Kal Penn is an actor whose parents are immigrants from India. Up until a decade ago, he was mainly known for his titular role as Kumar Patel in
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), which was a stoner comedy that became a cult hit and a franchise film. However, in 2009, Penn took a job working for President Barack Obama and having an office in Obama's White House. Ever since then, his political side has shown more in his work. He co-starred in two political TV shows,
Battle Creek (2015) and
Designated Survivor (2016). This new series is no different where he's playing a character that's a little reprehensible and not as noble as his previous character who worked in the White House, but he is still very much involved with politics and a political issue.
Here, he plays Garrett Modi. "Modi" is the actual last name of Kal Penn. Yet, Garrett Modi is a politician who ran for a city council seat in New York City. He's from Queens. After a drunken night with some guys from Wall Street, he got arrested on the BQE where he resisted, tried to bribe the police officer and then vomited all over the place. He's nicknamed on social media as the "BQE Puker." The council removed him from office and Garrett had to move in with his sister, a doctor named Mallory, played by Kiran Deol. When he comes across a group of five immigrants who need to get their citizenship or else be deported, Garrett sees it as an opportunity to not only help them but also redeem himself.
Moses Storm plays Brady, an immigrant from Moldova, a country in Eastern Europe, in between Romania and Ukraine. He looks like he's in his mid-20's. He works in a bar and is such a bro that he doesn't even know where Moldova is. Diana-Maria Riva (
Telenovela and
The Bridge) plays Griselda, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. She's a woman probably in her upper 40's. She works several odd jobs. The joke around her is that she's probably working a dozen or more jobs. Samba Schutte plays Hakim, an immigrant from Ethiopia. He's probably in his mid to late 30's. He works as a taxi driver, but he used to be a surgeon who had a good life but he left to pursue a better one in America. Finally, Joel Kim Booster and Poppy Liu play Jun Ho and Mei Lin respectively. They're siblings in their 20's who are immigrants from some Asian country but won't say which country specifically.
Booster in real-life is Korean and Liu in real-life is Chinese. Both are from a wealthy family and both are stupidly rich. They're vapid. They're haughty and lazy, totally snobbish. Yet, they have no concept of money or what things cost. Buying a helicopter is like buying a toothbrush, it makes no difference to them. Their stupid wealth is funny as wielded here, but their presence in general undermines the very premise that Penn, as not only actor but co-creator, wants to develop.
The five immigrants ask Garrett for help. They pay him or at least the Asian siblings pay him. If they were really concerned about their citizenship and they had this endless supply of money that the Asian siblings seem to have, paying for a disgraced city councilman feels like the last option. Even if you accept that the Asian siblings are dumb, the others might think to hire the best lawyer with all that wealth. In the second episode, one of the five immigrants does consider hiring a lawyer, but he gets duped by a shady lawyer. Why he or any of them wouldn't compel the Asian siblings to get a better one to handle this just seems too obvious. Otherwise, this series feels really contrived as to how it's throwing all these people together.
Rated TV-PG-L.
Running Time: 30 mins.
Thursdays at 9:30PM on NBC.
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