What if Clifford the Big Red Dog was a black teenager in Oakland? That’s a hell of an elevator pitch, but it’s one that Amazon Prime has fallen for. I’m a Virgo, the first TV series from writer-director Boots Riley, is a Michel Gondry inflected fever dream set in urban California. Part comedy, part surrealist metaphor for the America of 2023, I’m a Virgo is unlike anything previously brought to the small screen.
Jharrel Jerome (one of the star-crossed lovers in Moonlight) is Cootie, an enormous teenager. At 13ft, he towers over Lafrancine (Carmen Ejogo) and Martisse (Mike Epps), who are raising him away from society – albeit still within the Oakland city bounds. But they cannot keep their secret forever; Cootie won’t be indefinitely satisfied with fast food adverts and the veneration of a real-life super-vigilante, The Hero (Walton Goggins). No, Cootie wants a taste of freedom, and he finds it in the form of three wisecracking teens: wisdom dispenser Felix (Brett Gray), existential cartoon obsessive Scat (Allius Barnes) and activist leader Jones (Kara Young). Out in the real world (“I feel small,” he marvels, on the streets for the first time) he even finds love, in the form of burger chef Flora (Olivia Washington), who’s afflicted with her own, equally bizarre, condition.
