2016-2021. Created by Ins Choi, developed by Ins Choi and Kevin White - CBC
[Note: I wrote this when I thought episode 10 was the final episode. I've since watched the final 3 episodes and mildy updated the below]
[Note 2: updated June 7 following statements from Simu Liu, Jean Yoon and series writer Anita Kapila]
I have a definite lack of respect for home-grown Canadian television programming, and I always have. I don't think most of it is very good. There's a reason for that. Canada is a very small and very broad market. Our small population is spread across vast distances which lead to big gulfs in regional attitudes and behaviours. Just because we're all Canadian definitely doesn't make us all the same. There's a wildly different attitude on one side of the Rocky Mountains versus the other, there's always distinct animosity between the rural and the cities, we're constantly failing our First Nations Peoples, and everyone hates Toronto except Torontonians. It's a wild market to try and entertain, so putting money and resources into any program exclusively for this market is a rough proposition (and it sometimes seems like half of our programming is "government funded" via the CBC, the other half is sports). The majority of our top notch talent gaining any traction up here invariably makes their way south of the border to bigger paychecks and brighter exposure, so it kind of leaves us with the sort of true patriots who don't want to leave and are satisfied with their small-c celebrity, or the young upstart talents who haven't found the nerve to migrate yet.
But the bigger point is most Canadian television (until recently, but I'll get to that) didn't inspire on a technical level, it didn't really know what audience it was servicing, or what it was offering that couldn't be found elsewhere. So I, generally, didn't watch it. There are, of course, exceptions. We have an incredible stable of comedic talent which bred sketch comedy like SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Four on the Floor, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and dozens of comedy gems that went completely under the radar (The Vacant Lot, Sean Cullen Show, Hot Box, Picnicface, the Jon Dore Show). There's many reasons for such success, sketch comedy is cheaper to produce, broadcast standards for the longest time in Canada permitted edgier and weirder material, and the Canadian sensibilities are far less aggressive than our American counterparts. For some reason, though, that rarely translated into successful sitcoms. I remember godawful 80's Canadian sitcoms like Learning the Ropes (about a single Dad who is a wrestler), Check it Out (which starred a slumming Don Adams as a grocery store manager), or Max & Me (from the interminable Smith & Smith, before Red Green Show became a fool's gold sensation). The only unequivocal Canadian sitcom success for quite a long time was King of Kensington, which I can't comment on because it was before my time, but I assume it was just like a Canadian version of All In The Family. We had modest successes dipping our toes into creator-driven sitcoms in the late 90s with Ken Finkleman's The Newsroom being the Canadian answer to Larry Sanders Show (instead of behind the scenes of a "Tonight Show" like talk show, it was behind the scenes of a "The National" like news program) and Don McKellar's Twitch City being one of the most gloriously odd things on TV as the decade came to a close.
The 2000s things started changing, dramatically. I mean, our dramas were still pretty weak and unbearably "Canadian", but suddenly there were some actual sitcom successes. Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys were the two big shows of note, the former staying a home grown phenomenon about the pleasant goings-on in rural Saskatchewan, that managed to just be funny without pandering to anything overtly Canadian. The same template could be said for Trailer Park Boys, about of trio of Maritmes degens which exploded beyond our borders but never really got too big for its britches.
Both of these shows could be said to be the template for the Canadian successes in the 20teens. Letterkenny is like the plus-sized offspring of both, marrying the cordial rural Canadian-ness with a sprinkle of the less savory aspects of rural life. Arguably our biggest success, multiple (American) award-winning Schitt's Creek again exploited the rural Canadian vibes for big laughs without being cruel. What all these shows understand is how to imbuing very Canadian sensibilities - rather than aping American sitcoms - is where you find a relatable truth and humour.
Which leads us (finally...get on with it Kent!) to Kim's Convenience, a show which I slept on completely for the better part of 4 years and I don't think I ever would have watched were it not for ...well, I'll get to that. Developed out of Ins Choi's stage play into a sitcom, it's set in an East End Toronto convenience store and follows the Kim family, the dad and mom ("Appa" and "Umma"), their daughter/employee/college student Janet, and their estranged son Jung, who works at a car rental agency (so we in fact get two different situation comedies in one).
Appa and Umma are immigrants, but long-time Canadian citizens. Appa is a bit of a crank but not a stereotypical curmudgeon...he likes to have fun (he can actually be pretty goofy) but only his way, and he always needs to be right. But then so does Umma, and Janet...and Jung. Umma is very involved with the Catholic church, which means Appa reluctantly is too. Janet struggles to receive any overt support or validation from her parents, but she also understands that the way they treat her is a very misguided representation of their love. The show introduces these sort of character quirks - like, the constant needling of each other which is not malicious, but also not playfully innocent either - as the family dynamic, and although it's not directly called out, there's also subtext of Korean family culture at play.
The convenience store presents an opportunity for regular customers to pass through as well as a hangout place where Mr. Kim can converse with his friends like Mr. Chin and Mr. Mehta when their nearby restaurants are slow. Mrs. Kim's involvement with the church presents another setting where her circle of friends and acquaintances reveal themselves, as well as the delightful Pastor Nina who the Kims are always trying to suck up to. Janet has a circle of friends from her art school (OCAD) photography courses (as well as a particularly awful professor), including Gerald, a nervous tick of a man who becomes Janet's roommate (and at one point briefly contemplated love interest that mercifully never takes form).Perhaps the meatiest part of the show is the decade-long strained relationship between Jung and his father. Under his strict rules, Jung had acted out, and wound up leaving home at 16, causing a huge rift. The show teases their reunion for a full season with occasional awkward encounters, and even when they do have a sort of meet-cute at a bar, their tension is never quite deflated even through to the finale...but there is a sense that they both want a relationship, but it needs a lot more time to develop into anything healthy. Jung is still on good terms with his mother, who continues to both coddle him and judge him ferociously. She is the chief instigator in angling for a reunion, for getting her family back together, but the pressure can be a bit too much for them. Janet and Jung get along like siblings, with a very honest and sweet relationship that often masks some longstanding hurt feelings and resentment. The show manages this drama very deftly over its 5 seasons, exploring the tensions and relieving them with just the right touch of empathetic comedy.
The convenience store and the Handy family are kind of two separate world in the show, which in many episodes don't even cross over. I struggle to think of a sitcom that operates in two situations so distinct. But the magic is so often the worlds colliding. Whenever Jung is in the convenience store, it's so rare, but there's a bit of awe to it, like there's walls he's subconsciously breaking down just by being there.
It's a very well acted show, and it was its performers that drew me in. Mr. Kim is played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who made a couple appearances in The Mandalorian in season 2 to a LOT of Canadian fanfare. The big deal was that not only was he already a Canadian TV star (for what that's worth) but also a HUGE Star Wars nerd, which instantly endeared him to me. It was watching some interviews with him (particularly the nerdy ones where he got to deep dive into Star Wars and answer geek questions about his cosplay) that pushed me towards watching Kim's Convenience. He seems so vibrant and youthful out of character, yet so grizzled and older as Mr. Kim. On top of adopting a thick accent (which is rarely used directly as a punchline, but occasionally is the premise of a joke) it's a remarkable transformation he makes, how distinct his natural personality seems from his combative, selfish patriarch role.
Likewise I knew well that Simu Liu, who plays Jung, was cast as the lead in Marvel's big Shang-Chi movie (to be released later this year... maybe), and yeah, he's a tremendously handsome and charming presence. He portrays vulnerability well, as well as insecurity shrouded by Jung's overt vanity. His character is yanked around a bit in the show, when he graduates to a management role, only to leave for a better offer that falls through and come back to his very junior position (with Kimchee having taken over his management role). The fact that Jung sits in this junior role for another couple seasons only serves the show in allowing it to keep its Handy set and cast but completely underserves the character. The eventual Jung/Shannon pairing never fully makes sense, and yet the two actors make it work in the way that you might see a couple that doesn't make sense but you assume it must work somehow. The finale addresses both of these points, but doesn't fully resolve as a satisfying outcome [this statement was made when I thought episode 10 was the finale...the actual finale does accomplish something a little more satisfying].
Jean Yoong's Mrs. Kim at first seemed to be too underwritten and underrepresented in the show's early seasons. [As Jean Yoon has noted since the end of the show, there was a lack of female Korean representation in the writers' room, and Liu noted that attempts to influence character story or direction were basically ignored]. But her character really flourishes as Yoong's ownership of the role strengthens by the start of the third season. The fourth season introduces that Mrs. Kim has Multiple Sclerosis and these latter two seasons give her much more spotlight time. Yoong and Lee make Mr. and Mrs. Kim sing. They are a long-term married couple who absolutely adore each other but also drive each other mental. Their relationship makes total sense, and I like it when the show revels in their affection. It's very sweet.
Andrea Bang's Janet is the show's undervalued lynchpin though. With Lee and Liu getting big Disney roles it's easy to think that Mr. Kim and Jung are maybe the leads of the show, but it's Janet, her individual relationships with each of Appa, Umma and Jung that underline everything. Where Jung seems very distant from his family connections, Janet is right in the thick of it, still struggling with her identity and the expectations for her...what she's studying, who she's dating, where she's living are all under the microscope of both Appa and Umma, in large part thanks to Jung's rebellion. Janet was also the bearer of responsibility for educating her parents of modern societal constructs, though the show does take pains to show that the Kims are open to such ideas, even if they don't always completely understand them. Janet's college apartment with Gerald (and Gerald's in-her-own-world girlfirend Chelesea) serve as the setting of some of the show's biggest highlights as a respite for all of her family from their typical environments, or just as some weird web that Chelsea has caught Janet in.
The show, in general is pretty gentle in its humour. Like Schitt's Creek it's trying to play nice with everyone, but often the characters own natures get in the way. As such, it dabbles in cringe comedy from time to time, where the characters find themselves digging their way deeper and deeper into a situation that would be easily escaped if they could get out of their own way. Janet is the key perpetrator of the cringe comedy with Mr. Kim definitely second and Shannon third (though she's pretty good at speed talking her way through a bad situation)...but no regular is able to escape it in its 65 episodes. Its perhaps what I like least about the show, how often they go to the cringe well for their comedy. It's not a stark as the Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld cringe, but I think back to Schitt's Creek season 1 and how they basically abandoned cringe altogether after that, and it seemed to be something Kim's Convenience never managed to shed.
There's much been said of late about Kim's Convenience's cancellation, which the CBC noted was due to the show's creators moving on. But there must have been something else at play. The cast genuinely seem to love each other and the roles they play, and there was decidedly more to be explored with each of the main characters (Jung and Appa had some more bridges to build, Janet still had a lot of life to figure out and a late stage bisexuality reveal dropped like a bomb, Mrs. Kim's struggles with her disease were really well integrated and good awareness but there was certainly more to expand upon, and Jung needed a real job).
If there's a reason for the show existing (beyond just being very
entertaining) it was bringing some much needed representation to screen.
There's been scant few Korean-North American led shows (I remember
Margaret Cho had one in the 90's and the very fun Fresh off the Boat in recent years), that it was certainly filling a void. The show, with both Lee and Liu's new Star Wars and Marvel playing fields bringing even more attention to the show (which had become a Netflix hit worldwide), why wouldn't they want to continue? There's more to be said about what's happening behind the scenes, but the cast and the creators/execs aren't talking quite yet. It's still an open wound. [The Hollywood Reporter, as of June 7, has a pretty good summary of grievances. Counter-points have been made but they don't address well enough the lack of collaboration from writers and producers with the cast, nor what prompted the unduly abrupt cancellation of what's become a globally popular program.]
Season 5, produced during the pandemic, suffers from its restrictions. A lot of the usual customers and performers are absent (no Mr. Mehta and his dramatic line readings), and Liu was stuck in Australia doing Shang-Chi reshoots for part of the season and literally Zoomed in his performance. It feels like a placeholder season, only inching Janet and Mrs. Kim's stories forward (but lacking some key components). There must have been larger ideas for the show going forward, which will sadly not be coming to fruition. There's nothing to say they can't pick up the show in a couple years, for another run, especially as, no doubt, viewership will pick up even more on the show worldwide when Shang-Chi hits, but the talk right now seems pretty finite.
I really liked this show, and I'll miss its cast and characters.
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