Hulu’s PEN15 con­tin­ues to cap­ture the joy and hor­ror of being 13

The thought of reliv­ing the awk­ward grow­ing pains of ear­ly ado­les­cence is prob­a­bly unap­peal­ing to most. Thank­ful­ly, Anna Kon­kle and Maya Ersk­ine do not share this view as they return for the sec­ond sea­son of the bound­ary-push­ing, Emmy-nom­i­nat­ed mid­dle school ​“traum­e­dy” PEN15.

Por­tray­ing ver­sions of them­selves as 13-year-old best friends Anna Kone and Maya Ishii-Peters, the thir­tysome­thing series co-cre­ators are sur­round­ed by teenage actors play­ing their class­mates. An unusu­al com­ing-of-age con­ceit that con­tin­ues to bear fruit (adult body dou­bles are used for sen­si­tive scenes, notes a dis­claimer) allows for an in-depth explo­ration of top­ics pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered taboo. Tak­ing place in the year 2000, the time cap­sule ele­ment adds to the wist­ful, cringe-laden nostalgia.

“Every­one hates me at school,” Maya tells her moth­er (played by Erskine’s real moth­er, Mut­suko Ersk­ine) after a par­tic­u­lar­ly dev­as­tat­ing inci­dent. The life-ruin­ing hyper­bole runs through­out the pair’s antics from rebuffed roman­tic over­tures to not being able to afford the lat­est fash­ion fads. Sea­son two kicks off days after the events of the dance when Brandt (Jon­ah Beres) took the best friends into a clos­et and hit an over-the-shirt sec­ond base milestone.

Wor­ried about his rep­u­ta­tion, Brandt tells the social out­casts to keep this indis­cre­tion to them­selves. As with the pre­vi­ous explo­ration of bur­geon­ing sex­u­al­i­ty, PEN15 tack­les the dou­ble stan­dards ado­les­cent girls face with pin­point­ed truth­ful­ness. Rep­u­ta­tions are etched in stone at this age (one girl earned the nick­name ​“Ice­box” for some­thing she didn’t even do) and cru­el gos­sip thrives in this setting.

Teen tele­vi­sion has long set out to por­tray the night­mar­ish exis­tence of grow­ing up. Recent­ly, Netflix’s Sex Edu­ca­tion takes a head-on approach to hor­mones, Eupho­ria is every par­ents’ fears come to life, and adult ani­ma­tion Big Mouth expert­ly nav­i­gates the mid­dle school quag­mire. The lat­ter comes clos­est to PEN15, which also doesn’t shy away from men­stru­a­tion and female desire – two tra­di­tion­al­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed topics.

Maya got her first peri­od at the end of sea­son one, which she lied to BFF Anna about. The so-called ​“ele­phants in the base­ment” (Anna acci­den­tal­ly renames the idiom) lingers, a secret bub­bling between the pair with the poten­tial to threat­en their close bond. Every­thing is height­ened at this age, includ­ing feel­ings of betrayal.

Anna’s par­ents’ impend­ing divorce is a thread weav­ing through­out the first sev­en episodes of this sea­son (the sec­ond half will air in 2021) that doesn’t get any eas­i­er for the only child. Fraught moth­er-daugh­ter inter­ac­tions are a repeat­ed theme in both house­holds, as the pair seek inde­pen­dence while cling­ing to the secu­ri­ty of home. ​“I’m sor­ry, I’m just hor­mon­al,” Anna yells at her dis­ap­point­ed par­ents in the third episode.

Last year, a Maya/​Anna sleep­over earned the pair (with Sta­cy Osei-Kuf­four) a writ­ing Emmy nom­i­na­tion. Expand­ing the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, anoth­er overnight get-togeth­er walks a fine line between hilar­i­ous and dev­as­tat­ing. A stom­ach-churn­ing por­tray­al of inse­cu­ri­ty, embar­rass­ment and excite­ment, ​‘Sleep­over’ is a sear­ing depic­tion of teenage anx­i­ety that hits on a vis­cer­al lev­el. Boys aren’t exempt from social para­noia whether it is rep­u­ta­tion, ditch­ing friends for the pop­u­lar kids, or the cru­el­ty of homo­pho­bic slurs when com­ing to terms with sexuality.

It doesn’t mat­ter if you were thir­teen at the turn of the mil­len­ni­um, some feel­ings and expe­ri­ences are uni­ver­sal. The poten­cy of PEN15 is in the moments that send you spi­ralling back to ado­les­cence, whether cap­tur­ing the ache of a first crush or grap­pling with bur­geon­ing adult­hood. It is also incred­i­bly fun­ny with both Ersk­ine and Kon­kle man­i­fest­ing the uncom­fort­able phys­i­cal­i­ty of a chang­ing body.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the sup­port­ing cast makes you for­get the unique con­cept with a stand­out per­for­mance from series new­com­er Ash­lee Grubbs as poten­tial friend­ship wedge, Mau­ra. Maya and Anna might be unpop­u­lar at school, but the sec­ond sea­son of PEN15 proves they are any­thing but.

The first sev­en episodes of Pen15 Sea­son 2 will be avail­able on Hulu from Sep­tem­ber 18.