To the casual millennial, FX’s Adults seems like it’s for, well, kids. Five 24-year-olds have 20-something-esque problems with bills, relationships, health scares, getting hired and fired, and… wait. Those aren’t just Gen Z problems… those are millennial and Gen X problems, too. We, too, are trying to make ends meet, falling in and out of love while our bodies fall apart, and still searching for that dream job!
While Adults is “for” Gen Z, actual adults (sorry kids) should do themselves a favor and check it out ahead of the Season 2 drop on Thursday, Aug. 27 on Hulu/FX. You might see yourself in these younger characters. And you will laugh.
Besides the fact that it’s relatable, this show is top-tier funny. And not just because of the hijinks of a group of wayward youths.
Adults feels like Friends’ precocious child and New Girl’s cool younger cousin who smokes weed with you on Thanksgiving. But unlike those two classic “hang out with our roommates” sitcoms, the characters are diverse in all senses of the word.
Yes, New Girl had Lamorne Morris’ Winston, one of the greatest comedic characters ever, but he and Damon Wayans Jr.’s Coach hardly ever lived on screen at the same time. Not everyone on Adults is straight, either, which is a change from most sitcoms of the past. And unlike, say, Will and Grace, another roommate-centric sitcom, sexuality isn’t constantly driving the plot. The characters are clearly drawn, but none are caricatures.
The veritable Breakfast Club ensemble is made up of a free spirit (Amita Rao’s Issa), a straight man—in both orientation and comedic role (Malik Elassal’s Samir), a recovering pick-me (Lucy Freyer’s Billie), a golden retriever boyfriend (Jack Innanen’s Paul Baker), and an impossibly cool yearner (Owen Thiele’s Anton).
Some of these characteristics seem designed for conflict. Issa’s chaos demon and Billie’s type-A blonde girly girl should clash, but they don’t. The characters are endlessly endearing partially because they don’t fight their nature or each other. Their enemies are all external, like the annoying man Issa married “as a bit” and now needs to divorce, or a literal stabber Anton accidentally befriends.
Larger systems like capitalism and healthcare are often to blame for conflict, without the characters feeling like they’re whining or avoiding responsibility. They’re still learning and usually failing, but they are trying to be “adults” about it all.
The moments of drama and real emotion aren’t forced. There is a love triangle, but it builds subtly and doesn’t bubble over into a huge conflict. Like on many sitcoms, the season finale has a wedding, but, like everything on the show, it’s a delightful mess of personalities, mistakes, and a casual disregard for any kind of sanctity or preciousness.
Older audiences can learn something from these younger characters. Lots of people in the age groups below the Boomers are struggling, barely holding onto their title of “adult.” To combat a world that pits them against each other, the adults on Adults rely on their friends, not family. These characters are young enough that we’d forgive them for being dependent on their parents, yet we never meet any older adults besides “Mr. Teacher,” a millennial who proves to be more of a mess than anyone else—stabber included.
Instead of feeling shame about her bathroom-related medical situation, Billie tells her friends (actually, she shows them, which might be a step too far), and they leap into action, accompanying her to the hospital, where she incurs an insanely high bill. But, again, instead of crawling into a cave of embarrassment, Billie and her friends work together to pay it off.
Samir’s parents have left him in charge of their house while they travel, and he’s terrible at home maintenance. (Do you know how to fix a water heater? Thought not.) So the team journeys to the basement with tools and all the knowledge the internet can offer.
They never abandon one of their own, even if the problem is a self-induced consequence of bad behavior, like Anton’s marathon lie. The finale has a valuable lesson to impart: Live your life in such a way that multiple friends would be willing to marry you to save you from deportation.
The Season 2 trailer shows more relatable antics like scrubbing social media of regrettable content to be more employable and mixing friend groups.
Billie says, “We’re older now, but we’re younger than we will ever be again,” and, while that feels like a macabre statement, it’s a message for geriatric millennials who could stand to seize the day a bit more. Marketing for the new season carries the tagline, “Welcome Home,” and it would be wise of you elders to go home with the Adults, cozy up with them, and change your attitude about your many failures to meet your potential.
No one can “have it all,” but we can appreciate what we have, especially if what we have is a roof over our heads and a few friends.
