Is there a lovelier, more underrated comedy on TV than Colin From Accounts? The beloved Australian rom-com has proved itself to be fast, funny and extremely human over the course of the past two seasons, and with the final season now on Paramount+, I can confidently say this is one of the best TV comedies of all time. Smart, romantic, and quietly profound, Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall have crafted a sweet series for the ages.
The concept, at least initially, is the perpetually single Gordon (Brammall) crashes his car after Ashley (Dyer) impulsively flashes her nipple at him. He hits a runaway dog, who loses the use of his back legs and has to tool around on two little wheels. Gordon and Ashley tentatively strike up a bargain to take care of the dog – who they name Colin From Accounts – and end up, naturally, sleeping together and falling in love.
While Season 1 was fast, breezy, and romantic, Season 2 skewed darker as now fully in a relationship, Gordon and Ashley had to deal with what, exactly, that meant – both for them as individuals, and as a couple. There was more shouting, it was a little more upsetting, and while still lovingly rendered with a rapidly expanding supporting cast, it was sometimes a hard watch… Brammall and Dyer are so charming, with brisk repartee that to see them slowly crumble was excruciating at times.
Picking up several years later, Season 3 gets things back on track as Gordon and Ashley accidentally – and then on purpose – end up in each other’s orbit once again. Colin is now merely an excuse for them to spend time with each other, and while they’re loath to revisit the pain of Season 2’s events (and they each have a subpar significant other of their own), it’s obvious to the viewers how things are going to go… It’s just a process of getting them around to the place we know they’re going to end up.
But despite these obvious rom-com trappings, Colin From Accounts never takes the easy route out of the conundrum (all 10 episodes were provided for review by critics, and have been available in Australia for a while anyway). Without giving any spoilers for the end of the season, what Dyer and Brammall hit on is something much quieter and simpler. They don’t necessarily skewer the focus of rom-coms – Brammall starred in The Devil Wears Prada 2 recently, so he knows what side of the bread the butter is on – but the arc of the season takes a long look at what we expect from the genre and instead treats these two characters as human beings with long lives ahead of them… In real life we rarely kiss and then credits roll, live happily ever after. And really, is that the blissful result we want anyway? Like Colin, being broken doesn’t make us bad, it makes us unique.
The show is also extremely funny, to be clear. Dyer and Brammall’s patter is whip-smart, and they can eke laughs out of simple, rote exclamations of everything from “shut up” to “yes” (I personally have been stuck saying “yis” the way Dyer pronounces the word since I watched the screeners for the season). But the whole cast has a way of packing joke on top of joke and moving on before you have time to take in the next one. Gordon’s business partner Chiara (Genevieve Hegney) and employee Brett (Michael Logo) have a lot to do this season, and make a pretty great argument for a Cheers style spinoff set entirely in the craft brewery they all work at. Lynelle (Helen Thompson), Ashley’s men’s right activist mother, also gets a ton of laughs, and even a little redemption by the end of the season, while her disgusting partner Lee (Darren Gilshenan) has somehow become even more disgusting, and gets the opposite of redemption (while also being extremely funny himself).
Stand-out episodes include a group road trip that goes wildly off the rails, and an episode titled “Druggy Druggy Sex Party” that probably requires no explanation. But every episode of Colin From Accounts is a stand-out, a deliciously rich comedy stew that combines laughs, heart, brilliant performances and absolutely sticks the landing. If you haven’t checked out the show before, it’s time to fall in love with a great new comedy. Or if you have watched the previous two seasons, just know that Colin From Accounts is leaving as strong as it began. Yis.
Colin From Accounts Season 3 premieres Thursday, September 10 on Paramount+.
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