An extravagant beauty who delights in playing the fool, Michaela Coel plays Chewing Gum’s main character, Tracey, with a near-irresistible combination of wide-eyed gusto and coltish naivete. Add in a hormonal young woman’s determination to escape the Puritanical constraints of her fundamentalist upbringing by having as much sex as possible and you have the perfect heroine for a surprisingly wholesome and endearing comedy about sex and other stupid human tricks—but mostly sex—in and around a British public housing project. This season, which Coel has said is the series’ last, makes excellent use of the actress’ gift for physical comedy, her elastic face, and her ability to telegraph buoyant vulnerability. Swiping on clownish makeup in a botched attempt to impress an ex or striking exaggeratedly alluring poses at a sex club only to face repeated rejection, Tracey is laughable and loveable, a glorious, openhearted self-directed experiment.
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