Mystery Meat.
This is a full non-spoiler review for all 8 episodes of Netflix's new series American Vandal - out Friday, September 15th.
One thing I'm pretty sure we're all hyper-aware of right now is that there's a lot of TV. Too much TV, some could easily argue. You've still got your huge hits like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead but from there everyone's personal viewing schedules and preferences splinter and vary. Adding to all this is Netflix spending billions so they can launch dozens of new shows, sometimes in a single month, with no hype or push behind them. They just sort of land and it's then up to us to discover them. Stranger Things, back in the summer of 2016, certainly had a unique hook, but there was little-to-no advertising for it beforehand. It just blew up.
I don't think American Vandal is going to explode in the same way as Stranger Things, no, but I am here to attempt to, I suppose, sell you on it. To let you know why adding this under-the-radar series to your watch list, over perhaps some other under-the-radar shows, is worth your time. That's not to say that some of you haven't heard about American Vandal already because it's not like it's been totally invisible, but it's certainly not what you'd consider one of Netflix's high profile properties.
Vandal doesn't come with big stars or creators and it's sort saddled with the "mockumentary" label. Also with the Funny or Die label, which isn't a terrible thing except that having Will Ferrell and Adam McKay production house as producers adds the expectation that this is a comedy, and it isn't. One more layer here - the premise involves taking the "Making a Murderer" docu-format (creating an in-house Netflix skewering) and spotlighting a burnout teen expelled from his school for spray-painting 27 faculty member cars with giant penises. Yes, "Who Drew the D***s?" is the tagline here so how can you not expect, going in, for Vandal to be one overlong d*** joke.
As you can see, Vandal, right out of the gate, finds itself in a polite fist fight with our base expectations. The trick here though, even the biggest joke if you will, is that the show plays it straight. This is not a gag. This is not a goof. You can loosely call American Vandal a satire because it is aping a particular style, like the Serial podcast and the aforementioned "Making a Murderer" (or even crime docs before those like Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line or the West Memphis Three Paradise Lost saga), but it's still a stretch.
If anything, Vandal is an earnest parody of those shows, with way less "mock" than you expect for a "mockumentary" about dong drawings. It's fake, yes, and it's certainly undercutting the solemn "life or death" seriousness of the shows it's styled after, but it's also one of the most engaging mysteries and thrillers on TV right now and one of the best new shows of the fall.
Are there laughs? Most definitely, but they don't come as frequently as you expect or from easy to spot comedy set-ups. What's more fascinating here -- and it took me a good ten minutes before I realized that American Vandal was treating its story seriously -- is the deep and wonderful exploration of high school. In this instance, Hanover High in Oceanside, California stands in as the average all-American suburban school experience.
Every student character here, from the delinquents to the brains to the princesses to the whatever other sort of Breakfast Club labels you want to throw around, are well-rounded complex individuals who take their lives seriously. One of the major sticking points that American Vandal makes by delving into this particular mystery is how often kids in school are written off and too-easily categorized by both teachers and their fellow students because it's the easiest and laziest way to engage with someone else. High School can be hell because that's when society, for the first time, places you in some sort of box.
At the center of the story, and the fake American Vandal documentary, is Dylan Maxwell (played perfectly, and with unexpected nuance, by YouTube star Jimmy Tatro). Dylan, as a senior, has such a poor reputation as both a prankster and a pain in the ass at school that no one's surprised when he's kicked out for a serious and costly "joke" that involves the painting of d***s all over teachers' cars. One student claims to have seen him do it, a teacher says she was the one specifically targeted, and the rest is history. The school doesn't need hard evidence to kick Dylan to the curb but Dylan's Hanover Morning Show classmates, Peter (Tyler Alvarez) and Sam (Griffin Gluck) WILL need solid proof in order to clear Dylan's name. Though, to be fair, Peter insists multiple times that he's not making a documentary in order to save Dylan, just to discover the truth, as occasionally the investigation leads Peter back to Dylan and his casual thoughtless lies.
One of the benefits of this being a fake mystery, naturally, is that it's all going to be crafted (by creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault) like a really engaging TV show with a beginning, middle and end. In true-to-Noir style, Peter's going to discover side conspiracies that have nothing to do with the vandalism case directly, but still add to the overall texturing of the school and student body. He'll go down wrong paths and chase leads that don't pan out, but then everything winds up circling back in the end to expose bigger revelations. This is all crafted to work as a solid "whodunnit?" and at the heart of it, if you're wondering about the stakes, is the potential ruin of a young man's life. American Vandal is awesome because it makes us, at times, question whether or not Dylan, being the dope that he is, is worth all the trouble. We then have to examine how easily it is for us, even as viewers, to write someone off as a future failure at age 17.
American Vandal is surprisingly intense and addictive. As Peter's findings draw him into possible misdeeds and felonies committed by teachers and faculty, or even debates over the validity of summer camp flings and hookups (using 3D renderings and recreations of alleged sexual encounters), you'll find yourself becoming really invested in everyone's life and appreciating moments both big and small. From the stupidity-bordering-on genius of Dylan's online pranks with his Wayback Boys buds (like "Baby Farting," where they run up and fart on babies) to the little beats where Peter and Sam are noticeably nervous and tongue-tied when tasked with interviewing teachers about serious subject matters. All the while, Peter's own issues, and how he feels more comfortable being cold and detached from everyone than actually facing his feelings and fully acknowledging the mistreatment of his classmates for the sake of his movie, starts to surface more and give the entire project a different feel.
The Verdict
American Vandal is an exceptional and addictive mystery that, ostensibly, lampoons more serious subject matters via its crime documentary parody format, but winds up surprising you with its earnest and emotional look at high school and teenage life through the lens of someone easily dismissed and written off as a joke.
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