Animation
Good Times
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
Given the choice between going to the beach with friends or staying home for a long discussion with Mom, most teenagers would pick the beach.
But Mila isn’t most teenagers.
Yes, the beach sounds lovely, but Mila’s mom, Elis, has been so engrossed in her work the past 10 years that Mila’s barely been able to exchange more than a sentence at a time with her. So, when Elis says she has many exciting things to share with Mila regarding all that work, Mila’s actually pretty excited.
Unfortunately, things don’t go quite as planned.
Instead of picking Mila up from school, as promised, Elis is detained by Multiversal mercenaries called the Operators. Mila, thinking her mom has blown her off again—and on her birthday no less—refuses to listen to Elis’ explanation. And before Elis can reconcile the situation, the Operators return, forcing Elis to flee to another universe.
Mila doesn’t immediately realize what happened to her mom. (Elis’ multiversal transport device, called a “POLLEN”, works more like a Freaky Friday body swap than anything we saw in the most recent Doctor Strange flick.) But while searching for answers, Mila discovers a second POLLEN that Elis made for her daughter, and she activates it.
Mila travels to another universe—one where she attends an alchemical institute. Once she swaps bodies with another version of herself there, her mom (who came to the same place) is able to communicate with her through their POLLENs.
Unfortunately, Mila’s POLLEN is immediately confiscated by an instructor. (I guess those no-phones-in-school policies apply even to technologically advanced universes.)
But Mila has a plan: convince her friends in this universe to trust her, get the POLLEN back, find her mom and hopefully avoid the Operators along the way.
Mila in the Multiverse is a Brazilian show available on Disney+. But don’t be fooled by the title, the Multiverse Mila is exploring isn’t the same one Doctor Strange and his companions have been traversing.
Yes, many of the show’s elements are similar to Marvel—science-y superpowers, the theory of infinite universes, bad guys determined to use those powers to destroy those universes—but the show has nothing to do with the MCU.
There’s some light language scattered throughout each episode. And an LGBT storyline works its way in by the second episode. Kids can sometimes be rude to adults, but they’re often called out for their bad attitudes.
So if you don’t want to navigate those elements but also don’t want to miss out on anything from the latest phase of Marvel, fret not. Because you’re not missing out on anything by skipping Mila in the Multiverse.
When Mila’s mom, Elis, promises to finally share everything she’s been working on the past decade, Mila is ecstatic to reestablish their close bond. But their plans are derailed when multiversal mercenaries arrive to kidnap Elis.
Mercenaries, called the Operators, use superpowered weapons to wipe out an entire universe. The weapons first cause tornadoes and lightning storms to destroy a planet, then create a black hole that devours planets and the entire universe. Characters use devices to jump through different parallel universes. Operators wreck Elis’ workshop. One Operator grabs Elis’ face forcefully.
Mila becomes upset (and acts out) when she believes her mom has blown her off for work. (And while Elis’ work is all to benefit Mila, she has missed key points in her daughter’s life because of it.) A girl calls out her friend for being rude to their school principal. Mila’s best friend can be judgey.
People place monetary bets. Characters sometimes lie or break rules. A boy kisses a girl’s hand. A woman consumes raw eggs and other gross foods. We hear a use of “d–n,” as well as the terms “sucks” and “amazeballs.”
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
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