6 min readMay 21, 2026 08:22 AM IST
Margo is barely out of her teens, with hopes and dreams of becoming a writer, and is pursuing a college education when she finds out she is pregnant, and that’s where her money troubles begin. The why and how of her money troubles are pretty self-explanatory, and the Apple TV show answers those questions early on; what actually makes up the story here is how Margo plans to get out of the said troubles, and that makes this comedy-drama one of the more enjoyable shows of 2026.
Created by David E Kelley (Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Boston Legal, Ally McBeal, Doogie Howser MD), and starring Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is quite reminiscent of a network television show (minus the X-rated OnlyFans content) where problems are severe, but not life-threatening; crises are tense but never unresolvable, and watching every episode makes you feel light-hearted, despite a few tense moments.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Elle Fanning in a still from Margo’s Got Money Troubles.
We meet Margo when she is deeply infatuated by her married professor Mark (Michael Angarano). They have an affair, one thing leads to another, and she is now at the same place where her mother, Shyanne (Pfeiffer), was 20 years ago – single and pregnant. Mark is married with children, and crawls his way out of the hard parts, but Margo decides to have her baby anyway. Soon enough, she knows why Shyanne constantly warned her before making a decision as big as this one, for she, too, was in the same spot once, where the father of her child, Jinx (Offerman), a former wrestler, was also a married man who breezed in and out of their lives as he pleased.
While Margo is the protagonist of this story, it is Pfeiffer’s Shyanne who is in the driver’s seat. Pfeiffer plays Shyanne as a feisty woman who has the wisdom that only comes when you have been through some rough patches. As she watches Margo celebrate at her baby shower, she silently mourns the future that she imagined for her daughter – a future with a job that would have more prospects than her own waitress job at Hooters, and a life where she could have raised a child when she wasn’t one herself. Margo takes on the challenge and finds herself an OnlyFans gig, which allows her to make money while being around her son. But like in India, here too, ‘log kya kahenge? (what will people say?)’ crops up in the conversation as Shyanne declares that this is no job for a respectable woman. She doesn’t come across as a hypocrite, but as a concerned mother who doesn’t have it in her to watch history repeat itself.
Elle Fanning’s Margo dressed as the ‘Hungry Ghost’, her OnlyFans persona.
As Margo and Shyanne navigate their relationship, Jinx comes back into the picture after spending a sufficient amount of time at a rehabilitation center and becomes the kind of grandfather that one would imagine Offerman to be. At this point, one can’t tell if these kinds of roles scream for Offerman to be cast, or if it’s the actor who brings in this Hagrid-like energy to so many of his roles. Despite his absence in their lives, he is never villainised; in fact, Margo and Shyanne go out of their way to make him feel at home when he relapses.
Amid all of this, Susie, Margo’s friend/roommate, turns into an afterthought – for the writers, and also the characters. She just becomes the default nanny, and except for one scene where Jinx recognises her as a person, you just see her playing the quirky character who exists just so Margo can verbalise her feelings in front of anotehr character, and later help design her OnlyFans outfits and sets. Nicole Kidman appears as the lawyer named Lace, who fits in this world of David E Kelley just as comfortably as she resided in all of his other worlds.
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Nick Offerman, Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer in Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Problems.
After getting over the initial taboo of OnlyFans, the show embraces Margo as she embraces herself. As she starts her work on OnlyFans, she tells herself that ‘this is art,’ but a few episodes later, she actually starts treating it as art that pays handsomely. You see her in body paint as she plays with her toddler son, you see her making an actual effort as she tries to put together storylines that could draw strong engagement. Her work life is a part of her life, and the show respects it enough by treating it that way.
Margo’s money troubles are constant, but there is a sense that things will resolve themselves, as Shyanne has already lived this life. Now in her 40s, she is on the verge of getting the white-picket fence that she always craved for, even though it is obvious that it is not meant for her. Margo isn’t doomed, and neither is her baby, Bodhi, but it will surely be a ride before she can say goodbye to her troubles, monetary or otherwise.
