Welcome to Chippendales – Limited Series [2022]

Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales benefits from some star power, but the show could have been much more if it took the risk. Sadly, it didn’t.

Dont get me wrong, I liked the show, but I would have very much preferred it to be better. Way better. The series’ key problems often lie in its aesthetics, from the way it travels through its lurid setting, to the way its colors in the details of Banerjee himself. It’s just flat.

Welcome to Chippendales is, at its core, a series about the dirty business of wanting. Not the sensuous, sexy, and violent wanting I was hoping for, but a grittier kind, the kind that leads otherwise sane men to commit violent acts. The result is an ideas-rich but disjointed series that feels like it’s tackling too much, yet somehow hardly enough, with a protagonist whose motivations are subject to whatever wild happenstance the scripts are setting up next.

Even when Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani) is full of jealousy and rage, I just couldn’t connect with him. I’m not sure if it’s Nanjiani’s acting, or the direction or the whole production itself, something was off. I enjoyed Pam & Tommy way more than I enjoyed this. I even felt a bit disappointed at the end.

At the end, I have to say that the whole series felt like a lightweight commodity, one of those ideas that looks great on paper and, despite its healthy serving of beefcake, not nearly as good in the flesh.

Should you watch it?

The series changes a lot of things. With neither the true crime nor the prestige TV angle working to their full potential, the result is a so-so blend boosted thanks mostly to its copious style, much like the watered-down vodka served under the dazzling disco lights of an ill-fated club.

Where can I watch it?

You can stream Welcome to Chippendales exclusively on Hulu in USA and on Disney+ everywhere else.