Pen15 Hulu Original Season 1 Review
Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.
On September 24, 2020, I watched Pen15—a cringe-comedy show—with my siblings over the weekend and finished on September 26, 2020. I went into this comedy show blind, so learning why this show was called Pen15—seeing what it spelled like stylized—cracked me up. The cringe in this show is cleverly brilliant to say the least. Yes, this series weaponizes its cringe to give us a level of comedy that I never thought could exist.
Starring Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle—who play middle-school versions of themselves—Pen15 takes place in seventh-grade middle school during the 2000’s. So, this was the perfect comedy show for someone like me—a Millennial who had gone through this version of middle school. The writing for the show was good and relatable as well, and I cringed a lot. There was so much cringing, mostly due to the uncomfortable truth of how bad middle school actually was.
Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle aren’t just the stars of the series, but they also co-created the Hulu Original with Sam Zvibleman. Their friendship onscreen also provided the foundation for the series, and a true testament to their in-depth understanding of raw preteen behavior. There were so many relatable moments throughout the first season, but they were also cringey, as it forced its audience to look in the mirror—to see that this uncomfortable—hormonal—behavior used to be somewhere inside us.
Maya Erskine had many breakout moments throughout the first season, ranging from her random dances, the way she speaks and looks “preteen”, and how she’s self-conscious about herself but does things—like random awkward dances—to get people’s attention. How she spoke and behaved reminded me a lot of how I used to act. Her rage-induced drum solo during the school orchestra cranked me and my siblings up though—Maya’s pretty hilarious.
Anna played preteen well too but quite differently from Maya, due to them being different people. Her awkward “day-dreaming” gaze—usually toward her boy crush—is consistent and too-realistic. How she slumps sometimes and crosses her arms are subtle expressions that she conveyed well too, as a lot of tall people did this to “hide” how tall they are compared to everyone else.
Anna and Maya played preteen convincingly to the point that it may be easy to forget they are adults. Their friendship and intimacy were the foundation of the show, but the series conveyed how frail middle-school friendships actually were. The racism episode where Maya was forced to play servant in front of all their White friends—for a class project—is a good example, with Anna suffering from White guilt when she was called out for not doing anything about it.
Overall, I would highly recommend Pen15 for those who went to middle school during the early 2000’s. You’ll have a good time watching this even if you’re older or younger—I think—but the intended audience was definitely Millennials. I’ll be watching season 2—on my own—since the latest season dropped on September 18. Thanks for reading this season review, everyone!