Why Paul Simon's 'The Obvious Child' is key to Netflix's 'Long Story Short'
If you've ever jammed out to Paul Simon's "The Obvious Child," then Netflix's Long Story Short is for you.
Mere minutes into the show's first episode, Avi Schwooper (voiced by Ben Feldman), consummate music nerd and eldest Schwooper sibling, plays "The Obvious Child" for his girlfriend Jen (voiced by Angelique Cabral).
"There. Did you hear it?" he asks her while listening along.
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The section of "The Obvious Child" that has Avi so excited is one line in particular, where Simon sings, "We had a little son and we thought we'd call him Sonny / Sonny gets married and moves away."
That line break blows Avi's mind.
"'Sonny gets married and moves away'? He was just born! How did he... It's because that's time, right?" Avi explains. "Like, one moment, you're young, you're free. Next thing you know, 'Sonny gets married and moves away.'"
Avi's analysis doesn't just apply to "The Obvious Child." It's also true of Long Story Short itself, a show that, like "The Obvious Child," is greatly concerned with aging and the passage of time.
Each episode of Long Story Short hops around through time, usually kicking off with a vignette from the Schwooper siblings' childhood before jumping into the future. The show's sweet title sequence serves as the divider between the two, acting in a similar way to the line break Avi loves so much in "The Obvious Child." Both collapse years and years of time into just a moment. Sonny goes from being a baby to growing up and getting married. The Schwoopers go from children to adults with families of their own.
In both cases, Simon and Long Story Short allow listeners or viewers to fill in the blanks between point A and point B. Simon doesn't have to say "Sonny met someone he loves" — that's something we can infer from the mention of marriage. Likewise, in Long Story Short, the series doesn't have to spell out everything that's happened to the Schwoopers between the past and the present. Through just a few meaningful lines of dialogue, we're able to pick up on years' worth of story, including major life events like divorces and deaths.
While Avi doesn't dive further into the lyrics of "The Obvious Child," the rest of the song is just as relevant to Long Story Short as those earlier lines. Later in the song, an older Sonny reminisces on his youth as he looks through his high school yearbook, not unlike how Avi, Shira (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), and Yoshi (voiced by Max Greenfield) often reminisce on their own childhoods as they grow up.
Long Story Short's connection to "The Obvious Child" reaches its emotional peak at the end of the show's first episode. In 2004, Avi and Jen cuddle on the plane ride home from Yoshi's chaotic bar mitzvah. The drums of "The Obvious Child" kick in, and the show cuts to 2022. Avi, 18 years older now, sits alone in his car, gazing thoughtfully out the window, perhaps remembering that airplane conversation with Jen. What happened to the two of them in those 18 years?
Long Story Short reveals the answer piece by piece throughout its first season, but just that first image of Avi by himself is enough to clue you into his and Jen's separation. Paired so closely with their younger, loving selves, the reveal of Avi alone is an emotional gut punch, and a perfectly melancholy teaser of what else Long Story Short has in store.
That's time, right?
Long Story Short is now streaming on Netflix.
Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.
