Not Suitable for Work is an American comedy series created by Mindy Kaling.
The series follows five young people who live in two neighboring apartments in a Murray Hill, New York City building, and focuses on their professional and personal lives.
- In Apartment 6-D:
- Davis Beau Bradley Barrett III (Will Angus), an overly earnest financial analyst.
- Josh Teitelbaum (Jack Martin), who becomes a PA for an investigative journalism show on the network his father runs.
- Kel Washington (Nicholas Duvernay), a medical student whose true passion is acting.
- In Apartment 6-C:
- Abhinaya "Abby" Chilukuri (Avantika Vandanapu), an aspiring celebrity stylist.
- AJ Pascarelli (Ella Hunt), Abby's college best friend who has recently moved from Boston. She is also a one-time college hookup of Josh's and a new coworker of Davis'.
The show's supporting cast includes Jay Ellis, Victor Garber, Constance Wu, Harry Richardson, and Michael Benjamin Washington. It premiered on Hulu on June 2, 2026.
Tropes:
- Age-Inappropriate Dress: Josh has a series of ill-fitting cardigans that his friends regularly mock for making him look old, though he takes considerable pride in them. It's later revealed that the cardigans are his father's, and he throws most of them out after cutting ties with him.
- Ambiguous Syntax: Episode 3 makes a big deal about the phrase "Is that it?" after Josh and AJ's hookup in college. He interpreted as disappointment, as did everyone who's overhearing the story after the fact, whereas she meant it as a genuine question, as it was her first time.
- The Beard: Paula (lesbian) and Wes (gay) were in a Marriage of Convenience back in the day. Wes needed to look family friendly to get the anchor job, while being married to a man made Paula more palatable and got her steady work in TV.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Vanessa is a very exacting, demanding, and unsympathetic boss to her assistant Abby, who is increasingly frustrated by her.
- Big Applesauce: The show stars young professionals trying to make it in New York City.
- Celebrity Cameo:
- Questlove of The Roots briefly shows up as the producer of the play Kel is auditioning for in episode 1. If it's in New York and it's cool, he's involved somehow.
- Supermodel Gigi Hadid hams it up for a scene in episode 3 as Bill's partner Catherine. note
- Playwright Jeremy O. Harris is overseeing a Broadway production of his play Yell, and personally appears to cast Kel in the ensemble.
- Jack McBrayer appears as one of Abby's potential clients.
- Pop culture commentators Paige DeSorbo and Hannah Berner bring Wes on to their live New Year's Eve show in the finale, alongside Ashanti.
- Childhood Friends: The three main guys are school friends, explaining their close roommate dynamic in their 20s.
- Doing It for the Art: In-Universe; TV journalism is a dying industry on its last tendrils of relevance and Paula gets paid so little that she and her wife live with a roommate, but she still does it because of the inherent noblesse of the profession as the last vanguard of truth in a shitty world. After Josh's father stops supporting him financially and he finds out just how little he makes as a PA, Paula encourages him to keep going for this reason.
- Faint in Shock: The first sign Kel isn't cut out for medical school is that he faints at the sight of a cadaver.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: After losing an $18,000 coat she loaned from a high-end boutique for a fitting, Abby is forced to work retail for the store to pay it off. She proves to be exceedingly bad at it and lasts about an episode before Vanessa shows up to offer her a job again.
- Famed in Story: Austin is a very famous actor with legions of female fans. When Abby is sent to the Cherry Lane Theatre where he's performing a play, she has to get past the entrance crawling with screaming teenage girls begging to see him.
- Forgotten First Meeting:
- Josh and AJ hooked up once years ago in college and are now neighbors in NYC. AJ recognizes him instantly but Josh doesn't remember until she tells him in the second episode.
- Davis briefly meets AJ when she firsts moves into the building, but doesn't remember her when she shows up for her first day at work at Fisher Stassen the next day. It's not only until they end up walking back home to the building that his memory gets jogged.
- AJ also first meets her boss Bill at a food truck, where Bill cuts the line since AJ was distracted by her phone. AJ remembers this and panics when she recognizes him from the encounter, but Bill doesn't remember her until several days later, by which point he's already left a positive enough impression.
- Grew a Spine:
- Zigzagged with Josh. He idolizes his dad until realizing that he's divorcing his mom, eventually leading him to realizing he's not a good person and culminates with him calling him out in front of his whole office. When his dad responds by cutting him off of all his finances, he backs down and gives a genuine apology, though possibly with intent to use it to call in a work-related favor.
- A more straight example with Davis, who spends the whole first season idolizing his boss Bill until a meeting in the last episode, in which multiple events related to realizing Bill dated and unceremoniously dumped AJ in favor of his ex leads him to wrestling Bill in his own office.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative:
- Austin Blanchett is mentioned to be the nephew of Cate Blanchett.
- Vivian leaves Josh for Eric, the Property Brothers' "non-essential" younger brother.
- Antoine mentions a talented cousin named Mahershala.
- History with Celebrity:
- In episode 2, Josh deals with the nepotism that comes with being a media CEO's son. It's mentioned that Bruno Mars was at his bar mitzvah.
- As a stylist's assistant, Abby is in celebrities' orbits, like in episode 3 where she needs to win over an offscreen Pharrell Williams.
- As a famous actor and nephew of Cate Blanchett, Austin has numerous celebrity connections: in one episode, he casually mentions having gone golfing with Pharrell Williams and Sally Rooney the week earlier and he has regular access to Saturday Night Live tickets.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: A variant in which it's not the titles but the descriptions which contain the idiosyncrasy. They always consist three sentences. The first is always "Whoa.", the second describes one of the main plots of the episode, and then a third sentence that's closer to an audience reaction, like "Yeah, I'll watch this" or "Glad it's not me".
- Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: AJ and Abby live across the hall from Davis, Josh and Kel. Kel has been crushing hard on Abby, while Davis becomes attracted to AJ after she moves in.
- Love at First Sight: Davis becomes smitten with AJ immediately after spotting her at Fisher Stassen, in what he thinks is their first meeting.
- Love Triangle: The first three episodes set up a few:
- Davis is crushing on newcomer AJ, but is initially unaware that she and Josh had previously hooked up and both still have unresolved feelings about it. In addition, Josh is initially dating Vivian but gets dumped in episode 2; AJ also has a crush on her and Davis' boss Bill, who also gets dumped in episode 3. By the end of the season AJ's fling with Bill has imploded. She kisses Davis on New Year's Eve after learning he likes her, to the implied dismay of Josh, whom she had previously made platonic plans with.
- Kel has had a crush on Abby for a while, but she doesn't seem that interested. She initially has sparks with her boss's client Austin, though she wants to keep things professional between them. Meanwhile Kel's ex Kate is unsubtle about her continued interest in rekindling their relationship. By the end of the season Kate has noticed the sparks between Kel and Abby. Abby encourages Kel to make a move on another girl...though she's implied to be jealous.
- Nepotism:
- Josh's father is the CEO of a media company and he only gets a job as a production assistant there due to his last name. This attracts him the ire of both his coworkers and from Paula, who had to work her way up the ladder and isn't pleased about seeing someone coast through life on his name alone. Later, Elena takes advantage of this connection to Josh's father to nab a promotion. Josh acknowledges that it's fair game.
- Austin is the nephew of Cate Blanchett, so when Kel asks him for advice on how to get an acting career started, he's aware his advice isn't helpful, as he already had name recognition and an agent.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Davis gets into a fight with Bill after learning that he dumped AJ in favor of going back to his ex-girlfriend. Even though he's the one who initiated it, Davis isn't very athletic and gets easily beaten down by Bill, but insists later on to his friends that he won.
- Not a Date: Episode 3, whose episode description even asks "Date or dinner party?", centers around this. AJ invites Davis over to her apartment for dinner, which he interprets as a date, but later impulsively starts inviting other people and gives her roommate permission to do the same, resulting in more and more people showing up.
- New Year Has Come: The season finale is set on New Year's Eve, which Davis (and the title) describe as a "birthday party for the whole world".
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: In the first episode Kel's mother brings out some lab coats to take photos of her beloved future-doctor children, which stops Kel from telling her he's dropping out of medical school.
- Oblivious to Love: Davis' strong, immediate feelings for AJ are transparently obvious to everybody except AJ herself. She reacts with surprise when Abby spells it out for her in the finale.
- Odd Name, Normal Nickname:
- Main cast members Abhinaya "Abby" Chilukuri and Kelechi "Kel" Washington, who both have Immigrant Parents.
- Episode 4 has founder Chrysanthemum Lee, who goes by Chrys.
- Office Romance:
- Davis, AJ, and Bill are coworkers who in a Love Triangle, complicated by how AJ and Davis are neighbors and Bill is their boss.
- After Vivian breaks up with Josh, it's revealed she started dating her coworker Brett.
- Outclassed at the Gym: AJ convinces Davis to take a pilates class alongside her and a founder their firm is wooing. Davis cannot keep up with the flexible and strong women in the room and is red-faced, out of breath, and on the brink of collapse by the time the class ends.
- Precocious Crush: Marina, one of Kel's students at his substitute teaching job, develops one a crush on him obvious enough that even her classmates can see.
- Red Baron: Finance bigwig Bill has the moniker "Bill the Butcher" for his ruthlessness.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: In Episode 4, Wes deals with a rumor that he's dead, and gives Josh an assignment to clear it up. Unfortunately, Josh makes things worse by accidentally exposing his real account in the comments section, leading people to discover the network and his job, which only adds more fuel to the fire. Thankfully, Josh resolves this by having Wes play in on the joke by twisting it around in his own humorous way.
- Shout-Out:
- Josh's coworkers call him Joffrey, an "evil nepo son of the king", because he got his job by being the CEO's son.
- Kel has to teach the girls at the school he's subbing at the works of Jane Austen. He also watches Pride and Prejudice (1995) to help prepare.
- Stealing the Credit: Inverted in the season 1 finale. When Josh calls in a favor with his dad to get Wes the New Year's Eve gig he wanted, he assumes Paula arranged everything, and when Paula attempts to correct him, Josh claims Paula did everything.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Davis is a hopeless romantic who wants nothing more than to finally settle down with a girl and have lots of kids with her. His biggest flaw is that he sees every relationship he's ever been in as being "the one", which means that he misinterprets what's actually going on, such as when he convinced a female colleague he was seeing to adopt a dog with him only a few months into what she saw as just a casual fling.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Kel begins the season with a transparent crush on Abby that she mostly ignores. They grow closer and have a few Ship Tease moments over the course of the season. In the finale, Kel has seemingly accepted that Abby only sees him as a friend and asks if he should make a move on his castmate. She agrees and hypes him up, but throws him a Longing Look implying she's sad about that development.
- Workaholic: Bill admits to being one in the first episode, where his message to his new hires is to essentially not have any work-life balance at all. A few episodes later, it's the primary motivation he's dumped by his girlfriend, where his takeaway from that is to simply not date at all.
- Waiting for a Break: Kel's substitute teaching job - it's explicitly temporary and he's caught sneaking out a few times in order to make it to auditions and rehearsals.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: A major part of Kel's storyline involves knowing his parents disapprove of his choice to leave medical school.