Interior Chinatown, Season One (2024)
Willis Wu’s life in Chinatown is hardly what he hoped it would be. His family is still reeling from the mysterious death of his beloved older brother, his parents hardly speak to each other, and he’s stuck waiting tables at the Golden Palace Chinese restaurant. After witnessing a woman getting kidnapped, though, he begins to uncover a bizarre conspiracy that affects not only him, but all of Chinatown. Unfortunately, Wu’s investigation is hindered by the fact that he’s actually just a background character in the popular TV police procedural Black and White. Yes, you read that last bit correctly. Not surprisingly, Interior Chinatown gets very meta very quickly, and only more so throughout the season. As Wu tries to break free of the TV series’ constraints, Interior Chinatown explores questions of Asian identity and community while simultaneously poking fun at Asian stereotypes. (Special kudos to Ronny Chieng who kills it as Fatty “Mean Waiter” Choi.) The series occasionally gets too meta for its own good, seemingly more concerned with how it’s telling the story than the actual story itself. Even so, it’s never not inventive, intriguing, and humorous.
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