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Pen15 has definitely changed, but in ways that are almost entirely for the better. What was once a gimmick is now a thoroughly excellent and warm show.
PEN15 is easily one of the funniest comedies on right now, and it's made so much better by the fact that the conceit of having two adults play middle schoolers surrounded by actual children is never the source of that comedy.
This will presumably always be Erskine and Konkle's showcase - both should be awards contenders - but the second season accentuates casting director Melissa DeLizia's smart work selecting the younger actors.
It's incredibly hard to capture the mindset of that age without coloring experiences with regret or fantasy fulfillment, or filtering them through adulthood's learned lessons. It captures the feelings as they emerged raw.
I can't do justice to the vibrant thrill of the central performances. The bond between Maya and Anna feels unspoken and lived-in, full of sentences that trail off into meaningful glances.
PEN15 understands this better than any other shows; how easier our lives would be if we can find the Anna to our Maya. And for that very reason, it's safe to say that our lives will be better with Pen15 in it.
Disavowing "drama," they live to create more drama, and "PEN15" hilariously draws the viewer right in the awful middle of it. Anyone who can't relate might have been unconscious as a teen.
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.
While I appreciate all of the work Konkle is turning in here in Season 2, especially as she plays a young teen caught in the middle of her parents' messy separation, it's clear that Maya's emotional journey is the anchor of PEN15 this season.
More melancholic in its second season, PEN15 understands that junior high is the start of difficult, confusing, strange years of struggle to understand the world and one's place in it.