Like most boomers, I grew up on half-hour TV dramas. They once roamed the airwaves like herds of bison.
Maybe back then the entertainment industry didn’t think the fledgling television public had sufficient attention spans to endure a full hour of heavy dramatic lifting. Perhaps the studios were still trying to find the right balance between production costs and on-air quality, and a half-hour show minimized risk.
Whatever. My generation came of age watching Westerns in which characters were introduced, a situation established and resolved (usually through gunplay) in a terse 25 minutes. (Plus five minutes for commercials.)
Not just Westerns. Legal dramas and crime shows as well.
By the early ’60s the half-hour drama had given way to 60-minute productions which provided creators a chance to stretch a bit, dabble in nuance without the need to get in and out in record time.
Which is why I was surprised to discover that two of my new favorites — the Hulu series “Ramy” and “Normal People” — are half-hour dramas.
Yeah, yeah, technically “Ramy” is a comedy — this year its creator and star, Ramy Youssef, won the Golden Globe for best actor TV musical or comedy — but as will soon be explained, the new second season of “Ramy” is essentially dramatic.
And as for “Ordinary Humans,” you don’t get much more intense than this tale of two Irish kids whose sexual/romantic relationship is followed over several years.
Okay, first “Ramy.”
Youssef stars (basically he’s playing himself, or at least the self he presents in his standup routines) as Ramy, twenty something son of Egyptian immigrants who wants to be a good Muslim but also wants to be a normal American millennial. He manages to avoid alcohol, but sex is his Achilles heel…he loves the ladies and whacking off to porn.
Season One sets up Ramy’s world and its inhabitants. His father Farouk (Amr Waked) is some kind of white-collar drone; mom Maysa (the sublime Hiam Abbass) is a homemaker and busybody with endless advice for Ramy (get a job, marry a nice Muslim girl) and his rebellious but still virginal sister Dena (May Calamawy).
Ramy’s running buddies are Mo ,(Mohammed Amer), who operates a diner and is always encouraging Ramy’s libidinous behavior (married, Mo lives vicariously through his friend), and the physician Ahmed (Dave Merheje), a nerd forever attempting to steer his pal along paths of righteousness. Basically Ahmed and Mo are a good angel and a bad angel, each perched on one of Ramy’s shoulders and delivering hilariously contradictory advice.
A third pal is Steve (Youssef’s real-life best friend Steve Way), who has muscular dystrophy and is confined to a wheelchair from which he hurls world-class insults.
Another important character — and one who generates huge laughs in Season One — is Uncle Naseem (Laoth Nakli), who is also Ramy’s boss at a Manhattan jewelry store (the family lives in New Jersey). Broad, hairy, proudly chauvinistic and fiercely opinionated, Nasseem is an Arab version of a redneck who apparently agrees with Trump on everything except Muslim policy. Archie Bunker seems benign by comparison.
The debut season finds Ramy in various romantic entanglements (including an affair with a Jewish girl), but huge chunks of the season are devoted to exploring his world. This includes the daily schedule of Muslim prayer (Ramy is less than diligent), dietary and cleanliness laws (Ramy is reluctant to pray if he has recently farted) and prejudices within the Muslim community (Arabs aren’t so sure about their black American brethren).
In Season Two, which just debuted, things get considerably darker.
For starters, Ramy often takes a back seat as entire episodes are devoted to one character. Maysa has been augmenting the family income as a Lyft driver; when she is suspended over a bad customer comment, she is sure the complainer is a trans woman, a recent fare. She boneheadedly (but without malice) begins stalking the rider in an attempt to set things right.
Sister Dena, who at one point almost gives it up to a charming young man she meets on campus, finds herself in a deep depression when her glorious head of hair (no wraps for this girl) starts falling out in clumps.
Most of all there’s the episode devoted to the Uncle Naseem, whose bullish exterior hides a heart-breaking inner life.
These segments are essentially dramatic…there may be a chuckle or two, but they’re aiming at targets bigger than laughs.
The season is anchored by the great Mahershala Ali as Ramy’s new spiritual leader, a Sufi who cuts through all the chatter in Ramy’s head with his deep faith and psychological awareness. This leads to Ramy’s romance with the Sheik’s daughter; the season ends with a betrayal by Ramy that makes us wonder if he’s really the nice goof we’ve always thought or simply too dense and selfish to warrant our affection.
Throughout the 30-minute format provides enough time to get the story told without lollygagging…”Ramy” will jump from one scene to the next almost before you can get the laugh out. Yet it rarely seems hurried.
For heavy-duty psychological drama it’s hard to top “Normal People,” adapted from Sally Rooney’s novel about the on-again-off-again relationship of Sligo teens Connell and Marianne (Paul Mescal, Daisy Edgar-Jones).
Initially, one suspects that the series will drag out the all-too-familiar tropes about first love. On paper Paul and Marianne may seem a bit too familiar…he’s the quiet jock from a working class background, she’s the unaccountably angry offspring of the town’s wealthiest family. Ah yes, another upstairs-downstairs love match.
Except that the depth of feeling, sexual expression and psychological complexity on display here is so intense that viewers will give thanks that each episode of “Normal People” runs for only 30 minutes. Any longer and our emotional and mental synapses might just be fried to a crisp.
Just when you think you have a handle on Paul and Marianne we discover new facets of their personalities. Connell rarely speaks, and when he does it’s usually self deprecatingly. We slowly come to understand that far from being stupid he has a fierce intellect that eventually will win him an English scholarship to Trinity College in Dublin. It’s just that he hates to show off his brilliance; he’d rather blend into the blue-collar scenery like his other friends.
It’s obvious from the get-go that Marianne is both sullen and smart, contemptuous of the usual academic niceties and fast to cut down anyone who crosses her — be they teacher or classmate — with a savage turn of phrase. She’s as loud and unbridled as Connell is restrained, and it’s made her a friendless pariah and the butt of jokes.
Our two protagonists know each other because Connell’s single mom (the excellent Sarah Greene) keeps house for Marianne’s clan; he has occasion to hang out there when picking up his Mum and falls into conversations with Marianne, who in the privacy of her home turf shows a needy side that the decent Connell cannot ignore.
It’s her idea to start a sexual relationship (she’s a reluctant virgin and he’s, well, a rugby player), and I cannot recall another show in which teen love has been depicted with such heartbreaking tenderness and in-your-face carnality. When this pair lie talking in a post-coital glow you don’t know what to do first: dry your eyes or hose yourself off.
Only in each other’s presence are Marianne and Connell truly open about who they are. But the relationship is soured by their decision (Connell’s mostly) to keep their affair a secret. One suspects the shy Connell dreads the notoriety that would come his way if it were known that he’s been bedding that harridan Marianne.
Season One of “Normal People” (God, please let there be a second!) follows our furtive lovers through their senior year of high school. They break up over his thoughtless decision to ask another girl to prom (or the Deb, as it’s known in Western Ireland) and do not run into each other again until they are freshmen in college.
By that time Marianne has matured mightily, though one might take exception with her choices in men. She gravitates to guys with a taste for sadism…precisely the opposite of Connell’s tender ministrations. (Armchair psychologists will have a field day with that.)
But we know…or at least fervently pray…that the two will fall back into one another’s arms.
Yes, “Normal People” has all the makings of an adolescent soap. But Edgar-Jones and Mescal are so damned good, so adept at presenting characters in all their daunting complexity that viewers will find themselves utterly swept up in the Marianne-Connell relationship with its heartbreak, frustrations and transcendent pleasures.
One leaves the series regarding these not as fictional creations but as real people we were fortunate enough to have observed closely during their formative years.
Pretty damn great.
| Robert W. Butler
You nailed the essence of these two shows perfectly. Bravo! I have been screaming about Ramy to anyone I can but so few are taking the time to watch it. Have you watched The Vast of Night yet? It is delightful and it is a throwback.
Keep up the great work, sir!
On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 4:10 PM Butler’s Cinema Scene wrote:
> butlerscinemascene posted: ” Like most boomers, I grew up on half-hour TV > dramas. They once roamed the airwaves like herds of bison. Maybe back then > the entertainment industry didn’t think the fledgling television public had > sufficient attention spans to endure a full hour of ” >