"The FX half-hour comedy about a group of recent college graduates in New York begins, naturally, on the subway; what seems like an over-studied portrait of early adulthood intimacy tangled limbs, in-group references, aggressively relaxed banter quickly devolves into a standoff between a creepy subway masturbator and the group's instigator, Issa (Amita Rao), trying to out-masturbate him to make a wildly off point about feminism."
"Is this the world you want?!? she shouts at him, hand vigorously in pants. The moment is intentionally off-putting, perhaps too much so I'm as ripe as anyone for surprise, but found the try-hardness of this shock memorably irksome. Yet it's also unintentionally revealing: this, it implicitly screams, is a show to get young people's attention. A similar anxiety courses through the opening of I Love LA, HBO's west-coast rejoinder to Adults that is similarly pitched as a zeitgeist-y take on the thrilling chaos of young adulthood."
"We meet Maia, played by creator and co-writer Rachel Sennott, mid-sex with her boyfriend, heedlessly determined to come before going to work, even if it means ignoring an earthquake. Both scenes contain many of the hallmarks of TV about the wilderness that is one's 20s intense relationships, staggering narcissism, blinkered optimism, intoxicating messiness though watching them, and many of the scenes that followed, I was reminded less of the turbulence of that age than of the television industry at large."
Two contemporary TV comedies open with provocative, attention-grabbing scenes: Adults begins on a subway where an instigator tries to out-masturbate a creepy masturbator; I Love LA opens with Maia mid-sex, prioritizing orgasm over an earthquake. Both scenes display hallmarks of twenties-focused TV—intense relationships, narcissism, optimism, messiness—but they feel more like industry efforts to seize young viewers than authentic portrayals of youth. Television appears anxious to reclaim younger audiences who favor YouTube and social media. Industry enthusiasm for I Love LA, labeled a generational text before airing, highlights that marketing energy often outpaces the show's polish.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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