Sometimes it can be helpful to understand something by understanding what it is not.
The Sympathizer, HBO’s new limited series based on the Pulitzer-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, seems like it could be a Dad Show. On paper, it’s a historical drama (very Dad Show) spy thriller (also very Dad Show) on HBO about a man who does amoral things very competently. But in practice, it is not a Dad Show. I’m going to break down why.
The main reason The Sympathizer is not a Dad Show is because of its main character, the Captain. I have only watched two of the series’ seven episodes, so while I don’t know the character’s full arc, I have seen enough to know he is not a Dad Show protagonist. The unnamed protagonist, played with sphinxlike reserve by Hoa Xuande, is a North Vietnamese spy, first in the South Vietnamese army, and then in America. He is torn between his commitment to communism and his life in America. He is “cursed to see every issue from both sides.”
In Dad Shows, there is always tension between how Cool the show thinks its main character is and how Bad the things he does are. Reacher does not question if the just-doing-their-job henchmen deserve to be killed with the same level of brutality Jack Reacher brings to their bosses, it just enjoys that he’s killing somebody. If the viewer feels discomfort, that’s up to them to interpret. Dad Shows are pretty black-and-white with their justifications.
The Sympathizer, however, is pretty gray about everything the Captain does. He’s neither Cool nor Bad, because the show is not concerned with whether the viewer thinks he’s cool or whether what he’s doing is inherently right or wrong. He does not seduce the viewer to see things his way through force of charisma, because he sees things all ways, and he is not particularly charismatic. He is good at this job, though.
The SymPAthizer
The Captain does not have the individualism of a Dad Show protagonist. Whether they mean it sincerely or not, the heroes of Dad Shows are often motivated by a desire to provide for and protect their families at the expense of everything and everyone else. They are not ideologically driven beyond vaguely American notions of justice and freedom that are usually self-serving. Think of John Dutton protecting his ranch by any means necessary, or Walter White pursuing an extreme version of the American Dream.
The Captain, meanwhile, is a childless, unmarried, Southeast Asian communist. He is “fascinated and repulsed” by America, and loves America in a way, but his point of view is distinctly not American. He is self-reliant because he has to be, but he is not a rugged individualist. Collectivism is the default for him. And because the show is told from his point of view, it feels unusually not-American for an American TV show. (All of The Sympathizer’s directors and most of its writers are not American, and they aren’t heavy-handed about how you’re supposed to feel about the Captain.)
I am not saying that Dad Shows have to be American, or that Dad Show protagonists can’t be communists. They can be, of course. Anything is possible. But Dad Shows require a swaggering, cowboyish attitude that The Sympathizer does not have.
It’s a very good show, but it’s not a Dad Show.
(P.S. Robert Downey Jr., who plays four roles in The Sympathizer, Klumps-style, is not a Dad Actor. He’s too eccentric and too Hollywood. The only true Dad Actor of the core Avengers cast is Jeremy Renner.)
Elsewhere on the internet: I used previous Dad Shows subject Sugar as a jumping-off point to write about the history of L.A. noir on TV for Paste Magazine.
And I wrote about Black Sails, a very underrated mid-2010s Dad Show about pirates, for Netflix’s Tudum. The show just hit streaming service, and it’ll be fun to see if it gets the Netflix bump.