Daniel Guerrero

Netflix contains a lot of shows that many audiences would relate to from their own sense of experiences in life.“On My Block” provides this as well for the Latino and African American community.

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The story takes place in an inner city in South Central Los Angeles where it further focuses on a group of characters. The first day of high school is quickly approaching and Monse Finnie (Sierra Capri) runs into multiple situations in her neighborhood after coming back from writing camp over the summer. Reuben “Ruby” Martinez (Jason Genao) had fallen for Olivia (Ronni Hawk), who begins to live with his family after her parents were deported to México. However, he struggles to expose his feelings to her and needs to help to overcome his fear. Meanwhile, Jamal Turner (Brett Gray) is considered as the nerd in the group where he is dedicated to finding the roller world money, which it is rumoured to be hidden in the neighborhood. However, the biggest conflict in the film is where Monse, Ruby, and Jamal try to remove Cesar Diaz (Diego Tinoco) from Los Santos gang which he was forced to be part of it because of his brother, Oscar Diaz (Julio Macias). Oscar is the leader of the gang and wants him to be part of it. From there on, the group of friends conquers these situations together through multiple episodes of the season.

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The show was developed by Lauren Iungerich, Eddie Gonzalez, and Jeremy Haft and each of them represents a character from the show. For example, Eddie Gonzalez applied his own experience in high school to the character, Ruby. To further explain this, Eddie had the same goals and sense of personality as Ruby where they both came from a large family, was born and raised in small neighborhoods, and concern about getting a girlfriend in high school. Like mentioned earlier, this goes for Jeremy Haft as well. He enjoys going on adventures and learned more about conspiracy theories like Jamal.

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Besides their similarities with these characters that they created, they begin to collaborate with each other not until Lauren first pitch the idea. She first shared the idea with Jeremy because she needed help with the storyline where she wanted the script to be more like “Freaks and Geeks” and “Awkward”. Then, they both begin to collaborate with Eddie and met at Panera Bread in the following to begin writing the script. From there on, On my Block was officially developed as a tv show on Netflix.

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After watching the first season of the show, I really like the acting where it clearly represents the characters’ sense of personality. In addition, the actors presented good emotions toward situations that their character runs into in the story. In the beginning of the season, Sierra Capri did a good job portraying Monse’s personality where the character is very dedicated on helping Cesar and his relationship with his brother in the gang. The audience can clearly see her emotions without having to feel confused on why she is expressing it. To further explain this, in the middle of the season, Monse ends up babysitting a person, who she thinks it is her mom. Towards the end of scene, Monse begins to tear up in front of her because she wants to confess that she is her daughter, but does not feel the need to. This particular scene is very empowering because it clearly shows how Monse feels about losing her mom and how she wants her back in her life. This made Monse such a great character due to Sierra’s performance on the character in general. She made the audience feels bad for Monse as she struggles to find her mom which is good. After this scene, Sierra continues to make Monse stand out throughout the season. Besides Sierra, her fellow co stars also make their characters likeable as well. Another example, Jason makes the audience feel bad for Ruby where he can get a girlfriend and Brett encourages his audience to have hope for Jamal as he tries to find the roller world money.

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I enjoy the cinematography as well where the cinematographer did a really good job on showcasing the character’s actions and emotions at an angle that the audience can visually see and analyze. An example that best represents this is in the last scene of episode 10, which can be known the ending of season one. The camera focus on Jamal where he rides his bike in the street while carrying the roller world money around his body in a sack. The camera then slowly  This is one of best shots in the show because the camera focuses on the character’s emotion toward the money itself. Afterwards, the money begins to fly off from the bag while creating a path in the street. Therefore, the camera begins to zoom out where then transition to a black screen. This is not only a great ending to the season, but shows the character’s success on the mission which lead to the audience being satisfied with the ending. In addition, the colors really pop at moments which further reflects the setting of the story and even the character’s mood. Another example of this takes place in episode six. In this episode, the characters goes to a football game at school in order to support Jamal. In this scene, the bright colors really pop out of the screen. This reflects on the character’s excitement where they cheer for Jamal in the game. I really like how cinematographers do this where the colors represents the character itself.  

The story is probably what made this tv show so special in the first place. The audience would feel more attached to these characters as they are driven through multiple of dialogues between the characters. One example that best represent a nice plot line is the first episode. This episode accurately hooks the audience to enter the world of “On My Block” where the they see Monse, Jamal, and Ruby watch Cesar drive off with Oscar in the car towards the end of the episode. Then, this conflict leads to Monse stating, “We need to help Cesar.” This is a great way to start the whole entire series. Plus, this also shows the characters’ motivation on solving the problem throughout the season. Also, an example of best dialogue is between Abuela, Ruby’s grandmother (Paula Garces), and Jamal where they further discuss about if the roller world money is possibly real. This is such a great build up to their character as well as their relationship while leading to good characterization in between episodes.

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Overall, this show is easily to be binged watched where each episode continues to hook the audience with interesting characters and story.

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