Look, right off the bat, I’m going to say I really don’t enjoy comedy as a genre because it’s super hard to get right, and most people just don’t. What makes a person laugh is completely subjective, and simply making fools of people doesn’t in any way do the trick for me. The Mexican show Welcome To The Family relies solely on this gimmicky kind of comedy. But what’s worse is that it doesn’t even give everybody the gimmicks; it’s only the characters who look slightly different that get pushed into silly shenanigans that are just set up around a baseless idea of what can be found funny. The show tells the story of Cristina, a single mother (as she reminds us every 15 minutes or so), who loses her house to mobsters, thanks to her dad, who is an absolute prick. When she tries to visit him to get answers, he just ups and dies. This leaves Cristina and his current wife, i.e., her stepmother, to figure out how to fend for themselves with the clock ticking.
Purely in terms of the premise, this show sounds like it ought to be good. Like, two single mothers coming together, putting everything at risk just so they can bring up their children and look after them. But the kind of stuff that happens on Welcome To The Family is simply too much to handle. In the show, one of Cristina’s children has Down syndrome, and I appreciate that the show doesn’t make him the butt of all jokes, though oftentimes it feels like it’s using him for some sort of entertainment factor, rather than just having him around as just another kid. This really bugged me. The intention may have been a good one, but it definitely didn’t come across as so.
The Mexican drama is 8 episodes of 30 minutes each and gives you no breathing room. Sure, it’s short episodes, so you think you’ll be fine, but so much goes down that has seemingly nothing to do with the central plot, you’ll be left wondering why this wasn’t a movie. In fact, I think Welcome To The Family would’ve been better if it was a film rather than a series, because it could cut out most of the nonsensical bits to give us just the silly comedy. Yes, there’s a difference, and no, I’m not going to explain what it is.
Luciana is a character that comes across as a caricature of Jennifer Coolidge. I’m not entirely sure if this was the intention, and I’m wondering if the woman was some sort of inspiration for the character, but it feels almost insulting in a way. In truth, both Cristina and Luciana could’ve been very complex characters with their backstories and everything they’ve been through. But the show makes it clear who is the circus clown and who is the ringmaster. But, sure, at the end of the day, despite their differences, they end up becoming the best of friends, so hurray, everything’s solved.
Another annoying thing is when multiple characters speak over each other just to create a sense of chaos, and it’s so over-stimulating that you’re left just exhausted from watching. There’s nothing really fresh this show has to tell, so it’s easily skippable, but for those who enjoy a comedy where chaos is the main character, this one might be right up your alley. For me, it was just a little bit too much to handle.
I said in a previous article that I’ve been watching everything through a feminist lens. In truth, this is a little bit problematic in itself because it could mean searching for details where there aren’t any. So, when I’m looking at a show like this one, and the female characters are basically the clowns, it’s me that is the problem. Actually, I’m not entirely sure if there’s anything problematic in the way this show presents its women, because Cristina is the leading character, and she does have a good role. But it’s the way Luciana and Olga are basically used simply for gags that bothered me. It might sound like I’m repeating myself, but everything about Luciana, including her outfits, to the scene in which she comes out of the bedroom after a passionate moment, looking like a cartoon character with her lipstick smudged all over her face and her hair up like a bird’s nest.
But I want to clarify, these shows are not meant to be in any way intellectual or smart, but they are meant to be in some way entertaining. For me, this wasn’t it. If you’re looking for an original show with a great story and excellent characters, then this one won’t tick those boxes for you. However, if you want something to play in the background where you’ll still understand everything that’s going on, then this show will do the trick. In a way, this show highlights some of the difficulties of parenting, especially when it comes to teen children. I wonder if we’re meant to read into the kids being the ones looking after the dead bodies as if it’s a metaphor of some sort.
The performances in the show are good. Or at least as good as they can get when characters are meant to do absurd things that don’t make sense in any real-world context. Again, since comedy is so deeply subjective, maybe for a Mexican audience, the show might bring the house down. Maybe there’s a lot of stuff that’s lost in translation (I felt a similar way about a show called Envious and got butchered for it), but even if all of that was in place, I’d still not enjoy Welcome To The Family because, at the end of the day, it gets tiresome and mundane, seeing the same kind of stuff happening again and again until the protagonist breaks. I’d give the show 2 out of 5 stars.
