Thursday, February 14, 2019

TV Review: Weird City episodes #1 and #2

I watched the first two episodes of YouTube Originals' sci-fi TV series "Weird City", the six episode anthology series which premiered yesterday. The first two episodes are available for free, you have to have a YouTube Premium account to watch the rest of the series. But since I don't have one, it's great being able to watch the first two episodes.


I found Weird City to be really interesting, great writing and great acting. This was brilliant. The show is set in a futuristic world where the city, divided by a wall, is separated into two societal classes: Above the Line for the rich and Below the Line for everyone else.

Here's my review for the first two episodes:



Episode 1: The One


The first episode follows Stu Maxsome (Dylan O'Brien), a 20-something guy who was looking for love. In this world, if you are born Above the Line mates are assigned by birth while those Below the Line have to date to find love. Since Stu was born Below the Line (but later moved with his parents Above due to his mother's successful invention) Stu still has to continue dating but having no success, he decided to use the dating service, The One That's The One.

The company's scientist Dr. Negari (Levar Burton), determines your perfect match through the use of your DNA and your answers from a questionnaire. It turned out Stu's perfect match was an older guy name Burt Chund (Ed O'Neil), at first they thought it must have been a mistake since neither one was gay. The two go Below the Line to get something to eat and it felt like they were on a first date even if they didn't realize it. They were learning quite a bit about each other: they both grew up Below the Line, are always late and have the same favorite restaurant and meal. You can see a spark growing between them even if they were unaware of it.

A second encounter coupled with their similar interests and a growing connection quickly turned into love. Stu introduced Burt to his parents while Burt had Stu meet his adult children Booj and Plisa. Burt and Stu's relationship was really transforming into something really wonderful and within a year, they were married. However, turns out their match really was a mistake and their romance was terminated by the dating company and they were strongly suggested to find love with their true matches. So will Stu and Burt find love with their true matches or with each other?

I like this episode it was very much a romantic comedy with Stu and Burt accidentally falling in love but an unexpected problem threw a wrench into their plans of Happily Ever After. I thought Burt and Stu had a comfortable yet romantic and loving relationship and you can truly see how much they care about each other. Love truly is the focus of this episode and not just for Stu and Burt but you see parental love from Stu getting to know Burt's son Booj and trying to connect with him. I get a sense that Booj is special needs and was having a difficult time with the death of his mother but his sister Plisa was also trying to help him get through it as well.

The One looks at how dating has evolved with science determining your perfect match while also knowing when to let your heart lead you to love.



Episode 2: A Family


The second episode follows Tawny Clem (Michael Cera) a 30-year-old man who is a weird little guy whose life is a total mess. He was kicked out of the PEJ (Pomegranate Electrolyte Juice) 12-Step Addiction Group for two reasons: the first was he didn't even have the addiction that the group was dealing with and the second was his weird and off putting manner. Tawny liked going to the addiction meetings because he felt like the people in the group were his friends and family. However, the other members of the group didn't feel that way about him and wanted him to leave and not come back.

His day continued to go downhill because he was shoved aside by two bullies then was fired from his job as a Data Checker. That was due to Tawny being so fixated on his worm terrarium and feeling stressed about his difficult week that he didn't do his job. Then when he called his father for some extra money, he overheard his father saying some mean things about him. And if that wasn't bad enough his computerized assistant Steffi "killed" itself by downloading into the cloud, all so it could get away from him. And running into the same bullies again added to his troubles, leaving him to have to run away. Stopping to get something from a vending machine was even disastrous, after scrambling to pick up his fallen ice cream, he noticed the gym, ShapeCult. Inside the gym, people were doing a series of unique exercises.

To Tawny this seemed like the place to help get his life in order but with a name like ShapeCult and a motto "Make Yourself What You Want To Be", it really makes you wonder if it's a gym or a cult? It doesn't help that the gym owner Graj (Gino Montesinos) and the trainer Delt (Rosario Dawson) seem to know how to reel in customers getting them to sign up for memberships and other merchandise.

At first, working out was leading to him becoming a more confident person ready to change his life but it quickly deviated. He started to fixate on Delt almost like he was trying to become her in a way. He even got the same tattoo as her. Things go from bad to extremely worse when Delt and Graj want Tawny to leave the gym. To Tawny, ShapeCult wasn't just a gym it had become his family. Graj changed his mind about getting rid of Tawny after seeing him fight two bullies (the same two from before) but Delt was still uncomfortable about him continuing to hang around the gym. And with good reason, Tawny's creepy behavior was ramped up even more especially now with Graj's support.


I thought the first episode was sweet and romantic while this second episode is rather humorously dark and creepy. Tawny doesn't understand how off putting he is but he so wants to connect with others which leads to a lot of issues. He was also really focused on trying to further his worm soil aeration idea and would carry around a terrarium filled with worms and not to mention he would eat them.

At the beginning of the episode, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, he's a pathetic mess who is looking for a connection, a "family" so to speak but as I mentioned before his weird behavior makes that impossible. However, you quickly start to see that he's a bit unstable and has some kind of mental illness and really could benefit from some psychological help (there's a vending machine for that as well in this world) because he attaches himself to people in hopes of building a connection.

I would say "A Family" touches on how awkward it can be for someone such as Tawny who may have difficulties trying to connect with others as well as having an untreated mental help issue. You also see how easy it is for cults to prey on those who are in need of help and due to Tawny constantly being rejected and feeling alienated, he thinks he finally found his "family" at ShapeCult and nothing was going to take it away from him. Yeah, this was a very interesting episode.


I really enjoyed watching both episodes and if the rest of series as good as these were I might look into getting a Premium account so I can watch the rest of it.

No comments: