REVIEW: ‘Physical’ Season 3 Episode 8 — “Everybody”

Physical Season 3 serves as a series finale for Rose Byrne‘s phenomenal portrayal of a depressed and stifled housewife turned businesswoman, Sheila Ruben. As such, there has been a lot of weight in developing the narrative naturally towards an endpoint. This season, each episode has ping-ponged between growth and moving backward for Sheila. In the last episode, Sheila’s spiral finally finished as she apologizes to Greta (Dierdre Friel) for her behavior and begins to understand just how bad her relationship with fitness and herself has gotten. Now, in Physical Season 3 Episode 8, “Everybody,” Sheila and Greta are reunited and saying goodbye to Body by Sheila in favor of something new: Strength in Numbers.

At this point, much of Sheila’s new-found and packaged body optimism after sharing the reality of her eating disorder with everyone in San Diego has felt like the standard body positivity packaged by capitalism. That’s pretty much the same at the start of the Physical Season 3 Episode 8 as Sheila and Greta discuss the future and how to make money with Sheila’s new angle.

Removing the word body in order to make the workouts about something more and removing Sheila’s name to build more of a community, the renaming comes from Greta, and she chooses Strength in Numbers. With a feminist and body-positive message, the duo begins to recruit new women to become trainers to help with the rise in members. Approaching dancers, powerlifters, and more, the women they recruit look nothing like the waif Sheila is and instead represent a more welcoming environment. Only their concept of making working out more than about, well, the workout, is a hard sell to just about everyone.

At a dead, Greta and Sheila are struggling to find a path forward, which pushes Sheila into a desperate position once again. Add in issues at home with her daughter traumatized by a car accident and a boyfriend she just can’t seem to care for anymore, and it’s all a recipe for Sheila to move forward while being pulled back, as we’ve seen in every episode this season.

Physical Season 3 Episode 8 does have narrative momentum, particularly where the Breems are concerned, with Maria (Erin Pineda) continuing to stand up for himself and John Bream (Paul Sparks) remaining someone to be manipulated by the women around him. That said, I can’t help but feel frustrated with Sheila’s trajectory. With only three episodes left, it’s difficult to see what the ending of this series will be, especially as Sheila’s focus begins to change and revert over and over, with her affair with John being just one element.

While Sheila is attempting to turn her studio into a safe haven, removing every mirror and hopefully removing personal insecurities along the way, it’s clear that it’s an attempt to exact control over something in her life. Sheila has oscillated between having her mind right and her mind so noisy that it’s debilitating. As much as she’s creating a new space about loving yourself for others, Sheila is grasping at what she can to make herself feel grounded. Only she’s repackaging it to sell to others.

Physical Season 3 Episode 8 is another great episode, but when you step back and look at it through the lens of the entire season, it sadly feels like more of the same. Objectively, there hasn’t been a weak episode in the entirety of Season 3, but as a whole, the series is at a stagnation point. With only a few episodes left, there is a lot to manage in terms of characters, and I’m hoping they can execute it well.

Physical Season 3 Episode 8 is streaming now on AppleTV+, with new episodes every Wednesday.