Society is getting more and more queer. As LGBTQ rights are slowly progressing around the world and more and more people are comfortable being their authentic selves, it's exciting to imagine a future where no one cares about labels and just lives and loves freely.
Hulu's sci-fi comedy Future Man gives us a glimpse of that future...with a post-apocalyptic twist.
Spoilers ahead...
For those who haven't seen Season 1 of the Seth Rogen produced comedy, Josh Hutcherson plays Josh Futturman, a janitor who lives at home with his parents and is obsessed with beating an unwinnable video game called Biotic Wars. When he finally defeats the game, Tiger and Wolf, Biotic Wars' two main characters, time-travel into his room and deem him their savior, the chosen one destined to help them defeat the real-life peril that's taken hold of the distant future.
Our heroes endure a series of time-traveling, dick-swapping, baby-killing hijinks in an attempt to prevent the apocalypse from ever coming to be. Without giving too much away, Season 2 brings Josh, Tiger, and Wolf back to a dramatically altered future; 2142 isn't the same reality that Tiger and Wolf left.
In Episode 3, "A Wolf in the Torque House," our heroes get separated and an injured Wolf is brought into the NAG (New Above Ground), where he's reintroduced to a life and community he has no memory of.
That's where we meet his cluster: the three women and two men Wolf is married to. They even have a daughter together! His five partners tell Wolf that his name is Torque and that he left the NAG two years ago to fight in a war and never returned.
Since Wolf/Torque remembers nothing, the cluster determines he has "sand brain" and collectively nurses him back to health.
One of his wives, Thimble, explains how their polyamorous cluster society came to be.
"For many years we could not have children, but life is a powerful force. Slowly we started having them again. They are our most precious resource so the cluster system was born. Six parents to every child. It started with seven but you can imagine the complications that brought with it. Seven!" she laughs. "We were so naive."
In the context of the show, the cluster at first seems like another gag to elicit laughs. But as the episode goes on, we watch them earnestly tend to one another and when Wolf/Torque heads off to work, they line up to kiss him goodbye. Wolf/Torque is shown so much love and acceptance by his cluster that he decides to stay in his altered reality and care for them. It's a surprisingly sweet narrative for an oftentimes-crude Seth Rogen comedy.
Then, of course, there's the sowing ceremony where they all orgy. And since Wolf/Torque unintentionally body-swapped his massive penis for a tiny one in Season 1, the cluster will surely realize that Wolf really isn't the Torque they thought they knew...
Future Man is streaming on Hulu now. Watch the Season 2 trailer in the video below!
