- Season 1- Episode 3 Best — Pen15

– No tidy resolution. Just Maya finally crying in her room, and Anna leaving a heartfelt voicemail. That’s it. That’s the healing.

6/6 PEN15 isn’t a comedy with sad moments. It’s a drama wearing a silly middle-school disguise. “Ojichan” proves it. PEN15 - Season 1- Episode 3

In the pantheon of coming-of-age television, few shows have managed to capture the specific, cringe-inducing agony of early adolescence quite like Hulu’s PEN15 . Co-created by and starring Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, the series places two thirty-something women into a world of actual thirteen-year-olds, creating a jarring yet deeply empathetic portal into the year 2000. While the pilot establishes this high-concept premise, and subsequent episodes tackle first loves and family drama, it is , titled "Mirror," that truly cements the show’s reputation as a masterclass in uncomfortable honesty. – No tidy resolution

Posh is not the funniest episode of PEN15 (that honor likely goes to the Solo episode or Ojichan ), but it is arguably the most episode of the first season. Whether you were the Maya (aggressively fighting for a seat at the table) or the Anna (quietly dying inside while your friend makes it worse), you will see your 13-year-old self in this half hour of television. That’s the healing

5/6 No one saves the day. Maya just… cries. And Anna leaves a message. And that’s enough.

The silence that follows—Maya staring in disbelief, Anna sweating through her Limited Too t-shirt—is funnier and more tragic than any scripted punchline. It is a universal truth: calling a crush’s house phone was the original Dark Souls boss.

2/6 The way Maya replays her dead grandfather’s voicemail — “Ojichan loves you” — is maybe the most devastating 10 seconds of TV that year.