The first episode of Ramy is directed by Harry Bradbeer. The British director who also made Fleabag.
This has comedian Ramy Youssef's fingerprints all over as writer and director. It is a tough journey is has embarked on with the comedy series Ramy.
Ramy wants show the life of a late twenty something Egyptian American Muslim in New Jersey. In the opening episode, he attends a wedding and notices that his friends are married.
If his hairline keeps receding and the older he gets. There will be less choice of eligible Muslim women and he might have to look further afield such as Ohio.
Ramy asks his mum to look for a suitable match as Ramy strives to be a good Muslim in American society.
What the episode gets right is the perspective of a second generation Muslim young man. Ramy wants to have a good time but he prays, he does not drink. He has a Jewish girlfriend who he sleeps with but she thought he was secular. Being Muslim was an identity than a religion he followed in the same her Jewishness was.
It is a brave series. It is noticeable to me that almost all visible Arab Americans in Hollywood perversely tend to be Christians. Like somehow if you are an Arab American Muslim you will be zapped with the cloak of invisibility.
Ramy is likely to offend just about everyone. Hency why in the early scenes at the mosque, an old man chastises Ramy for taking shortcuts in his ablution.
Then there is that first date with a Muslim woman. Although she has a chaperone, she manages to get rid of him. It leads Ramy being uncomfortable when she wants to fool around with him in the climax of the first episode.
I thought Juri Henley-Cohn stole the scenes in his brief appearance as the chaperone.