Sunnyside Review: The Ethiopian Executioner (Season 1 Episode 2)
Sunnyside Season 1 Episode 2, “The Ethiopian Executioner,” is everything its first episode wasn’t; funny, driven — and unexpectedly poignant.
Though there’s still a lot of rough patches to iron out, it appears Sunnyside is quickly finding its voice, and more importantly, the meaningful connections between its characters.
The center of Sunnyside, unfortunately, remains its biggest weakness. Though a bit of separation from his origin story helps, Garrett’s grating introduction still hangs over him as he tries to help Hakim from falling victim to a scammer (played by the always-perfect John Michael Higgins).
“The Ethiopian Executioner” smartly tip toes away from the pilot’s definition of Garrett, which was mostly a poor Jeff Winger imitation.
One episode of good intentions isn’t exactly a saving grace, but it is an important building block. Now if Sunnyside could find him a working punch line, then we might have a character to build around.
It brings down an otherwise stellar second episode; it’s clear the more Sunnyside leans into its ensemble, the more rewarding its storytelling will be. Garrett just isn’t a useful anchor for the show’s bigger stories, about a lovable group of vulnerable goofballs finding strength in each other.
Honestly, make Griselda the heart of the series. She’s the true intersection of the stories in “The Ethiopian Executioner,” and Sunnyside as a whole.
As an undocumented immigrant working over a dozen jobs, with no benefits or time for her family, her vulnerabilities are legal, professional, and personal; she incorporates Brady’s stories of financial struggle, and the siblings’ uncanny ability to let themselves be taken advantage of.
“The Ethiopian Executioner” does well to distinguish its two main two stories (Brady using the siblings to enjoy a more comfortable life, and Hakim’s inability to prove he’s being frauded), but it’s Griselda’s position in both stories that give it cohesion.
While Garrett runs around trying to make elaborate(-ly dumb) plans to catch the scammer, Griselda’s giving Brady an emotional talk about friendship and providing some necessary comedic relief when she begins live-recording a podcast of Hakim’s mysterious activities.
Whether Sunnyside takes that path or not remains to be seen.
I contend that putting Griselda at the heart of the series gives it so much more pathos. Her life is so much closer to the other characters than Garrett.
Just the fact Garrett isn’t sitting in prison after getting an extremely flagrant DUI is testament enough to the general privilege he experiences in his day-to-day life.
His vulnerability is strictly internal; even Jun Ho and Mei Lin come across as more sympathetic characters, as their extravagant lives are slowly revealed to be lonely existences in a surprisingly strong B-plot.
The Mei Lin/Jun Ho arc is definitively the strongest of “The Ethiopian Executioner.” As childhood nepotism eventually gave way to an extremely distorted view of reality, Mei Lin and Jun Ho’s superficial personalities become one of the more empathetic stories on Sunnyside.
It’s a strange thing to say; but hearing of their childhood isolation, and how it eventually led them to completely rely on each other (and the internet) to experience regular society… well, it almost makes them the inverse of Lucille Bluth’s infamous $20 banana moment.
Where in Lucille, Arrested Development exposed the insane distortion and self-isolation of the 1% in all its reprehensible truth, Sunnyside uses Mei Lin and Jun Ho to explore the loneliness and emotional dysfunction that forms — and eventually hardens — over time.
It quietly builds out a powerful foundation for the sibling, even though it presents itself as Brady’s story; it’s the blend of humor and empathy Sunnyside could really build upon, embracing its most ridiculous and heartfelt qualities in one fell swoop.
There still needs to be some tweaks made the central formula, though.
The jokes are coming a mile a minute in the first act, almost to the point they obfuscate what becomes an integral part of “The Ethiopian Executioner,” and what it has to say about the many challenges and uphill battles that face undocumented immigrants in a dangerous age like this.
When Sunnyside is at its best, though, it when it uses its politically-charged premise as a back drop for stories about human beings; as the ridiculously rapid pacing of the punchlines slows down through the episode, the more it can find thematic harmony with its own premise.
With “The Ethiopian Executioner,” it is clear the seeds are being planted for a great comedy — let’s just hope this low-rated series survives long enough to see it germinate and blossom.
What did you think of this episode of Sunnyside? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Sunnyside airs Thursdays at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.
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Randy Dankievitch
Randy Dankievitch is a TV critic living in Portland, Maine, whose obsession with pop culture began as a child, watching reruns of The Muensters while listening to Paul's Boutique on repeat. A writer since 2011, Randy is currently the writer of TV Never Sleeps, TV Editor at Goomba Stomp, and a columnist for Up Portland, with previous bylines at Sound on Sight, Processed Media, TV Overmind, and many others.