Friends

Joining us today is the former co-host of Slate's ICYMI podcast and former Pop Culture Happy Hour producer, Candice Lim. Welcome back, Candice.

HARRIS: 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.

KIANA FITZGERALD: Hello. Thank you so much. So happy to be here.

HARRIS: 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 going to be fun. We're gonna-- it's gonna feel like an episode of Adults here. We'll all get the vibe.

[LAUGHTER]

HARRIS: So there are five main friends in Adults. Owen Thiele plays Anton, who's highly sociable and has a job he barely cares about.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ANTON: OK, 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.

[END PLAYBACK]

HARRIS: Lucy Freyer plays Billie, the type A hustler of the group.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BILLIE: I literally sent myself to the hospital because of a work email.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah.

BILLIE: I mean, that is mortifying.

SPEAKER 1: It's not good.

BILLIE: I'm done. I'm unclenching.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah?

BILLIE: Yeah. I'm starting from scratch with a looser, freer [BLEEP].

[END PLAYBACK]

HARRIS: Amrita Rao is Issa, a flighty goofball. Her hookup-turned new boyfriend is the kindhearted and ditzy Canadian, Paul Baker, played by Jack Innanen.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SPEAKER 2: So, are you living chastely?

ISSA: Yes, super chastely. Chastey, chastey, chaste the rainbow.

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

ISSA: Well, that is true.

SPEAKER 2: Thank you.

ISSA: To conceive.

PAUL: No.

ISSA: Yes.

[END PLAYBACK]

HARRIS: And finally, there's Samir, played by Malik Elassal. I'd say he's probably the messiest of the bunch.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SPEAKER 3: Social Security number?

SAMIR: Um--

SPEAKER 3: You don't know your Social?

SAMIR: No, I do. It's just that my mom, she knows [BLEEP] better than-- yeah.

[END PLAYBACK]

HARRIS: Mm-hmm. 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 Candice, I'm going to start with you. Tell me, are you an adult?

LIM: Mm!

HARRIS: Mm. [CHUCKLES]

LIM: And I turn it back to you by asking, is this show a recession indicator? Mm!

[LAUGHTER]

LIM: Because--

HARRIS: Oh, oh.

LIM: OK, 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 Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw-- they are 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 toppy of Gen Z, so they are, like, tippy toppy plus one.

HARRIS: Mm, yeah.

LIM: 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 OK with the comedic, like, timing of it all.

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

[LAUGHTER]

FITZGERALD: Oh, my goodness. It was excruciating for me. I'm not going to lie.

HARRIS: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: Toward the later part of the season, I started to kind of feel better about it. But when I watched the first episode, I was like, OK, that's what I'm in for, sure. And then I started--

HARRIS: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: --the second episode, and I was like, I can't. I need a break. [LAUGHS] 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. I was like, I can't do this. So it's so interesting that Candice didn't feel cringey at all.

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--

FITZGERALD: Oh.

HARRIS: Like--

[LAUGHTER]

HARRIS: Does it hit too close to home? Like, what?

FITZGERALD: That's a good question. I-- you know, we've all been in our 20s. We've all experienced some BS. So--

HARRIS: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: --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 feel bad saying that publicly, but we were. And it reminded--

HARRIS: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: --me a lot of that in some moments. But for the most part, it was the lengths and the depth of the cringe.

HARRIS: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: It was just--

LIM: Mm, OK.

FITZGERALD: --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.

HARRIS: Mm, yeah. I think I lie kind of in the same general area as both of you. I felt-- and this is, I think, just common for most sitcoms like this, and any TV show that's first starting, but like, especially if it's a show where it's like, we're all going to 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--

LIM: Oh, interesting.

HARRIS: --some similar vibes going on there, especially because the very first episode--

LIM: Yeah.

HARRIS: --is focused on a character, 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?

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SAMIR: Hey, you don't think I've ever, like--

SPEAKER 4: What?

SAMIR: --like, crossed the line--

SPEAKER 4: What?

SAMIR: --sexually?

SPEAKER 4: Samir! No! Obviously, not. I mean, when would you have crossed the line?

SAMIR: I don't know! You just said that men don't realize half the time.

SPEAKER 4: OK, stop!

SAMIR: So half the time, I wouldn't realize!

[END PLAYBACK]

HARRIS: That premise itself feels very "we're throwing you in the deep end right from the beginning." And you're going to 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 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 Ilana Glazer of this show.

LIM: Yeah, exactly.

FITZGERALD: Yeah.

LIM: Exactly.

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

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ISSA: 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, [SIGHS] my friends just aren't taking me seriously.

[END PLAYBACK]

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, Candice, the people who wrote the show, they are, like, cuspers, I guess--

LIM: Yeah.

HARRIS: --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 or 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?

LIM: 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?

HARRIS: Yeah.

LIM: I'm going to say no, because I think the 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 part of me was like, OK, 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 this show, 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.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ANTON: What's wrong? Period cramps?

SPEAKER 5: No, she's two weeks out.

ANTON: Oh, I'm sorry, Bills. OK, open up.

BILLIE: What?

ANTON: Yeah, I'm going to pee between your legs. You've been in here, like, all day.

SPEAKER 5: Anton, no!

SPEAKER 6: He's the best at that!

[END PLAYBACK]

LIM: 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--

HARRIS: Oh.

LIM: --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.

HARRIS: Yeah.

LIM: 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.

HARRIS: Oh.

LIM: 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?

HARRIS: Mm!

FITZGERALD: Mm.

HARRIS: Ah! Candice dropping gems and not like--

LIM: They're uncut.

HARRIS: I want to come back to those uncut gems. But Kiana--

LIM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

HARRIS: --can you respond to that? Like, what-- does that make sense?

FITZGERALD: Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate Cans 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--

HARRIS: Yes.

FITZGERALD: --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.

HARRIS: Candice, you're on point. They seem stunted, in a way.

FITZGERALD: Yeah.

LIM: 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.

HARRIS: OK, 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 horse thing. 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 them-- I don't think any of them.

LIM: None of them are, yeah.

HARRIS: I mean, if you were in your 20s, if I was in my 20s 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 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, Candice.

LIM: No, no, no. Go in. Go in.

HARRIS: I guess, what I'm curious about is one of the things that comes up is that Paul Baker is Canadian. And he-- his visa is coming up. And that also feels very, very timely. What did you make of that? Like, what-- and in general, just, like, what do you make of the political tones that this show tries to strike? Kiana?

FITZGERALD: Yeah. I feel like 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.

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

FITZGERALD: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess I was just like, I saw it, like, in motion, but I was like, are they going to do this? And then, of course, I should have known that they would because they did everything else. So yeah, I think the Paul Baker character, he's probably my favorite. I think he's incredibly adorable. He's the least stressful. 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 the end of the season that I feel was not quite earned.

LIM: Mm.

HARRIS: Mm.

LIM: I agree. I think this show changes, like, its tone every two episodes. There are times when 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--

HARRIS: Yeah, yeah.

LIM: --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--

[LAUGHTER]

LIM: --was a joke that killed me. But the thing is, like, that's the tone. That's the tone of, like, this show, which is that 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. He's also in Overcompensating, which is also really interesting.

HARRIS: Oh, interesting.

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

HARRIS: Stars. Yes, yes.

LIM: 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.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SPEAKER 7: Seriously, Anton! You can't just soulbond with every person you meet. It's not normal.

ANTON: Uh, why not?

SPEAKER 7: Uh, because some people stab people.

[END PLAYBACK]

LIM: I loved that episode because it went into classic A, B, C storyline. The A was, like, Anton, you know, flirting with the 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.

HARRIS: Yeah.

LIM: 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.

HARRIS: 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 do think, for me, the last two episodes were the ones where I was like, OK, I think I could continue on with this show. I especially loved, as you've already mentioned, the abortion story, 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.

FITZGERALD: Yeah.

HARRIS: That's the best of them trying to meld all of those different tones together.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ANNABELLE: I hate you, too! I wish I was having this abortion at Sarah Jessica Parker's house!

SPEAKER 8: 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 Marci [BLEEP] Klein.

ANNABELLE: [BLEEP] you! You are the least interesting gays I have ever met!

SPEAKER 8: Hey, he is fluid!

[END PLAYBACK]

FITZGERALD: That's when it got funny to me.

LIM: Oh!

HARRIS: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: Because before, I was just stressed. But I was able to kind of, like--

LIM: Yeah.

FITZGERALD: --see the humor between them and see the moment that they were creating.

LIM: 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 Thiele is actually, to me, the most famous person on the show.

HARRIS: Owen Thiele was the only one I knew because of Theater Camp.

LIM: Yeah.

HARRIS: He has a very small role in Theater Camp. And I was like, oh, I remember this kid. Yeah, yeah.

LIM: 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--

HARRIS: Yeah.

LIM: --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?

HARRIS: Yeah, the chemistry seems to be there. It goes down easy, I think. Cringey, but easy.

[LAUGHTER]

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

HARRIS: Yes, we are mostly pro adults, safe to say. That brings us to the end of our show. Candice Lim, Kiana Fitzgerald, thanks so much for being here. And honestly, like, you helped me decode and, like, understand the show in a completely different level. This is why we need more intergenerational conversations happening. [LAUGHS]

LIM: Yes, yes. We should have booked a 70-year-old on this pod, yes.

[LAUGHTER]

HARRIS: Thanks so much for being here, y'all.

LIM: Thank you.

FITZGERALD: Thank you.

HARRIS: This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In 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.