TV Review: ‘The Get Down’ [Episode 1]

The Get Down is a joyous, sloppy, high-energy, wonderful, beautiful mess.

And the first episode (what I’ll be discussing) is some of the most fun I’ve had watching something in a while. But before I get into the real discussion, a few words on what the show’s about:

The Get Down, the new Netflix series from Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Adly Guirgis, tells the story of a bunch of teenagers in the Bronx at the dawn of hip-hop. It’s the last day of school, and Ezekiel (Justice Smith), a brilliant young wordsmith, hopes to win the heart of his boyhood love, Mylene (Herizen F. Guardiola), who has cut a demo tape in the hopes of giving it to DJ Malibu (whose name in the cast list I couldn’t find, but the character gave off a wonderful Rudy Ray Moore in Disco Godfather vibe; if you haven’t seen Disco Godfather, then here’s basically all you need to know) at the disco club Les Inferno. Or, that’s one of the facets of its story. There’s also Ezekiel’s friends (which include Jaden Smith in an awesomely knowing casting choice), a nothing short of mythic (to Ezekiel & Co., at least) graffiti artist, Shaolin Fantastic, a network of club-owning crime lords, and Grandmaster Flash.

To truly appreciate The Get Down, you really have to know what you’re getting into. This isn’t a down-to-earth self-serious drama about some kids from the Bronx trying to make it big. Instead, it bounces between quiet, melodramatic, operatic, and downright ridiculous. After all, this is Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Adly Guirgis we’re talking about. The former you might know as the director of such bombastic spectacles as Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby; the latter you might know as the author of such darkly comedic plays as The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. So don’t be surprised when in the same episode a teenager is beaten by her overbearing father for breaking his rules and a mythical graffiti artist mysteriously leaps from rooftop to rooftop with classic kung-fu movie sound effects.

The odd thing is that the slapdash approach oddly works. It’s a bizarre stylistic pastiche that, while it occasionally feels sloppy, is compelling (often in spite of itself). The disparate parts come together to form an irresistibly watchable and sometimes affecting whole. In this way, The Get Down is like hip-hop (or one could be more general and say all art): the show draws from as many influences as the musical movement it chronicles. It’s part teenage romance, part class drama, part musical drama, part crime flick. It feeds off of what came before it (think sampling) to create something that is wholly original out of familiar parts. In that way, the episode becomes like an epic rap song, blending kung-fu, comic book, crime fantasy, and even blaxploitation influences with the harsh realities of life, making the real, raw elements sting that much more.

It would be awfully reductive to call The Get Down a show “about the evolution of hip-hop” (as I’ve heard it described time and time again). It would be equally as reductive to call it “a coming of age drama set in 1970s New York City.” Rather, the two tales — the one of intimate relationships and self-realization, the other of the birth of a movement — are inextricably linked. The stories compliment each other; one could not exist without the other.

Which is fitting. As the characters are growing and maturing, so is the musical and social movement that is hip-hop. In it’s own zany way, The Get Down is more interested in showing how the social and political landscape of New York shaped the people that created the music than it is in a more pedestrian documentary beat-by-beat retelling. It wants to show the cause that led to the effect.

But wait. I forgot to mention whether or not the episode is good. Well, I can’t speak to the show as a whole. But as for the first episode, I’ll go ahead and tell you that it’s hard to say. I enjoyed it, to be sure, but I thought it was not without its problems. As I said, it’s kind of sloppy. But it’s sloppy in a knowing kind of way. But it’s possibly to whole-heartedly enjoy something while still taking issue with it; nothing’s ever pure dichotomy.

In other words, the answer is yes. And I can’t wait to watch more.