Everyone has a different sexual awakening.
Some find themselves surprisingly attracted to an animated character in childhood cartoons, like Jasmine in Aladdin or the titular Robin Hood. Others are drawn to the alluring doctors of Grey’s Anatomy or Orlando Bloom in The Lord of the Rings.
For Benny (Benito Skinner) in Amazon’s Overcompensating, it was Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle. As a kid, he found himself mesmerized by Fraser swinging on a vine in a loincloth, rewinding the scene over and over again. That memory is still imprinted in Benny (now college age) as he heads to university, and it ends up playing a key role in his first—hilarious and steamy—sexual experience.
Benny has suspected he’s gay for a long time, but it’s something he’s actively repressed. He presents himself as masculine as possible, constantly working out and playing football in high school. He’s never really known what he wants since he’s spent so much of his life ignoring his true feelings. When he arrives at university in the series’ first episode, he’s stunned by the school’s frat bros’ intense and aggressive insistence that he hook up with someone as soon as possible.
“Tonight, you f—” he tells himself in the mirror, hyping himself up. Carmen (Wally Baram), a fellow freshman at the fictional Yates University, gives herself a similar pep talk.
The two form an immediate friendship at orientation on their first day. Naturally, since one is male and the other is female, everyone around them assumes they’re going to have sex. Carmen’s new roommate says she needs to hookup on night one, lest she wind up a “sad, lonely freak.” While Carmen is attracted to Benny, the feeling isn’t exactly mutual—he’s lusting after a mysterious boy he saw on campus (complete with traditional rom-com slow-motion and a less traditional Charli XCX needle drop), finding himself lovestruck.
Overcompensating is a show all about how we present ourselves; how our desire to be perceived one way can conflict with reality. Benny is gay, but he wants so badly to be straight and to be seen as straight that he overcompensates, calculating the way he speaks, moves, and acts. It’s a carefully constructed performance, and one he succeeded with in high school. But his university experience brings a whole new level of stakes. He’ll need to take things to the next level (aka a sexual relationship with a woman) if he wants to keep up the facade.
With Carmen, Benny has his shot: the two head back to his dorm room after a quick makeout at a party. When they come up for air, Carmen sees her roommate mimic oral sex, while Benny sees someone tapping his wrist, suggesting he’s got to “tap it” if he knows what’s good for him. Feeling that good old-fashioned peer pressure, the pair head back to Benny’s to get it on. He sees the boy again as they make their way back to his dorm.
At Benny’s, they start undressing. Performing peak masculinity, Benny says “look at those t–s” in an especially husky tone, comically grabbing at her breasts as if they’re watermelons at the grocery store. Somewhat alarmed by Benny’s unnatural fondling, Carmen responds with the same line, grabbing Benny’s chest. She then tries to get Benny erect, which doesn’t work. She asks if everything’s OK, and he hurries off to the bathroom, desperate to get aroused so he can do the deed.
Struggling to raise his mast, so to speak, he imagines Carmen goading him with lines like “I believe in you” and “Come on, Benny, get hard!” That doesn’t work.
Frustrated, he then has a vision of himself performing cringe-inducing improv comedy—allegedly a sign that he has failed and is doomed to be sexless. But then, Benny thinks of George of the Jungle, and things heat up.
In this fantasy, it’s not Brendan Fraser swinging on a vine, but the boy from campus, shirtless and loinclothed. Cutting between this visual is Benny j—ing off in the bathroom, getting progressively more turned on. We see Benny and the guy swinging together, then just the guy, reaching his hand down his loincloth—and Benny has achieved his erection. Amusingly, Benny doesn’t imagine them having sex, a clever move from the writers, as Benny has spent so much time repressing his true feelings that he has no idea what sex with a man would even be like.
Benny returns, hard and ready for action. Carmen starts to fellate him, but his roommate comes crashing through the door, knocking them both to the ground mid-act, ending their tryst before it can get going. “I broke my penis,” Benny says. “I got a tonsillectomy,” Carmen responds. One thing’s abundantly clear: while Carmen and Benny won’t work as a romantic couple, their fate as great friends is all but sealed. All it took was a sloppy, hilarious, and deeply ill-advised attempt at fornication.
There’s a real sweetness to the vulgarity of Overcompensating. Benny and Carmen are extremely keen to have sex, but they’re also in the process of finding themselves. It’s touching to watch these two explore that complicated dichotomy in such refreshing, messy fashion.
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