Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Primo’ On Amazon Freevee, A Comedy About A Teenager Trying To Navigate Life While Getting Advice From His Five Uncles

We journalist types always seem to pay more attention when one of our colleagues ends up developing a series. We want to see them do well, but we also know that whatever voice they brought to their journalism will also be infused in the series. The latest example is from Shea Serrano, a pop culture writer formerly of The Ringer, who created a sitcom based loosely on his teenage years.

PRIMO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Rafa (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), a 16-year-old living near San Antonio, is staring at the Instagram feed of his new neighbor Mya (Stakiah Lynn Washington) when he gets a text from his friend Miguel (Martin Martinez).

The Gist: Rafa comes in for breakfast while texting Miguel, but there isn’t much left of what his mother Drea (Christina Vidal) made; he has to battle for food with his uncles, who are always around and helped Drea raise Rafa after his father left.

Mike (Henri Esteve) is somewhat broish; Rollie (Johnny Rey Diaz) is easygoing but a bit slow on the uptake; Mondo (Efrain Villa) leans towards the hippie end of the scale; Ryan (Carlos Santos) works as a bank teller and lords it over his brothers whenever he gets the chance; Jay (Jonathan Medina) is the no-nonsense owner of a landscaping company, and Mondo, Mike and Rollie all work for him. When they get together, they often argue about the dumbest things and give Rafa conflicting advice, much to their sister’s annoyance.

On his first day of his junior year, he finds out from his guidance counselor that he tested high on the state’s standardized tests, and he is a definite candidate for a special college prep program. He brings the application home, but he’s not sure.

In the meantime, Drea, who plans parties for pretty much anything Rafa achieves, is getting the brothers together to celebrate the first day of school and the news about his great test scores; she insists that her brothers keep quiet and not lead them astray with their advice. Of course, the party is a surprise — Rafa is embarrassed when Mya is drawn into the festivities — and of course, his uncles all tell him that college is for suckers.

Rafa starts having his doubts when he sees how much money his mother has in her checking account, but she tells him that she’ll manage like she always has, detailing the horse trading she’s done to create the party and get him the blazer she got him as a gift.

Rafa decides to take Jay up on his offer to work for him, and he rubs it in the face of his brothers (including Ryan on the phone). Drea tries to tell her brothers that, while college is her dream for him, she wants him to come to whatever decision he makes on his own, and they should do that, too.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Primo, based on the life of the show’s creator, journalist Shea Serrano, has a gentle, Everybody Hates Chris kind of vibe.

Our Take: Michael Schur is one of the executive producers who brought this loose adaptation of Serrano’s teenage years to the screen, and the family feel that Schur always fosters is apparent from the first moments of Primo. As soon as Rafa walks into his kitchen and has to navigate through his uncles’ taking all the food and giving him terrible advice, the warmth and craziness of the family is immediately apparent.

Read Related Also: What Jets, Giants might do at offensive line in 2023 NFL Draft

The show’s tone is less frantic and joke-a-minute than most Schur productions, but that works for us, mainly because we want to get to know Rafa, Drea and the uncles, and cramming in jokes isn’t the way to do it. There are character-driven asides, like two of the brothers arguing over whether an apostrophe should be at the end of “Congratulations” on Rafa’s cake. But those are kept to a minimum to help the characters breathe.

In most coming-of-age shows like this, the teen at the center is often the least interesting, least developed character, and it seems that we get that with Rafa. This isn’t a knock against Diaz-Silviero’s preformance; he plays Rafa appropriately, as a guy who has lamented his strange and loud family, but appreciates the love and is coming into his own and making his own choices. But at times in the first episode, he’s mostly there to receive the “wisdom” of his uncles instead of be his own character. We suspect that will change as the season goes on.

The one part of Rafa’s story that we’re not sure of is his crush on Mya. In the scenes where we see Mya interacting with Rafa or his family, she seems like someone who can roll with a lot. Are we going to spend the season with Rafa being friendzoned or will he actually make some sort of bold move? TV tropes tell us the former, which, as a person who was constantly friendzoned in his youth, is always painful for us to watch.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: As his uncles argue about something stupid at the dinner table, Rafa smiles, knowing that he’s got a lot of people supporting him. Two days later, Mondo is looking in a grammar book and realizes he’s been using apostrophes all wrong.

Sleeper Star: Christina Vidal’s Drea is a strong character, and the family’s emotional center. She’s the one who keeps her loving knuckleheaded brothers in line and lets them know when they’re getting into Rafa’s ear a bit too much.

Most Pilot-y Line: “The universe is my university,” says Mondo. The fact that he believes such a lines tells you all you need to know about Mondo. Also, would he really come up with something that clever?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Primo is a fun, feelgood family sitcom that shows a type of family that we rarely see on TV.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.