College is a time of reinvention. But the pressure to immediately fit in and find your place as a freshman can be intense. Who are you when you’re away from home for the first time? Are you seen as “cool” enough to make equally cool new friends and attract the “right” sort of romantic attention? These issues come to the fore, amid boozy parties, sloppy hookups and bad judgment, in the lightly raunchy Amazon comedy “Overcompensating.”
Benny (charmingly played by show creator Benito Skinner) is the one-time homecoming king and former jock who is deathly afraid people will clock that he likes guys. Carmen (Wally Baram, who is funny, but maybe more importantly a grounding presence in the series) is the girl he meets and becomes fast friends with. Together, they navigate the choppy waters of their first semester of college.
Are you a virgin or are you blasé about going all the way? The stakes are blatantly stupid — who cares? — but pressing nevertheless for both Benny and Carmen. They feel like outcasts but are desperate to fake it until they make it, and they do a halfway decent job of it at first. Being attractive goes a long way in life. Upon their arrival at the dorms, they’re greeted with the realization that newcomers are deemed either sexually confident players or hopeless virgins and therefore social pariahs banished to the campus improv troupe. (Listen, sitting through bad improv can be excruciating, but some of those kids are going to be working in Hollywood one day. Just saying.)
Benny’s roommate tends to be missing in action (only to pop in an inopportune moments, but he’s otherwise a neutral presence) whereas Carmen’s roommate is an over-the-top, very funny creature played by the comedian known as Holmes, and she’s a caricature of a vapid girl with a wonderfully studied sense of style; her manicure includes tiny little pompoms glued to the nail of each ring finger. Holmes throws herself into the role so enthusiastically, it’s hard not to see the humor in it.
Like “The Sex Lives of College Girls” on HBO Max, “Overcompensating” features an assemblage of actors far removed from their college years who are playing college-age characters. It’s fine. I just wish the show was a smidge funnier. It includes many cameos by famous faces: James Van Der Beek, Connie Britton, Kyle MacLachlan and Bowen Yang.
Benny spends the first few weeks of school fighting back flop sweat, as he does everything in his power to remain in the closet. He inevitably fumbles in his attempts to say and do the “right” things. That doesn’t fully track. He spent his entire high school career pretending to be straight, why would he suddenly forget how to play that role in college? It makes sense that he wouldn’t want to. Or is exhausted by the charade. But the skill set would be there.
He ends up pledging an elite secret society on campus — filled with future finance bros and status-obsessed socialites — and it’s a process that involves a certain amount of homoerotic hazing, which is both ironic but also underscores that toxic masculinity is bad for everyone, including straight guys! Carmen is approached to join as well, but has the self-confidence to see it for what it is: A club for losers.
You’d think, with a bestie who can see through the bull, that this would give Benny a certain amount of self-confidence himself. But he’s so used to living a lie that he ends up lying to her just out of habit. That’s not a great way to build a real friendship. Meanwhile, his older sister goes to the same college (the wonderfully snooty Mary Beth Barone) and her trials and tribulations with her jerk of a boyfriend — who is, of course, a key member of the secret society (played by Adam DiMarco) — offer a worthwhile counterpoint to Benny’s angst: You don’t necessarily have to be struggling to accept your sexuality to be living a lie.
The finale ends not so much on a cliffhanger but an uncertain note that all but telegraphs “to be continued …” That’s a shame, because it undermines the season as a whole, which (even if the show does get renewed) should feel like a complete story. This is terrible trend in serialized television and I don’t know if it is dictated by streaming executives or just something show creators think is a compelling way to keep audiences coming back. But it’s a cheap and frankly pathetic tactic. And it’s done terrible things to the storytelling on many shows. It takes real skill to give audiences a sense of resolution while leaving room for more to come. That’s missing all too often right now.
At 18, Benny doesn’t know who he wants to be just yet, or if people will even accept him for who he is. At some point, though, his nervousness about being outed becomes repetitive. Of course he would feel this constantly. But narratively, the story needs to progress more (and faster) than it does early in the eight-episode season. Still, Benny’s struggles are emotionally poignant, and once Carmen figures out his secret, the show is able to go to some interesting places.
“Overcompensating” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Amazon
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
