Is Hiccup a Real Song in Adults Season 2? Who Sings Carly’s Song?

Carly’s sudden transformation into a would-be pop singer produces one of the strangest recurring jokes in Adults Season 2: a song called “Hiccup.” It sounds like the kind of track viewers might immediately try to find after Episode 6, “Pop Girlie,” but it is not presented as an existing song that the series licensed from another artist. “Hiccup” appears to be an original song made for Carly’s storyline, with Rachel Marsh performing it in character. As of the Season 2 release, there is also no clear sign that “Hiccup” has been launched as a conventional standalone single under Marsh’s name.

That distinction fits the joke because Carly is not introduced as an established musician who happens to release a new track. She has spent much of her relationship with Samir moving toward a completely different future, only to abruptly decide that becoming a pop star might be what she really wants. “Hiccup” is therefore less about starting a believable music career and more about what happens when a passing fantasy receives exactly the wrong kind of encouragement.

Why Does Carly Suddenly Make a Song?

Carly makes “Hiccup” after becoming uncertain about the career path she had previously been pursuing and allowing that doubt to expand into a much bigger reinvention. Episode 6 is officially built around Carly making a “drastic career change,” and the story takes that description very literally when her attention shifts toward pop music. Instead of cautiously exploring singing alongside her existing plans, Carly commits to the idea with the confidence of someone who has already decided that this could be her new identity. The speed of the transformation is part of the comedy because everybody around her can see how enormous the leap is. Carly, meanwhile, wants the people closest to her to take the dream seriously.

That creates an uncomfortable problem for Samir because being supportive is one of the things he wants to be good at as Carly’s boyfriend. There is a difference, however, between supporting somebody’s ambition and pretending that every ambition is automatically a good idea. “Hiccup” puts Samir directly inside that difference because giving Carly his honest reaction could hurt her, while excessive praise could encourage her to invest even more in something he does not believe in. The song consequently becomes a relationship test disguised as a ridiculous pop experiment. Samir is not simply being asked whether he likes a song, but whether honesty or reassurance makes him the better boyfriend.

Related: Adults Season 2 Ending Explained: Who Ends Up Together?

Anton Is More Responsible for “Hiccup” Than He Realizes

Anton becomes important to Carly’s pop-star phase because Season 2 has started examining the consequences of his habit of enthusiastically validating people. His friendliness normally makes him one of the easiest members of the group to be around, but “Pop Girlie” asks what happens when encouragement stops being harmless. Carly receives enough confidence from Anton to take an uncertain thought about singing far more seriously than she otherwise might have. For Anton, the experience becomes uncomfortable because he has to confront the possibility that people actually listen when he casually tells them they should follow an impulse. His positivity carries more responsibility than he has previously considered.

That makes the episode’s two plots much more closely connected than they initially appear. Carly is experimenting with a completely new identity, while Anton is discovering that telling somebody to pursue whatever excites them can have real consequences. Neither person is behaving maliciously, which is why the situation is funnier than a simple story about somebody giving terrible advice. Anton genuinely wants people to feel confident, and Carly genuinely wants to believe she has discovered an overlooked talent. “Hiccup” is what happens when those two instincts meet without anybody applying much skepticism.

Is “Hiccup” Supposed to Be a Good Song?

“Hiccup” works best if it is understood as a song that Carly believes in much more strongly than the people around her do. The episode does not require the track to be catastrophically unlistenable, because that would make Samir’s dilemma too easy. Instead, the joke depends on it being plausible enough for Carly to continue imagining a future around it while still giving her friends reasons to question whether pop music should replace the life she had previously planned. That awkward middle ground is what makes Samir’s response difficult. Telling someone an obviously terrible performance is brilliant would be dishonest, but puncturing genuine excitement can feel unnecessarily cruel.

There is another clever layer to the song because “Hiccup” is catchy enough to survive beyond Carly’s immediate crisis. Early viewer reaction after the Season 2 release has already included people admitting that the song remained stuck in their heads, despite the episode building an entire storyline around doubts about Carly’s musical ability. The joke therefore rebounds slightly onto the audience, since a deliberately questionable fictional pop song can still perform the most basic job of pop music by refusing to leave your brain. That does not transform Carly into a secret musical genius. It simply makes the fictional failure more amusing.

Does Rachel Marsh Really Sing “Hiccup”?

Available reporting identifies Rachel Marsh, the actress who plays Carly, as the performer of “Hiccup,” and there is no indication that another singer was secretly used for Carly’s vocals. The performance is designed to belong to the character rather than introduce Marsh under a separate musical persona. That choice is useful because Carly’s confidence, delivery and relationship to the song are more important to the scene than producing the most polished possible vocal performance. Using the actress herself keeps “Hiccup” attached to Carly’s questionable career experiment instead of making it sound like an unrelated professional singer has entered the episode. It also allows the comedy to come from character rather than from an exaggeratedly bad dubbed performance.

Marsh is primarily known as an actress and comedian rather than a recording artist. Her television work includes Unstable, The Morning Show, Fallout and Adults, while her comedy background includes improv work connected with Upright Citizens Brigade. There is no established Rachel Marsh pop discography comparable to the career Carly suddenly imagines for herself, and I could not find evidence that she had been pursuing a professional singing career before this storyline. That makes “Hiccup” closer to an actor performing original material for a television role than an existing musician contributing one of her own singles. Unless FX later releases the track separately, Carly remains the song’s real identity inside the world of Adults.

Why “Hiccup” Matters More Than Carly Becoming a Singer

The point of “Hiccup” is ultimately not whether Carly could realistically become famous from it. Episode 6 uses her song to put several characters’ ideas about adulthood under pressure, particularly the belief that a good friend or partner should always encourage the person they care about. Samir learns that support without honesty can become condescending, while Anton begins recognizing that casual validation can influence people more than he expects. Carly, meanwhile, gets to discover how dramatically a small uncertainty about one’s future can grow when everybody is terrified of being the person who says no.

That makes the answer to the original question fairly simple even though the storyline around it is not. “Hiccup” is an in-universe Carly song created for Adults, rather than a pre-existing pop hit inserted into the episode, and Rachel Marsh performs the song as part of her role. Its real success is not Carly’s imaginary pop career but the fact that the ridiculous track becomes memorable enough to make Samir’s dilemma believable. A song can be a questionable career decision and still be annoyingly catchy, which may be the most Adults outcome possible.