- Network: FX
- Series Premiere Date: May 28, 2025
Critic Reviews
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It can be a little exhausting, in a way that occasionally made me want to pull it aside and suggest it take a breath. But it’s also bright enough (and, unexpectedly, sweet enough) to inspire faith it’ll find its footing eventually.
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The characters can be annoying in a way that is supposed to be funny and often is but is sometimes just annoying. (“I always thought the world was going to be waiting for me and instead everyone’s annoyed that I’m here,” says Samir, not wrong.) Things improve over the six (of eight) episodes out for review, however, providing more amusement and less annoyance as the season goes on.
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The biggest issue Adults has is failing to develop more depth for its characters, as well as how confidently that depth can be mined for comedic potential. Sure, the whole premise is that these characters are finding who they are, but it's hard not to feel as though Adults is still finding itself right alongside its characters.
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Adults has funny moments, but the series is trying too hard.
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It’s fitfully funny, though half the cast is acting for the cheap seats and could do with dialing their performances down to, say, 11. Mostly, though, it makes you think of how many, many efforts there have been to reproduce what worked on “Friends.” .... [Charlie] Cox is warm and funny in the part (get this man a rom-com role), and the ultimate payoff to his arc feels fitting. More unusually for “Adults,” the plot gives the show something meaty to say about being young and seeking comfort in the wrong places. There may still be gold in these hills after all.
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Without strong comedic chops, the plots mostly devolve into confusing, sometimes frustrating moments that appear contrived for shock. The season’s third episode, however, points to a clever comedy itching to rise to the surface.
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What ultimately convinced me that my age isn’t the main obstacle to enjoying “Adults” is the simple fact that too many jokes build toward a punchline you can see from miles away, and too many episodes are built around choices that only a dumb twenty-something TV character would make, not a dumb real-life twenty-something.
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On “Adults,” the cart of demographic-representing relevance comes before the horse of developing a specific take on urban aimlessness.
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The laugh lines are often well-crafted, but the show itself still feels—perhaps appropriately—unformed.
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If Adults shares one thing with today’s young people, it’s a formless, ambient sense of anxiety. Perhaps that will diffuse if the show is given time to grow, and these young adults learn what most twentysomethings do: in the game of winning friends and influencing people, one needn’t try so hard.