“The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh,” premiering Thursday on Prime Video, is a funny, splendid, oddball new series from Vijal Patel, whose own family experience it reflects and whose writing and producing credits include “The Kids Are Alright,” “black-ish” and “The Middle,” among the century’s best family comedies — which is to say it comes from a place of professional knowledge and lived experience.
That it’s generic on a couple of counts — culture clash comedy, battling neighbors comedy, crazy family comedy — says nothing against it, since you have not seen these characters before, and the writing and acting are consistently top flight. If I say it reminds me of Jason Jones’ great “The Detour,” whose framing (it’s a story being told to investigators), family dynamics and hectic attitude it calls to mind, I don’t expect it to mean anything to many readers; but those who know, know.
We begin in the offices of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, where the five Pradeeps, who arrived from India two years earlier, are being interviewed by two agents identified in credits only as Dark Suit (Pete Holmes), the friendly junior, and Light Suit (Romy Rosemont), his super-serious superior. They’re trying to get to the bottom of a couple of mysteries — who burned down a house, and something illegal that happened in Ohio — which might or might not end in the family’s deportation.
Father Mahesh Pradeep (Naveen Andrews) is behind the move to Pittsburgh (played by Toronto, and snowing when they arrive). He has a contract with SpaceX to make some sort of rocket part and a space to make it in (formerly a sex toy factory, with some inventory still on site). Wife Sudha (Sindhu Vee), the power in the family, is a surgeon who expects that Americans’ poor eating habits will keep her busy in the new country. Eldest child and only daughter Bhanu (Sahana Srinivasan) sees America as a chance to break free and live; middle child Kamal (Arjun Sriram) is freakishly attached to his mother and afraid of everything; and youngest Vinod (Ashwin Sakthivel) is, in his mother’s words “an optimistic dufus” who worships the garbage man.
“It’s OK, we have two others,” Mahesh says to Sudha, when Vinod declares his intention to follow that profession.
“Do we?” she ruefully wonders.
Two houses over live the Mills, Janice (Megan Hilty), Jimbo (Ethan Suplee) and son Stu (Nicholas Hamilton); Sudha describes them as trash, but they do have a thing for TV show “The Good Fight.” Janice, who makes velour Bible covers she hopes to sell on QVC and has a sideline selling nutritional supplements, is also Kamal’s English teacher, on whom he has an all-consuming crush. Jimbo, who coaches basketball at Vinod’s school, is friendly and nonjudgmental, and he and Mahesh, who is also friendly and nonjudgmental, easily bond. (Which is not to say there won’t be hiccups.) Stu, a sweet lug Bhanu first sees doing pull-ups in his garage, will become the focus of her romantic aspirations, and she his. Vinod will later be smitten with Stu himself, when he discovers his online stunt videos.
Naturally, things will not go smoothly. The story is developed through interviews with all the main and some minor characters who pass narration on to one another like a basketball, each bringing a different point of view, reflected in what plays out onscreen. (Sudha and Janice’s visions of each other’s children as corrupting influences on their own is especially funny.)
There are more jokes about (white) Americans from the South Asian point of view than about South Asians from the (white) American point of view. On first stepping on to the school bus, Bhanu gasps as she’s “blinded by the Caucasians.” Sudha explains that the denial of a medical license is a matter of “accreditation and compatibility, a.k.a. America hates brown foreigners.” Still, though race is a subject for humor — “I don’t even see color,” says Janice, “to me everyone’s white” — it’s not the subject of the series.
There are weak spots. The question of Mahesh’s business is so far in the background, except as a shadowy motivating force, or a threat to stability, that it barely exists at all. (A late scene reveals some random equipment in his factory, but there is no one to work it.) Indeed, one wonders how the Pradeeps have survived for two years. A drug dealing storyline, portrayed as innocuously as drug dealing can be, fades away to nothing, and makes no great sense for the characters involved — though it does produce some funny scenes in Janice’s imagined retelling.
The central mysteries are strung out across the season’s eight episodes, as the agents pursue — but practically speaking, put off — answers. (Their evolving relationship is its own amusing arc.) Episodic events involve bullies, basketball, bankruptcy, a bad grade, a Halloween party, a hunting trip. Vinod makes two friends, Willa (Beatrice Schneider), who stutters, and Mo (Zachary Rayment), who walks with two canes; a sort of pee-wee “Jules & Jim” scenario develops.
Indeed, you may have stopped caring who burned down the Mills’ house long before you realize it’s nothing you’re going to learn this season. All that matters is how our heroes — and they’re all heroes, each in their own way — get along. Deep down, every dysfunctional family comedy is about togetherness.
