Sitcoms used to be a cultural phenomenon on TV. It would either be the show people tune in on once a week to get a good laugh or stay in touch with their favorite fictional group.
They were meant to be comfort TV while still having hidden themes that are relatable to everyday life. Sitcoms reached their peak in the late 2000s-early 2010s with shows like “Modern Family”, “The Office”, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”and “Parks and Rec” revolutionizing the mockumentary subgenre.
One of the newest to the genre, “Adults”, just came out with their second season at the end of August.
This show’s humor is very weird and, at times, irreverent, but always focuses on how the characters are growing throughout their post-grad life when it comes to careers, relationships/hookups and their found family that they’ve created through living together.
Feeling lost in your 20s is probably a very touching thing to a lot of young adults, so it’s really exciting to see a show on TV that touches on those topics while still being very funny with a lot of quirky plot lines and characters.
The main friend group, Issa, Billie, Paul Baker, Anton and Samir, is very Gen Z-coded with how all the characters are heavily LGBTQIA+. It never feels like it’s trying to pander towards this generation too hard, which is probably due to most of the writers also still being pretty young.
This new season really focuses on the different relationships between the roommates and how they eventually start to grow feelings for one another.
However, this group would work better together as just really close roommates instead of love interests. This is because unlike other sitcoms that have around 20 episodes a season, “Adults” only has 8 episodes. You don’t get as much time seeing these characters bond, causing confusion about why some duos would date.
Billie is a very relatable character, but her decisions are annoying at times. She still hasn’t actually grown up yet and moved past her glory days.
On the other hand, Samir has some of the best comedic bits this season. His relationship with his long distance girlfriend and the cliffhanger regarding it was very shocking. It should be touched upon more in future seasons.
A lot of these characters can be very aggravating at times with the dumb mistakes they make and how socially awkward they are. But at the end of the day, they all deeply care for each other and make you want a friend group like that in your 20s.
Like Billie says in the season finale, people say these are the years where your friends are your family.
