Is your mom an impostor? 'Phony' pushes audiences to question what they think they know

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Set us as preferred Few things could be more mortifying to a teenager than having their mom confront them about their sex life.Exhibit A: She’s staring you down as your bright blue, dolphin-shaped vibrator rests on the dining room table.This is not going to be a discussion about the birds and the bees.This is a “you’re being reckless” discussion, where all sorts of frustrations start spilling out.Cue the defensive replies and eventual storming off.It’s the kind of scenario that might feel familiar to anyone who has ever had an awkward or tense conversation as a parent or a teenager.

But it is scenes like this — at turns comedic and uneasy — that ground “Phony,” a new eight-episode series starring Connie Britton and Sam Nivola that premiered Tuesday on Hulu.Britton plays Ellen Cooke, a high school principal and single mother to Sonny (Nivola); the pair have a perfect, loving mother-son relationship.

Or so it seems.“What I really loved about this story is that ultimately for me it feels like a metaphor of what happens between a parent and their child during those teenage years when the teenager is naturally and organically supposed to be separating,” says Britton, adding that it brings to life the psychological and emotional feelings that emerge during that time.Britton knows from firsthand experience: The 59-year-old is a mother to a teenager and she has played a mom onscreen before, notably in series like “Friday Night Lights,” “Nashville” and the first season of HBO’s anthology series “The White Lotus.” Her résumé is a big reason Nick Paley, the creator and co-showrunner of “Phony,” wanted her to play Ellen.The Hulu series also stars Sam Nivola as a teenager who awakens from a coma after an accident believing his mother (Britton) is an impostor.“She embodies her characters with ...