Y: The Last Man drops on Binge with triple episode premiere

Try to imagine what the world would look like without men … That’s the basis of a brand new post-apocalyptic TV series which just landed on streaming.

After many, many years in the works, Y: The Last Man has finally hit streaming.

The series, based on the beloved DC graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra, has been in development for what seems like an eternity.

Now, after false starts, shifting showrunners, and recasting, it’s just landed on Binge in Australia with a triple episode premiere.

Y: The Last Man tells the story of what would happen if in an instant, every male mammal on Earth dropped dead.

We watch an unlikely senator, Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane), rise to power as president, supply lines dry up, and trauma abound. However, there is one miracle in all this chaos.

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Diane Lane fronts Y: The Last Man.

One young man named Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer) — he’s the new President’s son — survives the nightmare and he, along with his pet monkey Ampersand, embark on a dangerous odyssey.

Also along for the adventure are a mysterious secret agent code named 355 (Ashley Romans) and Yorick’s sister, Hero (Olivia Thirby), who is embarking on her own dramatic journey.

Gender politics were different when Vaughn and Guerra started Y: The Last Man back in 2002 and showrunner Eliza “Eli” Clark said one thing she wanted to do was have more gender diversity in the series.

Clark emphasised that in this version, the mass deaths wouldn’t break along the male/female gender binary. Instead, every mammal with a Y chromosome, including transwomen, gender nonbinary folks, and even some cisgender women, would be affected.

“Yorick’s maleness is not what sets him apart,” Clark explained at the Summer 2021 virtual TCA tour last month. “It’s his Y chromosome.”

Later she affirmed that “gender is diverse and chromosomes are not equal to gender.”

Clark said that “in the world of the television show, every living mammal with a Y chromosome dies tragically. That includes many women. It includes non-binary people. It includes intersex people. That’s also true of survivors.”

Y: The Last Man is streaming on Binge.

One of those survivors — who is not Yorick — is also a man. Actor Elliot Fletcher plays Sam, a transgender male friend of Yorick’s sister Hero who undergoes his own adventure in this post-apocalyptic world.

Fletcher was asked how he personally dealt with the gender binary implicit in the story’s DNA.

“I was greatly reassured that everyone had the best intentions and wanted to do the right thing,” Fletcher said. “Just to echo something Eli said earlier, it is made so clear immediately that chromosomes don’t equal gender and I think everyone who worked on this show understands that. But I understand how difficult it can be to receive that material and it was definitely something I had to ponder.”

Y: The Last Man star Diana Bang also explained that there is a scene where her character, Dr. Allison Mann, explains to Yorick that “she tries to make it clear to him that her sole interest isn’t about bringing back cisgender men. It’s actually about bringing back all diversity back into the world. And that obviously includes transgender women, non-binary people, and people with intersex traits.”

But the show isn’t just making that change from the graphic novel. Amber Tamblyn plays Kimberley Cunningham, the former President’s daughter, whom Tamblyn described as a “conservative.”

“She is a woman who cares deeply about family values and her entire identity is carried through her relationship through and with men. Through her husband and her three sons, her father, who is President of the United States,” Tamblyn said. “And obviously, given the circumstances of the show, all of those people die in the pilot.”

Lane has been attached to the Y: The Last Man adaptation for longer than almost anyone else involved, and she was asked how this final version compared to earlier iterations from different showrunners.

She said Clark’s take on the source material was so good, the other versions were “blown away.”

This story originally appeared on Decider and has been reproduced here with permission

Originally published as Y: The Last Man drops on Binge with triple episode premiere