Everyone in the new series Y: The Last Man is experiencing the worst day of their lives in perpetuity. They’re surrounded by the iconography we’ve come to associate with dystopias: splintered glass. Crashed cars. Rotting animal carcasses punctuating a snow-dappled field. The shock of blood against pedestrian environments. Posters emblazoned with pleas for our sons or the visage of a president the masses believe to be hiding truths. That this imagery glides by rather than pierces is telling given the world this show has been born into. Where Y: The Last Man simmers is in charting what happens in the wake of great collective and personal trauma—in this case, an event in which everyone with a Y chromosome, including nonhuman mammals, dies brutally and bloodily. The fallout sees the remaining people jockeying for power and control. Some find communion amid these horrors. Others cling fiercely to ideologies that can no longer serve them.
The show is an adaptation of the graphic novel series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. Ushered into existence by showrunner Eliza Clark, Y: The Last Man is already besting the source material by pushing its gender and political commentary further in ways that are fascinating if a touch is didactic. At its pinnacle, the series functions on multiple levels—as a gripping thriller, a curious thought experiment blooming with ideas about gender, and a portrait of a family’s healing. It poses increasingly tricksy questions as it tracks the aftermath of this cataclysm and the lives of the only two survivors with a Y chromosome: the somewhat sad-sack, late-20-something escape artist Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer) and his beloved monkey, Ampersand.
This story is from the September 27 - October 10, 2021 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 27 - October 10, 2021 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Unmasking Diddy
The rap mogul shook off decades of rumored bad behavior with wholesome PR revamps. Now the allegations against him are his legacy.
Staging Sufjan
How playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury turned a classic indie-rock album into a Justin Peck-choreographed dance piece that's now Broadway bound.
Justin Kuritzkes Serves an Ace
With his first movie script for the erotic tennis drama Challengers, he has gone from struggling playwright to in-demand screenwriter.
To Brooklyn, by Way of Paris and Rome
A whirlwind week with Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri as she stages the brand's first New York runway show in a decade.
A Burlesque Family at Home
Showbiz couple Angie Pontani and Brian Newman’s high-spirited Marine Park house.
A Bistro With Shish Barak
Huda impressively balances its many influences.
THE 'DEBATE ME BRO
Mehdi Hasan's aggressive interviewing style landed him a Sunday show on MSNBC. Until he started talking about Palestine.
THE MAN WHO GOSSIPED TOO MUCH
For almost two decades, JOHN NELSON anonymously published blind items skewering the Hollywood elite on the blog CRAZY DAYS AND NIGHTS. Then his identity was revealed in the midst of a messy affair.
TODD BLANCHE IS A SURPRISINGLY COMPETENT LAWYER. AND HE'S ON TRACK TO KEEP HIS CLIENT OUT OF JAIL UNTIL THE ELECTION. IN DEFENSE OF TRUMP
TODD BLANCHE WAS looking for his man. Or it could be a woman, but probably not.
Self: Emma Alpern
In Outer Space Why do so many women believe their bodies are controlled by the moon?