.

What makes The Four Seasons truly special is how it inspires you to invest in your own relationships. After each episode, I found myself texting friends I haven't caught up with lately, thinking about future trips, and looking at my own relationship patterns.

The series presents friendship — just like romantic connection — as something worth fighting for. Not in a saccharine, greeting card way, but as a complex, sometimes frustrating commitment that pays immeasurable dividends.

These characters may want to strangle each other sometimes (let's be honest, we've all been there), but they also know exactly what the other needs in moments of crisis.

Image: Netflix

In a culture that is obsessed with being young, The Four Seasons offers something refreshingly hopeful about midlife and beyond. These characters have history, baggage, regrets — and yet their lives remain vibrantly in progress. Their best adventures, deepest connections, and most profound growth aren't behind them.

This charming series suggests that while the seasons change, bringing new challenges and joys, the fundamentals of human connection remain our most valuable currency. As Fey herself described the show, "I hope audiences feel like they are inside a big sweater with us, and also having a dinner party with us."

That's exactly what The Four Seasons delivers — a seat at the table with friends who feel like family, a cosy sweater on a chilly night, and the comforting reminder that the best parts of life might still be waiting ahead.

Feature Image: Netflix.