'Abbott Elementary' guest star and rapper Vince Staples gets a five-episode showcase in the 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' semi-autobiographical vein.
, which we can pretty much only discuss in this context, was good immediately, but it didn’t hit its full stride until the second season. After a few spotty episodes of dick jokes, FXX’sDamon Wayans Jr.
Thinks Sex Scenes in Movies Should be More Realistic: "It's Wack a Lot of the Time"isn’t the exception that proves the rule. Of the show’s five episodes, only one feels fully realized as an exploration of its star’s version of celebrity and his borderline absurdist worldview, but even in its sketchier episodes, there are moments of real inspiration — an audacious premise, a shocking deviation of tone, a scathing line of tossed-off dialogue.that it’s confusing how much the series seems like it’s being treated as an afterthought by Netflix. What, pray tell, even IS a five-episode, half-hour “limited series,” which is how Netflix is presenting this one? If this is allYou might know Vince Staples as a rapper. Working adjacent to the Odd Future hip-hop collective, Staples’ series of albums have included several hits — “Norf Norf” from 2015 is probably his biggest — and been generally well-regarded. You might know Vince Staples as an actor. He played Maurice, a short-term love interest for Quinta Brunson’s character on, which presents the idea of Vince Staples as a reasonably successful entertainment personality who some people adore and other people have never heard of. He has a comfortable new house that he’s moved into with girlfriend Deja and he’s looked at as a success at family reunions, but his level of fame isn’t enough to get him a small business loan or to excite kids when he’s brought in to give a classroom speech. His level of fame is real, but it’s just as often surreal, since the fictionalized version of Vince Staples is accustomed to handling life’s extremes with good-natured, low-key bemusement., which was created by Staples, Ian Edelman and Maurice Williams. In the premiere, Vince is arrested and spends the night in jail making new friends and enemies. In the second episode, an afternoon at the bank is interrupted by a group of armed robbers inmakeup. Even seemingly ordinary events like a family reunion or a visit to a grungy Long Beach theme park simmer with undercurrents of violence and matter-of-fact banality. Life is weird sometimes and B-list fame is no insulation. For me, the bank robbery episode was the only one in which the plot, the strangeness and the social satire came together as a whole. It’s an episode that comments on the entrenched racism in our financial institutions, that cheats viewer expectations at several points and delivers a shocking, funny punchline. It’s also an episode that gets the most use out of Staples’ general Everyman likability, something that was smartly utilized in his— in which Vince’s reluctant attempt to take on paternal responsibilities leads him on a dark odyssey that includes hostile costumed mascots, a secret magic show and an ultra-exclusive, hidden fried chicken eatery. In those effective episodes,Other episodes have ideas, without always grappling with them fully. Both the family reunion episode and the finale, in which Vince discovers he had a rivalry with an elementary school classmate only after a heated, death-defying pursuit across Long Beach ensues, are rushed at under 20 minutes apiece. I feel like I’ve seen versions of the premiere, with its threads of police brutality and incarcerated paranoia, done better many times. It’s a hit-and-miss ratio that isn’t at all unusual for a show still finding itself. But if this is all there ends up being, it’s less gratifying and less hopeful.that didn’t have something that impressed me. It’s a generally cinematic-looking series, thanks to directors including William Stefan Smith and Ben Younger, making good use of its Long Beach locations, which are simultaneously run-down and pregnant with ominous possibility. Some of the series’ funniest moments come from carefully understated deliveries or background comments . So much of the ostensible plot of the series is broad and so much of the execution is quite droll. Given this chance to conceive a series around what he perceives as his acting strengths, Staples is mostly stuck within comfortable limitations. There are times, especially in that first episode, in which I felt that he was leaning too much into being reactive, but that’s a choice he’s made and not a flaw of performance. Mostly the ensemble is episode-by-episode guest stars — the cops arresting and mocking Vince in the pilot are all amusingly recognizable — but Ellsworth and Vanessa Bell Calloway, as Vince’s mother Anita, make the sort of solid impressions that would leave one eager to see how they could dimensionalize those characters going forward.isn’t completely realized and I’m not sure I’d recommend the whole thing if the pilot isn’t your bag. But if Netflix were to pick up a second season of, I’d absolutely recommend checking out this five-episode starting point.Sign up for Now See This for recommendations on what to watch and why from THR’s chief TV critic. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the GoogleCritic's Notebook: Jon Stewart Returned to 'The Daily Show' Like No Time Had Passed. Is That a Good Thing?The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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