‘Undone’ Is a Heartbreakingly Gorgeous Look at Mental Illness

There are two shows living within Undone, Amazon’s new animated series from BoJack Horseman‘s Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy. One is an intentionally claustrophobic reflection on the lifeless monotony of early adulthood. The other is quite literally a universe bending time travel epic that transforms its protagonist Alma (Rosa Salazar) into the chosen one, destined to solve the murder of her father. And yet both stories work together to weave a complex examination about mental illness. As Undone tears its hair out over how boring and predictable life in modern society is, it rewrites that frustration into a sci-fi thriller, one that directly ties Alma’s most exciting and imaginative moments directly to the depression and mundanity she deals with in her everyday life.

“I’m so bored of living,” is the first thing Alma says. Very quickly, that statement comes to define her. Every day she wakes up next to the same person, eats the same thing, goes to the same job, gets drunk at the same bar, goes to sleep next to the same person, and starts it all over again. Though it’s never explicitly stated what mental illnesses Alma is dealing with, Undone makes it clear that Alma is at the very least depressive. Whether that is something she inherited from her family’s history of mental illness or if it’s the result of repressed trauma from her father’s tragic death are left up to debate. Regardless, she’s no longer connected to her life to the point where she has a hard time emotionally focusing on big moments, like her sister Becca’s (Angelique Cabral) engagement.

That completely changes when a car accident leads to Alma seeing her recently deceased father, Jacob (Bob Odenkirk). It turns out she was never boring and forgettable after all. Instead, she has the power to manipulate time. Under her late father’s direction she can finally harness her newfound power and get to the bottom of what really happened to him back in the past.

If Undone‘s superhero powers feel a bit too convenient or contrived, that’s the point. Just like how Alma is never quite certain whether she can actually alter time or is slowly losing her mind, the show doesn’t reveal the truth either (at least in the initial five episodes sent to critics). What the show is consistently more concerned with is Alma finally stepping back and looking at her own demons and insecurities, even if they threaten to utterly destroy her.

All of this is told through scattered ideas and emotions that span Alma’s life. Structurally, Undone feels most similar to one of the episodes of BoJack Purdy wrote, “Time’s Arrow,” which followed Beatrice Horseman (voiced by Wendy Malick) trying to remember who she was through the haze of her dementia. It also shares notes with the beloved indie time traveling video game Life Is Strange as well as the DNA of the classic novel Slaughterhouse Five. But there’s a fragility to Undone that makes the series uniquely painful to watch. Each episode feels as though the audience is listening in on another deeply private therapy session. We shouldn’t be there but the more Alma’s revelations unravel we can’t leave.

Salazar makes Alma’s highest highs and lowest lows impossible to stop watching. The Man Seeking Woman and Night Owls actress has always been undeniably charming (even under layers of CGI in movies like Alita: Battle Angel). But between her perfect comedic timing and excellent quips she brings an undeniable manic pain to Alma. Underneath every quip there’s a desperation that, if she says the right thing or acts the right way, she will be “normal.” She’s a woman sinking under water who is determined to keep joking even when only her mouth is above the waves.

The actress’ stellar performance works in beautiful unison with Undone‘s revolutionary animation style. Undone is the first series to be animated almost entirely by rotoscoping, a technique that traces over filmed footage to create an animated version of realistic action. Not only does the technique lend Undone an otherworldly air, forcing the series to straddle between reality and animation, but it also portrays the full nuances of every character’s expressions. In the case of Salazar’s Alma and Odenkirk’s Jacob, those tiny moments make these two feel uncomfortably real.

What this amounts to is by far one of the most tragically vulnerable explorations of mental illness to ever grace television. It’s also a series that dares to dwell on the most devastating part of this nightmare. Mental illness is never something that goes away. Much like Alma’s disenchantment with life itself, it’s always present. Undone understands it’s never about a cure; it’s about coping.

Undone premieres on Amazon Prime Video September 13. 

Watch Undone on Amazon September 13