By: Christopher James
"Pen15" comes to a close with the seven episode batch that was released Friday, December 3rd.Saying goodbye to Pen15 feels a lot like writing a long note in a friend’s yearbook at the end of eighth grade. There are lots of laughs, lots of tears and you are full of complicated emotions that you don’t fully know how to process. In just two (actually three) seasons, Pen15 perfectly encapsulated the isolating growing pains of middle school, both in terms of navigating changes in social dynamics and one’s own body.
Does it stick its landing in the final seven episodes, now available on Hulu?
We're not ready to leave these characters behind.It does, though there is some of season two’s magic missing in the final outing. After a play threatened to ruin their relationship, Anna (Anna Konkle) and Maya (Maya Erskine) are back together and stronger than ever. In fact, they absolutely need each other as Anna deals with her parent’s divorce and Maya licks her wounds from a breakup.
The main dramatic throughline finds both Anna and Maya dating high school boys. Steve (Chau Long), Anna’s friend on the play tech team, starts dating Anna. Never wanting to do anything alone, Anna asks Steve if he has any friends that would want to date Maya. He sets Maya up with his friend Derrick, who feels like a sketchier version of a Martin Starr character. This is just one of the ways this season that Anna and Maya try to grow up a bit too fast and hit a wall of what they can handle.
Though cringe comedy is "Pen15's" specialty, Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine know how to unearth dramatic heft from their teenage woes.
Konkle and Erskine are brilliant as always, imbuing perspective and warmth as they expose, warts and all, what it’s like to be a middle schooler. While they are so in sync as creators and actors, they do a great job differentiating their struggles and embarrassments. As an Asian girl, Maya already feels othered by her school. When an old friend from Japan, Ume, visits and immediately becomes a hit with her classmates, Maya goes through an existential crisis. Why does her ethnicity make others hate her, but they love Ume. Similarly, Ume hates the attention, being thought of as a toy, not a person. Meanwhile, Anna is confronted with the decision of whether to live in her childhood home with her Mom (Melora Walters), or help make her Dad’s (Taylor Nichols) new bachelor pad a home. As with many children of divorce, she tries to toe the line, feeling caught in the crosshairs of their conflict and unable to pick a side. Additionally, Anna finally gets her braces off and feels a new sense of self confidence. This turns out to be a double edged sword, as Anna tries to reckon with newfound attention.
So what’s missing? The actual kids. The last batch of episodes made for the greatest TV of the year, in part due to the way it depicted the full microcosm of middle school. Watching Maya’s co-star and boyfriend, Gabe (Dylan Gage), begin to understand his sexuality was formative. There has never been a more frightening villain than Maura (Ashlee Grubbs), a mean girl whose insecurity manifests in jealousy. With so much of the season spent with Anna and Maya dating, we see less of what it means to exist as an eighth grader at this time. Previous episodes revolved around traumatic memories of pool parties, school plays and sleepovers. These set pieces are largely gone, and thus so are the kids. It’s hard to say whether this is a function of COVID protocols, or a creative decision. Nevertheless, as great as these episodes are, something still feels missing.
Mutsuko Erskine shines as her character, Yuki, is given the spotlight for one episode.Having a more adult focus isn’t all bad, though. One of the standout episodes, Yuki (episode 11), shifts focus away from the girls and follows Maya’s mother, Yuki (Mutsuko Erskine, Maya’s actual mother) on a particularly illuminating day. As Virginia Woolf says in The Hours, “A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.” In this seemingly ordinary day for Yuki, she continues to take on the laughs and microaggressions from her husband, children and people around her. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she runs into a familiar person from her past that challenges the constructs of what her life has become. Directed by Maya Erskine, the episode is a beautiful piece of television giving perspective to a character who at this point has been a device and a foil to our teenage protagonist. It’s also important for us to remember that, as adults, we can be just as clueless and confused as our pre-teen leads. It ranks among the best episodes of this already incredible show.
In its final moments, Pen15 posits what the future holds for Maya and Anna. Will they go through high school, college and beyond as best friends or will they one day drift apart. Living in the moment they are so glorious, but they fear the big unknowable world in front of them. If this is where we leave these characters, it’s a fitting and beautiful end. In the face of uncertainty, these two oddballs choose to trust that their bond is stronger than anything the world can throw at them. We’ll never know if that is ultimately the case, but for now, their momentary certainty is enough to make us believe their friendship will never die. After all, we never end up figuring life out. We’re all scared eighth graders at heart. B+
All episodes of Pen15 are currently streaming on Hulu.