Community Squad review: Witty comedy and biting satire

Community Squad is an Argentinian comedy series with the occasional drama currently on Netflix, and it follows a group of civilians who encounter more than they signed up for as aids of the police.

Story

Felipe joins an initiative by the police to improve their images called the Urban Guards, during which he meets Sofia and realizes he likes her. It also becomes apparent that the Guards have been hired as tokens of diversity.  

While at work with his partner Diego, they find themselves in a dangerous situation and Diego gets shot and put into a coma. No one from the police takes the investigation seriously.

The people behind it continue to scheme to make sure Felipe stays away, but he is determined to get to the root of what happened. 

He figures out a key clue and brings it to the notice of one of the lead officers named Julio, who takes Felipe with him to the location of the drug-dealing operation that Felipe was onto.  Meanwhile, the Guards visit Diego, who is out of his coma. 

It is revealed that Julio has been involved in the drug-dealing operation himself. The series ends with a shootout between the dirty cops and the Guards, who have decided to stick together despite their circumstances, and Julio runs away, only to face his own death by his superiors.

Felipe confesses to Sofia that he loves her, but the ending of that is left ambiguous. 

Performances

All of the actors’ work was praiseworthy. Santiago Korovsky’s performance as Felipe deftly captured the character’s shift from nervousness to his determination to solve the case of Diego’s shooter.

Pilar Gamboa as Sofia similarly knew when to be tough and sassy and when to be vulnerable. From expressions to tones, the show’s balance of comedy and crushing political satire was almost made effortless by the acting.

Positives

The show’s comedy primarily relies on things not always being what they appear to be, and it is a trope impressively kept fresh by the variety of jokes.

One would think that it would be difficult for this show to stand out given the long list of sitcoms that subtly aim criticism at the police system, but in Community Squad, we are made to see the corruption and negligence instead of the Urban Guards, many of whom remain civilians simply trying to do their job.

The show tackles racism, ableism, sexism, systemic oppression, and several other issues by not forcing the viewer to decide what is wrong but rather having a person of color, a disabled woman, a transgender woman, and protestors among others speak for themselves, without the show trying to co-opt their narratives as something that all viewers must have already known.

Visually, we are presented with a range of colors that smoothly complement the show’s quick shift from the funny to the suspenseful.

The closer shots and wider shots also blend together to provide a comprehensive perspective of the individual characters (of which there are many) as well as the increasing tension of the Guards as a group. The ending provides us with partial closure for the Guards, but still leaves us in anticipation for another season.

Negatives

The villains’ backstories were picked up but not explored as much, leaving much to the imagination. Some of the more minority-targeting jokes also felt like they were toeing the line between being an object of satire and being used at the minorities’ expense.

Verdict

Community Squad is splendidly funny and provides a space for dialogue about the problems of Argentina’s policing system. The intense political satire may be lost to those less familiar with the last decade’s global rising protest against the policing system. The show is worth both a fun watch and a more critically analyzing eye.

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Also Read: Community Squad ending explained: what happens to the Urban Guards?