Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bonding’ On Netflix, A Comedy About A Dominatrix Who Makes Her Gay Friend Become Her Assistant

There aren’t many shows out there where a dominatrix is one of the main characters. But more people than you realize employ the services of a “dom,” and in the world of Peak TV, why can’t they have their own show? That’s the topic of Bonding, a new comedy on Netflix. Read on for more…

BONDING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man stands outside a basement door in New York City. He’s nervous and isn’t quite sure what to do. So he takes a big hit from his weed pipe, avoids eye contact with a sheepish man exiting the door, and knocks.

The Gist: Pete (Brendan Scannell) has been called to what turns out to be a sex dungeon full of rooms where various dominatrices ply their trade. Who called him? His old high school best friend Tiff (Zoe Levin), who is known to her clients as Mistress May. She needs someone to be a bodyguard for her while she sees her next client: A gigantic guy in a mask who is known to take things a little too far.

Pete takes the gig — he really has no choice, as the guy in the mask is on his way in. He regrets it the next day but hates his roommate Frank (Alex Hurt), whose bedroom he has to pass through to get to his room. And his stand-up career isn’t exactly taking off; he’s even too chickenshit to go on during open mic night. He needs money, so he goes back to Tiff, who offers her 20% of her take and he insists she calls him “Carter” in front of her clients. “As long as you do what I say, I’ll call you whatever the fuck you want,” she says.

We also see Tiff’s private life: She lives in a nice apartment with a manservant who wears a mask and doesn’t mind getting hot coffee thrown at him, and we also see her going to grad school, where she’s studying for a psychology degree. Her “cool” professor Charles (Kevin Kane), who says “If you weren’t so smart, I’d fail you,” when she’s late. Then he gives her a wink. Ick. Also icky? Her classmate Doug (Micah Stock), who still presses with come-ons even when Tiff lies and says she’s a lesbian.

The next night, Pete finds out what being a dom’s assistant really entails when he helps Tiff kidnap one of her best clients, Fred (Charles Gould), who approves of each of Tiff’s moves with a Flinstones character until he gets to his safe word: “Barney Rubble”. He basically wants Tiff and Pete to make fun of his manhood, because it turns him on. In fact, having Pete doing the insulting, given his experience seeing penises, turns him on a lot.

Our Take: Bonding is created and written by Rightor Doyle (Nick in HBO’s Barry) based on some of his life experiences. If his experiences are anywhere as dark and weird as Pete’s, then Rightor has lived an interesting life. And, while it has some structural problems, the seven-episode series has some potential.

Part of the structural problem is that, with each segment running from 14-17 minutes (like the service’s recent premiere Special), there was way too much for Doyle to set up in the first episode. So we’re thrown headlong into the situation, just like Pete is, then we’re left to piece things together as we go along. While that saves us from endless and clumsy exposition, we’re staring at Tiff and Pete and thinking: “How do these two know each other? Have they lost touch? If they’re friends, why is Tiff so mean to Pete? Who in the hell is that dude doing her ironing? And why is this show so gross?”

But the short episodes help in that those questions start to get answered in episode 2, when we see Tiff showing up to the comedy club to support Pete, even if he chickens out again. We also find out that she comes from a born-again household. And we find out how shy and inexperienced Pete is. In other words, patience with this show will be rewarded in short order. And the chemistry between Tiff and Pete will go a long way to making us stay around, despite the frank displays of pee and jizz we’ve seen so far.

Sex and Skin: Tiff is a dominatrix, FFS. Even if she never has sex with her clients, she’s a sex worker. So, while we don’t see a ton of skin, we see a lot of, um, other stuff.

Parting Shot: After their night with Fred, the two emerge from the basement. She pays him, says there’s a lot more where that comes from, then walks away, saying, “Grad school waits for no dominatrix!” Then Fred comes out of the basement and says, “Maybe next time you can pee on me.”

Sleeper Star: In Episode 2 we see D’Arcy Carden as a mom who wants to hire Mistress May on behalf of her husband. Any time D’Arcy Carden shows up on our screens, it’s a plus.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I thought you were a 911 operator,” Pete says to Tiff when he first enters her dungeon. “Yeah, I lied,” she replies. Well, duh.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Bonding is funny enough to make its structural problems less of an issue than you might think. Just be sure you have a very open mind before hitting “Play” on this one.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Bonding on Netflix