Premiering Sunday at midnight on Adult Swim, a most appropriate and maybe the only possible space, “The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza” is, as its creator describes it in a prologue, “a ‘Twilight Zone’ sketch show,” which is just what I would have said after watching eight of its 13 11-minute episodes, had he not said it first. Emphasizing its Asian bonafides — Mendoza is Filipino American — he adds, “It would be almost racist if you didn’t do it.”
Mendoza, who stars in, directs and, with David Machajewski, writes the show, has said that some of the ideas come from actual dreams — the “terrors” in the titles are nightmares — though if my own dream life is anything to go by, the jokes are more clever and the narratives at once weirder and more cohesive. At various times it recalls the eeriness of David Lynch or the non sequitur logic of Luis Bunuel, and it has something of the flavor of “The Vince Staples Show,” which also went to some strange places in its too-short life.
Sketches, of varying lengths, build a central idea out in every direction, and a little farther than you might expect. We meet a therapist obsessed with Wendy’s. Batman, convinced that he has adult ADHD because an online quiz told him so (“I know a lot of people claim they have ADHD,” he tells Alfred, “but in my case I think I really do … I’m creative but easily overwhelmed, organized but at the same time not”). A dying man (Steve Buscemi) is obsessed with getting his last words right; a prisoner is sentenced to “15 hugs and kisses” from the “nearest judge.” A bank robber holding hostages demands to be “a famous snake … and if you can’t get on board with that then everyone in here is going to die.” In a horror movie pastiche, Mendoza is dogged by middle-aged white men compelled to tell him that their wife is Asian, which does sound like something from personal experience.
Wherever the comedy goes, it’s played straight and with intensity, as is the terror. The show can be genuinely disturbing and genuinely funny. (Two things can be true at once.) There’s also a scene in which Mendoza, playing a character convinced he’s a Harry Potter wizard, runs into a brick wall he thinks he’ll pass through, and, there’s nothing more liable to make me laugh than that, unless it’s someone hitting their head on a low door frame or suddenly falling over for any number of non-fatal reasons.
Mendoza, who is in his mid-30s, has a string of writing and acting credits, including writing for “Dave,” Dave Burd’s comedy about a suburban Jew from Philadelphia who believes himself destined for rap greatness, and parts in Julio Torres’ “Problemista” and “Fantasmas,” which are located in the same hemisphere of alternative comedy. He has the Rolodex of a well-connected person; the guest list is impressively loaded for someone making his first show.
The great Martha Kelly (from “Baskets”) plays a masseuse who exteriorizes her client’s pain, and in another sketch, she’s a woman sitting in on a confirmation class in order to learn where Jesus might be “lodging” when he returns. (She has a plan.) Kate Berlant invites Mendoza to what turns out to be a one-woman poetry slam, held in secret to avoid the Slammers Union (“They’re like the Sopranos, only violent”). Chris Parnell, Randall Park, Wanda Sykes, Thomas Lennon, Clea DuVall, Lake Bell, Toby Huss, Mark Maron, Fred Armisen and Gregg Turkington (from the world of “On Cinema at the Cinema”) all muck in.
You should know from the above whether this might be your sort of thing. (It won’t be everyone’s, but it’s definitely up my dark, crooked alley.) But, really, it’s even better than these descriptions might lead you to guess, elevated by the first-class production, assured performances (Mendoza is himself very good) and everyone’s commitment to whatever bit is up at the time. The devilishness is in the details.
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