A Guide to Fantasmas: The BS Jobs of Julio Torres’s HBO Show

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A guide to the various odd jobs in the capitalist hellscape of Julio Torres’s new HBO series, ‘Fantasmas.’

even the goldfish have careers — and subordinates to bully. “The mayor said that if people were expected to keep the waters clean, fish and other water folk should pull their weight with labor,” a snide pet detective named Dierdre explains to Julio, after he hires her to trace his lost oyster-shaped earring at the bottom of the sea.

Torres casts America, and New York City especially, as a never-ending maze of humiliations — a place where residents must debase themselves in front of bad bosses and faceless institutions just to survive. In his feature-length debut, Torres starred as an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador named Alejandro who scurries to secure a new work visa after losing his job at a cryogenic lab. Alejandro crashes on his apartment’s couch while renting his bedroom on Airbnb, dabbles in sexwork, and tolerates the abuse of a venomous art critic. Against all odds, he succeeds. The bleakeris similarly concerned with creative exploitation and bureaucratic bullshit.

— an offbeat dreamer whose job is just “Julio,” which involves consulting with Crayola on a clear crayon and fantasizing about the inner lives of the alphabet’s letters. He’s running out of time. He’s about to be evicted from his apartment complex, which is being converted into a General Mills café and residency. He can’t rent another one without a new form of government ID known as a Proof of Existence; exceptions are only granted to people who are Beyoncé-famous.

Get to know Dionne Brown, who stars as the British Jamaican protagonist in the Hulu series based on Candice Carty-Williams’s novel.*Sorry, there was a problem signing you up.

 

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