Mood takes a daring dive into social media and womanhood

Mood’s frenzied opening scene sets the tone for what to expect from the British drama and its leading heroine. Aspiring singer Sasha Clayton (Nicôle Lecky) hazily goes from filming a music video to partying in a club to crying on the street to possibly committing arson. But how much of it is real and how much is just a nightmare? She wakes up the next morning with no memory of what happened the previous day, a half-eaten kebab plate next to her bed and her parents yelling at her to stop smoking. Her phone notifications relay that she called her ex, Anton (Jordan Duvigneau), more than 40 times in a drunken stupor, and she’s chaotically rambling in her Instagram stories. Within ten minutes, Mood establishes that Sasha is a mess. And it’s only the beginning.

Sasha, a 25-year-old struggling musician, wanders in a world where she doesn’t know how to fit in. As the only person of color in her family, she’s distant from her white mother, stepfather, and stepsister. Her boyfriend of a decade has broken up with her (for crushing reasons Mood won’t explore until the end, to its disadvantage). Sasha’s loneliness and abandonment issues consume her with rage, turning her into an expert self-saboteur. Her life changes when she meets an online influencer, Carly Visionz (Lara Peake)—through their common weed guys, no less—and gets drawn into her high-rise apartment and lavish world.

All these complexities allow series creator and star Lecky to explore the unfiltered and dark side of social media, sex work, shame, and societal pressures. Mood’s brazen humor calls to mind other British shows like Fleabag and Chewing Gum (as well as I May Destroy You), especially since Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Michaela Coel also adapted those shows from their solo plays. Lecky has based Mood on her own 2018 one-woman act, Superhoe, and the six-part first season is full of caustic and layered writing, even if it’s quite melodramatic.

Mood strikes a chord because it doesn’t rush in its pacing. Sasha and Carly’s unexpected kinship unravels realistically, which is an achievement because it helps sell how Carly convinces Sasha to become part of her influencer tribe. Sasha is quick to see the benefits: She can make money, hang out with famous people, and ideally produce her songs. Soon enough, Sasha also jumps beyond regular social media to more secretive platforms like DailyFans (similar to OnlyFans), followed by prostitution in elite circles, forging an even stronger bond with Carly along the way.