Sometimes watching the animated series of Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare can feel like being inside a pinball machine; his animated alter ego Zero’s stream of consciousness goes down so many asides and blind alleys that there sometimes doesn’t feel like there’s a story there. But when the story does become apparent, it’s usually a pretty good one. This is what we noticed with his new Netflix series, My Two Cents.
MY TWO CENTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Various darkened scenes in the backstreets of Rome. We see inside a small bar, down alleyways, and other places. A dog laps at a pool of something red (is it blood?). The melancholy song “The Vampyre Of Time And Memory” by Queens Of The Stone Age plays.
The Gist: Zero (Zerocalcare, who does almost all the voices on his shows) is reminiscing about the simpler video games of his youth, but as usual he’s mostly battling his rampant anxiety and talking to his conscience, which is in the guise of a giant Armadillo (Valerio Mastandre).
Because of his Netflix deal, though, he has enough money to play video games in a big house, and he had enough cash to invest in a cafe/bar owned by his childhood friend Cinghiale (Italian for “wild boar”). He doesn’t tend to follow advice from his mother (a hen) and father (a duck), but his father thinks the investment is a good idea because Wild Boar is a wild and crazy guy. Indeed, he was the only guy in Zero’s high school who transcended the caste system there.
As time goes on, though, Zero senses that Wild Boar is in trouble, as more and more money goes missing from the cafe. Is he buying drugs? Does he owe someone money? He wants to confront Wild Boar about it, but just can’t bring himself to do it.
Zero recounts all of this to his friend Sarah, who called him over to the cafe to ask him for a favor. As he starts to walk away, satisfied that he unloaded all of his crap on her, she reminds him why they’re meeting. She has a freind who needs a place to crash in order to get away from an abusive boyfriend, and she wonders if the friend can stay with Zero. He reluctantly agrees, his guilt overriding his objections, when he finds out that the friend is Smeralda, his high school girlfriend.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This is Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare’s third show for Netflix, all of which feature his animated alter ego (and the Armadillo). The first two were Tear Along The Dotted Line and This World Can’t Tear Me Down.
Our Take: One of the things that has pervaded Zerocalcare’s Netflix cartoons is that, even when things seem like they’re chaotic, or when the narrative is frustratingly fractured due to his following his own stream of consciousness, they’re always about something. My Two Cents is no exception; in fact, it may have the most cohesive story of all of his Netflix creations.
Every episode is going to be a ride through Zero’s anxieties, self-loathing and shitty childhood memories, but we know that no matter how badly Zero sees himself, he’s an overall good guy who wants to do the right thing. And in this series, he’s going to do the right thing even if it kills him. He wants to help Wild Boar, for example, especially when he sees Moody, the biggest bully in East Rome when he was a kid, looking for Wild Boar.
He also wants to help Smeralda, despite their history together. He never fully got over her, but also knows that the two of them together isn’t a great idea. Now she’s going to be living under his roof, with the looming threat of her abusive boyfriend meaning he may be called on to physically protect her, as well.
But between all of that, we get the memories, the stream of concisousness, the conversations with Armadillo and other aspects of Zero’s personality. And those conversations are wordy but generally funny. But it does seem that Zerocalcare’s storytelling abilities have been ramped up, and we’re here for it.
Performance Worth Watching: As we said above, Zerocalcare does all the voices except for Armadillo, and he doesn’t try to hide that he’s the one doing the voices, even for the female characters.
Sex And Skin: There’s a lot of talk, but no action in the first episode.
Parting Shot: After Moody leaves, Zero finds Wild Boar in a cupboard in the kitchen. “What the fuck are you up to?” he asks his friend. “Don’t tell Christine anything!” Wild Boar says about his wife.
Sleeper Star: The only other voice actor on the show (as far as we know) is Valerio Mastandre as Armadillo, so we’ll just give this to him.
Most Pilot-y Line: When Zero describes a man named Montini, who was the most bullied kid in his neighborhood, he shows pigeons showing each other a picture of Montini’s head and calling it “the toilet.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s a good story at the center of My Two Cents, even if getting through it can feel a bit chaotic at times, due to Zerocalcare’s storytelling style.
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.