'Nora' the explorer
Awkwafina: ‘misfit with an attitude’ in new Comedy Central series
N EWLY minted Golden Globe winner Awkwafina (“The Farewell”) tries her hand at a scripted series in the autobiographical “Awkwafina is Nora From Queens,” premiering Jan. 22 on Comedy Central.
Born Nora Lum, the comic, who grew up in Forest Hills, uses her own experience as a neighborhood girl to tell the story of a 27year-old princess/ loser who is still living at home with her father (B.D. Wong, playing way against type) and grandmother (Lori Tan Chinn, “Orange Is The New Black”) without job prospects or a marketable skill set.
Who is the target audience here? Perhaps the chronically unemployed.
The three episodes on view portray Nora as a misfit with attitude. Dad wants her to bring home some bacon. Nora wants a job that makes an impact. The only impact she seems to be making is the dent in her mattress, where she wiles away the hours getting high or engaging in masturbation marathons. The props alone will put you off.
In the debut episode, we see Nora holed up in her bedroom, which is a pig-sty. Grandma calls her a hoarder; what she really is, though, is a walking disaster. She tries a job as a Lyft-style driver and gets fired. She tries independence, moving in with a friend who’s running a secret sex fantasy camcorder site from the second bedroom in her posh apartment. When the two girls try to team up for a hot duo session, the tail of her cat costume catches on fire and the apartment burns down. You get the idea. Nora is always going to be stuck at home because she won’t — or can’t — grow up.
The mystery is why Awkwafina and series co-creator Teresa Hsaio thought Nora would make an entertaining central character. By contrast, Issa Rae’s “Insecure” gives us a character who has doubts about herself and her romantic prospects, but she can at least hold down a job and has girlfriends who help take the edge off Issa’s self-involvement. Nora’s sidekick here seems to be her grandmother, and the feisty Chinn steals all the scenes. In the show’s second episode, Nora accompanies her grandmother and her senior citizen friends to Atlantic City for a day of gambling and cashing in $60 vouchers at the casino food court. While Nora holds her own at the blackjack table, Grandma fights with some Korean ladies at a nearby table which has an outlet to recharge their iPads. She ends up with her arm in a sling, still with a twinkle in her eye.
Episode 2 also contains the kind of production mistake that is going to be hard for Awkwafina, billed as executive producer, to live down. They fake the Atlantic City boardwalk with ... Coney Island. When Nora runs into a high school friend down on the boardwalk, the Parachute Jump and Steeplechase pier are clearly visible in the background and the popular concession stand Paul’s Daughter provides a backdrop. Maybe you can’t take the girl out of Forest Hills or Awkwafina got lost on her way to New Jersey, but the question must be asked: What was anyone thinking?
The third episode, where Nora’s father procures an office assistant job for his daughter, shows off Awkwafina’s comedic skills as
Nora consumes an outdated Adderall prescription to do the nineto-five thing and stay up all night playing video games with two preteens. The high-wire act involves several crazy wigs, a real estate property known as the Chinese death trap and gives Awkwafina a chance to show the desperation of someone who doesn’t fit in either world. Is that enough to carry an entire series? We shall see. Comedy Central has renewed “Awkwafina is Nora From Queens” for a second season well before its premiere. That shiny Golden Globe will buy her some time to find her voice but, right now, her show is only fitfully amusing.