Adults

Every generation gets its versions of a "20-somethings hang out and make mistakes" sitcom, such as Living Single, Friends, New Girl and Broad City. Now Gen Z's got Adults. The silly new series is about a group of friends cohabitating in Queens, New York and it makes for fun and possibly all-too-relatable TV fodder. To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:27Aisha Harris?

  Every generation gets its own versions of a 20-somethings hangout and make-mistakes sitcom. Living Single, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Broad City. And now, Gen Z's got Adults, a silly new series about a group of friends cohabitating in Queens, New York. As always, trying to be responsible while being young, dumb, and barely able to afford health insurance is a challenge, but it also makes for fun and possibly all-too-relatable TV fodder. I'm Aisha Harris, and today we're talking about Adults on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:21Aisha Harris?

  Joining us today is co-host of Slate's Icy Y My Podcast and former Pop Culture Happy Hour producer Candace Lim. Welcome back Candace. Hello Ayesha. Great to have you. We've got basically a little PCHH mini reunion of alumni. Also with us is author and freelance writer Kiana Fitzgerald, who also worked on Pop Culture Happy Hour as a producer once upon a time. Hey, Kiana, welcome. Hello. Thank you so much. So happy to be here. It's so great to be here and to talk about this show of which I think we all have many, many thoughts and it's gonna be fun. We're gonna, it's gonna feel like an episode of Adults, you know. We'll all get the vibe. So there are five main friends in Adults.

• 3:03Aisha Harris?

  Owen Theo plays Anton, who's highly sociable and has a job he barely cares about.

• 3:08Speaker 07

  Okay, can you guys do this in truly any other part of the house? I have to go off mute in a second and say, uh-huh, or else I get an email.

• 3:15Aisha Harris?

  Lucy Freyer plays Billy, the type A hustler of the group.

• 3:18Speaker 08

  I literally sent myself to the hospital because of a work email. I mean, that is mortifying.

• 3:23Speaker 09

  It's not good.

• 3:24Speaker 08

  I'm done. I'm unclenching.

• 3:27Speaker 09

  Yeah?

• 3:28Speaker 08

  Yeah. I'm starting from scratch with a looser for your [BLEEP].

• 3:33Aisha Harris?

  Amita Rao is Issa, a flighty goofball. Her hookup-turned-new boyfriend is the kind-hearted and ditzy Canadian Paul Baker, played by Jack Inanan.

• 3:42Speaker 07

  So are you living chastely?

• 3:45Speaker 10

  Yes, super chastely. Chasty, chasty, chased the rainbow.

• 3:48Speaker 11

  No, that's, what's going on with you? No, that's not true, Father. We have sex all the time.

• 3:54Speaker 10

  Well, that is true.

• 3:56Speaker 11

  Thank you.

• 3:56Speaker 10

  To conceive.

• 3:57Speaker 11

  No.

• 3:58Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 3:58Aisha Harris?

  And finally, there's Samira, played by Malik Alassol. I'd say he's probably the messiest of the bunch.

• 4:05Speaker 07

  Social Security number?

• 4:09Speaker 07

  You don't know your social?

• 4:10Speaker 12

  No, I do. It's just that my mom, she knows [BLEEP] that a bit.

• 4:15Aisha Harris?

  Been there, been there. But at least, at least he's saving money by living in his childhood home with all these friends while his parents are away on a very, very long trip. It's like Gilligan's Island. I don't know. It's like a three-hour tour turns into weeks, months. It's strange, but good for them. The series touches on a lot of things 20-somethings face, including sexual assault, which will come up in the conversation today. Adults is streaming on Hulu now. And Candace, I'm gonna start with you. Tell me, are you an adult?

• 4:48Speaker 13

  And I turn it back to you by asking, is this show a recession indicator? Because, okay, so here's my deal. I like this show enough. I think it is interesting that this show is coming out around the same time as another show on Prime called Overcompensating, which has like similar DNA. Overcompensating, it stars Benito Skinner, it takes place in college, this show is kind of post-college. This show is not as good as Overcompensating. I do think it's better than Sex Lives of College Girls, but I wonder if part of my middling okayness with it is the fact that Ben Cronin Gold and Rebecca Shaw, they are

• 5:30Speaker 13

  the creators of this show, they kind of came from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon world. They are one year older than me. We technically are in Gen Z, but I am at the tippy-toity of Gen Z, so they are like tippy-toity plus one. Is it possible that this show is written about people from a distance versus from a lived experience? There's something, something not fully connecting with me there, but I will say, if anything, I do like the chemistry. It reminds me a lot of sitcoms I love that you listed. I think it's most like How I Met Your Mother, but I don't cringe at it. I'm kind of okay with the comedic like timing of it all.

• 6:07Aisha Harris?

  Mm, mm. That's interesting that you say you don't cringe at it because Kiana, we were talking before we started taping and you said this was a very cringey show for you.

• 6:17Speaker 13

  Tell me more.

• 6:19Speaker 14

  Oh, my goodness. It was excruciating for me. I'm not gonna lie. Toward the, the later part of the, the season, I started to kind of feel better about it. But when I watched the first episode, I was like, okay, that's, that's what I'm in for. Sure. And then I started the second episode and I was like, I can't, I need a break. I just, I couldn't handle two episodes in a row. That said, there are some really fun, like small moments throughout that make it worth it. There are a lot of like callbacks that run throughout the show that I think are really special and tie everything up together, but I don't know if it was worth it for me to experience as much as I did. There were so many moments where I just had to cover my face and not look at what was going on.

• 7:04Speaker 14

  I was like, I can't do this. So it's so interesting that Candace didn't feel cringey at all.

• 7:09Aisha Harris?

  Well, wait, can I pull on that a little bit more? Like, is it the sense of humor? Is it the, is it just too relatable? Like what, like? Does it hit too close to home? Like what?

• 7:20Speaker 14

  That's a good question. I, you know, we've, we've all been in our twenties. We've all experienced some BS. So, you know, there are some relatable moments, especially when I think about, ironically enough, my NPR crew. When I first started as an intern, we were a hot mess. I, I feel bad saying that publicly, but we were. And it reminded me a lot of that in some moments, but for the most part, it was the, the lengths and the, the depth of the cringe. It was just, that was intentional and that's the point and the purpose. But I don't know if everybody enjoys that kind of content. But I still feel like I connected better with the show toward the end.

• 7:58Aisha Harris?

  Hmm. Yeah. I think I, I lie kind of in the same general area as both of you. I felt, and, and this is, I think, just common for most sitcoms like this, and any TV show that's first starting, but like especially with such a show where it's like, we're all gonna hang and we have to expect, like, these characters have been friends for a very long time. And it's like, that chemistry has to be there out the gate. Like, it has to be there from the beginning. And for me, it did feel, I've listed all those TV shows. I also was getting to some extent, like, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I feel like it has some similar vibes going on there, especially because the very first episode is focused on a character,

• 8:42Aisha Harris?

  a side character who's not like part of the main group, but a side character who is accusing someone else of sexual assault, which leads Samir to question whether he has ever gone too far with some of the women he's dated and to search and literally ask them, like, have I gone too far?

• 8:58Speaker 09

  Hey, you don't think I've ever, like,

• 9:00Aisha Harris?

  What?

• 9:01Speaker 09

  Like, crossed the line?

• 9:03Aisha Harris?

  What?

• 9:03Speaker 09

  Sexually?

• 9:04Aisha Harris?

  Samir, no. Obviously not. I mean, when would you have crossed the line?

• 9:08Speaker 09

  I don't know. You just said that men don't realize half the time. So, half the time I wouldn't even realize.

• 9:12Aisha Harris?

  That premise itself feels very, we're throwing you in the deep end right from the beginning and you're gonna learn to swim or you're not. You're either swimming with us or you're not. I wanted it to feel a little bit less derivative of all these other shows that I, I was thinking of, especially, I mean, I think Issa, Amita Rao, she's very funny, but she also, I feel as though someone could have told her, you're going to be the Alana Glazer of the show.

• 9:38Speaker 14

  Exactly.

• 9:38Aisha Harris?

  And I don't think it's her so much as it is like the dialogue and what is written.

• 9:43Speaker 10

  I'm having like the worst time at this hospital today. And I know that sounds cringe because there are like cancer kids here. But I'm just like, my friends just weren't taking me seriously.

• 9:56Aisha Harris?

  But it did feel, oh, man, I wish you could find your own groove. And I do think by the end of the season, it finds its own groove in a way. I know the people who, as you said, Candace, the people who wrote the show, they are like cuspers, I guess. Just on the edge of Gen Z. But like, it kind of pushes back on this idea that Gen Z doesn't go for cringe humor. It doesn't go for that. But like, I'm curious what you think about, does this feel like a Gen Z show? Like, does it feel specific to the times?

• 10:25Speaker 13

  Yeah, so this is me talking about my community. Thank you so much. So I think the main question I ask when walking into a sitcom surrounding a friend group, and let's be very specific, they are also housemates, is would I hang out with these people? I'm going to say no, because I think this show is trying to be different for a few reasons. The first one is that marketing wise, you know, they put the first episode on TikTok, broken up into like 13 parts. That's what Paramount did when they put Mean Girls on TikTok. And so a part of me was like, okay, they're clearly trying to get at Gen Z. They're trying to get at the audience that the show is about. That's allegedly who wrote the show as well. I do want to talk about the socioeconomics and the dynamics of the show,

• 11:09Speaker 13

  because I think four to eight years ago, if this show had come out, I would hate it for a million reasons. One being like, it's so politically insensitive. The way that they have no boundaries with each other is wild. The way they're going to the restroom is wild.

• 11:24Aisha Harris?

  What's wrong, period cramps?

• 11:25Speaker 07

  No, she's two weeks out.

• 11:26Aisha Harris?

  Oh, I'm sorry, Bills. Okay, open up.

• 11:28Speaker 10

  What?

• 11:28Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, I'm gonna pee between your legs. You've been in here like all day.

• 11:30Speaker 10

  It's on, no.

• 11:31Speaker 13

  He's the best at that. But the other thing is that like, four years ago, I think the biggest criticism would be the fact that none of these people seem below upper middle class. I think this show has like a stealth wealth hidden underneath it, which is that I think this show is about not feeling bad for a friend group, who I think are pretty much variations of the exact same person and ethos. And not feeling bad that they grew up without struggles. I mean, for example, Samir doesn't have a job. He like falls into a fintech job and he actually bunks the interview for a very valid reason.

• 12:06Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 13

  But he just becomes a gig worker just because. The fact that his parents own the home in Queens that he lives in with his friends and they don't pay any rent. I mean, the question that they never bring up is like, if I was Samir, I would spend every single day of my waking life asking, are my friends really my friends because they want to be my friend or is it because I give them free rent? I'm their landlord. I'm their landlord. It doesn't really come up. But on top of that, I think this is a group of friends who started on second base and they don't have the ambition or energy or grit to even try to go to home base. And the question is, can you live with that? Or is that cringe to you? Or do you know people like that? Or is that you?

• 12:46Aisha Harris?

  Mmm. Ah, Candace dropping gems and not like-

• 12:50Speaker 13

  And they're uncut.

• 12:52Aisha Harris?

  I want to, I want to come back to those uncut gems. Like, Kiana, can you respond to that? Like, what, does that make sense?

• 12:58Speaker 14

  Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate Candace for being so like in-depth and specific about the optics of it. Because watching it, I was just like, you know, in hindsight, yes, they are privileged. Like, it's very clear. Like, every step of the way, they are displaying their privilege in great, great amounts. So it does feel as though they are not pretending, but they're moving through life in a way that they're acknowledging that they do need help. Candace, you are, you're on point.

• 13:30Aisha Harris?

  You seem stunted in a way.

• 13:32Speaker 13

  I mean, my whole thing too is I think the show is willing to say, just because you have friends does not mean you have community or accountability.

• 13:40Aisha Harris?

  Okay, so I see your point and I absolutely think you, again, you have blown my mind in ways that I haven't really thought about. But I also do think, and maybe this is part of the like Trojan horsing, it's the stealth wealth thing, like- This show, to me, stood out because A, you do have all these people living in the same house who, like, most of them are not paying. Well, none of, I don't think any of them. None of them are. I mean, if you were in your twenties, if I was in my twenties and I could do that, I absolutely would do that. Come on now, it's expensive. I guess what I think is interesting is the fact that they are, you know, living in Queens and they do seem to struggle a little bit. Like, there's an entire episode dedicated to one of them maybe not having

• 14:23Aisha Harris?

  health insurance or, like, rushing to do the health. So, like, it's a tricky balance to strike, but I also do understand your point, Candace. No, no, no, go in, go in. I, I guess what I'm curious about is, one of the things that comes up is that Paul Baker is Canadian and he, his, his visa is coming up. And that also feels very, very timely. What did you make of that? Like, what, in, in, in general, just like, what do you make of the political tones that this show tries to strike? Kiana?

• 14:54Speaker 14

  Yeah, I feel like, um, they're definitely trying to inject a lot of perspective and opinion into it. You know, Paul Baker's character is notoriously fluid. He has some moments with another character on the show that are surprising, but toward the end, we kind of see how it all comes together.

• 15:12Aisha Harris?

  I feel like I saw that coming from a mile away, but maybe that's just me. Yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 14

  I mean, I guess I was just like, I saw it, like, in motion, but it, I was like, are they gonna do this? And then, of course, I should have known that they would because they did everything else. So, yeah, I think, um, the Paul Baker character, he's probably my favorite. I, I think he's incredibly adorable. Um, he's, he's the least stressful. Um, I think that's probably why I gravitate toward him. In terms of the way that they kind of, not shoehorn, but like, the last two episodes feel like they take a sharp turn. And we just kind of start getting all of this information that we didn't have before. So, yeah, there is kind of like a transition at, at the end of the, the season that I feel was not quite earned.

• 15:56Speaker 13

  I agree. I think this show changes like its tone every two episodes. There are times that I'm like, oh, is this girls? No, it's Broad City. No, is it like Search Party? Is it edgy New Girl? And the thing is, the benefit of a show like this, which historically has been on networks like ABC and Fox, is like, because it's on FX, they can be edgy. They can have storylines where a girl who's about to get an abortion says, "Take me to where they filmed 9/11." Which was a joke that killed me, but the thing is like, that's the toad. That's the toad of like this show, which is that you're, you have friends who are offensive sometimes and they just kind of roll with it. But I think in terms of like who I gravitated towards, I loved Owen Thiel as Anton.

• 16:41Speaker 13

  He's also in overcompensating, which is also really interesting.

• 16:44Aisha Harris?

  Oh, interesting.

• 16:45Speaker 13

  But the episode that I think actually kind of hit for me the most was episode three. It's when this neighborhood stabber starts.

• 16:55Speaker 13

  This neighborhood stabber is being looked for and Anton finds out that he has been texting with him. And the entire episode is like Anton kind of flirting with the neighborhood stabber.

• 17:07Speaker 08

  Seriously, Anton, you can't just soul bond with every person you meet. It's not normal.

• 17:12Aisha Harris?

  Uh, why not?

• 17:13Speaker 08

  Uh, because some people stab people.

• 17:15Speaker 13

  I loved that episode because it went into classic ABC storyline. The A was like Anton, you know, flirting with a stabber. And B was Paul Baker and Samir trying to sell a gun. Like, it's so, it's so wild, but that stuff reminds me of like Modern Family, right? Where like everything starts way out here. It comes together at the end and you're like, oh my God, finally they, they finally, they landed the plane and you're so happy. But I have to admit, I don't think the show ever picked up to that point. I'm not so faithful in like the next season, just because I don't think these characters are ever going to change. I think this is who they are.

• 17:53Aisha Harris?

  I, I do wonder if this was like a traditional network sitcom and had more time to flourish. If we, like, the show might have benefited. To that point, though, I, I do think for me, the last two episodes were the ones where I was like, okay, I, I think I could continue on with this show. I especially loved, as you've already mentioned, the abortion storyline, which is not even actually really about abortion, but like. They basically take in for the weekend a teenager who has come to New York specifically to get an abortion because she can't get it where she lives. I thought that was just handled so well. That's the best of them trying to meld all of those different tones together.

• 18:32Speaker 07

  I hate you two. I wish I was having this abortion at Sarah Jessica Parker's house. OK, Annabelle. We all wish we were having this abortion at Sarah Jessica Parker's house. OK, with Matthew and Andy and Brooke Shields and Marcy [BLEEP] Klein. [BLEEP] you. You are the least interesting gays I have ever met. Hey, he is fluid.

• 18:50Speaker 14

  That's when it got funny to me.

• 18:51Speaker 13

  Oh.

• 18:52Speaker 14

  Because before I was just stressed. But I was able to kind of like see the humor between them and see the moment that they were creating.

• 18:59Speaker 13

  Yeah. I don't know if we've had a cast that's been largely unknown like this in like a year, two. I mean, Owen Thiel is actually, to me, the most famous person on the show.

• 19:10Aisha Harris?

  Owen Thiel was the only one I knew because of Theater Camp.

• 19:13Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 19:14Aisha Harris?

  A very small role in Theater Camp. And I was like, oh, I remember this kid. Yeah, yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 13

  Yeah, the only person I know is Owen because he like has a podcast. And everyone else was super unknown to me. And I mean, the fact that they were able to get Julia Fox on one of their episodes, to me, was super keying in of like, ah, like, this is very much Instagram to book like a bunch of unknowns and then to kind of bet on their chemistry, which I do think works, is a jump and a risk. And I like that. And so if anything, I don't think the friendship sitcom is dead. I wonder if the friendship sitcom just will not be viewed in the traditional way it has been before. And all I mean by that is like, maybe it's like vloggers who end up making the new friendship sitcom, you know?

• 20:01Aisha Harris?

  Hmm. Yeah, the chemistry seems to be there. It goes down easy, I think. Cringy, but easy.

• 20:08Speaker 14

  Once I got into it, I was like, OK, I get it now. I get the rhythm. So I would agree.

• 20:12Aisha Harris?

  Yes, we are mostly pro adults, safe to say. Well, we want to know what you think about adults. Find us at facebook.com/pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Candace Lim, Kiana Fitzgerald, thanks so much for being here. And honestly, like, you helped me decode and like, understand the show on a completely different level. This is why we need more intergenerational conversations happening.

• 20:36Speaker 13

  Yes, yes. We should have booked the 70-year-old on this pod. Yes.

• 20:43Aisha Harris?

  Thanks so much for being here, y'all.

• 20:45Speaker 13

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 20:47Aisha Harris?

  And this Sunday in our podcast feed, we're gonna have another monthly mailbag bonus episode for our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus supporters. We'll be answering very important questions about summer, your questions, in fact. What's better, the beach or the pool? And what are our favorite summer cocktails? We had so many thoughts on thoughts. Sign up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happy. And we'll also have a link to that in our episode description. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katsof and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Kamin provides our theme music. And thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.

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