Courtesy of Apple
Television is constantly getting bigger. With approximately 752,000 new ones released every week and new streamers constantly vying for your attention, TV shows are starting to feel more like big cinematic productions. The time where A-list Hollywood stars appeared in television was a big surprise is long gone; such things now feel commonplace. With the scale of productions on a steady incline— with shows like Rings of Power and House of the Dragon having eye-watering budgets—it feels like the days of small-scale, intimate storytelling are behind us. Thankfully, Little America is back with its brilliant second season, to remind us that there’s still a place for small, impactful stories.
The Apple TV+ series, created by Lee Eisenberg, Emily V. Gordon, and Kumail Nanjiani, is a heartwarming anthology that follows the stories of people all linked by one thing—they are immigrants living in America. Other than that, the stories are entirely different, with some spanning decades and others a single day. They’re all based on true stories too, adapted from Epic Magazine’s series of the same name.
What the show does best is subverting the norm when it comes to stories about life as an immigrant. The common mainstream immigration story is tinged with tragedy, and they can feel like miserable slogs, as we see people enduring unimaginable cruelty. Little America is a delicious tonic to those troubling images, offering tender, optimistic slice-of-life stories about immigrant experiences. It celebrates all things multiculturalism, and lord knows that is desperately needed in a time where the loudest (and most obnoxious voices) seek to divide us. Just as Season 1 was in 2020 (!), Season 2 has arrived as the year’s most optimistic show.