Eliza Clark, showrunner on Y The Last Man, this morning announced via Twitter that Hulu won't be buying a second season.

She has expressed hope that the show might continue with another provider.

This news is disappointing because it's a great show but not really surprising because it swims in some very divisive political waters.

Obviously with an entirely female cast, mostly female led production staff, strong trans representation and non-traditional commentaries on gender, Y isn't likely to appeal to social conservatives.

But that doesn't mean that all progressives and lefties will love it.

Why Wouldn't People Like Y?

Let's look at the most upvoted reply to Eliza's announcement. It aptly illustrates the problem:

I really wanted to like this show. It could have really shined with story archs featuring women who step up, come together when faced with obstacles and rebuild. Instead, it focused on making a statement that society would crumble into complete dystopia & insanity without men.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the show's premise - everything with a Y chromosome (not just humans) on Earth dies almost simultaneously. Cause unknown. Except for one man and his monkey.

Given that presently men occupy most of the senior positions in US government, the result is that a lot of women have to step up, come together and begin to rebuild. This a major component of the show.

Society doesn't crumble into complete dystopia. Possibly some women would just break into spontaneous celebration if all men suddenly died but realistically society would be disrupted. The show portrays disruption.

Insanity?

Well yes we do see some but it was pre-existing insanity. One character is a man-hater, resulting from abusive treatment. After all the men die she forms her own tribe and weaves her insanity into their customs and rules, including hatred of men.

What about male viewers?

Y The Last Men doesn't commit or promote man-hating but that is a real thing and it's possible that many men might look at the show's premise, trans representation and female leadership and arrive at the wrong conclusion. Then not even give the show a look.

Why Would Reviewers Not Like Y?

On average, reviewers are rating this show as mediocre. That might not be fair.

Let's look at a few reviews from the first page of google search results. The Guardian:

There is much to say about the protagonist of Y: The Last Man (Disney+ in the UK), had we but time and space. For the sake of practicality, let us confine commentary to this: having a whining slacker manbaby as the sole surviving male after a mysterious plague wipes out the rest of XY humanity and upon whom the future of everything depends feels … yeah, about right. Why not get this last undeserved heap of attention, resources and every other goddamned thing shovelled at your emblematically incompetent ass?

Granted, he's not an over achiever but everything is else the reviewer projecting their own politics onto the character.

He neither wants nor can afford attention. His mother steps into the role of president and before she learns of his survival her political enemies begin circulating lies that the government and she were complicit in the cataclysm. If the public knew that her son was the sole male survivor it would not only endanger herself and her son but could end stable government in the US. Reference is made to a foreign government having been overthrown by angry protesters.

Prior to being found and returned to his mother - briefly - he and his monkey just wandered around surviving. Afterwards his mother devotes a single agent to protecting and secretly transporting him to a scientist.

So he can be a guinea pig. To determine the cause of the cataclysm and why he survived. Not to enjoy having things shovelled at his emblematically incompetent ass.

Vulture ends their review with:

The show has so far proven to be a complex, engaging, and even thrilling work of adaptation. But if the writers and artists bringing it to life can’t properly grapple with the questions they seek to illuminate or push its visual dimensions further, the series won’t touch the hem of greatness within its reach.

Certainly less hostile than the manbaby review. This review is generally more accurate and insightful.

But their critiques read as if they're treating the show as a university video essay on gender politics and judging it according to those standards.

It isn't.

It's mainstream entertainment and the success of its treatment of gender politics doesn't lie in its excruciatingly detailed analysis but rather in its ability to help viewers - whose intelligence and knowledge of gender politics varies widely - to see and think about gender differently.

Occasionally with explicit commentary but more often just in how the story unfolds, Y The Last Man challenges commonly held beliefs about gender.

Also they touch on but arguably misrepresent one potentially extremely divisive moment:

Among them is Yorick’s sister, Hero (a cutting Olivia Thirlby). In the world before, she was an EMT in a complicated relationship with her married boss, a man she accidentally kills in the heat of an argument. Using the gender apocalypse to hide her crime, she finds herself on the road with her all-too-kind friend, Sam (Elliot Fletcher), who struggles mightily as a trans man in places that require him to constantly explain who he is.

She wilfully, physically attacked him.

During that assault she unintentionally killed him.

Many viewers would unthinkingly dismiss her hitting and throwing things at him as fine because of their respective genders and him being bigger than her.

But this is domestic violence and death with a male victim and female perpetrator.

[ Main Image: Ben Schnetzer as Yorick Brown. Credit: FX Networks via IMDB. ]

References

Bastien, Anjelica (September 23, 2021). The Handsome Tragedies of Y: The Last Man. Vulture.

Clark, Eliza [@TheElizaClark] (October 18, 2021). My statement on Y: THE LAST MAN and Season 2. Twitter.

Mangan, Lucy (September 22, 2021). Y: The Last Man review – a stale, male manbaby mess. The Guardian.

True, Taryn [@taryn_true] (October 18, 2021). I really wanted to like this show. Twitter.