‘The Vince Staples Show’ Wasn’t Perfect, But it Was Too Good For Netflix Anyway

Netflix is as Netflix does. The tech operation masquerading as an entertainment company has canceled The Vince Staples Show after just two seasons and 11 total episodes. This is a shame, because while we won’t be looking back on it as an all-time classic, The Vince Staples Show came from the mind of one of America’s most unique and talented writers. It showed some promise, was a critical darling, and was one of the few comedic shows on the streamer that dared to avoid cliché.

Where The Vince Staples Show miscalculated was that it didn’t really have a firm grasp on how to play with Afro-surrealism. Strangeness seemed to just happen for the hell of it or because this is the sort of art that interests Vince. There were great bits, but the surreal didn’t feel earned, lived-in, or explored enough to coalesce into satisfying ends, seemingly with the aim to confuse and confound rather than to provoke thought or laughter. As a piece of art dealing in Afro-surrealism, it’s hard not to compare it to shows like Atlanta, Random Acts of Flyness, or Key & Peele, which are the gold standards for the genre on TV. Those shows did provoke thought and laughter, and with perfection, thanks to pristine world-building, expertly crafted punchlines that mock expectations, and lambasting of institutions. The Vince Staples Show often meandered a bit too much.

As a comedy that revolved around a fictionalized version of Vince Staples, its real competition is shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Bernie Mac Show, and The Larry Sanders Show, which extrapolate from the mundane and social frictions. Of these sitcoms, The Bernie Mac Show deftly flirted with surrealism through light touches like its fourth-wall breaks and on-screen scribbled asides, bending reality just enough to fit the Mac Man’s logic. And, here, it would behoove me to mention that the fact that The Bernie Mac Show isn’t revered as one of the greatest television shows ever made is proof that the men and women who write the canon are too #fffff. Anyway, when The Vince Staples Show let Vince be Vince in weird situations, as opposed to throwing Vince deeper inside of illusions, it was at its best. It’s enough that his uncle was Mr. Hey, Twitter World, but the Juice as a ghost is a bit off the rails. That Vince found himself in a strange country club predicated on Black excellence, where the help is white, is a genius bit. His becoming the Equalizer in the midst of it feels off. Being an action hero does seem fun, though. 

The real culprit here is, of course, Netflix. Their anti-art system puts even a man as brilliant as Vince Staples at a disadvantage from the get, as he got very little runway to actually find his voice in the medium and potentially master television writing. 11 episodes over the course of two seasons is a joke.

TV writers have bemoaned the new normal that the streaming system produced because it’s hard for writers to learn their craft. Those short orders and mini-writer-rooms — and a production model that keeps fewer writers employed for fewer weeks — lead to less mentorship, less set experience and fewer chances for younger staffers to learn how to make television by actually making television. The Writers Guild of America has been pretty blunt about this: the old pipeline trained talent and the current one burns through it.

Even Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have trashed Netflix while promoting a movie they made… with Netflix. On an episode of that knuckle-dragging troglodyte’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, Damon said the streamer asks filmmakers to “reiterate the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.” By the way, The Rip, the film they were promoting, is terrible and also a hit. The Vince Staples Show was functionally highbrow for Netflix. Put it next to The Rip, and it might literally be rocket science. 

Above all, The Vince Staples Show was the rare television program that was very intentionally for us. Its jokes and references, like Rick Ross shilling Belaire, Dead Presidents face paint, and those chaotic Bebe’s Kids, seemed tailor-made for Black viewers. And it wasn’t a Black excellence merchant. This is the thing that’s going to be lost — entertainment that was real cultural shorthand, and not just a Target t-shirt slogan. I fully expected it to be a program that took its big swings before settling on greatness, but alas, Netflix is as it does.

The Vince we’ve come to know through interviews and through his music — in terms of a pure pen, we’re talking bar for bar, Billy Shakespeare does not hold a candle to Vince Staples — is probably too good for Netflix anyway. I hope The Vince Staples Show is only the beginning, the start of something great. But if that’s not the case, I’m cooling anyway; Ramona Park Broke My Heart is already a movie.