TV Review - Kim's Convenience: Season 4

The Canadian sitcom premiered in 2016. It was nominated for 11 Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Comedy Series. It wasn't until nearly a year after the second season aired on CBC that the show was made available on Netflix. However, the show still didn't appear on my radar. It wasn't until the summer of 2019 that the show did come on my radar but in a roundabout way. That summer at the 50th Comic-Con, it was announced that Simu Liu, a Chinese-Canadian actor, was cast in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the Marvel Studios film, which features the first Asian lead. That bit of news made enough headlines to catch my attention and get me curious as to who Liu was and what he's done before. This series was probably the most significant thing in his career.

I added the series to my Netflix queue probably in 2019 when I started learning about Liu, but I never got around to watching it. Even when the fourth season was added in early 2020, I still didn't get around to it. When the coronavirus hit and changed the media landscape, it gave more time to dig into things I overlooked. I started to binge-watch these four seasons this summer and got through it fairly easily. It's a very fun and spry series to binge. The first, two seasons are probably the strongest, as they underscore the issues for the characters in often times hilarious fashion. The third and fourth seasons feel like the show spinning its wheels and not moving forward in any significant way. In that, it's not that different from many other sitcoms that do mostly standalone episodes, as opposed to a lot of shows that do serialized storytelling where a season of episodes feel like one-long movie.

If you look at some of the shows nominated at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, there are things to point out. Curb Your Enthusiasm does seemingly standalone episodes, but if you watch any season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, each season builds to a climax or a hilarious joke that is stacked on top of a lot of hilarious and outrageous jokes. It's serialized in a way that doesn't feel serialized all the time. Dead to Me, Insecure and The Good Place are serialized shows. The Good Place in particular has a clear trajectory, a literal place where the characters are going or trying to go.

It's not uncommon for a show like Schitt's Creek to present a quirky family or just a family and merely follow in their lives, throwing at them topical issues or various complications where we simply see how they react. That's a bit of how this series works. Schitt's Creek eventually gave its characters a greater character arc, something that they're striving to achieve. With the exception of one, this series feels like none of its characters have an arc or anything that they're striving to achieve.

Liu plays a young Korean man named Jung Kim. His arc is arguably developing his relationship with his boss, a quirky woman named Shannon, played by Nicole Power. Like Schitt's Creek, this series will probably end with Jung and Shannon getting married with things going back and forth over whether the two will stay together. Many sitcoms have that couple whose romance is a thrust here and there. NBC's Friends had Ross and Rachel. The Office had Jim and Pam. Schitt's Creek had David and Patrick, even though that relationship didn't begin until Season 3.

The obvious arc, which is more an undercurrent, is Jung and his relationship with his father, Sang-il Kim or Mr. Kim, aka "Appa,"which is Korean for "father." Yet, it's such an undercurrent that it almost feels like it doesn't exist. Jung and Mr. Kim almost feel like they're in two separate TV shows. Given the back-story, it makes sense that the two characters would be separate, but the show never depicts birthdays or holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas where families would be together, so the show has actively avoided a lot of things that would further develop that relationship or go deeper with it. There have been episodes where having Jung and Mr. Kim together have felt forced or contrived, but it hasn't felt like a thrust here.

Andrea Bang co-stars as Janet Kim, the younger sister to Jung. She's in art school, studying to become a professional photographer. Of all the characters, she's the one with the arc or the clear trajectory. She wants to become a professional photographer and it's a goal that the show actively develops. Almost every episode has her striving to achieve that goal. Her love life has complications like her involvement with an engaged man who is also the son of her father's best friend, Raj, played by Ishan Dave. That isn't as emphasized as her career goals, or it's more balanced with her, which makes her the best character on the show.

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee stars as the aforementioned Sang-il Kim or Mr. Kim. He's clearly the funniest character and the character that is featured the most. He's a dedicated businessman who is always worrying about being successful in his business, not that he's overly aggressive or ambitious. He's not trying to grow the business or expand. He merely tries to find small ways to make a couple of extra bucks. The first episode opens with him dealing with customers and having a culture clash with them where he might occasionally offend them. Many episodes begin that way. His awkward encounters were great in those first, two seasons. The first episode of Season 4 actually is a bit of repeat of the very first episode where Mr. Kim has an awkward encounter with a person from the LGBTQ community.

There are interesting details about him like he's a baseball fan and hates the Japanese. He also has a funny accent as he likes to shoo people away by saying, "Okay, see you!" The actor playing him was worthy of his awards and accolades. The character doesn't advance and the major issue involving the estrangement from his son doesn't seem to have much traction in the minds of the writers. Given that American television is littered with obstinate dads who are white from All in the Family, to Married with Children and Home Improvement, it's good that there's now one with an Asian dad.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 30 mins. / 13 eps.

Available on Netflix.