Cover art by @kyon.ink on Instagram
by Frankie Fanelli
Taking a departure from the world of binge watching shows from streaming giants like Netflix and Hulu, Comedy Central recently put out a new show created by actress, rapper, and (as of a few weeks ago) Golden Globe winner Awkwafina. It aired its pilot episode on Comedy Central on January 20th of this year, and, after scoring over 818,000 watchers just in the first 3 days after it aired, the show is breaking the network’s viewer, rating, and social media buzz records.
Not-so cryptically titled Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, the show is about Nora, a twenty-something year old who decides to kick her aimless life into high gear by finally moving out of the house she shares with her grandma (Lori Tan Chinn) and her single dad Wally (BD Wong) and seeking employment. She moves in with high school friend Chenise (Makeda Declet) who “actually has her shit together” and gets a job as a driver for “Commute,” a Uber-type company. However, once that job falls through after a series of chaotic events and Nora discovers some- er- interesting secrets her new roommate has been keeping from her, Nora discovers that transitioning into full blown adulthood is gonna be harder than she thought.
In the grand tradition of the Awkwafina content we all know and love, Nora from Queens is nothing if not relatable. It seems like everyone who’s made any kind of attempt at growing up and moving out has had some experience that they can relate to the situations that Nora finds herself in. One scene in the show follows Nora as she attempts to cash a check but then realizes that 1) you need a bank account for that but 2) her bank account got closed and 3) in order to reopen it she needs her drivers license but 4) her driver’s license is expired. Thus, the show succinctly encapsulates a perfect example of the kind of hilariously frustrating real-world spiral that people find themselves in every day.
However, people may not be aware of the show’s autobiographical element. Awkwafina really is Nora from Queens. Born Nora Lum in Forest Hills, a neighborhood in Queens, New York, to a father who’s name really is Wally, her mother died when she was four and she was subsequently raised by her grandparents, becoming especially close to her grandmother. All of these familial elements were carried over into the show, and throughout the whole series family relationships are at the forefront of the narrative. While the rest of the show is far from based on real events, Awkwafina still plays the role of struggling Millennial with the raw, candid, intermittently raunchy realness that makes her so love-able. And while Nora Lum portrays Nora Lin, the slightly fictionalized version of herself that strays far from Awkwafina, the persona she has inhabited since she gained fame for her rap skills as a teen, all of her different sides and personas blend harmoniously to make Nora from Queens the raunchy, embarrassingly, desperately, hilariously, almost painfully real show that it is.
In my opinion, the buzz that has Nora from Queens breaking network records is completely justified. The show is real, funny, at times touching, and most of all relatable. Despite the somewhat repetitive feel that the pilot episode takes off with, I was hooked by the middle and fully invested by the end. The funny, lighthearted spin that this show takes on the daunting process of growing up is what makes it so watchable and, even for someone like me whose patience is fully conditioned to match the fast paced, binge-watching fad that has taken over television and entertainment in the past decade or so, worth waiting for each night that it airs on (gasp!) cable television.
TV Wasteland 