By “I’m unemployed. I’m not cool. If I’m not young anymore, then what am I even?”
There is no shortage of stellar writing on this season of FX’s “Adults,” and much of it is hilarious—so much so that at one point I laughed so hard I choked and began coughing—but this line, and the scene it’s in, bares the show’s heart. One lead character says it to another, the moment bookended by gut-busting physical comedy, but the growth, existential dread, and laughs do not come at each other’s expense. The first season, though funny in its own right, received criticism for being a bit too wacky for its own good. (Our own Brian Tallerico hit the nail on the head by describing the show tending to veer off course when it felt like the writers were “using a TikTok FYP for punchlines.”)
This season is a different matter. Yes, Paul Baker (Jake Innanen), Issa (Amita Rao), Anton (Owen Thiele), and Billie (Lucy Freyer) are all still residing rent-free at Samir’s (Malik Elassal) absent parents’ home in Queens. Paul Baker (always referred to by his full name, a great running gag) is married to Anton for visa purposes, and the two are keeping their very real attraction to one another hidden from Issa (and, to some degree, from themselves), who is still dating Paul Baker. Billie is still reeling from losing both her career path in journalism and an (admittedly gross) budding relationship with her high school journalism teacher, while Anton reckons with various aspects of his personality, including how he relates to his family, strangers, and coworkers. Samir tries to get a job, with comedically disastrous results; his relationship trajectory is a surprisingly moving arc in the season’s back half.
FX’s Adults — Ep. 201 — Pictured: (l-r) Owen Thiele as Anton, Lucy Freyer as Billie, Jack Innanen as Paul Baker, Amita Rao as Issa. CR: Michael Gibson/FX
Sure, we don’t spend too much time at our main crew’s workplaces, and yes, they are mostly still un- or underemployed, but this is, first and foremost, a hangout sitcom. It does not need to dwell in any kind of realism to make the audience laugh. “Adults” has now crafted a narrative where laughter and poignancy dovetail naturally. Most importantly, it feels as though the writers now have a better idea where they want these characters to go.
With that in mind, “Adults” creators Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, who hail from “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” have done well to staff their writers’ room with writers from a variety of backgrounds. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sanaz Toossi contributes a terrific episode this season; Ananya Hegde’s episode titled “Fake ID” might be one of the best of the season.
The first episode, written by Shaw and Kronengold, starts off rather tongue-in-cheek, then builds to an unstoppable crescendo with wall-to-wall jokes that not only develop the characters, but plant seeds for jokes that pay off in the season’s final episode. Consistent attention is paid to wordplay: a riotous episode-long metaphor for masturbation, a debate about emphasis on sentence structure à la “Love, Actually,” the nuances of code-switching with different friend groups. It’s multipurpose humor; it makes you laugh, but also tells you something about these characters. They may love their friends, and have different flavors of codependent relationships with one another, but there are things they fear too, and long for, and are afraid to reveal.
FX’s Adults — Ep. 205 — Pictured: (l-r) Amita Rao as Issa, Malik Elassal as Samir, Lucy Freyer as Billie, Jack Innanen as Paul Baker. CR: Michael Gibson/FX
The real secret sauce here is the cast. There is nary a weak link in the main quintet: Elassal brings a wholesome sincerity to Samir that can be both goofy and heartbreaking, while Innanen is a wild card, exploring new aspects of Paul Baker’s identity with aplomb. Freyer’s turn is equal parts moving and comic: she perfectly balances the feeling of knowing some things and not knowing many more, all while mourning the life she thought she’d have by now.
But this show truly belongs to two people whose real-life friendship clearly informs their onscreen dynamic: Thiele and Rao, whose dynamic is full of sheer magnetism. The former makes it look so easy, sliding from shame and anxiety to a knowing smirk in nanoseconds, rocking Anton’s supermodel wardrobe like no one’s business. Few people are born stars, and Thiele is one of them. And Rao might just be the single most expressive actor on television right now. Issa has no poker face, and “Adults” is better off for it; her eyes widen and swivel, her glee broadens her face, disappointment compresses it, and she shows off some accent work this season that I pray becomes a recurring bit. She has plenty of growing up to do, but the ferocity of her feelings—her love for her friends, her loyalty, her refusal to veer from her plans, no matter how mercurial—is the glue that holds these idiots together.
Sitcoms are seemingly in a current transition period: “Not Suitable for Work” has been canceled after one very bad season (frankly, they ought to swap names with “Adults”), “Hacks” has ended, while “Abbott Elementary” and “It’s Always Sunny” are practically O.G.s at this point. I am cautiously optimistic that “Adults” could be a new hope in the void. It’s the rare show that satirizes Gen Z while gently reminding you, dear Millennial or Gen-X viewer, that you likely weren’t so different, either.
Entire season screened for review.
