‘Primo’ Review: Shea Serrano’s Family Comedy Is Another Low-Key Winner for Freevee

Despite a brand identity that teeters somewhere between “Hey, didn’t you used to be IMDb TV?” and “Oh, so that’s where Bosch is now?” and “Wait, why do some Amazon shows have commercials?” the streaming service known as Freevee has spent the last year building a foundation of solid comedy-adjacent half-hours.

The Tegan and Sara series High School, still in need of a second-season renewal, is the best of that group, but Greg Garcia’s Sprung offered a funny and pleasantly emotional assortment of pandemic-skewering observations. More recently, this spring’s unscripted hybrid Jury Duty, which I liked in concept if not execution, has been steadily finding fans.

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Produced by Mike Schur and created by journalist Shea Serrano — whose fascination with the intersection of sports and pop culture is only occasionally in evidence — Primo is another low-key winner for Freevee. The comedy isn’t always full of laughs and sometimes leans too heavily into sitcom formula, but its lived-in family portrait feels instantly authentic and the eight-episode first season evolves into something with a tremendous amount of heart.

Ignacio Diaz-Silverio plays Rafa, a 16-year-old ascending high school junior who lives in San Antonio (played in suburban shades of browns and grays by Albuquerque) with his single mom Drea (Christina Vidal). Rafa is at a transitional point in his life, with a crush on the new girl in the neighborhood (Stakiah Washington’s Mya) and the unanticipated opportunity to take part in his school’s college prep program.

On the cusp between boyhood and manhood, Rafa requires a lot of advice and, fortunately or unfortunately, he lives under the constantly vigilant eyes of his five uncles, Drea’s brothers, who each have their own perspective on… everything. There’s Jay (Jonathan Medina), the only uncle with a steady job and stable marriage; Mondo (Efrain Villa), sculptor of wooden penises and devotee of all things spiritual; Rollie (Johnny Rey Diaz), constantly getting jailed for minor skirmishes; Mike (Henri Esteve), shaped by his time in the military; and Ryan (Carlos Santos), convinced his job at the bank is a springboard for personal and professional success. 

The greatest achievement of the first Primo season is how thoroughly it establishes the voices for the five uncles. For an episode or two, it’s easiest just to differentiate them based on every imaginable gradation of facial hair, but the writing and especially the actors quickly inhabit not only their characterizations, but also their interactions, which Rafa accurately likens to a noisy swarm of bees. For me, the standouts were Diaz, who gives Rollie’s (goatee) erratic behavior and non-sequiturs a childlike innocence, and Medina, who locates surprising sincerity behind Jay’s (clean-shaven) deadpan seriousness. 

Villa’s Mondo (aggressively bearded) is probably the least amusing of the brothers for me — not because of the performance, but because Mondo is the most overtly and obviously comedic brother and therefore the least organic to the extremely believable brotherly dynamic. Every argument gives the impression of a lifetime of grudges, resentments and, fundamentally, love, and whether they’re bickering over punctuation, romantic advice or a perceived slight decades in the past, the overlapping dialogue and masculine peacocking is on-point.

Vidal, who has spent nearly three decades being misused and underused in various TV and film projects, has perhaps her best role to date, expertly participating in and breaking up the potential testosterone avalanche. She makes Drea stern but never a scold, and in episodes focused on the character’s highly misguided cooking methods and a rare day in an empty, quiet house, she contributes enthusiastically in the overall hijinks. Drea may have had to function as a mother to her siblings, but she can mix it up as well.

Much credit for the orchestrating of this managed domestic chaos goes to the series’ directors, including Kabir Akhtar and Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Melissa Fumero, who continues to branch out impressively as a hyphenate. Fox’s beloved but short-lived Enlisted is a show I’d point to for a similar level of well-executed fraternal agita, though Gordita Chronicles and On My Block are workable comparisons for those who prefer to focus on the cultural specificity and richness within this Mexican-American family.

Primo is less consistent when it comes to Rafa, who may be based in part on Serrano but comes across as a Coming-of-Age 101 protagonist, though Diaz-Silverio and Washington have a sweet, unforced chemistry. It’s easy to root for those two kids, even if their tentative flirtations are on the generically familiar side, just like many of the central plots — including an episode built around the family’s ultra-competitive hodgepodge board game, which inevitably exists in the shadow of similar plots on shows like New Girl and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Enjoying Primo ultimately doesn’t come down to whether Rafa and Mya will kiss or whether he’ll be able to put together a persuasive college application. It’s about relishing the complicated planning for a prank that leaves Jay stuck on a rooftop or Mondo’s use of a Ouija board to help Rollie cope with unexpected grief. It’s about Drea’s sentimental attachment to what the uncles think was just a broken bookshelf or skirmishes over the distribution of responsibilities for a family BBQ.

Rafa may come across as a sitcom character, but the grounded family and world around him give him and the show ample enjoyable room to grow on a streamer that’s coming of age as well.