Rachel Marsh’s Carly in FX’s messy twenty-somethings in the big city soon-to-be-classic Adults — spoiler alert! — may not be the best singer (and she may be half American IRL) but she’s capital F Filipino in a lot of ways. She’s a focused, stable dentistry student (any Asian parent’s dream), a lolo’s girl, and she loves chismis, er, stating facts out in public (remember when she was high-key talking about Issa to a stranger in what would have been her civil wedding? Groundbreaking work, really).
Carly, with a Y lest we forget, first appeared in the pilot episode as Samir tries to prove to himself that he’s not like other guys by checking whether he has — like most clueless guys who do half the time per a study — crossed the line in his past relationships. We knew she was one of the weird little guys when she told Samir, “I mean, you did sexually harass me HAHA” (obviously kidding). But it was in Season 1 Episode 7 when we got a better understanding of why their relationship works: she crazy. Flattening out your shit with a straightener so it would not clog the toilet? Low-key genius, but also a relationship brown flag. “I ruined our trip with my shit,” would have ended things with Samir but instead he said, “No, you’re amazing.”
We fully get a glimpse of that “amazingness” when she decides, deep into dentistry school, that she wants to get into music. And props to her, she already had a single, a made-for-TV pop song that will go down in history as one of the best made-up bops right there with “A Little Bit Alexis.” Had “Hiccups” (Body Go Crazy) debuted during brat summer, her auto-tune attempt wouldn’t have been a big issue. Or! Imagine if it was released at the same time as KPop Demon Hunters? Would have been a hit with the kids. Representation matters! No, actually, Carly’s debut single — for those without a vision to see it through — is aligned with the pop girlies’ ongoing attempt to break genre barriers. “Rap, and pop, and rock and roll, all the genres light my soul”? Miley, Charli, eat your hearts out!
And while the rest of the world never got to hear “Hiccups” (Body Go Crazy) after Samir persuades Carly to think it over, we get our sweet, self-aware girl, who realizes that she was just tired of living an ordinary life, back. But you can’t fault a girl for dreaming, right?
Season 2 finale only solidified our theory that girl has range. The girl do go crazy, yes, but she’s also a voice of reason. When Samir offers to join her in Seattle for her residency so they won’t have to do long-distance, which another V of R, Julia Fox, warned them against, Carly tells him, “Sam, you can’t just move. Your entire life is here.” So, she instead (another spoiler alert) breaks up with him. And I get it. Yeah, she loves the relationship and she doesn’t want to have a reason not to, but I just know girl is about to lock in on dentistry residency because, as her ex-boyfriend said, it’s competitive. Girl’s got goals.
Carly, you tiny, sweet girl with perfect teeth, you will be missed, and your work to make Samir realize he’s not a little bitch boy but someone who’s good at being a boyfriend will not be in vain. Go let your F-word (Filipina) flag fly in Seattle.
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