A Psychic Leap: Maggie Season 1 Review
Maggie (Rebecca Rittenhouse) has been psychic since she was in high school. When she touches people (or sometimes an object) she gets flashes of their future, sometimes with a great level of detail and sometimes so brief or unclear that they need interpretation. She can trigger these visions intentionally (which is why she is able to make a living as a psychic) but is also susceptible to them happening sporadically. However, touching herself does not have quite the same effect. She can’t see her own future. Until, one day, she does – she meets Ben (David Del Rio) and sees herself in his future. Maybe.
Maggie has long since given up on finding love but just as she considers embracing it with Ben, his on-again, off-again high school sweetheart Jessie (Chloe Bridges) enters the picture. The two have gotten back together and have (coincidentally!) moved into an apartment where Maggie lives and her parents are the landlords. And her visions say they may be meant to be. What is Maggie to do?
It is not immediately clear if psychics are common in the show’s universe because for the first several episodes everyone Maggie knows and meets seems to simply accept her psychic powers at face value. We eventually learn that it took her mother some time to accept her visions and that not everyone she meets instantly believes her, but there is still some time spent wondering why everyone just accepts it. Maggie also sometimes seems like an experienced psychic who knows what she is doing and sometimes seems completely unsure of her abilities and has to run to her Titus Andromedan-esque mentor Angel (Ray Ford) – high on the dramatics, self-centeredness, and questionable but well-intentioned advice. Some of the advice she needs, like how to have a poker face when she sees a vision she doesn’t want to reveal or how to deliver bad news to a client seems like something she’d have needed to master some time ago. It may be that seeing a flash of her own future has sent her into such a tailspin that she is left questioning herself, but it isn’t immediately clear.
While she seems to get pretty straightforward visions when dealing with clients, when looking at visions more closely tied to her life, Maggie frequently jumps to conclusions, even when she sees things that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. It is these logical leaps that cause her so much confusion and distress throughout the show. It seems like she has never seen herself in a vision before, which seems surprising. She’s never seen a glimpse of herself in her parents’ or best friend’s futures?
Even with these questions about the psychic aspect of the show, there’s a lot to love about Maggie. The group dynamics are truly excellent. You may wonder who Maggie and her longtime best friend Louise (Amy Sakura) were friends with before they met Ben, Jessie, Ben’s sister Amy (Angelique Cabral), and Amy’s fiancé Dave (Leonardo Nam), but the quartet seamlessly slots into their lives. They’re funny and quirky in a good way and it would be the perfect friend group, if they weren’t hiding the major secret of Maggie and Ben’s fling from Jessie. As any TV watcher knows, secrets never remain secrets and this can only spell trouble for all involved. Louise, who many will recognize from Superstore , is not as airheaded as her character Cheyenne, but still delivers funny lines and sometimes misses things that are obvious to everyone else, to hilarious effect. Despite Maggie’s no readings for friends rule, Louise has been relying on Maggie’s visions to decide on her love life (Maggie’s facial expressions have always given her away unintentionally). Amy and Dave are the kind of couple that are weirdly perfect for each other – what makes Dave happiest is making other people happy, which works out well for Amy who can get high-strung and anxious, though Dave brings out a more relaxed, carefree side as well. The show also does a good job of making Jessie likeable. It would be easy to make her someone you want to root against, but instead you find that although she and Ben may be together because they have always been together, you aren’t rooting against her per se, even if you want Maggie and Ben to end up together.
Maggie also does a good job of setting up Maggie and Ben as a will-they won’t-they couple you can root for. They have great chemistry, play off each other well, and don’t get into the type of toxic arguments that many sitcom pairings find themselves in. Whether they are truly meant to be is left open to interpretation as Maggie learns the most important lesson of all – obsessing over the future can mess up your present.
A final plot development that I am excited to see developed in future seasons is that Maggie becomes a mentor for a budding teen psychic Abby (Arica Himmel), sent to her by Ben, who happens to be her teacher. We have only gotten a small taste of this relationship so far, but it is likely that more would be developed if the show gets picked up for a second season, which I hope it does.
