Review: One Day at a Time “The Politics Episode”

OVERVIEW

The Alvarezes wait in dread as conservative family members come to stay for an upcoming baptism. Lin Manuel Miranda guest stars.

OUR TAKE
Gonna be honest, I had very cursory knowledge of One Day at a Time going into this episode. What I did know is that it WAS a Netflix show about a Cuban family that was cancelled and then revived on TV, which is usually the opposite of what happens, but the current season got shut down halfway through production due to the pandemic, so now they’re doing an episode in animation and having the cast do voice overs (as well as giving them the chance to bring in expensive guest stars like Lin Manuel Miranda who would be a lot harder to get in live action). So that’s why we’re talking about this episode here. I’m sure it’s a good and beloved series, which it would have to be to get revived after a cancellation, but I personally haven’t seen much of it to say either way.

Thankfully, this episode works quite well at making the series feel quite accessible, especially with a pretty relatable and tense situation as talking to your family about politics. Of course, if you’ve taken two minutes to look out your nearest window in the past few months, you’ll know how fucking insane everything is right now, as well as how difficult it can be have a straight conversation with someone on the other side of the isle, even if they’re your family. And this episode pretty much covers just about every quip and rhetoric that these conversations will have, with some decent animation to help illustrate how people can devolve into cartoon characters when on these subjects. But it also tries to examine every angle that both sides can come from and why they think what they think, so it’s at least constructive in how to handle that.

The episode very clearly picks a side in terms of who is actually thinking about the future of the country and who is not, but it gets to its conclusion naturally. And while I can’t say I know any of these characters that much better by the end, I’m fully aware that this is a sitcom with paper thin characterization anyway. It’s just now the visuals are just as 2D. For fans of the show, I’m sure this will be another solid installment, and perhaps I’ll check it out properly for myself when I get through everything else I’m currently watching, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do.