Aahana Swrup
Prime’s ‘Overcompensating’ is a teen-comedy show that delves into the chaotic life of a college freshman who is perpetually stuck in the closet. Coming off the heels of high school, which shaped him into a star football player/homecoming king, Benny is ready to face his first year at college. Although he has no real plans of broaching the daunting subject of his sexuality, his plans get upended with the arrival of Carmen, a social outcast who somehow fits perfectly by his side. Then there’s the cute guy on campus, Miles, who might just hammer in the final nail in the coffin that is Benny’s sexuality. Consequently, the straight-passing shield around him starts to feel more like a burden on his back, especially when it threatens to break what could be a messy but lifelong friendship. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Overcompensating Recap
Benny has kind of always known he wasn’t the straightest of the bunch. Yet, he manages to get through all of high school firmly in the closet with plans to stay the course in college as well. Therefore, it poses a bit of a problem when his sister’s boyfriend, Peter, a senior at his new college, asserts that Benny must find a girl to have sex with on his first night on campus, or run the risk of earning a virginal loser tag. Fortunately for him, the girl he meets at orientation, Carmen, is happy to tag along with him to Peter’s senior party. The high school boyfriend she parted ways with in New Jersey seems to have already moved on which just gives her even more incentive to get a jumpstart on her own college sexcapades.
Nevertheless, their attempt at hooking up remains naturally jagged on account of Benny’s inability to find the situation arousing. Luckily, his roommate’s abrupt intrusion gives them a perfect excuse to spend the rest of the night just hanging out and falling asleep beside one another. The next morning, the general assumption around the campus remains that the two had sex, which works out well enough in both of their favor. Still, it does nothing to change Benny’s very real problem of being forced to live a lie for the sake of convenience. For the same reason, he decides to take a risk for himself and follows a pretty guy, Miles, to film class. Even so, he doesn’t entirely give up on his desperate need to fit in with the “straight bro” crowd.
Thus, Benny tries to ditch Carmen the following night, despite genuinely finding a connection with her. Nonetheless, he realizes his mistake soon enough and ends up trading in a night at a club with the jocks for pizza on the sidewalk with her. Consequently, a friendship strikes up between them, which becomes more than a little codependent for Benny. As such, when he gets the invitation to participate in the college Secret Society, Flesh and Gold, he tries to get an invite for his new and only friend. The chaos of impressing a bunch of frat guys that follows leads the duo to grow even closer as Carmen opens up about her brother’s death.
However, all of it comes crashing down when she finds out he lied to a bunch of jocks about having sex with her. Benny’s inability to be honest ends up causing a huge rift between them. Yet, one bad concert experience, Carmen’s ill-advised hook-up with Peter, and heartbreak from the realization that Miles is into girls is all it takes for them to fall back together. Additionally, Carmen also figures out his big secret and decides to help him by setting him up on Grindr dates. Ultimately, that ends up being a wrong choice, but it gives Benny the courage to reach out to George, an out-and-proud guy on campus.
When Thanksgiving rolls around, Carmen tags along and spends the holiday at his house, which results in an unexpected friendship with his sister, Grace. Inevitably, that brings up feelings of guilt for her crash-and-burn affair with Peter. On the other hand, Benny manages to work through some things after running into his high school friend, which results in a long-awaited first real kiss for him. However, all this progress threatens to be for nothing when he reverts to his old, aggressively closeted ways once back on campus.
Overcompensating Ending: Does Benny Stay in the Closet? Does He End up With Miles?
An overwhelming number of problems in Benny’s life seem to stem from his adamant refusal to come out of the closet. Even so, these are all problems that he can anticipate and deal with. The alternative choice of coming out and facing backlash from everyone he loves is an infinitely scarier option. Thus, for every step forward that he takes, he also takes three steps back. During Thanksgiving break, his paths cross with Sammy, with whom he once had a romantically-laced friendship in high school. He manages to fix things between them from when he had harshly rejected the other guy’s secretly reciprocated romantic advances. In fact, the two end up making out, and Benny even gets in a bar fight to stand up against homophobia targeted toward Sammy.
Still, no matter how life-changing that experience is, old habits remain hard to kill. Consequently, even though Benny is more than happy to gossit to George about his new situationship, he changes his tune in front of a group of jocks, refusing to acknowledge the latter as his friend. Furthermore, while he assures Carmen that he has left the Society for their crude remarks about her, he never quite assembles the courage to actually do it. All of this is the newest addition in a long line of cyclic behavior that Benny is stuck in. He knows he’s gay, but he’s unwilling to freely explore that part of his identity due to the fact that he has cultivated an aggressively straight persona throughout high school.
People expect Benny to be a beer-chugging, womanizing guy’s guy, and he’s infinitely scared of letting them down by proving otherwise. For the same reason, anytime he allows himself to face his queer reality he feels the need to overcompensate even at the cost of hurting the feelings of his friends. By playing along, he’s only making life even more suffocating for himself, which is why he values his friendship with Carmen so much. Thus, when it comes down to it, he quits the Society for Carmen, even if he does it a little too late. Nevertheless, that seems to be a big enough step for him for the time being.
Even though Benny desperately wants to explore his sexuality, he isn’t ready to actually come out yet. He had considered taking a shot with Miles, back when he was sure the other guy felt something for him. Nonetheless, he ends up friend-zoning Benny so hard that he has sex with a girl in the latter’s bed, which he willingly offers. Thus, he’s ultimately sated to stay firmly locked in his eternal closet. However, his plans are chaotically overturned when he gets in a huge argument with Carmen, at the end of which she accidentally outs him in front of Miles and Grace. Even though a few other people know about his sexuality, adding these two important people into the mix is bound to make life overcomplicated for Benny.
Why Did Carmen Kiss Miles? What Happens Between Her and Benny?
After Benny disrupts the disastrous Society ritual and has a cathartic heart-to-heart with Carmen about their friendship, the duo decides to attend Grace’s party on campus. Expectedly, drama follows them even there, as the truth about the latter’s affair with Peter comes out in the open. Naturally, this makes Grace feel infinitely betrayed, threatening to ruin the budding friendship between the two girls. Carmen has always struggled with finding her own people, especially after the death of her brother. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, she had lost all sense of identity, and her friends were really just her brother’s friends.
The same, paired with her continuously catastrophic friendship with her roommate, Hailee, and Benny, compels Carmen to believe she’s just bad at being a good friend. Grace’s hostility toward her furthers this idea, leading her to feel incredibly isolated and alone. When she tries to leave the party in tears, she ends up running into a similarly emotionally distraught Miles. As it turns out, his college experience has also been very lonely, especially since Benny began screening his calls. Initially, Carmen only tries to comfort him, but he mistakes his friendliness for attraction and moves in to kiss her.
Before Carmen can even realize what’s happening, Benny ends up walking in on them. Jumping to the wrong conclusions, he can’t help but blame her for the betrayal. Even though she never actually meant to kiss Miles, the tense situation forces her to get defensive since she’s sick of being judged and ostracized for her romantic/sexual history. The fact that it’s coming from someone she considers her best friend stings even more. As a result, in the heat of the argument, she accidentally outs Benny, unaware that her words will be overheard by both Miles and Grace.
Therefore, even though kissing Benny’s crush is unintentional, Carmen’s actions still ruin the duo’s friendship. Admittedly, they have bounced back from many faux pas over the course of their relationship. Furthermore, if all goes well, Benny might be willing to overlook the incident as a harsh push that forced him to confront a crucial part of his life. Even so, any reconciliation between the two would likely require tons of work and olive branches that can only be extended in a potential season 2.
Does Grace Break Up With Peter?
A notable B-plot that unfolds alongside all of Benny and Carmen’s chaos revolves around Grace and her toxic relationship with Peter. One notable part of her character emerges from the fact that she had a massively uncool phase in high school and most of early college. As a result, now that she’s skinny, hot, and in a relationship with the President of the Secret Society, she has unlocked a previously unattainable part of the social order. However, this comes with the caveat of the loss of meaningful friendships and an identity outside of Peter. The latter wants Grace to be a perfect, supportive girlfriend without ever showing any support for her own life in return.
In fact, Peter doesn’t even entertain the idea of recruiting Grace to the Society, asserting that she should be happy with being the girlfriend of the President alone. Furthermore, he tries to force her into prioritizing her future over her own. Still, after a momentary break, during which he starts up his affair with Carmen, Grace ends up going back to her ex-boyfriend. Her actions are motivated by the same thing that keeps her brother in the closet: societal expectations and the validation of her peers. Even so, she can’t help but draw the line when she discovers that Peter has cheated on her with Carmen. All this time, she has been making herself smaller to support his own dreams when he consistently refuses to value her worth. Thus, when he shows up at her party, drunk off the feeling of somehow landing a future job at a big-name firm, Grace dumps him for good.
What Happened Between Benny and His High School Friend?
Benny and Sammy’s past relationship haunts the narrative from the very start. As the former repeatedly flashes back to the time when the two almost kissed in a car, it becomes evident that there is some history there. It isn’t until he finally confronts the other boy again in his hometown that the truth finally emerges. In high school, Benny and Sammy had a great friendship, colored by their subliminal mutual attraction toward one another. However, he was harshly rejected when the latter attempted to act on that attraction and make a move. At the time, Benny was deep in the closet, unwilling to accept the part of him that was attracted to Sammy in any capacity.
Therefore, even though he wanted to kiss him, he ended up pushing him away in fear. Worse yet, he escaped the situation after calling Sammy a slur, in a depiction of a hostile defense mechanism. It was the closest he had ever come to accepting his queer identity, which is why he overcompensated in equal measure by resorting to gross homophobia. Nonetheless, when the two meet again during Thanksgiving, Benny has the newfound courage to apologize to his friend and even reciprocate his affection. Even though their relationship is still kept behind doors, hidden in long-distance text messaging, it holds the potential of turning into something more in the future, if only Benny allows it to.
Read More: Where is Overcompensating Filmed? Filming Locations of the Prime Video Show
