Amy Schumer’s Dramedy Life & Beth Continues To Mirror Her Life Upcoming Second Season

When Amy Schumer’s dramedy series Life & Beth came out in 2022, many viewers noticed a lot of curious similarities between the series and what Schumer shared about her own life in her standup and interviews. Now, Season 2 continues the story of Beth and her romance with John, and fans might notice some more familiar details...

Note: Spoilers for Life & Beth Season 1 are ahead.

Season 1 of Life & Beth followed the titular character’s mid-life reckoning.

Beth (Schumer) works in Manhattan as a sales rep for a wine distributor. The company, and the wines it represents, are admittedly mediocre. She’s been dating company superstar Matt for six years, despite their apparent lack of connection or spark. She has a loving relationship with her sister Annie, but mainly calls her to complain about their passive-aggressive mom, Jane, who has a penchant for criticizing Beth and dating married men.

When Jane dies in a traffic accident, Beth returns to her family home in Long Island. There she meets John (Michael Cera), whose awkward but unabashed forthrightness is a marked change of pace from the complicated, layered relationships she’s used to at work, with Matt, and her mother. The confluence of all these events prompts Beth to make big changes in her own life as well as confront her past.

The story is told both in present day and through a series of flashbacks to Beth’s difficult early teen years, when her family is forced to downsize from a posh Long Island mansion to a far more modest, early suburban cookie-cutter home and her relationship with her childhood bestie starts to fall apart.

The show features lots of parallels to Schumer’s family and friends.

Schumer told USA Today that she wrote the show after visiting Long Island and going through childhood journals while she was pregnant with her son, Gene, who will be 5 in May. She enjoyed “losing” herself in the writing process, and describes the series as about 50% autobiographical.

Like Beth, Schumer is a Long Island girl who keeps in close touch with her high school crew. Not only does she regularly call them out on social media but they go on vacation together every year and she even insisted they collectively be her “plus one” to the Hunger Games premiere. Schumer also drew inspiration from the early days of her relationship with husband, chef and James Beard Award winner Chris Fischer when writing Season 1.

Beth’s relationship with John intentionally mirrors Schumer’s relationship with her husband.

Like John, Fischer worked on a farm, and is forthright and plainspoken, something Schumer attributes to his autism diagnosis as an adult. While there’s no explicit mention of John being autistic in Season 1, Schumer told USA Today that the character is “most likely on the spectrum.” Fischer told The Hollywood Reporter that many of the moments shared by John and Beth mirror moments in his relationship with Schumer, and appreciates that the show serves as a kind of time capsule for that time early in their relationship.

“It’s not an autobiographical show, but it’s definitely inspired by my real life,” Schumer recently explained on Good Morning America.

Judging from the trailer for Season 2, it looks like we’re going to see more moments from Schumer and Fischer’s relationship, including marriage, pregnancy, and exploring John’s autism diagnosis.