After a long wait, the first episode of Y: The Last Man Season 1 aired on FX. It was a great start to what is sure to be an epic series.
The y the last man episode 3 recap is a review of the first three episodes of Y: The Last Man.
After years of back and forth in production, Y: The Last Man, based on Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s comic book series of the same name, has finally landed on Hulu. The first three episodes were published in a block, as is customary for Hulu, and served as a very lengthy pilot. The dystopian comic, which lasted 60 issues from 2002 to 2008, was written amid the gloomy post-9/11 era. Just a few days after the 20th anniversary of the attack on the Pentagon and the streets of New York, seeing this show’s images of death and misery in the Pentagon and NYC streets was a little unsettling.
All male mammals, including human men, perish in the Y: The Last Guy universe, with the exception of one man and his pet male monkey. The ladies ultimately refer to the day as “The Event,” unable to come up with a more precise term for it and not even referring to it by the date, as they did with 9/11. It’s reminiscent of JK Rowling’s fictitious antagonist Voldemort, or He Who Must Not Be Named, from the Harry Potter world. Instead of Voldemort’s horrific, decades-long battle or the lengthy, tortuous MCU build-up to Thanos’ snap, the on-screen version of The Event takes place in a single day, leaving the protagonists weary, suffering refugees from an irreversible past to confront their altered future.
In actual life, the gradual slide towards dystopia that began after 9/11 has given way to full-fledged crises that cannot be ignored, even though different groups continue to debate about reasons and remedies. The universe of Y: The Last Man follows a similar path, except The Event replaces COVID-19 and the Climate Crisis. Many TV shows, such as The Walking Dead, The 100, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Snowpiercer, have explored similar post-apocalyptic territory, all of which take place after global catastrophes have destroyed life as we know it.
But none have addressed the topic as Y: The Last Man does, particularly because the other programs all debuted before the present real-life problems erupted. In addition to the common, urgent need to restructure fundamental social structures in order to preserve not just ourselves, but other species and ecosystems, this show’s examination of sorrow, bewilderment, and fury over mass loss and death is pertinent to all of us right now in a manner we thought it would never be. We don’t have single crisis events anymore; instead, we have patterns of events that must be tracked over time and geography in order to be understood and dealt with, much like the characters in the show need time to sort out what’s left of their world and figure out who can handle what after the accidents and failures caused by the men dropping dead at the switch, wheel, control panel, you name it.
Spoiler alert: Jesus does not take the wheel after the guys die. Because of effective patriarchal gatekeeping, there are frequently no competent women around as well. The result is chaos.
Y: The Last Man seems like a mix of 12 Monkeys (the TV series) and Designated Survivor S1 with a touch of Alias in the first three episodes. I kept recalling the 12 Monkeys pilot, when Cole traveled back to the pre-plague past for the first time and gasped over all of the dead-people-walking, while watching the first part of episode 1. Of course, there’s the monkey, as well as the red and black billboard depicting 12 ladies and the many spray painted inscriptions linking it to 12 Monkeys (12 Monkeys may also have been influenced by the Y graphic novels). Though time travel is unlikely, cloning seems to be the most logical solution to their problem of reproduction, so anticipate some Orphan Black-style future technology as the story progresses. (Or parthenogenesis– humans are still catching up to lizards and bees.)
Y: The Last Man is written, directed, and produced by Eliza Clark (Animal Kingdom, Extant). Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Melina Matsoukas, Louise Friedberg, Mari Jo Winkler-Ioffreda, Nina Jacobson, and Brad Simpson are among the executive producers. All ten episodes of Season 1 were directed by women, while the bulk of the episodes were written by women. I feel like we’ve arrived in the promised land with this one, since women are all over the imdb crew list.
Yorrick Brown, the last man (Ben Schnetzer), and Ampersand, the final male monkey, who is a CGI damsel in distress, are presented in the opening scene. Yorrick is looking for his love, graduate student Beth DeVille, a few weeks after The Event (Juliana Canfield). We flash back to the day before The Event to meet the majority of the characters. Once we realize that Yorrick and Amp have it tough in this new world, we flash forward to the day before The Event to meet the rest of the group. Congresswoman Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane), Yorrick’s mother, is a strong, no-nonsense Democrat.
Hero Brown (Olivia Thirlby), Jennifer’s daughter, is an alcoholic NYC paramedic who is having an affair with her employer. When the cis males are gone and medicines become scarce, Hero’s closest buddy is trans man Sam Jordan (Elliott Fletcher), who will face his own set of problems. Christine Flores (Jess Salgueiro), Jennifer’s new assistant, is diligent but still getting used to her new position.
Paul Gross appears briefly as US President Ted Campbell, a moderate Republican who has known Jennifer for decades and has worked with her as a friend. Due to his reluctance to negotiate with Democrats since becoming president, he and Jennifer have become political enemies. Kimberly Campbell Cunningham, the president’s daughter, is played by Amber Tamblyn, who looks like a combination of Ivanka Trump, Meghan McCain, and Phyllis Schlafly. She’s a bottle blonde who works as a professional mother of four young kids and is an author and motivational speaker who believes that rich white guys should be treated with greater compassion. (I’m biting my tongue right now.)
Nora Brady, President Campbell’s press advisor, is a seasoned political operator, overworked, stressed-out wife, and working mother of a young boy and daughter, Mackenzie. Marin Ireland portrays Nora Brady (Quincy Kirkwood). The (soon to be ex) First Lady and Kimberly’s mother, Marla Campbell (Paris Jefferson), stalks the corridors of Y: The Last Man like a ghost from the Old World, clinging to the past but simultaneously finding out how to go on more readily than her more ambitious daughter.
Dr. Allison Mann (Diana Bang) isn’t introduced in the first three episodes, but she’s a key character in the novels, so she’ll most certainly appear soon.
Finally, there’s Agent 355 (Ashley Romans), whom creator Eliza Clark regards as the show’s real protagonist. She works for an off-the-books firm, reports solely to the president, and is there during Ted Campbell’s death. Yorrick, the final guy, is placed in her care by the new president. Romans is enthralling in the part right from the start.
Jennifer is a driven, high-profile leader who strives to maintain a positive public image at all times. Yorrick is a caregiver and an escape artist, but he isn’t motivated in the least. Kimberly is a skilled networker and manipulator who lacks an identity outside her emotional ties, making her eager to get a foothold in the post-Event power system. They’re all enthralling and captivating.
Agent 355, on the other hand, is the show’s lynchpin, a chameleon and multi-talented lady who keeps her eyes open in order to accomplish what has to be done, ideally before problems occur. She is, however, a permanent outsider who often acts as the audience’s point of view character. She has more knowledge of The Event than many of the other characters, perhaps more than she knows.
Hulu provided the images.
Y: The Last Man is a post-apocalyptic science fiction comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, published in 2002. It tells the story of Yorick Brown, who is the only male human on Earth following a plague that kills off all males. Reference: y the last man wiki.
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