FX's Adults Tells a Specific Story, but Its Creators Hope the Comedy Shines for Its Universality

When Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold first started working on Adults, they viewed their generation as almost incomparable. The showrunners, who are both in their late 20s, drew significantly from their own experiences in creating the new FX comedy about five twenty-somethings in New York trying to figure out how to, well, adult. "We had that sort of singularity that we were like, 'Oh, of course, this generation is very different than every generation before it,'" Shaw told TV Guide, citing the unique slang and "the way we cut our pants." But the longer that Shaw and Kronengold spent developing the show, the more their perception of this generation — which embodies both people who they say feel more classically Gen Z and people who feel more millennial — began to shift. 

"The thing that delights us most of all is hearing from people, 'Oof that reminds me so much of my 20s,'" Shaw shared. "I remember making mistakes like that." One viewer, for example, told her the show reminded them of going to the bank for the first time and feeling like a complete idiot. It's something Adults' Samir (Malik Elassal) experiences in the first episode, when he, the de facto man of the house that his friends reside in, explains to a clerk that he has to pay a heating company. The problem? They only take checks, and Samir doesn't "so much have check." 

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The character's words may be specific to him — Elassal said he improv'd the line, "My mom, she knows the sh-- out of [my social security number]" — but it's an exchange familiar to many. "Honestly, one of the biggest misconceptions that we certainly had going in was the idea that this is all original [to our generation]," Shaw said. "In a lot of ways, what is so joyful and fun about watching a show about your 20s is that everyone can relate to that feeling of you're young, but you're also the oldest you've ever been."

Adults follows Samir, Billie (Lucy Freyer), Issa (Amita Rao), Anton (Owen Thiele), and Paul Baker (Jack Innanen), five friends living together in Queens. They try their very best to navigate life as "adults," whether that's during job interviews, on dates, or in the mundane yet terrifying activities like going through the mailbox — while worrying about being good people. "Another facet of our generation that we approach with a lot of empathy and humor is, I think we call it the, 'Was that bad?' generation," Kronengold said. "It's a lot of taking a really big swing and then turning to your friend and being like, 'Was that absolutely awful?'"

He continued. "There's a bit of us feeling, among our generation of, I need to feel the right thought and say the right thing and be the right person," Kronengold said. "And what this show is really about is, what happens when you're back home wondering if you're not — It's about the people that hold you through that journey." 

Asked about who they wrote Adults for, the showrunners first shared about viewers who are around their age. "Certainly, we hope that people that are in their 20s, living with a friend or two or three or five, will see themselves in this show and feel lovingly roasted," Kronengold said. One of his and Shaw's hopes is for the twenty-somethings watching to feel less alone. 

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But they've also been particularly excited about one audience group. "What means the world to us is honestly the middle schoolers and high schoolers who are stealing their parents' Hulu password to watch the show," Kronengold said. "It's been really heartening for them to be like, 'Oh, this is how my friends talk. These are the questions that we're facing, even if it's the details are different.' And the boys who are screwing them over just played Battle of the Bands last week." Though Adults captures the specificity of the "zillennial" experience, the feelings it evokes are resonant for Gen Alpha viewers, too.

"From the perspective of younger kids, this show is about being grown-up, not growing up," Kronengold continued. "For us that grew up on this genre, it was a sort of playbook for, not only how to be a good friend, [but] what is my life gonna look like one day?" 

That doesn't mean the showrunners' ultimate goal is for the quintet to set examples for how to properly be grown-ups. Instead, they wish for the characters to become familiar pals. "We're hoping that these characters remind you of people in your lives," Shaw said of audiences regardless of age. "There are five characters who sit around this couch that is the center, the hearth of their home. And our goal is to have viewers feel like that sixth person sitting around the couch with them."

The first season of Adults is available to stream on Hulu. Episodes also air linearly on Wednesdays at 9/8c on FX.