Why Everyone Needs A Dose of Adults 

I'm not a sitcom expert by any means, but sitcoms have managed to follow me over the years. Many of them mark significant transitionary periods throughout my life; Boy Meets World helped me from elementary to high school; The Office kept me company on those lonely days transitioning into university. I've always felt that the consistency of these shows creates familiarity and comfort, which is why I'm drawn to them during periods of significant change.

I'm sure that by now you can see where I'm going. I made yet another transition recently, both into my early-late twenties and into a new place on my own. So, I needed a comfort show. Like stat. #imfineseriously

Thus, came Adults, the new TV series available on Disney +.

Adults revolves around a group of twenty-something friends, Samir (Malik Elassal), Billie (Lucy Freyer), Paul Baker (Jack Innanen), Issa (Amita Rao), and Anton (Owen Thiele), living together in Samir's childhood home. Each episode is about the group surviving varyingly crazy shenanigans. Think of it as a blend of New Girl and Friends. But Gen Z.

What makes Adults stand out from the myriad of sitcoms that have come and gone is that it is wholly embedded in Gen Z culture. By which I mean, I think it's the perfect contender to become what Friends was to Gen Z for my age group.

Of course, there are shows like Overcompensating, which I absolutely loved and am still dying to write about (if only Adam DiMarco would let me interview him); however, I don't think that Adults or Overcompensating should fall into the same categories. #hottake. To me, Overcompensating is like Bottoms (another movie you HAVE to watch). Just like Bottoms, Overcompensating is campy, drenched in satire, made well to be a cult classic within the comedy genre— a sitcom, though? I wouldn't consider it as that mostly because even though Overcompensating might be about a group of friends, each episode fulfills a part in a larger narrative structure. Sitcoms, like New Girl, Friends, Brooklyn 99, or even The Office might have an overarching narrative, but each episode explores a completely new thread. Adults follows the latter.

Now, a lot of people have shifting views on The Office because of how over-the-top and controversial some of its jokes were— I mean, there's a lot that didn't age too well. Same with Friends. I think Adults took that into consideration and created a plot that includes and explores controversial subjects and hefty themes in a way that feels relatable and not preachy (yes, I'm calling out Brooklyn 99). I honestly think that has to do with the fact that it indulges in the Gen Z cringe.

For instance, in the very first episode, as its opening scene, Samir and his friends find themselves on the subway after a long night of partying. Immediately, the conversation takes a wildly dark turn when Issa notices another passenger publicly masturbating to her. At this point, Issa's outrage transforms into a cringe-inducing, wildly out-of-touch attempt at political activism. She starts touching herself to him, trying to shame him into stopping. Obviously, her actions immediately backfire and he ends up climaxing. The scene cuts to the friends on the street, with Issa trying to make sense of what she just did.

Now, at this point, I was intensely uncomfortable and also cackling. Not that this situation is relatable, only that Issa's misdirected activism hit home. There is confusion and there is a perpetual vigilante desire burning under our skin to do something good. To stand up for ourselves. At the very least, in Issa's case, to be able to shame a public masturbator enough to never touch himself in public again.

It reminded me, painfully, of the times I simply crawled back into my skin in an uncomfortable situation. The many times I let sleazy, lingering eyes roll over my body and never spoke a word of discomfort. The many times a horrendous word was thrown my way and I simply swallowed it up with a patient smile. I mean, at no point did I want to be Issa in that situation, but I could understand her desire to stand up for herself, as misplaced as it was.

What's interesting, though, is the way that the show portrays Issa's choices; at first, I thought that she was being infantilized for her actions as a running gag, to poke fun at the Gen Z demographic and their incompetence or something. Upon further reflection, I realized that there was a lot of hidden depth and nuance to her character. Admittedly, her fire to be an activist seems incredibly misguided; she's ready to walk into any protest without knowing what it's about. Yet, this ignorance also indicates her values and ambitions, which are very consistently overlooked.

For instance, in episode 7, Issa gets her kindergarten dance class to protest the principal after their show gets cancelled. Immediately, the reaction of the school board, parents, and even Billie, is that she's being childish. Billie is the adult for staying calm and looking for a compromise. Yet, at the end of the episode, what becomes clear is that even we as the audience are quick to dismiss her. What becomes evident is that Issa is wholeheartedly aware and intentional in her choices. What might seem over the top is thought out. She is doing what she was taught, even if people think it's weird or out of the norm, and she's teaching it to her students. She is standing up for herself. She is as adult as the rest of them.

The joke is that we, the audience, infantilize her.

Episode 2 focuses on Billie's health scare. I thought this episode was incredibly funny and well thought out. Not only did it manage to poke fun at corporate culture, but it made sure to call out the healthcare system.

So, Billie's stressin'. She might lose her job; in the previous episode, Billie thought— upon Issa's insistence— that she could ride the wave of her old classmates' sexual assault scandal and get a promotion, but it very quickly derails. In the aftermath of that, she is set for a colonoscopy when she notices some bleeding in her stool.

The episode goes nuts, just as its title (Spit Roast) warns. I won't delve into too many details because I think you need to watch it, but I will say that the way the narrative demonstrates how ill-equipped the group of friends are to deal with this situation says a lot. Billie sets her best friend, Samir, as her medical proxy while she's in surgery, which is when things go awry. As Samir blindly steps into his authority, he is immediately taken advantage of for the gaps in his knowledge. On the other hand, seeing the stress that Billie's work environment put her under, her role as the intern with low pay and no healthcare, as well as her position as a woman in a male dominated workplace all overlaps with the message that Adults is trying to make. Adulthood sucks. We're ill-equipped for it.

Which brings me back to the point that I'm trying to make: it's deeper than it looks.

Yet, despite the many themes that the show brings forward, Adults never feels like it's trying to shove a learning lesson down your throat. I felt that way a little bit with the awareness of each joke in B99— it was a funny show, but the wokeness floated like muck on the surface of the dialogue. Contrarily, Adults is soaked in it in a way that feels accessible and inclusive. Sometimes dumb af, but that's the point. The characters make hideously out of touch mistakes; it's not anything to condemn or cancel, but it is a learning lesson. There is flexibility both as character and audience to navigate the minefield of adulthood without feeling embarrassed at where you are in life.

Like all first seasons, it's clear the show is still finding its grounding. A lot of things happen all at once by the end of the eighth episode, and it's obvious that the characters are still discovering themselves. In my opinion, the only real chemistry between the characters that I saw was between Paul Baker and Anton, but the show raced through that storyline before I could even blink. (What does it take to get a good slow burn story?) However, despite everything, the show is perfectly woke, playfully shocking, and unabashedly unserious.

As someone who is part of this demographic, it was an admittedly fun watch. I laughed. I cringed. I craved more. Adults doesn't expect too much of you, and at the same time it provides the comfort you need when you're feeling a little bit lost or lonely. It shows us what it actually feels like to be an adult in a world that doesn't take us seriously, and it reminds us that despite it all, we will be okay.