If there is one pursuit that captures the American Dream, it’s “How do we become better than our parents?” The question was bandied about a bit on Tuesday night’s episode of Underemployed, MTV’s new comedy about five implausibly attractive twentysomethings with dreams that won’t be deterred by any Great Recession. Judging by the show, you become better than Ma and Pa by accepting the gays, resisting the urge to clean your new room, and trying out communal parenting.
It’s been two or three days since Raviva gave birth to Rosemary in the show’s premiere, and it’s time for them to move out of the hospital and in with “baby daddy” Lou. The fun-loving crew careers around the hospital, packing and playing, and into Lou and Miles’s criminally spacious loft at Grand and the river. They may not have great careers just yet, but they’re proud they stick together through thick and thin. “Did our parents have friends like this?” one asks. “No, not like this,” says another, perhaps underestimating the earlier generation’s ability to bond over illegitimate children. A pact is advanced, “the ultimate Bat Signal”: whenever one friend calls it in, the others will drop whatever they’re doing and help, no matter what. Well, as Chekhov once said, when you hang a loaded Bat Signal on the wall in the first act . . .