TV Review – Fantasmas

Fantasmas (2024)
Written and directed by Julio Torres

The post-Internet era of media is very much here, and one aspect of that is this DIY/hyperreal style of filmmakers like Julio Torres. The work is very much queer both in its presentation of diverse genders and sexualities but also in the strangeness of its presentation. It’s clearly modeled on our real world but often exaggerated in ways inspired by the cartoons of the 1990s and early 2000s these artists grew up watching. They address the current reality of capitalism’s buckling by finding humor in the mundane but nevertheless infuriating odyssey of trying to get adequate health care or resolving a bank charge. And it’s all done in a manner that feels fresh and exciting.

Torres plays a version of himself in this mix of sketch comedy and surreal millennial sitcom. Julio is a struggling artist whose particular sensibilities aren’t given much attention by the people in power to fund his ideas. The show’s opening has Julio pitching to a crayon company with his idea for a completely clear addition to the box. His proposed name for this translucent crayon would be “fantasmas”, but the executive counters that he should drop the “s” because it’s just one crayon. The series title appears on screen shortly thereafter as “Fantasma” with an “s” added as an act of defiance. This is Torres’s show, so things will be done on his terms. 

I have enjoyed Torres’s work since his previous HBO series, co-created with Ana Fabrega, Los Espookys. Like that series, Fantasmas presents a world where strange people deal with the most mundane problems of modernity. I’ve followed Torres to his HBO comedy special, “My Favorite Shapes,” and his feature film debut with A24 Problemista. I’ve even read his seemingly overlooked children’s picture book I Want to Be a Vase, a beautiful metaphor for being true to yourself and your identity. One of his greatest achievements has been the SNL sketch “Wells for Boys” featuring Emma Stone. Stone is a producer on this series and appears in the final episode as part of a mind-bending, horror-adjacent parody of the Real Housewives franchise.

Populating Julio’s version of New York City is a cast of characters as equally strange as him. There’s his manager, Vanesja (Martine); the “j” is silent. We uncover a striking fact about Vanesja by the end of the series that recontextualizes our understanding of her and leads us to wonder if her clients know this fact. Julio regularly gets rides via an alt-queer rideshare service, Chester, and his driver is always Chester (Tomas Matos). The rides often include other passengers, as Chester is the only driver on Chester, so everyone is regularly late to their appointments. His roommate/personal assistant, Bibo (a robot puppet voiced by Joe Rumrill) doe,s very poorly at their job, but Julio just doesn’t have the heart to let him go.

The serialized story that follows Julio through the season is his worry over his birthmark, which he can’t determine if it is staying the same or growing in size. This means he’s seeking out doctors who seem annoyed to even have to speak to him and eventually going down alternate paths, like cryogenics, to freeze him until a cure for indeterminate disease is discovered. He deals with a healthcare system that has become a Kafka-esque maze that cannot be solved. The housing market also leaves him with fewer options for a new apartment. The economy, in general, is one of the series’ main antagonists.

Throughout the show, we diverge, sometimes framed as Julio’s daydreams and other moments happening elsewhere in the city. One of these is the mini-documentary about the letter Q (Steve Buscemi), a disgruntled punk artist who has never got his due. Eventually, he meets some of the new generations, “X,” “Y,” and “Z,” who express what an inspiration his work has been for them. The Real Housewives parody features Emma Stone and Rosie Perez, who discover that the world they inhabit is a construct, jumping from a fully furnished kitchen to the existing green screen. They go through an existential night of the soul. 

The Julio Torres we see in Fantasmas is slightly different from previous roles. This Julio is bitter about the world. He’s still a dreamer, but the institutions around him have worn him down. The show is shot in an artificial version of New York, a soundstage with sets and backdrops. It also seems to be perpetually night, which adds a layer of gloom to the comedy. Everything reflects the dourness of our time, trying to laugh in the face of unhinged customer service reps and people running multiple financial scams at once. Torres plays a version of himself, trying to hold onto being nice while being pushed towards snapping. He’s an artist searching for a way to stay true to himself. The conclusion the show comes to is that such a thing might not be possible.