Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | TV | March 31, 2025
Survival Of The Thickest continues to be one of the most exuberant portrayals of the LGBTQIA+ community on streaming services. If you want to bask in the glow of queer people of color living their lives mosturized, unbothered and looking fabulous, this is the show for you.
The first season set the vibe for the story of Mavis Beaumont (Michelle Buteau), an up-and-coming stylist who has to rebuild her life after she catches her live-in boyfriend and business partner cheating on her. The second season is a joyful romp through Mavis’s and her friends’ (Tasha Smith and Tone Bell) everyday lives as they fall in and out of love with themselves, their partners, and the lives they’re choosing to live. It’s structured like a sitcom with less of a throughline connecting the episodes than season one, but that doesn’t detract from the story, the humor, the fashion, or—just as importantly—the soundtrack.
This season is also sexy AF. Everybody’s gettin’ some on Survival of the Thickest this year! We start with Mavis flying to Rome to meet up with Luca (Marouane Zotti), whom she dumped over the phone at the end of last season. Things do not go the way she wanted, so she ends up leaving early. But not before getting in some sexy time with the tall Italian. Is it still make-up sex if you end up breaking up (again) afterward? It doesn’t matter because Mavis goes back to NYC and decides it’s time to “get her ho on,” in a montage of terrible dates and questionable sex.
Marley (Smith of Bad Boys: Ride or Die) is dating a very attractive N.Y.C. city council member (Jerrie Johnson) with big political ambitions. She’s trying to keep their relationship quiet until Marley can be vetted by her team. But there’s nothing quiet or subtle about dating a woman who is as bold and ambitious as Marley, come on now.
Khalil (Bell, also in Trigger Warning) is having a rough time at the beginning of the season. That leads to a lot of great conversations about mental health and to him getting a therapist (Hassan Johnson), whom I was jealous of. He is a solid therapist! That’s hard to find. He’s also introduced to a gallery owner willing to sell his work (Sonic The Hedgehog’s Tika Sumpter) and wants to date him.
It feels revolutionary to have a show as joyful and unapologetically queer as Survival of the Thickest to watch right now. One episode is dedicated to an elegant, fabulous wedding with a transgender bride styled by Mavis. A lot of the episode is set to Shea Diamond’s I Am America. At the end of it, all I could think about was how the existence of this show must drive a certain segment of the population absolutely crazy. It isn’t trying to mainstream queer culture or explain it; other shows are doing that. It’s using loud, raunchy, unrepentant humor to showcase a thriving community.
A similar sense of humor is used less effectively in Hulu’s Mid-Century Modern. I’m not sure if it’s the canned laugh track, the multi-camera studio set, or the fact that it’s well-off Palm Springs gays making the jokes instead of urban drag queens, but it loses its edge. Mid-Century Modern and, to an extent, Laverne Cox’s Clean Slate on Prime are written for an audience that wants to feel like they’re edgy for watching gay characters do gay things. But Thickest is aimed at an audience living that life and making those jokes themselves.
If you want to stick it to The Powers That Be who are running roughshod all over the rights of transgender people in America, there’s no more enjoyable way to do it than watching Survival of the Thickest. And then recommend it to all of your angry, red-hat-wearing relations.
Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility!
All episodes of Survival of the Thickest season two are streaming on Netflix.
