Skip to Content
Pop CultureAdultsMay 29, 2025

‘Adults’ Is the Hangout Comedy 2025 Needed

The FX series updates the genre without ignoring tradition.

By Kerensa Cadenas
Photo via FX Networks

Every generation deserves its own group-of-friends-hanging-out comedy series. The wildly popular have certainly left their mark on popular culture—think of Elaine’s dance from Seinfeld, Ross and Rachel’s will-they-won’t-they relationship on Friends, the eventual reveal of the mother from How I Met Your Mother. Others, like Sex and the City and Girls, have been able to interrogate relationships deeply—from friendships to romances—asking questions that later on would influence culture at large. And then there’s the underrated gems like Happy Endings that frankly are just hilarious. But these types of comedies, when looking back at on a rewatch, examine the eras they reflect through 

FX’s Adults, created by Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, follows in that tradition. The series focuses on a group of 20-something friends from Queens (hilariously) grappling with the existential questions of adulthood. 

Billie (Lucy Freyer), Issa (Amita Rao), Anton (Owen Thiele), Paul Baker (Jack Innanen), and Samir (Malik Elassal), all in their 20s, all under- or passively employed, live in Samir’s parents’ house. Anton vibes at his mystery job, pretending he’s in the office on Zoom meetings. Samir, aimless, eventually takes a delivery job. After losing her media job, Billie, the career-minded member of the group, turns toward her high school glory days instead of focusing on the future. It’s a funny but relatable look at a gig economy that has reshaped much of the working world.

Then there are the smaller moments that satirize the politics of the workplace. The first episode presents the idea of “the window”—in the world of Adults, “the week after a sex scandal or a race whoopsie, when everyone is terrified of all the young people in their office.” This sort of synthesis of a big idea into a single sentence or word recalls predecessors like the “sidler” from Seinfeld or the “friend zone” from Friends. 

Anton is unable to be unfriendly, leading to potentially deadly (but funny) consequences. (Anyone who has that friend in their life recognizes a “friend slut” in action.) And there’s perhaps no greater 20-something tradition than your first grown-up dinner party ending in total disaster—something that bonds generations.

Adults has a winning cast with incredible chemistry, and, as comedies go, is a pretty accurate representation of the harrowing, anxious days of anyone’s early 20s, packaged for a new generation. With its ketamine jokes, May-December relationships, and even a Julia Fox cameo, FX’s first comedy since 2018 gives Gen Z the hangout TV it deserves.

The Latest
Tagged

Related Stories