I'm A Virgo

It is, like Cootie (played by When They See Us Emmy winner Jharrel Jerome), an awful lot to take in at once. At times, it feels almost as patchwork as the outfits his mother LaFrancine (Carmen Ejogo) has to stitch together for him out of much smaller clothing. But like Cootie getting to stand at his full height, it’s also awesome in every sense of the word.

I’m a Virgo is as fresh and invigorating as a cold shower. It wakes you up, makes you alert, makes you engage with it in a way few dramas do by giving you something boldly, undeniably different. And vigorous and clever and fun and performed by a young cast who seem to be already at the top of their games.

I’m a Virgo is not just one of the best comedies of the year so far, but one of the most urgent, intense pieces of television in recent years.

Riotous and urgent, “I’m a Virgo” is hardly the most subtle show of the year. It is, by its own definition, propaganda. But it is absolutely art.

Though no show is going to change anything on its own, it is joyous to see Riley use his platform to express what is on his mind. The more we get glimpses into his vision, with all its rich creativity and righteous outrage bursting free in unexpected directions, the better that I'm a Virgo promises to be.

Riley’s method for making his anti-capitalist screeds cinematic is inventive and engaging. Like Rabelais, who also told a story about a giant, Riley’s slightly off-kilter world is just familiar enough while pointing out some of the everyday absurdities we all have come to accept.

Riley’s brilliance is to create a fictional setting so over-the-top that it sneaks up on us how close it is to our own. It allows us to realize how outlandish our reality truly is—existence in an impossibly cruel, racist, classist system that is nonetheless marked by flashes of beauty and radical kindness from the very people it exploits.

Writer-director Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) blends absurdist humor, dazzling visual metaphors, animation, and a blistering critique of capitalism to create a coming-of-age story that is unassailably original.

"Virgo" is precisely what viewers complain they can't find on television—something novel, something offbeat, something surprising; something that lacks serial murder, true crime or, for that matter, an abundance of explanations to the inevitable questions.

Amazon’s I’m a Virgo is an imaginative coming-of-age story that is not only entertaining, but deeply thought-provoking.

With an incredible roster of talent animating this world, “I’m a Virgo” is a laugh riot, a pulsing social document, and an empathetic character study. Riley’s quick wit, surrealist creativity, and nuanced social investigation add this series to his history of absurdist excellence.

Another bold brushstroke of originality that is also set in Oakland and shakes it head at out-of-control greed.

Even if I’m a Virgo doesn’t successfully extrapolate on everything it has to say, it nevertheless remains an intoxicating shot of imagination.

I’m a Virgo is ultimately a mishmash of hilarious gags and radical messages that don’t really coalesce into one outstanding statement, but they work as compelling, sharp comedy anyway.

“I’m a Virgo” often feels like an elongated movie, intermittently chopped into episodic chunks. (With episodes hovering around the half-hour mark, its runtime should end up just over the three-hour mark.) It’s not subtle, which can be part of its charm, while still feeling redundant at times.

Riley keeps us guessing right up until the end, not to mention pulling off a satisfying conclusion from the web of plot and thematic threads he has weaved, is a testament to his skill. That he does so while also making a profound social statement is more impressive still.

I’m A Virgo is about much more than the fact that Cootie is 13-feet tall; it’s a layered story about isolation, coming of age and institutional racism, but all presented with a little bit of a fairy-tale sheen to it.

I’m usually put off by preaching, too, but at least Virgo’s constitutes a departure from the bland liberalism that’s so common in an era when so much TV is essentially a series-length Very Special Episode. For one thing, it’s tempered by genuine, if often bleak, hilarity. .... The show also respects its audience’s intelligence, presenting ideas that might be unfamiliar without either condescending or feigning ideological neutrality.

Riley’s series is imaginative and fantastical but grounded in the sobering realities of Cootie’s life as a Black man. While “I’m a Virgo” is strikingly cinematic, it also takes on shades of theater and spoken word.

Whatever the series has to say about income inequality, inner-city food deserts and for-profit hospitals and public utilities is laced through a sweet coming-of-age story.

The director dares greatly — the simple fact of integrating a double-sized Jerome into physical space with his co-stars is a feat worth applauding. But as the sight of Cootie becomes more familiar, “I’m a Virgo” can at times be admirable in its weirdness more than it is gripping.

Boots Riley's genre-bending 'I'm a Virgo' displays such a strong grip on what it wants to say and how it wants to say it that the superhero-tinged absurdist comedy with rampant sociopolitical undertones couldn't be made by anybody else.

Riley and I’m a Virgo have much on their minds, but if viewers invest in the story — and I mostly did — it’s because Jerome and Washington give it heart.

With most episodes running around a compact 30 minutes, “I’m a Virgo” entertains with a sly sense of humor (Cootie’s reaction when he finally gets to eat a Bing Bang Burger is a realistic disappointment) and Jerome’s sweet and grounded performance. The show has a lot of Big Ideas it wants to introduce even if “I’m a Virgo” doesn’t always follow through.

I'm a Virgo has about as much subtlety as a 13-foot boy with a mysteriously oozing wound on his belly (I definitely don't want to spoil what ultimately happens with that), but it's immensely, charmingly watchable.

The first season ultimately feels a bit too scattered and chaotic to match the stature of its premise.

I’m A Virgo meanders. Riley is more interested in mood than plot, and, though the series initially seems to set up Cootie and The Hero as antagonists, the ensemble spend most of their time hanging out and bantering rather than progressing the story.