The holidays are the perfect time of year for a cozy binge-watch, whether it’s holiday-themed movies for hours on end or entire seasons of a TV show in one sitting. The best choices this time of year are shows with holiday episodes, and Prime Video’s Overcompensating perfectly fits the bill. With just one eight-episode season for now (it’s already been renewed for a second), this is the perfect time to binge-watch the whole series, particularly its Thanksgiving installment.
Overcompensating follows Benny Scanlon (series creator Benito Skinner), a closeted gay freshman at the fictional Yates University. Benny was previously a star football player at his high school, but now, he struggles to maintain his old persona. At the same time, he’s also rushing a secret society called Flesh and Gold. In the show’s Thanksgiving-themed hour, “Welcome to the Black Parade,” Benny goes home for the holidays with his sister, Grace (Mary Beth Barone), and his best friend, Carmen (Wally Baram), in what turns out to be a chaotic, silly, and ultimately heartwarming episode.
What Is ‘Overcompensating’s Thanksgiving Episode About?
Overcompensating‘s Thanksgiving episode is the penultimate episode of Season 1, and it occurs right after Benny has accepted that he’s gay. He’s still closeted, but he’s out to Carmen, who’s supportive of him, and he has recently befriended a gay Yates student named George (Owen Thiele). Going into Thanksgiving, his sexuality is just one secret that Benny has been keeping from his parents, as he has also been hiding the fact that he changed his major and has been lying about rowing for Yates’ crew team. Meanwhile, Grace has just broken up with her boyfriend, Peter (Adam DiMarco), something that she’s also hiding from their parents. For the first half of the episode, though, these secrets take a backseat to their parents’ major reveals.
With both of their children away at college, Kathryn (Connie Britton) and John Scanlon (Kyle MacLachlan) have both found new jobs and hobbies to keep themselves busy, and one of Kathryn’s has included adopting a bunch of Chow Chow puppies that she named after Maroon 5songs. The Scanlon parents’ life changes are very funny (as are Benny and Grace’s baffled reactions), but most of all, these scenes at home show how much pressure Benny is still under to pretend to be someone he’s not. His parents shower him with constant praise, but the version of him that they’re so proud of never really existed. Meanwhile, Carmen feels guilty as she gets closer to Grace, because she had an affair with Peter while he and Grace were still together, and Grace feels overshadowed by Benny yet again.
‘Overcompensating’s Thanksgiving Episode Forces Benny and Grace to Confront Their Pasts
Throughout the first season of Overcompensating, it is hinted that Benny had a previous romantic encounter with his high school friend and fellow football teammate, Sammy (Lukas Gage), before starting at Yates. It ended badly, and Benny has been avoiding this all season, which is one reason why he initially declines an invitation to see his high school friends while home for Thanksgiving. Benny ends up going out for the night with Carmen and Grace, though, and he’s finally forced to face Sammy. It’s revealed in flashbacks that Benny and Sammy shared a kiss several months back, but Benny panicked and called Sammy a homophobic slur before running off. Benny is terrified to see Sammy again, but once he gets a moment to talk to him, he finally apologizes to Sammy and opens up to him. In a huge turning point in Benny’s character arc, he admits to Sammy that he did have feelings for him, but that he was afraid. Benny and Sammy have a touching heart-to-heart, then they sneak off to kiss.
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‘Overcompensating’ stars Benny Drama.
At the same time, it’s also revealed in this episode that Grace was very different in high school. She had much edgier interests and loved rock music, but she was badly bullied, so she course-corrected too much in order to fit in in college. Now back in front of her old classmates, Grace is still picked on, so Carmen pushes her to ignore the comments and perform My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade” at karaoke. As Grace sings, she finally seems to be returning to her true self, while Carmen is overcome with guilt.
‘Overcompensating’s Thanksgiving Episode Is a Major Turning Point
While Grace sings in the background, Benny finally kisses Sammy in the next room. An emotional montage shows various moments where Benny knew he was gay but denied it, as he finally kisses Sammy and wholly accepts himself. On the way out of the club, Benny punches a former friend of his who calls Sammy a slur and winds up getting two black eyes during the fight. The next day, Benny finally comes clean to his parents about business school and crew, although he’s not yet ready to come out to them.
Thanksgiving episodes usually benefit from the conceit of putting a group of friends or family members all in one place, with the purpose of making tension boil over in either funny or messy ways. Overcompensating‘s Thanksgiving episode takes full advantage of these elements of the holiday to send Benny back to his old town and his old home, forcing him to come face-to-face with the fact that his high school self was never the real him. It’s also the perfect example of what makes Overcompensating so excellent, combining silly humor with touching emotional beats to bring Benny to a beautiful moment of catharsis.
Overcompensating is available to stream on Prime Video.
- Release Date
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May 15, 2025
- Network
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Prime Video
- Writers
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Scott King, Mitra Jouhari
