I just finished watching the last episode of the last season of "On My Block" Netflix. I had mixed feelings about this series, but the one that I know exactly is: THIS SERIES IS AWESOME.
I mean, well it's not "an expensive movie/series" that needs a lot of budget for special effects, stuntmen, or a crazy animation. The setting is also simple: a fictional town named Freeridge.
Let's talk about the story
This is a group of teenagers caught up in a random and crazy adventure involving gangster conflicts. That's it. You can easily read the synopsis here.
But let me tell you why it's special. The conflict in this series is not only centered on the adventures of Monse (Sierra Capri), Cesar (Diego Tinoco), Ruby (Jason Genao), and Jamal (Brett Gray) but also on the environment in which they live. Once you watch it, you will feel like you are part of Freeridge.
Meet Monse. The only girl in the group.
She's a bold, brave, and sometimes a selfish girl. She lives with her father (and soon, she will meet her mother who abandoned her just because she's too black for her, gdm). After watching seasons 1-4, we'll see how Monse deals with her complicated parent-child relationship, her love story with Cesar, and how annoying Monse can be sometimes.
And here is the handsome boy, Cesar.
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Like Monse, he comes from a broken home family. The only different is: he raised by his older brother, Oscar (who is my favorite character on this series). His mother is dead (maybe), and his father is lives in another part of the world that he doesn't know.
Out of the four, I think Oscar's problem is the more serious and dangerous. His brother is a leader of a gangster (or cartel) named The Santos. Cesar wants to be an architect, but because of his environment, he ended up being a part of Santos (but not till the end).
The little and sweet boy: Ruby Martinez.
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He has a super cool abuelita (grandma), Marisol Martinez. Marisol is the one who got this group of teenagers trapped in the Rollerworld treasure hunt (the ended up to be their greatest problem on the series).
My personal thought about Ruby is he is a genius boy who has the most "normal and rational" opinion in this series lol. He is sweet, super-ambitious, and yeah. He is just like us, in general.
The last but not least, the crazy dude: Jamal
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Without Jamal and his crazy yet quirky ideas, I think their lives would be more "normal" (if we didn't count Cesar problems with his gangster family). Jamal is my favorite character in On My Block. He talks so fast, never listens to anyone, and yeah weird.
He is close with abuelita and becomes her partner-in-crime. I never thought that it would be interesting to see a teenager+grandma duo.
CONCLUTION
In my opinion, On My Block is one of the hidden gems on Netflix (at least in Indonesia, I think it's not pretty popular). Once you watch it and you will realized that you already become the part of Freeridge.
I know that the main topic (about the Rollerworld's treasure) is super-random. But if you watch it closely, you will see that they also talked about many things. They talked about parenting, drugs, teenager-life, racism, gangster, etc. Because that is Freeridge!
The character building is also good. Like I said before, it feels like you already know Cesar, Monse, Ruby, Jamal, and the other Freeridge citizen for a long time. You grow up with them. That's why I'm pretty sad when the last season is over (and also because my favorite characters is dead).
If you want a light story to watch this week, feel free to drop your mouse to this series. It's worth to watch.