Amber Tamblyn joins the cast of Y: The Last Man

Amber Tamblyn brings something new to the world of Y: The Last Man.

Amber Tamblyn has been busy lately. She’s been consulting with Quintin Tarantino and David Cross about the #Metoo movement, and what jokes to tell and not tell. She’s been in a Netflix movie. Two weeks ago, it was announced that she’d been added to the cast of FX’s Y:The Last Man adaptation.

Y: The Last Man was a comic published by DC’s Vertigo imprint between 2002-2007. The premise is that one day at the start of the aughts, a mysterious plague kills every single male except for Yorick Brown. Because he is now absolutely necessary to human survival, the American government assigns two people to him: Agent 355, a highly dangerous CIA agent to keep him safe, and Dr. Allison Mann, an expert in human cloning. Yorick’s group road trip across an America in chaos to figure out why he survived the plague. Several forces are out to either kill Yorick or use him.

Amber will be playing Mariette Callows. Ricky Little at Flickering Myth describes Mariette as “the daughter of the president of the United States who has been groomed for a career in politics and to uphold her father’s conservative values”.

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To me, that was interesting because I avidly read YTLM from 2003-07, and I didn’t remember her character. Looking on the Y: The Last Man Wiki, and with some google-fu, I realized that my first instinct was correct. She’s a new character.

This tells me that FX is willing to take liberties with it’s source material, and will be changing things as early as the pilot. It also tells me that the changes will probably be deeper than changing the name of the show to just Y.

However, I don’t feel like this is a red flag. When adapting anything from one form of media to another, things often change. That change can be for the better, or it can be something that adds new flavor. Total Recall was adapted from a short story titled We Can Remember it For You Wholesale. Changing the name did not make the movie any less awesome, or surprisingly thoughtful between bursts of violence.

Here’s what we know: FX is producing the show, and FX has a pretty good track record. They’ve cast Barry Keoghan as Yorcik, and we know much of the rest of the cast. We know that the two showrunners will be Aida Mashaka Croal (Jessica Jones), and Michael Green (suddenly very busy after the success of Logan). Brian K.Vaughn has publicly praised Green’s pitch for loving the source material, but being willing to adjust it for TV. Amber Tamblyn’s character is one of those adjustments.

Here’s what I’m hoping for… I’m hoping the show captures the greatest strengths YTLM had as a comic series: strong characterization, and intelligent plotting that led to jaw dropping plot twists. I’m hoping that it’s a runaway success for FX. I hope that it renews interest in YTML, my choice for the best ongoing comic series in the aughts.