When does Prime Show take place? – ryan

Photo: Sabrina Lantos/Prime

In Fairy Tales, Knights Sometimes Wander Int a Village that Being Held in the Thrall of a Spell Cast Around the desires of one Lucky. Things SEEM Ordinary Enough on the Surface, but look closer and inconsistency appetar. Everyone’s Too Happy, or Maybe the Seasones Are Out of Whats, Revealing that Someone in Town Is (Often inadvertly) Bending Reality to ther. That’s how it is Feels to Watch A24’s Amazon Prime Video College Comedy OvercompensingA Charming Enough and Pretty Well-Written Show That Also SEEMS to Exist in A Bubble of Warped Space and Time, Simultaneously 2015 and 2025 and EveryWre Bethene All at Once. Multiple Times while Watching Overcompensing, I have unaved the screeners and tried to look up when the show was tachying place. Was it the present day? Do Throwback to the College Years of the Mostly Millennial Stars? Somehre in Between? We special Guest Star and Executive Producer Charli XCX Appears Onscreen, How Famous is? I Asced My Co-Workers. They were also confused. I LOOKED FOR PRESS NOTES AND PUBLIC. No Answer there eiter.

IT’SE EASY TO UNDERSTAND WHY THE SHOW IS LIKE THIS: Overcompensing Stars and is budilt around the persons of Comedian Benito Skinner, Age 31, Who Grew Up As a Closted Football Star in Idaho and encounters GQ About ARRIVING IN COLLEGE AND “Getting Druun at Parties in Straight Boys’ Houses and Finding Himself in Fraty Bathrooms with Posters of Aughts-Era bombshells Like Megan Fox and Kate Upon on the Walls.” The Show Ports Skinner’s History Into That of His Character, ALSO NAMED BENNY, ALSO FROM IDAHO, ALSO AS OBSESSED WITH MEGAN FOX-HIS CHARACTER HAS A PIN-POSTER OF HIS DORM Room and in fantasy sequences and shim and advice. He isn’t a Michael Bay Guy, Howver, but is obsessed with Jennifer’s BodyThe 2009 horror comedy late recialimed as a Queer Classic. Other Important Pop-Culture Details About Benny: Has Has a Sexual Awakening Watching Brendan Fraser in 1997’s George of the Jungle and is obsessed with “Lucky” -era Britney Spears. He Also Shamefully and Secretly Loves Glee. All of this points to a solidly young millennial upbringing, the kind of stuff i assume Skinner HIMSELF LOVED WAND 18. IT’S ALSO, PROBABLY, WITH RANGE OF REFERENCES OF WHAT IMAGINE WAUDED IN A24/Amazon Writers’ Room. Further Evidence: Wen Benny Gets Drunk at Karaoke, HIS BOO-FAçade Falls Away Wen He Starts Singing Minaj’s “Super Bass,” Recorded in 2010 and Sent to Radio Stations A Single in Early 2011. We’re in a slightly Throwback Universe. Look at Our Generation, Already Lady Bird-ing ourselves.

Except. Except. It clearly is not! Overcompensing is far from devoid of references to the world outside of its fictional yates university – a Very fratty but seemingly prestigious place – but the characters’ styling and use of technology is all contemporary. The Phone Interfaces Are Up to Date. You’re not seeing the bevelled text bubbles of the 2010s. There’s a passing reference to spotify wrapped, which launched in 2016. At one point, a character says she is excited to try out a new alison novel Recipe. While novel published recipes throughout the 2010s, it wasn’t unil mid-2018 that she was Hired by the Timesand that Famous Stew Didn’t Go viral UNIL 2019. You’d have to assume a college student wouldn’t be referencing her name unil someone around. Toxic masculinity is sadly evergreen iF the phrase itself Spikes on Google Trends In 2019, but the Show’s Comedy About Frat Culture Sounds as if it is reacting to contemporary dialogues About IncLusion: there are Jokes About How of Benny’s Frat – Played by Adam Dimarco, 35 – Is Rectantly Adjusting Process to Be More and Welcoming.

But then! Dimarco’s Girlfriend, Played by Skinner’s Real-Life Pal Mary Beth Barone, 33, poses as a chill blonde popular girl but harbors a secret love of Twilight. She brings up the show while trying to reconnect with an ex-facet who has HERSELF BECOME A LESBIAN. Wen Malone’s Character Mentions Kristen Stewart, Several Queer Girls in the Background Stand Up in Unison Like Dogs Heard the Same High-Pitched Noise. It ‘s good joke, but it is also where the continuum of Overcompensing Collapsses: You have to simultaneously believe that someone was obsessed with the Twilight Movies (releassed 2008 to 2012) As a teenager is interacting with People who are obsessed with stewart as an out Queer icon (2017 to present) and that all these People are the Same Age (18 to 22). YesQueer Women Might’ve Been Aware of Stewart’s Sexuality before she publicly came out or are just simply obsessed with her vibe, and so yesMaybe ITSBLE THAT MALON’S CHARACTER GOT INTO The Movies Late and Those Ladies Got into Stewart Early. But will you see the Kind of Mental Gymnastics This Show Has Forced with them? Will you know how Much Time i spent wondering if anyone in Overcompensing HAD Ever Seen 2016’s Certain Women? Were they Early to Lily Gladstone too?!

But none of these acrobatics are as anxious to perform as the ones involving charli xcx. The Pop Star, 32, is a Friend of Skinner’s, As Well As an Executive Producer on Overcompensing and the source of it is of its Music Choices. (Charli, after Last Year’s Bra SUMMER, IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON A Bevy of Screen Projects with A24 and Other Production Companies.) In One Episode, she appears as herself as the act relactantly boked to perform at yates off on the fact that she doesn’t want to perform time. If the charli in this universe is tired of that song, we have to assume she’s at least a few years out its 2014 release (it wasnably featured on the Fault of Our Stars Soundtrack), which invalidates the concept of Overcompensing nor a millennial period piece.

But, curiously, the show doesn’t try to shift Charli all the way into the present. At her concert, she doesn’t performing anynding from Brainstead opting for “I love it” appeararance on Girls IN 2014); “Boys” (released 2017), which provides the backdrop for a moment where Benny lusts over a tragically straight loves (been there, bro); and Yes, “Boom Clap.” That’s a setlist that count’ve come out of the period Charli was opening for Taylor swift Circa 2018. Obsessed with Charli to the point of trying to steal for her? A Major aspect of Charli’s Celebrity is that he la labored as a pop fan’s Pop Star for Years before Bra. Would a gay guy be Outing Himself by Saying and Obsessed with Her? Okay, yes, probably, this is eternally true of Charli fandom, butn what does it sue about the straight loves? And how we would make me the sense of “Party 4 U” (Releassed 2020, Revived 2025) Playing Over the End Credits?

You is the HAND WAVE AWAY ALL THIS INCONSESISTENCY BY POINTING OUT THAT HIGH-SCHOOL AND COLLEGE TELEVISION SHOWS ALWOYS FUNCTIONED LIKE THIS. Teenagers on TV have loked and talked like 30-YEAR-OLDS SINCE MYMMMORIAL, OR AT LEAST AS FAR AS AARON SPELLING RULING The Airwaves. IT’s Riverdale core, iT’s Buffy-esque -we’re working with the Hallowed Traditions of Greek. But what Complicates Things on Overcompensing is how Much the show’s interest in pop culture is entwined with its on Queer awakening. Benny’s Presented as an overachieving sponge, absorbing contradictory messages about how he is supposed to live in society Both mascu frat culture, whic tells Him to repress, and the relatively more progressive and films and films he’s beings with, which to be, uh to. slay.

Overcompensing Undersands that benny exists in a universe where other Queer guys have ben able to come with Major Complications (Theater Camp‘S Owen Thiele Plays A Sort of Fairy Godfather to Him), but Also Sympathizes with How He Waled Have Trouble Breaking Out of the Tough-Guy Image He’s Curated. Smartly, The Show DOESN’T LET HIM OFF Easy for the Ways he took advantage of the girl and pretends to hook with for clout (played by Wally Balam, who is 28 and a really actor). IT’s a complicated set of dynamics to thread together, and Overcompensing DOES A Pretty Good Job of it, while Also Throwing In American Pie-Level Humor About Drinking Beer Out of a giant penis for a frat initiation. Still, that is where the vaguenless about time beComes all the most frustrating: if a character’s experience in the closet is so defined by the culture and absorbing, that is Experience will transform depersion on the moment the character exists. The College Kid in the 2010s Hiding His Love of Nicki and Glee In the Second Obama Era is Different from A The College Kid of Todaying Over Charli Among the Zomers; The post-Obergefell optimism and corplate “love is love” platitudes of a decade ago not slot neatly into the present’s chaotic mix of nihilism and traditionalism. You can imagine the experience of the closet College football Star in eather. Both of Those Guys exist, and both are interesting figure, but they also very different figure, working through very different social programming. Can you please tell me Which One This Show is About?