The post-Curb Your Enthusiasm semi-autobiographical comedy formula isn’t always easy to tap into instantly. FX’s Louie, 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’s Dave came into its own with “Hype Man,” its fifth installment. Kenya Barris’ BlackAF had funny bits throughout, but maybe only one episode that was actually “good.” Peacock’s Bupkis launched with a wretched pilot and then became a rather terrific example of the burgeoning subgenre.
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Netflix‘s new semi-autobiographical semi-comedy The Vince Staples Show 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.
The Vince Staples Show
There are so many hints of potential in The Vince Staples Show 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 all The Vince Staples Show ends up being, it might come across as more frustrating than satisfying.
You 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 Abbott Elementary. He may or may not have appeared in the Hulu remake of White Men Can’t Jump, which may or may not have existed.
Or you may not have a clue who Vince Staples is, which actually steers perfectly into the premise of The Vince Staples Show, 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 (Andrea Ellsworth) 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.
Life’s extremes are the driving force behind individual episodes of The Vince Staples Show, 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 in Dead Presidents makeup. 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 Abbott Elementary arc as well.
I also quite enjoyed the amusement park episode — basically a variation on a similar episode of Bupkis — 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, The Vince Staples Show comes close to hinting at its Atlanta-esque upside.
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.
There was no episode of The Vince Staples Show 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 (pay close attention to the PA announcements in the amusement park episode). 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.
As a limited series, The Vince Staples Show 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.
