‘Gentefied’ Renewed for Season 2 at Netflix

By Will Thorne

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “Gentefied” will be coming back for eight more episodes.

Netflix has renewed the half-hour dramedy for season 2, which will consist of two fewer episodes than its freshman outing. In addition, the cast and crew are set to reunite for a virtual table read on May 20.

The table read, hosted by comedian George Lopez, will aim to raise awareness for Proyecto Pastoral, a non-profit profit in Boyle Heights that is looking to address the impacts of COVID-19 on low income families and residents in the neighborhood.

Created by Marvin Lemus and Linda Yvette Chávez (two Chicano first-generation writers), “Gentefied” is adapted from the 2017 Sundance webseries of the same name. The bilingual series is about family, community, brown love, and the displacement that disrupts it all. It centers around three Mexican-American cousins struggling to chase the American Dream, even while that same dream threatens the things they hold most dear: their neighborhood, their immigrant grandfather, and the family taco shop.

It stars stars Karrie Martin, JJ Soria, Carlos Santos, and Joaquín  Cosio. 

Lemus and Chávez serve writers, directors and executive producers on the series alongside “Superstore” star America Ferrera for Take Fountain, Charles D. King for MACRO, ,Teri Weinberg for Yellow Brick Road, and Kim Roth and Aaliyah Williams.

In her positive review of season 1, Variety critic Caroline Framke praised Cosio’s performance in partiuclar, while adding that the show took a little while to find its feet.

“It takes a few episodes for the cast and scripts alike to get comfortable with the characters beyond their loglines. It also takes some time for the tone of ‘Gentefied,’ which initially swings from bouncy comedy to heartfelt drama to sporadic surreal interludes, to settle into something more distinctly its own. (The directing in particular — with turns from Lemus, Andrew Ahn, and executive producer America Ferrera among others — finds ways to turn even the most predictable moments into more specific and extraordinary ones.) Once the series gets past some of its blunter instincts, it reveals some real nuance,” Framke wrote.