In most romantic comedies, a grand romantic gesture involves running through an airport to make one last declaration of love or writing a yearning letter every day for a year. In Adults, it means saying “cunt” on every man-on-the-street interview show you can find.
Related: Adults assembles the Avengers of man-on-the-street creators
The gesture unfolds in Season 2, episode 7, titled “C Alert.” Anton (Owen Thiele) accidentally speaks to his co-workers the way he speaks to his friends, saying “cunt alert!” during a company meeting. He does not intend it as an insult, instead drawing on the word’s positive meaning in the queer ballroom scene.
That meaning has helped fuel a broader resurgence of the term, including in online spaces. However, it remains unforgivably rude in some settings, including Anton’s workplace, where employees skew older and are likely less familiar with queer culture.
To help save Anton’s job, his housemate and yearning love interest Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) decides to normalize saying “cunt” in the workplace by using it on as many viral interview shows as possible. Adults co-creator Ben Kronengold describes the scheme as an “ugly sweet” step in Anton and Paul Baker’s romance.
The pair clearly care about each other, but their attempts to become a couple have stalled because of a house-wide rule forbidding dating within the friend group. “What we tasked ourselves with in the writers’ room was how could they show that care for each other in ways that feel really true to them and specific and platonic?” Kronengold told Mashable.
“It would be easy to have Paul Baker show up in the rain with a bouquet of flowers,” added Adults co-creator Rebecca Shaw. “But it feels much more true to our ridiculous housemates that he would instead say the c-word — a word he hates more than anything in the world — on a series of talk shows for the whole world to see because he thinks there’s a chance that it could make Anton’s life a little easier.”
Paul Baker’s plan is a clear escalation from the pair’s earlier romantic gestures, such as Anton bringing glow sticks to Paul Baker’s green card wedding and Paul Baker waiting on a fancy meal for Anton and his sister Talia (Raven-Symoné). It is also their riskiest gesture in terms of social taboo, even though it comes from sweeter intentions.
“Something that our executive producer Nick Kroll is so masterful at is making edgy, raunchy moments incredibly meaningful and sweet, and on the flip side, making sweet, emotional moments heightened and comedic,” Shaw said. “We always try to follow in his footsteps. Never give a pure romantic moment, never give a pure comedic moment.”
Paul Baker’s revelation about his swear-filled side quest leads to one of the season’s most adorable moments between him and Anton: Anton offers a heartfelt “Paul Baker, thank you,” accompanied by intense yearning eye contact that makes it obvious to everyone else in the scene how much the two care about each other.
Of course, the gesture comes with one final twist.
“We were really tickled by the idea that Paul Baker did this whole big gesture when, in fact, Anton’s job was already saved,” said Kronengold.
“Nobody had the heart to tell him,” added Shaw.
But hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?
Adults Season 2 is now streaming on Hulu.
