A Review of the Gen Z Comedy 'It Gets Worse' from the Perspective of a Gen X Critic

In the 1990s, I loved movies about Gen X: Reality Bites, Clerks, Dazed and Confused, etc. There weren’t actually that many of them, because Gen X was never as obsessed with itself as Millennials are. Our whole ethos boiled down to, “We don’t care. Leave us alone.”

But Gen Xers are now the parents of Gen Z, and Gen Z comedies are steadily creeping onto our screens. For the most part, I’ve really liked them. Adults is one of the funniest shows of the year because it understands what it means to be Gen Z, but it also stirs a little nostalgia in Gen X and Millennials. We’ve all been there: multiple roommates, gig jobs, falling in love, getting our hearts stomped on. It all feels vaguely universal. Same with Overcompensating, which honestly skews more Gen X because it’s about a closeted gay man coming out in college. Hey! Our generation already did that.

Then there’s the new one on Paramount, It Gets Worse, produced by A24 and originally airing on Crave in Canada and Channel 4 in Britain. It’s stocked almost entirely with new faces, save for a couple of glorified cameos from Andrew Scott and Lena Dunham meant to lend the series some legitimacy, plus narration from one of Gen X’s defining novelists, Zadie Smith.

Unlike Adults and Overcompensating, however, It Gets Worse feels so specifically Gen Z that it barely resonates across generations. The whole thing made me squirm, and not in the awkward, Nathan Fielder cringe kind of way, but in the “Thank God I don’t have to live like this anymore” kind of way. It Gets Worse doesn’t make me nostalgic for my 20s. It makes me relieved I don’t have to navigate them right now.

Created by and starring Leo Reich, It Gets Worse follows three close friends and roommates who are forced to give up their flat when one of them, Abi (Emily Fairn), bails because she’s tired of living like a twentysomething. She craves the stability of a boyfriend, a steady job, and everything that comes with them, including, apparently, a low libido, owing, it turns out, to the Fleshlight her boyfriend never cleans (Ew).

Ethan (Reich) does basically nothing, sponges off his parents, and pines for a straight guy who’s open to experimenting but has to watch lesbian erotica to get through it. And then there’s Sam (Olive Gray), who’s so fixated on her ex-girlfriend that she considers playing the beta partner in the ex’s new relationship with a woman who looks just like Sam.

None of this, to my old-person brain, is particularly appealing. There’s a lot of spitting in mouths on this show, a lot of sex between people who look like they skip a lot of showers, and a lot of apartment sharing with strangers. Those Gen X movies made the struggles of our 20s seem not only kind of fun but ultimately worthwhile: grind through your 20s, and you’ll land in a more comfortable life in your 30s. It Gets Worse suggests that, no, this could drag on for a while. A long while. And maybe the ultimate goal isn’t stability but slightly less chaos … and grime. Jesus. Friends was notoriously unrealistic because the characters could never have afforded those apartments, but I’ve come to appreciate its glossy, aspirational sheen. Watching It Gets Worse, all I could think about was Lysol wipes and a vacuum cleaner, because I am an old.

I’m currently taking a grad school class packed almost entirely with student teachers, and I’m probably seven or eight years older than even the professor. The other day, he asked if anyone owned their own home. I was the only one who raised a hand (the professor didn’t), and he jokingly exclaimed, “The enemy!” And you know what? Maybe I am, because my only advice to these characters would be to get a job (or two, or three), pay your rent, clean your room, and make a plan. Those old Gen X comedies balanced the angst with actual struggle. In It Gets Worse, it’s all angst, as if everyone’s just waiting for life to show up at the door.