TV Review: FX's "Adults" Grows Up Without Losing Its Edge in Season 2

FX's Adults returns for a second season with everything that made its freshman run such a revelation still intact; the loose, live-in energy of five roommates figuring out life as they go, and the freedom of a basic-cable-and-streaming budget that lets it talk about sex, drugs, and identity with a bluntness broadcast sitcoms can't touch. Friends sold a fantasy of adulthood with laundry-perfect apartments and friends who are always just there. Adults knows growing up is chaotic, expensive, and mostly held together by group chats and shared trauma. Season 2 finds even more ways to say so.

Samir (Malik Elassal), Billie (Lucy Freyer), Paul Baker (Jack Innanen), Issa (Amita Rao), and Anton (Owen Thiele) are all still crashing together in Samir's childhood home, still figuring out who they are when nobody's watching. Season 1 ended with a kiss between Issa's boyfriend, Paul Baker, and his green-card husband, Anton, upending the group's equilibrium. Season 2 eventually deals with the fallout, but it's smart enough not to rush there.

The season opens with "The Scrub," which pulls back the curtain on a corner of Paul Baker's life the group has never seen: his other friend group, a gang of bros who couldn't be less like the housemates. It's a strong table-setter, and a reminder that as much as Adults is an ensemble show, it's also genuinely curious about who these people are outside the house.

That ensemble instinct is Adults' greatest strength, and Season 2 mostly plays to it. Every episode still finds a moment for each character to shine, but a few installments hand the spotlight to just one. Episode 2, "Fake ID," follows Billie as she becomes low-key obsessed with the 20-year-old who inherited her old fake ID, a premise that's funnier and sadder than it has any right to be. Episode 6, "Pop Girlie," is Samir's episode, built around his girlfriend Carly's sudden, drastic career change.

The season's clear standout, and arguably the best episode Adults has done yet, is Episode 4, "Raccoon," written by Sanaz Toossi and directed by Oz Rodriguez. A raccoon gets into the house at the exact moment the gang is dropping acid, and Paul Baker has, naturally, chosen this night to make a very big confession to Issa.

Season 2 also widens the world a bit, bringing in guest players who fit neatly into it rather than stealing it. Raven-Symoné makes a warm, funny impression as Anton's sister in "Talia," an episode that pairs Anton's confrontation with impending fatherhood-by-proxy with Issa quietly starting to think about her own fertility. Gaten Matarazzo turns up as Samir's cousin, and Ben Marshall and Isaac Powell each get a turn as potential love interests for the group. None of it approaches the size of Charlie Cox's multi-episode arc as Billie's love interest in Season 1, and that's actually to the season's benefit. Without a marquee guest storyline pulling focus, Season 2 stays locked on the five people who made this show worth watching in the first place.

Hysterically funny yet relatable to anyone who survived their twenties, Adults remains a Friends for right now; edgy and subversive, but with a charm that's entirely its own. Season 2 proves the point: these five idiots, in one house, show up for each other anyway.

I give Season 2 of FX's Adults 5 out of 5 stars.

Season 2 of FX's Adults premieres Thursday, August 27th, at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on FXX and Hulu. All eight episodes are available to stream on Hulu at premiere, with two new episodes airing weekly on FXX.