{"id":882920,"date":"2026-09-07T05:46:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T05:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882920\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T05:46:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T05:46:19","slug":"adults-tv-show-review-why-the-improved-second-season-is-a-must-watch-for-fans-of-relatable-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882920\/","title":{"rendered":"Adults TV show review: Why the improved second season is a must-watch for fans of relatable comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Save<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

AAA<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s picks include season two of Adults, the Spanish religious thriller La Mesias, a documentary about an 1980s icon and Kenneth Branagh as a Russian spy in the ridiculous Mayday.<\/p>\n

Adults (Disney+) \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 <\/p>\n

Sitcoms take time to find their comedic groove \u2013 even all-timers Seinfeld, Sex and the City and Parks and Recreation had shaky first seasons, with major characters and narrative devices abandoned as the writers homed in on the magic of their show.<\/p>\n

As streamers order shorter seasons and are ready to cancel a show that\u2019s not an immediate hit, we see fewer shows reach their potential \u2013 thankfully, Disney+ and FX gave Adults a chance, returning with a much-improved second season.<\/p>\n

Billed as Gen Z\u2019s answer to Friends, Adults debuted last year alongside two other hyped comedies also attempting to reach younger audiences, HBO\u2019s influencer-skewering I Love LA<\/a> and Amazon Prime Video\u2019s campus comedy Overcompensating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Adults crew are back (from left):
\nOwen Thiele as Anton, Lucy Freyer as Billie, Malik Elassal as Samir,
\nAmita Rao as Issa and Jack Innanen
\nas Paul Baker.<\/p>\n

Enjoyable but uneven, all three didn\u2019t quite capture the zeitgeist as hoped \u2013 each trying too hard with nonsensical scenes, cameos and references all desperate to be clipped for TikTok. But Adults, to me, kept getting the most in its own way, more focused on gaining attention than making jokes.<\/p>\n

Take the pilot\u2019s opening scene on the subway, where the hyper-confident Issa (Amita Rao) confronts a man masturbating on the subway by shoving her own hand down her pants. \u201cIs this the world you want?\u201d she screams.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

No, not really. And, seemingly, Adults\u2019 creators Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold<\/a> (former writers on Jimmy Fallon\u2019s The Tonight Show) agree, releasing a prequel special a few months before season two that now retroactively sits on Disney+ as season one\u2019s first episode. Focusing on how Adults\u2019 ensemble of five 20-somethings came to live together rent-free in a Queens sharehouse, the new pilot re-centres the show on friendship, realising that\u2019s the draw a Gen Z Friends needs.<\/p>\n

Largely unknown prior to Adults, the show\u2019s core cast \u2013 comedians Amita Rao and Malik Elassal, Australian Lucy Freyer,<\/a> TikTok heartthrob Jack Innanen and podcaster-actor Owen Thiele \u2013 are excellent comedic actors.<\/p>\n

\" Amita Rao as Issa, Jack Innanen as Paul Baker, Owen Thiele as Anton, Lucy Freyer as Billie, Malik Elassal as Samir.<\/p>\n

Season two gets out of the way to let each one shine, dialling back big stunts for heightened-but-relatable moments, such as Billie (Freyer) treating the club like a competition during a quarter-life crisis (\u201cI\u2019m unemployed. I\u2019m not cool. If I\u2019m not young any more, then what am I even?\u201d). Meanwhile, the gang catch the sweet, sensitive Paul Baker (Innanen) code-switching into frat bro with other friends, and the bubbly Anton (Thiele) can\u2019t help but revert to a demon whenever near his sister (Raven Symone, one of many well-utilised guest stars).<\/p>\n

No longer trying to prove how relevant, cool and unique it is, Adults is a much more assured, funny and charming comedy \u2013 a lesson we all learn at some point in our 20s.<\/p>\n

La Mesias \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 (Mubi)<\/p>\n

A sensation in Spain in 2023, this gorgeous, eerie seven-hour miniseries is now available in Australia thanks to the hype surrounding creators Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi\u2019s upcoming film, La Bola Negra, which picked up a best director award at this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival and is a strong contender at the next Oscars.<\/p>\n

\"LaLa Mesias (The Messiah).<\/p>\n

A sweeping collision of genres including sci-fi, musicals, coming of age and religious thriller, La Mesias (The Messiah) opens on Enric (Roger Casamajor), a cameraman exhausted from a long shoot at the foot of a jagged mountain range near Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Emmy<\/a><\/p>\n

Skipping the crew dinner to dine alone at the hotel bar, his attention is grabbed by a local news clip of a viral Facebook video \u2013 a strange music video of a religious pop-rock group in which six girls sing about God, alongside crude web graphics of the Virgin Mary. Shocked to see his half-sisters, Enric pees his pants.<\/p>\n

Shifting back and forth between past and present, La Mesias slowly reveals Enric\u2019s traumatic childhood with his enigmatic, enraged mother (Ana Rujas\/Lola Due\u00f1as) \u2013 a story told with tenderness and an eye for moments turned magical in a child\u2019s imagination, from dappled light to the rustle of jewellery.<\/p>\n

Filmed over 25 weeks and featuring 170 characters, La Mesias is a clear precursor to La Bola Negra, deftly spanning a century of queer Spanish life. But the series stands on its own, unsettling, strange and enchanting.<\/p>\n

\"RoryRory Wilmot as Noah Marten and Gal Gadot as Maia Marten in The Runner. The Runner \u2605\u2605 (Amazon Prime Video)<\/p>\n

Despite its blackmail plot unfolding (loosely) in real-time, this forgettable 84-minute thriller is devoid of any rising tension. London attorney Maia\u2019s (Gal Gadot) morning jog becomes a marathon when an anonymous caller offers an ultimatum: sprint across the city and murder her own key witness within the hour, or her kidnapped son will die. Putting aside its nonsensical third-act twist, The Runner\u2019s biggest misstep is relying on the robotic Gadot. Incapable of providing any emotional weight, she can\u2019t even deliver a convincing \u201cI love you\u201d to her character\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

\"MrMr T in the documentary Untold Mr. T: I Pity The Fool.Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool \u2605\u2605\u2605 (Netflix)<\/p>\n

Following a headline-generating special on Raygun, Netflix\u2019s Untold docuseries turns its focus to 1980s action star Mr T \u2013 a fascinating figure whose impact on pop-culture far outstrips his acting credits. Essentially a Wikipedia article with talking heads from Mr T, family, friends and colleagues, it\u2019s a solid summary of how Laurence Tureaud became Mr T, a larger-than-life persona that demanded respect in a culture refusing it to black men. But you get the sense there\u2019s much more story than this 48-minute special contains, seemingly unable to go deeper with its understandably guarded subject.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew Law voices Andrew, Stephanie Hsu is Ruthie and Poppy Liu is Eunice in Dang!Dang! \u2605\u2605 (Netflix)<\/p>\n

Did Dang! fall behind the couch at Netflix HQ in 2016, only to be discovered by an intern this week? That\u2019d explain the dated pop-culture references and random-sauce punchlines of this animated comedy, executive produced by Mike Schur (The Good Place). Focused on three Asian-American siblings in New York \u2013 an older conservative sister (voiced by Stephanie Hsu), a gay pushover (creator Andrew Law) and the zany, purple-haired baby (Poppy Liu) \u2013 Dang! promises a fresh perspective but offers none, repeatedly cribbing plots and punchlines from Broad City and BoJack Horseman.<\/p>\n

\"KennethKenneth Brannagh in Mayday.Mayday \u2605\u2605\u2605 (Apple TV)<\/p>\n

Ryan Reynolds\u2019 perma-Deadpool edge of slick sarcasm isn\u2019t for me, but it\u2019s put to great use in this Cold War buddy comedy from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Dungeons and Dragons). He plays Troy, an arrogant US navy pilot who teams up with friendly Russian Nikolai (Kenneth Brangah, a delight) after crash-landing in the USSR. As they evade the KGB in elaborate action sequences, Mayday is much more vibrant than its flat opening scenes in the US suggest. It\u2019s a neat mirroring of how Troy\u2019s jingoistic beliefs are challenged throughout.<\/p>\n

Want more TV? We\u2019ve got you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":["post-882920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}