In Mom Knows Best?, a new Brazilian reality competition on Netflix, nine mothers are tasked with predicting what each of their adult children will do in various reality show situations. While the nine moms live in a luxurious house and are able to watch what their kids are doing at all times, the younger contestants are living in a less-luxurious house on the same property, unaware that their moms are even there.
Opening Shot: Host Claudia Raia stands in front of a huge house and asks, “What if we decided to test the greatest force of nature?”
The Gist: The grand prize available to the winning mom in Mom Knows Best? is 1 million reais (about $194,000), but the pot is reduced if the moms bet on what they think their child’s behavior is going to be during a typical reality show challenge and is wrong. During the betting, the moms sit at what looks like a craps table and push figurines of their kids to spaces on a screen where they think their responses will be.
As for the younger adults, they think they’re on a reality show competing for 250,000 reais to “help them move out,” as Raia tells the moms; many of the younger contestants live with their parents and have difficulty taking care of themselves or living with roommates. In the first betting situation, the younger contestants introduce themselves to the group, and the moms have to predict which quote from a list is something their kid said. Not surprisingly, the moms, most of whom are confident that they know their kids better than they know themselves, find out that they don’t know them as well as they thought, and that they behave differently when mom isn’t around.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Mom Knows Best? is absolutely not the same as MILF Manor, but we couldn’t think of another show that involves moms and their adult kids.
Our Take: As much as the “betting the pot” aspect of Mom Knows Best? is promoted as the centerpiece of the show, we were less interested in seeing how well the moms know their kids and more interested in seeing how the moms get along while living together. As the first episode indicates, that may be more of an explosive situation than the one playing out with their kids a few hundred yards away.
A big conflict comes when Inocência Cruz, mom to Vicktoria Cruz — the only one of quadruplets who survived past birth — says she’d rather die than grow old. Adriana Varraschim, mom to Diego Varraschim, vociferously calls her out. Then there’s Monica Santos, who begrudgingly accepts that her daughter Beatriz is gay, but hopes one day that God changes Beatriz’ mind.
Sure, there will be drama involving how the kids get along in their less-than-luxurious “frat house,” and there certainly will be drama when how these adult children see themselves and their lives butts up against how their moms see those things. The upcoming season highlights seen at the end of the episode show the kids confronting their moms at some point in the process. But if the show just focused on the moms arguing over how they parent their respective children, the show would be entertaining as hell.
Performance Worth Watching: We’re pleasantly surprised that the adult children of these mostly overbearing moms are actually functional, mostly together human beings.
Parting Shot: A disagreement among the moms turns emotional, with one of them starting to sob as the argument progresses.
Sleeper Star: We appreciate that Cassia Marques admitted that she doesn’t know her daughter Rafaela as well as Rafaela’s father does, and that she’s not a particularly warm, lovey-dovey mom.
Most Pilot-y Line: The figurines of their kids that the moms use to place their bets on the betting table are creepy AF.
Our Call: STREAM IT. While it feels like Mom Knows Best? is a little convoluted at times, and that the younger contestants don’t really distinguish themselves in the first episode, we’re here for seeing these helicopter moms fighting each other as they get a reality check about how well they know their kids.
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.