MO Season 2
How can comedy, or a dramedy put together the asylum seekers and the Palestinian struggles and pain, the longing for home, the right to return, all our dark times and still make us smile?
MO Season 2
MO is back! The critically acclaimed show by Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amer and Egyptian-American comedian/actor/ director Ramy Youssef (also creator of the series Ramy on Hulu, focused on an Egyptian-American living in New Jersey and with Amer also appearing) returns for the second season of the comedy-drama, dramedy or com-drama focused on Mo Najjar, a character based on the former’s own experience in Houston as a Palestinian refugee.
The first season was released in August 2022. Almost three years have passed and so much has happened, so much innocent blood has been spilled. There has been October 7, with the massacre and kidnapping of Israeli citizens, to which the Netanyahu government responded with what genocide scholars, NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call a genocide (proving that it is not just something supported by pro-Palestinian protesters) of the Gazawi population, the settlers and IDF’s attacks all over the West Bank. Then, of course, in this gap between August 2022 and before October 7, violence against Palestinians by the IDF and, or by settlers never really stopped, keeping up after decades and decades of violence.
How is it possible for comedy, or dramedy to reconcile with the ongoing horror and the Global North’s indifference, and complicity (with weapons sales, diplomatic support for Tel Aviv, and so forth) with the suffering of the whole Palestinian people, in Gaza and the West Bank?
The second installment of Mo’s Odyssey in the US delivers with excellence. We find Mo in Mexico, where he ended up in the first season, selling Falafel Tacos, playing as a Mariachi, and doing other jobs to survive, while he is stuck in the country, desperately trying to return to Houston, to his family, his love, and his asylum hearing for which he and his family have waited for over two decades.
MO. Mo Amer as Mo in episode 201 of MO. Cr. © 2024. Credits: Eddy Chen/Netflix
His struggle to return home is intertwined with the same of all the Latin Americans stuck in the cruel traps of the second Trump Administration, and with his own family and people’s long history of displacement and exile. He also longs to be reunited with his girlfriend Maria, played by Teresa Ruiz (Narcos Mexico): however , in the predicament where he finds himself, he must settle for being close to her family in Mexico.
The scope of the second season is wider compared to the first one, as the story moves from Mexico to Houston to the West Bank and the family that Mo, his mother, Yusra, played by Palestinian-Jordanian-American actress Farah Bsieso (Daughters of Abdul-Rahman), and his brother, Sameer, played by Egyptian-American actor Omar Elba ( Limetown) have not seen for over two decades.
The longing for home is the central thread but also others persist, like Sameer’s storyline advocating autism awareness in the Middle East, the divide between generations around therapy and mental health, and the impact on mental health and sense of self that is faced when your people are brutalized among the world’s indifference, as Yusra despairs, reading non-stop news of settlers’ attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.
One of the most touching scenes of the show is a dialogue between Mo’s sister, Nadia, played by Palestinian American actress and director Cherien Dabis (Only Murders in the Building), and their mother, Yusra. Nadia consoles her mother, heartbroken by the constant flow of news of destruction and murder in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, and other cities at the hands of the IDF and settlers, telling her “ It’s on to us to pass who we are to our kids, to Osama (her son)’s kids, Inshallah. This is how they’re not gonna erase us. No matter how hard they try”.
This touching scene ends with a show suggestion by Nadia to Yusra, The Great British Bake Off, a suggestion to which Yusra responds “British? Curse the British, those bastards. The British are the foundation of evil. They’re the ones who destroyed us, colonized us, divided us”.
MO. (L to R) Farah Bsieso as Yusra, Cherien Dabis as Nadia in episode 207 of MO. Cr. © 2024. Credits: Eddy Chen/Netflix
Yusra’s line is inserted in the accuracy of the show and how much Western powers, not only the US, but the United Kingdom as well, have a historical role and complicity in what happens today, in Gaza and the West Bank, a role not acknowledged and a responsibility never faced for the Nakba. For Palestinians, the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine after the fall of the Ottoman Empire are at the core of their suffering, displacement, and exile.
The search for belonging is central, Mo has to endure pain and reconcile with his identity and his father’s legacy.
The inhumanity of the ICE detention centres, the institutional discrimination against Palestinians in Israel (with a telling scene at the Ben Gurion Airport), and the settlers’ violence in the West Bank all appear, presenting an overwhelming weight that seems impossible to lift, even more so for those who have their family and loved ones suffering at the hands of the Israeli Defence Force and the settlers.
But, as Yusra says in the last episode, and the series trailer “ The world will always try to tear us down. When they do, we smile. Because we know who we are”.
MO Season 2 is a story of a journey for home, a struggle for dignity, and embracing and protecting an identity that is under constant threat, always with the right and aim to return, underlined by how the olive oil produced by Mo’s family is called 1947.
While pain abounds and the struggle continues, Mo Amer and Ramy Youssef’s show offers bittersweet moments and heartfelt exchanges, touches of laughter, and a sense of hope, something that is sorely needed in the truly dark times we face, in the hopes of building a better tomorrow, starting with an end to the Palestinian’s decades of suffering.
MO Season 2 is now available to stream on Netflix.
It’s a wrap for this week. The newsletter will be back next Friday, February 7. Stay tuned!