'Physical' Season 3 Apple TV+ Review: Stream It Or Skip It?

Apple TV+‘s Physical, which stars Rose Byrne as Sheila Rubin, a woman in 1980s California battling mental demons and eating disorders while trying to succeed in the newly-emerging world of aerobics, is back for a third and final season this week. While the show has plenty to answer for as it wraps up, perhaps the biggest question of all is who will triumph in the end, Sheila the flawed-but-savvy businesswoman, or the inner voices in her head who insist on screwing with her at every (stair)step of the way?

Opening Shot: Sheila Rubin stands on an elevated platform teaching an aerobics class. A “Step Up With Sheila” branded aerobic stepper lies at her feet, and as she motivates her students to swing their arms and step up and down, it becomes clear that many of the women in her class are dressed in business clothes, not workout clothes, and it’s not a real class.

The Gist: As it becomes clear from the first scene of the new season of Physical, Sheila and her friend and now-business partner, Greta (Deiredre Friel), are workshopping some new products for their aerobics venture together, like these newfangled stair steppers, in their office space. Couple of problems though: Sheila’s primary investor in her company is Greta’s husband Ernie (Ian Gomez), and Ernie is very worried about investing in steppers when Sheila’s biggest rival, Kelly Kilmartin (Zooey Deschanel) has now started hocking them too. Kelly is much more famous and has a bigger platform, so when Greta and Sheila see Kelly showing Johnny Carson how to do step-aerobics on his show, they realize their only option is… to threaten to release nude photos (which they got from John Breem, of all people) of Kelly to the National Enquirer. Listen, sure Sheila’s been following her multi-step therapy process, and sure, one of the steps is about integrity, but sometimes you’ve gotta play dirty.

Another side effect of Sheila’s therapy is that the voices in her head have vanished, which would be a good thing, except that they’ve been replaced by visions of Kelly Kilmartin, who lurks around every corner, taunting Sheila. Sheila has enough drama with the real relationships in her life, especially now that she’s enduring a very unfriendly divorce from Danny. Danny the single guy, you will not be surprised to learn, is maybe even worse than Danny the husband, as we see him attempting painful small-talk with some single ladies at the pool, and a fixation on the environment that borders on pathological. (Like Ernie, he’s also unsupportive of Sheila’s desire to invest in the stair-steppers, but only because the plastic they’re made of will never degrade.)

Eventually, after Ernie puts his foot down, refusing to sink money into the stair steppers because he doesn’t feel they’re a good investment, Sheila seeks out John Breem for another favor, and asks him how she can get on TV. It turns out, she doesn’t need to sell merch or sell nude photos of Kelly to be on top, she needs to sell herself. So she makes an appearance on a morning giving a class and it’s the very thing that jump-starts her business. As the episode ends on a montage of Sheila’s business starting to boom, she and Greta toast to their success that’s ruined, once again, by the nagging voice in her head that insists she’s not good enough.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Now that Sheila’s inner monologue is performed by someone else outside of her own body, the show feels like Legion, when Aubrey Plaza manifested as Dan Stevens’ inner demon, wrapped in the period-specific leg warmers and leotards of GLOW. And who can think of ’80s era aerobics without visualizing Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta pelvic-thrusting their way through Perfect?

Our Take: Physical‘s third season has the task of wrapping up the arcs of its many characters who all have layers of damage. What will come of not only Sheila’s mental health and eating disorder journey, but her business and her seriously dysfunctional relationship with Danny? And speaking of Danny, are we supposed to care about his new lot in life as an environmental advocate? Because in the pantheon of the show’s husbands – who are all pretty terrible – he might be the most terrible and most difficult to care about.

Sheila’s commitment to therapy (she’s still attending weekly group sessions) is hopefully helping her evolve. (I mean, her inner monologue has evolved into Zooey Deschanel, so that’s new!) It provides a glimmer of optimism that maybe she’s not stuck in an endless cycle of self-sabotage after all. Whether she’ll get a truly happy ending remains to be seen, but we wouldn’t be surprised if things are still complicated by the end. Physical has often billed itself as a comedy, and if you’re looking for LOLs then you might find yourself disappointed with it; the emotional darkness of the show is a feature, not a bug. Where the show does manage to find success is in the message at its core, that perfection can be a prison.

Sex and Skin: None so far this season.

Parting Shot: “You did it, just like I told you to,” Kelly (as Sheila’s inner voice) tells her as the two look into a mirror. “Now wait’ll they see how fuckin’ crazy you really are.”

Sleeper Star: Zooey Deschanel is clearly having fun as Kelly, who has two personas on the show. The first as a bubbly Jane Fonda-type, schilling her workout gear on late night TV, and the other as Sheila’s cruel inner voice, who verbalizes Sheila’s biggest insecurities while traipsing around in workout tights.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I used to have a lot more company in my head,” Sheila tells Greta at one point, referencing the cruel, mocking voices in her head which have gone now that she’s been in therapy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Physical‘s third season is as dark as ever, but thanks to the (darkly funny and decidedly not adorkable) addition of Deschanel, we’re invested and can’t wait to see how Sheila’s story ends.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.