Conversations with Friends is a show inspired by a novel. It dives into tangled relationships of four young adults in Dublin. Love, identity and adulting struggles take center stage. Characters are complex, emotions are real. It is a must-see for anyone who loves deep, character-focused dramas. Don’t miss it!

Meet the characters from Conversations with Friends

Frances

Frances is this painfully observant, quietly furious narrator who measures everything down to the smallest awkward pause — and then writes poems about the pauses, obviously. She’s sharp, a little cold on purpose, and weirdly self-aware; like she knows she’s being performative and insists on the performance anyway. Loves to analyze feelings from a safe distance but also gets swept up in stuff she swore she wouldn’t (classic). Also, she drinks tea when she says she’s giving up alcohol — I think? Or maybe that was coffee.

Bobbi

Bobbi is the loud, brilliant, “I’ll say the thing you’re thinking” energy and I live for her. She’s a performance poet/instigator who’s fierce in public, soft in private, and somehow always wearing the coolest jackets — or was it thrifted sweaters? — contradict yourself, I love that about her. She pushes Frances into chaos with a grin and then saves her with blunt honesty, which is annoying but also massively loyal. Also, she probably has a secret playlist she denies but hums in the kitchen at 2 a.m. sometimes.

Melissa Baines

Melissa is the glamorous, grown-up actor who floats into a room and rearranges the light, whether she means to or not. She’s charismatic and oddly maternal, like she could teach you to be stylish and also make you cry in the nicest way — and then criticize your handwriting, politely. Underneath the stage-perfect exterior there’s loneliness and very particular tastes (olive oil brand snob? maybe), which makes her both magnetic and heartbreakingly complicated. Oh and she breathes through her mouth sometimes when she’s thinking — random but true, I swear.

Nick Conway

Nick is the quiet, intense guy who feels like a secret, which is partly why he’s so tempting and also infuriating. He seems steady — practical hands, maybe likes tinkering or fixing things — but there’s always a pull toward miscommunication and not saying what he means. He’s tender in very small, significant ways (a text at midnight, a folded shirt), and also stubbornly private, which makes him feel both safe and unavailable. Also he might be inexplicably into terrible reality TV, which he denies fiercely.

Philip

Philip gives off steady, adult-advice energy, like the person who drinks decaf at brunch and knows the best dentist in town. He’s quietly observant, slightly judgmental in that “I’ll tell you the truth even if it stings” way, but not cruel — more like practical sorrow. There’s a warmth that sneaks out when you least expect it, and then he retreats back into very precise opinions about literature. Also, he’s into gardening? Or he says he is to sound calm; either way his plants look suspiciously alive.

Dennis

Dennis is the gruff, sometimes bafflingly tender older man who says things the wrong way but means them, you know? He’s straightforward, a bit old-fashioned, and has a stubborn kind of affection that’s both comforting and awkward to receive. He’ll tell you a blunt truth with a beer in hand and then make you soup when you need it — not that he’ll admit that’s why he does it. Also, I’m pretty sure he has a terrible potted cactus collection that he swears he waters regularly (he doesn’t).

Paula

Paula is the slippery, intermittently warm figure who oscillates between intense concern and self-absorption — like she’s trying very hard and sometimes gets lost mid-effort. She’s complicatedly affectionate: will show up with soup and also with critiques of your life, which is simultaneously grounding and maddening. There’s an old-world practicality about her, but also small surprising tenderness (a handwritten note? a memory she reads aloud at the worst time). Also she might collect postcards from places she’s never actually visited, which is either sad or endearing, depending on the day.