Learning to like Netflix series Love

The Show: Love, Season 2, Episode 5 The Moment: “I like you”

Sexy, messy Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) and nerdy Gus (series cocreator Paul Rust) aren’t really a couple. But they’ve just spent a perfect, unplanned Sunday. Saturday night, he did mushrooms for the first time. Sunday, they woke up together and had sex. They went to brunch, saw a movie, drove to Venice Beach, had sex again.

Now she’s walking him to her door. “So what are you up to this week?” he asks. “I want to text you, but I don’t want to pester you.”

“Stop, we don’t have to do this,” she says. His face falls. “I’m sorry,” he says. She looks in his eyes. “I’m not going to disappear on you, Gus,” she says. “I always want to hear from you. You’re not going to annoy me.”

His face brightens. “You’re not going to annoy me, either,” he says.

Their look holds. “I like you,” she says. “I like you, too,” he whispers. I haven’t entirely warmed to this series but, with this episode, I feel like I finally see what it’s up to. It forces you to get over the feeling that Mickey and Gus aren’t a logical pair. It stops mattering that they don’t make objective sense.

Because what Rust and co-creator Judd Apatow are doing here is staking a claim that any two people, given time together, can fall in love. That people who are afraid to open up will feel something for the person who finally gets them to. That familiarity can breed contentment. Season 2 of Love debuted on Netflix March 10. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on popculture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.