Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Flatbush Misdemeanors’ On Showtime, About Two Dudes Who Return To Brooklyn And Struggle To Figure Things Out

Are we tired of shows featuring rootless millennials who try to find their way to something resembling an adult life in a different New York borough? We guess not, because that theme has come up over and over during the past half-decade or so. It really comes down to whether you like those rootless millennials and want to see them fail and succeed (but mostly fail). Flatbush Misdemeanors is about two guys who are trying to figure out life in the Flatbush Ave. area in Brooklyn.

FLATBUSH MISDEMEANORS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Shots of Brooklyn, and a sign for Flatbush Ave. We see an external shot of a high school.

The Gist: Right outside the back door, Dan (Dan Perlman) is getting a food delivery from his buddy Kevin (Kevin Iso), who just moved back to Brooklyn from New Orleans and is delivering food while getting his art career on track. But the security guard at the school thinks some sort of drug deal is going down. Dan, who has only been back to Brooklyn for two years himself, vouches for his buddy, but not before the guard sticks his gross pen in Dan’s lunch.

Kevin has been crashing on Dan’s couch while he tries to figure things out, and it seems that the two of them struggle together. At the high school where Dan’s a teacher, he has problems getting in the middle of a fight between a girl named Zayna (Kristin Dodson) and another girl who supposedly stole Sayna’s Gucci belt. Jess (Sharlene Cruz), the vice principal he has a crush on, takes are of the fight herself. Zayna is a smart kid that Dan wishes would do better on her tests; still, she gets the best low scores in the class.

During a food delivery, Kevin accidentally knocks some cough medicine with codeine over and it goes down the sink. Drew (Hassan Johnson), who needed that cough medicine to make meth, is so incensed that he threatens Kevin’s life if he doesn’t come up with the over $2,000 that the cough medicine cost.

Kevin gets money from a few different people, including his “girlfriend” Jasmine (Kerry Coddett). But he’s still way short and he’s afraid that Drew will kill him. Dan tries to get his stepfather Kareem (Kareem Green) to help, since he knows everyone in the neighborhood. Kareem brags he can help, tells Dan to call him “Dad”, and then gets Kevin… an entire hour. Oh, and there’s the matter of the sad clown that’s on Dan’s couch, which Kareem borrowed for a birthday party.

Dan thinks that Zayna’s belt will make up the difference, and he runs to Drew’s apartment with it as Drew holds a gun on Kevin. But it turns out that Zayna is Drew’s daughter. In order to get Kevin out of his sticky situation, Dan has to think quickly.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Flatbush Misdemeanors has the loose vibe of Broad City or Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, where these two millennials are feeling their way through life in New York and getting themselves out of some deep shit in the process.

Our Take: Perlman and Iso created Flatbush Misdemeanors, which started life as a web series loosely based on their lives in Brooklyn. There’s something to be said about the chemistry between these two friends as they try to figure things out. The scenes where they’re talking to each other — like on that couch, while Dan is holding some fish Kareem wanted him to care for — are the best of the first episode. You can see their friendship and see how they want to look out for each other.

The rest of the first episode felt a little more cliché and borderline troubling. Right off the bat, Kevin runs afoul of a local drug dealer. Sure, that could happen, but why is the first exposure we get to Kevin an image of him running all over the neighborhood trying to get money to pay this guy off and save himself? It’s one of the oldest plots around, and it feels like this would be something that made more sense further into the series.

There’s a moment where someone who came to the apartment to buy Kevin’s paints looks at one of Kevin’s pieces and wants to offer $1,000 for it… until he found out that Kevin painted it and not someone famous. Those are the moments we want to see, those small moments where city life and the life of being a creative in the city can grind someone down.

We want to see more of both of these guy’s worlds, like the obvious attraction Dan has for Jess and his interest in Zayna’s education, or what Kevin is building with Jasmine. The situations both get in might be funny, or (like in the premiere) they might not. But the more they’re steeped in the relationship between the two friends and their worlds, the better the show will be.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After essentially saving Kevin’s life, Dan and Drew get pushed out of the door of Kevin’s apartment. Dan is holding the fishbowl. And the guy who was begging his girl to open their door earlier is now singing in desperation.

Sleeper Star: Kristin Dodson as Zayna has the potential to cause some interesting disruption in Dan’s life. But it’s also great that Dan thinks she can do great things if she just applies herself.

Most Pilot-y Line: There are random captions at the bottom of the screen that are supposed to be quick and funny lines, but they’re distracting.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re barely recommending Flatbush Misdemeanors because we think that Perlman and Iso will straighten out some of the plotting problems in the early episodes and concentrate on the worlds of their TV selves.

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.

Stream Flatbush Misdemeanors On SHO.com