What I’m Watching: Ramy

Ramy: Season 1, Episode 5 “Do the Ramadan” (B+)

This was a really great episode, and it’s so interesting to see the parallels between Islam and Judaism, the latter of whichis far more familiar to me. Sarah named one, which is that she doesn’t even fast for Yom Kippur and he avoids food and other voices all day for an entire month. Watching Orthodox Jews and his uncle eating while he was at work demonstrated the way that the world doesn’t conform to or stop based on his observance, and the run-in with his construction worker classmate whose mom was sick exemplified both how religion is often tied into everyday life in a simple, casual way like praying out on the street and how people often want spontaneous prayer when that’s not a concept natural to either Islam or Judaism. “Don’t break my balls, do the Ramadan” was a memorable line, and, after everything, he found out at the end of the episode that his mother did die, a sad note on which to conclude as accompanied by the woman’s son asking him if he was a bad guy. Being interviewed by a woman seeking marriage made for the most entertaining scene of the episode, with a few backhanded compliments praising his own assessment of his flaws and suggesting the atonement that he could be doing if he actually wanted to do it. I liked his idea about taking Arabic with his kids so that he could demonstrate a commitment to continued learning, a notion she shot down brutally with a scientific conclusion that the brain stops developing at twenty-five.