Adults is an FX sitcom created by Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw that follows five friends in their twenties as they navigate work, relationships, sex, money, and the general chaos of trying to become functioning adults in Queens, New York. The series premiered in 2025 and was renewed for a second season, establishing itself as a Gen Z take on the traditional hangout sitcom.
The premise may sound familiar — a group of young friends living together and making questionable decisions — but Adults uses that framework to explore a generation for whom traditional ideas about relationships, identity, and adulthood are increasingly fluid. Critics have compared the series to shows such as Friends, Girls, Broad City, and New Girl, while noting its focus on the particular social and cultural anxieties of Gen Z.
Variety, for example, described the series as an attempt to become a defining “time capsule” for its generation, although the review questioned whether the show had yet developed a strong enough identity of its own.
That openness extends to sexuality. Adults doesn’t treat queerness as something that needs to be explained to its characters or turned into a dramatic revelation. Instead, queer identities and sexual fluidity are simply part of the social world these friends inhabit. Anton is openly gay, while Paul Baker repeatedly describes himself as “fluid,” a term that falls under the bi umbrella without forcing him into a label he doesn’t personally use.
Paul’s sexuality is introduced casually throughout the season. In the third episode, Issa refers to him as a “sexually-fluid delight,” while in the fourth episode, after a stranger uses a homophobic slur to question his sexuality, Paul corrects him by saying that he prefers the term “fluid.” When the man remains unconvinced, Paul even tries to get his friend to confirm that he sleeps with men. The joke is funny, but the important part is how little drama surrounds the revelation: Paul is not discovering his sexuality, coming out, or defending his right to exist. His friends already know who he is.
The series also creates an environment where sexuality appears remarkably unremarkable. Nobody in the friend group treats Paul’s attraction to men as incompatible with his relationships with women, and the same openness extends to the other characters. Billie, for example, is shown primarily dating men, but one episode shows her act on an attraction to a couple looking for a threesome. The show does not turn this into a declaration about her sexuality, but it further establishes a world where attraction does not necessarily have to fit neatly into a single category.
This becomes even more significant in the finale of the season, “The Mail.” Paul Baker, who is Canadian, faces deportation when his visa expires, prompting Issa, his girlfriend, to propose a green-card marriage. After a series of increasingly chaotic attempts to solve the problem, it is ultimately Anton who marries Paul. During the celebration afterward, their friends jokingly encourage the newlyweds to kiss. What begins as a joke turns into a surprisingly passionate kiss between Anton and Paul.
The moment has already generated queer discussion online, with Instinct Magazine describing it as the culmination of the chemistry between the two characters and questioning whether the kiss was simply a joke, an unexpected loophole, or evidence of feelings that had been developing beneath their friendship. This leaves room for Adults to take Paul’s representation further. The finale’s kiss with Anton opens the door to a potentially much more explicit exploration of Paul’s attraction to men, particularly now that the two characters are legally married and appear to have genuine chemistry. Whether that develops into a romance, remains a complicated friendship, or becomes part of a love triangle involving Issa is something the second season can explore.
Adults has already created a remarkably accepting social environment in which bisexuality and sexual fluidity can exist without becoming a character’s entire story. If future seasons continue exploring Paul or other characters’ sexuality, the series has the opportunity to build on that foundation without abandoning the casual, funny, and supportive approach that makes its queer representation work.
For now, Adults offers something bi representation often struggles to achieve: sexual fluidity that is neither a punchline nor a problem to solve.