Cookies And Spaghetti – As the opening episode of Fantasmas begins, Julio (Julio Torres) has a nightmare. He does poses before telling several people that he was tossing and turning all night thinking about how they need to make a clear crayon. Julio explains the importance of the color clear and acknowledging that things are different. He tells the man in charge that he’d like to call the crayon “Fantasmas” which means ghosts. He agrees to call it Fantasma to make it singular. Next, Julio catches up with Chester (Tomas Matos) who is his driver. Chester tells him the television must remain on at all times and it must only play “Melf”.

Julio watches Melf. The wife comes downstairs and speaks to Jeff who says he heard a noise downstairs. Once she goes upstairs, Jeff (Paul Dano) tells Melf they can’t let it get that close again. Melf wants to be first. Melf asks when Jeff will tell Nancy about Melf. One day, Jeff tells Nancy who tells him to get out. 17 years later, Jeff’s daughter, Grace or Toast, visits him to say she is getting married. Toast thinks Jeff would really like her. Melf comes in and makes Toast laugh. Bibo interrupts Julio who says it’s his assistant. Julio talks to Bibo about going to the dentist for teeth whitening. Julio doesn’t want Bibo to be disappointed when there’s nothing to whiten. Bibo warns him that he keeps getting urgent letters that are most likely from his landlord.

Julio believes he hears a siren call so he decides to get out. He speaks to a woman at a jewelry shop around a little oyster and diamonds. She says it’s part of a curse antique so he had to buy it. At the club, Julio is told not to lose it but he does. Chester leaves with them. He agrees to drop Amina off first because she’s a teacher. They talk about having proof of existence to get an apartment. Chester doesn’t play with that. Vanesja says she looks like garbage in hers. She claims Julio was struck by lightning as a child. Julio doesn’t remember what he was doing in the woods. Vanesja claims he was pooping. She says Julio is meeting with NASA tomorrow to rebrand a constellation.

Julio talks about the letter Q (Steve Buscemi) and how it’s out of place in the alphabet. Q tries to convince the club manager to put him on later. At some point, it becomes too much for Q. He fails to jump from the window. Instead, he calls O until he hears Z praising him. Julio tells Chester that’s what he does. Amina finally gets out and goes inside. While in the bathroom, she contemplates the drawings and carvings in the stall. Amina saw a penis with its head turned away from the viewer and wondered what it meant. She had to figure out who drew it. Amina speaks to Rick who denies drawing it. Eventually, she sees the same drawing on a paper from Michael. When she confronts him, he says he drew it because he’s a boy. She asks why it looks like that. Michael says there are things he can’t do.

When he sees kids doing things like wearing purple, he gets so mad. He kicks them to remind them of what’s what. No one sees him. Michael feels trapped. When she hugs him, Michael pulls away and yells that she’s married. He claims she’s horny. At home, Amina learns that her partner found keys in a fence last night while wasted. He gets upset that she’s mad at him. Amina tries to cheer him up by asking if he wants to watch “True Women of New York”. Julio asks Chester if he can take a dream analysis kit. Chester wants to make sure it gets back to him because they have to go to the scientist. Once Julio gets home, he records comments about his recurring dream in which he wears a cone-shaped hat.

He uses a contraption that allows him to read without turning the page. He feels it getting warm so he tries to open a window, but the window leads to nowhere. He finds a door that opens and it’s snowing outside. People are walking around in black puffer coats. Julio sees a black puffer coat with his name on it. He goes back into the room only to find that it’s getting smaller. He can’t get outside before waking up. Bibo says they received another letter from the landlord. Julio talks about the possibility of getting the mole on his neck checked out. Bibo says they need to move out and he needs proof of existence.

 

Fantasmas Review

The opening episode of Fantasmas was unique and different to say the least. It’s hard to know exactly what is going on here considering the blended stories are so quirky. Just based on the oddness of the series, this clearly isn’t going to be for everyone. Personally, I really didn’t find the opening episode to be humorous although it was intriguing enough to watch another.

The series has many concurrent stories with fairly interesting characters. For instance, Amina is interested in learning more about Michael after seeing how he drew a penis in the boy’s bathroom. Julio seems to be retreating into his thoughts despite being behind on rent and being forced to move out. Chester runs an off-shoot Uber company and will likely transport Julio regularly.

Some performances here aren’t great, but it probably doesn’t even matter given the nature of the series. Again, it’s not going to be right for everyone, but there is enough intrigue here to keep me around for another episode or two. I am not hooked although I haven’t seen enough to know exactly where this is going yet. The opening episode scores a 6 out of 10.

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