Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Gentefied’ On Netflix, A Dramedy About Two Cousins Living Different Lives In East L.A.

Latinx representation on TV still has a long way to go, but it’s getting better. Shows like Vida, which take the pulse of a neighborhood and the characters in it, are still rare on TV. Into this landscape comes Gentefied, based on a digital series that explored how different characters dealt with the gentrification of their East L.A. neighborhood. In this series, we concentrate on two cousins trying to save their grandfather’s taco shop. Read on for more…

GENTEFIED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A young guy riding a bike in Los Angeles. It’s in slow motion to make him look more intimidating. He approaches a woman on the street. Turns out he’s returning a book at the library, and asking the librarian emptying the book drop if a book he’s looking for is available.

The Gist: The Boyle Heights neighborhood of East L.A. is quickly being gentrified, and no one is feeling it more than Casamiro (Joaquín Cosio); the taco shop he opened with his late wife is in trouble because his landlord Bob (Wilmer Valderama) has jacked up the rent in an effort to get Casamiro out, and the shop owes him money. His grandson Erik (Joseph Julian Soria) works at the shop, with some help from their artist cousin Ana (Karrie Martin), wants to keep the shop open because he thinks Pop needs to have it in his life, and it’s also one of the remaining places for people in the neighborhood to get a cheap meal, though some regulars balk when they have to pay 50 cents more for a burrito.

Living with Erik and Pop is Erik’s cousin Chris (Carlos Santos), who just moved back to the area because he got a job as a line cook at a top restaurant. He’s ambitious, hoping to become an executive chef or open his own place, and he’s making inroads with the chef. But, to the rest of the guys on the line with him, and to his cousins, any part of East L.A. that was still in him is gone. Even Ana’s little sister Nayeli (Bianca Melgar) calls him a “white yuppie.”

Chris, Erik, Ana and her girlfriend Yessika (Julissa Calderon), sit in the shop’s kitchen while eating some post-drinking tamales, and Chris really thinks that the shop can do well if the menu is upgraded and the shop gets some modern improvements. The other three are tired of the neighborhood’s business changing or disappearing in order to make way for ones that cater to a wider (read: white) crowd. “Honey, they may love all our shit, but they don’t love us,” Yessika tells Chris. “At least I’ll have a job in six months,” says Chris, to lots of silence.

Erik comes home to see Pop passed out, with an eviction notice. He decides that he has to let one of the employees go, and fires a longtime cook without telling Pops first; when the shop gets busy and Pop wonders where the cook is, he kicks Erik out when he learns that Erik took it upon himself to fire the cook.

But Erik has more incentive to keep the shop going than just keeping Pop occupied; he’s about to have a baby with Lidia (Annie Gonzalez), the owner of the bar where Ana also works, and he needs to support it. And, despite the fact that they broke up, he desperately wants to get back together with her. Ana has her own issues: She has a successful showing at a gallery, but comes home to find out her mother threw away her paints — “They took a vacation in the trash” — because her mother has no faith that Ana will make a living as an artist.

Our Take: Gentefied is based on a digital series (called Gente-fied, with a dash… it’s no longer available to stream), created by Marvin Lemus and Linda Yvette Chávez; America Ferrera is an EP of the Netflix version along with Lemus and Chávez. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the show; Lemus and Chávez do a good job of showing how neighborhoods like Boyle Heights are struggling against becoming not just gentrified, but generic in the process. The pair do a fine job of setting up the contrasts between Erik, who has spent his whole life in the neighborhood, and Chris, who has been gone for years and now thinks he knows what’s good for the taco shop, despite going on a path that took him away from his roots.

But all of this sounds familiar, if you’ve been watching the TV landscape closely over the last couple of years. This show sounds eerily similar to Tanya Saracho’s Starz series Vida. It’s not just the setting, it’s the idea of one person who’s assimilated moving back into the neighborhood and trying to make improvements while the other, who’s been in the neighborhood the entire time, resists. It’s male cousins here instead of sisters, and its a restaurant owned by their living grandfather instead of a bar owned by the sister’s dead mother and her (ahem) friend, but holy hell is it similar. Both deal with gentrification, and both deal with identity. For heaven’s sake, both series’ start with a scene of someone riding a bike.

So, can both shows coexist? We think so. First of all, the more Latinx representation on our screens, the better. And though the shows seem structurally similar, there are some differences. For one, the Spanglish used on this show, as well as the pure Spanish, is given subtitles, whereas we have to figure out what it means by context on Vida. For two, Vida dives a little more into relationships and sexuality than Gentefied does, especially exploring what it means to be Latinx and in the LGBTQIA+ community. Here, Ana’s relationship with Yessika is taken more matter-of-factly, and at least in the first episode, there really aren’t any scenes of anyone getting it on.

Also, because gentrification effects different people in different ways, we hope that Gentefied will find its own voice as it explores people’s lives in Boyle Heights. For now, it’s still mostly about the conflict between Erik and Chris, with a little bit of Ana’s life mixed in. As we expand the scope, we’ll find other stories of people dealing with their neighborhood disappearing around them.

Sex and Skin: As we said, not much. Even in a scene where Ana and Yessika are in bed together, everyone has their clothes on.

Parting Shot: A drunk Pop hurls a beer bottle at a construction site, cursing the development that’s come to Boyle Heights. He then pees on the fence. He’s all proud of himself until the cops start flashing their lights.

Sleeper Star: Karrie Martin has the most promising story as Ana, who wants to be an artist, works hard to make ends meet, but is bumping up against the disapproval of her mother. She has support from Pop, but how long can he support her dreams if he has no money himself?

Most Pilot-y Line: Of course Chris’ boss, the officious Chef Austin (Greg Ellis), has to be an asshole, Gordon Ramsay’s TV persona with a touch of racism swirled in for good measure. Can’t we see a chef on TV not be a git for a change?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the similarities to Vida, Gentefied is pleasant enough and will only get better once it starts building out its own world.

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, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Gentefied On Netflix