In the final moments of the Felicitypilot, Felicity Porter (Keri Russell) is having dinner with her parents at a fancy restaurant in New York City. Convinced she’s made a grave mistake by moving to the Big Apple on a whim, her parents urge — and even try to bribe — her to return home to Palo Alto, Calif., and pursue medicine as planned. Felicity is quiet, seemingly weighing her options in real time before mustering the courage to speak. “I guess the thing is,” she begins. “That if I made a mistake… then at least it was mine, you know?”
The scene is short but pivotal — and captures the essence of the show. Created by J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, Felicity, which ran from 1998 to 2002,is a coming-of-age series about a soft-spoken teen who derails her college plans after one conversation with her longtime crush. The series has found a new generation of fans since arriving on Netflix in October.
After speaking to Ben Covington (Scott Speedman) for the first time at their high school graduation, Felicity abandons her plans to attend Stanford and instead follows him across the country to the (fictional) University of New York. Does she have a clue what she’s doing? Hardly. For many first-time Gen Z viewers, her decision to prioritize a guy is pretty cringe.
New Felicityfans have criticized the Palo Alto teen for being “insane,” “delusional” and “a lil too embarrassing” — despite having “endearing and cute mannerisms.” Viewers have also made some sweeping condemnations, declaring Felicity is “worse than Carrie Bradshaw” and the show itself “a humiliation ritual.”
And yet, Felicity has managed to captivate this wave of new, younger viewers anyway, emerging as something of an inspiration — however unhinged she may be.
“A lot of it is just the everyday struggles of a college girl figuring out her life, rather than the over-the-top, sometimes unrealistic high school and college dramas we see today,” Alexa, 28, told Yahoo. “I think there’s something really nice about watching a show where the little things in life are enough to make a story interesting.”
A lesson in following your heart
Felicity demonstrates just how willing she is to put herself out there — and how in tune she is with her own feelings over the course of the series. Is it kind of rash to follow someone you have a crush on to college? Absolutely. But that’s what makes her so compelling to younger audiences: She does the big, scary thing.
Camila, 28, told Yahoo that while some of Felicity’s decisions have “definitely” been “a hard watch,” she understands them. “Personally, I’ve done some questionable things when having a crush on someone,” she said. “I think that aspect resonates a lot with people.”
Shadon, 25, said Felicity’s vulnerability is what drew her to the character. There’s something to be said about a young woman who goes after what she wants regardless of what anyone thinks.
“A lesson I learned from Felicity herself is that it’s OK to be honest about how I’m feeling,” she told Yahoo. “So many characters in the modern landscape hold back how they really feel to keep up a certain facade, but Felicity is always willing to put it all out there.”
Her willingness to go after what she wants extends beyond romance. Ben might have been the reason she moved to New York — but he isn’t why she stayed. “Felicity has definitely taught me to follow my heart more,” Chelsea, 25, told Yahoo. “It might not always work out but I think you can learn a lot about yourself when leading with your heart rather than your head all the time. Moving to New York quickly became so much bigger than chasing some boy.”
She also isn’t afraid to defy her parents. Felicity’s career path has been mapped out for as long as she can remember — graduate high school, attend Stanford as a premed student, continue on to medical school and so on — but it wasn’t what she wanted. Not immediately, anyway. She needed the space to figure things out.
“I really enjoyed how much emphasis the show put on her not having her life plan figured out, even when she was in her last year of college,” Shadon added. “Felicity was constantly shown changing career paths and having no idea of what she wanted to do once she graduated, which I could definitely relate to.”
Davey Chafe, a clinical psychologist, told Yahoo that Felicity’s desire for independence reflects a process known as separation and individuation, which happens during late adolescence and early adulthood. It’s essentially a period of flux.
“It’s basically when we are learning who we are outside of our family and our caregivers, so our main family unit,” Chafe said. Felicity even articulates the lack of control she’s had over her own life when the show begins. She notes early on that her dad was “thrilled” she got into Stanford because he “had my life planned out for me since I was pretty much a zygote.”
“Especially at that age, the decisions we’re making during that period are really driven a bit more by emotion and kind of trial and error than logic,” Chafe said. “I think that’s a pretty accurate reflection of what growing up can feel like.”
Standing up for what’s right
Maria DiPasquale, a longtime Felicityfan and founder ofLeftist Teen Drama,a podcast that celebrates political moments in teen TV, cites a Season 2 storyline as one of the show’s most important.
In “Revolutions,” the season’s 16th episode, Felicity helps stage a sit-in at the student health center after learning the university’s board of trustees has banned the morning-after pill. Despite mounting pressure from the school to stand down, she forges ahead with the days-long protest. The board eventually reverses its ban after Julie (Amy Jo Johnson), Felicity’s best friend, reveals she used the pill after being sexually assaulted on campus.
When a television show makes a concerted effort to spotlight political issues that affect young people, DiPasquale told Yahoo, she’s “gonna give them their flowers.” She hopes the episode encourages new viewers to take action in their communities.
“I think it’s a really timeless message,” she said. “I really hope that young people are inspired by the plot line and realize that they also have the power to do what Felicity and her friends do and they can win. Any injustice on your campus, in your school, in your workplace — you have the power in working with other people, with other students, to put your heads together and figure out how you can make injustice go away.”
As a younger millennial, watching Felicitymakes me feel as though I’ve been transported to a completely different time. Felicity swears by her tape recorder, which we see her use in the show’s opening minutes. She goes to the library to conduct research for her college papers. She runs to pay phones to make urgent calls and even leaves her dorm room to have face-to-face conversations with other people.
There’s an instant gratification that social media and modern technology afford us — an immediacy that didn’t exist in the 1990s. Felicity, for instance, is someone who sits in her feelings a lot. I can’t imagine that’d be as easy if she had Instagram at her fingertips.
“There’s something really comforting about watching relationships unfold where people aren’t constantly accessible to one another. I think that it just gives people a little more space, right? Which you can feel in the show,” Chafe said. “I think for younger people, part of the comfort is seeing everyone navigate the awkwardness, uncertainty and intensity of growing up without feeling like every moment is being watched.”
The show’s analog, pre-social media existence is something Gen Z viewers yearn for. Chelsea told Yahoo that “it is so rare to see someone be so completely free” in the age of social media. Now, she said, “we are all desperate to appear polished and we put on personas to appear cooler on the internet.”
“It’s refreshing to see a version of college life that’s still so relatable to what we experience today, but without phones and social media being such a big part of it,” Alexa said. “It almost feels like an escape, especially now that technology and social media seem to find their way into every show we watch.”
Chafe hopes Felicitywill inspire younger audiences to spend more time offline. “We’ve never been more connected but also never been more lonely,” he said. “If people are connecting to the show there’s a reason, and I think part of the reason is that it does feel a bit more human.”
Living like you’re the main character
For all her quirks and flaws and rash decisions, Felicity keeps learning to trust herself. That’s not to say she hasn’t considered stifling her own wants to appease others, but her struggle to prioritize her feelings is part of what makes her so relatable. It’s another reason Gen Z viewers feel connected to her: She gives main-character energy.
“Felicity lives her life like she’s the main character, and personally, I think that’s how everyone should live,” Alexa said. “I think there’s something really refreshing about watching someone who isn’t afraid to take herself and her feelings seriously, even if it makes her look ridiculous sometimes.”
At a time when social media makes it easier to hide what we’re actually feeling, Felicity reminds us there’s merit in being exactly who you are, regardless of what anyone thinks. There’s something deeply human about her hesitation and fear of hurting others, even as she finds the courage to put herself first. Perhaps there’s something to be said about being a little bit cringe and taking a chance: It could be worth it in the long run.
