If you missed one of the best new comedies of the summer, the good news is that there is no time like the present to catch up.
Though Los Espookys debuted on HBO in June, its goth-inspired goofiness feels tailor-made for those last few days of summer, when you're still soaking in the sun but can feel Halloween starting to creep in from around the corner.
Plus, at just six half-hour episodes, it's an easy binge for a long, lazy weekend. And we do mean binge, because once you start watching, it'll be hard to stop.
Created by Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, and Julio Torres (the SNL scribe behind such beloved sketches as "Wells for Boys" and "Papyrus"), Los Espookys is sweet but not cavity-inducing, smart but not overwrought. Above all, it's laugh-out-loud funny. There is no punchline too silly or gag too absurd. This group commits to the bit, then takes it a few steps further for good measure.
Los Espookys is as distinctive as the weirdos it's about, and just as welcoming.
The primarily Spanish-language series unfolds in an unnamed Latin American country, following a group of horror enthusiasts who start a business staging spooky scenes for anyone who might need one -- a fake exorcism to help boost an unpopular priest's profile, for instance, or a "standard inheritance scare" to keep an ungrateful scion from his late father's riches. ("That selfish little brat never replied to the fun emails his father forwarded him," the client explains.)
Their leader is Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco), an earnest and upbeat man who's turned to horror as a means of coping with the missing "y" in his life -- his name, you see, is a misspelling of Reynaldo, which has troubled him all his life, because that's the level of cheerful nonsense this show is operating on.
His best friends and business partners are Andrés (Torres), a chocolate-fortune heir with bright blue hair, unexplained supernatural powers, and a dark and mysterious past that he will recount at length to anyone who'll listen; and Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), an unsmiling dental assistant with a dry wit, a knack for special effects, and an undying devotion to her sister. That sister, Tati (Fabrega), serves as the group's unofficial assistant, test dummy, and mascot, and might be the kookiest one of them all.
Los Espookys' humor comes from its blending of the mundane and the surreal. These friends fret about paying bills and securing work visas, but also about finding a copy of The King's Speech to pacify a parasitic water demon. To watch Los Espookys is to step into a colorful sideways dimension in which all of these are equally valid problems.
Sometimes, these sides meld together so seamlessly it's hard to say which it even is anymore. A prominent running gag is Tati's string of ever-odder odd jobs, which include breaking in other people's shoes and turning the second hand inside an enormous clock tower. It's totally ridiculous on its face, but it's also not that far off from the experience of cobbling together a living on Task Rabbit or Fiverr, which maybe says something about how unreal the modern job market has become.
It's not Los Espookys' only jab at the state of the world today -- you'll also see cracks about clueless American ambassadors and predatory multilevel marketing schemes -- but the series isn't overtly political or overly dramatic. Mostly, it just wants you to have fun, whether that means laughing at a photo of an owl in a wig, giggling at Tati's misadventures in online dating, or applauding a plot twist set up episodes ago.
You could compare Los Espookys to Saturday Night Live for its committed randomness, or to What We Do in the Shadows for its juxtaposition of the supernatural and the everyday, or to Schitt's Creek for its growing cast of enjoyable oddballs. (My favorite recurring character is Andrés' boyfriend Juan Carlos, played to snotty perfection by José Pablo Minor.) The "spooks" look ramshackle in an endearing way, like something out of a homemade horror flick or a Michel Gondry fantasy.
None of those comparisons quite do it justice, though. Los Espookys is as distinctive as the weirdos it's about, and just as welcoming. It brings you into a world where anything, literally anything, might happen, but also leaves you with the sense that it'll all be okay if you've got a dream in your heart and your friends by your side.
If that sounds conventional, it's the only thing about Los Espookys that is. Its sensibility is specific enough that it won't be for everyone -- but you'll know pretty quickly if it's for you, since this show is fully itself from the first minutes. For those it does speak to, Los Espookys, with its addictive combination of quirky humor and misfit pluck, will feel like a rare and secret gem that you'd barely believe could exist if you weren't staring right at it. Dig it up now, and treasure it forever.
