Ty Watches "American Vandal"

I was going to write about the NBA trade deadline today, but there is still about 20 minutes left to go, and I will give everyone my take on all the moves that happened tomorrow. Today I'm going to write about one of my new favorite TV shows.

Just last week I started to watch the show "American Vandal" on Netflix. I put this show on my instant queue right away, by shied away from it for awhile. I didn't quite know what to make of it. I thought that it was a serious crime story, a la the excellent "Making A Murderer", and I just couldn't handle another show like that at the time. I needed to find something that was more light hearted and not so serious. Sometimes I watch very serious shows and they just take it out of me. I feel almost exhausted after watching great shows like "The Wire", "Breaking Bad", "Legion" and sometimes even "Atlanta" can be super heavy. So, as I said, I needed a break. I kept putting "American Vandal" off.

As I was scrolling through Twitter one night, I saw a bunch of comedians tweeting that everyone should watch "American Vandal". This piqued my interest. The one person who pretty much convinced me to watch was Rainn Wilson. Many of you may know him as Dwight Schrute from "The Office". His tweet was very simple, but it just pushed me over the edge to finally watch the show. He simply said, "everyone needs to watch "American Vandal", that is all". See, very simple, but it worked.

That night I watched the first episode of this show, fully expecting it to be a hard crime drama, and it was not. It is one of the funniest shows that I have seen in a long, long time. The show does follow that "Making A Murderer" or "Law and Order" vibe, but it is so god damn funny. Now, full disclosure, I have only seen the first 2 episodes, but it works.

The story of this first season has to do with a senior at a high school in California who gets expelled for spray painting 27 penises on teachers cars during an administrative day. An administrative day means that the students get the day off, but the teachers have to be at the school. The premiere finds a random student deciding that he wants to get down to the nitty gritty and see if the accused actually did the crime. The student has a background in film making, and he just so happens to have a friend that wants to be a director, so, they reopen up the case and film it all. Everything that happens in that first episode is tremendous and hilarious. The way they shot the footage and how they put it on Netflix, it is magical. It is shot like a true crime story, and that is part of why I enjoy this show so much. They make such a childish act, spray painting penises on cars, and turn it into something that seems like a very serious crime. And as they continue to go on, everything just works. The 2 filmmaker students tell all sides of the story. They get the accused's side of the story. He vehemently denies doing the prank, even though he is the school's best prankster, and pretty much every other student is pretty certain he did it. We get the school board's side of the story. They basically just want this student, who they look at as a nuisance, out of their hair. We have new students involved. We have the class president, who claims he saw the other kid commit the crime, who may or may not be a total bull shitter. We get to meet the accused students buddies, they call themselves the Way Back Boys, which is so god damn funny to me for some reason, side of the story. These kids like to get high and pull pranks, but they staunchly deny that their buddy would do this particular crime. We get the kid's Spanish teacher, who has been a victim of the expelled kid's pranks before, mainly penises being drawn on her classroom board, side of the story. She is certain he did it.

"American Vandal" is a perfect spoof of true crime stories. I am on pins and needles and I cannot wait it see where they take it from here. The second episode ended on a major cliff hanger, and I will be very curious to see how they tackle that problem. If you enjoy spoof type TV shows, but also like crime dramas, I think you should check out "American Vandal". Yes, it is a very childish topic that they are tackling, but the way they do it is so phenomenal, that I don't even care how sophomoric the humor is. This show is awesome and I hope they do more seasons. I will most likely finish the first season by the end of the weekend, and I know that when I'm done I will want to watch more. "American Vandal" is awesome.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He would never spray paint a penis on anyone's car. Now if the car was really dirty, he may draw a penis with his finger in the muck covering the automobile.

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