James Poniewozik

It is...

detailed and specific.

This is so Jewish, Manischewitz could, like, pickle it and sell it in a jar.

You know, I will say, like, I am Jewish myself.

My family is not super Jewish in the way that the family in this is.

But that's not necessarily the appeal of it to me.

The appeal is that...

I am really drawn to specificity, particularly in comedies like this, because I think that helps you develop a viewpoint.

It helps you know the characters.

It helps you create a world.

You know, I watch TV.

I...

experience art in general to take me into somebody else's experience.

And it's sort of similar to me to the way that I loved Reservation Dogs, the great comedy that was set on an Oklahoma Indian reservation a couple of years ago.

Here, the family that the show depicts, you meet them as they're driving to a funeral when the kids are younger.

You take second exit after exit.

You will later see the kids as middle-aged adults with their own children.

You see people age and get younger and die.

And in the process, you start teasing out all the relationships that develop among, you know, just the web of this family.

And the slights that emerge in somebody's youth that become, you know, part of their neuroses when they're older.