It Gets Worse and Adults season two: Even in escapist Gen Z comedies, you can’t ignore the truth

In 2012, Lena Dunham debuted the TV comedy that would go on to define Millennials by speaking these words from her character’s mouth, “I think I may be the voice of my generation, or, at least, a voice of a generation”.

The line was a goof, a kind-of parody of an entitled young woman lacking self-awareness, but it also revealed an ambitious streak prevalent among Millennials who wanted to make a mark, to be someone who mattered.

Contrast that with this line, spoken by Ethan, the lead character of Gen Z comedy It Gets Worse, which is out this week in Australia.

“All I wanted is to live in a flat with my two best friends and get drunk every night and just have 10 years of my life where I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I mean, is that really too much to ask for?”

Girls’ Hannah and It Gets Worse’s Ethan are both in their mid-20s, just out of university, live in one of the world’s greatest cities (she in New York City and he in London), and come from middle-class backgrounds who have afforded them a relatively easy life so far.

But that decade-and-a-half mark them strides apart. Leo Reich, who plays Ethan and also created and wrote It Gets Worse, cited Girls and Dunham as inspirations for his show (Reich also appeared in an episode of Dunham’s recent series, Too Much).

Hannah comes from an era and a culture which pushed exceptionalism, and a girlboss ethos that says you can have it all so why shouldn’t you? There was an optimism, perhaps a misplaced one, propelled tech companies at a time when they weren’t so obviously evil.

The twentysomethings of It Gets Worse is just looking to have a good time and survive, because surely this, now, is the peak?

Whether it’s the grey-ness of an expected suburban life of menial job and family responsibilities or just the pervasive feeling that things in general really are just on the downslide, Gen Z comedies have the veneer of fun and antics but there’s something grimmer going on.

When we meet Ethan, Abi and Sam, they’re packing up their flat from which they’ve just been evicted by a landlord who wants to sell the place. They can’t move into something else straight away so the besties who met at uni are being cast off in different directions.

Ethan is going to crash with a hook-up guy who’s not his boyfriend and he doesn’t even really like, while Sam has found a spot in a warehouse commune. Abi is going to move in with her boyfriend.

Ethan is unemployed but has the safety net of his London-dwelling parents, while Sam works casually as both a freelance writer and a tutor. Abi is the only one with a “good job” but is just one-step above intern at a business run by a girlboss leader (Dunham!) who hasn’t gotten the memo.

All three leads are in real-life all 28 years old, so authentically sells the conflicts and flailing of their generation. Everyone is trying to have fun, and sometimes even succeeds, but there’s a persist hum of anxiety about the precarity of their lives.

They don’t have a secure living situation or stable employment, and at no point does It Gets Worse suggest that Ethan and his friends were one-off abberants. There was a casual acceptance that it was fairly norm.

There’s also the American series Adults, whose second season dropped two months ago, that also features a group of mid-20s friends all living rent-free in a New York City outer-borough house that belongs to a group member’s long-holidaying parents.

They’re mostly in casual employment or, in the case of Billie, can’t find a job at all despite months of trying. Anton is the only one in a full-time job, and after an incident at work, in a fantastic episode that mostly deals with the word “c—t” in the office, that job is threatened.

And given that Adults is set in the US, that lack of a proper job also means no healthcare coverage, which is the subject of a season one episode.

Both It Gets Worse and Adults are raucous hang-out shows (Adults is the more laugh-out-loud of the pair), which portray hijinks and drama, but even in these escapist comedies, it’s hard to ignore that Gen Z-ers are facing some real challenges.

So, no wonder they’re trying to have as good a time as possible. Because there’s no guarantee things will get better.

It Gets Worse is on Binge, Adults is on Disney+