Does it feel like the age of the well-written city-life friend-group sitcom is in the rearview? Look ahead, because Adults has revived the genre.

Adults takes every strength from its predecessors  — Friends (1994–2004), New Girl (2011-2018), Broad City (2014-2019) —  while adding the elusive ingredients of originality, relatability, and laugh-out-loud hilarity we have been missing in recent years. As the best comedy series lists of the 2020s bleakly highlight bleak, heavy shows like Severance (2022–) and The Bear (2022-2026), our guilty pleasures have fallen short in legacy or rewatchability, from The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021-2025) to Emily in Paris (2020-2026). 

Adults arrives on the scene like a superhero, spotting a gap in the comfort-show market.

Adults follows five members of a 20-something friend group living in Queens in one of their parents’ vacant houses. It’s a balanced ensemble that they self-describe as possessing the diversity of “a f***in’ brochure.” Beyond the impressive variety of sexualities and ethnicities, the group’s closeness invites the audience in. Their new terminology coinage will have you bringing their phrases into your own vocabulary: “friend slut,” for Anton’s (Owen Thiele) tendency to learn the life stories of strangers; “mind wipe” as a precursor to a comment you and the listener agree to forget was said; and “weird little guy” as an awkward, comedy-bit-heavy persona Issa (Amita Rao) adopts when she’s nervous, to name a few. The key to their lexicon, and the show as a whole, is that nothing feels forced. These new words describe something we can all recognize and relate to.

Season 2 was released on August 27, a year after Season 1. Ahead of Season 2’s release, the showmakers noticed people were clicking away from the first episode of Season 1 within the first few minutes, so they developed a solution to win over audiences. In a creative move that takes advantage of the streaming age, the show’s creators, Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, made a brand-new prequel pilot and released it on YouTube and Hulu for free.

I myself was late to the game and watched the entire series with this new pilot as my first episode, not knowing this information until later. It flowed seamlessly and expertly roped me in. The original first episode does have a jarring edge to it, so it’s invigorating to see the show didn’t throw up their hands at the low viewership. They took another swing at a more winsome opener. For OG Adults-heads, it was a surprise prequel teaser treat to tide them over until Season 2’s release.

That’s just one example of the love that has gone into this project. Adults doesn’t have that “we understand you, fellow youths,” stiffness of an out-of-touch writing team. It’s bold and relatable. There’s authenticity and representation, without preachiness. The script isn’t walking on eggshells; it’s got Glee-level cancelability, but it owns the characters’ moral ambiguity in a hyperbolic way that pulls a shocked laugh out of you.

Every scene is either so relatable it feels like a genius mirror, or so outlandish it becomes a cartoon to cackle at. Some even venture to be both. The relatable camp features piled-up mail you haven’t touched, snippiness with family, attempts at scrubbing digital footprints, and generational workplace divides. The ridiculousness includes a raccoon breaking in as you’re about to drop acid, using an AirTag to track a hot stranger that’s actually a city rat, and being besties with the local stabber. Mind wipe? (Can I say something we’ll both agree to forget?) My favorite parts are the most concerning ones.

No slow burn hath burneth as slow as the Luke and Lorelai days of yore. Abbott Elementary (2021-2026) came close, but plotline patience is generally a dying art. Even though Adults lacks the 25-episode structure with only 8 episodes per season (much to the dismay of its fandom), it’s been laying lovely, flirtatious groundwork between Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) and Anton at a tempo that contrasts with its speedy, somewhat one-off situational episodes.

While stories like Heated Rivalry (2025–) have their spot in culture, Adults refreshingly almost never addresses society’s disfavorment of the gay community. It’s established early on that Paul Baker is fluid and Anton is gay, the same way that’s established in real life in casual conversations among friends.

The celebrity cameos are tasteful and entertaining. Gaten Matarazzo, who you may know as Dustin from Stranger Things (2016-2025), plays one of Samir’s (Malik Elassal) fake I.D. recipient descendants. Internet personality Jake Shane plays a 20-year-old barista unimpressed by our main cast’s attempt to relate to him and his friends. Saturday Night Live’s (1975–) Ben Marshall delivers some quintessential woke white Brooklynite dialogue at a nightclub. Julia Fox and Raven-Symoné show up at moments that are better left unspoiled. But additionally, to the show’s credit, most of the main cast and side characters were previously no-names to some extent, helping develop the world as its own.

Beyond the show itself, its marketing and advertising have also made waves. Adults released a video ad on Grindr, so as users scroll through the app, this fictional friend group begins to flirt with them and pitch themselves as a match, riffing with one another in character. On Instagram and TikTok, a mystery man shared a series of videos as a PA on set trying to awkwardly network with the cast and land a role on the show, creating long-form “is it real or is it marketing” behind-the-scenes buzz.

A plot point in the show is that Paul Baker can never go into Manhattan because he has “man-on-the-street face,” meaning that TikTok interviewers constantly approach him with a microphone and a camera. The show uses real interview content series such as Gaydar with Anania and Street Hearts. Then, in real life, the cast was interviewed on those segments for press for the show. The blend of social media and TV is not only mutually beneficial marketing, but it’s engaging and original. There’s an added layer of online humor when you acknowledge that Jack Innanen himself has been TikTok famous for several years. Don’t even get me started on the rising star that is Owen Thiele (for a breath of honest and amusing fresh air, check out his Instagram stories and listen to his insightful podcast).

As I struggle to push through watching Girls (2012-2017), a show with great writing but miserably unlikeable characters who make hard-to-watch choices, I think about how Adults strategically walks that line without losing you. It ultimately stacks the enjoyment higher than the stress, as reflected in a quote from Shaw: “We want the show to have the feeling of watching your friends make an embarrassing mistake, but one that deep down you know they’re going to recover from eventually.” Season 2, in particular, rounds the corner into pure enjoyment. The group finds its groove, and the storylines get even cleverer and more surprising.

Adults‘ excellence and success come with a few thrilling takeaways. For one, it encourages folks to pitch and fight for bold ideas. Write a story where a character says the c-word at work in a casual, complimentary way. It might just wind up as a top-rated episode on FX and Hulu, both under Disney. Crazy, right? Well, it’s not that crazy if you’re Gen Z, and that’s kind of the whole point.

Another lesson: funny is funny. There will always be ways to speak to modern issues without making an audience groan or yearn for escapism. Adults tackles topics like abortion and gun control with reckless wit and hilarious payoffs.

The Season 2 finale is excellent, but the show has yet to be renewed for a third season. We need to mobilize to ensure it continues. Do your part. Spend a cumulative eight hours enjoying yourself and watching this show. Still don’t feel like checking it out? Too bad, it’s my new house rule that you watch it.

Review Courtesy of Risa Bolash

Feature image credit to FX