The reviews are unanimous in their approval. Most critics call it an honest, unflinching portrait of poverty in America, and several are relieved that it never tips into misery, crediting the writing for finding humour and hope in the grind of shelters, benefits offices and low-paid cleaning work. Margaret Qualley’s lead performance is praised in nearly every review, with the family scenes, Andie MacDowell as her mother among them, also drawing notice, and the depiction of bureaucracy, its endless forms and circular rules, is picked out repeatedly as the series’ sharpest material.
The spread is narrow and there is no real dissent. The reservations are small: The AV Club finds the perspective somewhat limited, and Vulture notes how stressful the watching can be, though it means that as praise. The Guardian and Variety sit at the cooler end of the range, admiring rather than enthusing. The warmest verdicts come from Paste and The Hollywood Reporter.