“Please adult responsibly” is the promotional tagline for Freeform’s Single Drunk Female, and the broadness of that directive is a tell.

Over its ten-episode first season, the series attempts a light touch, not just with alcoholism and the 12-step recovery process outlined by Alcoholics Anonymous, but also with grief, Zennial aimlessness, single parenthood, fertility challenges, and the criminal-justice system.

By the time Single Drunk Female meaningfully digs into the complicated motivators behind our worst choices, it feels a little too late.

Frustratingly, Single Drunk Female, which premieres its first two episodes tonight, doesn’t seem to know, either.

But Single Drunk Female seems hesitant to share its’ characters greatest fears or desires, as if that amount of honesty would make them unlikable.

The overly structured format also creates tonal tension as Single Drunk Female uneasily walks the comedy-drama line.

A ’shroom trip between unlikely friends Felicia and Brit, shot with some fuzziness around the frame, holds no danger because neither Felicia nor Brit is an addict; the series divides drug and alcohol use into binaries of “totally fine” and “extremely bad” with no middle ground.

(Although it’s weird that doctor Brit and single mom Felicia would agree to do drugs on a children’s playground.) It feels as nuanced as Sam interviewing for a job with a company named Smug Media (because there were no openings at competitor Douche), or Carol and her friends struggling to understand what “digital” publishing is. The generations don’t understand each other, get it?

In fact, it’s during the season’s final two episodes — when Sam is allowed to endure lingering conflict with other characters including the until-then-supportive James — that Single Drunk Female truly clicks.

Based on the strength of its finale, Single Drunk Female has the capacity for complicated, challenging storytelling that asks more of its cast and characters.

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