Mo Amer and Ramy Youssef on Season 2, Israel, Palestine and Oct. 7

“I’m discovering it very, very laborious to operate,” says Mo Amer.

He’s spending the day at Hermann Park in Houston, town the place he’s lived since he was 9 years outdated. It’s late March and the air remains to be cool. Younger mother and father information their toddlers over twisted tree roots. Geese quack within the distance. Amer, 43, is surrounded by a small however centered TV crew who’re right here to assist him pull off his dream: showrunning and starring within the first Palestinian-led sequence in American historical past. However these days, world occasions have made it more durable than ever to publicly have fun his heritage.

Season 1 of “Mo,” which premiered on Netflix in August 2022, informed a fictionalized model of Amer’s expertise as a previously undocumented refugee searching for asylum standing within the U.S. Amer had toured as a stand-up comedian for years, however the sequence cemented his place within the leisure trade: After DJ Khaled and the supermodel sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid, he’s probably the most well-known Palestinian on the town. He’s been driving that prime for a few years now: Additionally in 2022, he co-starred in DC’s Dwayne Johnson-led movie “Black Adam” as Karim, a personality from the fictional Center Jap nation of Kahndaq; later this 12 months, he’ll set off on a nationwide comedy tour produced by Reside Nation and titled “El Oso Palestino.” With every new peak in his profession, he has put his tradition within the highlight, starting to treatment many years of under- and misrepresentation of Arabs in Hollywood. And although Netflix renewed “Mo” whereas additionally saying that the comedy sequence’ second season — which premieres on Jan. 30 — can be its final, Amer exudes confidence that he’ll get to make extra of it: “The season that I’ve put collectively, I do know, is outstanding. Let the chips fall the place they could.”

Whereas that call could also be above his head, Amer isn’t flawed to hype himself up. “Mo” is in contrast to something on TV — with characters spouting off considerate, darkish humor in rapid-fire English, Spanish and Arabic and hand-feeding one another bites of Center Jap meals with love, all encased inside beautiful photographs of a metropolis the place scripted tv hardly ever goes. The influence is clear: “Mo” earned unanimous rave evaluations and a Peabody Award with out the assistance of an A-list forged or a large funds.

The success was simpler to benefit from the first time round although. The writers’ room for Season 2 opened on Oct. 1, 2023, simply days after the conclusion of the writers strike. By the top of that week, the world had modified. Amer hasn’t been ready to consider the rest since.

“My household resides below occupation, the place you possibly can’t transfer freely in any respect,” he says. Since Hamas killed 1,200 individuals and took 251 hostages in its Oct. 7 assaults on Israel, Israel’s retaliation marketing campaign has killed 46,000 to 70,000 individuals or extra in Gaza, in accordance with numerous estimates. Moreover, Israeli settler violence and the presence of the Israeli navy have dramatically elevated within the West Financial institution, the place Amer’s ancestry lies. “My aunts have wanted to go to the physician for the final 12 months, and so they haven’t gone,” he says. “It’s usually a seven-minute drive, however now it’s hours.”

Hopefully, Israel and Hamas’ ceasefire settlement, introduced on Jan. 15, will start to vary that, however Amer is “very, very skeptical.” On one hand, he says, “A ceasefire is what’s most necessary — the safety of harmless males, girls and youngsters and the discharge of the hostages. The one factor we will be hopeful about is not any extra killing, and the thought of human life being sacred; I’m praying for peace and true freedom for all.” However there’s extra work to be carried out.

“Like, what occurs to these hundreds of thousands of folks that in southern Gaza which might be all smashed into each other and residing in tents? What do you go residence to?” Amer continues. And there’s simply as a lot uncertainty relating to what his kin are going by way of: “The scenario in West Financial institution is totally separate. There’s no deal for the West Financial institution, so that they’re nonetheless below apartheid regulation.”

When “Mo” premiered, Amer was proud that he’d launched American viewers to a tradition a lot of them knew little about. However after Oct. 7, immediately he realized Season 2 can be launched right into a world full of every kind of latest and sometimes uninformed opinions about his individuals.

Hollywood is a part of the issue. “You’ve seen it on-line. It was actually disheartening to see [celebrities] so reactive, and never coming from a spot of compassion,” he says. “It looks as if a depressing existence. Like, that is your objective in life? To simply make offended, hateful movies? I imply, Palestinians are known as animals. What the fuck is that?

“All people’s finger-pointing at one another, however I’m not doing any of that. Let’s sit, have a meal collectively. As a lot ache and struggling as I’ve in my coronary heart, I’m keen to push that apart to have a significant dialog so we are able to transfer ahead. That’s what I’m about.”

Mo Amer as Mo Najjar
EDDY CHEN/NETFLIX

Abiding by that ethos, the “Mo” writers realized they didn’t need to write in regards to the struggle in any respect. “We wished to honor the seeds that we had laid in Season 1,” says Ramy Youssef, the Egyptian American comic who co-created “Mo” and is finest identified for his self-titled Hulu sequence. “We had this sense: ‘You already know, it might go as much as Oct. 6 …’”


Season 1 closed with a cliffhanger that noticed Mo mistakenly transported to Mexico behind a truck pushed by thieves, leaving him stranded and with out journey paperwork. The second season picks up six months later, in September 2022, and ends the day earlier than the Hamas assaults.

Nonetheless, the writers mentioned the struggle at size, a course of Amer discovered “enlightening. It helped me cope in a method that I don’t know if I might have in any other case.” He says he has the range of his workers to thank for that.

Amongst these voices is author and govt producer Harris Danow. “I’m Jewish, and I grew up in a really pro-Israel household that held some, let’s simply say, fairly racist views on the entire thing,” Danow says. “Over the course of years, I reworked fairly radically.” When Danow joined the Season 1 writers’ room, he was upfront with Amer about having been “fed a story” when he was youthful that Palestinians had been “simply terrorists,” however he hoped his background could be an asset to the sequence. “And to his credit score,” Danow says, “Mo embraced that.”

“Mo” was by no means meant to be a ripped-from-the-headlines present. “The Israel-Palestine of all of it is one thing we deliberately prevented in Season 1,” Danow says. “Not due to the politics, however as a result of the one factor individuals actually learn about Palestinians from the surface is their relationship to Israel and the occupation.” The main target of “Mo,” as an alternative, was on humanizing them.

Having achieved that, the writers had been extra excited about speaking about Israel in Season 2. However the aftermath of Oct. 7 discovered them wading into completely different waters than they deliberate.

After brainstorming “each single iteration you can ever think about” of a war-related storyline, Amer obtained a bitter style in his mouth: “That rabbit gap turned very didactic.” A present that after was stuffed with jokes between associates and squabbles between lovers was devolving right into a string of unruly political arguments that didn’t advance the plot. “The room had this sense of ‘Oh, my God, there’s a lot to speak about, and we gotta discuss all of it,’” Youssef says. “Then it turned like, ‘Yeah, however what do these characters want?’”

“So I pulled the plug on it. You possibly can write one thing that turns into only for a second in time, or you possibly can write one thing that’s timeless,” Amer says — however he’s managed to realize each. Submit-Oct. 7, the writers had been in a position to assume viewers would perceive temporary Center Jap references that wouldn’t have beforehand been topical within the U.S. New concepts sprang forth. Mo winds up in a love triangle together with his ex-girlfriend (Teresa Ruiz) and her new boyfriend (Simon Rex), who’s an Israeli chef; later, when Mo insults the boyfriend’s hummus, a stranger thinks he’s speaking about Hamas. The result’s a season that feels conscious of the struggle with out mentioning it, answering a query Youssef saved in thoughts all through the writing course of: “What can a scripted comedy do this nothing else can do?”

The present creators additionally thought avoiding the struggle would assist them honor the area’s previous extra fully. The occasions which have adopted Oct. 7 are “solely considered one of many, many markers” of loss for Palestinians, Youssef factors out. So when you gained’t hear any “Mo” characters utter that date, since they haven’t skilled it but, they do frequently convey up years like 1948 and 1967, when a whole bunch of hundreds of Palestinians had been expelled from their houses. Favoring the current over the previous would have carried out “a large disservice to the historic context,” Amer says. “The Palestine-Israel scenario just isn’t one thing that began on Oct. 7. This has been occurring for some time.”

Amer additionally nervous that responding to real-world information too particularly would possibly make the present really feel dated, as a result of he couldn’t understand how the struggle would progress between writing the season and its launch: “What when you make a mistake? You begin doing one thing, after which the entire thing adjustments, after which it turns into irrelevant. It turns into yesterday’s information.” The ceasefire has confirmed his level.

Left to proper: Reem Talhami, Farah Bsieso, Mo Amer, Kamel El Basha, Adi Khalefa, Amal Omran and Omar Elba
COURTESY OF NETFLIX

“Mo” finds its personal method to touch upon the present political local weather. In a single scene, Mo’s mom, Yusra (Farah Bsieso), can’t tear her eyes from her telephone, obsessing over a information story a couple of Palestinian college destroyed by Israel as an alternative of having fun with Thanksgiving together with her household. Mo’s sister, Nadia (Cherien Dabis), argues that they owe it to the Palestinian battle to attempt to lead joyful lives. “You see what’s occurring of their hearts and minds and spirits, and that, to me, tells you all the pieces you might want to know,” Amer says.

Since early within the growth of “Mo,” Amer had wished to shoot in Burin, the village his household comes from. So when Netflix solely gave him yet another season, he knew he wanted to get there quickly.

Or slightly, that his characters wanted to. Mo’s incapability to journey together with his household to Palestine is a central rigidity of Season 2, and whereas that’s because of the character’s immigration standing, for security causes, even Americans like Amer can’t journey there now. The finale was shot in Might 2024, seven months into the struggle, and it was not possible to maneuver manufacturing to the West Financial institution as he had dreamed of doing.

However all hope wasn’t misplaced. In some way — with “plenty of creativity,” Amer says with amusing, nonetheless nervous desirous about the logistics — he was in a position to rent a neighborhood digital camera crew to seize exterior photographs in Burin, Bethlehem and different West Financial institution cities as he supervised remotely.

“I clearly informed them, ‘Should you really feel a twinge of uncertainty, please flip round and don’t do it.’ However they had been resilient,” he says. Whereas the interiors for scenes set in Palestine had been shot in Malta, a lot of the landscapes are the true deal.

“Showcasing the village we come from and my grandparents’ house is one thing to always remember,” Amer says, including, “Fortunately, it’s immortalized without end” — leaving unsaid his concern that the home may very well be destroyed or taken away.


“I can’t imagine that is the final season,” Amer says. By that, he implies that he doesn’t imagine it. With out being explicitly important, Amer makes it clear that he disagrees with Netflix’s resolution to finish “Mo.” He bristles on the streamer’s “second and ultimate” phrasing in regards to the new season. “There’s a lot to present, so it’s type of ridiculous to solely match it into two seasons. All of the love that we obtained the primary season — let’s see what that turns into,” he says. “There’s an immense quantity of story to cowl for many seasons.”

(Netflix has given no indication that it’s open to reversing the present’s destiny, nonetheless referring to the brand new season as “ultimate” in all current communication.)

Possibly it’s the scrappy, decided nature of his on-screen alter ego, who’s been mercilessly tossed across the globe by the powers that be for his whole life and at all times finds a method again residence. Or perhaps it’s simply the guffaw Amer lets slip on the implication that his present is ending anytime quickly. “If there’s a Season 3, perhaps we go there then,” he says about potential Oct. 7 storylines. “There’s a lot of meat on this bone.”

No matter it’s, Amer’s suave, confident perspective is integral to what makes “Mo” — the story of a Palestinian refugee continually scraping himself out of a brand new tragedy — nonetheless really feel like a comedy.

The recipe is straightforward. When Amer decides that one thing is true — on-screen, that he’ll in the future return to Palestine, and in actual life, that there’s extra “Mo” to return — you imagine him.

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