Comedian Mo Amer is back with the highly anticipated second season of his Netflix series Mo, which expertly (and sometimes painfully) straddles the line between comedy and tragedy.
Executive produced by Amer and Ramy Youssef, Mo follows a Palestinian man seeking asylum in the United States with his family after growing up in Houston, Texas. Being an undocumented citizen makes working a steady job difficult, which means Mo Najjar is often driven to selling counterfeit Yeezys out of his trunk and becoming a bouncer/DJ at a strip club. But he’s kept steady by his family and his longtime girlfriend Maria, who his mother doesn’t approve of.
Season 2 takes the series to new heights when Mo finds himself trapped in Mexico without a passport to get him back across the border. With his family’s asylum case now at risk, Mo will stop at nothing to ensure his family is taken care of.
Fans of the comedian’s previous stand-up specials Mo Amer: Mohammed in Texas and Mo Amer: The Vagabond may sense that the Netflix series bears some resemblance to Amer’s personal life. But is it based on a true story?
Keep reading to learn more.
Is Mo based on a true story?
Mo is best described as a semi-autobiographical series based on Amer’s life.
Much like the Najjar family, Amer’s family fled from Kuwait in 1990 to Houston, Texas, to escape the Iraqi invasion, where he grew up while awaiting his U.S. citizenship, according to The Guardian‘s profile of the comedian. Amer later turned to comedy when he was a teenager to cope with the sudden death of his father, who passed away when he was 14 years old, a tragic loss that also strikes Mo Najjar during his adolescence.
Several moments from the show are real events that happened to Amer in his life, including learning only years after his father’s death that he had been captured and tortured during the Gulf War.
“It was brutal, to be honest with you,” Amer said of his experience reenacting the grief for the show. He later added with a laugh, “Thankfully, it was so excruciatingly painful that I was able to tap into the emotions easily for the scene.”
Season 2 marks the end of the transformative series. But Amer has said he is “open” to returning for more.
“There’s so much more to tell,” he recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “We put everything that we had into this, and I really truly believe we’ve done the best that we can. We’ve accomplished that. Can we do more? Would I do more? Yeah, I’m open to it. I’m definitely open to it.”
Mo is now streaming on Netflix.
The post Is ‘Mo’ On Netflix Based On A True Story? appeared first on Decider.
