Generation season 1, episode 1-3 recap: A lighter, funnier take on HBO's typical teen drama

HBO is back again with more shows about teenage anxiety. While Euphoria is in hibernation between seasons, Generation is here to pick up the slack on HBO Max. Sex, drugs, awkward encounters, and thwarted crushes all abound in the new streaming series, but where Euphoria was particularly stylized and grim, Generation is much more lighthearted. Sure, it's dealing with heavy topics here and there, but more often than not, it's doing so in a very knowing way. There's a sense of humor here that goes a long way to making the show an enjoyable watch. HBO Max dropped the first three episodes at once, so let's dig into them.

Episode 1: "Pilot"

Meet Chester (Justice Smtih). He's queer and confident and not afraid to stand up to school authority. We're introduced to him showing up to high school wearing a colorful crop top that exposes his chiseled abs. He walks right up to the principal, pulls down his stylish sunglasses, and gives him a look.

Cut to Chester getting his third dress code violation of the young school year, which means it's time to see the guidance counselor to ensure that he understands the consequences of his actions. Gone is the old, crusty counselor. Now in the office is a young, cool Black man named Sam (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), whom Chester immediately connects to. The dynamic is obvious right off the bat. Sam will be the hip, "real" type of counselor, and Chester will slowly learn to show the vulnerable side of himself that's hidden behind all the confident flamboyance.

The pilot episode breaks up its stories into three interweaving threads, all culminating at a party. We start with Chester and learn that he's a varsity polo player and his GPA is off the charts, so dress code violations don't bother him. In his downtime, he goes "roof topping," sitting high above the city on the roof of a hotel. He sends a picture from the roof to Sam with the message "this is what lonely looks like," a reference to Sam's story about his time living in Tokyo.

Uly Schlesinger, Justice Smith, and Chase Sui Wonders on 'Generation.'. Jennifer Clasen / HBO Max

That picture alarms Sam. He calls Chester, who's already at Riley's party, and tells him to see him Monday morning. Chester insists the picture was meant to be beautiful, not a threat of suicide, but Sam still wants to be sure. At the party, Riley introduces Chester to Nathan (Uly Schlesinger), hoping that they'll hit it off and romance sparks. But Nathan is having "the worst day of his life," as we'll see later in the episode.

We jump to Greta's story. She's staring at her body in the mirror, and we can imagine her inner monologue of shame and doubt and insecurity. She's getting ready for the party, especially excited because she has a crush on Riley (Chase Sui Wonders). Things at home aren't great — her mother is no longer around (we don't know why yet), and the aunt she lives with seems to have too much going on to truly be a parent — but at least she has these feelings that make her feel alive. When she brushes hands with Riley at the party, it's enough to make everything else fall away.

That brings us, then, to Nathan. We first meet him while, um, pleasuring himself to porn, his Airpods blocking out the arguing between his father and sister, Naomi (Chloe East), in the background. Nathan's family is something else. They live in a pristine, clean house, and everything is super organized. They're the type of family with a plethora of family photos where everyone is in coordinated outfits. There's a huge calendar on their kitchen wall that Nathan's mother keeps updated with all sorts of colored labels. Everything is predictable and in order. Nathan and his sister Naomi can't help but laugh at and be appalled by the fact that even their parent's sex life is part of the schedule.

So why is Nathan having the worst day of his life by the time he meets Chester at the party? Because he's hooked up with his sister's boyfriend Jack. In this instance, "hooking up" is sending dick pics and making out in a bathroom at the party, which leads to an unfortunate incident with premature ejaculation. Nathan feels terrible. Partly because it's his sister's boyfriend, and partly because he's keeping his bisexuality a secret from her, and typically they share everything.

By the end of the first episode, Chester, Nathan, and Greta are all gathered on the couch for a picture taken by Riley. Our main characters established, the haziness of the picture capturing the uncertainty of what's to come for them.

Episode 2: "Dickscovery"

Generation is playing with time in its first few installments. Every episode begins with a short scene involving Naomi at a mall, where one of her friends is locked in a bathroom and seemingly giving birth. Like Better Call Saul's Cinnabon teases, these scenes are incomplete and mysterious, leading to something bigger later in the season.

But that's for later, as the episode flashes back 3 months to the days after the party from the pilot. It's club signup day at school, and absolutely no one is excited. Nathan is worried about Jack telling Naomi about their hookup, and also wondering if he should maybe tell her about it himself. Greta is agonizing over DMs she sent to her crush Riley, filled with typos and accidental sexual innuendos. And yet, school life must go on and clubs must be signed up for!

Alas, Club Day is interrupted by an all-too-familiar issue: a school lockdown because of a potential shooter. The episode never really gets into any sort of serious territory with this. It never feels threatening or dramatic, but rather just another non-threatening but still emotionally traumatic lockdown that teens these days have to deal with. It forces the characters into a confined space, which allows for some necessary character development.

So, we learn that Chester's mom died from cancer and that his grandma takes care of him. We see Riley regretting being angry with her mom that morning, now that she's faced with this potentially deadly situation. We get Greta comforting her in a way that her mom used to do with her when she was anxious. Oh, and we get Naomi meeting Jack in the bathroom during the lockdown so that she can finally take the sexual leap she's been wanting to with him, only for her to recognize a birthmark on his waist from the dick pic that he sent to her brother. Not great!

None of this is particularly deep or engaging just yet, but it does at least feel like necessary character-building that will hopefully lead to more substantial revelations as the season progresses.

Episode 3: "Toasted"

In the third episode, we learn a little more from the "giving birth in the bathroom" cold opens. Arianna, the "mean girl" of the group who uses the fact that she has gay dads as cover for the offensive things she spits out ("my comedy is edgy," she says), is now at the mall helping Riley, where we're introduced to the shocked teenage mother-to-be, Delilah (Lukita Maxwell). Arianna comes running with an inflatable pool for Delilah to give birth in, but it's looking like that plan isn't going to work.

Anyways, back we go, now 10 weeks before the bathroom birth, and two weeks after the party. Naomi and Nathan's older sister, Natalia (their mom is absolutely the type of woman who'd make sure all her kid's names start with the same letter), is getting married, and this weekend is the rehearsal dinner. The kids have a toast planned, forced on them by their mother, and they're mostly dreading the whole day because they still haven't mended things since Nathan hooked up with Naomi's boyfriend.

It's interesting to watch these first three episodes all in a row, as they come to HBO Max on the same day. It reveals a lot about the show, and not necessarily in a good way. In essence, things are definitely happening in each episode, there are moments, but I'm not sure what it all is meant to amount to. These episodes feel unfortunately dull despite all the sex and cringeowrthy moments. There's a lot to take in here, when some subtlety could go a long way.

So, with "Toasted," we have a few moments. There's Greta getting high for the first time in an aquarium along with Riley and Chester. There's Greta's continued longing for Riley and yet another quiet, slow-motion moment shared in the aquarium bathroom. There's Nathan and Arianna kissing, and of course, an accidental coming out when Nathan, high at the time, tries to apologize to Naomi during his speech and lets it slip that he's bisexual, much to the dismay and disgust of his family.

These are all big, theatrical moments that border on the absurd, and perhaps the idea is to capture the rawness and outsized feelings of being a teenager. But more often than not in these first few episodes, it feels like the show is rolling out big moments while ignoring more subtle, inward-looking opportunities, and steering clear of any real dive into what's motivating these teens and how they're really feeling.

I hope that the accelerated release schedule (two more episodes will drop next week, two more the week after that, and then a single episode finale) manages to push the storytelling problems to the side and help the show find its footing because there is interesting stuff here. There's the sense of this being a very conservative town, that these kids are struggling to find their identities within this oppressive, "traditional" society, but a lot of that is still just background dressing rather than a motivating factor for character decisions. Here's hoping that next week's two episodes give us something more to chew on!

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