The darkly funny Phony gives the doppelganger-mom genre the series-length treatment

What makes Phony shine, though, is its unusual blend of mystery and teen comedy. The show isn’t always laugh-out-loud hilarious, but there’s a steady, consistent trickle of dark laughs and deadpan witticisms, all contained within some of the most distinct and realistic TV teen dialogue in recent memory. At times, the characters’ outlandish theories and the episodes’ menacing closing scenes recall Pretty Little Liars, Riverdale, or even Twin Peaks; at other times, the series is reminiscent of American Vandal, especially when it comes to the minor characters who serve as a Greek chorus as they lounge around Sonny’s school.

A few characters get looped into the search quickly: an eccentric private investigator named Sharla (Meera Syal) and some of Sonny’s friends, including his old crush, Mallory (Grace Brennan), and her oddball cousin, Weldon (Colter Lee). Notably absent from the investigation are his girlfriend, Chloe (Mahaela Park), along with his best buddy, Vogel (Maliq Johnson, immediately endearing), neither of whom grasps the enormity of what’s happening to Sonny. It’s easy to empathize with the kid, who takes on an almost Charlie Brown-like persona: Almost everyone at school seems skeptical of him in some way, yet he easily attracts attention thanks to his essential sweetness—along with, of course, his proximity to the principal. The closest one-to-one may be Otis from Sex Education, especially since both everyman protagonists share intensely codependent relationships with their moms.

Britton is typically great, finding a perfectly subtle and therefore extra-unsettling way of distinguishing between the original Ellen (glimpsed mainly in those first 15 minutes) and the new Ellen. (She’s aided by some excellent, tasteful makeup work.) Really, though, it’s the young cast that makes everything work. Nivola creates a somewhat complex character out of an average teenager, showing Sonny to be both chill and anxious, both generous and self-centered. Park, who did impressive work as an object of affection in 2024’s Dìdi, gives Chloe some self-awareness to offset her naivete. Newcomer Brennan’s expressive face and naturalistically awkward line deliveries also make the previously homeschooled Mallory a highlight.

At times, Phony feels like it could drop the mystery element (along with the heightened stakes and dread-inducing synth score from Grizzly Bear’s Christopher Bear) entirely and function perfectly well as a bighearted teen comedy like Freaks And Geeks or Pen15. But the delicate tonal balance works well for now, though the focus on the show’s main dilemma means the more substantial subplots sometimes get short shrift. The love triangle with Chloe and Mallory is underdeveloped, without a clear sense of what each of them really means to Sonny, who just comes off like a dick for risking his new relationship. The same goes for his weekly miscommunications with Vogel, though their friendship seems genuinely affectionate when they are on the same page. The show sometimes suggests a deeper darkness to Sonny’s charm, but at least in the first four episodes, doesn’t explore that meaningfully. 

More intriguing is the suggestion that Ellen was always a controlling, smothering mom, which comes across very quickly even before she gets swapped out. The series seems to be getting at something about parenthood and filial duty, but it’s difficult to assess its ultimate aims without first seeing how the mysteries wrap up. Was this constructed as a miniseries, or as a potential ongoing teen comedy with mystery elements? Will its conclusion offer definitive answers, or a deeper dive down the rabbit hole? As in early Twin Peaks, the urgency to get to the root of Phony’s central mystery is matched or even exceeded by the enjoyment of hanging out in its idiosyncratic world. A lot is riding on Phony’s ending, and on how dark this story could go as Sonny and the audience get closer to the truth.