"Y: The Last Man" Season 1 Review [Mild Spoilers]

The show blasts through the virus apocalypse part implausibly fast: a single day in the first episode. But that's fine, to quickly establish the show's axiomatic question: what if all the men in the world suddenly die?! 

... Except for one privileged slacker and his capuchin monkey. Which is perhaps a link to "Outbreak" [1995] which also featured a capuchin. "12 Monkeys" [1995] depicted a post viral apocalypse, but doesn't really feature any particular monkey, ironically.

[My collage] Y: The Last Man promo material also echoes some visual themes from virus movies.

Anyway, more specifically, it's everyone with a Y chromosome who dies. So, refreshingly, we see plenty of trans men, including a central character. There's a recurring theme around the flip in how male-presenting individuals are perceived, but new issues for them. Having an overwhelmingly female cast is also fantastic, interesting and pretty much unique. Perhaps on par with "Orange is the New Black"?

It excels in doing what I loved "The Walking Dead" for: exploring fundamental social psychology, once social niceties and norms get stripped away. But with a focus on varied and opposed female perspectives, feminism and what that can mean to different women. Such ideals get subverted, in one of the scenarios, with anger against men stoked and exploited to control a group. Showing how the fiercest anti-man agenda can be as manipulative and damaging as any patriarchal hegemony.

[My screenshot from the show] Here comes trouble...

That there's still violence, unrest and military actions without men around, makes sense. As well as giving action excitement for viewers. But given that women are majorly under-represented in the military and police (which they explore), I'd maybe have liked to see more explicit focus on the job roles that did survive well. E.g. strong female demographics health care. Which we do also see a few instances of, to be fair. 

Of course, if power is down, hence internet, telecoms and logistics too, then hospitals aren't going to be worth much for long. There's only second hand mention of situations there. I'm doubtful that mobile phone infrastructure would have died quite so immediately. Again, I guess that's in aid of getting a quick start. The power stations going down is covered a little; a potential engineer only talked to about it by telephone conference, but then we never see the outcome of what happens there.

I picked up this series after a Twitter reply citing it as an example of fiction dealing with issues of societal collapse stemming from depopulation. I had posited that Thanos snapping 1/2 the population away (for 5 years) would likely cause far worst than the rubbish we see piling up in the background of "Avengers: Endgame". Many abandoned cities, for a start. But beyond the initial 'adjustment period' calamity, if things stabilised, I'd still expect technological regression, as I said:

"Y" is technically only streaming on Disney+ in the UK, FX on Hulu in the US. Very sadly it's reported to have been cancelled before the last episode even aired. Talking about it's long and troubled road to screen adaptation, which started in 2005, with the lead male leaving and such. It was originally a comic book series, which ran from 2002 to 2008.

Which is interesting, just how different the political landscape was back then, in the Bush Jr presidential era. I'm not sure how much script needed totally overhauling, to make sense post Tea Party, let alone post-Trump; the republican president (who doesn't get much screen time before dying) seemed very tame, sane and competent, by contemporary standards. His one female government member is apparently somewhat more full fat GOP, though.

They do explore how, in a crisis, there are further social forces tearing at what little order remains. Which has a bit of a spooky echo for the anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-vax, etc, movements exacerbating the pandemic troubles, in the the West and US especially. Not to mention insurrection at the capitol a year ago. 

I'm not sure how the politics in this show plays for republican voting audience members... Maybe that was part of the issue with the show being cancelled. I mean, the characters on that side are somewhat limited in number; the remaining establishment ends up being heavily democrat. Given women skew left/progressive at the ballot box and there are generally far fewer female politicians on the right. 

The daughter of the president is isolated, in terms of those remaining in authority roles, though with a lot of extras behind her at one point. She's a sympathetic character, in some ways - personally supportive when it comes to important issues. She's explicitly man loving and focused on the reproductive survival of humanity. As a priority not to be ignored entirely in favour of the immediate demands of the humanitarian crisis. Kinda sensible. Although they have their work cut out for them, given that *all* animals with a Y chromosome are apparently doomed, too. Something that's almost not even mentioned, amid all the human strife; no idea what's been going on on farms, etc. Gonna be pretty grim.

Anyway. the character arcs are interesting. With son (Yorick) and daughter (Hero), of the female Senator (Jennifer Brown), going their different ways; their personal realities diverging. The journey to explore the science (fiction) behind the virus kind of gets diverted too. Which is fine, as that's not really the point of the show and the intrigue behind Agent 355 isn't the vitally compelling; I was more interested in where the characters were going, than the sci-fi machinations.

The core characters certainly grow, as those on the road get to know each other. In particular, there's a heart-warming, slow-burning unlikely romance, that I genuinely didn't see coming. So overall, a big recommendation from me (if you can get access to it). Even if we're unlikely to see the plot continued  on screen any time soon...