By Sarah Osman 

A welcome addition to the absurdist satire genre of rapper-turned-comedian.

A scene from The Vince Staples Show.

In the second episode of The Vince Staples Show, Vince Staples (playing a fictionalized version of himself) tries to set up a loan to start a small business. He’s immediately turned down. A few seconds later, he discovers the bank he’s at is being robbed. He sighs: could this day get any worse? But then he discovers that he knows the robbers and catches up with them for a pleasant chat. This kind of oddball irony is the hallmark of this Netflix series. Staples remains deadpan regardless of the weird and wild situations he’s thrown into — he’s the perfect straight man for a surrealist world.

Unlike other rapper comedies, we never see Staples do any performing. In fact, little of the hip-hop business is evident. Staples is acknowledged as a famous rapper —  from his mooching relatives to cops who rap at him — but the series focuses on his bewildering misadventures rather than on show business. This is a world where, after being wrongly put in jail, Staples picks up the phone to hear “Hello, and welcome to jail!” followed by the sounds of children cheering. An inmate insists on performing his “original” ballad for Staples — sung to the tune of an R. Kelly song.  A disturbed(?) mascot at a water park stares Staples down. At his family reunion, the rapper’s mother rampages against the relative who also brought mac and cheese to the shindig. You should have gotten the idea by now: the show is a sardonic comic farce whose targets are all over the map: it pokes fun at race, class, and family. In other words, its satiric vision may not work for everyone. But for those who welcome surrealism with a point, The Vince Staples Show is a delight.

As in the best satires, it is the little details that score big, if you pay sufficient attention. For example, while Staples is on the phone with two friends, who can’t stop arguing, a family fight over a game of musical chairs breaks out in the background. It’s the kind of goofy interlude you may not notice at first, but the kind of addition that adds hilarious weight to his addled dystopia. And Staples seems to have learned a lesson or two from silent film giant Buster Keaton: he remains deadpan throughout, showing little to no reaction to the insanity around him. Staples underplaying makes the series feel like more of a traditional sitcom at times, his calm undercutting some of the craziness.

My fear is that The Vince Staples Show may become another brilliant Netflix comedy that ends up buried under the company’s endless offerings. It may fall into the same hole as  Saturday Morning All-Star Hits, which lampooned ’80s cartoons and youth insecurity, and Chad and J.T. Go Deep, which parodied influence activists. Both series went largely unappreciated; they never received a second season, despite being as sharp as equally antic shows such as The Rehearsal and The Eric Andre Show. Netflix doesn’t seem all that concerned with marketing its comedies, especially ones they consider to be more niche. And The Vince Staples Show could use the support. The first season isn’t perfect. At times, the comedy embraces reality too faithfully — that takes away from the writing’s more uproariously askew elements. The series is also short — it clocks in at just five episodes, and that makes it vulnerable; it needs more time to find its footing. So my fingers are crossed: Staples should be given a second season to flesh out its narrative and find its audience. I would hate to see yet another clever Netflix series get the chop.

There is a sign of hope. Staples has tweeted (or X’ed? What are we calling it now?) that a season two may be coming. Either way, I urge you to give Staples’s bizarro world a chance.

Sarah Mina Osman is a writer residing in Wilmington, NC. In addition to writing for the Arts Fuse, she has written for Watercooler HQ, Huffington Post, HelloGiggles, Young Hollywood, and Matador Network, among other sites. Her work was included in the anthology Fury: Women’s Lived Experiences in the Trump Era. She is currently a first-year fiction MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. When she’s not writing, she’s dancing, watching movies, traveling, or eating. She has a deep appreciation for sloths and tacos. You can keep up with her on Twitter and Instagram: @SarahMinaOsman