In each episode of Disney +‘s Pixar animated series Win Or Lose, the perspective of someone participating in a championship softball game is examined. It could be one of the players for the middle school co-ed softball team the Pickles, or a parent, or even the umpire. But each episode culminates in the night of the championship game. Will the storytelling device work or be a distraction?
WIN OR LOSE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A harshly-lit shot of a softball field. As the harsh light illuminates different scenes, a voice says “Everyone is chasing the feeling of a win. But if someone wins, somebody has to lose. Or maybe… maybe, winning is just a matter of how you look at it.” We see that a kid with a large bottle of soda is making that statement.
The Gist: In the first episode of Win Or Lose, Laurie (Rosie Foss), the daughter of Coach Dan (Will Forte), the team’s coach, is burdened by not only the expectations people have for her as the coach’s daughter, but the pressure she puts on herself. One of the big problems is that she’s not really good, either as a fielder or hitter. Her anxiety is symbolized by a sweat ball called Sweaty (Jo Firestone), which just grows as the championship game gets closer. She’s helped by her friend Rochelle (Milan Ray), the team’s catcher, but would really love to be as good at the game as her teammate Kai (Chanel Stewart).
The second episode concentrates on Frank (Josh Thomson), the detail-oriented umpire for the softball league. He’s also a middle school teacher who’s as on the ball in the classroom as he is on the diamond — as Rochelle finds out when he catches her passing answers to a test. But he is lonely and symbolically shields himself in armor so as not to open himself up, especially to his former girlfriend Monica (Vyvan Pham); his breakup with her is something he continues to regret.
The third episode revolves around Rochelle, who looks like she dons a business suit and grows a foot taller in order to take care of business. She has to, given that her single mother Vanessa (Rosa Salazar) is too busy trying to be a “content creator”. To earn money to pay the league’s dues, she resorts to helping classmates cheat on tests. In the fourth episode, we see Vanessa’s side, as she’s buoyed by a cloud of heart-shaped social media likes while she strains to make ends meet while keeping a smile on her face.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The format of showing the same events from different people’s perspectives has been used on shows like The Afterparty as well as portions of series like Only Murders In The Building, Arrested Development and many more.
Our Take: The storytelling method in Win Or Lose, created and written by Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates, is effective because it’s not straining to leave Easter eggs in each episode that will link them together. Yes, they are there; for instance, we see Frank crying in his car before the championship game in the first episode, and that is explained in the second. But what Hobson and Yates are concentrating on is each person’s story. And, given the 20-minute runtime of each episode, they do a good job of telling a detailed story for that episode’s featured character.
The episodes don’t necessarily all end happily; as the soda-swilling kid/oracle that we see throughout the series says, for every winner, there’s someone who loses. But not every ending is sad, either, as we get some delayed resolution in a couple of cases.
We appreciate the symbolic imagery in each episode, like Laurie’s talking sweatball, or the “teenage CEO” outfit that Rochelle dons in her mind when it’s time for her to be the responsible one. That imagery is deployed better in some episodes than in others; Vanessa’s cloud of “likes,” for instance, don’t carry the same impact as what we see in the other three episodes.
Where Hobson and Yates really hit the mark, though, is zeroing in on the anxieties of each of their characters, making them relatable despite being animated characters doing the things that animated characters do. Even when the visuals surrounding these stories, like rudimentary video-game graphics or floating pavement to symbolize a world out of control, the emotions involved ground even the most fantastical visuals into these characters’ realities.
What Age Group Is This For?: There are some scary scenes in these episodes, so we’d recommend the show for kids 8 and up. Our 10-year-old still got anxious watching the Laurie episode, watching her continue to put pressure on herself.
Parting Shot: After reassurances from her dad, Laurie is determined to get on base. And she does, but not in a way you might expect.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Flula Borg, who plays a janitor at Frank’s school in the second episode. He knows the ways of love, and he charmingly sets Frank up on a dating app.
Most Pilot-y Line: We didn’t love the character of Laurie’s mother Carole, despite the fact that one of our favorite actors, Rhea Seehorn, plays her. She reads tarot cards and doesn’t seem to care much about softball. Maybe we’ll get a deeper look at her when the Coach Dan episode comes around, as the two seem to be going through a divorce or separation.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Win Or Lose manages to tell detailed stories about each of its characters, with emotions rooted in reality while taking advantage of Pixar’s ability to create a fascinating visual landscape.
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, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
