It's odd to refer to a show as highly anticipated when much of the anticipation revolved around whether or not it would ever actually premiere at all. But, for comic book fans, sci-fi fans, and really fans of compelling stories no matter what the medium, the day has almost officially arrived: FX on Hulu's post-apocalyptic comic book adaptation Y the Last Man will be on screens soon.
The series, the first three episodes of which premiere Sept. 13, largely functions as an ensemble, but the ostensible lead is young Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer), a cis male escape artist/unemployed 20-something who, for reasons unknown, is one of two known organisms to survive a cataclysmic biological event that kills every creature on the planet with a Y chromosome. (The other organism to survive is Yorick's pet monkey Ampersand, brought to life entirely by a very talented team of VFX artists.) Yorick being alive of course becomes a fact of immense importance, and as fate would have it his mother Jennifer (Diane Lane) happens to be the newly appointed President of the United States. The priorities thus become keeping Yorick safe, keeping Yorick secret, and then trying to figure out how his survival might contribute to the ultimate salvation of the human race. Key to that is the mysterious Agent 355 (Ashley Romans), who accompanies Yorick on a road trip for answers while back at home, Jennifer has to deal with increasingly contentious political forces led by Kimberly (Amber Tamblyn), delivering fierce Ivanka Trump realness as the daughter of the previous (Republican) President.
As mentioned above, the thing that's worth noting is that it's a flat-out wonder that this show even exists. Discussion of adapting the Eisner-winning graphic novel series by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra first began in 2007 with a feature film to be directed by D.J. Caruso, and since then it's been a long limping struggle to the screen; even once it got the FX greenlight as a series, the project was still struck by multiple recastings and a change in showrunners.
Everything happens in its own time, of course, but in the years needed before Y the Last Man could become a TV show, a few key things happened. One, thanks to (among other things) a blockbuster of a series called The Walking Dead, a proliferation of post-apocalyptic stories have flooded our televisions over the yeas; whether the cause be viruses or meteors or just the decline of civilization, we didn't lack for dark stories about what happens after. Meanwhile, another thing that's changed is our increasing awareness and acceptance of trans and non-binary people, accompanying a whole new approach to our conceptions of gender. The dramatic opening of the comic's first issue — "all the men are dead," a young female policewoman says while putting her own gun to her head — needs some revision in this new modern context.
Of all the problems faced by this adaptation, those two issues were among the biggest it had to overcome creatively, and having watched the six episodes of the first season made available for critics, I'll say that it handles both relatively well, but the second definitely better than the first. The title remains the same, which is welcome news given that at one point in the show's history, there was serious talk from FX about renaming the show simply Y (an idea which strikes fear in the heart of every person who knows what the acronym SEO means). But while different characters have different levels of understanding when it comes to gender, as driven by showrunner Eliza Clark the show's writing is very clear on this point: The virus (or whatever it was) which wreaked havoc across the globe did not kill "all the men." Instead, it killed every living creature with a Y chromosome, including trans women (who are women, FYI). It's a biological distinction but something that the show goes to great effort to center in this conversation — the great trans sci-fi author Charlie Jane Anders was a writer on the show, and it's worth reading her very positive reflection on the experience of working on the first season.
As for the first, well, that's a bit tricky. One of the most compelling aspects of Y the Last Man the comic was how it took a global look at how the gender imbalances in professions like solider and airplane pilot and nuclear engineer would affect a world where all the cis men are suddenly gone. Many of the show's best moments are found in scenes that spotlight exactly that (no spoilers, but one episode is simply titled "Weird Al Is Dead"), but occasionally the show can't escape slipping into the grim patterns that have become common to this very specific genre of storytelling, making it feel almost like generic disaster porn at times.
But that doesn't happen too often, ensuring that the show feels fresh more often than not, with a number of compelling, haunting, scary, or even sometimes genuinely funny sequences to be found in each episode. The all-female directing team, including Louise Friedberg, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Destiny Ekaragha, and Mairzee Almas, ably handles the show's wilder moments, with a strong ensemble cast of veterans and relative newcomers. Schnetzer (a standout performer in the great underseen 2014 film Pride) has just the right lack of alpha male energy for this premise, while also strong in a supporting capacity are Tamblyn (playing every ruthlessly sunny aspect of her character), Olivia Thirlby as Yorick's sister Hero, and true discovery Romans as the captivating and complicated Agent 355, whose introduction comes with enough layers to make her mysterious backstory all the more compelling.
Also deserving of a shoutout is the immediately sympathetic Elliot Fletcher, who plays Hero's best friend Sam, a trans man who has a lot more sense than Hero. And while Diana Bang makes a late entry to the series as geneticist Dr. Allison Mann, her presence has a pretty transformative effect on the show, adding a new level of both humor and chaos to the action. In a time when the threat of COVID is still present, Y the Last Man can be tough viewing, but my recommendation would be to stick around at least until Episode 5 (cleverly entitled "Mann Hunt").
Plus, there's the Diane Lane of it all. As much as I am personally a fan of the comics, if the writers had just thrown out the original story and just made the show about President Diane Lane trying to save the world, I probably wouldn't have raised any objections. Not only is Lane fantastic — and a post-apocalyptic West Wing starring Diane Lane sounds like great TV to me — but it speaks to one of the show's great as-yet-unanswered questions: While many changes have been made to the original story, a lot of it is still very much in line with the comics. Will that hold it back, eventually? Or will the show be able to stand apart from its source material eventually, finding its own path? It's not a question that can be answered at this point, though let us remember that the basic fact of this show's existence is, in some ways, a miracle. And not only has Y the Last Man has managed to survive so much to make it to a premiere date — but the pieces are in place for it to thrive.
Y the Last Man premieres Monday, September 13 on FX.