PEN15 S1-2

PEN15 is an R-rated traumedy set in middle school as it really happened in the year 2000. Real-life 30-somethings Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine play versions of themselves as 13-year-old outcasts, surrounded by actual 13-year-olds. 

Season 2 is an even bigger hit than its Emmy-nominated first season, with a 93% rating on Metacritic, where it’s #1 on the top-scoring TV shows of 2020. Season 2 also has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where made #3 on their list of the best TV shows of 2020.

As The Washington Post put it, “If one has to choose only one millennial-made TV series that ventures into adolescent angst in the AOL era, please make it this one. PEN15… could be almost considered an act of communal therapy. In their unflinching and even brave willingness to re-enact the range of hair-trigger emotions that turn teenagers into the worst kind of people, Erskine and Konkle (along with co-creator Sam Zvibleman) are offering a kind of catharsis to the rest of us: Yes, you were as awful as you remember being, but guess what? You were in the throes of becoming you. PEN15 is both an exquisite wallow in hormonal chaos and a belated act of forgiveness.”

Stream the final episodes on Showmax – “It is bowing out at the peak of its powers,” says The Guardian, while AV Club says, “PEN15 leaves behind an indelible legacy in the genre.”