BODEGA Keeps the Camera Behind the Counter

The new comedy pilot finds its best material in one worker's shift change and everyone pulled into it.

Bodegas usually get a few seconds on screen. Someone orders a sandwich and leaves. BODEGA stays behind the counter and lets the shift play out.

The 26-minute comedy pilot follows Eugenio, played by Angel Marte, a young Dominican bodega worker who is sure the 2-to-10 shift will move his life forward. He talks his boss, Victor, into giving it to him. Since Victor is also family, a schedule change arrives with old comparisons and new conditions.

Once the shift begins, the store takes over. A customer turns a roast beef order into a test of endurance. The workers debate Denzel Washington, The Rock, and Lin-Manuel Miranda with the intensity of people who have already spent too many hours together.

It is loud and profane. It also understands the strange scale of bodega life. A shift change can determine when you sleep and whether any time feels like your own. A private conversation becomes store business because the register is always within earshot. There is always another customer.

What I liked most is the way the pilot uses the store. Workers, relatives, regulars, and strangers keep crossing through the same tight space. Nobody needs a reason to enter beyond wanting a sandwich or having something to say.

Our work at Bodega Cats of New York begins with the cats. Every store visit also brings the people behind the counter into view. They know who feeds the cat and which regular asks about it first. The cat belongs to a workplace that keeps moving around it.

BODEGA finds comedy in that movement. The camera keeps the store busy and slightly out of control. It never turns into a cute symbol of New York.

Angel Marte gives Eugenio exactly the wrong amount of confidence. His dreams are huge, while his immediate goal is a better shift. That gap makes him funny, especially when every plan still has to survive Victor and Eugenio himself.

The pilot was written, edited and directed by Andrew Golledge, based on ideas and characters by Jesse Ureña. Golledge and Ureña say they hope to grow it into a larger franchise. The setting can carry it. The store keeps bringing new people to the counter, which gives the creators plenty of room for another episode.

Visit the official BODEGA website.