When Ricky, a minor career wrestler, suffers an injury during a match his life begins to disintegrate. Central to that identity is his belief that he have indigenous ancestry via his father whom he has never met, yet structured his act and sense of masculinity around. Retreating into himself as his body heals from the injury, he promptly pushes his support structure out from under him and opts to seek out his progenitor.

This is the kind of satire I can get behind. This becomes masterfully intersectional and precise in its indictment of cultural appropriation, toxic masculinity, poverty, and the unintentional damage from socialization entwined in a fundamental lack of identity in the predominate culture.

While plenty depressing and dark at times, Ricky’s naivety and perseverance coupled with fantastic, natural comedic timing that is an extension of the character. There’s no easy answers, no concern for a specific character arc or plot. Time is fairly malleable and it feels impossibly tense with only the stakes of messy white hayseed drifting from crisis to crisis.

I could easily indict him for casual racism and creating his own problems, but I didn’t want to. His damage is too well rendered and his damage representative of things far larger, too often too peripheral and never held accountable.