Gen Z Friends? This new comedy is ‘a love letter to a generation’

It’s been 30 years since Friends′ Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) burst into Central Perk for the first time, having just fled the altar, to join the rest of her eventual gang of twenty-something Gen Xers bemoaning their dating (and divorce) woes. And 13 years have passed since Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham), high on opium and cut off from the bank of mum and dad, declared she was the “voice of [her] generation – or at least a voice of a generation” in the pilot of Girls.

Now, almost right on cue, we have a show about the next generation of young New Yorkers who are Figuring It Out. Adults, a new eight-part comedy, follows five twenty-something friends sharing a (parent’s) house in Queens (no one this age can afford to live in Brooklyn any more, let alone the rent-controlled apartments Monica et al had in Manhattan).

Our first impression of the crew? As co-creator Rebecca Shaw says, “The cold open of the pilot is a man masturbating at the group on the subway, and Issa [Amita Rao] deciding to masturbate back at him to make this grand political statement.

“But just as important to us, is the scene right after it. Issa is walking with her friends, completely embarrassed, saying, ‘Was that bad? Was that crazy?’ And everyone’s reassuring her saying, ‘No, that was amazing. Now let’s go because you are going to get arrested.’

“[The show is about] that symbiosis of those two parts of young adulthood: the discomfort of wading through something strange, and then knowing your friends will be there for you on the other side of it.”

That first episode also includes a friend getting molested at work and rocketing to stardom, prompting Billie (Australian actor Lucy Freyer) to Google, “How to be the v of your g” (voice of your generation) – a winky reference to Dunham’s iconic line.

“We grew up on Friends, Seinfeld, Living Single and then Broad City and Girls, all of these friend group comedies,” says Shaw, who created Adults with her longtime writing/romantic partner Ben Kronengold. “It’s our favourite genre of television.”

Adds Kronengold: “We bonded over it very early in our friendship and relationship. We were fans, but also students of the thing. Even the name, Adults, is kind of a homage to the genre.”

But that specific Girls reference, he says, isn’t just a hat tip; it speaks to the Gen Z “memeification” of everything that has come before.

“Our generation has that media as part of our DNA and [it contributes to] the pressures we have about our own experiences in adulthood,” he says. “Billy would have watched those same shows that we’re talking about right now. It’s hard to escape the language and media literacy of this time.”

In fact, when the show was pitched in 2021 it was titled Snowflakes – a disparaging zeitgeist-y term that spoke to Gen Z’s supposed heightened sensitivities.

Shaw and Kronengold, aged 29 and 28, are part of a growing group of zillennial creatives bringing stories about young adulthood to the screen. TikTok’s Benito Skinner has just released Overcompensating, which is based on his experiences hiding his sexuality in college, while Rachel Sennott’s long-awaited HBO comedy about “a codependent friend group” is widely anticipated as a Girls successor.

But, despite their age, the duo behind Adults have some solid experience under their belts. The couple were hired as writers at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (the youngest in the show’s history) shortly after leaving college, where their graduation speech – a scripted bit about breaking up – went viral.

“We learned how to write professionally, writing a million jokes just to get one on screen,” Shaw says.

After two-and-a-half years with Fallon, they pitched their idea – “Big Mouth in live-action for your early 20s” – to Nick Kroll (Big Mouth, The League), who now serves as the show’s executive producer.

“Big Mouth [which follows a group of young teenagers through puberty and is ending this month] came out when we were in college, and it was so formative for us,” Kronengold says. “We were like, ‘This is the filthiest show we’ve ever seen, and yet we’re crying at a dick joke.’”

Shaw adds: “Nick is such a genius at combining all of that horrifying vulnerability of a specific time of life with a lot of art and a lot of joy … He’s really taught us how to find the warmth and the humanity within the raunch.”

Naturally, the pair have a lot of love for the characters they’ve created. And not just because they’ve “very much borrowed” from the lives of real people they know.

“At its core, I think Adults is a love letter to our generation and to our friends,” Shaw says.

“What we’ve found is people are deriving meaning from a lot of different places these days. And it doesn’t mean that they’re any more apathetic [a common stereotype of Gen Z], but it does mean they’ve taken a critical look at what gives them pleasure and what they derive purpose from.”

“Anton [Owen Thiele] has a high-powered, well-paying job … But he’s struggling romantically. Billy [Freyer] thought she was a careerist, but then she’s suddenly trying to find another big answer to her 20s. Samir [Malik Elassal] couldn’t care less. He just wants to go to the park and can’t believe that he’s not 12 any more.

“We see all of those POVs on adulthood represented in our friends, and we wanted to see them on screen as well.”

Much of this – particularly for Billie – comes to a head in the show’s sixth episode, which stars New York it girl Julia Fox playing herself, and is written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sanaz Toossi.

Fox is a real delight, with Kronengold revealing many of her lines were improvised – including one “psychotic burn” I won’t spoil. But the heart of it, from Toossi’s script, revolves around a chaotic dinner party.

Billie’s desperate attempt to cook a roast chicken recalls Rachel Green making a trifle with beef and onions and Hannah Horvath preparing organic pad thai for her best friend’s ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. As specific as the experiences are, the feeling – of striving for a more evolved version of yourself – is universal.

“There’s a reason why people keep making these shows,” Shaw says.

“There’s something so special about looking at a group of twenty-somethings. If you’re in high school watching them, you feel like that’s what adulthood will be like. If you’re in your 40s, it’s like, ‘Oh, I remember when I was that dumb. But also, man, I really miss it. I miss being that dumb with my favourite people.’”

Adults streams on Disney+ from May 29.

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