Sonny Cooke is everyone's friend

Sam Nivola plays a popular high school student who knows what people need to hear and makes everyone feel at ease, even though his mom Ellen is the principal.

“I actually love high school. I know what people need to hear, and people trust me with their sh-t.”

A crash changes everything

Driving to his girlfriend Chloe's house, Sonny crashes into a pond. When he wakes in the hospital a week later, his mother looks subtly but decisively different.

No one else sees the change

Sonny insists his mother is a phony, but everyone else dismisses his concerns as lingering effects from the accident. His best friend Vogel is skeptical of his claims.

He finds allies in outsiders

Sonny drifts toward Mallory, a junior-high love interest back in class after years of homeschooling, and her geeky cousin Weldon, who help him investigate the mystery.

Thriller bones, dramedy soul

Phony has cliffhangers and deceptions, but showrunners Nick Paley and Anthony King give it the vibe of a coming-of-age dramedy with awkward-adolescent humor grounded in real teenage life.

Characters resist tired tropes

The show avoids clichés through specific details: Sonny and Chloe call each other Bobo, his mom cooks Chicken Nummers, the school counselor is a frustrated musician. No love triangle.

The real story is self-discovery

Beyond the mystery of Ellen's transformation, Sonny's crisis reveals how he's been faking it socially, shifting views to please others and ignoring his own needs and opinions.

“I don't even have strong opinions!”

Something genuinely new on TV

Phony approaches the coming-of-age story from an unexpected angle with perceptiveness that surprises. In rigidly genre-bound times, it offers genuine novelty and surprise.

“Phony is something genuinely new on TV.”