The AppleTV adaptation’s reach sometimes outstrips its grasp, but strong performances and an undeniable sense of goodness make it work.

Despite the lead character’s penchant for brutal honesty and empirical truths, Lessons in Chemistry is not a series viewers should turn to for a gritty look at early 60s gender relations, race relations, or workers’ rights. That’s not to say the word of the Lee Eisenberg-created series—adapted from a Bonnie Garmus novel of the same name—exists in a conflict-free world. It’s there’s a bittersweet gentleness that underpins and surrounds the proceedings, conflicts and all.

Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson) works as a lab assistant at the fictional Hastings Institute. She has her Master’s in Chemistry, but her male colleagues generally treat her as another member of the secretarial pool. They are forever sending her off to make coffee and pressuring her to join the employee beauty pageant. She grits her teeth and barely plays along, utilizing the lab and her colleagues’ chemicals to conduct her own experiments after hours. These not strictly authorized acts of scientific endeavor catch the none-too-pleased eye of Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman), the Institute’s star, leading grant-getter, and recluse. Once he realizes the falseness of his sexist assumptions, the two grow closer.

Tragedies and academic backstabbing see Elizabeth cast out of Hastings and scrambling to find a way to make a living. While she manages to find the occasional handhold or foothold in chemistry, the work isn’t making ends meet. However, an accidental encounter with a local television producer, Walter (Kevin Sussman), puts her in front of cameras. On her new show, “Supper at Six,” she demonstrates chemistry through her other passion: perfecting the art of cooking. Soon, she’s not only a popular television personality but a figure of inspiration to women.

This plot synopsis leaves out Elizabeth’s neighbor and best friend Harriet’s (Aja Naomi King) fight against racially motivated highway encroachment, her kindly obstetrician Dr. Mason (Marc Evan Jackson) recruiting her to the life of a competitive rower, her frenemy Fran Frask (Stephanie Koenig), a mystery involving Calvin’s parents that pulls Beau Bridges into the action, and a dog named Six-Thirty. In addition to the aforementioned gender and racial politics, the show dives into sexual assault, intellectual property theft, faith, the abuse of the Catholic Church (but not the ones you’re thinking of), and the evils of product placement. To say Lessons in Chemistry has a lot of elements in its lab is a significant understatement.

The series’ heart does help with that considerably. There are some pretty dire and depressing issues brought to bear here, but the show never traffics in miserabilism. Even when painful tragedies pile on Zott, Eisenberg and co-writers Elissa Karasik and Emily Fox ensure the weight never crushes. Lessons in Chemistry doesn’t pretend everything’s great, but it clutches to hope throughout.

Lessons in Chemistry doesn’t pretend everything’s great, but it clutches to hope throughout.

The directors, including Sarah Adina Smith and Bert Bernie, reinforced this with the show’s visuals. Lessons in Chemistry isn’t afraid of deep blacks or hazy shadows but tends to populate its images with light and bright colors. It is a photographic confirmation of the series worldview that frequently subconsciously coaches the audience to hold out for some good news.

Sometimes, unfortunately, there’s too much going on. Consequently, certain storylines and events go half-resolved or too quickly swept away. For instance, Harriet’s campaign against highway construction sparks some all-too-familiar demonstrations of inappropriately wielded state power. And then…nothing. Not “the fight goes on,” but, rather, radio silence. 

The mystery of Calvin’s parents, on the other hand, spends most of the series simmering on the back burner. Then it suddenly becomes the A-story of the last episode and a half before typing it up with the most convenient of ribbons. Lessons of Chemistry’s ambitions are appreciated, but one sometimes wishes they traded breadth for a bit more depth on certain plotlines.

Still, the strong supporting cast papers over much of the show’s sins and excesses. Sussman’s gift for a generally defeated posture has rarely (ever?) been used to better effect. He also gets to play quietly resistant to a sexist station director (Rainn Wilson, feeling embracing his inner bloviating unpleasantness), a rare opportunity for him. As a Reverend Wakely, Patrick Walker conveys thoughtfulness and empathy in a role that could’ve been little more than plot wallpaper. Jackson has minimal screen time but absolutely radiates a no-fuss kindness. Pullman struggles initially to bring nuance to Calvin when he’s the enfant terrible of the campus. However, the further he softens, the more Pullman gives dimensionality to the genius chemist. And the way he looks at Elizabeth will leave you with no doubt how deeply he cares about her.

Speaking of Elizabeth, in the end, Lessons in Chemistry is Larson’s to carry over the finish line. The character isn’t an easy one. Elizabeth is, at times, so armored up that she reads as robotic. At others, she seems almost too naïve to be real. The actor finds the spark, though, investing her with a bone-dry sense of humor, steel spine, and subtly warm core. This critic isn’t sure all of Elizabeth’s parts ever truly come together in a convincingly whole, but Larson makes each component feel honest enough that she brings the audience on board.

Lessons in Chemistry arranges its Erlenmeyer flasks and fires up the Bunsen burner beginning October 13 on AppleTV+.

Lessons in Chemistry Trailer: