The creator of Ozark, Bill Dubuque, returns with a new drama set in Miami, Florida, a city that epitomises extremes. Ostentatious wealth abounds, some legal, some illegal, and much of it in a grey area. This wealth is propped up by the hard work and dreams of immigrants, whose fight for a better life grows ever harder. Those who reach the top must decide whether to exploit others, having themselves been exploited.
This serious subtext underpins MIA, but any thoughtful treatment of the immigrant experience is overwhelmed by the sheer silliness of the main storyline. It is a revenge thriller starring Shannon Gisela as Etta Tiger Jonze, a woman in her early 20s whose entire family is slaughtered by a drug cartel. Consumed by grief and with nothing left to lose, Etta starts from scratch, lying low in Miami's Haitian community while plotting to kill exactly 12 gangsters: the perpetrators she witnessed murdering her loved ones.
Like Ozark, MIA spends its entire first episode on backstory, detailing the Jonzes' annihilation. However, this opener is far less engaging than Ozark's, plagued by awkward dialogue and convenient plotting that persists throughout the series. A piece of foreshadowing is as subtle as being mauled by a 12-foot alligator, as the show forlornly asks viewers to invest in doomed characters. One might as well skip it and rely on the "Previously..." montage at the start of the second episode. By then, Etta has been taken in by the smart, forthright Haitian immigrant Lovely (Brittany Adebumola).
Etta and Lovely join the bottom rung of Miami society, working as cleaners and maids. They quickly discover they have no rights or recourse if something goes wrong, a problem exacerbated by Etta's refusal to remain passive in the face of injustice—a trait that contributed to her family's murder. But as a US citizen, Etta has advantages: she grew up in the city, giving her local knowledge, even if she has lost her social status. Moreover, she possesses a photographic memory, which proves invaluable not only for remembering the faces of the 12 targets she has sworn to eliminate but also for other purposes.
Etta's perfect recall is not the only way MIA cheats by giving its hero unlikely advantages. Her mother had an estranged sister living in Miami who can be tracked down. Unsurprisingly, she turns out to be a badass running a nightclub frequented by gangsters—an ideal hunting ground for Etta. Another job Etta and Lovely find is at a motel run by Lena (Tovah Feldshuh), who seems like a pitiless employer until Etta bonds with her by using Sherlock-like observation to discern that she is the daughter of Holocaust victims. Lena then proves to be another badass with unusual skills and resources.
Meanwhile, in a swankier part of town, the Rojas cartel remains unaware that they failed to kill all the Jonzes. They busy themselves squabbling over how to progress the business after the death of their wise patriarch, who left his legacy to unwise children. "We need another revenue stream—one with a similar profit margin!" says hot-headed Mateo (Maurice Compte), as he persuades his cautious brother Samuel (Gerardo Celasco) to try people-trafficking. Their sister Caroline (Marta Milans) runs the ostensibly legitimate side, a real estate company planning to build a crass skyscraper in Little Haiti.
In a show that swings between boring and ludicrous, the villains provide most of the dullness with their boilerplate sibling rivalry and monotonous gunning down of collaborators. An ineffectual Cary Elwes appears as a kooky detective investigating the Jonze killings, seemingly wandered in from a lackadaisical shaggy-dog thriller on the next lot.
The "found family" Etta gathers at her lowest point is the soul of MIA, but this too gets lost as she begins ticking off her targets. A final, big, silly twist begs for a second season. By then, any reason to see this as more than dispensable fluff has been thoroughly killed off. MIA is on Paramount+ and Peacock in the US.
