‘I’m a Virgo’ review: Boots Riley’s larger-than-life series is a brilliant, bizarro adventure

Writer-director Boots Riley’s film Sorry to Bother You burst onto the scene with a combination of surrealist filmmaking, communist rhetoric, and wild science-fiction twists, cementing the 2018 release as one of the most exciting debuts of recent years. Truly, there is nothing like it — and now the same can be said of Riley’s next project, the Prime Video series I’m a Virgo.

Like its 13-foot-tall protagonist, Cootie (Jharrel Jerome), I’m a Virgo stands out in a TV landscape populated by reboots and popular IP. It’s singular in terms of story, messaging, and visuals, keenly using its absurdity to explore a heightened fantasy world whose problems very much reflect our own. In fact, it’s so good and so self-assured in it originality that it’s hard to believe it’s only Riley’s second project. Then you remember Sorry to Bother You set the bar very high, and it all makes sense.

What’s I’m a Virgo about?

Allius Barnes, Jharrel Jerome, and Brett Gray in “I’m a Virgo.”
Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video

I’m a Virgo is a coming-of-age tale by way of Boots Riley, which means you can expect several bonkers twists and turns along the way. The first twist: Our hero, Cootie, is a once-in-a-generation giant who has never left his house in Oakland, California. For 19 years, his aunt LaFrancine (Carmen Ejogo) and uncle Martisse (Mike Epps) have kept him hidden from the outside world for his own safety. They remind Cootie of the dangers he faces with a scrapbook of news clippings about other giants being brutally murdered and sold for parts. “People are always afraid, and you are a 13 foot-tall Black man,” LaFrancine tells him. “They fear you.”

So, Cootie grows up in isolation, with his only connection to the exterior being his beloved comics and TV shows. He learns commercial jingles by heart, takes dedicated notes on a TV psychic’s daily advice, and even adopts a daily affirmation from a reality show contestant: “From that day forward, I knew nothing would stop me from achieving greatness.” Another of Cootie’s affirmations is “I’m a Virgo,” which he uses to justify his love of adventure — information he no doubt also gleaned from the TV psychic.

Elsewhere, Cootie obsesses over the work of billionaire entrepreneur Jay Whittle (Walton Goggins), who created comics about a superhero simply named “The Hero” and then proceeded to become The Hero in real life. Cootie is enamored with The Hero’s work and frequently repeats his catchphrase: “Get your mind right, half-wits.” With his sheltered upbringing and his only exposure to the real world being filtered through TV, Cootie doesn’t recognize The Hero’s slogan for the dog whistle it is, nor does he see the problems of The Hero brutally policing Black people. He just sees a hero.

Cootie’s sanitized, pop culture-centric view of the world changes entirely when he sets foot outside his home for the first time. Yes, he sees the horrors of The Hero’s actions and of the larger capitalistic systems in place enabling them, but he also experiences the wonders of the world — bass played through subwoofers is one such joyous discovery. He makes his first-ever friends in Felix (Brett Gray), a car enthusiast who first sees Cootie; Scat (Allius Barnes), an animation lover who bonds with Cootie over the nihilistic cartoon Parking Tickets; and Jones (Kara Young), an activist organizing a general strike. With the help of these three and his crush Flora (Olivia Washington), Cootie goes on a weird, wild odyssey of self-discovery through the streets of Oakland.

I’m a Virgo is a masterclass in wacky world-building.

Brett Gray, Kara Young, and Jharrel Jerome in “I’m a Virgo.”
Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video

Cootie’s world is certainly based on our own, yet Riley and co-showrunner Tze Chun infuse it with a healthy dose of surrealism, giving us the most inventive show on TV right now in the process. From a cult dressed in Steve Jobs-esque black turtlenecks to borderline pornographic advertisements for a burger chain, I’m a Virgo dials the strangeness up to a 10 in every way.

Of course, that strangeness also extends to Cootie himself, who towers over everyone he meets. In scenes with the rest of the cast, he fills the frame thanks to a neat combination of “forced perspective, half-scale sets, puppets, wire work, miniatures, and other crude optical illusions.”(opens in a new tab) The commitment to achieving these effects in-camera pays off: Even though we’re immersed in a fantasy, it still feels grounded in reality. Jerome’s performance adds to this as well, especially in the ways that Cootie hunches over to try to take up less space — or, as the season progresses, the ways that Cootie allows himself to take up as much space as he needs. (Jerome notably won an Emmy for his breakout performance in Ava DuVernay’s Netflix limited mini-series about the Central Park Five, When They See Us.)

Another aspect of strangeness enhancing the world of I’m a Virgo is Flora, an outsider just like Cootie. Instead of being a giant, she has the power of super speed. It’s both a blessing (allowing her to speed through making orders at Bing Bang Burger) and a curse (her speed is a constant, so she trains herself to slow down to match everyone else).

I’m a Virgo‘s portrayal of Flora’s abilities is easily the most interesting depiction of a speedster you’ll see this summer. From an onlooker’s perspective, Flora’s movements are punctuated by pops of color and accompanied by a jaunty tune. To her, though, she’s stuck in a world of slow motion, where the only cure to her boredom is to meet someone unpredictable. She and Cootie hit it off in a genuinely adorable romance, topped off by one of the strangest yet sweetest sex scenes you’ve ever seen. That sequence is just one of many ways I’m a Virgo examines the boundaries of what its own strangeness is capable of, proof of its relentless imagination and dedication to the surreal world and characters it’s created.

I’m a Virgo isn’t afraid to embrace radicalism.

Walton Goggins in “I’m a Virgo.”
Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video

Just like the surrealism in Sorry to Bother You, all the strange happenings of I’m a Virgo serve the show’s greater messages about race, policing, labor exploitation, and capitalism. For starters, Cootie’s stature becomes a physical representation of the dangerous perception of Black men as threatening based on their race, especially in the eyes of the police. The Oakland community embraces Cootie, even making merch celebrating his existence. It’s only when The Hero interferes that Cootie is portrayed as a villain. The word “thug” gets thrown around a lot, along with The Hero’s “half-wits” catchphrase, proving LaFrancine right in that the world would rather fear Cootie than understand him.

Just as there are people ready to fear Cootie, there are also those ready to use him. What better way to welcome a giant to the world than to commodify him? In his attempts to earn money to woo Flora, Cootie signs with a white agent who gets him a gig modeling streetwear at a mall. Cootie is literally put on display in a variety of tableaus that play up the stereotype of the angry Black man, wearing clothes designed by a white-owned company co-opting a style rooted in Black culture.

Riley also expands his critique beyond Cootie. We witness evictions in Oakland, failures of the American health care system, and regulated power outages meant to save the power company money. A tragedy in a later episode serves as a turning point for Cootie to begin connecting the dots between these issues. It helps that Jones lays out the crisis of capitalism with such convincing oratory skill that she transports anyone listening to a starry void where animations explain her argument.

Is it subtle? Hardly. But as The Hero proclaims, “All art is propaganda.” You can certainly say the same of I’m a Virgo, whose messaging and art are so intertwined as to be inseparable. It’s almost baffling to me how something so anti-capitalist and so weirdly original could be on TV, much less on Amazon’s video streaming platform, but I am elated that it’s out there. From its ambition to its outlandish approach to addressing the many crises we face today, there’s no doubt that I’m a Virgo is in a class all its own.

All episodes of I’m a Virgo are now streaming on Prime Video.(opens in a new tab)