“I’m a Virgo” certainly has a unique premise. The Amazon Prime Video series, which premiered on June 23, tells the story of a 19-year-old named Cootie (Emmy winner Jharrel Jerome) who’s 13 feet tall and hidden away from the world until he sets out and meets a superhero named The Hero (Walton Goggins). That summary is less surprising when you realize the series was created by Boots Riley, the filmmaker behind the outlandish satire “Sorry to Bother You.” But what do critics think of his foray into television?
If TV journalists are any indication, “I’m a Virgo” is an early Emmy contender for 2024. As of this writing it has a MetaCritic score of 86 based on 17 reviews that have been counted thus far — all of them positive. It also has a Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 97% based on 33 reviews, only one of which is listed as rotten. The RT critics’ consensus says, “Boots Riley’s towering imagination looms as large as his supersized hero in ‘I’m a Virgo,’ an uproarious satire that’s given an enormous heart to match by star Jharrel Jerome.”
James Poniewozik (New York Times) calls the show “magnificently batty,” and star Jerome “makes Cootie’s effort to manage his body touchingly real. He has a formal, shy, sincere manner, polite and cautious, as if to efface his size and menace.” Kristen Baldwin (Entertainment Weekly) says that it “blends absurdist humor, dazzling visual metaphors, animation, and a blistering critique of capitalism to create a coming-of-age story that is unassailably original,” and Goggins is “woefully overdue for an Emmy.”
Ben Travers (IndieWire) calls the series “a treat, and even when its comedy veers into darkness, the first four episodes find joy through each character, their stories, and Riley’s exuberance in telling them.” And Allison Picurro (TV Guide) writes, “There’s often so much going on with ‘I’m a Virgo’ that it doesn’t know how to handle it all. And yet, even in its messiest moments, the fun of watching something so entirely, shamelessly out-there approach its premise with such vigor is enough to keep you watching.”
At the Emmys, “I’m a Virgo” has the potential to follow in the footsteps of “Atlanta,” another critically acclaimed comedy from an auteur showrunner (Donald Glover) that took an often surrealistic look at the modern Black experience. And it could fill in some gaps on the ballot for Amazon Prime Video, whose Emmy-winning “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” ended its run in the spring. It’s too early to know what else the season will have in store, though, as we’re less than a month into the eligibility period for the 2024 awards. What do you think?
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