Television has no shortage of shows that could plausibly be called YOUTH, most of them stocked with casts in their teens and twenties chasing the chaos of early adulthood. One such show is literally titled ADULTS, its joke being that its postcollegiate characters are anything but grown up. So when HBO’s actual YOUTH arrived on September 20th, centered on a divorced fifty-year-old squeezed between a college-aged son and aging parents, you might expect a similarly ironic title. You’d be wrong.

As with everything Sharon Horgan touches, and this Irish comedy powerhouse has touched plenty, from CATASTROPHE to BAD SISTERS, the wry humor in the title is a Trojan horse for something far more emotionally layered. YOUTH isn’t a joke about a woman clinging to a title that no longer fits her. It’s a sharp, genuinely funny meditation on the tug-of-war between wanting the vitality of youth and craving the hard-won comforts that only come with age. Horgan has built a career on finding the ache inside the punchline, and by every early account, YOUTH continues that streak. For Irish audiences who’ve followed her from CATASTROPHE through the acclaim of BAD SISTERS, this is another must-watch, and one more reminder that Horgan remains one of the sharpest voices working in television comedy today.