During the pandemic, Benito Skinner gained fame for his humorous impressions of celebrities, ultimately leading to his eight-part Prime Video series, Overcompensating. The show follows Benny, a popular football player in college, grappling with his sexuality while trying to maintain a façade of straightness. While Skinner’s online content is purely comedic, here he plays it mostly straight, showcasing heartfelt moments alongside humor. Supporting characters, like his quirky roommate Hailee and the hilariously obnoxious Peter, enhance the comedic aspects. Despite its humor, the series balances laughs with sincere themes of personal growth and self-acceptance. Overcompensating offers charm with a sensitive narrative.
In the midst of the pandemic, Benito Skinner rose to internet fame with his whimsically eccentric impressions of celebrities and reality stars, including a devil-worshiping Kris Jenner, Billie Eilish enjoying the beach, and a twitchy, gurgling Timothée Chalamet. Prior to this, the comedian had been posting videos for several years. A notable clip from 2019, titled Live Footage of Me in the Closet, features Skinner styling his fringe forward, wearing an Abercrombie shirt, and taking a nostalgic trip back to the late 2000s to revive his teenage self—a boy fervently denying his love for Gossip Girl while repeatedly claiming he’s “not gay.” This culminates in a chaotic montage of Lady Gaga dance scenes, Google searches for “daniel radcliffe equus naked,” and the iTunes page for Glee: The Music, Volume 1.
Fast forward six years, and Skinner is revisiting this persona. His new eight-part Prime Video comedy drama, Overcompensating, kicks off with a similarly dubious declaration. “Hey, what’s up everybody. I’m Benny, I love pussy,” our protagonist tells his reflection, a claim quickly undermined by flashbacks of his clandestine childhood experiences with George of the Jungle and more recent footage showing him recoiling in horror from his stunning prom date. The series fictionalizes Skinner’s freshman year at university, a period spent in a frantic effort to convince himself and others that he was definitely not gay.
However, there’s a significant distinction between Skinner’s online content and his first major TV project. On social media, the 31-year-old is the singular comedic force: exaggerated, grimacing, and a maestro of playful parody. In this format, though, he plays it almost completely straight—both literally and figuratively. Benny, a popular athlete in high school, is also the homecoming king and valedictorian. His new best friend, the delightfully unconventional Carmen (Wally Baram), astutely observes this about him. He’s wholesome, strikingly handsome, and remarkably kind; an immediate campus heartthrob. Yet his hidden desires render him profoundly repressed. The only hint of the wild energy that made Skinner a viral sensation surfaces during an awkward dorm party scene. Faced with a group of guys belting out Like a G6, a tipsy Benny opts to flaunt his own rapping skills with an enthusiastic performance of Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass. While Overcompensating is modern—and acknowledges Instagram Stories—it revels in nostalgic music selections.
Fortunately, other characters step in to carry the comedic baton. First is Carmen’s enthusiastically problematic yet strangely endearing roommate, Hailee, a source of relentless TMI who mimics sexual antics amid fits of laughter. The role is expertly portrayed by the actor known solely as Holmes (recognized for playing the Daisy May Cooper character in the US adaptation of This Country). Then there’s Peter, the haughty boyfriend of Benny’s sister and fellow student Grace (Mary Beth Barone), who is eager to mentor “Bento.” The White Lotus’s Adam DiMarco brilliantly imbues this grotesque wannabe alpha with depth, extracting every ounce of humor from his ridiculous vocabulary of “yee”s and “nah”s. At one moment, Peter and his buddies get so intoxicated by their own bravado that they erupt into a chaotic display of roaring, chest-bumping, and shirt-ripping—a parody of frat bro masculinity that is quite delightful.
Overcompensating also excels in its incidental humor: Benny’s ever-nude roommate soundly asleep amidst a raucous pre-drink gathering, Peter’s friend who can’t even engage socially before stating his need for the restroom, the film class enamored with The Godfather. The subplot involving a pre-Brat Charli xcx concert (notably, she and Skinner are close friends, and her music plays throughout) is less engaging.
Yet despite these amusing elements, the prevailing tone of the show leans towards sincere warmth. Benny’s journey of self-discovery—involving a departure from the boozy social life of his past, extricating himself from the business degree pushed onto him by his father (Kyle MacLachlan), and forging new friendships—is infused with playful humor. However, at its heart, this is an earnest and occasionally overly sentimental American narrative about embracing one’s authentic self. The combination of Benny’s struggles with his sexuality and Carmen’s efforts to cope with grief (following the death of her older brother the previous year) sometimes skews the balance between humor and heartfelt moments, but there’s still plenty to cherish. Just don’t approach Overcompensating expecting nonstop comedy; it’s a thoroughly delightful show with a profoundly sensitive heart.