Slip, first appearing on The Roku Channel in spring 2023, is a multiverse-spanning comedy with some deep ideas about self-love and fate. Created by and starring Life in Pieces lead Zoe Lister-Jones as Mae Cannon, Slip is a one-season, seven-episode series that follows Mae, whose humdrum life is flipped upside down after she is unintentionally sent to multiple different universes. Mae tries to reconnect with her real husband in the other timelines but finds that there are aspects of her life that she may like to be altered.
The series released all seven episodes on April 21, 2023, on The Roku Channel; however, the series was taken off the channel in September 2023 and is currently not available to stream anywhere. Season 1 received a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes with a significant amount of praise rightfully going to Lister-Jones. Not nearly as ambitious or audacious as shows like Russian Doll or Pushing Daisies, Slip still plays in a surreal TV setting but does so with a lighter touch. Slip is humorous, well-written, and manages to say something new using a now-familiar multiverse set-up.
What Happened In The Roku Channel’s Slip
In Slip, Mae is an assistant art curator in Brooklyn with a struggling writer for a husband, Elijah (Whitmer Thomas). The two have been spinning their wheels in their relationship, stuck in a rut that neither can nor is willing to get out of. Their sex life is non-existent, so Mae finds comfort in her job and her best friend Gina (Tymika Tafari). During a museum showing of a Buddhist exhibit, Mae meets Eric (Amar Chadha-Patel), a singer-songwriter, and the two immediately form a connection. Mae and Eric sleep together and that morning, Mae wakes up in a parallel universe, married to Eric.
Mae quickly figures out what is going on and travels through multiple universes, finding herself in altered versions of the life she had grown bored with. Each universe sees Mae in a new relationship, and she tries to find one that will satisfy her. However, her journey ultimately convinces her that she has simply been searching for Elijah this whole time. Mae breaks down and admits out loud the feelings she had been keeping bottled up and runs right into an alternate Elijah. They sleep together and having finally accepted herself, Mae returns to her normal universe with more self-love and more appreciation of her relationship with Elijah.
How The Multiverse Slips Happen & What They Mean
Mae’s way of traveling through universes is very unusual. Every time she has an orgasm during intercourse, she is transported into a dimension where the last person she slept with is now her partner. Mae is consistently able to find a strong connection with at least one person in each universe, and they always have a romantic night that leads to them having sex. However, once she is in a relationship with the new person, it quickly becomes clear just how poor of a match this new couple is.
Because of the lack of sex in her marriage with Elijah, Mae has probably not had an orgasm from intercourse in quite some time, and in that in-between period, something changed, which allowed Mae to travel to multiple universes. Mae thinks she’s searching for fun and spontaneity, and sex with strangers is one way of doing that. However, the next morning, she is always disillusioned with her new relationship, it never being exactly as she’d imagined. Mae continues having sex, hopping from universe to universe slowly realizing that perhaps she is searching for the wrong thing.
How Mae Finally Found Her Way To Elijah
After her latest jump and universe, Mae finally admits she’s been searching for Elijah this whole time. In this last universe, still not finding the relationship she had hoped to discover, Mae begins on a path of self-destructive behavior. She drinks heavily, uses drugs, and binge-eats. One night, falling down against a park bench, Mae begins to say aloud all the internal struggles she’s had with herself and her relationship with Elijah. As she tearfully finishes, Gina, who has remained the same but unaware in each universe, suddenly appears to take care of her friend and bring her home for the night.
Unable to sleep, Mae goes for a walk and runs into Elijah, as if by fate. Mae tells Elijah everything about her universe hopping. Surprisingly, Elijah believes it all. When they go home together and have sex, Mae wakes up in her normal universe. By sleeping with Elijah, Mae is sent back to a universe where she’s married to the last person she had a strong physical connection with, her real husband. Mae manages to make her way back to Elijah in the alternate universe and consequently makes her way back to him in her prime universe, both physically and emotionally.
Mae, The Monk, And The Hungry Ghost And What It Means
In every universe Mae jumps into, she finds a Buddhist monk, Monk Dawa (Nicco Lorenzo Garcia). Mae keeps trying to get in touch with him, hoping he can offer a solution to her problem but when she finally speaks to him, his guidance is spiritual and metaphorical. He explains Mae cannot find comfort in any of these universes, which is vexing for her to hear. The monk ties back in with the pilot episode, when Mae introduced the Buddhist exhibit. The exhibit is of a Buddhist tradition, the Hungry Ghost. Mae explained these ghosts live in different dimensions and crave physical and spiritual nourishment but are unable to digest it.
This is what Monk Dawa is trying to tell Mae: she is the Hungry Ghost from her exhibit. No matter what universe she is in, she is unable to find happiness there, despite the pleasure she finds on her journey. Mae is a ghost hungering for something but never able to find what. Without anything external to give her peace and happiness, Mae is compelled to look inward, as she does next to the park bench. It’s only then that the universe responds. Once Mae accepts self-love, desperately seeking it from an external source no longer becomes important to her, and the Hungry Ghost inside her is finally filled.
The Real Meaning Of Slip’s Ending
In Slip, Mae takes her life for granted. She has a wonderful job, close friends, and a loving husband, even if they’re going through a rough patch. Mae needs to lose her bearings and the things she thought were unfulfilling for her to realize what she wants out of life. In Mae’s universe, she was bored and unappreciative, assuming her relationship with Elijah was her problem. Her journey through multiple universes did not only show her that Elijah was her true love, but that she herself was worthy of his love and more importantly, her own love.
Slip isn’t about Mae saving the world or figuring out the secret to the universe like some broader and bigger multiverse shows. It’s about Mae learning to appreciate the universe she’s in. In the world of Slip it’s not only important for Mae to take stock of what she has but also understand that the universe is lucky to have her as well.
