It gently reminds adults that you don’t have to constantly move forward in life or be a better version of yourself, writes journalist Henna Koste.
Arttu (Elias Salonen) and Oona (Anna Airola) are the central characters of the series. Yellow Film & TV/General
The third and final season of the series Aikuiset was released on Monday at Yle Areena. As much as I’ve been waiting for the new season, I’m not sure if I can finish watching it.
I devoured the first two seasons when freelance life took its toll and I took long sick leave due to burnout. When I got to the end of the second season, I started the series all over again. I’m bad at giving up and the rest is unnerving.
I invited Friends hypocritically my favorite series for years, even though I have never watched the last episode of the series. The same happened A new day with. I appreciate that the series ends at the top, but at the same time it sparkles especially hard.
Adults have brought enormous peer support to my life and put my problems in perspective – a bit like meme accounts dedicated to life control or the lack of it, but to the power of a hundred.
Adults present a detailed and accurate picture of the times. Like many millennials, I recognize myself in the series in so many places that I don’t know if it’s already embarrassing or flattering. Maybe flattering.
For example, in the third season Arttu (Elias Salonen), the second main character of the series, raises “HS Vision’s compulsion to succeed” as problematic – stories about start-up jerks who “have had three burnouts in less than two years, but got over the fatigue by stopping sleeping completely and moving to an eight-day work week”.
I have even been asked to be interviewed by Helsingin Sanamo about my impulsive spending, which means that I spend my money on helium balloons or buy a cone cake for lunch at work. At the age of 31, I haven’t invested a cent. As the series progresses, I find myself relating to my abysmal financial management – if not with pride, then with great empathy. It’s OK.
The characters in the comedy series are extreme, but just right. One if the other has something familiar. One of the most delicious characters, the born successful, lovably burdensome Yola (Aksa Korttila) is like my manifested friend, but she doesn’t need to know it.
Oona and Arttu are inseparable friends. Yellow Film & TV/General
It has been enjoyable to watch Oona and Artu exchange ideas about everything that I myself talk about with my friends: we dream of driving school, we waste our money on chilled takeout, we spend endless time thinking about what the other person wants to communicate with their emoji choices, and the fish picture of the interesting Tinder guy is certainly ironic. And if it isn’t, does it matter?
The most apt description I’ve heard of Akuis is that “it’s like an inside joke that opens up to everyone”. At least for a lot of people.
I live at a stage in my life where half of my friends are living in the single-family house they built with their children, and half are anxious even at the thought of a full-time job – let alone owning an apartment.
Adults gently remind you that you don’t have to constantly move forward in life or be a better version of yourself. Instead, you don’t always have to know what you want, and you can also take steps “backwards”.
Scriptwriter Anna Brotkin and other creators of the series have emphasized at the beginning of the third season that the important message of the series is that “you don’t have to manage in life alone”.
The great popularity of the series also strongly signals that we are definitely not alone with our small and big challenges and all our wonderful confusion.
So that I don’t forget this, maybe I need to watch the third season to the end. I can go back to the beginning.
The third season of the adults can be watched at Yle Areena. See all TV programs and broadcast times in Telku’s TV guide.