Each week Joe and Terry discuss the most recent episodes of HBO Max’s Genera+ion, alternating between our respective sites.

Reviews for episodes 1-3 can be found here.

Spoilers follow for Episodes 4-5: “Pussy Power”, and “Gays and Confused”

JOE

Well Terry, you must be happy with episode four “Pussy Power” because it returns the show back to the non-linear, overlapping single character narrative structure that we liked so much in the pilot.

Here the overlap is far less significant and revelatory, particularly in the shift between Megan (Martha Plimpton) and Nathan (Uly Schlesinger) with the broken bottle of wine. And yet, spending a decent chunk of time with mother and son - and Chester (Justice Smith) - feels about right given Nathan’s dramatic confession on the yacht, his mother’s reaction and Chester’s rescue in episode 3.

As it stands, “Pussy Power” winds up fixated on a couple key themes. There’s a heavy emphasis on repetition, most obviously embodied by the viral boomerang of Nathan’s fall, but also how Chester re-enacts moments from “Pilot”, right down to a new dress code violation and further attempts to flirt with guidance counselor Sam (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett).

What’s different this time is the long moment when Chester sits in his car, listening to the podcast about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. It’s a fascinating moment of quiet contemplation, as though Chester is summoning his courage - for confrontation? for a sexually charged encounter with Sam? - before he exits the car and once again struts his shit through campus.

It’s hardly surprising that Chester winds up using the “me vs you” dichotomy of the asteroid and the dinosaur in his shallow attempt to hurt Sam later. One of my favourite YA tropes is that each and every lesson or piece of media is automatically relevant to a teen’s current experience. As a result, I was delighted at Chester’s ability to use the audio material from twenty minutes earlier as an insult that he hurls at Sam when the guidance counsellor not only resists his advances, but when Sam kind of/sort of confirms that he has a boyfriend.

While licking his wounds on the roof, Chester and his friend Cooper (Diego Josef) chat more about the asteroid/dinosaur analogy and Cooper casually mentions that it’s a binary relationship: everyone is stuck in cycles of naming and defining themselves as one thing or another (Sam is the dinosaur / Chester is the asteroid).

This comes into play again in both the Megan and Nathan sections. Megan’s silence on the incident at the wedding has been allowed to fester into a rift. In her section, there’s more evidence of her uptight and defensive behaviour, and at a PTA meeting about a forthcoming event, she lashes out about the new labels applied to dietary restrictions. “There was a time when people were just normal” she complains, enforcing the false dichotomy that everyone who doesn’t fall into her “orange carrot” or “traditional cookie” examples are not normal.

Obviously Megan isn’t really talking about dietary restrictions. When Arianna (Nathanya Alexander) and her two dads Joe (J. August Richards) and Patrick (John Ross Bowie) arrive, the margarita-fuelled discussion between the adults offers a new analogy. Megan complains that Brad Pitt no longer takes off his shirt because he’s busy acting in complicated movies that normal people (that word again) can’t understand. This hilariously prompts Joe to bring up her inability to grasp Inception again, which he complained about in “Toasted.”. I love how this seemingly one-off joke has become Genera+ion’s running gag.

Megan’s refusal to accept Brad Pitt’s range or Nathan’s bisexuality is the same issue, namely that Megan dislikes when things that she perceives to be straightforward change and evolve. She may claim that she only wants her son’s happiness, but what she clearly desires is for things to remain simple (to her).

This highlights one of Genera+ion’s central doctrines. There’s a clear generational divide between adults and teens on this show: the adults are stuck in the past and need things categorized, defined and boxed in. That’s why Sam was comfortable marching to someone’s else beat in band; that’s why Megan misses the days of gluten-filled cookies with sugar; and that’s why Arianna’s dads belittle bisexuality (because every gay man of their generation used it as a stepping stone so that must obviously still be the case).

This is out of step with the teens, though. While some, like Nathan, may still be figuring their shit out, others, like the new GSA member who knows exactly what she wants (“I’ve been single too long” she proudly declares).

In an empowering move, the teens of Genera+ion appear relatively unfazed by the wide spectrum of experiences they’re living through. They can like Disney films despite/in spite of their problematic queer coded villains as easily as they can plan a class trip to San Francisco to learn LGBTQIA history and visit a three story H&M.

Terry, I’ll turn it over to you. Do you see the binary/dichotomy/boomerang narrative carrying through into Nathan’s section? Is it me or is Arianna more palatable this episode? And are you growing bored of the opening framing scenes set in the present as Delilah (Lukita Maxwell) gives birth?

TERRY

This is honestly why I’m happy to do these reviews/recaps with you, Joe, because your analysis sometimes makes me reconsider what I initially didn’t like.

This might be one of those cases, in some ways, because while I appreciated specific scenes and moments in “Pussy Power”, a lot of it actually annoyed me. I’m starting to realize that part of it might be because of my relative unfamiliarity of YA and its widely understood tropes; clearly some will find comfort in them in the same way that I find comfort in the structure of a slasher film.

For instance, while I did appreciate the callback to the pilot, as Chester prepares for another day in which he knows he’s going to be reported for something he wears/does, I found the framing very on the nose. We’re four episodes in, we know Chester’s outwardly happy and bombastic personality hides a lonely and sad inner life.

So when Britney Spears’ “Lucky” plays as he’s getting ready and exiting his car, I rolled my eyes. Later, while Nathan and Naomi’s mother Megan is ranting about identities and sexualities and the confusing nature of youth culture via complaining about carrots and “sugar-hating fake celiac” people, I groaned at how on the nose it still felt.

Maybe it’s partly because I’m just so tired of seeing queer content centered around this culture war dynamic, but we’ve seen the “religious mother doesn’t understand her baby boy’s sexuality and wants him to just be straight” narrative time and time again. I was hoping that with a fresh, young, Gen-Z perspective perhaps we’d finally be over this boring (if, sadly, probably still true) narrative trope.

But the way you framed the episode under the concept of the binary, particularly with Megan’s binary thought process on how Brad Pitt could be shirtless while making you think, made me appreciate some of the more subtle themes “Pussy Power” was exploring.

That said, even though you’re making me appreciate some of the nuance that I was clearly missing, I still think “Pussy Power” is confused. The framing device is partially back from the pilot episode, but the inconsistencies in the way Genera+ion’s episodes are unfolding is giving me whiplash. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but to go from a brilliantly framed pilot to standard episodes back to an episode that borrows part of the pilot’s framework reads more muddled than assured.

What absolutely worked for me, though, was this more nuanced Arianna. Truthfully, I was dreading a full season of her comments about “BJ lips” and writing off her humor as “edgy.” But this episode (and the opening segment of “Toasted”) shows she’s more than just a different kind of homophobe. Her scenes with Nathan, who just heard their parents discussing his bisexuality, felt genuine and moving.

It’s the entire scene, starting with the way she brings up the fact her fathers think he’s gay and that Nathan is using her as a beard. He responds that he isn’t. “Oh I know,” she says. They kiss and then he quickly asks if he has her enthusiastic consent, followed by her retort, “I just put your hand on my tit.” It felt so relaxed and real and therein is the gulf Genera+ion struggles to cross. This mix of trying to be about something versus just...being.

That said, all of my complaints about episode 4 were immediately erased with episode five, “Gays and Confused.” Gone are the Moral of the Week conversations contrasting the older generation’s beef with gender and sexuality. Gone is the cringey dialogue and attempts to mean something. Instead, we get the trio of Chester, Riley and Greta on a whirlwind day of canceled school due to the California wildfires. This episode proves that Genera+ion is at its best when it gets out of its way and allows the characters to just be themselves. It also showcases Haley Sanchez’s subtle performance as Greta as the real star of the series.

The plot synopsis is simple. School’s been canceled due to the raging wildfires and while Greta’s Aunt Ana (Nava Mau) warns that going outside is like smoking ten packs of cigarettes, in Riley’s nihilistic words, “Can we do something fun because the world’s burning down around us?”

So they do and eventually drag Greta along. And while Riley slowly figures out her feelings towards Greta (and potentially loving a woman, in general), Chester discovers Sam on the apps. And, of course, because Chester doesn’t show his face in his profile, Sam has no idea he’s talking to his student. What follows is a carefree day in these teens’ lives and, Joe, I thought it was fabulous. Maybe the best episode of Genera+ion so far.

Well...except for the cold open.

You asked if I’m growing bored over these cold opens and this one just cemented that, yes, I absolutely am. We finally learn who the father of Delilah’s baby is. It’s Diego, the kid Chester shared a smoke with on the roof in “Toasted.” He makes silly, confused statements about “it’s your body, it’s your choice.” To which, Delilah responds, “there’s not really a lot left to choose cuz it kind of already happened.” And I’m wondering what these are all about, now.

Hopefully it all comes together in the end because right now, outside of some witty and funny moments, it feels very divorced from everything that’s happening in the series writ large.

But back to Greta. By the time night falls, she’s trying on Riley’s dead uncle’s clothes and looking quite fetching in a full suit, complete with a top hat. Riley, meanwhile, snaps photo after photo and, for once, Greta is all smiles. And when it’s time to sleep and the two girls snuggle up on Riley’s bed, Greta has that all-too-familiar look of uncomfortability mixed with anticipation mixed with nerves. It’s nuanced performance that, again, feels authentic. The way the episode ends, with the two of them touching foreheads while Chester sings a lullaby version of Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” put a huge smile on my face. This is what I want more of, from Genera+ion.

But what about you, Joe? Did “Gays and Confused” work as well for you as it did for me? Did you like the scene with Aunt Ana and the three teens, with Ana turning on the Mom Vibes towards Riley? What do you make of Chester catfishing Sam and the inevitable heartbreak it’s (hopefully) going to bring?

Finally, speaking of Chester, we get comparisons of parents (particularly mothers) in this episode and the way he talks about his mother is filled with quiet sadness. Do you think there’s more to that story, especially in relationship to his hidden loneliness and depression?

JOE

I’m with you on how quietly powerful “Gays and Confused” is and while you didn’t come right out and say it, it’s becoming clear that Genera+ion is best when it focuses exclusively on its teen characters. While the show obviously has concerns about the divide between adults and teens, the series struggles to depict those interactions without devolving into tropes, “woke” dialogue or on the nose observations. I’m finding it slightly less egregious than you, but episodes like this reinforce that when the parents are mostly sidelined in favour of the teens, the show feels more natural, relaxed and authentic.

Part of this may be a testament to this episode’s writer: executive producer Lena Dunham. Say what you will about Dunham’s own (often problematic) history of being the public face of a generation, but Girls *did* frequently tap into the zeitgeist with its wry observations about sex, nudity, body image and dating. Dunham is not-so-secretly a great fit to bring these issues to the forefront here.

And really, that’s why “Gays and Confused” works so well. Its thesis is dialled way back; there are no grand statements about the current generation because the episode is content simply being a captivating slice of life. This is a thirty minute episode that is content to depict bored teen protagonists wasting a day off doing whatever they please and it’s great because of that simplicity.

With that said, there’s still a fun level of performativity on display, as most of the characters engage in some form of role play or dress up. There’s even a recurring “Truth or Dare” element, most specifically in Chester’s coded interactions with Sam, but also in the way that he and Riley dare Greta to explode her boundaries with the gender-bending photoshoot (which looked gorgeous, by the way).

Terry, you mentioned Aunt Ana’s swing at playing Greta’s mom and I loved how Genera+ion subverted expectations by revealing that her hard-line stance with Riley was actually just a ruse to embarass Greta, who totally falls for it.

This “trying on” of identities is 100% going to come back to haunt Chester, whose headless abs may normally say enough for him on Grindr, but won’t help him take his gaslighting conversation with Sam to the next level. He’s playing a much more dangerous game than Riley, who mimics his laissez-fair “what’s hot is hot” language to explain how she’s open to dating or hooking up with a girl. Her close proximity to Greta by episode’s end at least confirms that Riley is at least willing to try for something real (as opposed to Chester’s clearly misguided effort to “fall in love” with someone he’s “not supposed to.”)

As for the mom stuff...it caught my ear, too but I’m uncertain what to make of it. Absent parents linger over the whole episode, particularly Riley’s terse interaction with her mom and her later description of her relationship with her parents, which consists primarily of explaining to her “the difference between separation and divorce”. But yes, Chester’s admission about his never-seen mother is intriguing, particularly when it is contrasted with Greta’s clear struggles with her own absent mother and Aunt Ana’s role play. It’s definitely a subject worth keeping an eye on, especially considering the situation with Nathan and Megan is apt to return in episodes to come.

We’ll find out more when we hop back over to QueerHorrorMovies for the next batch of episodes next week!