'PEN15' Is Back, And Girlhood Is Still Painfully Awkward (2024)

Maya (Maya Erskine) and Anna (Anna Konkle) survive a pool party and a lot of other challenges in the second season of Hulu's PEN15. Erica Parise/Hulu hide caption

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'PEN15' Is Back, And Girlhood Is Still Painfully Awkward (2)

Maya (Maya Erskine) and Anna (Anna Konkle) survive a pool party and a lot of other challenges in the second season of Hulu's PEN15.

Erica Parise/Hulu

On her 2001 album Britney, Britney Spears declared herself "not a girl, not yet a woman." In that sleepy ballad, the then-19-year-old pop star and sex symbol stressed her need for more time to grow up while cautioning you, the listener, against trying to protect her. "I've seen so much more than you know now/ So don't tell me to shut my eyes," she croons in her signature guttural, Britney-like way.

I thought a lot about this song while watching the first half of PEN15 Season 2, Hulu's charmingly perceptive coming-of-age comedy, released on September 18. The protagonists Maya and Anna are not teen idols, and at 13, they are still firmly in girlhood. But as suburban middle-schoolers entering puberty during the peak-Britney era – the show is set in 2000 – they understand profoundly what it means to oscillate between burgeoning maturity and childish innocence.

The first season deftly conveyed the messy, painful, exciting and horrifying nuances of adolescence through period-specific devices like AOL Instant Messenger and an ingenious bit of casting: The millennial co-creators (along with Sam Zvibleman) Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle star as versions of their much younger selves alongside actual 13-year-old actors. In Season 2 they've found new ways to burrow the growing pangs and embarrassments even deeper, to cathartic effect.

The show picks up just two days after the events of the Season 1 finale, which included Maya and Anna being felt up by Maya's crush Brandt (Jonah Beres) in the janitor's closet at the fall dance. Brandt admitted he likes Maya, too, but warned her not to tell anyone.

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Of course crushes rarely stay secret for long among loose-lipped tweens, and this is doubly true for any experimenting they do with one another. When Brandt rebuffs Maya at a pool party in the first of the new episodes and insists their closet encounter never happened, a despondent Maya and Anna proceed to go around to each of their classmates and divulge the details to prove that it did. The gossip backfires on the girls; at school, they are slut-shamed and given a nickname based on the dismissive (and false) description Brandt tells his guy friends about what he did with them at the dance.

The land of Y.A.-themed pop culture is littered with versions of this plotline, and recent dramas like the cringe-inducing Eighth Grade and the unjustifiably ridiculed Cuties have offered thoughtful and progressive examinations of how young girls are simultaneously encouraged to grow up fast and scolded for doing so. PEN15 does the same, but it aims to find a sweet spot between comedic and dramatic extremes. Maya and Anna's immaturity and (attempts at) maturity are embraced equally: The girls are proud of their PG-rated dalliance, but they deal with the fallout – as well as other issues requiring a level of sophistication they understandably don't possess quite yet – in distinctively childlike ways.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, PEN15 creators and stars

In the third episode "Vendy Wiccany," for instance, they become obsessed with creating their own wiccan practice as a way to channel anxieties about everything going on at school and home – Anna is struggling to come to terms with the dissolution of her parents' marriage and Maya misses her father, who is constantly traveling for work. Both are trying to cope with the Brandt rumors. ("If he was my boyfriend, then no one would be saying the stuff they're saying to us," Maya reasons, when deciding to cast a love spell on Brandt.)

But the game of pretend spirals out of control quickly, to the point where it disturbs their classmates and reveals their underdeveloped emotional EQs. Maya unfurls unsettling stalker-like tendencies toward Brandt. They threaten to cast a hex on students who spy on them in the school greenhouse, and burst into a horrifying (but funny) chant of gibberish while convulsing, which ultimately gets them sent to the principal's office and draws in their bewildered parents.

This realm of make-believe is an extension of a lighter facet of their personalities. Despite being in their early teens, a time when most of us are eager to ditch any childhood affinities that might make our peers think we're stuck in elementary school, the girls still play with dolls unironically. At a sleepover with a new friend, they play a prank on the other girls in attendance involving Maya emerging from a duffle bag as if she were The Thing bursting from Norris' chest; the joke receives only a tepid reception. ("You guys are so weird sometimes," their friend reacts condescendingly.)

Like most kids, Maya and Anna want to fit in and have newly developed sexual urges. But they are also still, undeniably, 13-year-olds – 13-year-olds who seem very cognizant, perhaps for the first time in their short lives, of the passage of time and how it is changing them. At the end of "Vendy Wiccany," the girls break down over the realization that life isn't as simple as it once was. As Maya embraces a crying Anna and tells her that she loves her, the bond between them is visceral; PEN15's unique ability to tap into the many gradients of puberty is palpable.

In 1999, when she was just 17, Britney Spears was featured in an infamous Rolling Stone cover shoot, cradling a stuffed purple Teletubby toy in one arm while posed against a pink satin backdrop in lingerie. It succinctly encapsulated the blurry, polarizing line she often straddled between bubbly, youthful innocence and teen sex symbol at the time. I remember being around the same age as Maya and Anna are when that cover came out, and aware of the handwringing it caused over how it might influence young girls like myself. Much of the public didn't know what to make of this dichotomy (and still doesn't, judging by the faux outrage aimed at Cuties earlier this month). It's not surprising that Britney would go on to record "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman," a song utterly transparent in its attempt to acknowledge the mixed reactions to her image as a child star.

PEN15 is the weirder, funnier and completely un-sexy spiritual companion to Britney cradling that Teletubby, and the more soulful counterpart to "Not a Girl." It works because, amidst the delightful crudeness and silliness, its creators show a clear compassion for their younger selves, a compassion that is too often not extended to the Mayas, Annas or Britneys of the world.

'PEN15' Is Back, And Girlhood Is Still Painfully Awkward (2024)

FAQs

Were Anna and Maya actually friends growing up? ›

The last season, it's less so, but the first season was pretty autobiographical. The other thing is, me and Anna weren't friends in middle school. We didn't know each other. So, we're taking from our lives, but we were creating a new story out of that to join both mine and Anna's stories.

What is Maya diagnosed with PEN15? ›

Maya is diagnosed with ADD and Irlen syndrome. Very shortly after Anna's grandmother comes to live with them, she passes away. At the funeral service, Anna and Maya can't stop giggling. Maya finally meets Derrick.

Did Brandt actually like Maya? ›

The show picks up just two days after the events of the Season 1 finale, which included Maya and Anna being felt up by Maya's crush Brandt (Jonah Beres) in the janitor's closet at the fall dance. Brandt admitted he likes Maya, too, but warned her not to tell anyone.

Did they use body doubles in PEN15? ›

PEN15 Made Sure Everyone Felt Safe On The Set

Body doubles were used for romantic sequences. Body doubles were used for romantic sequences between Erskine and Konkle's characters and the kids in the series, and camera tricks were also used.

Why do Maya and Anna look so old in PEN15? ›

Erskine and Konkle are both 33 years old — an age that's a little too old, even in Hollywood, to be playing young teens. And although they're styled in middle-school-appropriate ways, the show makes absolutely no effort to conceal the actresses' ages; in fact, their adulthood is a key part of the show's quirky concept.

Why did PEN15 get cancelled? ›

The news emerged in a long profile of creators Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle in the New Yorker. The pair said that they always envisioned the series as three seasons but the pandemic – the show was forced to shut down production due to Covid19 – hastened the ending.

Is Maya in PEN15 half white? ›

Maya Ishii-Peters is one of the main characters of Pen15 on Hulu. She is the thirteen year old version of her actress, Maya Erskine in the 2000s. Family and background: Similar to the actress who plays her, Maya is born to an ethnic Japanese mother (played by her real life mother) and a Caucasian father.

What parts of PEN15 are true? ›

PEN15 is a reflection of their middle-school selves, and the creators' real friendship. However, Konkle and Erskine's friendship didn't begin in middle school. They met through mutual friends while as juniors studying experimental theater at NYU.

Did Maya end up with Sam in real life? ›

Of the budding relationship between the Maya and Sam characters, Konkle clarified that in real life Erskine and Zvibleman aren't in love. “So we added a lot of fiction into our experiences and tried to weave them together to create interesting dynamics.”

What does BSB stand for in PEN15? ›

While many middle schoolers are beyond cruel to Anna and Maya this season (the girls become known as BSB, which stands for Big Smelly Bush) the two do not necessarily do themselves any favors during their time in middle school.

Is that Maya Erskines real mom? ›

Is Ume Maya's sister? ›

Ume is Maya's childhood friend from Japan. Due to the language barrier between Ume and Maya, the girls have a a difficult time in understanding each other. To break the silence, Maya invites Anna over to meet Ume so they can all play together.

Were Maya and Anna actually friends in real life? ›

Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle don't just share names with the characters they portray on Hulu's PEN15, they also share the same close friendship in real life.

Does Maya wear a wig in PEN15? ›

Miller said they glued Maya's eyebrows down, and used concealer and contour to give her face a younger look. For her hair, Maya wore a wig, but Cilento said they strived to make the hair appear as natural as possible, which meant less combing, and a more natural fall to the bangs.

Were the girls in PEN15 friends in real life? ›

But the irony that the two went on to create “Pen15,” a show about middle school in which they play tween versions of themselves, is not lost on either of them. “It's totally wild,” Konkle says. “Maya and I are best friends in real life, and 'Pen15' started in our living room four years before it went to series.

Do Anna and Maya stay friends? ›

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the final season of Pen15. In the end, Maya and Anna's friendship survived seventh grade. Together, they navigated terrible haircuts, incredibly stressful AIM conversations, first boyfriends, divorce, loss, low-rise jeans, and so much more.

Are Maya's parents in PEN15 her real parents? ›

Maya Erskine based much of her dramedy series PEN15 on dynamics in her real family with parents Mutsuko and Peter Erskine.

Who is Maya's best friend in PEN15? ›

Anna Kone (Anna Konkle)

Maya's best friend, seventh-grader Anna Kone is equally unpopular.

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