Ostensibly, Insatiable knows how gross of an idea this is. It is born out of violent self-loathing, out of the desire to hurt and maim and punish a body that our culture has decided is unacceptable. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark It’s a fantasy that is familiar to many women - if only someone would hurt me so that I couldn’t eat, or if only I got some kind of horrible wasting disease or a tapeworm, I could fix my body and then my real life would start - and one that Insatiable embraces wholeheartedly. She trades getting punched in the face for the chance to have the body of a teenage starlet. Just to be clear: What it takes to change Patty’s life is violence. Teaming up with disgraced pageant coach Bob ( Dallas Roberts), she sets off on a quest to win a beauty pageant and prove to all of her classmates that while she might have once been a loser, she is now the winner of all winners. Once the wires are removed, Ryan emerges from her fat suit to reveal Patty’s magical new skinny body, and Patty begins to seek her revenge. She is on a liquid diet for three months.
The series presents this encounter as the miracle that Patty needs. Patty spends all of her time binge-eating to compensate for her loneliness - because Insatiable is smugly sure that fat people are losers - until a homeless guy punches her in the face. Insatiable tells the story of 17-year-old Patty ( Debby Ryan, wearing a very fake-looking fat suit for the first few minutes of the pilot), whose classmates have inflicted upon her the nickname Fatty Patty. I have now watched every episode of Insatiable, and I can tell you whatever you might be imagining from the trailer is nothing. Watch it before you pass judgment, people advised. When Insatiable’s trailer premiered in July to instant, furious backlash, a widespread response was that it was wrong to judge a show by its trailer. It has Murphy’s gleeful sadism in spades, but none of his manic camp energy it has his treacly didacticism, but none of his genuine emotion. It spends all of its time striving desperately to reach the status of third-tier Ryan Murphy and falling flat. Insatiable, the controversial new show from Netflix that debuts on Friday, is simultaneously one of the cruelest and most poorly crafted shows I have ever seen.