Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Y: The Last Man episode 7, “My Mother Saw A Monkey.”
Y: The Last Man episode 7 spoiled a major plot twist from the original comics. While the twist in question was not important to the overall story, it was still an effective surprise that set the tone of the now legendary graphic novel series. The fact that the Y: The Last Man adaptation actively seemed to avoid trying to emulate this point seems indicative of just how far the series showrunners are going to try in being different from Y: The Last Man's comics.
Originally published across 60 issues from 2002 to 2008, Y: The Last Man detailed the collapse of human society in the wake of an undefined event that seemingly killed every mammal with a Y-chromosome except for escape artist Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. While the series drew praise at the time for offering a more realistic spin on the "last man on Earth" genre of dystopian fiction, it has also drawn fire in recent years for how it failed to portray trans men as anything except sex workers and murder victims. The Y: The Last Man adaptation has taken steps to rectify this issue, introducing a trans male character, Sam Jordan (Elliot Fletcher), into the core ensemble, among other changes from the original comic book storyline.
One of these prominent changes came in Y: The Last Man episode 7, "My Mother Saw A Monkey," which drew heavily upon "Cycles," the second major storyline of the Y: The Last Man comics. The plot of "Cycles" found Yorick, Dr. Mann, and Agent 355 stumbling across an idyllic village that seemed to have been spared the ravages of the apocalypse. It was hinted that the women of Marrisville, Ohio had some dark secret, with it eventually being revealed roughly halfway through "Cycles" that Marrisville was a prison town and the kindly townsfolk were all escaped convicts, who took over the abandoned town after the disaster.
Y: The Last Man episode 7, "My Mother Saw A Monkey," changed the circumstances from the Y: The Last Man comics considerably, with the trio coming to an unanticipated stop after Agent 355 fell asleep while driving. When their wrecked camper was discovered by the convicts, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann were locked up in the prison immediately, while a concussed Yorick was cared for by a woman named Sonia. It had been presumed that Yorick was a hostage based on the fact that he was tied up when the convicts found him, but the truth was he had been showing Dr. Mann an escape artist trick at the time of the crash. The convicts told Yorick the truth about who they were immediately and allowed him to live among them, as they discussed what to do about him and his companions.
While many of the changes made in adapting Y: The Last Man for episodes on television had logical motivations, there is no apparent rhyme or reason as to why the series adapted "Cycles" so closely, only to eliminate the story's surprising twist. It could be debated that the series has enough drama with the convicts debating whether or not the trio can be trusted to keep their secret. Nevertheless, it seems odd that the showrunners would choose to take all the mystery and drama out of a plot point that worked so well in the source material.