''Made for Love'' is an American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

television series based on the 2017 novel of the same name by

Alissa Nutting Alissa Nutting (born 1980 or 1981) is an American author and creative writing professor. Her writing has appeared in ''Tin House'', ''Fence'', ''BOMB'' and the fairy tale anthology ''My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me''. She is an assoc ...

. The series premiered on

HBO Max HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netw ...

on April 1, 2021. It stars

Cristin Milioti Cristin Milioti (born August 16, 1985) is an American actress. She is known for playing Tracy McConnell in the CBS sitcom '' How I Met Your Mother'' from 2013 to 2014, and for her work in theater productions such as ''That Face'', ''Stunning'' ...

Billy Magnussen William Gregory Magnussen (born April 20, 1985) is an American actor. He has been featured in the films ''Into the Woods'' (2014), ''Birth of the Dragon'' (2016), '' Game Night'' (2018), and '' Aladdin'' (2019), and has had supporting television ...

and

Ray Romano Raymond Albert Romano (born December 21, 1957) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Ray Barone on the CBS sitcom ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', for which he received an Emmy Award, and as the ...

. In June 2021, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on April 28, 2022. Despite positive response to the series, in June 2022, the series was canceled after two seasons following the merger of HBO Max's parent company

WarnerMedia Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

with

Discovery, Inc. Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate (company), conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual television, factual and lifestyle television bra ...

to become

Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at 230 Park Avenue South in New York City. It was formed after the spin-off of WarnerMedia by AT&T, and its merger with D ...

. It was removed in December 2022.

Premise

After a woman escapes from a suffocating 10-year marriage to a tech billionaire, she discovers her husband had her fitted with a

tracking device A tracking system, also known as a locating system, is used for the observing of persons or objects on the move and supplying a timely ordered sequence of location data for further processing. It is important to be aware of human tracking, fur ...

. The device, which he implanted in her brain, allows him to track her location, watch her live, and know her "emotional data" as she tries to regain her independence.

Cast

Main

as Hazel Green *

as Byron Gogol *

Dan Bakkedahl Dan Bakkedahl (born November 18, 1969) is an American actor and improvisational comedian. He is best known for starring as Tim Hughes on the CBS sitcom ''Life in Pieces'', as Congressman Roger Furlong on the HBO series ''Veep'', and as Steve Nuge ...

as Herringbone *

Noma Dumezweni Noma Dumezweni (born 28 July 1969) is a British actress. In 2006, she won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her performance as Ruth Younger in ''A Raisin in the Sun'' at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. In 2 ...

as Fiffany *

as Herbert Green * Augusto Aguilera as the Liver (season 1) * Caleb Foote as Bennett Hobbes (season 2; recurring season 1) * Sarunas J. Jackson as Jay / Jasper (season 2; guest starring season 1)

Recurring

Patti Harrison Patti Harrison (born October 31, 1990) is an American actress and comedian. She is best known for her roles in comedy series such as '' Shrill'' (2019–2021) and ''I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson'' (2019–present), as well as the c ...

as Bangles de la Morga *

Kym Whitley Kym Elizabeth Whitley is an American comedian and actress. She is best known for her roles on television sitcoms, such as ''My Brother and Me'', '' Sparks'', ''Animal Practice'', ''The Boondocks'', ''Young & Hungry'', ''The Parkers'', ...

as Judiff * Dutch Johnson as Bruce * Raymond Lee as Keefus / Jeff (season 2) * Angela Lin as Dr. Hau (season 2) *

Ashley Madekwe Ashley Madekwe (; born 6 December 1983) is a British actress. She is well known for her roles as call girl Bambi in the ITV2 series ''Secret Diary of a Call Girl'', social climber Ashley Davenport on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC drama ...

as Zelda (season 2) *

Chris Diamantopoulos Chris Diamantopoulos (born May 9, 1975) is a Canadian actor. He played Russ Hanneman in the HBO series ''Silicon Valley'' and starred in the film ''The Three Stooges'', and the TV series ''Good Girls Revolt''. He currently voices Mickey Mouse i ...

as Agent Hank Walsh (season 2) *

Travis Van Winkle Travis Scott Van Winkle (born November 4, 1982) is an American actor, best known for starring in the feature film ''Accepted'' (2006) and the 2021 third season of the Netflix streaming television series ''You'', portraying Trent Sutton-DeMarco i ...

as Aaron Benson (season 2) *

James Urbaniak James Christian Urbaniak (born September 17, 1963) is an American character actor. He is best known for his roles as Simon Grim in three Hal Hartley films: '' Henry Fool'' (1997), '' Fay Grim'' (2006) and '' Ned Rifle'' (2014), Robert Crumb in ...

as Gogol interviewer (season 2)

Guest stars

Paula Abdul Paula Julie Abdul (born June 19, 1962) is an American singer, dancer, choreographer, actress, and television personality. She began her career as a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers at the age of 18 and later became the head choreograph ...

as Anydoors (season 2)

Production

Development

''Made for Love'' is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by

gave the series a greenlight in June 2019 for their

streaming service Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

Patrick Somerville Patrick Somerville (born April 14, 1979) is an American novelist and television writer living in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Career Novels Somerville graduated from Cornell University in 2005. He published his debut novel, ''The Cradle'', i ...

was the season one showrunner and writer, with

S. J. Clarkson S. J. Clarkson is a British television and film director. Career Clarkson's credits include the series '' Doctors'', ''Casualty'', '' EastEnders'', ''Footballers' Wives'', and ''Life on Mars'', as well as the American series ''Heroes'', '' House' ...

directing. ''Made for Love'' was the first original series from HBO Max. On June 28, 2021, HBO Max renewed the series for a second season. Executive producers Christina Lee and Nutting were showrunners for season two. The series was canceled after two seasons on June 10, 2022. An official statement on the series cancellation from representatives from HBO Max said: Made for Love was removed from HBO Max in late December 2022.

Casting

In July 2019,

was cast to lead the series.

was added in September 2019, with his deal only for one season.

would join in October 2019, with

and Augusto Aguilera added in November 2019. In December 2019, Raymond Lee was cast in a recurring role. In July 2021, Caleb Foote was promoted as a series regular for the second season. In November 2021, Sarunas J. Jackson who guest starred on the first season was promoted to a series regular while

and Angela Lin were cast in recurring roles with

to guest star for the second season.

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (2021)

Season 2 (2022)

Release

The series premiered on April 1, 2021 with the first 3 episodes available immediately. The second season premiered on April 28, 2022 with two episodes being released weekly.

Reception

Critical response

For the first season,

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported an approval rating of 94% based on 54 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.20/10. The website's critics consensus reads,"''Made for Love'' satirical riffs on technology are undeniably clever, but the most valuable special effects in this twisty odyssey are Cristin Milioti's charisma and comedic timing."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave the first season a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 18 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Nina Metz of ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' rated the series 3.5/4 and found the series "cheekily bewitching, both sardonic and deeply deeply disturbing..." Ben Travers of

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

gave the series a B- and said, "Herbert is the proof that ''Made for Love'' still knows the real deal: that true love can't be quantified, only felt. The more the show lets us feel it, the better off it will be."

Accolades

References

External links

* {{HBO Max 2020s American black comedy television series 2020s American science fiction television series 2021 American television series debuts 2022 American television series endings English-language television shows Television series by Paramount Television Television series about marriage Television series set in 2020 Television shows set in California Television shows based on American novels HBO Max original programming