Last month, season 2 of Adults arrived in full on Hulu (airing weekly on FX). I’d heard a little buzz about the show before then, but shortly after that season dropped, I started hearing significantly more, particularly from TV critics I actually respect, and what really made me take notice was their comparisons to Happy Endings.
Well, that’s an incredibly high bar, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find a friends-group sitcom again that reaches the level of Happy Endings. Adults, however, is very much worth your time, and may be the best entry in the genre we’ve gotten since then.
The dynamics are a bit different. The group is five instead of six, they all live together, and it’s a far more diverse group than Happy Endings— which, to be fair, had an interracial couple and an extremely non-stereotypical gay man— Adults doesn’t have a single straight white person; the white man is openly bi and the white woman is mostly straight but at least willing to experiment with women. Also, they’re younger, being in their early twenties (I don’t think we get confirmation on everybody, but Billie is 24 when the show starts, and I believe everyone is about the same age) and all living together in New York City, which gives the show Broad City vibes (in particular, Issa has a lot of Ilana Wexler’s DNA in her).
(FX Productions)
The five characters are:
- Samir (Malik Elassal), who’s more or less the straight man of the group (and is letting them live with him rent-free at his parents’ house in Queens while they’re on an RV trip across the country). He tries his best to be the “man of the house” and keep everyone happy, but occasionally spirals out into anxiety. He’s also the only character who doesn’t display any same-sex attraction at any point.
- Billie (Lucy Freyer) is the one most concerned with trying to be mature and acting like an adult, though she often fails, and early in the series finds herself adrift after losing her job and trying to find who she really is.
- Anton (Owen Thiele) was Samir’s college roommate. He’s a very extroverted gay man who uses his charm and personality to quickly befriend people and win them over, although this is something of a defense mechanism for him to avoid deeper connections or vulnerability, and he often forgets his new friends nearly as soon as he makes them.
- Issa (Amita Rao) is a college friend of Samir and Anton’s. She’s the flighty and self-centered but passionate and loyal one, who never fails to speak her mind, is very open about who she is (including sexually), and is incapable of hiding her (usually very strong) feelings. Like Ilana, she’s a huge bundle of chaotic energy.
- Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) is the newcomer to the group, the “sexually fluid” Canadian, a recent migrant to New York City. He’s naturally the kindest one of the group, unfailingly polite and supportive, possibly to a fault sometimes. He is also always referred to by his full name— everyone calls him “Paul Baker”— and he’s dating Issa at the beginning of the series.
I say “at the beginning of the series” with one caveat: They are dating in the first episode of the series. However, in a move I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show make before, the creators of Adults (former Tonight Show writers and husband-and-wife team Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw) wrote and produced, between seasons one and two, a sort of new pilot episode. After season 1 got low ratings— and in particular due to the opening scene of the series, which apparently turned off a lot of people1— they made an episode, “Marathon Day,” that takes place before the first episode of the series, as an introduction to new viewers. It also tells the story of how the rest of the group met Paul Baker. It’s very funny, and having watched the series in this new order, I can attest that it does make an excellent introduction to the series.
I could describe the show to you in more detail, but I feel like that would just involve spoiling jokes and plotlines. If you need a further tidbit selling you on the show, I can report that we watched the whole series in three days. The characters are great, the cast is stellar, they’re hilarious and also bring you to care about them, and the show is loaded with gags: character humor, absurdity, sharp lines, farcical plots that can spiral wildly out of control, and even a bit of surrealism (Samir’s anxieties manifesting as messages in the real world) and fourth wall-breaking. (Anton and Issa seem at least dimly aware they’re in a sitcom; at one point, Anton’s sister visits, and when she shows up, we hear a studio audience cheering2, followed by a confused Anton asking no one in particular “What the fuck was that?”)
The critics have largely said season 1 was funny but uneven, while season 2 improves significantly, but I found the whole show funny from start to finish. It’s the best show about a young-adult friend group we’ve had in quite some time. I give it a strong recommendation and urge you to give it a shot. Available now on Disney+ and Hulu, and I think airing weekly on FX and FXX on Thursdays.
What else is on?
- American Dad! gave us its final two episodes of the season, including the show’s 400th, on Sunday. The 400th episode was pretty fun. The other episode went off the beaten path, telling a story of sci-fi stories with horror undertones. Solid and interesting, although not really that funny.
- Futurama has continued to have a solid season; it’s not among my favorites, but there’s nothing I feel is actively bad, either.
- President Curtis has remained very funny and with a great cast; I particularly enjoy Stephanie Beatriz, although of course Keith David is Keith David.3 One of my favorite details: Every episode (except the pilot) ends with President Curtis singing a song in the shower recounting the events of the episode in some way.4 I mentioned this last time I mentioned the show. (I dunno what y’all remember.) So this time I’ll also add that the theme song is a fun little Hill Street Blues-inspired 80s-type mellow ditty. And that the show includes some light serialization that works well for comedic effect.
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has had a pretty good season 18, and definitely a good season for being season eighteen of a live-action comedy.
- Ted Lasso has had enough good material that season 4 is significantly better than season 3, but it still suffers from a weakness that grew in the show after season 1: Specifically, it just doesn’t spend enough time on the women’s soccer team. In practice, that means the players on the team aren’t very well developed as characters, and that Rebecca and Keeley spend far more time in silly and contrived romance plots than running the club. Fortunately, this week’s episode was a welcome corrective in that regard, and brought us closer to the version of the show I hoped we were getting when I wrote that thing a couple of weeks ago, though I still have my criticisms.
- We started season 3 of Colin From Accounts, which made the interesting choice to flash-forward three years ahead after the ending of season two; that throws everyone into a new place in their lives, which creates some new dynamics, challenges, and plot obstacles that will quite obviously be resolved, but the fun is in the journey, and so far, Gordon and Ashley’s dance has still been very funny and a little sweet. We’re halfway through the season. and I do have a couple of quibbles— why are Chiara and Brett being so much more hostile to Gordon now, for example?— but I still enjoy the show, and maybe I’ll have a further detailed column about it at some point.
- The Paper released season two last Wednesday. I’ve seen four episodes so far, and I’m enjoying it; I haven’t watched season 1 since, well, season 1 dropped on us, but going off my memory of it, I think I’m more consistently enjoying season 2 so far.
- Chad Powers released season two on the 3rd. I haven’t started it yet.
Upcoming schedule
Some of the shows on my radar that have confirmed dates returning to air this year:
| Best Medicine | September 22 | season 2 |
| Abbott Elementary | October 7 | season 6 |
| Elsbeth | October 8 | season 4 |
| The Lowdown | October 14 | season 2 |
| St. Denis Medical | November 2 | season 3 |
| Bad Monkey | December 2 | season 2 |
| Only Murders in | December 8 | season 6 |
Bonus content
Probably no surprise to those of you who talk to us about standup, but we watched and quite enjoyed Stavros Halkias’ new special, Uncle Stav. it’s out on Netflix as of last Tuesday.
What did you watch?
- Personally, I found it hilarious— very much an “Oh, this is my type of show” scene. ↩︎
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s actually a single-cam with no laugh track. (And speaking of meta-awareness, Issa reminds us it’s a single-cam in the season 2 opener: “We’re doing a oner!”) ↩︎
- I feel like this is selling Jim Rash short as the third lead, so I’ll add that I quite enjoyed him in this week’s episode, which gave him the primary focus. ↩︎
- And sometimes about washing his balls or his butthole. ↩︎
What did we watch?
M*A*S*H, Season Four, Episode Twenty-Two, “Smilin’ Jack”
“It’s an easy operation, Frank. You could do it with your eyes closed. Maybe you’d like to try one with your eyes open for a change.”
“It’s like steppin’ on a crack. If I take their picture, they live.”
“And like an idiot, I went to medical school.”
“Uh, sir, how many ‘p’s in ‘supported’?”
“I’ve always found two to be enough.”
“You’ve been in three wars, Colonel. Which one would you say is the worst?”
[The doctors are interrupted by a report of the wounded]
“Each and every one, Hawkeye. Each and every one.”
This one’s about the title character (played by Robert Hogan, who bears a striking resemblance to Norm Macdonald) trying to win the record for most wounded brought in via chopper; he turns out to be hiding diabetes, and the story is mostly him working to get away with it long enough (very Shieldian). There’s two recurring themes here; the first is guys who treat the war as a game in some way or another. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen people try and ‘win’ some petty game, though the characters have a lot more patience for Jack than previous ones.
The other is that he loses. The show almost always shows characters seeing victory of this sort of thing snatched away from them at the last second; Jack takes it with more grace than they normally do but he’s clearly devastated. It’s part of this kind of middlebrow attitude the show has; I think most people can relate to the kind of bittersweet disappointment the show traffics in; the feeling of not getting the day off you thought you were gonna get. We’re really reaching the point where that becomes predictable and it’ll be rote by season ten.
I can’t see that episode title without thinking of the Detroiters episode of the same name. Presumably in this one nobody is dealing with having dicks constantly graffito-tagged into their mouth on their billboards.
This one makes no sense because there is a war on and there will always more chopper missions. Any record would be broken in days, maybe hours. But I do love our man’s skill throwing a syringe, a skill no doubt lost with the newer single dose needles diabetics use now.
Live Comedy – Tim Key doing his “Loganberry” show, which is an hour-ish of comedy with a focus on ageing and also his slow-burn rise to being a little more famous (via Alan Partridge, Wallis Island and the abovementioned The Paper). As usual, the straight-up comedy is punctuated by his surreal poetry. I really enjoyed his last show, which was nominally about lockdown, and this one was pretty much on a level, but in a much bigger theatre (which fits the show’s themes well). He also does quite a bit of crowd work and I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone better at it, his unscripted stuff with the chosen audience members is just as quick and funny as the rest of the show, possibly even moreso.
Woo, live comedy! Rare guy I’ve seen do crowd work well is Gianmarco Soresi.
I still need to get a new TV (movers broke it) so I only watched the Honest Trailer video on Gal Gadot’s new, uh, blockbuster The Runner, and by blockbuster I mean “movie made so the Internet can rightly mock it.” Somehow “You hacked his insulin dispenser?!” is not a joke from a comedy and is a serious thriller hook line! The movie’s premise: a prosecutor who runs around London a lot – like she’s in a track suit, huffing and puffing – gets her phone hacked by a blackmailer who took her son hostage with said insulin dispenser, threatening to kill him if she doesn’t run around even MORE and kill the witness to the homicide case she’s working. It’s the kind of plot that only raises more questions such as “Wouldn’t it be easier to not go through all this trouble with a woman invested in you NOT fucking up her case and who is now under a time limit” and “Making her go through all these loops to get more phones is crazy” and “Why don’t you simply bribe the police and hire a hitman, you are in London, famously a city with lots of crime and skeevy killers?” (Oh and not as crazy but “Why is this Israeli woman living in London and working as a prosecutor?”)
Pitch instead: a short film where a guy tries to blackmail Gal Gadot with footage of her war crimes in the IDF but it backfires because she just shrugs it off.
Elementary, “Pick Your Poison” – Joan is implicated in a pill mill scheme, which of course is nonsense since she has’t written a script in 10 years. When she and Sherlock investigate, they find the culprit. Who’s been murdered, along with a visitor to her office. But it turns out the intended victim is the other person! And involved Munchhausen by Proxy. Oddly, how the two cases dovetail is pretty satisfying. Meanwhile, Shinwell decided to continue informing on his old gang, an idea Sherlock dislikes, but once it’s clear Shinwell cannot be dissuaded, Sherlock offers to train him how to be a good informer. A nice twist to the Shinwell subplot.
Barney Miller, “Massage Parlor” – After everyone else in the squadroom fails to get any evidence that a massage parlor is an unlicensed sex work facility, Wentworth manages to arrest a surprisingly innocent young man from Oklahoma. This is Linda Lavin’s last appearance since she would soon start her run on Alice. I wonder what might have been done with her and her romance with Wojo if she stayed. Also, a man reports being mugged by an old woman, and we have a roundup of elderly female career criminals, including Florence Halop (Night Court) and familiar face Meg Wylie.
Also watched a video by Batman fan Salazar Knight about the disastrous run on the Batman comic by Tom King, who was rewarded for this by being made a writer for Lanterns. So glad I stopped reading.
It was really tough not to write about any plotlines. They can get so madcap and would be a great sales pitch for the show, but I didn’t want to ruin the experience of discovering them. I went into the show more or less blind.
Year of the Month updates:
This September, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1937.
Sept. 18th: Gillian Nelson: Pluto’s Quin-pup-lets
Sept. 20th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Hobbit
Sept. 22nd: Lauren James: Stage Door
Sept. 25th: Gillian Nelson: Donald’s Ostrich
And here’s all the movies, albums, books from 1998 you can sign up for this October!
Oct. 3rd: Gillian Nelson: Movie Surfers
Oct. 4th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Pi
Oct. 9th: Gillian Nelson: Mighty Joe Young
Oct. 13th: John Bruni: High Art
Oct. 18th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Who Moved My Cheese?
Oct. 30th: Gillian Nelson: Halloweentown